malaise and bonbons

the official synopsis for tashan, as released by yash raj films, is the following:

What happens when you throw two guys who hate each other together…

A cool call center executive Jimmy Cliff (Saif Ali Khan), a desi wannabe gangster Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) add for good measure a beautiful girl Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) who can’t be trusted… on a journey across spectacular India… a journey which will alter the course of their lives in more ways than one… a journey where even enemies need to trust each other if they want to be alive…

Trouble is, in this world no one can be trusted ever!

And to top it all there is the evil eye of Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor)… a maverick gangster who enjoys killing people as much as he enjoys speaking English…

What you get is… TASHAN

Yeah, I don’t really know what that means either and that’s AFTER seeing the film.
Tashan is a huge incoherent mess. But it’s also a beautifully shot, beautifully designed, incredibly fast-paced and funny mess, and I loved it.

The film is about three people traveling across India trying to find cash that they stole from a major gangster, but even that basic plot point seems to be minimized in importance based upon what the filmmakers feel may be more important at any given point in the movie. Major storylines are dropped instantaneously to make room for whatever seizes their interest, whether that’s Kareena Kapoor dancing around in a skintight red vinyl dress and blonde wig, or it’s Akshay Kumar thugging it up in a traditional village play. And that’s perfectly fine, because the whole thing is absolutely gorgeous and crazy. Who cares if we don’t know the plot if we’re going to get to see elaborate dance sequences in India’s wilderness?

My favorite moment of the movie came when one of the characters jumped on a jet ski, flipped it in the air, and, with a machine gun clutched in both hands, shot another character multiple times. Oh, and in the next scene, we see the guy who got shot completely unscathed on a rickshaw. AMAZING!

Tashan loosely translates to “style” and I think it’s safe to say that this movie has that. It doesn’t have much else, but the Tashan is enough to keep it going.

last night, amit and i caught up on our movie watching by taking in a double feature of harold and kumar escape from guantanamo bay and forgetting sarah marshall.

harold and kumar was crass, with some absolutely awful visual gags and disgusting fratboy humor. it was also the funniest, most inventive movie i’ve seen all year – to the point where i’m going to need to watch it again with subtitles to figure out all the gags that I missed. both kal penn and john cho are masters at throwaway asides, often tacked on at the end of what was a very, very funny scene. sure, some of the jokes fall completely flat (inbreeding, giant boobies, etc.) but the sheer quantity of serious belly laughs makes it hard for me to complain about this film. fans of the first will be happy to know that the bag of pot has made a glorious return, but my personal favorite moment occurs at the end of a flashback to their college years, in a 30-second throwaway john cho joke.

forgetting sarah marshall was also funny, but in a sweeter way – or as sweet as a film featuring full frontal male nudity, topless shots of women, and lots and lots of comic writhing about can be. indeed, it’s jason segel is flat-out hilarious. much has been made of his willing to doff all his clothes for the film, leaving his slightly schlumpy body exposed to the world, but i think his real gem comes when he breaks out into his dracula rock opera. amit noted that kristen bell is just too darn cute to carry off the mean girl role, and i agree, but that’s a plus here – she’s not supposed to be 100% mean. their relationship was complicated, as most relationships are, and i appreciate the fact that while she’s certainly not the heroine, she isn’t a one-dimensional villain either.

if i had been in top form, i would have a review of baby mama up here, but amit and i couldn’t handle a triple header. we’re getting old!

checked out leatherheads this weekend, which was cute, but too long. just when i thought the movie was drawing to its natural close, clooney gives us a drawn-out football sequence – and this was a movie i had liked up to this point because of its lack of football sequences.
still, there’s a lot to recommend it, particularly some snappy scenes of repartee between clooney and renee zellweger. i also really liked the performance of john krasinski, who showed he’s able to move beyond the role of jim and play a morally ambiguous hero.
the entire movie is really only worth a teensy weensy review, though.

after being subjected to the trailer for the movie 21 over and over again, i was in the mood for a fun gambling movie. just not THAT gambling movie. who wants to see a emo-haired math whiz trying to earn money for medical school before falling under the influence of the evil kevin spacey? sanctimonious much?

no, i like my gambling movies to celebrate gambling, and gamblers, and make them look all sassy.* and it’s even better if the gambling is done with games that i have no idea how to play, so i can’t even tell, when the cameras go in for close-ups of cards or tiles or game pieces, if the hands are winners.

so i absolutely loved the experience of tazza, which – despite being a little darker than the average gambling movies – is LOTS of glossy, ridiculous fun.

the film revolves around goni, a down-on-his-luck gambler who loses his sister’s entire alimony payment in a game of hwatu. in his despair, he throws himself on the mercy of pyeong, the best gambler in korea. however, he’s soon lured away by the beautiful madame jeong, who is a master gambler operating several grifting rings. and then he strikes out on his own after a narrow brush with the law, only to find himself navigating the rivalry between his two mentors.

but the story, which is told in a non-sequential manner, doesn’t really matter. it’s the gorgeous visuals, and the cocky smile of jo seung woo, who plays goni with a sense that any cares can simply be brushed off like lint on his increasingly ridiculous suits. (okay, that was a pretty tortured sentence, but the clothing does just get ridiculous, in a highly entertaining wait.)

the film is playing as part of the korean film festival in dc, which include a LOT of free movies at the freer. fanboys in the know would tell you that korea is the new hong kong, with tons of vibrant and exciting movies coming from there. at any rate, most of these films will present something that’s beautifully shot, but completely at odds with the pacing or storytelling of most American films, which is part of the fun of seeing them.

*i just want to make a note here that one reason i go to see so many gambling movies, and spend so little time actually gambling is the fact that gambling movies are sassy, and real-life gamblers are on mini scooters. or people with oxygen tanks. or obese chain smokers in t-shirts and sweats. no sass there. just a lot of depressing future member of “gamblers anonymous.” which is why i have no interest in gambling films that depict realistic American gambling. ick.