Filmiholic

So here’s the thing: normally it takes Eddie Izzard, George Carlin, Damon Wayans or Bill Maher to get me to laugh out loud, and yet, the other evening, arriving at the cinema in not a good frame of mind at all, I actually found myself laughing through most of Mike Myers latest, The Love Guru.

I guess there was something – in the goofy juxtaposition of the Guru Pitka living in a marble palace ashram twanging out that old Dolly Parton working class number “9 to 5” on sitar as he goes through his morning ablutions,

or the PowerPoint presentation of trademarked self-help platitudes dispensed to the vacuous Left Coast faithful, or even some of the sight gags (Justin Timberlake’s Treasure Trail tattoos) - that pressed the right buttons and had me chortling in spite of myself.

The story on which these gags are built is this:  an American kid is raised in an Indian ashram and becomes a guru in order to get girls.  He becomes an expert in advising people on les affaires du coeur, but is still a constant runner-up to the man he considers his rival:  Deepak Chopra.  One of his handlers (John Oliver) tells him that if he can re-unite Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) a Toronto Maple Leafs player whose estranged wife has taken up with the famous opposing team member Quebecois Jacques “Le Coq” Grande (Timberlake), thereby ending his troubles on the ice as well, Guru Pitka will get booked on Oprah, which he considers making it to The Big Time.

Along the way there are midget jokes, many, many, many jokes having to do with male genitalia, and quite a few having to do with bodily functions.  Stephen Colbert, Verne Troyer and Sir Ben Kingsley are part of the cast, and Deepak Chopra even makes an appearance as himself. 

Former Bollywood Dreams star, Manu Narayan, has a major role in the film as Rajneesh, Guru Pitka’s ever-present, ever-helpful assistant and moral compass.  He has a sweet face and his real musical talents come into play when he performs a duet of “More Than Words” with Mike Myers.

There’s an early mise-en-scène where Pitka preaches to a rapt audience and is sought out afterward by Jessica Simpson, Val Kilmer and Mariska Hargitay (whose name he uses as a greeting in place of “Namaste”).  Upon encountering Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) the owner of the failing Toronto Maple Leafs, Guru Pitka is smitten and has a true filmi moment as his mind wanders off into a dream sequence, imagining himself frolicking with the lovely Ms. Alba in true old-eshtyle Bollywood song picturization mode, complete with bizarre onscreen lyric translations (e.g. there was something about “…lugubrious recalcitration..”)  This is the first of two filmi scenes.

The main character is rather smug (in spite of his DeepakChoprian Achilles heel) and annoying, but then again, my hackles go up when anyone tries to preach at me, and I smiled at his early comment about “…when the student becomes the teacher, or some such bullsh!t.”  Pitka sports a hrishi-like hair-do in one scene, and Indian clothes and accessories throughout, but what Myers is sending up is not Hinduism, but rather the scores of people who blindly buy into these “neo-Eastern” wealthy, self-help, self-important con men. 

See it or skip it?

It’s got a lot of cheery colors, moves at a quick clip, has lots of gross-out humor and a LOT of Mike Myers.  If you don’t object of any of that, and you’re in the mood for a light, silly movie, you might enjoy The Love Guru.

Not everything was fair game for my funnybone.  I could have done without the wee-soaked mops hitting people in the face, and the two poor elephants copulating on the ice at a hockey championship.

I tried to finish reading Monica Ali’s much lauded debut novel Brick Lane before going to a recent screening of Sarah Gavron’s film adaptation, but only got as far as Nazneen’s first pregnancy. 

The film opens with the briefest of gloss over Nazneen and her sister’s early days in Bangladesh (the part I had read about), and by the time the opening credits have rolled, Nazneen has long been married, and is residing near London’s Brick Lane in a council flat (in Dublin, we used to call them corporation flats, but they looked exactly the same) with her husband, Chanu, and two daughters, one who is a young teen, in full eye-rolling, mouthy rebellion, antagonizing her father at every opportunity.  (Mumbling her way through a forced performance of Tagore’s poetry when a guest is over for dinner.)

