the future of public transit

Picture a long dark tunnel. Peppered with short bursts of painfully ephemeral illumination provided by the occasional terminally ill 50 watt bulb mounted on the wall. Imagine that this illumination follows exponential decay, which means that the illusion of light persists, yet it's actually getting darker. That my friends is the future of public transportation in the US of A. My point of reference will be Atlanta, since that's where I exist as the satyakaam of transit travel.

What we have is an idea called "Atlanta". Why an idea? Because in cities like Chamblee or Marietta (which fall in different counties as well), you can get by with an "Atlanta" in your postal address. Which means that "Atlanta" extends to accomodate and supersede other cities. Which aids the idea of a sprawl very well. And what a sprawl. The dregs of the city and the expanse of the suburbs have colluded to make this interstate highway-based "living[sic] space" a challenge for public transit.

And "public transit" is also an idea, instead of a wonderfully managed city or state-supported entity. We have disparte systems in place that intersect at politically defined rendezvous points: I know of MARTA, CCT, and Gwinnett County Transit. Note that the first entry in that list is the only one that does not betray its county (Fulton, BTW). Administrative granularity ensures that no one gets along. Counties supersede city and state regulations (very few of which seem to favour public transit, based on what I read on a regular basis). Your taxes do not help public transit in any way.

The only "transit" your taxes support is the kind that you sink $$$ into and get only frustration, hypertension, injury, high medical bills (aren't they always?) and death. And everyone seems to be fine with it.

A high percentage of Americans (the last I read it was about the same figure as the percentage of Americans who didn't have some form of health insurance ... but don't draw any correlations there). Yet people want to have their cake, eat it, and belch freely too. So people constantly rant about how allowing public transit into their area is going to infect it with undesirable social elements. Of course, they're fine with road rage and wasted time and $$$ getting to and from work (which occupies a bulk of their week). And their representatives in the administrative offices help to present this counter-argument to discourage any useful legislation in the support of public transit (see the end of this rant for more).

This "city" is already splitting at its seams (and running over) with traffic. And it's not multi-modal. Well, in a way it is, thanks to the large gas-guzzling vans and space vehicles that terribly incompetent drivers seem to hurl at you from different directions. Makes for a great horror movie. As long as you are not in it.

The only thing going for MARTA is the train. And they just slashed the schedules yet again. The reason the train gets more points is because the buses never offer a clear advantage. Buses have to share lanes with frustrated and frustrating drivers. Now, if you are stuck in traffic, wouldn't you prefer to be stuck in your own vehicle (and perhaps exercise some more options of escape) than in a bus? And guess what, the buses are being progressively slashed as well. It's a great way to reduce your losses. But it's also a great way to discourage people who want to use your system. Rest in peace.

The CCT buses are nicer than the MARTA buses. The latter have had fuelling issues with their CNG systems. The latter also enjoys the recent addition of Transit Television Network screens that only serve to add to the unwanted chatter you have to deal with in the bus (see also: jack- and jenny-asses talking ever so loudly on their cellphones in aggravating pitches and frequencies). Both bus systems share the same basic problem of trying to cover as many points with as few buses as possible. Which means that the routes taken are so sub-optimal, Edsger Dijkstra would collapse in shock several times over. All this happens for "cost optimisation" (put a 'z' there instead of an 's' if you're waiting on your green card).

I haven't used the GCT, but I don't expect a grand

And then there's the yet-another-attempt-to-unify-every-system from GRTA, which "works with those counties in Georgia that have been designated nonattainment under the federal Clean Air Act standards. Currently, there are thirteen counties in the metropolitan Atlanta area that are non-attainment for ozone. Those counties are Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, Paulding and Rockdale." Good luck. All that has happened is akin to the creation of a committee to decide which committees need to be created. And it's no longer funny.

And why am I ranting in abandon? Because I saw a blurb on one of those tiresome screens at the MARTA train stations that play silly pixels for Cingular, The Home Depot and the iPod, in addition to providing MARTA Standard Time, and useful information about the next Northbound/Southbound train (while one chugs in and the announcer gets her timing wrong yet again). The blurb was about Clayton County and commuter rail. And I had to dig up the newsitem in question (you might have to sign your life away to read it; instead just use BugMeNot.com). Here's the relevant extract (let us pray that they are touched with the flames of wisdom or burnt to ashes as an alternative):

The Clayton County Commission has agreed with the Georgia Department of Transportation and the Georgia Rail Passenger Authority to take part in the proposed Macon-to-Atlanta commuter rail system.
...
But while Clayton County Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell and three members of the Commission were happy with the agreement, Commissioner Wole Ralph was not.

Ralph thinks commuter rail is a good idea, but doesn't think Clayton County taxpayers should be saddled with paying the debt on it.

"I do not believe the state should ask the property owners of Clayton County to pay for rail services that will be used regionally by individuals from surrounding counties to provide them with increased access to Atlanta," Ralph said.

Ralph's thinking: metro Atlanta's traffic problem, specifically in Clayton County, is a regional issue and not one to be solved by county property tax owners.

Clayton County taxpayers will be on the hook for an estimated initial $4.5 million annual debt, Ralph said.

"Those are not Clayton County roads," he said. "There's no reason Clayton County taxpayers should pay to alleviate traffic on state roads."

Other fantasies include the Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers (not to be confused with a movie that included a scene about the importunate consequences of ill-timed ill-placed fellatio [see also: The Man Who Wasn't There]) and the promise of separate lanes for buses. It's time to listen to Aerosmith's Dream On chorus again.

nagya's next: cricket for food

After the wonder of teen deewarein and the less-than-satisfying Hyderabad Blues 2: Rearranged Marriage, NK was rumoured to be working on a food film called Tandoor. It would have been an interesting entry into a genre that doesn't seem to have any takers in India (the genre of the food film). Apparently, things didn't work out with the producer, and Nagesh shifted tracks to make his next venture a cricket movie called Iqbal: The Rampur Express (blame producer Subhash Ghai -- gulp!! -- for that suffix). Naseeruddin Shah returns to NK's fold, and the cast also apparently includes Girish Karnad, Kitu Gidwani, and marks the "full-fledged cinematic début" (aka another special appearance a la Mujhse Shaadi Karogi) of Kapil Dev. Sukhwinder Singh does the honours for the soundtrack.

Also: Rediff's first look

the moon was full and it was the February that it didn't snow

Thus begins Tom Spanbauer's début novella Faraway Places that first hit the stands in 1988. I heard of Spanbauer while reading about Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk acknowledges a debt to Spanbauer's writing workshops that he attended. This novel rides on a conventional coming-of-age plot, and that's apparently a feature of all the stuff Spanbauer has written. Nothing grabbed me in the book. The style is interesting, and presenting the pivotal event at the beginning and using it as a motific checkpoint throughout the narrative until time catches up was neat. But I don't sense this as being a direct (see below) influence on Palahniuk. The minimalism is there, but it isn't clipped. And there's a nostalgic personal touch that Palahniuk eschews in favour of two devices that work wonders in his dark writings -- (a) the use of the second-person narrative (thus involving the reader more than the standard first-person narrative would), (b) the use of facts (sometimes relevant, sometimes serving as counterpoint, sometimes throwing you off-guard) to pepper the narrative. I'm about to begin Spanbauer's famous The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, and perhaps there might be more to learn there (it's also a novel -- i.e. it's larger in size).

I also finished Amy Hempell's first collection of short stories titled Reasons to Live. Palahniuk acknowleges another debt to her (he was introduced to her work in Spanbauer's workshop), and especially references The Harvest, which appears in a later collection titled At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom. As soon as you start reading, you can see the direct influence on Palahniuk's minimalist style. The stories are also just as deracinated (while Spanbauer, on the other hand, draws heavily upon Idaho geography and his own life for effect). The theme spanning this collection is the need to improvise "reasons to live" with wit and irony from the morass of unrelenting lack of promise all around us. And yet, as you go on reading, these improvisations are understated. Right from the opening lines of the first story In the Tub (My heart - I thought it stopped. So I got in my car and headed for God), a mix of a quirky sensibility, a minimalist style (the debt to Gordon Lish appears in the dedication), poignance, wit, and the sense of a "slice of life" awaits the reader. These are not O Henry-esque stories with a linear narrative and a twist at the end; these are not narratives that exploit the limitations(?) of the short story to their advantage. These stories, with their pervasive mix of loss and humour, are quite Carver-esque (from what little Carver I've managed to read). Rather than extolling each story, I'll just offer this as a recommendation. And hope for another point of view.

the lost embers of Sholay

Managed to catch the "director's cut" of Sholay two weeks ago. Why wait so long to post? Don't ask. The connection between mind and body seems to be going through a strange state of dissociation and limbo.

Nothing was planned. Happened to end up at a friend's place after a day of arduous physical activity involving over-filled boxes, couches, mattresses, ascent and descent on flights of stairs and a generally rich avenue to target the adrenaline. All the signals the body sent out by now were to just flop onto a couch and let the pleasant sensation of exhaustion kick in. But, lo and behold! There atop the video cassette player lies a tape of Sholay. Asking my friend for more information didn't get me anywhere (who goes about with finely granular information about the different versions of a Hindi movie anyway?). So while everyone was attending to cleaning up, I flopped on the couch and popped the tape in. I hit the FWD button immediately, since the differentiator would be the climax. And my efforts were rewarded in full: this was the "director's cut". Of course, the original grouse was that Eros had been a skunk about producing DVDs of either version [more details]. The other minor grouse was that this tape came from an Indian store that didn't know or care (are there any that care?) about aspect ratios, so this filmed in 4:3 screened in matted 2.35:1 movie was stretched, cut and randomly tweaked to "fit your screen". [Insert suitably vile invectives here]. But I digress. The delight is in the details.

