IMDb #110 Review: Like Stars on Earth (2007)

Source: Wikipedia

Remember the high-pressure Indian school system from 3 Idiots? Now apply that shark tank mentality to elementary school. And condense all three idiots into a bucktoothed dyslexic savant.

Frankly, he's a weird kid. Friendly to animals, precocious artist, a total space cadet. At school, he's the punching bag; at home, the doofus makes his conventionally successful older brother look good. Which infuriates their disciplinarian dad. He's convinced his young son is dumb and the problem is his attitude.

Never mind sports, the kid's too uncoordinated to put on a shirt without help. When school gets too hard, he plays hooky and seeks solace in his deranged cartoon imagination. Simple arithmetic becomes whimsical adventures about colliding planets. The parents send him to boarding school (to toughen him up), then special school (when he's too tough to let anything out).

Then he meets the teacher to change his life.

The substitute art teacher. Who shows up to the first day of class dressed as a rapping French elf clown. He shares life lessons in song while dancing on desks. And instantly obtains choreographic control over a conga line of twerking schoolchildren.

(I ... what ... you ... you got me, Bollywood. I expected "unconventional," and not a single word of the previous paragraph.)

So the *ahem* unconventional teacher pries the potential out of the repressed genius using the rainbow crowbar of LEARNING THROUGH FUN. Through his experience instructing mentally retarded children, he explains to parents and superintendents the symptoms of dyslexia.

As it turns out, "stars on earth" refers to children and their unwritten futures, not huge raging balls of gas that would obliterate the planet and possibly the solar system. All it takes is a stellar teacher to keep the gas-balls from collapsing prematurely, to release an impossibly gifted child who can then achieve a predictably uplifting ending.

Can we spare a teacher's undivided attention for each troubled child? Hell no. The pay isn't worth it. Which emphasizes the rarity of these exceptional cases. And the tragedy of how many latent geniuses remain undiscovered -- or worse, become engineers.

(For example, I could be a kazoo prodigy and never know it. You could have been a world-renowned pet masseuse. But here we are. Where did we go wrong.)

164 minutes.

IMDb #114 Review: 3 Idiots (2009)

Source: Wikipedia

There must be serious problems with India's school system. Not only because of this movie's subject matter, but because of the little things it gets wrong.

First off, there are four main idiots, not three. And they're not really idiots, though they act like it. They're actually enrolled at a prestigious engineering college. Where the straitlaced superintendent remains convinced of their idiocy.

The possible exception among their gang is a cheerful laid-back genius. He flouts the rigid structure and advocates learning through fun (and song). His foil sneers at his laxity and crams his way to the top, bragging and flattering and forgetting everything he memorizes. The other two guys follow the first guy, because he's infinitely cooler. (Easy when you're rich and attractive and not just smart.)

No, it's not a school piece. Not entirely. The guys reunite ten years after graduation to find out who's most successful. Problem: the cool guy, name of Rancho, is missing. So his cronies (along with the weaselly brownnoser and his lethal flatulence) embark on a road trip to find him. It quickly skews into bizarre directions. While they flash back to the college misadventures that made them love him this much in the first place.

The main villain is the pressure to succeed. Fathers decide their sons will become engineers, never asking what their sons want to be. Wildlife photographer? Inventor? B-student? Dropout? Disowned. Brutally exemplified with a rash of student suicides.

There's an undercurrent of mischief -- the guys botch job interviews, sabotage stuffy speeches, crash weddings, threaten to drop a dead dad's ashes into a toilet, even foil a dignified suicide.

What could become unbearably gloomy or vacuously fluffy opts for the middle road: cheesy. There's singing (most notably "All Is Well," which works like a boppy poppy Engrish-saturated "Hakuna Matata"). Cartoonish sound effects accompany the contrived hijinks. And, another Bollywood staple, add the godawful CGI.

But I promise the weirdness leads to a point. The boozing, the romance, the rebellion -- it culminates in a climax as stirring as it is absurd. A bunch of male engineering students must midwife a baby during a power outage using only the miscellaneous tools at hand. How? I'm still not quite sure.

I've seen Bollywood formula work this way before. It softens the heart with warm sentimentality, then burrows in with rock-candy teeth and lays eggs.

171 minutes.

