A movie I liked.:p

(I'm tired of ranting - I'm going to talk about a movie I liked for a change.:)

Kung Fu Panda [* * * * *]

Ok, now ... what's Not to like in this, right?:)

It's a story about a cute panda who follows his heart (and stomach) to become the greatest kung fu fighter of all time. Along the way we learn some lessons about living. How much cooler can it get in movie making!

Just like a hindi movie it has a dishoom-dishoom fight sequences, no romance, but lots of trees and a lot of advice on HOW TO BE in a very patriarchal kung fu environment.

Unlike the usual movies of bollywood or hollywood it's got no sexism, ageism, weightism or speciesism. Just a lovely lesson in living and learning simply to be yourself as the highest art.

The panda didn't really catch my eye as much as Tai Lung, the son who's adopted father betrayed. [Betrayal is a fascinating theme - in real life and in movies. It has a cataclysmic quality of tipping over long unresolved issues beyond retrieval.]

In the end, after 20 yrs of incarceration he escapes 'by the same road his father seeks to escape his destiny' . The father apologizes and says that he feared his love overcame his judgement of the boy's capacity. Outraged, the son, Tai Lung, says to the father, "I don't want your apology. You knew I was the best, but when someone else criticized me, you didn't trust what you knew. Everything I did and became, I did it for you."

Ah! Such a tragic truth about Love. The very people you love will betray you because their love overpowers their judgement. You can't forgive them. You can't forget that they took away the very thing you had built, in a weak moment. Yet you must live on and act without resolution, without closure from that moment on.

How many times this takes place in real life - in families, lovers, friends - and how perfectly this movie expresses the endless karmic cycle a betrayal sets off!

This one's for you, the Tai Lungs of the world.:)

Rab Ne bana di jodi [ * ]

If there's a movie to dislike from start to finish, and an audience I'd have happily seen murdered, it would be this. In an almost all-male theatre of hooting, whistling local freaks, I watched the bollywood justification of our primitive, barbaric arranged marriage system. Fine, they made it for the 'masses', but this is a gold-class, fatcat 'masses' in theatres these days.

Here's a girl who's been callously forced to marry a perfect stranger on the day the love of her life dies. A typical arranged marriage of convenience results - such everyday people that they didn't even need two bollywood stars to make it into a movie.

On top of it all, this educated girl is so lacking in self-esteem she apologizes for being in mourning and proceeds to wash, clean and care for his house while the babu comes home only to eat at night.

When she meets a guy who's willing to dress up as well as she does and meet her halfway in dancing, riding, etc. she chooses him over the self-centered unchanging hubby. But in a [duh] radical decision she decides to keep the moron-hubby over the more jazzed up version. [The audience went crazy with joy at this dutiful daughter preference.;]

What makes me angrier is that so many women (who have probably had an arranged marriage) thought it was a terrific movie too - not just those guys. I guess arranged marriages are here to stay for a few centuries yet.;s

Dostana [* * * *]

It was total eye-candy. Two pumped up guys pretending to be gay and this one naive and trusting girl in skimpy clothes. (I mean ... Indian guys can't really *actually* be gay, right? lol. Such hypocrisy.)

The entire movie was about flesh, flesh, flesh. And not too unpleasantly either - youth is just about skin, and there's plenty of it available, both male and female.

That being said, I think John Abraham is just the grooviest guy EVER! for his work for the animals, his incredible eyes and sweet shy smile. *drool*!!:)))