Speaking of Bollywood, and of soccer, I went to a sneak preview of "Bend It Like Beckham" that the 'Pids hosted here in Denver earlier this week. It was a really, *really* good movie. (And I got to sit next to Chris Henderson & his family!) The guy who plays the lead character's father is Anupam Kher, who has starred in over 270 Bollywood movies. Now, normally I prefer action movies (Bourne Identity) or submarine movies (Hunt for Red October) over comedies, but this was a really well-balanced comedy. Plenty of seriousness thown in with the hahas. The movie explored the way female athletes are sterotyped. And in addition to humor, it offered a not-so-common plot, insight into cultural differences, romance, teenage-girl-cattiness, energetic soccer scenes, a handful of lilting accents, and eye candy for both genders. Go see it! You can check out http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/benditlikebeckham/ to find out when it will be showing in a theater near you.
I really dug the movie. One of my best friends is a Punjabi Sikh soccer player and BILB is basically her biography.
I watched Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music last night. Run, don't walk to get this one. It is a real good time. June Carter rocks too. Most of the footage of the "Hurt" video is taken from this documentary.
I watched this movie the other day: I didn't think it would be great (and it wasn't.) I had zero expectations for the movie and it met them. It had some good car chases, some neat weapons and I like Lucy Liu. I've been on kind of a no-brainer movie mode lately. That should change soon though as The King of Masks just arrived today.
It's nice to see you have some lowbrow tastes. Everytime I see what you're reading or listening to, I feel horribly uncultured.
All "the culture" happened as a result of a job I stumbled into a few years ago. I was working at a newspaper and was doing a story on this violin prodigy that graduated from the University of Indiana at age 19 or 20 with a double doctorate in Chemistry and Music. The performer was coming to town and the promotion company liked my story and asked me if I wanted to come to a party they were having for the artist. I went to the party and they offered me a job two weeks later. After that, I was thrown into a world of music, art, books, etc. and got kind of a culture crash course. I've really come to appreciate that stuff, but still enjoy kung-fu movies, car chases, fly looking Asian chicks and obnoxious rock music like The Verve and Helmet and I love techno and all that. I guess because of my former and current line of work, I'm just forced to do more "cultural" things.
I watched this two nights ago: Bichhoo means "scorpion." It is the Indian version of Leon: The Professional, which I haven't seen before. I didn't know that until after the fact. Surprisingly, it was the most violent Bollywood movie I've ever seen. Bobby Deol, who plays the male lead was pretty good in this one playing a silent, distanced assasin. Rani Mukherjee, who plays his love interest (Kiran) is downright obnoxious throughout the movie. Yeah, she's beautiful, but that can't cover overacting up. I wasn't expecting anything from this movie, and it delivered, being much better than I thought it would be. Every now and then we rent one of these things just to laugh and see how they can weave silly song and dance routines into a movie about an assasin. Totally worth it
I can't believe I watched this last night. At times I felt as if I was actually getting stupider by watching it. That being said, some of it was funny as mess. Johnny Knoxville cracks me up to no end (plus I've got to give props to a fellow southerner.) I would say around 75-80% of the movie was shennanigans and tom foolery. 20-25% of it however, was disgusting. If they could've left that stuff out I would recommend this to everyone. What's not funny about seeing people skim board on the streets of Seattle or using an exercise trampoline to jump into a ceiling fan or seeing Henry Rollins drive a Hummer over rought terrain while someone is getting a tatoo in the back seat?
I also watched this last night: In my love for kung-fu/maritial arts movies, I intend to see just about everything that is made in the genre. I regret to say that this was the stinker I thought it would be. Jackie Chan is really falling off his game. His most recent pictures (this one and the kungfu westerns) have been so bland and the ideas even more unbelievable. The fights are lame and the idea of a romance between Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt isn't plausible. Not because an older Chinese guy couldn't go out with a super hottie like her, but just because there was zero chemistry between the two. Jackie, if you're reading this, please give us more like Legend of Drunken Master. I've got to start watching some serious movies. I've got a few on the way and will report back after watching them.
Finally, I snapped the streak of braindead movies! I'd been wanting to see this for a while and it was definately worth the wait. Set in 1930s China, the movie deals a lot of with the inequality of the sexes in China. A sweet story, but at times a frustrating one. The lead role was played by Xu Zhu, who was in the movie Shower. He is really a superb actor because he's played all types of characters and plays them all well. I enjoyed him in Shower more, but that's probably because his character is more lovable in that one, although performance was excellent in both. A great movie, with some awesome clips of Chinese opera as well as the cool mask changing trick the title character does.
Road to Perdition: I took me 45 minutes to adjust to the fact that Forrest Gump could shoot somebody.
I watched Undercover Brother today. Awesome soundtrack. That movie was funny as mess. I've got a bunch of Netflix to watch before I go out of town!
i watched phone booth last week. i'll never make a call from phone booth. i also watched x-men 2 yesterday. i hope one day we humans and mutants can live together without fighting
I want to see phone booth, but haven't done so yet. i will see x-men 2 because i'm in love with all of the women in it.
This was horrible. Please, spare yourself the boredom. There is zero redeeming about this movie. Because of this movie, I'm going to stop taking movie recommendations from people.
This was almost good. However, it had the weakest ending to a movie I've ever seen. Horrid. Please, save two hours and go do something else. Stamos, no surprise, is a bit of an overactor, although she was good in places. Despite his being in a lot of cruddy movies, I still like Antonio Banderras.