IMDb #157 Review: Rang de Basanti (2007)

Source: Wikipedia

A posse of hard-partying Indian college students concede to play their historical counterparts in a documentary about Indian freedom fighters. The experience transforms their aimless lives into recreating the past. Not by being like Gandhi, who is safe and respected; but morally ambiguous young people with more passion than self-preservation.

A British lady travels to India to shoot a documentary, despite having no funding, no knowledge of the culture, and no cast or crew. By movie serendipity and a sequence of shitty auditions, she stumbles into the ideal candidates. Singing, rapping, muscle-flaunting college students, who've effectively adopted the cynical hedonism of western culture.

Probably her biggest obstacle is the negativity instilled in India's youth. This country sucks, the government is corrupt, it's never going to get better, there's nothing we can do, we have to worry about our futures, I just want to stay in college forever and drink and screw and party all night.

Only natural that the older generations grouse that young people are useless. Generally, they are quite useless; not that the old farts are doing much more.

With this mindset, the big kids have a hard time donning period costumes (and mustaches) and regurgitating cheesy patriotic dialogue -- without cracking up.

Fed up with their waffling, Brit lady says, Fuck it, I'm out.

But a sense of purpose brings her back. Guilt brings them back. Guilt, and sudden unexpected tragedy.

Bollywood did it again. They got me. After a couple hours of dicking around, I was ready ready to write this one off as a waste of space. Then SNAP. Right outta nowhere, everything becomes FRIGGING AMAZING. The characters rocket into maturity at blistering speed; the music swells from obnoxious to overwhelmingly amazing; the tone jolts into deadly seriousness; and all the events from the dicking-around phase accumulate sobering significance.

These overgrown kids confront corruption head-on, and discover how complicated it can become to convince India to fix their crappy planes.

While I can't in good conscience condone the events of the climax, I confess it felt legitimately inspiring. (This must be how entry-level jihadists break in.)

157 minutes.

IMDb #159 Review: Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003)

Source: Wikipedia

A big-city Mumbai gang boss struggles to convince his parents that he's a successful doctor, an upstanding member of the community. Even if he has to blackmail and kidnap and flagrantly lie to do it. When the farce inevitably falls through, he goes for the next best thing: become a real doctor. By blackmail and kidnapping and etc, etc, etc.

It's made plane from the slapstick-packed intro chase that none of this is to be taken seriously.

Our hero Munna might do bad things, but he's not a bad guy. He dotes on his doting parents; inspires fierce loyalty in his men, who'll break laws for his convenience before he even asks; and he harbors a charming vacuum where most people store their social awareness. Case in point: dropped out of high school, but decides to become a doctor, while drunk.

More heart than brains, he barges into med school the new-fashioned way: force a genius to do all the work.

But his old life follows him. He wriggles out of an arranged marriage by exposing himself as a delinquent. But, by virtue of indiscriminate friendliness, he meets and falls for the same girl (who he still hasn't met) who happens to be a nurse. Even though her father's the dean, who loathes him, who KNOWS what he is. It's that kind of movie.

Anyway, our hero's rough-edged cheerfulness sparks an underground success. He greets the veteran janitor by name and thanks him for thirty years of grumbling service with one of his mom's famous Magic Hugs. He plays carom and drinks OJ with a cool old guy. He sits up with a vegetable, gives the handsome lad a makeover, and wheels him around outdoors, jabbering about nothing and everything. He starts a spontaneous song-and-dance sequence to explain love to a suicidal patient. He cheers up a young guy dying of stomach cancer by bringing a stripper to the hospice ward.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished. But when the plot structure demands things turn for the worse -- resulting in some surprisingly emotional moments for an absurd musical comedy -- legions of loyalists flock to his aid.

I've said too much already. Yes, it's probably the funniest thing I've seen in years.

Realistic? No frigging way. But hella fun.

156 minutes.

IMDb #161 Review: A Wednesday (2008)

Source: Wikipedia

A Mumbai police commissioner, fat and balding and about to retire, reminisces about his "most challenging case." The case isn't recorded in any file, only his mind, possibly out of embarrassment to the department.

A bomb scare quietly gripped his city, when he was younger but still fat and balding. (Props to Bollywood for not casting male swimwear models for every starring role.)

Back in the day -- a Wednesday, surprise -- an old guy sets up an ingenious tech station on the roof of an unfinished building, in broad daylight.  He telephones the commissioner about the bomb scare; he says to release four Pakistani terrorists or else kaboom. (Despite all his skills and guts, he calls himself a "stupid common man.")

