pasta at the movies

We had a long weekend this time and we got a chance to catch up with the new Avengers movie. It was quite a disappointment. The story went berserk and the action went even weirder. Well what do you do when you have Hulk on your avengers team. The guy is out of control and indestructible. You can nuke him or shoot him or anything else. Anything you do only makes him madder! But what the hell. A movie that I could finally discuss with my daughter. She too thought it was a bit over the top. Then I tried to explain to her what the artificial intelligence they show is and how the basis of AI in the movie is in reality. It’s quite interesting how clued in good quality fiction writing is. They can take an idea from reality and close make it work with the story. Basically take the most simplest of future gazing and take it to its ultimate mess. Even hulk and the others were all products of the nuclear age where you needed to be radiated to  have super human powers.

Talking about radiation, when men discovered radioactive substances we went berserk. We thought that this is cool new scientific stuff and therefore lets sell it as the next best thing to sliced bread.  We put radium in toothpastes and even in water. In fact we sold a canister which contained radioactive substances mean to radiate the water before we drank it. Obviously people drank this to die! Don’t believe me – try this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Ore_Revigator. The revigator was the big thing in the 1920’s.

But forget that… yesterday I got Jispa to watch the movie ‘for a few dollars more’ with me. this was the movie I had loved to watch. It was a cult with the guys and Clint Eastwood was the ultimate cool hero with a billion dollars of attitude. This was Jispa’s first western and as I explained to her – it was her first Spaghetti western. These were called so as they were western movie produced with American actors but largely meant for the Italian market. They were shot without sound and then the lines were in Italian. The English versions were an afterthought. Released in 1965, these movies had an indelible impact on the movie loving public. And of course a ton of filmmakers. These westerns in their plot were inspired by the Japanese – especially Kurosawa and his band of films. We in india got inspired and made a few movies. One was a decent hit called Khotey Sikkey, which starred Firoze Khan in the lead and directed by Narendra Bedi. Narendra Bedi was the brother of my mom’s best friend and that’s why I knew some of this past story. It seems they all around the same time watched these westerns and decided to make movies. Narendra Bedi made Khotey Sikkey but the movie that created the maximum impact was – what else – Sholay. Sholay while being an absolute super grosser and a great movie – it still to my mind was a well made rip off. It seems to me that the villain in ‘for a few dollars more’ was an inspiration in many ways for Gabbar. The hairdo, the built, the beard, the laughter, the madness, the brooding – everything seemed so Gabbar in the movie. A la Gabbar, this guy too smashes insects on his hand, while brooding over. While I knew Sholay was inspired, watching this movie took a little sheen that I had in my head for Sholay. Of course Sholay was well picturised, they had some amazing dialogues, love story, music, everything… but still, it was copied.

Even the background score by RD was heavily inspired by the movie, the shots, the wide angle landscapes, the signature tune. I had taken Jispa to watch Sholay and when this movie was being played, I kept reminding Jispa of the similarities.

You can see the amazing title sequence here which sets the tone for the entire movie.

Jispa and I were having fun with the background score and the tones of attitude the movie oozed.  The full movie had hardly anything that made sense. Everything was just a lead up for a large dollop of attitude to be served up. Of course as teen boys in our time, we loved it. Jispa enjoyed it but couldn’t understand what the huge fuss was about. She found the shoe scene particularly dumb. Which Shoe scene? Oh dear – see this scene, where the two heroes face off against one another. One is obviously trying to better the other! And who of the two is really the Big Boss! And you really have to be a teen age boy to get the real fun kick behind putting sand on another’s shoe. It’s so stupid that’s it so much full of attitude. Complete spaghetti with sand!

tischiawn

This is freaking hilarious. So would it be Clint Eastwood or Bruce Lee? To someone who grew up on a diet of Clint Eastwood films and was fed the one magic film of Bruce Lee, it’s a tough choice to make.  On one hand you have the legend wooden face who came in these spaghetti westerns (called so because they were produced by the Italians) and shot the shit out of the baddies. On the other hand you have the one film wonder. I think he has come in a few more movies, but Enter the Dragon was the only movie I have seen of him. I think the tragedy was that he died before its release making it a bigger cult. I would emulate both in my childhood depending on the movie I had just seen. Enter the dragon was I had seen many times. In Dubai, when I  was a little boy, the club would have a movie night every week and we would look forward to it. Largely the movies were repeated and Enter The Dragon was favorite. Yaaaiiieee. There comes my Karate chop.

Like any other boy I too had an interest in guns. I loved guns and it helped that I was naturally good at aiming and keeping my hand steady. I loved the guns I had and would play with them every day. even today I would love to play and practice with a toy gun :). I remember playing so much that once the servant in the house put a really small parrot toy in one corner of the room and challenged me to hit it from the other side of the room. And whack… it flew. I was pretty cool. Then I remember trying to hit while moving and all sorts of different situations. It was fun. Clint Eastwood gave me a lot to dream of.

So for sheer breadth of movies and the dreams that followed guess in my head it was clint Eastwood that won. After all I don’t remember ever wearing that yellow track suit but I do remember wearing cowboy boots. The cowboy western image is still more resonant with me that the lanky pants flexi kick kung fu. Guns defeated the nang chaku in my life. Aiiiieeeee….. yaooo… Bang. Poop.

And nothing else exemplifies this philosophy than this scene from the greatest of them all – INDIANA JONES. The epic adventurer, searching the worlds for lost treasure and an unlikely action star.

And here is another legendary one from a Clint Eastwood movie, though not featuring him.