Tannishtha Chatterjee plays Nazneen, the (literally) much put-upon wife.  (Not only does she endure her oversized husband’s silent-then-wheezing mating habits with her eyes wide open, on other evenings she tends to the corns on his feet.)  It was drummed into her and the sister who remains back in Dhaka that we must all accept our fate, which must be why Nazneen goes about with much of the film with her eyes downcast, head covered and silently going along with most of her husband’s ideas and directives.

Chanu (played by Satish Kaushik, a man many will recognize for his comedic roles in Hindi movies) takes great pride in his knowledge of Chaucer and Thackeray, and as he trundles off to work every day, anorak over his suit (just like Bertie Ahern in his early days as Taoiseach), he is convinced that a long-awaited promotion is just around the corner. 

When Chanu gets passed over, he quits in a huff, thereby setting up a situation that will lead Nazneen into the arms of hunky Karim (Christopher Simpson):  her neighbor, Razia (Harvey Virdi), a short-haired and independent woman, gives her a sewing machine, allowing Nazneen to make some money for the family by taking in tailoring work, delivered each week by the afore-mentioned Karim. 

Attraction and love bloom between the two, in Karim’s increasing visits to the close quarters of the flat.  In those scenes between the two, you can feel the warm undertow as they are drawn to each other.  Then September 11 happens.  Karim tries to go funda, growing a beard and attending local meetings of the Bengal Tigers.  Chanu declares that, to avoid the backlash he expects to come, the family will return to Bangladesh, and he slowly begins planning for that event, much to the despair of his elder daughter, and the bewilderment of Nazneen.

Visually, Brick Lane is lyrical and lush with color.  The action will often cut back to Bangladesh, to rich greens and Nazneen’s memories of her young self and her sister.  In the dull, redbricked low-income housing estate and the grey London streets, the many different saris Nazneen wears (honestly, for a woman whose family is not well off, I don’t think I saw her in the same sari twice) are a rich contrast.  Other rare flashes of relief to the urban English monochromatic landscape come as cherry blossoms and snow appear and disappear with equal speed.

But where I had problems was with the main characters.  I couldn’t see enough of what was lurking behind the set pieces of The Domineering Husband, The Obedient Wife and The Brash Young Lover.  Surely there was more?  What were they thinking as they made the choices they did?

The film’s ending is somewhat satisfying, somewhat confusing, and bittersweet.  I did feel a bit teary for poor Chanu and happy for Nazneen, but I wondered how this scenario could have realistically come to be.

See it or skip it?

Tough call.  The film left me feeling curious about the storylines and the characters’ motivations, and somewhat unsatisfied, but I am very glad to have been introduced to Tannishtha Chatterjee and Christopher Simpson, as well as having a chance to watch Satish Kaushik in a more serious role, and to have enjoyed the visual treat of Gavron and her team’s use of color. 

Naeema Begum, the young girl who plays the firebrand in the household, Shahana, does a wonderful turn in Brick Lane, and like Chatterjee and Simpson, I hope we’ll see more of her in the future.

Also, given the heft of India, it’s not often that we get to see a mainstream movie that tells a story of her neighbor to the East, and this too is welcome.

Amazingly enough, those of us in the US got to see Kamal Hassan’s big, big, big release hours before it plays on some 1000 screens in India.

The theater in Newark was 3/4 full, many people coming straight from work, laptop bags in tow, and the film started spot on at 8pm.  No sooner had the lights gone down, the words Aascar Films (funny, eh?) flashed on the screen, then Kamala’s name loomed over us and a chorus of cheers and whistles came up from the crowd.  More cheers a few minutes later when the camera swooped down over the Madras coastline.

So yes, the man who 10 years ago became a woman in order to be closer to his kids in Chachi 420, has this time taken on 10 roles in one film, some more successful than others.

The first story line, of a holy man in the 12th century involved in a Shivite / Vaisnavite dispute, packs a wallop as an opener, with a meaty and muscular Kamal Hassan as Nambi (Avatar #1), who’s willing to die for his faith, even as his wife (Asin) and toddler son beg him to give in.

From the distant past, to the recent future, late December 2004 (that’s right, just before the tsunami), KH is now Dr. Govind (Avatar #2), a super-scientist working in the US at the biotech firm named, get this, Beagle II.  The firm has gotten into bed with Dubya (Avatar #3), using the PhD’s powers to create a mega-virus, capable of killing tens of thousands of people in no time. 