Everyone knows the ending in the released print: the police arrive (too late, as always) in time to stop Thaakur saahab from killing gabbar; then we have jay's funeral, viiruu leaving on the train (along with basa.ntii who decides to tag along). In the original ending there ain't no cops. Thaakur uses his specially designed shoes (another deleted scene appears on this edition to support the shoes -- raamalaal punches another spiked stud into the special shoes as Thaakur watches on) to stomp gabbar's hands (with the ye haath mujhe de de gabbar), and then manages to kick him onto a metal spike sticking out of one of the sides of the place where gabbar had tied Thaakur and appropriated his haath. While gabbar's death itself is nicely done, it's rather hilarious to see the Thaakur/gabbar fight sequence (especially the physics-defying leaps that Thaakur indulges in -- since he has no hands). It's like you were watching Crouching Thaakur hidden gabbar.

The other additions include more detail in the ahamad (Sachin) meets gabbar sequence. There's more explicit menace (and a larger hint at what brutality was in store for ahamad). Frankly, though, I prefer the more understated version in the original release, where all you see gabbar do is swat a fly and then you cut to the donkey returning to the village bearing ahamad's corpse. When Roger Ebert reviewed the release of the original longer Cinema Paradiso, he welcomed the longer original simply because it represented the director's vision, but also noted that he preferred the shorter version (one of the few instances where the Weinstein butchery seemed to pay off as a better viewing experience). I feel compelled to paraphrase that sentiment about the ahamad scene.

A big big boo was that the print seemed like it had been subjected to the brilliance of a billion suns. Everything went so bright it felt like a TV soap opera.

losing the nostalgia for Sholay: After watching the film yet again, I can see my global appreciation for the film break down into appreciation for the specifics. From noting the influences (both acknowledged and unacknowledged), to noting the innovative space that the film defined and noting some of the understated performances I have come to the point where a bulk of the film just grates -- the viiruu/basa.nti romantic stuff is overdone (a trend in Bollywood that still refuses to go away); Hema Malini grates; Dharmendra hams gloriously; some of the timing of Amitabh's retorts seems off, there's a lot of perfunctory "essential" sequences that don't seem to add much to the movie (the jail sequence, even suuramaa bhopaalii), except perhaps to establish the characters enough from a mainstream POV; and there's a LOT (and I mean that, a LOT) of exposition. All these won't be grouses that a mainstream audience looking for a "complete" entertainer will have. And perhaps that's where Sholay fits best -- a film in the mainstream mould that attempted something different while complying with the conventions of mainsteam "entertainment". And for defining the "curry" western. Do I still like it? Time to toss that coin.

elsewhere: a more detailed list of the differences | more Sholay trivia

Short notes thanks to a chat-o-rama with JR: Yes, I noticed saambaa's second line of dialogue (exists in both versions)

kronos and RD: again

The wonderfully dark, moody, harsh, aggressive and aurally violent Black Angels was my introduction to the Kronos Quartet. But it was their 2000 release Caravan that cemented my attention to their work.

Two reasons.

One, being a trivia-monger, I was fascinated to find out the trail of history accompanying Misirlou, which underscored the inventive madness of QT's Pulp Fiction. The Dick Dale track (and there's another trail I followed, surf music) was in fact a version of a traditional Greek song that had been published in sheet music form by Nicholas Roubanis.

The second, and more important reason, was that they chose to cover an R D Burman track: aaj kii raat from Caravan (yes, the nominal coincidence). The arrangement was interesting, and there was a dollop in the form of Ustad Zakir Hussain performing the tabalaa on the track.

And now, on August 23, 2005, the Quartet's latest brush with R D Burman will hit the stands. This time it's a full-album effort titled You've Stolen My Heart: Songs from R D Burman's Bollywood and has Asha Bhosle guesting on 8 of the 12 tracks. Ustad Zakir Hussain returns on the tabalaa. I've been following the news of this release for a while now, and even managed to check out the samples. Despite the grouse about Asha singing at this age (even though she is probably the most ideal candidate for a collaboration like this), they sound interesting (especially dam maaro dam). You can get a few chuckles out of some of the track titles too.

May I also point you to Peter Culshaw's favourable take on the album (like I was going to show you bad reviews!). There's a nice note of comparison between A R Rahman (widely regarded as RDB's successor -- I'm not so sure, but that's my mileage) and RDB: Rahman is really the Indian Lloyd Webber; with a melodic talent, certainly, but lacking Burman's wit and panache. Culshaw hits a minor gaffe though when he notes Bhosle was even responsible for introducing rock'n'roll [sic] to India, with her hit 'Ek Do Teen'. Um, if you're talking about the Tezaab song, that was Alka Yagnik. If you're talking about the Awara song, that was Shamshad Begum. As for "introducing" rock n' roll to India, fuggedaboutit.

Sigh! Pancham if only you were alive to collaborate in person instead of opera.

the visage of vapidity [march 19/20, 2005] {saturday, august 06, 2005: in the interest of denying the coincidence counter any laurels, I must remedy the oversight of not having tipped my hat to Zero's post about Shukla's upcoming third Aye Dil. I refer you to that post for more information on the same}
After floundering on his directorial venture Mudda, Saurabh Shukla returns with Chehra, a psychological drama that unfortunately notches up another case of "heart in the right place; implementation all awry" for Shukla. Which is really sad, because here's a wonderfully talented writer and actor, who makes it painfully obvious that he needs some crutches on the directing front. I still hold the flags of hope up, if only because his heart is so in the right place.

This is the story of meghaa joshii, a medical student whose mind is suffering from a serious case of internalized trauma. Trauma from a family history that involved an abusive father and a submissive mother who eventually tips over the brink. All this happens while we, as mainstream audiences, are treated to the obligatory love affair that blooms between meghaa and aakash. Thanks to some rather erratic behaviour and unfortunate coincidences, we now have meghaa reduced to a neurotic mess, married to cha.ndrakaa.nt diwaan, a rich dude in Dubai, who seems to be trying to get her bumped off.

If that seems like a lot to pack into one film, think again. It isn't. Yet Shukla seems bent on trying to please the peanut-chewing shell-popping benchwarmers in the cinema halls so he elicits the service of Anu Malik (chiefly, with a stray song here and there by other familiars) to provide for the mandatory interludes of naach and gaanaa. You have the song to introduce the heroine -- a raucous romp (also available in a Nikhil Chinappa-engineered remix) called chillaa ke featuring lassies dressed[sic] up Ms Spears and cavorting about. You know, the devil-may-care I'm-cool-and-hot song. There's vintage Anu Malik (vintage == see also zubaa.N Kaamosh hotii hai) in the just-afer-he-proposes-and-she-accepts kabhii Kaamosh baiThogii. There's the wife-seducing-husband-to-cheer-him-up combined with the wiggle-and-jiggle-by-the-pool with a dash of the cavorting-in-the-rain with wanna chill (yikes!). There's the club-song-intercut-with-people-finding-crucial-evidence-or-preparing-for-something-important number called tabaahii tabaahii featuring club crooning specialist Alisha Chinoy (all together now, tabaahii tabaahii). Tired rhythms (recycled low-sodium Kaadhalan) and a strange feeling that Alisha's trying to sound like Baba Sehgal at many points. And there's this dude doing the obligatory sound-like-Pancham bit. This one features some interesting subtitles too: when the myrtle spreads its fragrance the kilt shall begin to slide and the silky dance of my skirt .... Excuse me while I kiss the sky, people.

On the acting front, Saurabh Shukla lands an ace with Irrfan Khan to play the creepy diwaan. And buddy Rajat Kapoor pops in a cameo as the Professor of Psychiatry. Govind Namdeo and Navni Parihar score as meghaa's parents. It's the rest of this yucky roster that produces a stench that will rival any skunk's contribution to the atmosphere. We have the ineffectual Rajshri video girl Preeti Jhangiani as riinaa, aakaash's wife beginning the chorus of false notes. We have termite-laced Teak wood Dino Morea whose only merit on screen for his movies is his sincerity while running during chase sequences. That's it: most dedicated on-screen runner. And then we come to the cherry of goat droppings, Ms Bipasha Basu. I don't know if Shukla had a very risky experiment in acting planned, but I can only see broken pieces of test tubes and a lot of smoke emanating from the laboratory. Basu ain't got squat in terms of talent. This cock-eyed cockatoon is one among several lacklustre balls of soggy carpet lint that are polluting the moviescape of cinema. Perhaps Shukla was hoping to exploit some of the "hit" value of this DOA on-screen pair (and off-screen tabloid raw material) after that other rip-off Raaz exposed what lay beneath to us all (and fooled so many people into coughing up dear money to fill the coffers of Bhatt and Co.). Honestly, given the complex character that meghaa is, it's shocking to see Shukla choose someone like Ms Basu. The damage is overpowering. Nothing can save the film after a point, not even hope.

Yet, there are little nuggets that blew some wind in my sails. There's a nice cut from the flashback to the hospital where aakaash meets meghaa's mother (let's disregard that troublesome exposition bridging the cut, shall we?). There's this montage sequence in Dubai which includes a shot of a billboard with a tagline that reads "shoot what you love" (that alone is worth the price of attention). There's some merit in the use of slow motion for meghaa's fatal fall. This cuts to a montage of footage we have seen, except it's in reverse. And there's also a very believable chase sequence in the middle of the film (this is a bonus for those who haven't nodded off or blown up their surroundings in agony).

