Play It Again , Sam - 'cos of blank ya'!!

Video Source: Amazon prime

Woody Allan is known for his neurotic acting style, his big nose and balding head with long hair and his wooden expression that make him unique in America's movie industry. In other words, he does not care how he looks on screen.His words are apologetically hilarious but his expression remains blank, always. MAD magazine used to run a parody of his movies!!

                                          Link To Trailer

In this movie he is lonely after being separated from his wife. His kind friends, Diane Keaton and her boyfriend - a white guy who acts like a black person - try to 'fix' him with one of their compatible woman friends. Woody is so nervous that he starts fidgeting and knocks down bottles, boxes and lamps when he is introduced to these potential mates. In one scene , he is unable to control himself while drying his hair and you are reminded of the 'Pink Panther' movies. 

Woody, our hero, is a big fan of 'Casablanca' in this movie and gets advise from an imaginary Humphrey Bogart about how to romance a lady. Bogart's presence thru out the movie give it a somewhat serious look. Woody falls in love with Diane Keaton, his friend's wife instead but very wisely gives her up towards the end...

This is a movie where conversation and commentary override everything else. The movie moves slowly but is not boring. I wish I had friends like those Woody the hero has in the movie!! Do such well mannered selfless people really exist in America or is it all fiction -  a hallucination of Woody Allan's head ? !! 

Four Feathers : British History Thru Indian eyes.

Video Source: Amazon Prime

Shekhar Kapur the director is known in India for small personal films like 'Masoom', a comedy called "Mr. India" and the biographical "The Bandit Queen". So it was really surprising for me to see him direct movies like "Four Feathers" and "Elizabeth" which have a wider canvas and are based on British history and have not much to do with India.

Link To Four Feathers Trailer....

Four feathers reminds us of old movies like those of David Lean. The story is about a man who does not want to fight in a war and so is dubbed a coward by his wife to be and is given the customary 'white feathers' but there are only three instead of four. The hero (Heath Ledger) then tries to redeem himself by following the troops on his own. Most of the movie is about the suffering he has to go thru in the desert and later as part of a labor camp where he manages to find his friends who preceded him. The war scenes are shot in  a unique style. I was  especially impressed with the scene where the rectangular formation made by the British soldiers is slowly overtaken by the Sudanese; like a pack of wild animals attacking their weakened prey from all sides.

Heath Ledger and Wes Bentley act very well and remind you of dignified actors of old. Shekhar Kapur has added emotions, like genuine friendship between men , which is very rare in modern English movies (from the western hemisphere) unless they are gay and there is sex involved!! 

Lucky Numbers - Getting Lucky In Pennsylvania !!

Video Source: Amazon Prime.

This is a simple comedy like many others, however, it is a little more 'real' and is set in a winter of Harrisburg in PA [ where I had spent couple of years 'way back when....'!!]. The popular weatherman and the lady host of the live Weekly Lottery drawing conspire to 'rig' one such drawing so they can win the 6.4 million dollar jackpot. The honest weatherman is forced to compromise because his house goes in foreclosure!! The lady host has no guilt in pulling the stunt !!

                               

They put glue in all the balls, except in those that correspond to the numbers on their ticket, I believe,.The lottery machine therefore ejects only the numbers the weatherman's team has on their ticket. What follows is the usual mayhem associated with comedy movies including the overturning of a moving truck on a frozen street in Harrisburg and the high pitch screaming of the angry heroine!!

It is nice to see John Travolta in a comedy. However, the movie version I watched on Amazon does not have all his funny scenes shown in the trailer above. Harrisburg and the Susquehanna bridge look bigger and cleaner than they are in real life, probably because of clean up work of the post production crew.

Lovelace : Biography Of A Porn Star!!

Video Source: Amazon Prime


You can fast forward most of the embarrassing mating scenes between the young girl and her rough man friend which are mostly in the beginning of the movie!! [The makers of this movie could have easily skipped showing these scenes and gained a wider audience.] In fact, I was hesitant to include a review of this movie in the blog but the fact that it was a biographical movie of a young girl's life who is forced into being a porn star makes it interesting. People who are not exposed to the entire spectrum of life in America might find this movie educational. 

The young heroine of this movie who is in love with a mustached jobless man gets seduced into making her first porn film so the couple can survive. That is a short cut for making a living. Unfortunately, for the girl, her boyfriend keeps all the money. He even "roughs" her up when she refuses to make more porn. In fact, he deceives her by inviting her to a party where she is turned into a prostitute. When the scared girl runs back to her mother for help, the mother refuses to keep her and sends her back. Such is the tough life of some girls in USA, when the parents cannot afford to keep their them at home and send them out into the world at a young age!!! [At least , she knows who are parents are, unlike many others!!

We learn that young Linda Lovelace, the porn star, was only paid $1850 for her first porn movie that made hundreds of millions of dollars. We also learn that porn movies are made by rich looking 'professionals' with a small staff .

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.