a-laly Reviews

Between Your Legs (1999)

Contains spoilers, so read at your own risk

[11 January 2008]

I had to watch the film twice to make any sense of the mystery. So many loose ends, and the stories, within stories and so on, only managed to muddy the waters.

So here is how I viewed it. Two people meet on a Monday in a sexual addiction support group. That night they proceed to have a mad sexual encounter in the back of a parked car in a parking lot which after a while the film reveals, has a dead body in the trunk. I got from the film, that Javier has already murdered the victim and stuffed him in the trunk and then goes to the support group to pick up an alibi as well as get lines for his scripts that he can no longer get from the phone sex encounters.

Here is where the film lost me. What was up with the AIDS infected taxi driver? He is supposed to have taken a packet from somebody for a large sum of money. Could it be that the script and the scrap book that the victim had was being taken out to another country, and that's why the police cannot find any script in their search of the house? The point of the police officer who killed his wife, was inserted as a morality play I think, so that in the end, the husband let's the wife go away without harming her. Ipanema is probably the airlines suggesting that the couple ran off to Brazil to start a new life.

The husband / policeman, inadvertently drops the vial containing the pubic hair he finds in his bathroom. That whole vial with the pubic hair thing completely escapes me. How did the hair get into his bathroom and what would that have proved.

A thriller alright, but with a lot of loose ends that kept me guessing and confused.

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

Nichols' and Hank's Hollywood Propaganda

[21 December 2007]

Full article at http://alternet.org/story/71286/

Tom Hanks Tells Hollywood Whopper in 'Charlie Wilson's War' By Melissa Roddy, AlterNet Posted on December 21, 2007, Printed on December 21, 2007 http://www.alternet.org/story/71286/ "We just can't deal with this 9/11 thing. Does it have to be so political?" from an anonymous source at Playtone Productions

Charlie Wilson's War purports to be the true story of a hard-partying U.S. congressman from Texas who engineered the defeat of the Soviet Union by the Afghan Mujahiddin. Now there are true stories, and there are true-ish stories. It is a given that, in creating a film narrative, sometimes the truth gets a little bent, but it's against the rules to change facts that change the outcome of history. When telling the story of Antony and Cleopatra, they gotta die at the end, n'est pas. It's inappropriate, for example, to tell the story of World War II and pretend that, because the United States might have given a box of guns to the French Underground, there was no Holocaust. That's a pretty good analogy for what's been done in Charlie Wilson's War.

In the latter half of the movie, there is one big lie and one item of anti-Afghan propaganda. The lie is that U.S. support to the mujahiddin went only to the faction led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Afghan leader who was assassinated on Sept. 9, 2001. I spoke with Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Texas, in 2002, at which time he called Massoud "a Russian collaborator." I find it disingenuous that Wilson and his Hollywood biographers now want to throw their arms around him. (Note: George Crile's book does not make this false claim.) Moreover, if this movie succeeds in convincing Americans that the U.S. support went to Ahmad Shah Massoud alone, it will have effectively let the CIA and Wilson off the hook for their contribution to the circumstances leading up to 9/11. During the 1980s, Wilson engineered the appropriation of approximately $3.5 billion to help the Afghans fight the Soviets. According to Milt Bearden, CIA chief of station to Pakistan, Massoud received less than 1 percent of it.

The joke is: "When a Tajik man wants to make love to a woman, his first choice is a Pashtun man."

Why is this propagandistic? Because it supports the idea that Afghans are just too tribal to get along. They've always fought each other. As Wilson once said to me, "You put two Afghans in a room, you end up with seven factions." The trouble with this idea is that Afghanistan has been a cohesive nation for several hundred years.

So why were these two offenses included in this movie?

1. The Massoud "inaccuracy" was included because Tom Hanks "just can't deal with this 9/11 thing"; and because Wilson and Joanne Herring (played by Julia Roberts in the movie) threatened legal action after reading an earlier, more honest, draft of the screenplay by Aaron Sorkin. Herring was Pakistan's honorary consul to the United States in the 1980s, and as such, enlisted Wilson into supporting the cause of the Afghans. Neither Wilson nor Herring wants history to remember them for their contribution to the events that culminated in 9/11.

2. The really bad joke was included because, when Wilson retired from the House of Representatives, he was so copasetic to Pakistani views that he went to work for Pakistan as their lobbyist -- at the rate of $360,000 per year. Not bad for an old skirt-chasin' boozer.

Melissa Roddy, like several of the principals in the saga of Afghanistan, is a native Texan. An actress based in Los Angeles, she is currently producing and directing a documentary film on the history of Afghanistan from 1979 to 9/11 entitled The Square Root of Terror.

For full article go to http://alternet.org/story/71286/

Bluffmaster (2005)

Abhishek Bachhan has come into his own

[8/10 · 8 August 2006]

Bluffmaster is a delightful movie. The dialogues are crisp and far above average from Hindi film sentimentality. Abhishek Bachhan is a natural and I do believe that he is a far better actor than his very popular father. His Hindustani diction is leaps and bounds better than all the Khans combined. Nana Patekar is at his comic best as his sinister character belies the poet at heart. I was able to tolerate Priyanka Chopra in this movie, far better than the Barbie character she plays in Krrish. Boman Irani is funny.

