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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Kali Ghata (1980) – Masala-Thriller

Kali Ghata Poster A murder mystery + a couple of good songs + Shashi Kapoor + Rekha x2 = great fun! I can wax eloquent about all the pretty in the movie or rant about the Shemaroo people who take to scissors a lot more efficiently than the Indian Censor Board, but will desist and tell you about the movie instead!
The opening sequence - a cold-blooded murder – sets the tone for the rest of the film. A man is shot dead in a hotel room by an unseen assailant. We learn later that he is Seth Satpal Singh, whose look-alike daughters Rekha (Rekha) and Rashmi (also Rekha) are also in deadly danger.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The bad and the beautiful – catching up with 2007 films

My dwindling bank balance has decreed a strict moratorium on DVD-buying sprees. How then to quench the thirst for movies and more movies? This is where Calgary Public Library comes to the rescue! For the past few weeks I’ve been catching up on all the 2007-08 movies that I missed watching on the big screen. Here’s a brief review of some of them:
Salaam-e-ishq Dard-e-dimaag for the viewer!
salaam-e-ishq poster
I cant say I began watching with a lot of expectations but I still managed to be disappointed! To those of you not familiar with the plot, the movie follows the love-under-threat stories of five loosely-related couples - Ashutosh-Tehzeeb (John Abraham-Vidya Balan) whose young marriage is under threat because of Tehzeeb’s tragic loss of memory; Shiven-Gia (Akshaye Khanna-Ayesha Takia) whose love is imperiled because Shiven doesnt want to commit matrimony; Vinay-Seema (Anil Kapoor-Juhi Chawla) whose marriage is going through Vinay’s mid-life crisis; Kamna-Rahul (Priyanka Chopra-Salman Khan) in whose love-story Karan Johar plays an unlikely cupid; Raju-Stephanie (Govinda-Shannon Esrechowitz) whose love story you hope and pray does NOT take off but does! There is a random sixth couple Ram-Phoolwati (Sohail Khan-Isha Kopikkar) whose unsuccessful attempts to consummate their marriage will [not] educate the uninitiated about the “donts” of marital sex.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Emerging trends in interrogation techniques: an overview of Bollywood-related methods.

Prof. Jawaab-TalabWhile walking along the University’s pristine corridors yesterday, I had the good fortune to run into Prof. Lakshmi Jawaab-Talab and her grad student Gopi Jasoos. I know her from my grad school days in India. Once she’d ascertained my marital status, enquired closely into my career plans, finances, etc., she told me what brought her to Calgary. “The Canadian Govt was very impressed by my review article on the use of bad movies to interrogate tough suspects. Canada’s neighbours churn out bad movies and suspects in such large quantities that its become a matter of grave concern even so far up North. So here I am, about to give a series of lecture-demonstrations to Canadian law enforcement agencies!”