Sanjay Leela Bhansali fan and Time film critic Richard Corliss just named Black to his top ten movies of 2005. Here’s the catch: like that famous Aishwarya Rai cover, the list is only for Time Asia. The same spot on the U.S. list is occupied by Caché.

Rani Mukherjee in Black

This is an unofficial remake of the 1962 U.S. film The Miracle Worker, about the deaf-blind child Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan… This is an unusual film for India: no songs, a running time under 2 hrs. and most of the dialogue in English… Amitabh… harnesses gravity and humor to his magisterial machismo in what may be his greatest role… In so many Indian films the deepest searches are for romantic ecstasy and for reconciliation with the father figure. By addressing both these needs, Black is more than a noble weepie; it is the ultimate Bollywood love story. [Link]

Heh, ‘unofficial remake’ Corliss may still be smarting over the collective global yawn over Devdas:

I wished Devdas had been in the competition for the Palme d’Or; it bested the Festival winner, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, in verve, visual acuity and the hero’s sanctified suffering… it could also be the most visually intoxicating film ever[Devdas] could also be the most visually intoxicating film ever…

My devotion to Devdas was a minority opinion at Cannes. The pack of international critics is usually a tolerant one; I might say they share some of the Devdas hero’s self-flagellating tendencies, since each May they sit obediently through dozens of mopey minimalist movies. (This year’s prime example: The Brown Bunny, the notoriously painful American indie that only a handful of scribes walked out on.) Yet in 2002… exactly one critic — and by now you’ve figured out who — was there at the end… for TIME’s International editions, I went further, really too far, and named it the film of the year…

But you never heard of Devdas. That’s because no review appeared in the major New York or L.A. newspapers, or in most others, when the film opened last July. [Link]

Hench-desi #1

Kiran Shah, who’s 4’1″ tall, plays Ginarrbrik the White Witch’s dwarf henchman in The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe. And it’s a pretty big role. He gets to gasp theatrically when he’s eventually nailed with an arrow. The moment drew big laughs.

It’s interesting seeing a henchman with an obviously desi accent, though not new. Shah also played scale double for all four hobbits in Lord of the Rings.

[Born] 28 September 1956 [in] Nairobi, Kenya… Because of his size, versatility, and willingness, Shah is much in high demand as a perspective stunt-double for long-shots in action scenes. Auditioned for the part of R2-D2 in Star Wars (1977), narrowly losing out to Kenny Baker. Worked as a tailor’s apprentice for six months before seriously starting his acting/stunt career. [Link]

You know how you can tell in the first 10 minutes that a movie is going to deeply suck, and all you can do is sigh and settle in? That’s Narnia, and its 76% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes is a joke. I can only assume reviewers are paying deference to the excellent novels and don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of another mega-franchise. The script has all the anachronistic smarminess of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Its fundamental problem is you’re stuck watching bad child actors for nearly three hours. The movie is slow, the editing slack, the lines cheesy.

And it’s fundamentally The Passion of the Simba. The movie, paid for in part by a wealthy Christian religious activist, is awash in Biblical allegory. Its climax is a lame, in-your-face re-enactment of Jesus’ resurrection that had my Jewish theater mates groaning. The New York audience laughed openly at all the unintentional camp. There’s also some jarringly bad CGI (mismatched lighting against a green screen, an obvious transition from glowing graphical fur to fakey, inert stuffed animal). After the movie, I overheard much griping outside the theater, in the bathroom line and on the subway.

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As stated previously, there isn’t much that I like about the Holiday season. The one thing I do appreciate however, are the movies. Hollywood studios, greedy for Oscar gold, always release their best movies in December. I still haven’t found a date to go see Syriana with despite the fact that it has been out for two weeks already in L.A. This weekend marks the opening of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I can hardly wait. Next weekend however is when the biggest film of the year will open up. Peter Jackson’s re-make of the 1933 classic King Kong. But…did you all know that Bollywood re-made King Kong in 1962? Would I lie to you? I give you Kong:

Unfortunately this one blurry picture is the only visual evidence I could find that the movie really exists (Update: Manish who unlike me can read Hindi, points out that this poster may be of a film called Shikari which also seems to have a giant ape??). It was a cached copy on a defunct webpage. I do know a bit more about the ’62 version however (even if the above picture is not the King Kong movie poster). It was directed by Babubhai Mistri and starred Dara Singh:

Prolific Indian director Babubhai Mistri filmed a Hindi version of the simian classic that starred world-wrestling force Dara Singh. We were unable to ascertain, however, whether Mr. Singh played a human or Kong himself — this movie never made it to the United States because of the copyright infringement lawsuits that would have resulted. [Link]

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CityWalk, an outdoor mall in Hollywood, figures prominently in two terrible date flicks I saw this weekend, Shopgirl and Deewane Huye Paagal. Perhaps I can spare you the pain.

In the Anand Tucker-directed Shopgirl, the extremely funny Jason Schwartzman takes Claire Danes out on a date to CityWalk just to sit and watch its theater marquee from the outside because he doesn’t have the cheddar to take them both. ‘Well, we could split it,’ she says cautiously. To repeat an old joke, she offers her honor, he honors her offer, and all night long it’s ‘honor’ and ‘offer.’ Tucker, whose father is desi, serves up this mini-haha:

‘Lisa?’
‘Ray.’
‘Lisa Ray, it’s nice to meet you.’

I’m not sure whether Tucker’s Bolly-aware enough to sneak in a desi shout-out, but producer Ashok Amritraj certainly is. Sadly, the rest of this bildungsroman about a lonely salesgirl is so slow-moving and trite that the little double entendre was my highlight. Steve Martin sleepwalks through the movie. The Martin I loved from Roxanne in junior high still makes movies for 12-year-olds — saccharine, kiddie and devoid of edge. His novella-based voiceovers are from the Bulwer-Lytton school of writing. Danes’ character spends much of the movie next to glove mannequins, disembodied hands pointing at the sky. Hands beseeching heaven are exactly what came to mind when I realized how long this movie ran.

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