bollywoody

A gentleman going by the name of Anil "Senior" Sharma (such an unfortunate abbreviation) is about to make his directorial d´but with a film called Dil Kabaddi. This ain't the Anil Sharma responsible for Hukumat, Elaan-E-Jung, Farishtey, Tehelka, Gadar or The Hero (Love Story Of A Spy). Now this film about the games of the heart was originally titled Bubblegum. Wookie sense didn't prevail and we got a title that just barely qualifies as a less ambiguous name. Snagging bits from here, there and everywhere

Konkona Sen Sharma and Rahul Bose (who plays a professor) are a couple. Irrfan Khan plays an executive married to Soha Ali Khan; he ain't getting enough and she thinks he ain't romantic enough. Payal Rohatgi plays an aerobics instructor. The film reportedly deals with friends and complexity of marriage while living in a big city.

Now, I smell Husbands and Wives, which might mark a first for Bollywood: I don't think anyone's had the temerity to try and toy with this director's ouevre before. If this observation's not unfounded, we can only rue the waste of acting talent in the flick. Yes, I'm being presumptuous about the quality of the final product, because it'll take Bollywood a long time to get to making the kind of films Mr. Allen makes.

sleeper

The opening credits for Woody Allen's Sleeper are enough to tell you that this is a Woody Allen film. The same fonts, some familiar names, the simple scheme, and jazz music running along in the background. The film itself rings closer to other early efforts like Bananas besides being an homage to the Marx Brothers, and the silent comedy film with its masterful exponents Keaton and Chaplin. Being a futuristic movie (set in 2173), there are digs at 2001: A Space Odyssey (and HAL's voice Douglas Rain can be heard enjoying a dig at himself!). There's a lot of funny dialogue and several entertaining sequences of slapstick and buffoonery, but the eventual direction of Allen's work rears its ugly head occasionally: you can see the growing obsession with sex, women, Jewish humour, New York, himself, and strains of neurotic behaviour. Keep watching for references to A Streetcar named Desire, The Navigator, Duck Soup, Modern Times, THX 1138 and A Clockwork Orange. And cool buildings too ("The Sculptured House" in Denver, CO, which serves as the rebel hideout, and The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Foothils Laboratory in Boulder, CO).

Forrest Gump 11 years ago

The movie for the night (marking also my first visit to the nice little rental store Movies Worth Seeing) was Woody Allen's Zelig, a fake documentary about a human chameleon called Leonard Zelig who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s. Smart editing puts him alongside famous people in famous locations. The film is funny in the Allen way and, like his best work, reflects his penchant for jokes about sex, being oppressed and being Jewish.