Monday, June 30, 2008

Meltdown!

I swear, I didn't just over-analyze cheesy '80s comedies this sweltering weekend while overdosing on Emergen-C and sniffling... I also had dinner and went shoe shopping with a friend, skipped the Pride Parade (it's easier to do if it's disgustingly hot, you have residual snifflage, and don't have to attend for work), and then read Fire Watch, another compilation of Connie Willis' short stories.

Turns out, half the stories in Fire Watch were in Winds of Marble Arch. The ones that weren't were equally as good. There was, once again, an emotional range: disturbing ("The Sidon in the Mirror," another space pioneer story about death and dying); humorous ("Father of the Bride," detailing the aftermath of the Sleeping Beauty tale); and weird ("Lost and Found," about the end times as prophesied in the Revelation of St. John). Good, quick, enjoyable reads!

Since we'd watched the sequel last week and Ms. Tungsten lent me her copy of Dhoom, I was curious to see if the original film was as good as Part 2.

It wasn't. But it was still a decent tongue-in-cheek action flick. It's very different from the second in that the criminals are actually, well, criminals. In Dhoom 2 the audience (or at least this viewer) was rooting for Hrithik to succeed in stealing pieces of art and to escape from the police, but in the first it was impossible to sympathize with the villains because they were clearly crafted to be evil and unlikeable.

The sequel did mirror the first film (as most heist movie sequels must) -- right down to the final climactic cliff scene. And I do feel a little sorry for Abhishek Bachchan -- he clearly has a sense of beat but his shoulder movements and posture make it look like he's a clumsy dancer. (Many of the dance sequences are shot so that he either doesn't have many complicated moves, or is generally frolicking rather than dancing. It's obvious.)

But all in all, a good cops-and-robbers movie to watch while hydrating and sitting in front of the fan...

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