The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)

Cast: N!xau, Lena Farugia, Hans Strydom,

Director: Jamie Uys

The movie is a sequel and except for the plot, it’s very much identical to its prequel Gods Must Be Crazy I (1980). However, the prequel is more detailed and justifies the actual movie message i.e. how the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert are eons away from the urban civilization, but still happen to be the masters in their own world, and also how a mundane and daily use (read consumable) object from our life appears totally inexplicable and utterly useless to them and how hard they try to simply get rid of it!

It seems that since this message was well established in the prequel, the sequel simply concentrated on a plot comprising of both the Bushmen and the city dwellers without going deep into the differences of their perception, preferences etc.

In the movie, it is very interesting to observe how Bushmen calculate and understand everything just by reading different footprints on the sand. It seems that the desert talks to them just about everything! Just by looking at footprints, they can derive – who/what has imprinted it and whether it’s wounded, copulation activities of specific animals, tracking of lost children etc. It is important to note that they are the only population in the world who has thrived successfully for so many years without any surface water! They are one of 14 known extant "ancestral population clusters" (from which all known modern humans descended).

The movie actually is a well made documentary showing snippets of Bushmen culture and also the pace is little slow. People who are interested in knowing about different cultures, or say world movies will surely like it.

Hideous Kinky (1998)

Cast: Kate Winslet, Said Taghmaoui, Bella Riza, Carrie Mullan, Sira Stampe, Abigail Cruttenden, Pierre Clementi

Director: Gillies MacKinnon

First and foremost, the movie has nothing to do with its name. It is based on Esther Freud’s novel of the same name. It’s a simple and nice partial journey of a hippie (by heart) English woman along with her two kid daughters. And this journey of hers is solo and not in a group or caravan. She is a gypsy by heart who is absolutely untouched by money and grandeur. What she seeks for her daughters and herself is the true meaning of life and the opportunity to live life as it is intended to be lived i.e. with the soul.

Morocco as the movie background serves as a good setting for such a storyline. Kate with her divine face has acted well. Actually it does not feel that she is acting at all. Maybe somewhere she believes in the character. An interesting study that you find in the movie is the impact of a hippie lifestyle on the children. It is amusing to see the elder daughter argue with her mother (the protagonist) to get her admitted to school in spite of her mother’s nonchalance to do the same! The movie clearly shows the ease with which they adapt to any new environment, get attached to people, provide and seek assistance at the drop of a hat and are at absolute ease without any money!

All in all, it is an interesting movie to watch if you wish to understand the actions and reactions of a gypsy soul.

How Do You Know (2010)

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson

Director: James L. Brooks

Till now we have seen stories on true love, shifting from false love to true love, sudden realization of an association as true love, but this love story defies all the aforesaid settings! This one is about being in a casual but genuine relationship, keeping in hand an upcoming friendship and ultimately putting the ‘true love’ label on the budding friendship and leaving the casual but on the verge of turning steady relationship midway for no particular reason!

The only plausible reason for the aforesaid choice seems to be the fact that the protagonist i.e. the heroine happens to be in the same mental state or life phase as the chosen hero during the decision making period. This made them totally understand the respective needs of each other to - stay quiet or constantly blabber or be indecisive or make a total mess of themselves.

There is no bad guy in the movie. Neither any of the characters are looking for love or happen to believe in only serious relationships. Everyone here is well mannered and good at heart. They may be childish and/or eccentric at times, but they are genuine at heart. So, there is no moral as such in the story. It perhaps just depicts the ultra urban scenario where relationships don’t commence with the hindsight of longevity, forget the sentiment of commitment! Partners are chosen at whim and left at whim without intending any actual harm and perhaps no major offence is taken since things start on a very casual note!

Acting wise, Reese is very natural. This lady can put sense into all kinds of characters. This trait of hers remind very strongly of Kajol. Owen has great screen presence. Others are also up to the mark.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Josh Hutcherson, Michael Caine, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzman, Kristin Davis

Director: Brad Peyton

It is a sequel to ‘Journey To The Center Of The Earth’. But like most sequels, is unable to repeat the magic of the prequel. Or you can say that now we are so used to CGI wonders on the big screen that the idea as well as its implementation needs to be really out of the world to make us feel out of the world. Otherwise the movie is nice and entertaining. It has its own new ideas like – riding on a honeybee, vulture sized butterflies, dog sized elephants, enormous rock sized lizard eggs, electrified water dragon etc.

Like its prequel, this movie is also based on a novel (The Mysterious Island) by Jules Verne. Mostly the children will like it.

Spartacus (1960)

Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Tony Curtis

Director: Stanley Kubrick

This movie instantly reminds you of Mel Gibson’s ‘Apocalypse’. Reasons – Perfect r&d, set design, casting, costumes, picturization of ancient life and warfare etc. You find it hard to believe that such extensive movie was made in 1960! It is primarily based on a book ‘Spartacus’ by Howard Fast.

Set in the 1^st century BC, the film is about a slave named Spartacus, who is born in slavery, sold to be trained as a Gladiator (they were made to fight in twosome wherein one had to die), rebels against slavery, forms a group to facilitate departure of slaves to their home grounds as free men, is made to fight against the imperial Roman army, fights them again and again bravely, is ultimately crucified with hundreds of others, thereby condemning the age old system of slavery which ultimately got abolished 2000 years later.

It is needless to say that the direction as well as acting is simply superb. The movie is more of an edutainment since it covers in detail the hardships of ancient slavery system focusing more on how slaves (read gladiators) were kept and controlled rather than how they were captured. It is fascinating to witness the early teaching methods. There is a scene wherein the to-be-gladiators are taught wounding which body areas causes the following - death, impairing of limbs and slow death respectively. Today, we employ extensive lectures and audio-video lessons to teach anything similar and still cannot be sure of students grabbing the essence of the matter. But in the movie, the teacher simply used three colors – red (for death), blue (for impairing) and yellow (for slow death) to teach the same. In six swift strokes (two strokes for each color) wherein red was applied on a student’s throat and heart region, blue was applied on one set of his limbs and yellow was applied on left and right sides of the front region of his upper torso, the important lesson was taught effectively!

It is a must watch movie for serious movie enthusiasts.