Realizing his boss intends to sell the viral vials to Evil Doers, Dr. Govind grabs them and goes on the lam, accidentally ending up back in India.  This opens the door for the entry of several baddies onto the scene, including Christian Fletcher (Avatar #4), a flaxen-haired, waxy-faced, ex-CIA assassin. 

Both Fletcher, and Bush, require large amounts of facial padding, and they, plus the ancient Krishnaveni Paati are the characters that I had the biggest problems with, just because their faces looked like Halloween masks, and because, with the men’s roles, Kamal Hassan has such a distinct voice, even as he does an American drawl, you still hear him coming through, so between the visual and aural cues, it’s hard to suspend disbelief.

Dasavathaaram is a good three hours in length, and therefore is able to include comedy (the Telugu- AND Tamil-speaking Balaram Naidu, who was very popular with the many sons of Andhra Pradesh in the theater tonight), lots of martial arts and dishoom, multiple locales, surprisingly not that many songs, and also some attempts to instruct while making the case for striking a balance between science and faith, abandoning caste- and religious-based prejudices, and saving the environment.

For me, the movie went on a bit too long.  As we hurtle through Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the inevitable arrival of that wall of water on Boxing Day, I did start doing a mental checklist of which characters still remained to reappear for the final denouement. 

Is it a big problem?   Not really, not for me.  Even with the bad make-up jobs to overlook, KH did undertake quite a project here, and much of the story/ies entertain, especially as he manages to wind them all up into a huge ball of twine at the end, back on the Madras waterfront, while simultaneously finding a mainstream, populist way to examine many topics (superpower politics, caste issues, dalit rights, religious extremism, corruption, gee, is that everything?)

Mallika Sherawat is rather wasted here as the vamp/Pakistani-trained assassin Jasmine.  Her item number is screechy and forgettable, her costume has rather odd crystal spiderwebs placed over her front and back in rather obvious areas, and once she’s done vamping, she just becomes a second-fiddle moll along on the run.

See it or skip it?

See it.  It’s an entertaining saga, and you get to watch the man himself in action, playing so many different parts, even when encumbered by all the whiteface make-up.

Asin is cute, though there’s no real spark between the two lead actors.

With RGV’s latest movie, there was an interesting addition to the multiplexes usually showing the occasional big Hindi release in New Jersey: the AMC Loews Newport Centre 11, in Jersey City.

This cinema is located in a mall this is literally steps away from the PATH train.  Tickets cost $10.

At the show I attended Friday night, the auditorium (with a capacity of about 250) was about three quarters full.  

The new Sarkar Raj is a love letter from Ramu to the triple-A Bachchan trio. 

If triple-X connotes slimy, sleazy and anything-goes nangi antics, then triple-A here is the highest of star heights, fullest of full-on media attention to every Karva Chauth, barefoot temple pilgrimage, phoren fillum festival, product endorsement, movie launch, music launch, etc etc etc that any of three (Amitabh, Abhishek, Aishwarya) attend solo or in any combination of duos, or even better, as the whole threesome (or the three wholesome). 

RGV’s paen goes like this:  How do I love ye three?  Let me count the ways….I love thee through smoky sunlight, pouring into the room and bathing you in a milky, full-body halo.  I love thee shot from under a glass-topped coffee table, as my cameraman teases the audience, allowing glimpses of father and son when they’re not obscured by the undersides of various tchochkes laying on said tabletop.  I love thee in tight, tight close-ups filmed at tilted angles, or so far in that we can only see part of thine heavenly face and the stray scar left by childhood chicken pox.  And I even love thine feet, as my cameraman places the equipment ground-level to record thine beauteous tootsies as they exit the tank-like SUV or the jeep or the white Merc when it pulls up at the home / five-star hotel / hospital / villain’s lair.

Don’t get me wrong.  None of this is bad.  I mean that sincerely.  (Well, ok, the glass-top coffee table shots were frustrating, like when you’re at a dinner and the floral arrangement gets in the way of you making proper eye contact with the person across the table from you.)  For any of us who receive much enjoyment from gazing on the oversized celluloid countenances (and hands, and arms, and so on) of the Bachchan père et fils, and even though we prefer the opposite sex are still, regardless, spellbound as we look at the former Miss World and marvel at the color of her eyes, the set of her mouth, the perfect teeth, the flawless makeup (what shade of pink is that lipstick and where can I find it?), there is much in this two-hour film to enjoy.

