The Indian Film Festival has come and gone and with it brought some very memorable movies. It was a chance to learn about a different culture. The Hollywood Arclight where it was held for a week looked simply stunning, decorated in silk cloth and tent areas on the balcony and outside. They Indian style frankly makes the boring drab inside look more presentable. The outside more fun to wait around. They should keep the look.
So many new movies to see and new stories to get lost in. You could see how Disney makes a family movie from India in Zokkomon (nothing like Pokemon), learn the plights of India in the stories told in "I Am" and Pink Saris and Pink Chadis. It's just superb we live in a city with so many festivals and the Indian Film Festival is one that I look forward too, quite a bit.
If you don't know Disco Dancer, just talk to someone from India, they've probably seen it. Disco Dancer is a terrible movie. Terrible songs, terrible effects. It was so bad, that when I rented it from Netflix the only way my friends and I could finish it was fast forward 1/3 of the movie. Endhiran or The Robot is no Disco Dancer. Endhiran is nothing you could imagine. It's a movie to see with friends and never stop laughing or go wtf. Oh, where to start, where to start?
Spoilers Imagine a robot forming before your eyes and you"ll be seeing the opening credits go by. Find a lab that looks like Apple headquarters furnished by Ikea. Dr. Vaseegaran is finishing touches to a human like robot. Enter bad cgi motion capture which gets your guard down. Strange because the opening cgi credits looked as good as a Hollywood production.
The robot soon takes on the form of his creator Dr. Vaseegaran because wouldn't you want the robot you create to look like you? Probably, not unless you have a huge ego and that's exactly what the writer and actor playing Dr. Vaseegaran and his recently created robot has. I'll get more into that later and why it's not a bad thing. So what do you do after you create a robot that looks like you. Trick your parents into believing it's you then having a awkward dinner. After that why not meet up with your girlfriend you've been TOTALLY IGNORING and for some reason she falls back in love with you.
Now have Chitti, I'm sorry, your Mom named him during dinner, so anyway Chittie is now driving your car and is learning to be a little more human every day. Now, how about a random music video out of nowhere that has nothing to with the movie. Your in the dessert suddenly, talking about how your love is like hot wasabi mixed with honey. This one of many music videos that come out of nowhere and toward the end can't wait to explode out of nowhere.Back to reality, now you just want Chitti certified by the AIRD, who are they? You won't find out till later. Because now it's Chitti's movie. Your girlfriend need some help and Chitti needs to learn about the real world, so why not go to the Veterans Wife and Children Home? After beating up two jerks gangs who are playing music to loud Chitti's gets a kiss from your girlfriend. A kiss he wants so bad he talks to cgi mosquitoes, not going to explain that.
Uh-oh Chitti's got to fight all the gang's he already beat up. This time in extremely well done fight scenes on par with a video game super combo and a Jackie Chan movie. This happens on a moving train in a in closed spaced and to capture such a great fight was just breath taking. First off, it just became a action movie after becoming a love story, science fiction, music video, with undertones of how bad the wars and poor are in India. Let me just get back to the fight though and say this need to be available now on Netflix and DVD, Blu-ray the whole spectrum of video release.
The movie is so long we had an intermission, but we hardly needed it. I was enjoying every second of it.I haven't even got to the evil robot army. The second half of the movie just checks in to all action. Imagibe the best fight scenes possible, the imagine robots combining together. you can't because that has happened in a live action movie before. Maybe, the ending to the Matrix game, but nothing on the level you will see in this movie. He fires 50 guns at police, holding them at the same time. Pure, over the top violence, with explosions cars chases and guns!
Jeez, set design, the songs and music videos that burst out of reality, the jokes that were suppose to be taken seriously that don't translate over to American audiences. It was simply great and without the IFFLA we wouldn't have it. It has my highest recommendation.
The star of the movie A.R. Rahman who played both Chitti and the Doctor and the entire robot army has another movie in production the he sadly had an accident at, hopefully he"ll be ready by July 10th when he comes back for his concert at the Hollywood Bowl.
- A.R. Rahman
- Los Angeles Philharmonic
- Additional special guests to be announced
- Tom Schnabel, host
Sunday, July 10, 2011, 7:00PM
Hollywood Bowl (Map/Directions)
2301 North Highland Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90068
