CREATION - Tragedy Of Human Species.!!

VIDEO SOURCE: Amazon Prime

I had read about Charles Darwin 'way back when' I was in school. Upon watching this biographical movie from BBC, it dawned on me that while he had a nice family and enjoyed their company, he was sick most of his adult life as was his eldest daughter Annie. Tragically, Annie dies and Charles goes mad. He sees Annie again and again (hallucinations!) post death; if the director/doctors are to be believed ( this might be a license that the director takes to show his mental instability) ! There was some confusion for me at this point because of the juxtaposition of scenes which seem to go back and forth in time.

It must have been the physical contact with birds  and other species - however pretty they appear from a distance -  that caused him to be physically ill. The old hydro bath treatment, in lieu of a waterfall , is interesting to watch. Then there is the argument between church, religion and the jungle law, which tilts in favor of 'survival of the fittest', well illustrated in the movie by the preying upon of a rabbit by a fox and  the scene of a helpless baby bird that falls from a tree and gets eaten by insects. The movie also shows the conflict between rational Charles and his religious wife - how easy it is for Charles Darwin to justify the killing of the rabbit and the baby bird as part of the food chain and how difficult it is to bear the loss of his own child !!

However, in the end Charles finishes his landmark 'Origin Of Species' and his wife becomes his admirer.  After watching the movie, it is hard for me to believe that a scientific mind like Darwin could be so broken up and unstable...yet come up with the theory of progression of species on earth from the sea to the land .

BOBBY - Love Story with Rich Dad, Poor Dad Theme !

I remember watching this movie with my parents when I was in High School almost 40 years ago. This movie broke boundaries as far as the conservative Bollywood cinema of the time is concerned by showing a heroine in short skirts and a bikini. This movie was the first movie for the two main actors : young Dimple Kapadia and Rishi Kapur, who is the son of the producer director Raj Kapur. They later became major stars of Bollywood. The songs in the movie became very popular as well.

Raju is deprived of the love of his two busy parents and is sent to a boarding school. When he returns to his parents for his 18th birthday party he becomes attracted to pretty 16 year old Bobby who is the daughter of his nanny old Mrs. Braganza. It is love at first sight. However, Bobby's father is a simple fisherman of Portuguese descent I believe. Mr. Braganza is happy that Bobby likes Raju but the big question is will the rich parents of Raju agree to his marring a nanny's daughter ?

The answer is obvious - Raju's parents prohibit him from meeting Bobby and even insult Mr. Braganza by accusing him of scheming to get at their wealth. To add insult to injury, they even offer him money to keep his girl away from Raju !!

The obstinacy of the parents causes the kids to elope and even attempt suicide. That is the gist of the story.

THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN - God Bless American Mom !!

That is what is unusual about the movie - the subservient short son (Danny Devitto) and his domineering mother who sits on a rocking chair and commands him like he is a peon. He has to make sandwiches for her and find TV remotes otherwise she 'Hollers/shouts' at him. DD has developed dislike for her and wants her killed but he is afraid of doing it himself . This could have been a 'Psycho' like crime movie but it  is not - in fact, it is a quite refreshing comedy from a period when comedy was 'king' (1987).

'The Night Is Moist And Humid'

DD attends a course on writing a novel and develops friendship with the teacher (Billy Crystal). DD is obsessed with writing the novel and does not hesitate in contacting this teacher at all odd hours of day !! The teacher tries to encourage him by asking him to watch a particular TV show. After watching the show,  our crazy DD erroneously concludes from the show that the teacher wants to get rid of his girlfriend!  He (DD) kills the teacher's girlfriend. DD assumes that the friendly teacher will return the favor by killing DD's mother.

In the end, though, everything turns out well. 

The AGNES of God - An Angel among Monkeys !

Yes, that is the first impression I get after watching  this movie. A she monkey , dressed as a psychiatrist ,with a cigarette in her hand, tries to understand and uncover the mystery behind a dead newborn in a convent; born from a very young nun who is intoxicated with God's love. How can a world full of chimps and monkeys understand love, specially God's love. Their world is so superficial and shallow that they can only do a cheap imitation of love.

This movie is not a horror movie but one based on religion with intelligent discussions about various topics current in society.

Meg Tilly gives an amazing performance as the nun soaked in God's love. Her unusual eyes and soft voice adds to the aura of a suffering nun. Jane Fonda plays the psychiatrist and gives a performance adequate for her role. She manages to uncover the painful layer from the mind of the nun - that she understands pregnancy and the birth of the child which she was hiding earlier in the spiritual lore of the church. She also uncovers that the young orphaned nun was abused by her mother and is always seeking her mother's approval even when the mother is not present ! The nun also complains (during the hypnotism) that she was fed food adulterated with glass and she was in severe pain because of that !! We are not sure if that was after the conception or before the conception!!

