2.5 Razors

Chandni Chowk to China

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Chandni Chowk to China
  • IMDb: link

chandni-chowk-to-china-poster

If you took equal parts Bollywood musical, martial arts film, hero tale, screwball comedy, love story, and then upped the crazy blender to 10x what you would get would look an awful lot like Chandni Chowk to China.

The first Hindi film ever to be shot in China includes bright musical numbers, battle scenes, wire work, a hero training montage, mistaken twins, and an excess of buffoonery.

Akshay Kumar stars as Sidhu, a vegetable chopper from Chandi Chowk, India, who is mistaken for the second coming of a great Chinese warrior. Along with his unscrupulous friend Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey) Sidhu makes the travel to China not realizing the responsibility of his new fame. Also included is the tale of a former cop (Roger Yaun) and his displaced twin daughters Sakhi, an Indian television personality, and Meow Meow, Hojo’s personal assassin (both played by the lovely Deepika Padukone).

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Last Chance Harvey

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Last Chance Harvey
  • IMDB: link

last-chance-harvey-posterAn American divorcee finds love in London with a goodhearted single woman. Well, that’s not exactly the most original idea I’ve heard for a movie, but the casting of Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson adds at least the air of respectability to what otherwise might have been just another forgettable romcom.

Harry (Hoffman) travels overseas for the wedding of his daughter (Liane Balaban), who announces she doesn’t want him to walk her down the aisle. Along with this news his job is hanging by a thread and his ex-wife (Kathy Baker) and her marvelous second husband (James Brolin) are running the festivities, much to Harry’s chagrin.

So, as you might imagine, Harry’s London adventure is a bit of a bummer, until he meets Kate (Thompson), a lonely airline worker who spends most of her time taking crap from angry, tired passengers…

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Spirited Silliness

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Spirit
  • IMDb: link

There’s not much to the movie, and that’s just how it should be.  Basically, The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) is vigilante that never seems to die.  The same thing could be said of his arch-nemesis, The Octopus (played by none other than Samuel L. Jackson).  The two have locked heads with each other for the foreseeable past – the good guy fighting for the city, and the bad guy fighting to keep selling drugs.  More stuff happens, like the Spirit’s former flame coming back to town, and something to do with eternity is also mentioned; but there’s not much to figure out in this movie.

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The Best Hits of the 50’s, VH1 Style

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Cadillac Records
  • IMDb: link

“That mother fucker!”

The film, written and directed by Darnell Martin, tells the tale of Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) and the creation, tribulations, and successes of Chess Records which boasted now legendary artists Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Little Walter (Columbus Short), Willie Dixon (Cedric the Entertainer), Howlin’ Wolf (Eamonn Walker), Chuck Berry (Mos Def), and Etta James (Beyonce Knowles), all of whom are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Given these figures you might expect something more than your basic paint-by-number music biopic.  If so, like me, you’ll be disappointed.

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Synecdoche

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Synecdoche, New York
  • IMDB: link

“Knowing that you don’t know is the first essential step to knowing, you know?”

Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a theater director dealing with a myriad of problems, both physical and emotional which includes his inability to understand the passage of time (he can’t tell the difference between a few weeks and a few years), postules, eye and teeth issues, and his unsuccessful relationships with women (Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, and others).

Into this dysfunctional existence comes a MacArthur genius grant (seemingly funded until the end of time) which allows Caden to create his own masterpiece.  Decades later the project takes up several square blocks, employs hundreds, has become a mirror to Caden’s failures (complete with extras who begin playing the extras, who have now themselves become characters in the play), and is no closer to being finished.

That’s about all I can tell you about the plot since its dreamlike nature makes it hard to say how much, or how little, is reality or Caden’s wild imaginings.

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