SHOLAY - the biggest Bollywood blockbuster !

Sholay (pronounced 'Show' + 'lay') might roughly be translated to burning fire. This was the first Hindi 70mm wide movie India's film industry (also referred to as Bollywood now) made in 1970s. It could be called a cruder version of a Grimm's fairy tale or a 'glittered' version of a story of many dacoits who once roamed the hills of central India depending upon how you interpret the story.(If you want a realistic dacoit biographical movie see 'The Bandit Queen' directed by Shekhar Kapur!)

There is a terrible dacoit with his team of very crude men who hide in the hills and prey upon the poor folks of the village close by. The dacoit whose name is Gabbar Singh is a menace and the mere mention of his name makes the kids and their parents run away in fear. Gabbar demands free grains and food from the village people and if they do not fulfill his demand he loots and kills them. The village now has a kindly Thakur who was once a police officer. As the story progresses we discover that Gabbar had killed Thakur's entire family and chopped off both of his arms.

In desperation, Thakur recruits two tough but jovial cons whom he had arrested once but these two had saved Thakur's life after he was injured by bullet from a dacoit. The two cons fight and eventually capture Gabbar but not before one of them loses his life! 

The subject of dacoity seems serious but when told in Bollywood style we find comedy and songs injected intermittently in between murder and crime! There are about four songs that became very popular when the movie was released. There is a 'hitler' spoof by a funny jailer when the two cons lock themselves in jail to win a reward.

The movie stars some of Bollywood's top stars of that decade. Amjad who played Gabbar and Sanjeev Kumar who played the Thakur have both passed away. Amitabh, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Jaya Bachaan are still popular stars !

Have I seen Sholay ? You Betcha ! I and Asok missed couple of college classes and ran to the theater one day. The movie ran in that Mumbai theater for several decades !!!

THE FUGITIVE - when friends turn out to be your enemies!

This is an old classic movie with Harrison Ford playing the main role of a doctor/researcher who finds his wife dead after returning from work one evening and is accused of killing her. Harrison escapes and is on the run for most of the movie. As he enters his home, just before discovering his wife's body, he accosts a stranger who is the real killer and who manages to escape.  Harrison has no alibi. He tries to track down that man he confronted in his home while the police are tracking him. He needs money while he is in hiding and his friend, whom Harrison trusts implicitly, loans him some money when they meet in a downtown area.

It is a cat and mouse game after that! Harrison finds in the end that his best friend is claiming credit for the research Harrison had done and that is why he had killed his wife!! It is the same deceiving friend who had loaned him money in the shopping area.

The police get tired of chasing Harrison and capture him and then release him in the end because he is innocent! It is a fast paced movie where all the main actors excel!

Note: I use the name Harrison to represent the character Harrison Ford plays in the movie.

LIFE - there is an Alien in your Space Station!

This movie could be looked upon as a re-make of the old 1990's classic 'Alien'  with S. Weaver but  with a smaller and very  tenacious beast! The setting this time is a realistic looking space station and it's lab where the alien comes to life!

The scientists on board seem to have picked up a small insect sized larva from Mars that gradually turns into a small star fish and then an octopus like creature with immense strength as it feeds on the blood and the insides of couple of astronauts! The astronauts try to get rid of it but cannot as the alien creature manages to hide and travel thru the holes and crevices of the space station.

In the end only two earthlings are left alive, along with the alien. I am not sure why the last person survives that alien fish/octopus which chased them around and killed everybody else ? That is the problem with a few sci-fi movies - some of the story is left unsaid! Why is it attracted to the light tube ?