Movie Reviews: Lage Raho Munnabhai and Little Miss Sunshine (Also Darwaza Bandh Rakho, Shaadi se Pehle and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
My God I have seen so many movies this week I cant begin to tell you. Getting my period forced my fiance and me to lie in and watch a bunch of movies in bed, on tape that too, old-school style (I dont remember the last time i watched a video cassette - it was so cute! That too with fluorescent labels and capital italc writing that is characteristic of these desi video-lending libraries doubling as grocery stores and take-outs! Eeeee. Timeless).
OK, Ill finish off the relatively older movies first because everyone is likely to have seen them and be bored. Darwaza Bandh Rakho, starring Chunkey Pandey, Aftab Shivdasani, Smita Jaykar, Isha Sharvani, Manisha Koirala, is a classic spoof of desperate kidnappers (needing money, not the goon types), kidnapping a builder's daughter and holding her hostage in an innocent though clueless Gujju family's house, comprising of religious mom and bedridden grandmom, loser son, wannabe daughter and stockbroking dad. The builder's daughter is thrilled and treats it like an adventure, the 'host' family is terrified. Confusion ensues and more and more people keep needing to be held hostage in the house because they discover the presence of the kidnappers - the pizza delivery guy, a South Indian moneylender, his son, a police constable, the maid's husband, a shampoo salesgirl. Puppy romance ensues between certain members, with a number of plots to steal the ransom money among various factions. Quite a bit of timepass hilarity ensues. It is quite watchable for a predictable, low-budget-seeming, comedy. Cute. Family-friendly. Warm-hearted at its core.
Shaadi se Pehle starring Akshaye Khanna, Ayesha Takia, Aftab Shivdasani, Mallika Sherawat, Rajpal Yadav and Suniel Shetty is yet another timepass comedy, about a hypochondriac fiance Akshaye Khanna assuming mistakenly that he has cancer and sets about on an elaborate scheme to make his fiancee Ayesha fall out of love with him so she feels less pain when he dies. To do so, he uses famous model Mallika Sherawat to piss her off, but gets a bit screwed as she falls for him and he is compelled to be engaged to her as her brother is famous mafia don of Malaysia Suniel Shetty. In the end of course, all is well as he is reunited with his fiance who has in the meantime, been being romanced by his hero best friend Aftab. Boman Irani is the best as the Dr. Rustom who treats everyone like a child. Hehehe. Good for lazy Sunday evenings when you want to lie in bed and eat pizza and not get creative with ways to entertain yourself.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a remake of the classic Roald Dahl tale and the movie that was made way earlier about the mysterious Willy Wonka and his golden tickets that allow 5 children and a guardian each to tour his mythical chocolate factory. Each child represents a flaw in human nature, you could say, gluttony, greed, avarice, pride, anger, and the parents the mistakes they make - too much spoiling, too much encouragement, too much leniency. Except for Charlie of course, who, though poor, is well-brought up with good manners and gratitude for his blessings. We couldnt help comparing it to the older movie throughout, which we both have vivid memories of. This one is more elaborate and stylish and extravagant, with the Oompa Loompas suitably exotic and digitally regenerated, and performing to contemporary music, which both of us found a bit jarring and less in keeping with their *ahem* native identity. They maintained Charlie's Englishness, though we're not sure WHERE he's actually supposed to live in the movie. His granddad, though adorable, reminded me of those baby vultures in Ice Age 2, the Meltdown. It is teh ideal poor family, one we all wish we were in terms of love and care for each other. Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, just looks like the V for Vendetta Mask, or an acting mask, and seems simply human and dysfunctional, as compared to his far more fierce predecessor (maybe I just felt that way because I saw the original nearly two decades ago). Pleasant to watch. Hey, have you ever tried the Wonka bars you get in the US? Milk chocolate and graham crackers wrapped in purple and gold? Quite nice!