Background music, however, must never (attempt to) overpower the happenings in the foreground. Bad move, bad bad bad. And the denouement doesn't quite gell well.

On a trivial note: aakaash studied at Rebecca Harrison (where's this?) in Pune in 1999. At one point in the film, riinaa's searching for information on diwaan (gaffe: she searches for "chandernath") and there's an Internet Explorer window with a familiar URL in the address field: http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=ie&cicid=0x0498pver=6.0&ar=home (on browsers in their default configuration, that takes you to the MSN page). Geek!

The film ends with the words "some love stories end like this" and there's closure with meghaa's voiceover coming back kaash zi.ndagii ek kitaab hotii; kaash panne palaTakar mai.n ise dobaaraa shuruu kar paatii ... kaash. Yes, kaash. If only ... Perhaps Shukla will strike gold the third time around. All hopes high. And please, stay away from stars and laminated pieces of driftwood.

musical oblations from movies with monepic monikers

Chocolate: This film {more details} has me moderately interested (despite the presence of Suniel Shetty). A burning question is: how many Chocolates are there? There's this telefilm shot in Switzerland and Germany with a plot that stinks of Paanch-ness. And is this the same Vivek Agnihotri? And the vibes of The Usual Suspects (whose evisceration had already begun with Kaante) are undeniable. On with the soundtrack delivered by Pritam (who also did Raghu Romeo and hit the big time with Dhoom). All the songs are laced with decent melodies and rich arrangements. They make for good background material. But there's a lot of fun to be had listening to the lyrics. We open with halakaa halakaa which opens with a nice sample of a needle scratching on a gramophone record. What's hilarious on this track is not Sonu Nigam, but the rap talk peppered throughout (the usual "yeah" along with phrases like "check this out" and such) along with a chorus crooning away. Enjoyable. The remix reuses a lot of the samples on Pritam's big hit dhuum machaa le. K K hits the highs with aplomb on a dance hall-friendly zahariilii raate.n. Familiar beat, familiar samples, familiar everything (Krishna's version of rabbaa on Musafir comes to mind). Remember Jal-man Atif Aslam? (how about vo lamhe.n?). Take the DJ mix of the song that featured on the Zeher and add ab to aadat sii hai. Shame, Pritam, Shame!! Liked the use of an electronically processed voice ever so slightly near the ends of the lines in the a.ntaraa. Sunidhi Chauhan and Kailash Kher make jhukii jhukii a joy to listen to. The Roxette-ish opening, the indecipherable chorus fragments. And yet again, someone is reminded of an NFAK song. I need to check all this up. Kunal Ganjawala does well on panaaho.n me.n which opens hinging on a short guitar riff before the beats and good old rap ("yeah", "that's right") kick in. There's more chorus too (and this time it's a chorus/rap jugalaba.ndii). bhiigaa bhiigaa starts off with some more ooh-baby male jabber from Indi (not unfamiliar to us here in the US who watch TV and are pelted with hip-hop/soul videos dedicated to condescendingly lauding different aspects of the female form -- one in particular, and sometimes the other two). Sunidhi does a good job, but it's time someone gave her something more meaningful to sing. Why does a great voice like this have to just do songs like this? Kunal Ganjawala returns with Suzanne D'Mello (who?) return with Kalish sii hai. There's the nice Dire Straits/Floyd-ian opening guitar; some sobbing; and then the vocal kicks in. Predictable rise and fall on the melody reusing most of the conventions of radio-friendly rock. The song ends with a sample of chirping birds (leftover vibes from The Wall?).

The theme of the movie begins with a female voice that intones words (rescue me; somebody save me from this pain and sorrow; save me [??]) and with her ebb, the chorus kicks in, she returns with a rescue me, the chorus oh-s in, she fades out, and the chorus goes Chocolate. The beats and samples kick in. Yeah. Nice for the titles. But I don't see much sequitur in a plea for help and Chocolate (yeah yeah I know it's slang for illegal maal). More words exchanged in tandem with a guitar riff. Pounding away. Later on in the song, a male voice interjects with laughter. And then he begins to speak (in purely exaggerated fashion): maybe you misunderstood / it's all bad, there is no good; your eyes reflect death; your heart is cold with sweat; your body trembles with hate; your chocolate decides people's fate. Poetic. More pounding riff-and-rhythm. And who can deny the chorus from going Chalk-chalk-chalk-chalk-chocolate near the end.

All this brings me to the most howlarious (lyrically) number on the album. This one might go right up there with mai.n yaar pa.njaabii jaT. The saddest thing is that both have Sunidhi Chauhan warbling nonsense. Could someone please rescue her before I start liking her singing for different reasons (B-potential instead of sheer talent)? *Wipes a tear* So the song's kinda trying to capture the idea of this girl who's havin' a good time 'round town, but her momma kinda doesn't like know about it. So after all the screaming, sampling and pa.njaabii-tinged choral exultation, SC begins: kahate hai.n sabhii ki ba.Dii ##hot huu.N mai.n; ##tell you what tequila## kaa ik ##shot## huu.N mai.n; magar Kayaal ye rahe zaraa; ##mummy## ko nahii.n hai pataa; ##mummy## ko nahii.n hai pataa; ##so mummy## se naa kahanaa. Time for convulsions.

---

James: Another forthcoming flick from RGV's factory. This one's apparently a complete masala flick. The soundtrack features songs that are heavy with the dance beat and samples. Another multi-composer effort this, and it also marks Nitin Raikwar's growth in the camp on the composing front. Shweta Pandit presents another of Raikwar's stabs at the muse called zi.ndagii. This one's called zi.ndagii jiine kaa naam. A nice dose of energy (and I kinda relished the false "end" before the final string run). If you're a melody freak you won't much here to be excited about. If you like arrangements, this is at least listenable. Sunidhi Chauhan steps up with Hero intoning the title at several points in this lyrically bland effort. D-man Prasanna Shekhar is responsible for the music this time. The strangest part about this song is how much the muKa.Daa is reminiscent of the melody of the a.ntaraa of RDB's ye din to aataa hai from Mahaan (and the off-beat percussion is an almost direct lift). Loved the calm broken by that synthesizer riff. Aside from that, just hearing James occasionally is a bit corny. The next track I caught off this soundtrack was the Nigam/Ghoshal duet mai.n gussaa huu.N. The arrangements appealed to me, but I'm not going to the rooftops yet. Nigam returns with Shweta Pandit for the Bapi-Tutul tuned si.nduurii aasamaan.

addendum [august 06, 2005]: How many times have they warned you against doing your own research and wasting the efforts that others have taken? Bad boy! Karthik @ I2FS [now ItwoFS] has done some background digging into the nefarious efforts of Sir Pritam on this soundtrack. The results are in his July 31, 2005 entry [no direct link, and the information might soon move to the Others page -- unless dear Pritam does enough to qualify for a page of his own like Anu Malik]. In addition to all the lifts I noted above, even bhiigaa bhiigaa saa is a straight (read melody and lyrics) lift from an Abrar Ul Haq (see: the much better state of affairs for the Pakistani pop scene while India produces goat goo) song called December [bhiigaa bhiigaa saa ye ##december## hai ...]. Wasn't Abrar the guy responsible for bilo de ghar which became the Sen concoction kammo! (trivia alert: voiced by Lalit Sen) in Ziddi?? Aw gawd! To quote Harlan Ellison from The place with no name, it's time to go screaming "like the Doppler effect of a train whistle as it fades past a fixed point".

bits and pieces

Oh yeah baby! Saajan man Sudhakar Bokade is back. The film's called Kabhi Kabhi - You Never Know [followers of the tagline phenomenon might find more fodder here]. After Sambandh slumped into limbo, and a fallout with Dilip Kumar on Kalingaa led to a failed attempt to snuff it all out ingestion of sleeping pills, Bokade fights back with a Yash Chopra assistant named Aviraj {Q: Describe Yasji[sic] in a sentence. A: Yashji is no less than a film institute and it is my privilege working with him. People should be smacked for cheating with compound sentences} as director. Wonder what happened to the film with Lawrence D'Souza that bore the numerologically enhanced moniker of Mooney Mooney Mooney. Let us all relish the irony: after producing the highly successful (why God why?) Saajan, Bokade slapped together most of the same backing team (except the on-screen monkeys) and made Sapne Sajan Ke, which tanked. Perhaps he should have changed the title ... after all, someone was bound to notice that, right?

The BBC Asian Network is running a quiz [link likely to expire after August 12, 2005]. The prizes: mouse mats signed by John Abraham. Better/worse than the prize last time ("a Bollywood CD")?? Sorry, gotta take an extended howling break on this one.

Meanwhile, top-quality Indian entertainment on television rears its shapely head.

syndicate sadists [june 26, 2005]


Do you see that poster to the left? Well, the caricaturing aside, that scene doesn't quite feature in the movie (the setup does, but the dramatis personae are a bit flipped). Regardless, it's interesting, don't ya think?

The initial prospects are not too bright. I forget why I got this DVD, and then A's note reminds me. This dubbed Italian action flick features a rather interesting acting credit -- Joseph Cotten, as the villain of the piece. Then, the damn disc has no subtitle track (the options exist to turn it on, but all you get is probably a NullPointerException somewhere in the embedded software). There's also the director's commentary track. In Italian! Oh yeah. Awesome. Oh well, onward ho.

The previews included a hidden trailer (full-screen) for this flick, a preview for another Lenzi film (more below), and a few other shockers like All the colors of the dark, Duck! The Carbine High Massacre, Lizard in a Woman's Skin (directed by Lucio Fulci, another director I need to get a refresher on), Hiruko.

