Episode 008 - East Coast/West Coast (audio file format: 192 Kbps mp3 - duration: 11:40 [mm:ss] - size: 16.0 MB)
Shownotes:
The Hindi film producer/distributor strike is finally over, and the films begin to stream into the cinemas. The first two films released here were "New York" and "Kambakkht Ishq", and we went to see both to celebrate.
Both films have their good points; both have flaws. Today's episode just skims the surface of both -- time will tell if my opinion of either will change, for better, or (more likely, I suspect) for worse. It's probably damning "Kambakkht Ishq" with faint praise by saying it was better than CC2C -- not hard to do, alas, but probably the best I could offer in a film where the best bits (and there are some very choice best bits) were marred by cringe-worthy moments of true vulgarity and misogyny. Okay, it has to be argued that some level of vulgarity and misogyny was necessary to establish Akshay Kumar's character -- who is, when we first meet him, well, vulgar and misogynistic. But it might also be argued that the film went a little too far.
I doubt either of these films will end up breaking into my top ten films of 2009, but so much will depend on the rest of this year's releases. The trailers promise much, but the films may fail to deliver. Time, and cinema-going, will tell.
Attributions:
Panoramic Utopia - DJ Drez & Zaire Black
"Sah Jahta" (mp3)
from "DJ Drez & Zaire Black Are - Panoramic Utopia"
(Say It Loud Music) Buy at iTunes Music Store
Buy at Puretracks
More On This Album
"Hallelujah chorus - Messiah" performed by: Oratorio Chorus; Composed by: G.F. Handel - public domain recording from the Internet Archive
"Tablas-Very Sharp" recorded by hammerklavier and uploaded to The Freesound Project
Theme music and intro voiceover by John Meadows, host of the podcast "On The Log"
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