April 26, 2009

Feroz Khan - RIP

Feroz Khan passed away earlier today, and my thoughts go out to poor family! Feroz was truly one of the coolest and funkadelic actors to ever hit Bollywood, the films he made and acted in all have the Feroz stamp of effortless swagger and funk about them. The industry truly has lost the king of cool. I can't believe it.

April 24, 2009

Parinda - How Anil Became a Bad Bhai and obsessed over Pigeons

A gorilla named Anil
Parinda is a brilliant movie, I watched when I was 8 perhaps too young but the WOW factor was still there, I watched it at 10 then I realized how explosive and great it was. Watching it now, I realize that it's one of the best gangster movies made, especially due to a favorite Masala Pradesh moustachioed jodi! The moustachioed duo could become a club as everyone has a mush Anil, Jackie, Nana, and Suresh!
Actual sweet bromance
Parinda starts off with Kishen(Jackie Shroff-mullet not too distracting) who is obviously a bad kid because he likes to punch people up wearing a Rambo-esque vest and making sure other goons fall down those stairs he bashes them up on. Kishan works for the big don Anna(Nana Patekar) who's lair isn't too great its a warehouse where he likes to hide bodies in coffins full cement. Inspector Prakash(Anupan Kher) is onto Anna and wants to catch him in the act. Then I'm not being objective because the best character arrives ANIL!!!

Nahiii!!!
Karan is a precocious yet lovable guy that makes me go SQUEE because Anil must at all times fit in a "Ha Heyy" into a moment of happiness. This happens when he jumps out of the shower to receive Prakash's phonecall who asks to meet up. This is also a good time for Suresh Oberoi and other scary looking goons to kill off Prakash. As kids Prakash and his sister Paro formed a cute little urchin family with Karan and Kishan, with Karan really emotionally blackmailing Kishan to become a bad kid because he's hungry! AWWWWTwo Hah Heyy moments!
Karan disobeys Kishan and runs off to see Prakash, while the baddies follow after him, meanwhile Prakash and Karan sing their childhood song of dosti. Then the famous shootout scene happens, this is a great scene and the use of pigeons is quite blunt on the head, and maybe it didn't need to repeated over and over in Vidhu Chopra's Eklavya. I know its a great scene, but to self reference yourself is just silly! Obviously in this scene Anil has to showcase his wonderful "Omg someone got shot" Blowup scenes, and he is just stellar! Paro(Madhuri Dixit-very unused) now suspects that Karan led Prakash to a trap to get him killed and he ignores him. Also we learn that Anna is mega scared of fire and is generally wacko which Nana can play to the hilt! Karan and Kishan have a faceoff where Kishan blames poor Karan for saying "GO steal that man's bag" and propelling him into a life of crime so that he could pay Karan's way to Amrica
Anil was just hungry, you didnt need to be a goon!
The rest of the movie onwards is great in turning the whole "Two brothers on opposite ends" on its head, it just gets rid of all the nice ness that the Shashitabh and the VinFeroz starrers where they were very opposite people who do bad things for their mother or to have a nice life. Kishan and Karan have no maa to be their object of reason so they just go into a downward spiral of being vigilantes for revenge. I love how Anil's downward turn is shown, yet i did have to shout aloud "Your piling up bodies for ANUPAM KHER!!!" which surprised me a lot. I must say Tom Alter and his shade of orange on his face and jet black mush and hair made him look quite fine!

The moustachioed quatro of my ANil, Jackie, Nana, and Suresh were all very good in their roles, Nana obviously had a great time playing someone soooo mad, and Suresh's coke-snorting, flute-playing goonda was good too! Madhuri was very unused here except to hug and kiss and sing to Anil so he becomes a good kid.

The Bonnie and Clyde shootout in the climax was explosive, first thing SEX! Which reminded me of any 80's bollywood sex scene it was either blue or fuzzy camera or seedy. This climax also made me puddle-induced after all the badly filmed sex scene, and shootout it was all very sad and made me say WHY!
You wished that's how it ended!
Parinda is a must watch for great faceoffs and for puddle-inducing times!

April 10, 2009

Rum's Back and its Movie Time!

OMG RUM IS BAAACCKKK!!

Yup, I'm back to continue to reign in the Masala Pradesh, and be a faithful law-abiding dual citizen of the Shashi Pradesh. I have stocked up on my movies and I'll review some as soon as my computer manages to capture some good screencaps! Here is just a sample of great stuff to come, now that i have the summer off for at least 5 months and what to do!?

  1. Complete a world record of watching every Anil Kapoor movie ever made (very do-able, since i own a ton already)
  2. Go to Boston!!
  3. Try and review my already extensive movie collection, that sat on my shelf during these journalism filled months, gathering lots of dust.

But I'm back and ready to vegetate in front of my movies and have fun in the summer!