Being uncommonly shrewd, he also informs a news anchor lady, on a painfully slow news day. Her job is to hound the police, get in their way, and (indirectly) keep him updated on how they're doing.

Meanwhile, the hero stews in the Mumbai police department's kickass War Room. (Doesn't your local precinct have one?) Here's where the action happens. The boss fields calls from the terrifyingly sane bomber, techies attempt to pinpoint his location, and important officials look official and important. (Heads up: you'll get sick of the Nokia Tune.)

To fight back, the cops loose the bomb-sniffing dogs, and the loose-cannon rogue cop hits the streets and smacks around scumbags and gets results.

Time passes. When authorities release the imprisoned terrorists, the inevitable HOLY CRAP twist hits like a bolt from the blue, only slightly diminished by staggeringly shitty CGI.

While we're harping on technicalities, a word about the cinematography -- frenetic. IT. CAN'T. STAY. STILL. From the rapid-fire city shots of the opening montage, to the cops marching dramatically down the street, to the mastermind sitting on a roof sipping coffee. The field of view whirls, zooms, pans, and shifts to slow-mo for reasons beyond mortal ken.

Just as the police commissioner grows to respect the would-be bomber for his true motives, I grew to respect the guy for an amazingly nuanced performance (especially the motive rant). To show that terrorism isn't just a problem in America. That everybody suffers, regardless of race or age or creed. That great films don't need enormous budgets, and talented actors need not be strikingly beautiful.

But you'd think somebody would have to fill out paperwork somewhere.

103 minutes.

IMDb ??? Review: Swades (2004)

Source: Wikipedia

Ah, Bollywood. Famous for ridiculous “special” effects, melodramatic romances, flagrant rip-offs, and cheesy song-and-dance sequences–just like real Hollywood, except for that last thing. More on that later.

A NASA project manager journeys to his native India to find with the woman who raised him. Or so says every official description I could find. Actually, the blurb only covers the first half hour of our three-hour epic. When our rocket scientist finds her, he’s appalled by the squalor. Bringing reliable electricity to the village, pushing back his return date, and saving the schoolhouse so he can get on with the hot teacher. All uphill battles, mitigated by the backing of some aggressively friendly yokels.

And the scenery is gorgeous. It’s like a National Geographic special swallowed a musical soap opera.

Because of course it's a musical.

Only a few song-and-dance numbers–enough to acknowledge cinematic tradition and procrastinate the plot. Annoying, but forgivable, because it's familiar. Comparable to Hollywood’s love of lens flare, the Wilhelm scream, and offhanded racism.

A feel-good story that feels three hours long, Swades (“own country”) points at issues afflicting modern India: poverty, illiteracy, corruption, ineptitude in government. Craftsmen outpaced by technology, working women pressured to marry, helpless victims of the caste system. But things can only get so serious before another song breaks out. What's that, match singing voices to the actors? Synch the lips to the sound? They don’t even try.

Because underneath that thin skin of social commentary, there throbs a heart of sweet, gooey cheese.

Recommended for Bollywood lovers, Bollywood haters, and Netflix users too poor to afford plane tickets.

195 minutes.

IMDb #206 Review: Dil Chahta Hai (2001)

Source: Wikipedia

Three Indian college buddies--the cheesy artist, the bland indecisive guy, and the wild self-proclaimed ladykiller--fall in love in three very different directions and therefore make three varieties of horribly shortsighted decisions. Hos before bros, THE MOVIE! Then consequences plonk down like hailstones, and reparations begin out of sheer necessity.

After the best summer of their lives, the dudebro trio puts aside funky beach trips and wacky pranks and posing on sailboats. They grow into actual people, with jobs and financial responsibilities and career plans.

One guy chases another guy's fiancee, another goes after an older woman with more baggage than Mumbai International Airport, and the third realizes an arranged marriage isn't so bad if she's smoking hot.

Not a brain-taxing flick, unless you're watching without subtitles. Every other line alternates between English and Hindi. Good luck, monolinguals.

Being Bollywood, the drama pauses for SONG-AND-DANCE NUMBERS, homages to vintage Bollywood, and (for some reason) Italian opera parallelisms.

