Monday 24 March 2008

Race - a metareview

After a long hiatus, the combination of a good night about town with the utter joblessness that one feels while waiting around for a diploma pushed me into attending one of the "New Release!!" Hindi movie screenings that happen on campus.

This movie, as the observant amongst you readers will have noticed, was (surprise!) Race.

Usually, after watching a movie, a good friend and I scrounge through its IMDB and Wikipedia entries to see if we can dig up nuggets about said movie. And if it happens to be a very new one, we look up the reviews online, to see if it conforms with our opinion of the movie.

Our opinion of this movie: BLARGH!

One of the crappiest Hindi movies to have ever seen the light of day, it is rendered worse by the fact that so many otherwise decent actors agreed to work in this craptacular waste of time. Even our joblessness felt cheated!

HOWEVER!

What totally, completely, utterly rocked our sensibilities (even beyond the McKinsey Life Insurance shown in the film!) was the existence of a shocking number of positive reviews this movie was receiving! So I decided to pick through six random reviews, just to bring to light the awesomeness in the perception gaps between different people.

1. 'Race' - An okay entertainer

Starts off well by saying subtlety and restraint aren't exactly the hallmarks of Abbas-Mustaan (how the heck do you spell that second guy's name?!), but then actually lauds Akshaye Khanna on his performance! To be fair though, he wasn't bad, but certainly not praiseworthy. Acting cannot be graded relatively!
They do mention that Sameera Reddy sounds dumb quite convincingly. What they fail to mention is their opinion on whether this is by design or not :-D

2. “RACE” - One of the 10 Best Thrillers

The most shocking review of them all! Its title alone makes one cringe. The entire body of the review is so stuffed with hyperbole, one is actually left wondering if it isn't really poking fun at the movie. The one thing they do get right is a square-peg-in-round-hole reference to Sameera Reddy.

3. Indiainfo Movie Reviews

Another review calling this movie a sure-fire "Best" for 2008 - with the 3rd month in the year not over yet! Worse yet, it goes on to heap praise on the writing and (urk!) the dialogues! The dialogues, incidentally, was unanimously voted as the corniest, most predictable tripe to ever be dished out on-screen, after our screening.

4. Economic Times Review

Finally, sanity prevails! Finally, a review that gives this movie its rightful place in Bollyworld! Finally, somebody gathers up the cojones to look past "dumb", and call Sameera Reddy (in the movie) silly, naive, stupid and irritating!
Only one gripe though: it pans the movie in totality, and then labels it 'not bad'. BZZZT!! Wrong!

5. Rediff: Too many twists spoil this Race

My most favourite review of the lot. Praises Kapoor's "Sanjay Dutt-Musafir" knock-off look, but captures the movie best in two words: vague mess.
Says it isn't objectionably bad, but that's okay, there's not much that needs objecting to.

6. My own review

This one's simple and short: what is wrong with this movie?

Answer:

Not bad? Bah. Avoid at all costs!

Thursday 20 March 2008

The life

No obligations.
Sitting under a tree.
Ass on grass.
A cup of tea.
A good book.
A sporadic hearty laugh.
A light breeze.
The occasional drop of rain.
Passers-by giving longing glances.
And of course, good company.

This, my friends, is the life.

Sunday 2 March 2008