Even after witnessing a miracle, when blood pours out of the hand of the accused nun spontaneously during the hypnotism, the psychiatrist continues to question her about the man who impregnated her ! I believe in Christiandom, this mating with God/Jesus and associated physical signs on the body is called Stigmata. Like Christ, she is a victim of the world. The movie is based on a play, which in turn is inspired from a true story according to online information I uncovered.

The young nun says it was God who is the father of the child...then what about Charlie's song she sings in the court - one story for the world, another for the church ?? Maybe in the nun's mind both are fused together as God's love.

One might go further and say that the movie is about unwanted pregnancy of innocent young girls who do not understand the consequences of early 'love' ! [The good baby comes from the heart and the bad baby from pressing down below says the young nun]. The spontaneous eruption of blood from the holes in her hands might be considered symbolism; that in the outside world she might be killed and so she hides in the church protected by the religious world. 

THE GAME - life at the edge of a fall, monitored by CRSs!!

This movie is a little strange. The rich millionaire hero (Michael Douglas), who lives a life of cloistered existence, gets a gift of a special  experience from his young brother (Sean Penn) as his birthday present. What follows is quite confusing - there is a car chase, a love affair, a fall into the river etc for real as our hero tries to find out who is behind the crimes. There are hints along the way that tell him that almost all of the people he encounters are hiding their identities as employees of this hidden company called CRS!! After accidentally shooting his brother, the hero becomes suicidal (kinda) and jumps from the roof of the high rise. He lands inside a hall, still alive, where he meets his brother and others who were part of this dangerous experience. The brother has blood on the front and rear of his shirt because of the bullet that hit him on the chest and then exited out from the his back. He smiles and says to our hero that it was all a game!!

I have quite a few questions about the movie. How could the brother and the hero have survived the Game ?  Are we to assume that they are dead at the end and it is their spirits meeting post death ( like Sixth Sense) ?

Is the message that our life, with all its experiences,  just a Game ? Anyway, by showing all the actors alive and well at the end, the director has done the innocent part of the audience a favor by showing that nobody really dies in a movie and that the guns, bullets and wounds are all fake!!

ANAND - How to live the last months of your life!!

ANAND is a Bollywood hit from 1970s. It was and is very popular because it portrays a sympathetic story of a cancer patient in India who decides to spend the last few months of his life by sharing happiness and humor with people known and unknown.  The movie has the big star of the time Rajesh Khanna playing the role of the cancer patient named Anand and Amitabh Bachchan playing a doctor, who agrees to share his home with the patient. 

The story has humor with undertone of sadness and romance expressed thru three or four songs, all of which are still popular. The incessantly chatty patient Anand and impatient but polite doctor play well against each other. 

When the doctor delivers the sad news to Anand that he has 'Lympho-sorcoma of the intestine', Anand responds jovially 'Wow, what a nice name, Lympho Sorcoma. If one were to choose a disease it should have a fancy name like that!' 

Anand has nostalgia for his lady friend, whom he asked to marry someone else ,because he is destined to die. Her memory is enshrined in his book of poetry and a solitary flower as depicted in the song above.

'Sometimes our hearts fail to meet, in spite of our best efforts and sometimes
perfect strangers become our life long friends, as if they have known us thru many births' goes one of the songs. That summarizes the life of Anand until he passes away one destined day.

THE INSIDER - What Price Honesty ?

[I saw this movie several years back and so I can just recall a bird's eye view of it.]

It is the story repeated again and again in the history of humanity - how honest people get punished and tortured by others who are afraid of being exposed. Whether it is ancient Greece, Egypt or modern democracies like USA and India, the world is still unsafe for rebels who stand up to authority!! 

The Insider depicts one aspect of this continuing saga in a modern environment.  There are people struggling every day to retain their integrity as they and their families bear the consequences when they stand up to big companies and big governments. They may not be poisoned when they say that the earth is spherical and not flat and that the earth rotates around the sun and not the other way around, as they would have been in the ancient world, but they might be 'trapped' , isolated and punished by the 'system' . This system includes the network of TV, print and now the internet. 

Click for The Insider Movie Trailer

The Insider depicts such a true story of a professional employee who discovers that one of the cigarette BRAND his employer makes has a chemical that might not be safe for smokers. Yet, the company continues to sell that brand until that employee becomes a whistle-blower, at which point there are attempts to physically harm him and his family. He asks his wife and children to leave him so they can be safe. I believe it is on the CBS show '60 Minutes' that he exposes his employer. The constant threats to his life and the forced isolation take a toll on his mental health and he ends up as a school teacher instead of a highly paid employee of a big company!!

[Add to this, how an honest immigrant faces even more of a pressure and competition from the locals and others and you will notice that the equation becomes more complex!! At that point, even '60 Minutes' will become biased and not help him, you see.]