Underneath all the pointless interpersonal drama, there's a sincere film that's actually pretty funny when it wants to be. Sometimes, when it wants to be serious, it does okay at that too.

In a great union of funny and serious, the title means, "The heart wants," presumably followed by "what it wants." And presumably finished with especially if what it wants is tremendously stupid.

184 minutes.

IMDb #217: Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India

Source: Wikipedia

A four-hour Indian movie about cricket.

I didn't know what to expect when I buckled down to slog through this thing.

I'll tell you what I didn't expect: entertainment.

All that to say, it's totally worth it.

Despite the exotic setting, a rural Indian village in 1893, the story pulses with timeless familiarity. The farmers pay an annual tax of crops to the British (the titular Lagann), but this year there’s a drought. In a fit of pique, a British officer challenges the Indians: beat the British at cricket, and no Lagann for three years. Lose…and it’s triple Lagann. Basically a death sentence.

So the cheery bumpkins get to practicing. Unfortunately, they have no idea what they’re doing. They might as well have challenged Korea in StarCraft, or the United States in competitive eating. It doesn’t help that cricket’s rules are utterly bonkers.

It’s a classic underdog story, boosted with fatally high stakes and spontaneous Bollywood song-and-dance sequences. Seriously, there’s a song celebrating CGI rainclouds (spoiler: don’t get your hopes up), a team recruitment song, and a Krishna mythological parallel to justify the requisite love triangle.

The characters are instantly recognizable. There's the staggeringly charismatic protagonist; the coy love interest; the big bruiser; the hothead; the mole, whom everybody trusts for no reason; and the flock of asshole white people. However, being India, they must invoke the caste system — the team's not-so-secret weapon is an untouchable with a withered hand. He becomes pitcher. Naturally.

When it finally arrives, the big game takes three days.

Like the movie, a grueling ordeal, but tremendously rewarding.

224 minutes.

IMDb #227 Review: Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)

Source: Wikipedia

Bollywood's spin on The Godfather? Took you demented geniuses long enough.

From the 1940s to the present day, three generations of three warring families struggle to control the titular shithole cities of Wasseypur, Dhanbad, etc.

Metaphorical dominoes knock each other down until they go nuclear and vaporize the game room. The blood feud begins as rebellion of mistreated coal miners, then vengeance for a murdered father. This simple revenge plot proliferates into a sprawling web of lies and hate and power struggles.

Atrocities beget atrocities. Betrayals beget betrayals. Movie-making laws beget explosions and spectacular gun battles and multilingual anti-smoking PSAs.

A family servant, the meekest man in the land, narrates the decades of bloody stupidity. His wisdom goes unheeded, because every Indian story must remind us that (a) the caste system is horrible, and (b) it's not going away anytime soon.

As the war drags on, people marry, spouses cheat, mistresses bear bastard children. Those cute kids grow up into raging assholes. Actually, the children suffer most, not just from ridiculous names like Definite and Perpendicular. No, the children cannot escape the quagmire of crime life, nor the obligation to avenge dead family. Attempts at revenge or restitution fail. A Romeo and Juliet union yields unsurprising results.

Source: Wikipedia

The legions of characters might overwhelm you. Good thing they die off so quickly you can keep pace with the survivors.

Because it's Bollywood, there are melodramatic musical numbers, but sung in the background, because this is serious cinema. Fortunately, the lyrics are lurid, violent, and profanely hilarious to degrees that'd leave American censor boards gibbering similarly insane obscenities. ("Dark skin, darker heart" -- "My bullets will rape every pore of your body, my friend" -- "All hail my assholiness." Seriously, who thinks up this shit? Is this the feeling you creatures call love?)

Strangely enough, in an unexpected metafictional commentary, the principal antagonist/deuteragonist attributes his success to not watching Bollywood movies. Because cinephiles believe themselves the heroes of their own stories, thus untouchable by death. The main story supports this hypothesis. A raid occurs when the extended family has gathered to watch a soap opera. Characters attend movies as a distraction from significant plot events. And having a shrill-voiced Bollywood ringtone practically indicates a death sentence.

After fifty years of gang wars and five hours in real time, the cumulative catharsis from the climactic shootout might physically reduce you to a puddle of goo. But an immensely satisfied puddle, because the payoff is glorious.

Part 1: 160 minutes.

Part 2: 159 minutes.