For everyone else?  Well, the story is interesting to begin with, as we observe the shifting dynamic between father and son Shining India dons carrying out their roles.  One is aging and one is growing in confidence and influence.  Anita (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) arrives from London with the intent to build a maha power plant in rural Maharashtra, and needs the Nagre men’s blessing, as the project will displace several tens of thousands of villagers. 

Initially the men disagree.  Dad feels bad for those who would be displaced, the son sees further ahead and reasons that the plant will be for the greater good.  The father is won over, but around them, several bad guys (politicians and businessmen) are holding various grudges, grinding various axes and conspiring to do them harm. 

This is where I lose a little bit of patience, as the villains are (save my beloved Victor Banerjee who is urbane and ice cold) cartoonish and grotesque.  In Sarkar, we had Silver Mani, here it’s the Nagre-appointed CM who’s got some serious Freudian issues (this guy is always eating, drinking or sucking on his thumb), or the slippery Qazi with his throwback-to-the-good-ol-days obligatory pencil-thin moustache,

or the two-Thackereys-rolled-into-one rabble-rousing rural politico with the oversized eyeglasses always sipping bottled water. 

Maybe Ramu feels that these are the kind of villains Indian audiences want and expect in their movies, but I personally wouldn’t have minded a little more subtlety.

The action shifts away from Bombay to (supposedly) rural Maharashtra.  (If you notice a few of the shop signs in two scenes you will glimpse a wee bit of Telugu script.)  We get to see Sarkar’s aged guru and mentor, and we get to watch Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan) and Anita talk - a lot - and get to know each other.

Hats off to RGV for writing such a strong role for Aishwarya as the corporate doyenne, and one that she embodies well.  Unlike many other flics where the lady boss is all veneer and the minute one thing goes wrong she returns to type and crumples into a puddle of tears, here Anita is written so that she holds her own when she’s with the menfolk, and the only scene that requires her to cry is because of something going on outside the sphere of bijness.  Well done.

One other female surprise was Tanisha Mukerjee, returning from Sarkar, where she again plays Avantika.  I had forgotten whatever became of Katrina Kaif’s character in the first movie, but one glimpse of Ms. Chatterjee in her lovely saris and small spot of sindhoor, and it was plain that the chatty girl who was a fixture in the first film, has now managed to get what she had set her sights on, marrying Shankar.

Abhishek here is on equal footing with his father, in terms of his role’s prominence in the film, and in his acting.  One complaint I had of Sarkar was that Abhi’s part was paper thin, especially compared to the intensity of the scene-stealing Vishnu (Kay Kay Menon). 

But here, he’s strong and imposing (and mighty fine on the eyes in his French cuffs and suits), though a little more soft-and-squishy emotion might not have been bad, especially right before the Interval.

So the Bad Guys inflict pain and mayhem on the Nagre parivar, there’s a move afoot to shift the plant from Maharashtra to Gujurat, there’s some speechifying on the purpose of business (to make money or to do good) until the end, where, in the final scene, Amitabh is saddled with a LONG, expository soliloquy and his real-life daughter-in-law is forced to just sit there and listen, without even an “Ah ha” scripted in to allow her to react.

Although there were some surprises in the film, and I won’t give them away here, I did feel as though the blood really drained from the picture in the 2nd hour.  I am normally able to surrender myself to what I’m watching in a cinema hall and lose track of time, but here, in the last 50 minutes of the movie, I actually checked my phone for the time on three occasions.  It seemed to me that, except when they were hopping in and out of cars, the lead actors were, for the most part, stationary as the cameras spun about them, and that last hour of Sarkar Raj dragged.

The snake-like flute has returned to herald the arrival of anyone malevolent, as has that bloody GovindaGovindaGovinDAH! chorus.  The musical score is so present and so overpowering that it’s an annoyance rather than another tool the director could use to heighten the emotional intensity of a scene.  I was amazed to hear that there was recent a launch for the CD of the background score, as I really can’t imagine chilling out at home listening to that flute or driving while that GovindaGovindaGovinDAH! pounds out through my car’s speakers.

