mazumdar Reviews

Startup.com (2001)

There's a great documentary hidden somewhere in here

[28 October 2001]

I make a plea to the producers of this film to go back through their footage and recut this documentary so we can see the story that is hidden somewhere in here. The story of the wunderkind dot-com is the most important story of the last five years and it needs to be told in a film like this. However, the way this film was cut, the viewer has no idea what is going on. We have no idea who these people are -- one of the reviews said that Tom is gay? He is? The film gives no clue. I spent the whole movie wondering about Kaleil's ethnic background. Is he Turkish? Is he Hispanic? Is he a Muslim? Is he a Hindu? -- We have no idea what decisions are being made and for what reason. We see one of the original partners being bought out, but we don't get enough detail to explain what exactly is going on. We see that there was a break-in suspected to be industrial espionage, but we see no resolution of that issue. We see Kaleil pushing Tom out, but we have no idea what his motivation for that is. We don't meet any of the investors and we don't learn anything about how they affected the business. We really don't have much idea about the business itself, except for the original pitch. We don't know what's happening, why they're growing so fast and why they fail so quickly. To sum up, WE CAN'T TELL WHAT'S GOING ON. Please, producers, recut this documentary so we can see the real story. You've piqued my curiosity, but all you've given me is a 90-minute teaser.

Oleanna (1994)

Nonsense and blather

[9 September 2001]

This is supposed to be some kind of analysis of a social phenomenon, but it's complete nonsense. First of all, most of the ambiguity is created by the vague, roundabout language of the characters, and, I can't say this strongly enough, PEOPLE DO NOT TALK LIKE THIS. Ordinarily in a Mamet movie, this stilted manner of speaking helps create an atmosphere and it doesn't matter that it's fanciful, but in a movie like this, where the principal misunderstanding is over language, it is important. Second, we are supposed to see this as some kind of "Rashomon," where the characters might legitimately see the same situation differently. However, in the circumstances laid out in the play, the student's reactions and perceptions are so extreme and unreasonable, the only real conclusion one might reach is that sexual harassment law is the new McCarthyism. Whether or not that is true, it is the inevitable conclusion of the movie. The third thing that makes it so difficult to watch is the unlikability of the characters. The professor is a bit of a bore and a jerk, but, really, we're fairly used to dealing with someone like that in life and in movies. However, the student is so slow and dense that, particularly in the first act of the movie, she seems to be either mentally ill or developmentally disabled. She can't even seem to ask a comprehensible question. The only complaint of hers that's comprehensible is that she doesn't understand the professor's big words. And in later acts, she becomes hateful and vindictive.

Tampopo (1985)

Sensuality, Food, Sex, Living, and Humour

[19 August 2001]

Anyone who apreciates the sensual delights of life will be able to understand not only the humour and the satire of this movie, but also the indulgence. A test of whether you are a real sensualist will be whether you can appreciate the eroticism of the egg-yolk scene.

The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–1985)

Based on 1974 movie

[19 August 2001]

I just realised that this series was based on the 1974 movie "Moon Runners," which didn't have the Duke family, but it did have characters named Uncle Jesse, Cooter, and Waylon Jennings as the Balladeer. The main characters, Bobby Lee Hag and Grady even had a stock car which they raced. The car wasn't named "General Lee," but was named after Robert E. Lee's horse, Traveler. They significantly cleaned up the story to make it family-friendly for television. In the movie, the main characters were involved in the illegal alcohol business. Uncle Jesse was a moonshiner who was in trouble with other local moonshiners because of his insistence on quality. Bobby Lee was a rum runner, who used his big old Chevy to outrun the local sheriff and the revenuers (tax authorities).

Three Daughters (1961)

Delightful vignettes about women in society -- hilarious (PLOT DISCUSSED)

[27 August 1999]