Lenzi is a name to reckon with in the sub-genre of Italian trash movies. I'm not sure if I could call him the Russ Meyer of Italian trash-o-ramas, but I don't think that moniker would be too overstated. Starting off as a lawyer, Lenzi graduated to a film career starting with film reviewing, then screenwriting and finally directing. His output is varied, and some trailers on the DVD indicate just how nasty some of his films can get.

The sole preview for a Lenzi movie on the disc was for one of his more famous works, The Man From Deep River. This movie is notorious for its claim to being referred to often as the first "cannibal horror film". If the preview is any indication, this adaptation of A Man Called Horse offers some interesting viewing -- there's a lot of nudity, rape, violence and the destruction and consumption of human flesh. Dinner and a movie anyone?

Which brings to our flick du jour. Syndicate Sadists has something common with the cannibal film we just talked about. It has some interesting cross-genre background (with especially juicy [no pun intended] details for trivia-mongers). Here's what happened. On a trip to the US of A, Tomas Milian picked up a book called First Blood (yep, the David Morrell classic). He liked the name of the character ... "Rambo" ... and when he returned to Italy, he asked screenwriter Vincenzo Mannino to write a story that echoed, in a crime form, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. The title of the film was originally Rambo vs. the City. The distributors, however, thought that the word "Rambo" (which had no meaning in Italian) would hurt the chances of the film, so it ended up getting its eventual title. About four years later, these same distributors bought the rights to the adaptation of Morrell's novel starring Sylvester Stallone and made so much money off it that they apparently nursed some regret that Rambo vs. the City might have not been such a bad title after all.

The Leone parallels (or the Kurosawa parallels, if you want to be exact about the source; and don't even bother bringing up Hammett) are obvious as you watch the film. An outsider (pity he has a name, but then, so did "Joe" in Leone's film) arrives to play rival gangs against each other (the only difference would be motivation).

The film itself is fun to watch. The background score is nicely funky and the theme packs in a lot of brass, synthesizer fragments and phased guitar. There's also an evident sense of style -- in the stances, in the framing (take that simple shot in the opening of Rambo's motorcycle zooming down the road complemented by the large buildings and the train zooming by in the opposite direction), and in the dialogue:

---

rambo: i wanna talk to your boss
guard: oh yeah? whaddya wanna talk about? haircuts?
rambo: a business deal
guard: what kinda deal?
rambo (taking off sunglasses): non'a your business

---

Then there's the sequence that provides the only match (half-hearted, if at all) for the cover graphic: Rambo cuffs Conti (bare waist-up); gets him and the girl he's with to go to the toilet; cuffs her hand with the chain passing through the base of the toilet flush; he then unzips his fly, takes a leak, pronounces them man and wife, tosses the key into the bowl, and leaves.

Scalia's murder (getting waylaid by a pair of goons one of whom picks a rock and smashes his head) is nicely done conveying an adequate amount of unease.

Cotten seems to relish his part (being one of the few English-speaking parts (or the only one?) while the others provide dubbing-lip-synch-hell entertainment. Cotten imbues his character Paternò with gravitas and deliberation (and there's an interesting plot twist that adds another interesting dimension as well). I still don't know enough about Cotten's background to figure out what he was doing here in Italy at this point.

The repeated zoom-ins get a bit painful

I wonder if this film was meant to be a comedy as well. There are lines that inundate the narrative that provide either conscious or unconscious jolts of laughter. There's "...while you were away he kinda grew large gonads ..." and "never let anyone think they are anything but themselves." Then there's the great "hole" speech, which puts this film up there with the Bollywood B-flicks (and also provides fodder for adaptation): "Listen Conti: life is just one hole; you start from a hole, you feed yourself through a hole, you shit from a hole, you finish up in a hole. And the one in this barrel will put you into that last hole."

Also liked the last shot which begins with Rambo riding his motorcycle down the expressway. The camera racks back to set that background out of focus while the window's wire grid lines come to the fore clearer and clearer.

yet another massive haul [here's how it all started ... again]


* movies/cult: Joe Bob goes to the drive-in is the first of a few entertaining books by drive-in pulp afficionado Joe Bob Briggs (yegads! he was in Face/Off !!). I've relished Profoundly Disturbing: The Shocking Movies that changed history, and so this book should be an entertaining read

* Mamet: This time it's A collection of dramatic sketches and monologues

* Harlan Ellison: It's the famous Mefisto in Onyx and Approaching oblivion : road signs on the treadmill toward tomorrow : eleven uncollected stories

* Potty Pulp: The selection for the week is Michael Crichton's The terminal man

* I-should-be-reading-this-except-I-never-knew-about-it: Men of tomorrow : geeks, gangsters and the birth of the comic book [thanks Hirak]

* Pet grouses: Public Transportation in the US: The city in mind : meditations on the urban condition, another book from James Howard Kunstler (the author of the splendidly titled The Geography of Nowhere) featuring a chapter dedicated to my sprawlopolis Atlanta

* Language: The power of Babel : a natural history of language by John McWhorter (featuring an example in Hindi involving a person called Apu that provides yet another variation in placing parts of speech)

* Good old Philip K Dick: Galactic pot-healer

* old nuggets: The Ipcress File by Len Deighton: having already enjoyed the droll film, it seemed a shame that the first edition in the unnamed-government-spy series was not part of my personal cache of Deightons-from-the-raddii-kii-dukaan

%-) [july 28/29, 2005]

If there's one thing memorable about a David Mamet film, it's the dialogue. And he chooses his performers admirably (although his wife Rebecca Pidgeon occasionally makes for a sore thumb). And you get the pleasure of seeing regulars like Joe Mantegna, William H Macy and Ricky Jay peg roles of varying size gloriously -- it's almost like the way people figure in RGV productions (it's not about how big a star or actor you are; it's all about how much you fit the part and make it your own). What Val Kilmer does in Spartan deserves plaudits solely for this. Kilmer's had a strange ouevre -- it makes it difficult to slot him (shouldn't that be a welcome characteristic, though? Has mainstream cinema dulled me enough that I feel uncomfortable when I can't succinctly file an actor away in a slot on the genre shelf? but I digress ...). Kilmer imbues his "man who follows order" character with a sense of calm and confidence that is understated and yet noticeably ruffled (down-played again) when things aren't what they appear to be.

The film begins with no credits except the title, and yet, it showcases Mamet's abilities from the first words spoken. Most movies in this genre (a political thriller laced with intrigue and deception) rely on hi-falutin action, flashy chases, whiz-bang dialogue and a lot of exposition (which only dumbs down every character on screen to a predictable piece of putty). Mamet refuses to do that. Not once in the film are we told explicitly that the President's daughter has been kidnapped. Our intelligence is not insulted for a bit. Mamet presents all the characters doing their jobs, knowing each other, without any need for a formal introduction for "everyone who's here with a big bag of popcorn eager to have a good time". You can expect the twists, and, perhaps it's the film's only failing that they aren't earth-shattering (but then, since the tone of the film has been an understated one, why should the puzzle not unfold in a similar fashion?). The shocks/surprises that work best are the deaths -- they are quick, realistic, and don't linger on the screen too long (and hence the impact is heightened by the after-shock).

The first few scenes can throw you off with the wonderful combination of words and cadences. Mamet's work with dialogue is like the output of a fruitful collaboration between lyricist and music director in a Hindi film song: Each brings something to the table, and stringing the words with a tune and embellishing them with arrangements gives them a new character that neither party could provide by itself.

It's nice to watch a film that doesn't treat you like an idiot. Mark Isham's score passes muster, managing an interesting motif but nothing else as interesting throughout the film. There are some nice frames too: the introduction of the location that Kilmer walks Laura's ex-boyfriend to so that he can tell him more; the use of mirrors at the Black Light. There's the "cock-eyed like Picasso emoticon". There's the title itself [more about the reference in the film and the meanings we may imply may be found in another review]. Then there's a nugget of completion: Val Kilmer notes in the city, always a reflection; in the woods, always a sound; when Derek Luke asks him what about the desert?, Kilmer responds You don't want to go to the desert. Later on in the film, we find out why. Also noted: a poster of Soldier outside the Black Light, and a clip of Killer Bait [recently seen] playing at the beach house. The name of the book that Professor Gerald Sloane (IMDB lists this as "Sloan"; I wonder if I read that wrong) wrote is Le Roman Noir. The name of his boat is The Colophon. And the end credits note a copyright for 2003, even though everything on IMDB screams 2004. The DVD has commentary by Val Kilmer, but it didn't seem particularly interesting. If you want to take a stab at reading the screenplay, take your browser here.

Other Mamet movies: Homicide, Heist, The Spanish Prisoner. Also recommended (for his writing): Glengarry Glen Ross, Wag the Dog, The Edge, The Verdict (an old Star Movies cookie), The Untouchables

Sarkar

[SPOILER ALERT] [july 23, 2005]


JR's eloquent take on Sarkar makes it easier for me to jot down my thoughts.