Lage Raho Munnabhai, which we saw on Labour Day, after a fatty lunch of khasta kachori, bhel and chopsuey Dosa at Dimple's Khasiyat in Edison, was AMAZING!!!!! So funny! It's not a sequel, but more like a new story in the series. With all our favourite characters present of course - Circuit, Jimmy Shergill, Boman Irani, etc. Of course there is a new love interest in the form of an RJ played by Vidya Balan, but all else is the same, Munnabhai's warm heart and basic depe concern for those he loves, his bumling elaborate love schemes and the goofs he and his chelas undergo covering up their stories. In this one, he tries to get onto Vidya's radio show by winning a contest on Gandhiji pretending to be a professor, and later see visions of Gandhiji when he actually reads up on him. Vidya lives with some retired men in an old age home which gets illegally taken over by Boman Irani's wannabe Sardar character, Lucky Khurana, as a wedding present for his daughter who is marrying anpther builder's son. Now Munnabhai is Lucky's conman, and is forced to turn against him as with Gandhi's inspiration, he 'non-violently' campaigns against Lucky. Superb superb comedy scenes abound, with only one really good song though... Pal pal. It is filled with fun and gentleness and old-fashioned goodness throughout, and will warm your jaded old heart. A fitting reminder in this day and age of how far we have strayed from the Gandhian path, which is simply the path of the good and the right, being impatient for results through the wrong means. Too too good, almost better than the first one. This movie I dont mind watching many times.
Even the Principal of the Tripure College of Nagpur has made it compulsory for his students.
Little Miss Sunshine is a movie about a dysfunctional family on a road trip from Albuquerque to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California in which the 7 year old, plump, bespectacled, not-very-pretty Olive is to take part. This family comprises of a smoking mom, a dad who is a big loser but thinks he isnt because he has created some 9-steps to winning formula and forces it on his children all the time, a Nietzche reading highschooler who hates everyone and has taken a vow of silence till he gets to flight school, a suicidal gay uncle who is a Proust Scholar, and a heroin-snorting ladmag reading grandpa who teaches Olive her dance routine. Umm... if you like quirky sandy and sun-coloured movies that smell of the Seventies and small-town America.... it is funny in its way, in a sorry way, if you take things too seriously, though you definitely wont feel sad when you leave it, except when you freak out when you look at the girls all barbied and dolled up with big hair and makeup and skittish coquettishness for the Miss America Pageant. Till of course, Olive starts her dance routine. Hahaha. THEN it becomes your typical American movie of family and individualism and warmth, and the suicidal uncle and rude boy show up in fine form at the end. (ARGH Ive used warmth too much in this post, but it seems somehow the one quality this world is most in need of.) Washington post review here.
OK, Ill finish off the relatively older movies first because everyone is likely to have seen them and be bored. Darwaza Bandh Rakho, starring Chunkey Pandey, Aftab Shivdasani, Smita Jaykar, Isha Sharvani, Manisha Koirala, is a classic spoof of desperate kidnappers (needing money, not the goon types), kidnapping a builder's daughter and holding her hostage in an innocent though clueless Gujju family's house, comprising of religious mom and bedridden grandmom, loser son, wannabe daughter and stockbroking dad. The builder's daughter is thrilled and treats it like an adventure, the 'host' family is terrified. Confusion ensues and more and more people keep needing to be held hostage in the house because they discover the presence of the kidnappers - the pizza delivery guy, a South Indian moneylender, his son, a police constable, the maid's husband, a shampoo salesgirl. Puppy romance ensues between certain members, with a number of plots to steal the ransom money among various factions. Quite a bit of timepass hilarity ensues. It is quite watchable for a predictable, low-budget-seeming, comedy. Cute. Family-friendly. Warm-hearted at its core.
