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Reviews
Dinner for Schmucks (2010)
Nonsense rip off of a Bollywood flick
I usually never rate a movie this bad because I give up watching it before it gets this bad. This time I could not escape because it was playing on a bus I was on.
This is a (rather poor) rip off of the delightful & funny, but not much known, Bollywood movie "Bhejafry". While the mentioned Bollywood movie was awesome because it built on an exaggeration of certain peculiar personalities that are actually found in India; but in a shoddy attempt to copy the movie - the Hollywood directors either didn't attempt to figure why the movie was so hilarious or didn't care - and proceeded to poorly copy a lot of the plot without understanding the cultural nuances that made the original movie funny.
Result: Weird characters that bear no close resemblance to anyone either in India or in the US and this not relate-able; are not particularly funny - but extremely annoying.
Do yourself a favor and skip this non sense.
Provoked: A True Story (2006)
Not a male-bashin movie
I think the writer of this review missed the point.
Don't believe this was a male-bashing story at all, or one which says it's OK to oxidize your "better" half.
One of the last lines in the movie, and I quote: "Ofcourse, there never was a retrial. The courts could never find a woman who had burnt her husband to death to be innocent. So on September 25th, 1992 - they reduced her sentence to manslaughter and accepted her 3 years 4 months that she'd spent in jail as the full term." I guess this summarizes my argument against this review. No, Kiranjeet was not innocent. She lost her reason after 10 years of rape, abuse- physical and emotional - and snapped one night.
As to whether her action was "justified" - will again quote from the movie: "For a woman who suffered violence and abuse of the highest order for 10 long years and feared not only for her own life, but the life of her little children - I myself could not, would not presume to know what reasonable would be for such a woman".
The real issue here is that some men need to learn to treat women with honor. Though I will grant there were some real cheesy moments of women-to-women bonding in the prison - don't know how much of that is real.
I am a punjabi male and found this movie perfectly fine - there is no negative bias against men - unless of course, you're one of those men who think it's a good idea to iron your spouse just for the kicks. A movie well done.
Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003)
Don't watch if you're not into cheesy bollywood movies
This movie is a cheesy piece of crap. I don't understand what craze my fellow countrymen have for the same story told and retold a thousand times on different sets in different countries under the same banner.
Karan Johar recasts his favorite people, who can barely act but have made millions because my fellow citizens have absolutely no sense of quality. This tearjerker is a waste of time unless you're one of those people who would die to hear Sharukh stammer. This time Sharukh also gets to die - too bad he is around for the whole movie before he dies.
Some songs are good though! And Preity look pretty as always. And it was nice to see Dara Singh after so long.
Cafe Setareh (2006)
A masterpiece from Tehran
This movie is special because it brings out beautifully the ordinary lives in a culture that is more than two thousand years old.
The movie is based on three women characters living in a poor neighborhood in Tehran. Moghadam does an excellent job of telling a story that follows the lives of these three women.
Fariba runs cafe Setareh and her husband who is a drug-addict lives off her earnings. The local car mechanic, Ebi is a good friend of Fariba's brother Khosro, and is in love with Saloomeh, a beautiful young woman who lives alone with her blind father. Molook who is Saloomeh's friend and landlady has feelings for Khosro.
The movie is divided into three parts and each parts unfolds the tragedies that bind the lives of these three women. Music is familiar and yet poignant.