* Necessary disclaimer: If the nicely done opening sequence has anyone else going "oy! he's copying The Godfather", do yourself and that person a favour by offering them a piece of your mind ("Where were you during the opening acknowledgement?") and a tight whack to destroy all their dental work

* If any doubts linger about Kay Kay Menon as an actor, this film should put them to rest. Regardless of the Big B's presence (RGV making wonderful understated use of Amitabh Bachchan the icon and star, and thus offering the Big B what is easily his best most understated performance -- perhaps closer to his Saudagar days), despite the competent effort from Little B, despite the short yet perfectly-fitting-the-jigsaw puzzle turns from Supriya Pathak (welcome back, ma'am) and Rukhsar (seen earlier in D), despite the show-stealing performance from Telugu film-familiar Kota Srinivasa Rao as selvaramaNii (kudos to the subtitlers -- the spellings suggest that this was done in India -- who decided to use "Silver Mani" towards the latter portion of the film, thus giving us subtitle-mongers some cheap laughs), despite the great turn from Jeeva (soon becoming an RGV staple) as pa.nDitajii (kutte! is now legend), it's KKM as Vishnu, the wayward hot-headed elder son who walks away with the acting honours.

* KKM's Vishnu is admittedly a composite of Sonny and Fredo Corleone (the former is obvious; the latter is obvious (from a key plot point) to all who have seen both this film and the second entry in the Godfather trilogy)

* Those worried about Anupam Kher's ephemerally ephemeral turn must remember Paresh Rawal as Amod Shukla in Satya

* The Bal Thackeray angle holds very little water (although the echoes of real life in art are reminiscent of similar echoes in both Company and D)

* Virendra Saxena does the Indian Bonasera and gets more to say than for his appearance in insert suitable title here (was it Satya or WBH2P2? I typed this out, and now all I have is this isolated fragment in memory ... some water tankers, Virendra as the head goon, some subtle maaraa-maarii, all in a long shot ... someone help!)

* The departures RGV makes from his inspiration are laudable. He leaves you with a sense of knowing (kinda, really) what will happen next, and yet manages to keep alive that expectation, which keeps your interest as the film goes by

* I share the Agneepath déjà vu with JR, although here the villains are less broad-stroked than in Mukul S Anand's towering epic

* Loved the scene where Sarkar meets Rashid (Zakir Hussain) for the first time. Rashid sips tea out of his cup, almost bursting with the calm confidence that this is a no-brainer, while Sarkar sips his tea out of the saucer (thus also reflecting his closeness to the underdog and his people). That gentle counterpoint cannot be a coincidence, can it?

* And speaking of epic, it's now time to come to the most disturbing element in the film. I didn't mind the earthy (note: can't call it sepia -- that's the patent-pending devil-child of Sanjay Gupta) tone of the film. I didn't mind the gentle dream-like approach in the flow of the film. The choice of having a background score on for most of the film seemed to fit in with what seems like a desire to be more operatic than subtle and harsh (call it "quiet spectacle"; perhaps because of RGV's love for the material and his admiration of the Big B). However, what is often troublesome is the volume of the background score. Despite the presence of a key motif, the score threatens to trounce the dialogue and the proceedings (and even manages to do so a couple of times -- a worst-case estimate). Perhaps JR has a point in hoping that Amar Mohile gets a break.

All things considered, this is a strong entry in the Godfather-influenced canon, and for my money's worth, I'd put it up there with movies like Nayagan [if only for artistic ambition, not for plot points and nit-picking] (aah, to see once-collaborators achieve similar goals at different points in their career) than with tripe like Dharmaatma or Zulm ki Hukumat (let's not even think about Aatank hi Aatank, shall we?). And yes, hats off to RGV and the Factory for the uncanny knack of either snagging great people for memorable roles of varying lengths or for imbuing pieces of wood with some acting smarts (if only for the duration of the flick).

a massive haul of material worthy of a month off (being a visit to the public library)

Nothing unusual. Just the weekly visit. Favoured branches have changed based on commute times and destinations. But what hasn't changed is the potential that one day (like today), I'd look like I was walking out of a grocery store of books and movies. Here's what I have now: on the movies front, we have Bowfinger (some preliminary thoughts noted elsewhere) and a David Mamet nugget called Spartan. As for the books, we have for ourselves what you would refer to as an overdose:

* Being a Chuck Palahniuk fan, I've begun to trace his influences. A key influence has been another minimalist writer Tom Spanbauer. So I've already begun his début novel Faraway Places and now I also have his most famous work The Man who fell in love with the Moon.

* Another influence that Palahniuk cites a lot (an influence that was also a prominent feature in Spanbauer's writing workshop that Palahniuk attended) is Amy Hempel. The directly referenced story The Harvest is available online, but also part of At the gates of the animal kingdom, which I snagged today. I also picked up Reasons to Live.

* I picked up Salman Rushdie's Fury on a whim. It was either this or the fatter The Ground beneath her Feet. Besides this one seemed like an angrier book ;)

* Make-believe town: essays and remembrances marks another edition in my David Mamet reading

* And then there's Neil Gaiman's American gods : a novel (after a wonderful introduction to Sandman from Sudarshan, I couldn't resist gobbling this up)

* And from a trivia-mongering perspective, there's Fountain Society, the only novel (AFAIR) that horror-meister Wes Craven ever wrote ...

* Continuing my Harlan Ellison trip, I picked up Deathbird stories

* And for no particular reason (perhaps to read "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman again?) I picked up Masterpieces: the best science fiction of the century edited by Orson Scott card.

meet the avenger: zakhmo ka hisaab

[june 18/19/23, 2005]

Meet aadarsh kumaar (Vikram Gokhale in an ill-fated role in flashback). An honest man of values, ideals and principles (VIP). A widower, who marries na.ndinii (Aruna Irani chomping away at the scenery in dolby). Alas, she turns out to be a whining, avaricious, selfish, ... you get the idea. Of course, AK must die. And the man bumping him off for reasons that don't seem terribly important is dhaneshwar "dhanii" seth (Kiran Kumar sleepwalking through a by-the-numbers part with porcine gusto). This sets the stage for AK's son suuraj (Govinda) to grow up, entertain people, fall in love, and exact revenge. His love interest comes in the form of bi.ndiyaa (Farha trying to get her name in the growing list of hams), a street-wise, smart-talking con and pickpocket (Yes, the good old Bollywood rule of falling in love with the person who picked your pocket). Meanwhile, one of several unexplained plot turns comes about -- suuraj is now a surrogate member of a family of four (excluding him, of course): kailaash naath, a school teacher (yep, Alok Nath, providing the standard dash of grief-tinged happiness), his wife (Seema Deo), and daughter puujaa (Vaishali Dandekar). The fourth member is the son and bread-earner amar. Amar serves as a strong presence in the film for a while, before finally appearing on screen, breathing his last. Here's why. KK indulges in some nasty drug smuggling as well, and manages to sneak in some powder as part of amar's baggage when amar is on his way back home for a visit. In a combination of ill-fated events that happen off-screen, amar is wounded and comes home to breathe his last (why he wouldn't go to a hospital is a question you shouldn't really ask). There's a strange sequence later on where amar's employer (a sheikh, clearly) arrives at the house to hand them a large sum of money (amar's earnings and savings). This is where things get even more interesting. With the coincidence meter running high, there is just one family that is involved in all the crime that our favourite family has to deal with: the dhaneshwar family. When suuraj takes the money to the bank to make a deposit, dhaneshwar's son (Mahavir Shah, who's done this a million times before) and his goons stage a robbery and despite his efforts, suuraj is unable to prevent his kitty from being part of the loot. Now, he can't tell the family for fear of sorrow and heart failure. So he launches his own inefficient private investigation (assisted by filmic luck) to find the culprits. The quest is on a timeline, because in a critical moment, a certain large sum of money is required as dowry for his sister's marriage. Somewhere along the way, in all the hardship, thanks to a couple of obligatory songs, bi.ndiyaa ends pregnant up with their child (no suuraj is not God; this is not a case of immaculate conception; just some bad editing).

It's quite clear that this is a Govinda vehicle. His introductory sequence has him (presumably a stunt actor in a film) appearing to rescue a damsel in distress and then beginning the dhulaaii of the goons while indulging in some voice imitations (in this case Raj Kumar; although later you hear some decent takes on Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, good old Mithun Chakraborty, and Raj Kapoor): cha.nduu aaj terii zi.ndagii ke aaka.De khatam ho gaye lalluu .

Farha gets her share of lines that portend the stuff that Govinda pelted out with more comic abandon in Deewana Mastana: abe o kauwe ke sa.De hu_e a.nDe, are o gariibii kii khaaT ke khaTamalo.n, are o haraamii baap kii laawaaris aulaado.n.

Kader Khan gets to do another serio-comic take as gyaanii, aadarsh's lawyer friend, who later succumbs to drink after aadarsh is bumped off, and becomes a low-quality private eye with Rakesh Bedi playing his sidekick. Consider this exchange of twisted dialogue (all credit to Kader Khan):

KK: jisako maukaa naa mile aur binaa mauke ke mauke me.n se maukaa nikaal le use asalii maukaa bolate hai.n
RB: kaise sir?
KK: haa_e mai.n tere se bahut ##bore## ho gayaa; chal yahaa.N se nikal chalate hai.n

Somewhere in this mix, KK also has a daughter, who loves an inspector (but this angle is rarely explored, except when all loose ends need to be tied up).

KK also gets to indulge in several kaafiyaa-laced conversations with Govinda (yes, these are a common feature in a lot of our Bollywood films). To top it all, he manages to challenge physics by displaying the ability to throw remote punches at people. Of course, Govinda being the hero gets to challenge physics again by issuing kicks that send people flying across several tables. Which is part of this bank robbery thwarting sequence. After the said event, he exchanges a snatch of maraaThii with a bank patron, twirls his hat onto his head, and as a goon escapes, turns to the guard and says "open the curtain". As the goon passes by, he issues a new instruction ("open the door"), fires through the door at the passing car, and then as the crash occurs off-screen, he accepts applause.

