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!

watch it

They re-released Sholay on the big screen after 38 years. It was released around a month before I was born and it’s been there in our conscience ever since. Such was the impact of the movie. To my mind and also for a million others – it was the defining movie for Indian cinema.

Growing up, I funnily never got the chance to watch it. Probably  because my parents must have watched it well before I was in my senses. But the dialogues were firmly etched in my memory. This was thanks to the songs and dialogues of Sholay cassette that we had at home. I read much later that, the film was declared a flop in its first few weeks and picked up much later. Even after the movie became a hit the records did not move. It seems the movie was so powerful that the songs never registered in the people’s psyche. Only after Polydor released the ‘Songs and dialogues version’ did the sales shoot up. Rightly so – the movie is all about the story and dialogues. There is one scene after the other full of characters mouthing one repeatable dialogue after the other. At home we used to listen to the cassette and knew the dialogues by heart.

Later on when satellite TV reached our households, I would have seen the movie in bits and pieces many times, but never together in totality. It was only much later that I bought the DVD or something and watched it end to end.

So when the news was that the movie is releasing again – I asked Jispa if she wanted to see it. She wasn’t too keen. Then I had to sell it to her. You know Gabbar is in this movie. You know Jai and Viru are also from this movie. Dialogues such as Tere naam kya hai basanti, kitne aadmi the, tera kya hogo kaaliya, chal dhanno, etc… Jispa was amazed. All this is from this movie? Yup. It’s all here. Now that it was appropriately sold, she was game for the movie. Jispa is such a twerp. She is very very irritatingly choosy on if she wants to watch a movie or not. But then….

So we went and watched the movie. It had released in the 2D and the 3D version but we went for the 2D version at Regal theatre. If you see it then you must see it on the big screen, the traditional way. And we hate the 3D specs as it gives us a headache. And I wasn’t disappointed. DVD is a poor cousin for this movie. This is great movie. After all these years and after knowing the story and the dialogues, you are still glued on. The fun bit is knowing which dialogue is going to come in and saying it just as it is being delivered. You are then a part of the movie yourself. You end up interacting with it yourself. What a movie. To my mind there are no wasted shots and movie moves forward at an amazing pace. At best one can fault the action – the scenes where the bad guys get shot and jump from their horses or pedestals..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. That seemed hackneyed by today’s standard. But the rest was good enough to keep Jispa happy. She enjoyed the movie as well.

After the movie we went home and I dug out the book I had on the making of the movie and gave it to Jispa to read. Now that you enjoyed the movie, do read how much fun it was to make.

Talking about movies – we caught an interesting movie on DVD. We saw Lootera. While it had two actors I wouldn’t care of, I figured from some interviews given that it was a different movie. I was amazed by the movie. It truly was a nice movie. It was a bit slow but a few things happened that has never happened in the history of Hindi movies. One – there are so many scenes that don’t have any dialogue and secondly – there are scenes where the actors whisper to each other. In Bollywood, there are no whispers. People shout out their secrets to each other. Nothing is understated or subtle. It’s over the top. All the time. Go see the movie – it’s different. I liked it, but yes it’s a bit extra on emotion, but it’s nice still.

here - the bonus title track of sholay. I love it. Jispa and I have been listening to it and we love the part where the strumming and the whistling takes off