Good jokes and competent delivery, relentlessly massacred by the odious "audience voice" gimmick. An album better experienced in clips, than in its entirety.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Bhuddah Hoga Tera Baap
(2011)
Fantastic
5 July 2011
"Bbuddah... Hoga Tera Baap" is of the class of cinema that asks you to check your brain at the door: "masala," through and through. If you're looking for sanity and realism in your experience, move quickly on, but if you know what this sort of Indian entertainment is all about, "Bbuddah..." should anything but disappoint you.
Although, in the end, the film completely relies on the able shoulders of Amitabh Bachchan to succeed as it does, it doesn't throw him a load of crap to carry, either. The songs, the scenes, the dialogues — everything is top-notch. As for others' performances, they're always more than adequate (no one's ever out-of-place or annoying), but, really, it isn't about anyone else. "Bbuddah..." is a one-man show, and that's just perfect.
Although, in the end, the film completely relies on the able shoulders of Amitabh Bachchan to succeed as it does, it doesn't throw him a load of crap to carry, either. The songs, the scenes, the dialogues — everything is top-notch. As for others' performances, they're always more than adequate (no one's ever out-of-place or annoying), but, really, it isn't about anyone else. "Bbuddah..." is a one-man show, and that's just perfect.
Miracle on 34th Street
(1947)
The Rare Excellent Christmas-Movie
26 December 2010
Christmas time, in terms of cinema, is an unfortunate minefield. You know nothing good will come of entering it, but you'll let yourself be sucked in, regardless. Yet, 1947's "Miracle on 34th Street" is a truly rare film of its genre that, even if momentarily, makes you forget all the trash produced in this genre.
The script is what makes the picture the joy it is. Where most films involving Santa Claus go wrong is in creating a world of magic, then asking people to believe it because of the sprinkling of some mindless pontifications to why it should be suitable even within one's sense of reality. The advice for adults to buy Santa Claus is, of course, preposterous, and I imagine those children who actually believe in the character don't much care what are the plots of such generic movies.
"Miracle on 34th Street" takes a very different, and tremendously successful, route: that of painting a real world in a very engaging, clever, charming way, that presents the argument for "belief" in a tone perfectly between sincere and tongue-in-cheek.
I feel most "good" Christmas movies came about after the 1970s, when effusiveness was traded for sharper, darker humor (though, by the 1990s, for a deplorable, nauseously saccharine stupidity). As it is, "It's a Wonderful Life" and this picture stand out as two truly special pieces of holiday cinema from before this era, albeit they do in very different ways from each other.
Altogether, with "Miracle on 34th Street," the performances are perfect, the characters are intelligent, and the film is simply too marvelous to skip during any month of December.
The script is what makes the picture the joy it is. Where most films involving Santa Claus go wrong is in creating a world of magic, then asking people to believe it because of the sprinkling of some mindless pontifications to why it should be suitable even within one's sense of reality. The advice for adults to buy Santa Claus is, of course, preposterous, and I imagine those children who actually believe in the character don't much care what are the plots of such generic movies.
"Miracle on 34th Street" takes a very different, and tremendously successful, route: that of painting a real world in a very engaging, clever, charming way, that presents the argument for "belief" in a tone perfectly between sincere and tongue-in-cheek.
I feel most "good" Christmas movies came about after the 1970s, when effusiveness was traded for sharper, darker humor (though, by the 1990s, for a deplorable, nauseously saccharine stupidity). As it is, "It's a Wonderful Life" and this picture stand out as two truly special pieces of holiday cinema from before this era, albeit they do in very different ways from each other.
Altogether, with "Miracle on 34th Street," the performances are perfect, the characters are intelligent, and the film is simply too marvelous to skip during any month of December.
The Polar Express
(2004)
Enjoyable
24 December 2010
Unlike Robert Zemeckis's subsequent Christmas-theme film, "A Christmas Carol," "The Polar Express" relies rather more heavily on shine and dazzle than on substance to get itself across to its audience. The message is as functional and useless as ever invaded the genre: little boys and little girls must "BELIEVE" for Christmas to be real. Of course, in life, one would be loath to hear this sort of prescription to happily accept matters without any evidence, but, in the realm of children's holiday fantasy, the MacGuffin adequately propels its hero and his companions across an attractice world of snow-laden excitement.
Accordingly, I'm sure a good bit of the appeal of watching "Polar Express" is lost in translation from 3-D-enabled movie theaters to thirty-inch television screens running a D.V.D. of the picture. Indeed, much of the merriment — involving high-speed roller-coasters, dizzying air-rides, and treacherous frozen lakes — obviously were conceived with 3-D technology in mind, and watching them via traditional means, one is oddly more aware of what one's missing than enthusiastic about what one is seeing.
Altogether, "The Polar Express" does satisfactory work of filling the ever-increasing library of American Christmas cinema. It's mostly an empty candy cane with lots of glitter plastered on top, but there are much worse ways to kill an hour and a half in December.
Accordingly, I'm sure a good bit of the appeal of watching "Polar Express" is lost in translation from 3-D-enabled movie theaters to thirty-inch television screens running a D.V.D. of the picture. Indeed, much of the merriment — involving high-speed roller-coasters, dizzying air-rides, and treacherous frozen lakes — obviously were conceived with 3-D technology in mind, and watching them via traditional means, one is oddly more aware of what one's missing than enthusiastic about what one is seeing.
Altogether, "The Polar Express" does satisfactory work of filling the ever-increasing library of American Christmas cinema. It's mostly an empty candy cane with lots of glitter plastered on top, but there are much worse ways to kill an hour and a half in December.
A Christmas Carol
(2009)
Surprisingly Brilliant
24 December 2010
As have most people in American culture, I have, since I could, seen countless re-tellings of Charles Dickens's, "A Christmas Carol." Beyond the cute and colorful Mickey-Mouse renditions, I've found most to be repetitious, uninspired, and ghastly effusive tributes to some vague "Christmas spirit" that, by the end of the usually one and a half hours, I've found myself more annoyed with than enchanted by.
It's as unexpected as it is wonderful, then, how Robert Zemeckis's attempt at the classic tale is more opposite to these attributes than anyone even could imagine is possible. A story so numerously recited surely must have extinguished any hope for creativity or meaning, mustn't have? Evidently not. Zemeckis handles his film with a level of humanity and maturity, thoughtfulness and sincerity I never thought could even be found in the pages of Dickens's nineteenth-century novella.
From its visually arresting imagination, to its enveloping sounds, to the perfect performances delivered by its cast of voice-actors (most notable among them, Jim Carrey, in the leading part), this version of "A Christmas Carol" is not only among the finest interpretations of the classic story, but it is, I believe, one of my new all-time favorite Christmas films.
It's as unexpected as it is wonderful, then, how Robert Zemeckis's attempt at the classic tale is more opposite to these attributes than anyone even could imagine is possible. A story so numerously recited surely must have extinguished any hope for creativity or meaning, mustn't have? Evidently not. Zemeckis handles his film with a level of humanity and maturity, thoughtfulness and sincerity I never thought could even be found in the pages of Dickens's nineteenth-century novella.
From its visually arresting imagination, to its enveloping sounds, to the perfect performances delivered by its cast of voice-actors (most notable among them, Jim Carrey, in the leading part), this version of "A Christmas Carol" is not only among the finest interpretations of the classic story, but it is, I believe, one of my new all-time favorite Christmas films.
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