For any angrezis who don’t understand Hindi, be forewarned that there are temporary subtitle lapses, usually when you most need them, when Papa Bachchan is doing his heavy-duty speeches.  (Can anyone fluent in Hindi who’s seen the movie tell me, was he speaking some very, very shud Hindi, or was it Marathi-laced, or Sanskritized?  To my ears, that have admittedly been corrupted by so much Hinglish on TV and in movies, it sounded to me like what Old English or Shakespeare must sound to someone who’s not a native English-speaker.)

See it or skip it

See it, though I have a few reservations saying that to anyone who’s not a big Bachchan or RGV fan. 

But, indeed, it is a big summer release, it does star the triumvirate of Hindi movie royalty, and it is made by the man who gave us Company and Satya.  Also, as Hindi cinema does try other ways to tell stories, that don’t involve mujras or rap and multiple costume changes, it is interesting to see how directors are doing that.

I like that Ramu’s got his characters thinking out loud about power, and force and pondering their motivations, I just wish that more of the oomph in the film was allowed to come from the actors, rather than the cameras and the soundtrack.

has there been such a desi-Latino mash-up recently….yelo…Jessica Alba in a sari:

The photo’s a still from the soon-to-hit-the-screens The Love Guru.

And on the subject of Mike Myers’ latest release, here’s an interview I did for Khabar magazine with Manu Narayan about his work on the film and his career.

To mark the release of the DVD of his film Vanaja, director Rajnesh Domalpalli will be appearing at an event Friday evening, May 30, at the Borders in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.

Domalpalli will discuss four scenes from the film (of his choosing), and audience members will ask about another four (of their choosing).

The event starts at 7pm.

For anyone who doesn’t live in a city where Vanaja was released last year, or who just happened to miss it, the great news is that Emerging Pictures has just released the DVD, with some terrific additional features.

First, there are four short films (each around 10 minutes in length) that the director, Rajnesh Domalpalli, shot in the summers of 2002 and 2003:  The Fisherman’s Daughter, Firecrackers, Poison in the Well, and Just for Him.  People who have already seen Vanaja will recognize some of the actors, and you can see the director’s first steps towards what his later work would become.

In addition, there are two short introductory pieces, again, each not more than 9 or 10 minutes.  The first is of Domalpalli introducing Vanaja, and, after discussing the making of the film, and how he discovered his lead actor, Mamata Bhukya, he proceeds to discuss and lament the passing of many cultural art forms in Andhra Pradesh.

In the second piece, an off-camera voice interviews Mamata Bhukya in January 2008. 

If anyone read my comments on the film when I saw it last year, it was plain for all to see that I was smitten with this amazing, talented young woman, who went from being a schoolgirl in 8th Standard to actress and dancer, in one year.  

Part of what is so interesting in the interview with Mamata is to see glimpses of her family life, some early clips of her acting - when she still had the short, boyish haircut that almost cost her her big break - and to consider her now, some five years since the whole life-changing adventure began, and see how she’s shapeshifted from a child into an adolescent, who’s now on the brink of adulthood.

Here’s part of an interview I did with Mamata Bhukya last year.

Stay tuned for an interview with Rajnesh Domalpalli next.

Master cinematographer Santosh Sivan has again put on his director’s hat for Before the Rains, opening today in NY and LA.

(Not to be confused with the gorgeous 1994 Macedonian film Before the Rain by Milcho Manchevski.)

Here in Manhattan, we’ve seen a lot of the director and his cast in the past week or so.

First, there was a press day and reception at the Indian consulate.  Yesterday, Jennifer Ehle

was a guest on Leonard Lopate’s show on WNYC to talk about her role in the film, and in the evening, film critic Jeffrey Lyons hosted a screening of the film with Q&A afterward with Santosh Sivan and producer Paul Hardart.

Reel Talk will soon have an interview up on their site with one of the film’s lead actors and now local boy (while he’s starring in Law and Order), Linus Roche.

Will post my thoughts on the film soon.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sivan has departed NY today to attend the Silk Screen festival in Pittsburgh, where Before the Rains will be featured.

The film adaptation of Monica Ali’s Booker-winning novel arrives in cinemas on June 20 in NY and LA, the rolls on to release in other cities soon after.

The movie trailer looks promising.

And I’m really curious to see mainstream Hindi movie actor Satish Kaushik in the role of Nazneen’s husband.