Rajesh Roshan manages a collaboration between his mellow simple-with-occasional-bongo compositions and the softer simpler melodies of Bappi Lahiri. So you have the motif of the film (aka the song that exists in happy, hopeful, and despondent versions) in jiine ke liye zi.ndagii ko / duniyaa me.n har aadamii ko / kabhii ha.Nsanaa pa.Dataa hai / kabhii ronaa pa.Dataa hai / kuchh paane ke liye / kuchh khonaa pa.Dataa hai. Then there's the our-hero-with-the-kids song in sar pe Topii aa.Nkh pe chashmaa gale me ##muffler## Daal ke / aayaa huu.N mai.n tumhe ghumaane bachcho.n chalo sa.Nbhaal ke (##hero## chaachaa ##hero## chaachaa) . Then the dress-up-as-performers-to-infiltrate-the-evil-lair number (referred to in the film as "grand variety entertainment") tin tin tinak tin tin daanaa ... ik raaz hai mere siine me.n, a mix of Arabian riffs and pa.njaabii refrains.

As it all draws to a predictable close, we might wonder (should our brains still be intact) about the title. Well, in addition to spouting the menacing-vengeance-laced naa mai.n ko_ii mujarim huu.N aur naa hii ko_ii qaatil; magar aaj mai.n tujhe is baat kaa ahasaas dilaa_uu.Ngaa ki zaKm kise kahate hai.n aur dard kyaa hotaa hai, Govinda enlightens us in the end. With the reward of Rs. 25 lakh (only) for nailing dhaneshwar, suuraj intends to make a movie called ha.Nste ha.Nste lag gaye raste (I wonder if the echo of the Rajesh Roshan song in Khoon Bhari Maang is pure coincidence) with the motto zi.ndagii vahii jo auro.n ke kaam aa_e, zi.ndaa\-dil vahii jo auro.n ko ha.Nsaa paa_e, aur jigarawaalaa vahii jo apane zaKmo.n kaa hisaab chukaa_e.

That made sense.

flicking snatches...

[july 16/17, 2005]

Bowfinger just jumped up a couple of slots on my list of pending movies. On a good day, Steve Martin writes some of the nicest inoffensive humour on film. And this seems like the result of a fairly good week. Eddie Murphy shines as the Ramsey twins. The soundtrack is groovy, and James Brown never fit in the groove better. There are a few false notes when the tone tends to get vicious and the film threatens to turn into the kind it mocks, but you can ignore all that and get a fair share of laughs. Be sure to wait till the end for a belly-splitting preview of Bowfinger's next venture. Lovers of movies, schlock-fests, B-movies and bad dubbed action flicks will not be disappointed.

Watching A Fistful of Dollars yet again made me wish Leone had some more money to indulge in his love for spectacle, and also a good editor to curb his excesses. People unfamiliar with Leone usually approach this movie as an entry in some list of classics. Unfortunately, the attributes that make Leone such a great filmmaker (and consequently make this one a strong entry in his ouevre) are not what most viewers would associate with "classics". Leone's forte lies in his nail-biting patient handling of otherwise innocuous trivial scenes. If the word "western" gets you thinking of slam-bang action, and chases, you might be in for a disappointment. When Leone tackles the western, he turns it on its head, subverting all the expectations of people used to watching the films that (ironically, perhaps) inspired him in the first place. But if you reel out a line of patience, you'll be rewarded. And if you like good lines, the film has one for you: When a man's got money in his pocket he begins to appreciate peace.

Robert Zemeckis had something going with Contact. The film benefits most from the refusal to attempt to explain the goings-on. It's a parable of faith. Aside from Jodie Foster's sincere performance, there's the rich opening sequence to savour. And yes, it would be a waste if this large universe just had a lot of us.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom just doesn't work. It feels so DOA. I'm not too much of a fan of the franchise, really, but the first part's clearly better. And the third one had Sean Connery (and a pre-Dan Brown version of the Holy Grail). Kate Capshaw is absolutely irritating. This one was banned for a while in India thanks to the sub-plots involving kaalii (although the Thuggee lore has a grain of truth) and the presentation of the mahaaraajaa (which also meant that Spielberg and Co.'s desire to shoot in India got nixed). With the way things go as far as India is concerned in the film, I'm inclined to support the ouster. Consider that feast with a gross-out menu (bugs, eyeball soup, monkey brains?). And then consider that after crash-landing in the Himalayas, they end up (thanks to shooting restrictions) in Sri Lanka, which is supposed to pass of as North India. And then the natives blabber in Sinhalese (clearly!), and unsuspecting non-Indians get the impression that this is India. The first Indian element surfaces during the court dance (the language of the song, V tells me, was Dogarii). Roshan Seth adds some clipped sanity to the proceedings. There's a British officer from the 11th Poona Rifles. The mahaaraajaa is a blubbering embarassment. The only person who lends this sub-plot any respectability is Amrish Puri (apparently, he shaved his head for the role, and that was the last he saw of his hair! what a tragedy). A lot of the Hindi lines are familiar to viewers of countless villain-heavy revenge/action sagas, and some of them are downright ridiculous in context (mere saathiyo.n isake uupar tiir chalaao). There's an inscription at one point (meaning: follow in the footsteps of shiva) which looks like devanaagarii gobbledygook. The most hilarious moment comes right before molaa raam (Puri) falls to his death: Ford's Jones screams to him (as verbatim as possible) "tum shiivaa ke (pause) vishwasaghaatii ho"; then some more of that, a splash of "tum ghaatii" and then a chant of "vishwaasaghaatii". Worth preserving for schlock.

yathharth: the truth -- a folk tale on film

[june 21/25, 2005]

This is a simple tale of the vagaries of fate and destiny set in a village called pipa.Diyaa on the banks of the gomatii river. We have budha_ii (Raghubeer Yadav), a chaa.nDaal (cremates the dead), who lives on the outskirts of the village. He's a widower and must care for his daughter bijuriyaa (TV familiar Shraddha Nigam). Thanks to the issues of segregation and exclusion due to caste and profession, they have to rely on death for life -- every dead body means that they'll have food to eat. This manifests in a dance that bijuriyaa breaks into spontaneously and unwittingly every time a death procession approaches. In the mix is a kind truck driver jiite (Milind Gunaji). The film has no trappings or pretensions. There is no art either, but there are, unfortunately, the irksome song breaks (saawan kii pa.Dii re puhaar being the most pleasant of the lot). Aside from that, this is a decent effort at telling the kind of tale that seems to have vanished from the mainstream. If only the filmmakers had employed some more technical smarts ... we'd have had a more engaging tale on our hands. Oh well, we'll have to make do with this (as the final credit goes "and life goes on..."). As a side-note, this is one of the few films with the Hindi-English name (Yathharth - the Beginning) that actually mentions the tagline in its credits ... Strangely, the credit is flipped: The Truth ... YATHHARTH [and then in devanaagarii: dii Truth ... yathaarth].

Personal high: There's an excerpt from a Mithun flick:) The weep-and-wail-fest called Prem Pratigya with Madhuri Dixit as his co-star. There's a funeral procession in the film, and as this plays out on the screen set up for the villagers, bijuriyaa, who is also watching, breaks into her "happy" death dance. Her friend raghuu drags her away, at which point the camera tracks back to the screen for an XCU of Mithun's face as he holds one end of the stretcher.

Curious, curious. The end credits include one for censor script writer (Madhav Asegaonkar). Wonder what he had to do ... If you're interested, the background score and song compositions were done by someone called Muralidhar with lyrics supplied by Jalees-Rashid.

what's the point of owning a mace, if you don't use it? [june 25, 2005]

I've read Ira Levin's play that forms the foundation of Deathtrap, as well as the stage play with the record run. I even remember this Marathi play called Sadist that has similar plot elements (except it lasted only for about 30 to 45 minutes from 8pm onwards on some weekday on Doordarshan). So, I didn't the benefit of relishing the suspense and the twists that Levin seems to be a master of. Great performances from the cast made the viewing useful. And it's nice to spot all the allusions Levin makes to the works that have been inspirational for his work on thrillers (including Schaffer's Sleuth [references noted before]). Shaffer was also behind The Wicker Man. There are also two complete phone numbers mentioned in the film (516-324-3049 and 516-324-5457) [see also: Sneakers].

At one point in the film Caine gets a line that goes "You two thought that i was going to take that mace and do a Vincent Price?". I wonder if that's a reference to another play that inspired Levin, Patrick Hamilton's Angel Street, which had Vincent Price on the cast roster (the play was the source for the classic film Gaslight).

arya: some equations have no solution [june 28, 2005]

The only reason I picked up this tape at the Indian store was the tagline "some equations have no solutions". Now, that takes taglines to a new level (especially since that line appears nowhere in the film's credits!). This is a venture funded and encouraged by the NRI TV Film Club (a venture that aims to "promote Indian and multicultural talent worldwide in the areas of television, film, music and theatre"). I can't wish them the best after having watched this slipshod enterprise.

So what's the film about? That tagline gives away the mathematical vibe of the twist. At the very core is the most interesting angle: an effect of the tragedy of 9/11 -- the loss of identity in several survivors, thanks to the loss of supporting documents. One such person is Arya, a genius who, completely overwhelmed by greed and nefarious purpose, exploits his mathematical smarts to find a way to crash the Indian stock market and get a large bag of cash for himself and his gal. They decide to move to NYC and then 9/11 happens. Arya survives, and then becomes an amnesiac. He has a girlfriend (and their interactions provide us with the necessary clichéd skin display). And then his memories begin to flood back. And eventually, the truth comes out. The problem with the film was the complete lack of quality in the performances, the rather jumpy uneven nature of the film (editing, anyone?), the bad sound, the terribly sickening levels of the background score, and the refusal to exploit the little nugget that I mentioned earlier. Sigh!

