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.

MOHALLA ASSI - Tango in Holy Benaras !!

This movie shows the problems that arise when two cultures mix and it challenges the popular view that immigration is an issue only in western countries like USA. 

Varanasi or Benaras is an ancient town famous among the religious in India for centuries. Now it seems to have fascinated the young pretty ladies from the west (US,France etc) and has therefore affected the economy of this poor town where 'Pandas' survive by foretelling future and performing religious services. Their God is Shiva whom they address as Babaji.  They live frugally and their houses line narrow Gullies. They find it hard to raise a family with their meager earnings but their strict Hindu religious upbringing prevents some of them to bow to temptations from the west and allow these skimpily dressed pretty girls into their old houses as renters even when they are offered high rents by these beauties. [There is a smooth talking local who markets the ladies from the west to the Pandas for a commission.]  However, as we see in some scenes, there are a few locals who have succumbed to the temptations not only of money but also of lust.

The old people gather in cafes made of wooden planks and there are long angry discussions around the topic of corruption of their religious traditions by these new immigrants who are ready to marry the poor locals so they can get visa extensions!! They would like to protect the traditions of the old city. They  also worry about their favored God Babaji being supplanted by Lord Rama of Ayodhya ;which is a reference to the religious issues that arise from time to time in India!

One such Panda is our upright hero (Sunny Deol) who used to get angry even at the suggestion of renting to these ladies but finally compromises because he cannot provide the extra clothing and fees for his children. He lets a young lady from the west into his house and teaches her Sanskrit while his harried wife caters to her other needs like food. They even drown their Babaji image in the Ganges with tears to convert their little temple into an attached bathroom for the renter. Such are the woes of the poor and simple people of Assi !! But now they are in a somewhat better financial condition.

Meanwhile, one Panda runs away to America with his American girlfriend , leaving his Indian family in Assi ! He returns back towards the end of the movie ready to reform Assi with the help of his new American wife, with new liberal views that challenge traditions!! A happy compromise ??

A FIGHT FOR JUSTICE - a 'Kidnap' movie from Bollywood

Source: Amazon Video [No Trailer]

This 'kidnap' movie has two endings - a Hollywood style and a new rebellious Bollywood style.

The Home Minister's young son is kidnapped by a poor man and the entire team of police officers and other members of the government and media are trying to track him down. Yet this is not a ransom movie. All the kidnapper wants is his son back who, we initially assume, must have been kidnapped by someone. After display of lot of anger and screaming and sophisticated gadgetry ,include Apple tablets,  the team cannot track him down because the kidnapper and his victim keep moving in Indian buses and trains.

Finally, we discover that the kidnapper's only son was killed in the collapse of bridge caused by faulty construction. It is in the scenes displaying father's shock when he first hears the news of his son's death in the hospital that Irrfan shines as an actor !! [ It is obvious that his mind is finding it difficult to believe that his son is gone when we see him looking around and calling his son's name even after hearing the news of his death while holding his son's shoes and school bag..]

The kidnapped child develops sympathy for his kidnapper, which is not the classic Stockholm syndrome but real empathy for a grieving father.

Towards the end , like in a Hollywood Denzel Washington movie, the kidnapper is shot by the police at a bus stop. But this is not a Hollywood movie and therefore there is an alternate ending :  the kidnapper asks that the home minister and the bridge construction team appear in his small residence along with a TV person or he will blow up the child and himself. They are forced to oblige. So on live TV the kidnapper makes the responsible people confess that the bridge collapsed due to the endemic corrupt practices of the contractor as well as the responsible government people. Then the kidnapper releases everyone and turns himself in. 

STRANGER THAN FICTION .....naut !!

What are lonely middle-aged fastidious people, who like to time their every step with the precision of an atomic clock, likely to experience but mental psychosis !! However, this time the voice that our hero hears is not imaginary but that of a female author who seems even sicker than our hero...that is because she kills her heroes at the end of her stories and therefore is hesitant to write anymore even when her publisher pushes and pushes her. The lady author's voice has taken the authority of God and  therefore our hero is afraid that he is going to die when the voice tells him so. 

Our hero and his friend (doctor?) accidentally discover that the voice belongs to a real person when he overhears that voice on the TV. It is indeed stranger than fiction. Then he tries to track the author down..... Does he survive by asking the author to change the ending of her forthcoming novel ?

I believe this is a movie with a nice story without too much screaming and facial contortions from Will F. who plays our hero. Even when he is playing an unpopular but humble IRS agent....

SHORT CIRCUIT - A Movie Review ......

This is a unique comedic look at the American euphoria and greed that takes over any new invention or idea. I was introduced to this movie by a American project manager when I was still new in USA in 1990.

A young Indian invents a robot that has human like qualities and despite his reluctance to market this robot is seduced into doing so. It is an entertaining movie and stretches and extrapolates  a layman's   imagination in a direction that makes him believe that one day we might have real robots with AI,  like the one shown here!!