from Ghost World to Lagaan

Oh movies. I love 'em.

Have you ever seen Ghost World? If you haven't, you should. Maybe I have a special love of it because TWICE in one day people I had just met said- "Have you seen Ghost World? You're JUST like the Ghost World girl." One of them even said "except smaller"... nice...

Basically it's about people who are bitter about the mainstream, and have decided to forgo higher education to pursue... something else. Mostly just trying not to be around the mainstream. But then one of them begins to lose the intensity of her non-mainstream-ness while the other spirals even farther into the weird, demented, and "lame"est of interests. She does this by befriending Steve Buscemi- which is how I imagine anyone would. I must say that I love this movie 100% of the time, but I'm only in the mood to watch it 50% of the time. Maybe it hits a little tooo close to home.

But I bring Ghost World up because in the beginning of the film. It shows Enid (the main character) watching a totally random 1960's Indian rock video. It's awesome. This always made me jealous that people in movies (and who write movies) have all these really select interests and hobbies that I would not even know how to start pursuing. Luckily I went to film school (which really didn't help as much as you might think). However, thanks to my love of choppy dancing and lack of anything better to do, I showed up (with my Ghostworld-y roomate) to see a 4 hr screening of Lagaan.

Oh man it was AWESOME! Bollywood is the bomb, everyone. Just thought you should know. Yes it can be long. Yes it follows the classic format of a Hollywood musical (i.e. story stops when singing starts) but for some reason it's still just heavenly. It also has an award winning soundtrack.

Brief Synopsis:
Set in the middle of India in the past (as in, when the British were all up in India's piece) It tells the story of a little villiage that cannot afford to pay their taxes ("lagaan") because of a sever drought- when the Lagaan is all of the sudden doubled! It's doubled by an asshole called Russel who gets his kicks from hunting, and playing mind games with his Hindi associates (as in "Hey, I'll do what you ask, if you eat some meat...just eat it... it's just a little meat... screw your religion and just eat the meat...) ASShole! So Russel, in all his ass-holiness, gets offeneded when Buvhan (the oh-so-sexy hero) calls the game of Cricket "silly and stupid." He says that if the village pulls together a team and beats them in a game of Cricket, he'll forgive them the Lagaan for THREE YEARS- but if they lose, they have to pay thrice as much! Oh, and Russel has a sister who falls for Buvhan, teaches the village the game of Cricket, and helps to form a weak love triangle- but you are totally rooting for the cute Hindi girl the whole time (even though she's a little jealous).

A brief synopsial Haiku (for those who thought my synopsis was not "brief" enough)

A village in need
Bitish asshole crickiteer
happy ending-duh!

So whether you like offbeat films or just films about people who like offbeat films, one of the movies I mentioned today IS for YOU!