Sex and the City 2 Reviewed

When I look at my logs from August and realise that I have only blogged once this month, my head hangs in shame (well, not really, but almost)!! And my bday month too...not good! So, I'm back, with a review that has been zooming around in my head like an irritating fly since I saw the film.

The show Sex and the City did not really demand a cult following but had its set of people who enjoyed it. The concept of friends growing up together..at different stages in life and yet so similar, worked for some of us. And thus, when the producers went ahead and made a complete motion picture out of this show, it had some of us looking forward to it. The first movie was cute enough - with a sprinkling of drama, lots of fashion, some heart break and friends that tide over it all! But the second film in the series has even soft targets like me gagging!

SATC 2 is an example of the kind of cinema America should refrain from. It's racist, sexist, portrays Americans as ignorant and very very brainless. Even the fashion isnt good enough! The girls are getting old and a 50 year old's sexual escapades dont make for interesting cinema. Neither does a gang of over aged giggly girls who still call Dubai and Abu Dhabi 'the New Middle East' and are so entranced and enamoured by the gold and the spices abundant there. All of this may still have made a bland but tolerant film. But when you over emphasize on how aghast they are at seeing women in Burquas or how they have been told to cover up and not wear revealing clothes coz they will be jailed - you run the risk of disrespecting a section of society.

The film bored me. I, the one who is usually not so tough to please in a chick flick situation, find it difficult to recommend this to you. Absolutely avoidable.

Rating: 1.5 on 5

Semiotics of 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai'

This is a controversial post to write. In a country where Shahrukh Khan is almost god and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai has something of a cult following, to dig it up after almost 15 years and tear it apart gives me goose bumps. But a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do.

The problem arises from the fact that I myself am a self confessed member of this cult. When I was seeing this film for the 21st time yesterday (yes, I need a life), it finally hit me on how incredibly chauvinistic this film really is. So if you havent seen the film (how???), let me give you the lowdown. Girl and boy are best friends in college, girl loves boy but boy falls for mini skirt clad hot chick but only after she has properly displayed her 'indian values'. Girl disappears. Hot chick dies, leaves behind a daughter who vows to find girl and make boy marry her finally. Which, ofcourse they do.

So lets start at the begining. Perfect stereotyping - boy and girl are best friends but he doesnt love her because she is a tomboy. The day he sees hot chick in tiny skirt, all friendship goes out of the window. But no, he is the quintessential male! So he waits for hot chick to sing 'om jai jagdish' and also don a suit, cover her head and go to a temple before he decides to shower his love on her!

It gets better. So some 10 years later, hot chick is not in the scene anymore and her daughter is trying her best to get boy to chance encounter with girl again. Which he does. And what does he find? That girl is not the tomboy he knew...she has transformed almost like a butterfly and evolved into long hair and chiffon saris which keep blowing in the wind to show her midriff. Ofcourse, boy finally decides that he loves her. Now that she is feminine enough for his taste!

But here is the clincher. The girl has only ever loved him. Even after 10 years of unrequited love and after being rejected for hot chick she doesnt so much as bat an eyelid before running back to him.

And the boy, remains happy ever after!

PS- all those wondering why in the world I have been calling Rani Mukherjee hot chick...come on guys, this is 15 years back when Kajol still had a unibrow and Karishma wore her brother's clothes!