Shaadi se Pehle starring Akshaye Khanna, Ayesha Takia, Aftab Shivdasani, Mallika Sherawat, Rajpal Yadav and Suniel Shetty is yet another timepass comedy, about a hypochondriac fiance Akshaye Khanna assuming mistakenly that he has cancer and sets about on an elaborate scheme to make his fiancee Ayesha fall out of love with him so she feels less pain when he dies. To do so, he uses famous model Mallika Sherawat to piss her off, but gets a bit screwed as she falls for him and he is compelled to be engaged to her as her brother is famous mafia don of Malaysia Suniel Shetty. In the end of course, all is well as he is reunited with his fiance who has in the meantime, been being romanced by his hero best friend Aftab. Boman Irani is the best as the Dr. Rustom who treats everyone like a child. Hehehe. Good for lazy Sunday evenings when you want to lie in bed and eat pizza and not get creative with ways to entertain yourself.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a remake of the classic Roald Dahl tale and the movie that was made way earlier about the mysterious Willy Wonka and his golden tickets that allow 5 children and a guardian each to tour his mythical chocolate factory. Each child represents a flaw in human nature, you could say, gluttony, greed, avarice, pride, anger, and the parents the mistakes they make - too much spoiling, too much encouragement, too much leniency. Except for Charlie of course, who, though poor, is well-brought up with good manners and gratitude for his blessings. We couldnt help comparing it to the older movie throughout, which we both have vivid memories of. This one is more elaborate and stylish and extravagant, with the Oompa Loompas suitably exotic and digitally regenerated, and performing to contemporary music, which both of us found a bit jarring and less in keeping with their *ahem* native identity. They maintained Charlie's Englishness, though we're not sure WHERE he's actually supposed to live in the movie. His granddad, though adorable, reminded me of those baby vultures in Ice Age 2, the Meltdown. It is teh ideal poor family, one we all wish we were in terms of love and care for each other. Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, just looks like the V for Vendetta Mask, or an acting mask, and seems simply human and dysfunctional, as compared to his far more fierce predecessor (maybe I just felt that way because I saw the original nearly two decades ago). Pleasant to watch. Hey, have you ever tried the Wonka bars you get in the US? Milk chocolate and graham crackers wrapped in purple and gold? Quite nice!
Lage Raho Munnabhai, which we saw on Labour Day, after a fatty lunch of khasta kachori, bhel and chopsuey Dosa at Dimple's Khasiyat in Edison, was AMAZING!!!!! So funny! It's not a sequel, but more like a new story in the series. With all our favourite characters present of course - Circuit, Jimmy Shergill, Boman Irani, etc. Of course there is a new love interest in the form of an RJ played by Vidya Balan, but all else is the same, Munnabhai's warm heart and basic depe concern for those he loves, his bumling elaborate love schemes and the goofs he and his chelas undergo covering up their stories. In this one, he tries to get onto Vidya's radio show by winning a contest on Gandhiji pretending to be a professor, and later see visions of Gandhiji when he actually reads up on him. Vidya lives with some retired men in an old age home which gets illegally taken over by Boman Irani's wannabe Sardar character, Lucky Khurana, as a wedding present for his daughter who is marrying anpther builder's son. Now Munnabhai is Lucky's conman, and is forced to turn against him as with Gandhi's inspiration, he 'non-violently' campaigns against Lucky. Superb superb comedy scenes abound, with only one really good song though... Pal pal. It is filled with fun and gentleness and old-fashioned goodness throughout, and will warm your jaded old heart. A fitting reminder in this day and age of how far we have strayed from the Gandhian path, which is simply the path of the good and the right, being impatient for results through the wrong means. Too too good, almost better than the first one. This movie I dont mind watching many times.
Even the Principal of the Tripure College of Nagpur has made it compulsory for his students.
Little Miss Sunshine is a movie about a dysfunctional family on a road trip from Albuquerque to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California in which the 7 year old, plump, bespectacled, not-very-pretty Olive is to take part. This family comprises of a smoking mom, a dad who is a big loser but thinks he isnt because he has created some 9-steps to winning formula and forces it on his children all the time, a Nietzche reading highschooler who hates everyone and has taken a vow of silence till he gets to flight school, a suicidal gay uncle who is a Proust Scholar, and a heroin-snorting ladmag reading grandpa who teaches Olive her dance routine. Umm... if you like quirky sandy and sun-coloured movies that smell of the Seventies and small-town America.... it is funny in its way, in a sorry way, if you take things too seriously, though you definitely wont feel sad when you leave it, except when you freak out when you look at the girls all barbied and dolled up with big hair and makeup and skittish coquettishness for the Miss America Pageant. Till of course, Olive starts her dance routine. Hahaha. THEN it becomes your typical American movie of family and individualism and warmth, and the suicidal uncle and rude boy show up in fine form at the end. (ARGH Ive used warmth too much in this post, but it seems somehow the one quality this world is most in need of.) Washington post review here.
I cant post pictures directly from the web for some reason. Any ideas?
posted by Princess Joya | 3:35 pm
1 Comments:
Lage raho is a fab film...I loved the gandhi theme of the movie
I think when ur loading ur pic through the blogger thing dont click on centre or left or anything just select NONE, then the pic gets uploaded....
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