I do believe that much of the film is a mish-mash of lifts from western films of the genre and even some of the dialogues are plagiarized. But the Hindustani play on metaphors and aphorisms is what makes this movie so very fun to watch. The English subtitles do little justice to the rich dialogue in Hindustani.

The songs are a wonderful blend of Hinglish.

Lady in the Water (2006)

Lady in the Lake should have been drowned

[2/10 · 29 July 2006]

M. Night Shyamalan lost his muse soon after the huge success of his widely acclaimed The Sixth Sense. The man is a one trick pony and keeps hounding his effete subconscious into pumping up his creative juices around the "other" world. He should leave it well alone and diversify his story telling craft. There is enough reality around that is stranger than fiction. Lady of the Lake is truly bad in many departments. I am surprised that Christopher Doyle offers up such bad cinematography, this from a man who has mesmerized audiences with his visual genius in Asian films. Shyamalan should seriously think about not putting himself in front of the camera ever again. None of the characters ever take traction. Giammati's role as manager of an apartment building that boasts ethnic diversity, is as flat as the pancake he would never eat. Sarita Chaudhry has a few good lines but that is about all the humor you will get in this entirely tiresome movie. Why was this movie ever made? It's too bad that Shyamalan is running his credit as a good storyteller into the ground.

Rakht (2004)

Night Shyamalan Indian Style

[2/10 · 24 July 2006]

Bipasha Basu is caked with so much makeup t'would make Barbie squirm. Oof. Her acting talents leave a lot to be desired, her Hindustani diction sucks and frankly I do not see her going places in films; at least films with any substance. Sanjay Dutt gives another wooden performance and Suniel Shetty bores with his mentally handicapped style and dialogue deliverance. Moraes does come across as a viable villain and is the most believable in this rather predictable and flat film on communication from the beyond. The most annoying feature of the DVD was the sound that jumped into deafening sound effects and then dropped to very low on dialogue. A horror film it is not. The only thing that made me jump was the sound effects which are jarring.

Krrish (2006)

I am completely disappointed

[4/10 · 26 June 2006]

I was so eager to see the sequel to "Koi Mil Gaya" which in my opinion was not only a refreshing film, but had a great character written for Hrithik Roshan, and he DID deliver. But "Krrish" is so sappy and so one dimensional that even the most ardent fans of Hrithik, such as myself, found it difficult to sit through the overly sentimentalized movie. I wanted to wipe the perpetual smile off of his face and the almost infantile portrayal of the super hero was as flat as a day old chappati. The songs and dances will be forgotten as soon as you exit the theatre. And Priyanka Chopra is not someone who lights up the screen with her acting abilities. Nasiruddin Shah was having fun with his over the top villain role and not much else. The dialogue was so bland and cheesy and the stunts were from Matrix 101. That was the biggest disappoint. Hrithik just does not come off as a super hero and more's the pity. If there is a sequel to this, please Rakesh Roshan, hire a qualified script writer and give a better grip to the story with more shades of grey to the characters. I hope to see Hrithik soon in a better written film. He is a good actor wasted in substandard films. Maybe he should do a couple of films with Ram Gopal Verma to wipe out his goodtwoshoes image.

Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960)

Waheeda Rehman lights up the screen

[8/10 · 13 May 2006]

This was Guru Dutt's most successful commercial film. What Catherine Deneuve is to French films, Waheeda Rehman is to Indian films - sensuous, talented, photogenic and ethereal. The Lukhnavi traditions are captured beautifully - the women's quarters and the men forbidden access. The lifting of the veil has two men fall madly in love with the same woman. In the end, as tragedy strikes, Jameela's divorced husband gently pulls the veil back on her face. This scene is worth the price of the DVD. I wish that Guru Dutt had not colorized the title song in this black and white film. Meenu Mumtaz and Tun Tun are great. Johnny Walker does his usual schtick and Rehman and Guru Dutt complete the love triangle.

Ek-Hi-Rasta (1956)

Meena Kumari at her crying best

[5/10 · 13 May 2006]

Ek Hi Raasta is really Daisy Irani's movie, centering around the brat Raja who is the apple of everyone's eye. If only all children around the world are doted on as this child. Very much over the top and a bit too saccharine. The film stars Daisy Irani but the movie credits list her as Roop Kumar. A stellar star cast of a young and beautiful Meena Kumari, along with a dashing young Sunil Dutt. But the second half of the film belongs to Ashok Kumar. The villains are never brought to justice, the film focuses on widowhood, remarriage and issues of step fathers and step children. The black and white photography is good, the music not quite memorable.

The Twilight Girls (1957)

Catherine Deneuve as Adelaide

[5/10 · 13 January 2006]

There is much speculation that Catherine Deneuve, who debuted in this film, is one of the older girls. NOT. She is little Adelaide, the sleepwalking, ice cream thief and nocturnal mischief maker. All her scenes on the DVD are in the original French with English subtitles to retain Catherine's voice. The rest of the film is dubbed in English. The film was released when Deneuve was 13. It seems the scenes were shot when Catherine was maybe 10 or 11.

For its time, the film was very daring; nudity and lesbian overtones. When released in the US, the New York film board tried to censor and block the film. Fortunately, they did not succeed as the courts ruled in favor of free speech.