Fantastic Mr Fox

Fantastic Mr Fox is based on a Roald Dahl novel, which I never read. Dahl was and still is quite a popular author but I never got round to reading anything he wrote. I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, though, and I liked it. We went out for this one because my uncle is quite fond of movies with animals, especially canines. I think that runs in the family, because my mother and I share this sort of liking.

This particular movie, however, did not live up to my expectations. Not that it was a bad movie. It was a reasonably entertaining family movie with family values nicely woven into the story. And it does have its occasional dose of witty humor. But somehow it comes across as a movie for adults trying to disguise itself as a children’s film by simply changing the characters from humans to animals and not changing much else. The animals behave just like people and the story has a mundane, everyday theme with not much appeal or novelty to it. It's like they took a few days out of the life of an ordinary family and made it into a story. Nothing fantastic about it. Just okay-ish.

Of Remakes And Inspirations

I watched French Kiss today and once again saw how shamelessly and distastefully some Bollywood directors just rip off from Hollywood and other foreign movies. (Foreign movies. Now I'm in the States. When I look up a Hindi movie on Netflix, it's classified as a foreign movie.)

I remember watching movies like While You Were Sleeping and The Wedding Singer and seeing how they've been copied, down to the silly gags. Remember that scene from Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega... where Salman Khan was talking to Paresh Rawal and the elevator doors kept closing and opening behind them? It's a really silly gag, and it's copied. So may movies tend to be remakes, or, to use a cliche, 'inspired' from other movies. And if you've seen the original before you see the remake, chances are you'll hate the remake, like I hated Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai or Salaam-E-Ishq (or whatever fraction of that movie I had the patience to sit through).

Do these filmmakers think that Indian audiences don't watch or understand or like Hollywood movies? Or do they think that we'd like them translated out for us? Or maybe, we'd just enjoy watching the way the director makes a fool of himself and his actors by ripping off a story and making his own modifications to it which just don't fit in.

Dev D: An Atyachaar Of Sorts

I never liked the whole idea of Devdas to begin with. I mean, what a loser. Why can't you stand by the woman you love, dude? And if you can't, and you do lose her, why can't you move on with your life?

But you know what? Much as I dislike Shah Rukh Khan, at least his portrayal of the character makes you feel the loser's loss.

Dev D, on the other hand, is cluttered with performances devoid of emotion and expression, lovemaking scenes devoid of chemistry, and modifications to the original story that do not add anything to it. I think this was the first time in the last six or seven years that I went out for a movie and did not feel like sitting through the closing credits. I always sit through the closing credits of a movie, because I like the feel that comes from the music that plays alongside. With Dev D, I felt like walking out around the intermission, but I remembered what happened with Luck By Chance and decided to stay till the end. This time round, I regretted having made that decision. It moved from being boring to being mildly irritating to being torturous.

The promos never made me feel like watching this movie. All the stuff that people had said about this movie had generated quite some curiosity in me. But it was totally not worth the time and money. A lot of people have praised the director due credit for being a lot bolder than a lot of Indian directors. I think It's all pretty distasteful. I've seen much bolder films that are way more tastefully made than this one.

I wish I'd watched Delhi 6 a second time instead, like I wanted to after having seen it once!