Movies

My family and I were over at my Mom's this past Saturday. It's difficult to buy gifts for parents (and spouses for that matter), so perhaps the best gift for my Mom was to have us over, spending time. My Mom wanted us to watch a Bollywood movie with her, so she put on Dil Ka Rishta. It's been a while since I saw a Bollywood movie (Bride and Prejudice doesn't count) -- and it was typical of a Bollywood movie -- singing and dancing and all -- although I was surprised that there wasn't as much singing and dancing as I was expecting. The story is formulaic. I've seen it before. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. But ooops! Boy can't have girl, as she's in love with some other guy and they're about to get married. An accident occurs, and girl loses her memory -- chaos ensues, and boy finally gets girl. The movie stars Aishwarya Rai (the star of Bride and Prejudice), Arjun Rampal and Priyanshu Chatterjee. I'm only familiar with Ash, as I believe she's the current reigning queen of Bollywood. The movie probably wasn't the best of Bollywood, but it was entertaining. It's got a few songs that I'm currently listening to over and over -- and you can too, freely, online -- listen to Saajan Saajan, Dil Ka Rishta and Dayya Dayya Dayya Re.

I also saw the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the last couple of weeks -- twice. Once with my wife and once with the guys from work. The consensus was the same. The movie wasn't the best. The translation from book to movie lost something -- the biggest problem was that the book relied heavily on language for the humour. The movie couldn't have the characters do standup -- neither could it narrate the entire movie -- so a lot of Douglas Adams' humour was lost in the translation. As a standalone SciFi movie, it would barely standup on its own. Don't get me wrong though. I was entertained by the movie -- once. Not the second time. I hope they don't make a sequel.