As you may have noticed, I've been on a Bollywood kick. Yesterday afternoon I watched a movie called The Killer, which some people condemn outright as a plagiarism of Collateral. I mean, sure, it's plagiarism, but it's hard to get worked up when it's Hollywood being ripped off. It's like the episode of Veronica Mars I also watched yesterday, when she catches a guy breaking into her dad's desk and gets in a moral outrage. Of course, she's already broken into the perp's office TWICE and also hacked his computer, but she didn't get caught.
Anyway, the moral (ha!) of the story is, that I will probably never watch Collateral anyway because of the Tom Cruise Factor. I just involuntarily cringe and back away. People keep telling me that Minority Report is good, and I try to watch it, but then at the last minute I can't go through with it. Also: hit man movies? Borrrrrring.
On the other hand, if you put Irfan Khan in the Tom Cruise part (Khan totally passed the bad B-movie test, being very good and interesting to watch in the mostly terrible I Know What You Did Last Summer/Diabolique "thriller" Dhund), I'm immediately intrigued. Plus music by Sajid Wajid, the guy behind the ludicrously contagious tunes from Partner? Top of the queue!
As a thriller, The Killer was quite serviceable. The music was all integrated into the story semi-realistically: a song came on the radio, or someone performed in a nightclub, and then it segued into an obvious fantasy sequence. And the kid playing the slacker cab driver did a pretty good job, although Irfan Khan was still definitely the best thing about it.
So this morning, in a completely unrelated topic, I've decided that it's officially too late for me to get into any kind of Christmas spirit. I baked some cookies, listened to some Gregorian chants, and got the tree turned on, so I've maintained a trace element of tradition to build on if I ever feel in the mood again in years to come. Since my parents moved away and left the house and town where I grew up, there's no center anymore. There doesn't seem to be any point. Not that they should have stayed there for my purposes -- it's just the way it is.
So this morning, I idly thought, maybe if there were Hindi Christmas music.... Not exactly, that I was able to discern in a quick search, but I did find some articles on "Bada Din," or "Big Day," a secular Hindu Christmas, representing the positive values people talk about at Christmas, but obviously not really in a religious sense. With trees, lights, Santa, etc. Then I did a general search on the phrase Bada Din, and what came to the top? A listing on the IMDB. Yup, there's a Bollywood Christmas movie! ("It's Christmas day in Calcutta...")
One guess who has a small role as a Police Inspector?
My man Irfan Khan!
This ease of global communication is starting to make even stranger coincidences wash up to my door, even as I exist in an Obscure Midwestern Town.
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