As for that super-cool tagline, it doesn't appear anywhere in the movie. The only place you'll see it is on the DVD menu (and presumably on the DVD jacket). Looks like these taglines are now officially a marketing gimmick.

agar tere haath me.n pistaul hai to mere haath me.n ##remote## (being my thoughts on the unfulfilled promise[sic] of vaada)[april 03, 2005]

Years later, this Satish Kaushik-directed love triangle/murder non-mystery starring Teak Wood (Arjun Rampal as Rahul), Sandal Wood (Zayed Khan as Karan) and Red Wood (Amisha "look at my new hairdo that was not required at all" Patel as Pooja) will be remembered

not for its references to Sangam (try Teak Wood singing dost dost naa rahaa)

not for the obligatory Sholay reference (Rahul singing ye dosatii ham nahii.n to.De.nge)

not for the Gustav Klimt painting on the wall in Rahul's house

not for the tendency of calling conventions to skip surnames (what's with Mrs. Rahul or Mr. Alex?)

not for brilliant symbols like choosing the number 13 for the box holding Pooja's dead body

not for dumb songs like terii kurtii ##sexy## lagatii hai

not for Achyut Potdar as the judge telling Mr. Saxena (Rakesh Bedi -- no first name was provided) ##mr. saxena## aap vakiil hai.n; aap ko ye to pataa honaa chaahiye ki kisii apaahij evam laachaar kaa mazaaq u.Daanaa amaanaviiya evam asamvaidhaanik hai

not Zayed Khan throwing a childish tantrum in court with Give us the god-damned truth!

but for a journey through some of the dumbest most original ways that Karan adopts to prove that Rahul is not blind: get him to sign blank stamp papers | get him to consume a poison (actually, laxative)-laced drink | get a gang of goons to attack him | lower the flowerpots adorning the top of a doorway | ask Alex (Rahul's caretaker) | get him to walk the tracks as a train approaches ... and then Rahul sees a kid ahead and runs to save him (guess what? we find out later in the court that the kid's deaf!!)

I will now leave you to roll down the laughter pit ...

the curious incident of the dog in the doldrums

[july 04, 2005] (in which another damp squib called Mulaqaat gets those ones)

Flashback: Vishal Bhardwaj gets signed on for the songs of a film called Mulaqaat (don't ask me why that 'a' ended up where it is ... the Hindi spelling [iTrans: mulaakaat] doesn't make the same jump). After he gets a few interesting songs (for some more background information and a brief review check out Subhash K Jha's notes), the plug got pulled.

Flash-forward: The soundtrack was not the only relic to get excavated (I'm still trying to find it); the movie made it too. I'm not sure if this ever went to the cinema hall, but I was pleasantly (honestly, I had to catch this at least once) surprised to see a tape sitting on a shelf in the video store.

The Plot: Think of Kasme Vaade and shred a lot of the excess baggage and the second Bachchan. So we have Javed Khan (son of Karim Siddiqui, played by Jackie Shroff), a calm, peaceful, amiable (you know the type) poet and his ardent fan Archana Vithalrao Patkar (Madhoo), who loves to sing his poems/ghazals (segue one of Vishal's compositions, the exquisite tum mile to nahii.n). Javed has a close friend and benefactor in Jas (Govinda's nephew Vinay Anand providing ample evidence that bad ham cannot sing, dance, or act for nuts). Love happens (Javed and Archana, just in case you were wondering), and the marriage is registered. Javed's father, younger brother and little sister are awaited before the marriage can take place. A night of celebration ensues (where Javed and Jas cavort about to another effective Vishal strictly-for-the-sequence song whisky risky where Roop Kumar Rathod's capable vocals get butchered by the egregiously aggravating intrusion of Vinay Anand, who insists on singing for himself). Thence, in a fight with some ruffians who attempt the obvious with Madhoo, Jas ends up impaling Javed (see also: Muqaddar ka Sikandar). The film then decides to go to sleep at this point. Javed's calm father (Kulbhushan Kharbanda, depressed and world-weary as ever), opinionated hot-headed brother Akhtar (Milind Gunaji in training for "ham of the year"), and innocuous cherubic little sister Shabnam (debutante Shivani Rathod?) arrive; Jas hosts them; and everyone keeps up the act that Javed is "out of town"; Jas and Shabnam fall for each other; all the concerned parties are obviously offended by all this (especially when the truth comes to light). Nothing really makes sense, yet this domestic drama plods to the finish line at which point Akhtar ends up killing Archana (thus providing an antidote to Javed's death).

Redemption: The Vishal compositions are the only blessing in this mess-fest. His third composition, the ethereal Suresh Wadkar song ye meraa giit doesn't make it to the screen. Pat yourself on the back for spotting quotes from the whistle melody at the core of Rajesh Roshan's 500 miles lift jab ko_ii baat biga.D jaa_e, as well as from Pancham's famous jalaparii theme (remember Saagar?). How about Children by Robert Miles?

Surreal: (and meaningless) -- every scene involving Jas and his secretary

Howlarious: The usual presence of a dude playing the electric guitar during a song when an acoustic guitar is being played on the soundtrack; Milind Gunaji's shock and breakdown after having shot Madhoo

Dedications: This film has not one but three. Special thanks are also extended to Mahendra Kapoor (presumably for allowing his son Rohan Kapoor to provide us a rankling qawwaalii in the film). On to the dedications. There's one that goes "we miss you priya rajvansh (brother and friends)". Then there's this tricolour-inspired opening note from Jankidas (probably the same late character actor who was also the only Indian to have broken the world record in cycling between 1934 to 1942 and the only Indian member of International Olympic Committee at the Olympic Games in 1936 at Berlin):

promise to mahatma gandhi

fulfilled by jankidass

by making mulaqaat

    meeting of two religions

The last one is the best: in loving memory of our beloved SOFTIE (dec. 30, 1994 - march 3, 2000) (in the background is the photograph of the canine in question). Softie even tail-ends the opening starring credits (and can be seen for barely a minute in the film).

Familiar faces: Aroon Bakshi and Reeta Bhaduri as Madhoo's unnamed brother (an obsessive cricket fan) and sister-in-law.

Mystery: The music is credited to Vishal and Suman-Sudeep (also responsible for the background score [see above for the real sources]). Jha's review doesn't mention them at all. Which underscores my question: Who the hell are they?

Lest you forget, this was an unusual love story by Sagar Sarhadi (the man behind Bazaar, Doosra Aadmi, Kabhi Kabhie, Noorie and Pankaj Berry).

If you want more current guaniferous ventures, check out the notes on Revati that appeared a little later down below ...

pesti-soda [link courtesy: Aditya]

{source}

Indian farmers have come up with what they think is the real thing to keep crops free of bugs.
[...]
Instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, they are reportedly spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola.
[...]
One litre of highly concentrated Avant, Tracer and Nuvocron, three popular Indian pesticides, costs around 10,000 rupees (�120), but one-and-a-half litres of locally made Coca-Cola is 30 rupees. To spray an acre would be a mere 270 rupees.
[...]
The farmers also swear by Pepsi, Thums Up, and other local soft drinks.

it's only a joke ... it must be

Thanks to Aditya for the heads-up. The National Film Awards (India) have been announced for the year 2004 (if you want eye candy-laden mush-floss try the Rediff subset and the Rediff photo-rama. You have the usual hullabaloo about "fixing". But fundamentally, this is so screwed up it has to be a joke. It's time to name them the Hindi Popular Film Awards (or optimise everything by combining them with the Filmfare Awards). Let's have a concerto in E-flat while this dishrag squeeze swirls down the drain ...

HKA revisited [june 24, 2005] {previous viewing}

Thanks to all those questions about cameos, my second viewing of the film, and a recent Swanand Kirkire interview with Screen, I now have some more thoughts and some more trivia for the uninterested reader.

* Cameos (credited ones, strictly) galore: from Sudhir Mishra as Justice Tyebji's departing guest (when Vikram gives Geeta a ride to Siddharth's house) (the other guest is executive producer Sushil Dutta, btw); there's Mishra's assistant Ruchi Narain [here's an interesting article featuring a photograph] as a woman politician, Swanand Kirkire as the head of the singing troupe that passes Siddharth and Geeta as they bid goodbye (and e sajanii plays in the background) -- the photograph in the Screen interview confirms my guess (as his answer to a question further down), Choreographer Gilles Cheun is credited with an appearance as a dancing party guest, but I don't know what she looks like.

* At the party, when Geeta wants to leave, Arun begs to attend the "Narain" party for a bit (in joke?)

* Nice quote: "the violence of the opressed is right and the violence of the opressor is wrong"

* Can anyone shed light on the chronological accuracy of the photographs of Indira Gandhi that show up at a few points in the film?

* A few words get muted on the soundtrack; what really sucks is that the subtitles never use the F-word (which features liberally on the soundtrack), yet later take liberties on other fronts by inserting words that don't figure in the on-screen speech track (e.g. a**h**e, farting)

* {just for you, JR} The book that Geeta is reading at Siddharth's place is (I'm quite sure) "Hard Labor" by Cesare Pavese.

* Guess who is credited with arranging the music? Daniel B George, who just made his own soundtrack composing splash with the Arshad Warsi starrer Sehar.

