Apr. 15, 2003 - 6:08 pm
i swear i've had like 4 people recommend this to me within the last month. my plan was to check it out from the public library and watch it this past weekend, but i didn't get around to it. so i was going to come in today and watch it at the media center during my 4 hour break between shifts. i couldn't find it at first, then i figured out that the library doesn't actually own a copy. but the worst movie-related professor (Malia) had a copy, so i watched that. the rest of her collection consists of sappy crap movies. only a few of them like this one are decent. the rest of it is stuff like Smoke Signals (1998), Hope Floats (1998), Lone Star (1996), and Soul Food (1997). i look at her reserve collection and wonder why she's allowed to teach this worthless sack of crap.
anyway so Monsoon Wedding. yeah. it takes place in India with some "cultured" (sometimes speaking English) high class people living in Delhi. their daughter is getting a traditional marriage, which has been arranged for her by her parents. she's in love with a jerk though, and doesn't even know this new guy. also, she has family members coming to the wedding from all around the world. there are also a couple of other romances that take place in the movie, and a bit of tragedy from the past as well.
i considered turning it off at the beginning of the film. there's too much screaming from too many people at once, plus only half of the time are there subtitles on the screen. when some people are speaking "English," you totally can't understand what they're attempting to say. when people with really thick accents are talking all at once, it just turns to crap. so i'd say the first half hour of this film is terrible in that aspect. after that, it gets easier as it begins to focus on scenes with only 2-5 characters or so instead of the previous 15-30. things get more intimate in a non-sexual way. so that made it easier to deal with.
very good acting for the most part and the story had a lot of good emotion to it. the film was sort of lacking in the cinematography department and the editing was inconsistent at times, but it was decent. that's why it gets a 7/10 from me.
well my diary will be officially one year old the day after tomorrow. what movie will help us to celebrate the anniversary? we shall see. i thought about trying to watch Ordinary People (1980) again, but i don't think i want to watch that year after year. so i may just pick something new.