Originally, this movie comprised _three_ separate stories by the legendary Rabindranath Thakur (Tagore); hence the title "Teen Kanya" ("Three Daughters"). However, the subtitling could not be finished in time for a Tagore anniversary, so the middle story, a ghost story, is not included in the videocassette, retitled "Two Daughters." In the two remaining stories, we explore the lives of two girls living in a world not of their making, facing their fates with limited options. The first story, "The Postman," is about a lower-middle-class bourgeois city boy who goes deep into the Bengali countryside to take a job as a village postman. The "daughter" in this story is Ratna (nicknamed "Ratan"), his servant, a little slip of a girl. In the west, this girl, an orphan, not even at the age of adolescence, is a child. How can she cope? What can she look forward to? The second story, "Samapti," is about another girl in rural Bengal, this one a little older. She's what we would call a "tomboy." The life of an adult woman in this society -- a housewife -- wouldn't seem to be much in her taste. She is active, vivacious, lively, brazen, playful. She is known as "Pagli" ("crazy") by the disapproving villagers. But it is these very qualities that attract the attention of Amulya, a young college graduate who has returned home to his widowed mother to be nagged by her to settle down and take a wife -- a traditional, shy, modest, and, in Amulya's view, boring wife. Despite the serious subject of these two stories, they are actually quite funny. The second story is even hilarious, with a couple of near-slapstick sequences. (In the scene in which Amulya breaks the news to his mother as to which girl he really likes, pay close attention to what's happening in the background.)

The Goddess (1960)

Devotion and duty -- PLOT DISCUSSED

[27 August 1999]

WARNING -- PLOT DISCUSSED -- Umaprasad is a modern man. He argues with his wife, Doyamoyee, about the value of a modern education when she asks him not to leave her at home for his college in Calcutta. (Doyamoyee is 17 and the two have been married for four years. They seem still to have the attraction of newlyweds for each other -- yes, it can happen, even with an arranged marriage!) Why do you need to go away for this kind of education, she asks him. Umaprasad's father is a good and learned man; he never needed that kind of an education and he has always done his duty to his family and to god. Doyamoyee and the father, a widow, have great regard for each other and while Umaprasad is away in the metropolis, the father's regard for his young daughter-in-law grows, slowly, to what we might consider an extremely pathological level. Is there some sexual tension behind this astonishing behaviour? It's always possible. But don't be misled; this film is not in any way about sex or perversity. All the outward manifestations of affection are very proper and correct in a Bengali context. (A foot massage given by a young wife to her father-in-law is not considered an erotic act, rather a dutiful one.) This film is about the nature of devotion and duty. The father's level of devotion becomes dangerous to everyone in the household -- for Doyamoyee, for Umaprasad, and for Umaprasad's elder brother Taraprasad and his wife Harasundari and their child. Umaprasad doesn't agree with his father, Taraprasad probably doesn't, Doyamoyee probably don't either. But what can be done? The father's devotion is perfectly logical in the context of tradition. How can Umaprasad speak against it? It will take courage. But courage to do what, destroy his own father? There is a complex web of duties involved. How will Umaprasad do his duty to his father? his wife? Has the childless Doyamoyee failed in her duties to her husband? How will Harasundari do her duty to her father-in-law as well as to her husband and to her young son? All these questions are implied. As usual, director Satyajit Ray applies a subtle hand -- given an extraordinary situation, what would you really do? How would you really behave? To westerners, Umaprasad's reaction to his father's actions may be unbelievable. This is perhaps a difference in place in time. Put yourself in his shoes -- devotion must be respected and duty must be done.

Jalsaghar (1958)

A study of the nature of privilege in society -- PLOT DISCUSSED

[27 August 1999]

WARNING -- PLOT DISCUSSED -- The jalsaghar is a great music hall in the mansion of the main character, a scion of a great landowning family. It's almost all he has left of the Ray family's legacy. Over the years his land has been slowly eaten away by one of the great rivers of Bengal. But he still has the trappings of aristocracy -- his retainers address him as "Hujur" ("my lord"); even his wealthy neighbour, Ganguli, addresses him as "Thakurda" ("(paternal) grandfather"). He lives only for his jalsaghar, where he can recreate his family's past glory and where he can still win a game of one-upmanship against Ganguli. Meanwhile, Ganguli is up-and-coming. He's a businessman, the new aristocrat, land-poor but cash-rich. He gets electric lights for his house; he gets a motor car, the first in the region. Satyajit Ray, the legendary director, masterfully contrasts the hollowness of the old aristocrat with the shallowness of the new aristocrat. How is privilege earned? Who is due respect? What is worthy of pride? What will pride get you? These are the questions that are explored with subtlety. The focus of the film is the performance of Chhabi Biswas, a legend of the Calcutta stage. (An interesting aside -- "chhabi" is Bengali for "picture" and "biswas" means "belief.") He fit the mold of a classic actor -- temperamental, undependable, a raging alcoholic, a master. Almost every scene is wholly dependent on him, as he preens and boasts and rages and pines away for lost glory. When you read that Biswas was in real life completely tone-deaf, his creation of a music-lover is an astonishing accomplishment, both by him and by Satyajit Ray.