Dholdrums

Here's the thing about movie critic reviews: while they are not perfect, you can generally trust them. When they tell you to skip Sharknado, but that Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty good, they are usually right. There are of course exceptions to this rule—for example I thought Snowpiercer was the worse piece of garbage film I've ever set my eyes on in recent years, but it was almost universally lauded by critics.

But overall, you can trust them by and large.

But, and this cannot be overemphasized, this is only true for Western film critics.

When Indian film critics tell you a movie is good or bad, do not trust them.

Here's a fun exercise to prove my point: Go and find all the movie reviews you can on Slumdog Millionaire. Once you have done that, divide these into two categories, those done by Indian film critics, and everyone else. Take the Indian pile, and further divide it into two more piles, every review made before the film swept Oscars, and every review after. Now, read through the reviews.

Notice something interesting about them? Most of the Western reviews say something along the lines of, "This is a very good movie." At the time I saw it, shortly after it had come out, I agreed. I thought it was excellent and encouraged everyone I knew to watch it.

Indian reviews on the other hand, all panned the film. They all said the same thing: (1) it was a terrible story, and (2) it did not accurately represent India.

Now if you read the Indian reviews of the film after it won the Oscars, they all changed their tune, they all said that it was an excellent film and totally worthy of praise. Interestingly, these were written by those same reviewers who panned the film a few weeks/months earlier. Some of them had the honesty to say as much, and admitted they were not really objectively judging the film earlier, but most did not refer to their hypocrisy.

So what was the problem? I believe that Indain film critics, do not hold themselves to objective standards when they review films.

Their reviews are colored by the actors in the film, the amount of money it costs to make the film, etc. Very few reviewers actually review the film.

Which brings me to the topic of my current post. I decided to watch Mardaani based on Indian film critic reviews (my mistake). They all loved it and said was a lovely film.

It was not. The plot was completely unbelievable, the acting was fake, the characters were caricatures of cops and gangsters. And I, like a fool, kept waiting for it to get really good. Because I had read the reviews (from Indian critics).

It was, in short, a terrible movie. Skip it. And you can believe me when I say that.

Whenever someone tells you that a Bollywood film is science fiction, never believe them. PK is no exception. Like all Indian movies claiming to be science fiction, the sci-fi element is basically loosely used for the setup, and not really explored. PK is an alien who comes from another planet, gets stranded on earth, and largely spends the whole movie trying to "find God".

Not that this makes it a bad movie. PK was a bad movie on its own, without the sci-fi elements. PK is very preachy, showing the hypocrisy of various religions, but it fails to entertain, or even give a coherent plot.

Am I surprised or angry that this was not a very good film? No, that's par for the course for Bollywood. I'm more upset that it received positive reviews from critics. Indian film critics are the real hypocrites here. They judge movies based simply on stars and budget. If this was not an Aamir Khan film, then it would have been panned.

My recommendation: skip this film, there's nothing to see here.

This movie brings out mixed emotions in me. On the one hand, I do like the fact that Bollywood is tackling non-traditional storylines, in this case: a man and a woman want to get married, but things are complicated by the fact that he is in the process of divorcing his current wife and have to deal with the sorts of issues that come with that.

The problem is that this is a hard subject to make work as a romantic comedy (which is what I presume this movie was). Not to say it isn't possible, but it's hard to make it work. And this movie did not make it work.

The acting was stiff, which is par for the course for this type of film. In addition, neither the roles nor the dialogue were any good. I went into the movie theater coming off a bout of stomach flu, and I'm glad my system was empty, or I think I would have retched in the middle of the movie.

My only consolation was that I went for the first showing, so I only wasted about $6.50 for a matinee ticket as opposed to the usual $15.

Over the weekend I decided to watch some movies and went over into my long dormant Netflix streaming account. Some time earlier I had added some documentaries on veganism, but had never gotten around to watching them.

I ended up watching the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead". Without giving too much away, I want to say that this is one of the greatest documentaries I have ever seen. I immediately watched it again after watching it the first time. And today, I went ahead and showed it to a friend.

It's basically about an overweight Australian guy who decides to start eating (or drinking in this case) healthy, and the lengths he goes to achieve that. The real star of the show is someone he accidentally befriends in Winslow, Arizona during a cross country trip through the US. Do watch it, it is amazing.

I ordered a juicer. It is coming Wednesday. Do yourself a favor and watch this film. It will change your life.

A couple of postscripts:

• the film has a website: www.fatsickandnearlydead.com and it can be seen for free on Hulu (albeit with commercials)
• the juice fast portrayed in the film is apparently called "Rebooting" and there is a reboot website as well
• I haven't bought into Juicing as the end-all, cure-all, I think a much better place to start is the book Eat To Live, authored by Dr. Joel Fuhrman (who is featured prominently in this film), but it's certainly a start

Umm, this was a terrible movie. Terrible plot. Terrible acting. I really wanted to immolate myself. The only good thing about this movie was that I managed to get through to the end without killing myself.

Good songs though.

P.S. Keep in mind I haven't seen the original.

Saw this new Aamkir Khan flick tonight. Was pretty good. The characters were well done, loved the new actors. Still had a sad ending, but wasn't as bad and depressing as the ending for Peepli Live (which overall was a better film, but was killed by the ending).

Will recommend to friends.