Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Maqbool
A nice adaptation on a difficult theme, challenging in scope and spirit. I’d say Vishal pulled it off with a measure of comfort. Stage versions are more melodramatic, fire and smoke, ethereal effects, more shades of grey and more palpable wickedness.
I’ve already vented my spleen on the music—for a lover of this genre of music, it was a big letdown. Daler is awful, Rekha can’t sing/render to save her life and even Sultan Khan is way out of his league--the title song sucks.
Sleepless in Seattle
Guten Nacht !
That despised spectre of Hollywood that appears to have arisen as antithetical to the blood and gore embodiment of the Rocky/Rambo type. A gossamer plot that will fall apart at the first tactile assault, listless performances from the lead cast and the ubiquitous prescient too-clever-by-half brat rattled my nerves the whole ride.
Maybe the chaps should have insisted on watching An Affiat to Remember as a prerequisite to truly the vacuous joys of this candy-floss iananity.
Rahul
Seemingly made with the world view of the protagonist five-year old. Two parents who I had not seen before or since. Very slow pace, and to compound matters, a very sketchy delineation of the reason for the divorce that messes up three lives completely. Escapist direction !
The wordless sequences and the silences made sense to me.A little cold throughout !
Saathiya
Rarely have I seen a film so glibly adrift of reality and sensibility. Easily a theme on which some great work could have been done. As usual, the director slips into his comfortable amorous husband-teasing-simpering wife -taunting husband routine, ignores plot, sideshows and misses the bus entirely. Am sure that the leads would have deluded themselves into thinking they were delivering real-life believable roles. And am far from happy with the normally-better ARR too—let’s not even get into the lyrics that GULZAR is supposed to be penning. ( I still someone is ghsot-writing this verbal apparition )Scary !
Amelie
Caught this in the nick of time last night—switched on my living-room lights just as the credits were rolling. My total unfamiliarity with French impels me to keep glued to the subtitles, and then look above the written word clinging to the hope that some meaning can be culled. A wretched way to watch a piquant film.
Speed to kill in the first half, rushing through the frames with the urge to be cute, wise and witty. The novelty of the narrative ensures no weary viewers drop off in ennui. I may have even liked to speed-read the book, if it was based on one.( Ed--In French, monsieur ?OK, it takes all kinds ) Enjoyable in parts for sure, but thought it all came apart in the end with verisimilitude to even My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Adventurous and enterprise to the fore at the deliberate expense of a storyline. Worth the watch, dccent music but still a country mile behind Il Postino , which would remain my favourite foreign film ( Ed--But DDLJ was supposed to be your favourite foreign philm--thy name is perfidy !)
