Sister Mary Explains It All -- A Monologue On Christianity !

Video Source: Amazon Prime


If you have  a desire to learn about Christian religion quickly, this movie will provide a short course. The monologue is delivered by the main character, Diane Keaton, who plays the role of the flamboyant nun quite forcefully and in a somewhat humorous fashion.
[That is how, in my imagination, a good American Christian nun should behave, except for the shootings that occur towards the end. But perhaps there is a social message implied in the shootings regarding life in USA!!]

 The bullying of the young boy, Walter,  on the stage by the nun, to impress the audience, makes one uncomfortable. Poor Walter has to fetch water for the nun and recite from the Bible instead of reading comic books!

We learn from the sister, that there is not only Heaven and Hell, but also Purgatory where less serious sins can be washed away by repenting for a few years. We already know the role of Confessions because we have seen confessions being made in other movies. The nun then categorizes the sins that send you to purgatory and others that send you straight to hell.Shockingly, the nun has even compiled a list of  some public figures of the time going to hell. The important fact you learn from  all of this is that the church people decide where you go after committing sins (hell or purgatory) and do not leave the decision making to the almighty God!! 

To show how the modern young people take religion so casually, we have four young people appear on the stage after 25 years to meet their religious teacher (nun) and replay the scene of the birth of Christ. It is obvious that they have opposing views and one of them even wants to kill the nun for putting all the religious garbage in their head!! There is a gay student as well.





Diane Keaton is excellent as the nun. The makers of the movie should be congratulated for taking the risk in making this movie because not many non-christian people will have interest in watching it. 

Chalti Ka Naam Gaddi - An Old Comedy Classic From Bollywood !!

Source: Amazon Prime Video

Chalti Ka Naam Gaddi (whatever moves is a vehicle!) is an old Bollywood comedy classic made by the trio of Ganguly (Ashok, Kishore And Anup) brothers in Black And White. It falls in the category of old Chaplin and Laurel And Hardy comedies but moves slowly at an Indian pace.The movie includes a few songs that were quite popular. Indian cinema did not have many full length comedies at the time and so this attempt by the three brothers, who made the film and also act in it, was a risky attempt that gave them success.   

The story is built around a garage owned by the three jovial brothers who fix automobiles. The elder brother abhors woman because he believes that he was  jilted by a lady. However, the other two seem very interested in love and in fact one of them develops a relationship with a pretty rich girl who drops in the middle of a rainy night to get her car fixed. There are funny scenes depicting our hero's attempt to hide the romance from the eldest brother.

There is a murder mystery and kidnapping story hidden inside the movie as well, to make the story interesting. Our comic hero helps solve the crime . In the end, the villains are caught and our hero wins the heroine but not before singing four melodious songs....

KAMA SUTRA - More About Jealousy Than Love.....

Source : Amazon Prime Video
Director: Mira Nair
No Trailer.

The cinematography is excellent as are the locales. I was interested in learning about the history of the book by that name but this movie has very little of that. Instead, the story moves back and forth between the scenes depicting unbearable jealousy of a young couple who are the rulers but have access to courtesans and lovers. While the newly married queen tries to kill herself when she discovers that her philandering husband is involved with her best friend who happens to be his courtesan; the young king gets angry and kills the young sculptor when he discovers that his courtesan is in love with that sculptor !! He cannot bear in his philandering heart that any of his woman should be in love with another man!

There are couple of scenes reproduced from the pictures one sees in the book and there are scenes where an old courtesan trains young girls[the girls seem to be too young in some scenes!!] about the art of love which I assume is the director's way of linking the story to the ancient Kama Sutra manual of love!! 

The love scenes seemed to have been created specially for the western audience in mind I believe ...Only Sareeta Chaudhary stands out as an actress, while the rest seem new to the art of acting. Meera Nair has done nicer movies ....this one seems like a film made for the Playboy channel.