* Satyajeet Sharma is credited for playing both sons of the maharaja with whom Vikram's negotiating a deal. Watch carefully and you can appreciate the power of editing (unless this was a copy-paste error and I'm reading too much into all this)

* The Gulzar angle: Reportedly, Chitrangda figured in the video for the song kachche ra.ng from the Gulzar-Vishal collaboration Sunset Point.

* And despite some disagreements, I also think Chitrangda looks a lot like Smita Patil in profile (and seems to exude a similar liberated spirit). However, referring to her as the "new" Smita Patil seems a bit premature and slaps on a label that threatens to override her uniqueness.

if you're reading this and you're in Pune (or some suburb thereof)... [taking a cue from JR]

There's an Open Quiz happening this Saturday July 09, 2005 (and if you're in Pune, you can't really make it for the Rashid Khan concert here, can you?). There's more information on this Interrobang post.

coming soon to atlanta: ustad rashid khan

The details first.

Venue:
Berkmar High School
405 Pleasant Hill Rd NW,
Lilburn, GA 30047
Date: Saturday, July 9, 2005
Time: 7:30 pm

Tickets are $15 for students, $25, $35, $50 and VIP. And that price also gets you snacks.
He's accompanied by Ananda Gopal Bandhopadhay (Tabla) and Jyothi Goho (Harmonium).

Additional information may be found on the front page of ICMS, Atlanta, co-sponsors of this event. Some more background information about URK may be obtained on his official site.

The "who the hell is he" section: Mainstream audiences as well as people who follow news more avidly than Hindustani classical music might remember URK from his recent appearance on the soundtrack of the latest Subhash Ghai dung-fest Kisna. It goes without saying that URK's mastery was underused and stuck out like an elephant's sore thumb on the soundtrack (and merely appeared on the backing track while the events in the foreground forced audiences to retch into their popcorn bags). That parichay does not do URK justice at all. If you're a moderately serious afficionado of Hindustani Classical Music, you don't even need this introduction (in fact, you should probably have quit after reading the details at the opening of this post). 'Nuff said. After having missed a chance to see him in Pune in January, I can't miss this opportunity.

'tis the survey season...


Read about this general social survey of the greater weblog community by Cameron Marlow (if the name doesn't sound familiar, how about blogdex?)from the MIT Media Laboratory to help understand how weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other.
Pretty straightforward, and a good destination for some idle clicks and keystrokes. Clearly, the larger the sample of responses, the better (and more interesting) the picture of the blogging community will be. Go ahead, become a statistic. Make Cameron's day.

being a giraffe: the convoluted case of Birthday Girl [july 04, 2005]

John identifies most problems within appropriate time frames; he usually resolves or minimizes most problems before they grow into larger problems. Thus goes part of the annual report describing John Buckingham. Yet, John seems strangely at sea when presented with the strange case of Nadia, the mail order bride from russia with love (literally). Things don't quite work out the way he had imagined them to. But then things also don't seem to work out well for director Jez Butterworth. He seems unsure whether to take the proceedings down dark territory like Something Wild or down candy-floss romantic comedy alley. The result is a mixed bag of mundane or sagging moments. Which is a pity, really, because Kidman turns in a rocking performance as Nadia. Don't know about the Russian spoken, but her body language is remarkably researched. Ben Chaplin provides an interesting reading of John Buckingham, but unfortunately, the character is rather dull. It's almost as if Joaquim Phoenix were cavorting about for us on screen.

On the flip side there are a few interesting nuggets: there's a version of Somethin' Stupid where Kidman accompanies Robbie Williams (the DVD even has the video for the song). Then there are French actors Kassovitz and Cassel sinking into their parts like chameleons. Twisted all this is.

today is independence day, USA

so I freed a few old posts from the historical ignominy of being drafts: pointers to some of the hidden gems in Jo Bole So Nihaal, thoughts about Final Destination, notes on Rose Red and a take on Paycheck.

the salacious vibes of a rag-picker [july 03, 2005]

Welcome to Revati, a film written and directed by Faroogh A. Siddiqui (what a nutcase! his credit appears smack near the middle of the film -- probably at the intermission) -- this dude even has a credit for "story, screenplay and lyrics". The bulk of online articles (few that may be) devoted to this film focus on the controversy arising from producer Vikas Kate's inclusion of "revealing" scenes featuring Kashmira Shah. She shouldn't have really bothered objecting. If she thought this was an acting vehicle, she was clearly suffering from a case of disillusioned dementia. There's nothing in this film worth remembering except a host of bad lines and dumb acting[sic]. But more about that in a little while.

This is the story of Revati (Shah), a naïve rag-picker living in Shanti Nagar ("the biggest slum in Bombay") and spouting filth and clichéd uneducated verbiage tinged with familiar Hyderbadi inflections. One rainy night, she is the recipient of the kindness of one Ravindra Nagpal (Kiran Kumar), and this innocuous act that reassures your faith in humanity has far-reaching consequences, including the eventual murder of Nagpal and a general shattering of Revati's faith in living like the "ba.De log".

All of you interested in cheap thrills like ogling at Kashmira Shah might be interested in some moments in the film. There is a richer treasure trove in store for all of us interested in bad dialogue and bad moments.

The most hilarious scenes appear during the sequence where a drenched Revati squats in the corner of Nagpal's room as he works on something in Microsoft Word. At one point he smells the rag heap that revatii has dragged in with her (as she sits in a corner to escape the rain outside); and he can't figure out where it's coming from; cut to the computer monitor and the last line typed out is flashing ... it's LOOK AROUND. Later, another piece of blinking text ('REMOVE IT') determines his response to her question about what to do with her wet clothes ...

[Pause while reader recovers from floor-hugging fit of laughter]

During the trial in the penultimate act of the film, there is a strange shot of the judge nodding and saying "O.. K.." after the defence attorney presents a counter-argument.

And now the dialogues.

Samples from the kaTTaa crowd that ends up teasing Revati: kaise kuttaa banaa diyaa thaa ##john## ko bipaashaa ne jism me.n; dum hilaa\-hilaa ke mar gayaa saalaa, apun bhii kisii ##hero## se kam hai kyaa? / kam nahii.n, ##bomb## hai ##bomb##, kyaa ##piece## hai? / ##piece## nahii.n ##cut-piece## hai

Samples from the hija.Daas: biichaawaalaa biich me.n nahii.n bolegaa to kyaa ##side## me.n bolegaa?, he uuparawaale; inako hamaarii tarah-ch banaa de; inakaa ##power supply## kaaT de; naa rahegaa ##plug## naa lagegaa ##jhaTakaa##
(and let's not forget the random phrases like ##beautiful## thoba.Daa, prem chopa.Daa, e! chho.D re meraa kapa.Daa that inundate the end of the hija.Daa song)

Revati: vahii ##fixed deposit## jo bhagawaan ne apun ko diyaa hai

Javed Khan (as Revati's father): dekh beTii, kacharaa phe.nkane kii thailiyaa.N badalatii hai.n; kacharaa kachare kii peTiyaa.N badalatii hai.n; kacharaa phe.nkane kii jagah badalatii hai.n; lekin kacharaa vo_ich rahataa; kacharaa kabhii nahii.n badalataa; is liye tuu bhii badalane kaa khayaal chho.D de

Hired goon: ham tilakadhaarii, sab pe bhaarii (the only memorable tilakadhaarii was Goga Kapoor in Shiva, incidentally)

Dialogue exchange sans meaning (or "with deep meaning", YMMV): daughter: kyaa fark hotaa hai beTaa aur beTii me.n?; mother: bahut fark hotaa hai; beTaa beTaa hotaa hai aur beTii beTii

Axiom: (Kiran Kumar) buzurgo.n ne Thiik hii kahaa hai: saaph sutharaa ghar aur sajii\-sa.Nwarii aurat dono.n achchhe lagate hai.n

Trivia: Ayub Khan is credited (end credits) as Ayub M. Khan; the background score (shriek-o-rama) was provided by music director duo Nikhil-Vinay (the songs were composed by Jatin-Lalit and Nazakat Shujat [nice name, bad songs]).

Check out the official website for more alternative spellings (a clear candidate for "how many different ways can you spell names in movie credits?")

bellyfuls and belly dances: a visit to nicola's

[previous post in the Weekend Dinner Club]

The nice thing about Nicola's for me was the nature of the service. The vibes were more personable. My reactions of the food were undermined by the recent overdose of Mediterranean restaurants. So I wasn't surprised to see the grape leaves (even though they do merit a thumbs-up). The hummus (spelled "hommos" on their menu; which leads me to ask: how exactly do you spell it??) was lower on the lemon than Mezza's was. That last experience made us wiser and we chose the "Family Style Dinner", which gave us a sampling of four appetizers, plus a chef's choice of two salads, three entrees and the special of the day. The biggest downer was the presence of two things one might associate with a few restaurants like this: belly dancing and loud music. Was prepared for neither, and although I have nothing against belly dancing, the repetitive rhythms, the aggravating thump of the bass elements, and the generally high volume preventing any useful conversation gave this place a few minuses. The main attraction of this place (the lamb shank) may or may not have made it in eventually (the server was very gracious to substitute one of the items on the platter with that). Didn't care for too many helpings of the lamb dish that lay there. What really rocked were the shawarma and the eggplant. And despite appearances, this was a very very filling meal. It's probably a good idea to take a break from this strain of cuisine for a while, lest it affect my opinions. And I'd like to come back when there's no belly dancing. If I ever wanted to catch belly dancing, I'd prefer to make that a full-time event in its own respect with nothing else to clutter the programme.