The COARD IV: Deewaar (1975)

Synopsis:

Movie: Deewaar (The Wall)

Director: Yash Chopra

Notable Characters: Vijay Verma, Son, brother, fantastic criminal

Ravi Verma, Son, brother, police inspector, dainty-pansy-momma’s-boy

Momma Verma, Mommy

Anand Verma, Father

Leena, Cute girlfriend of Ravi, absolutely useless

Anita, Cute girlfriend of Vijay, sweet and kind

DISCLAIMER: Spoiler alert. This review will be riddled with them, not unlike how this movie was riddled with editing problems.

Roy: This movie begins with Anand, a mine worker with a lovely little family. But Anand is a union leader and is determined to get fair wages and working conditions for himself and the hundreds of mineworkers he has led on strike. A corrupt business man steals him family and threatens to kill them unless Anand continues with business as usual. He sells out his fellow workers and gives in. He is ostracized. His family is punished. Instead of… you know, being a man and taking care of them, he leaves them without an explanation. This leaves Momma, Vijay, and Ravi destitute and bullied by the community for the sins of the father. They move to Mumbai where Vijay and Momma work very poor jobs for a very meager living while Ravi excels in school. Soon the boys are all grown up and this sets the stage for the rest of the movie. Ravi is unemployed but Vijay works hard at the Mumbai docks. Soon Vijay rebels over having to pay a percentage to the Mumbai underground and finds himself rolling in cabbage as a criminal. Ravi eventually lands in the police academy and the brothers are on a collision course. Take it away Cody…

Review

Cody: Ok, not that I completely and totally plan to make this entire review about attacking Ravi, or something, but I need to say my two cents on this guy.  His mother and brother work manual labor their entire lives to put his pansy-flowered-butt through school.  We never see any thanks or even any real appreciation for what they have done.  Before his girlfriend’s dad gift wraps him a job on the police force, he spends all his time complaining about not finding a job.  Meanwhile, Vijay is down at the docks carrying giant bricks of whatever from one pile to another pile day in and day out.  Ravi even gets a job offer from someone, and he turns it down to let some guy who was hours late have it.  This is supposed to make him honorable and instill some sort of loyalty in my eyes??  I think not!  Vijay would have literally killed to have that opportunity.  Anyway, seeing as the title of the movie is “The Wall,” (as in: the wall between Ravi and Vijay) I figured it would be ok to start with a rant about these two brothers.  For the rest of the review, I will absolutely not bring up how much of a sniveling brat Ravi is.….probably.

Roy: While Vijay is standing up for the working man and perfecting his amazing spider monkey kung fu style, Ravi is singing songs that A) we can’t understand because apparently subtitles don’t extend to the songs and B) drain every bit of testosterone out of the room. Seriously. I felt the need to do pushups and not shave for a week after watching Ravi sing to his girlfriend… twice. Did Vijay sing once in this movie? Nope. You know why? He’s too busy outsmarting rival gangs, using them to steal gold he promised to his boss, only to double cross them, take all the gold, and five million rupees from the rival gang while he was at it. Prancing around a park with no job and no prospects aren’t on his to-do list. He is too busy, you know, buying his mom a house.

Cody: A mom who openly admits she likes Vijay more than loser face Ravi!  Shoot, I wasn’t supposed to go down this road again.  Anyway, I have to say that overall, I enjoyed this film.  For being a 1975 Bollywood flick, it does pretty well for itself.  I think this is an excellent example of why we are partaking in this odyssey.  There is absolutely no way we ever would have watched this movie if it weren’t for our book and our journey.  I am glad that we saw this; I just wish the real man could have been the protagonist instead of the sugar plum fairy.  Now back to nitpicking.  Did this whole idea of a “wall” between the brothers (according to the dialogue, the wall is built of Ravi’s morals and stands as an impasse between himself and his criminal brother) feel a bit contrived to you?  First of all, we all know the only thing Ravi cares about is skipping rope and singing teletubby songs.  Second of all, he became a police officer approximately seven seconds before constructing this so called wall.  Do his morals just appear out of thin air?

Roy: It absolutely felt contrived. As Ravi skipped…. literally skipped into his brother’s very sudden, way too expensive house for a family that has lived under a bridge most of their life, to tell them that he got accepted to the police academy he didn’t seem to care at all where it came from, just that it was “really nice!” He graduates, minces to his lady love, and then grows a fierce conscious? It almost felt like they created the title for the movie before writing the script and realized they had to work it in somehow.That being said, Peter Griffin would totally approve. But I agree. I liked this movie overall, I would have liked it much more if it tapped out at a runtime of 105 minutes as opposed to the exhausting 174 it actually was. Plus the editing was terrible. I’m not just talking jump cuts here. The sound effects rarely matched the action they were intended for, and Vijay once kicked the same door open twice in 3 seconds….. so Cody, how was the movie score?

Cody: Thats right ladies and gentleman, it’s time for Cody’s Music Score Moment, brought to you by bottled spray tan.  “Bottled spray tan: why look human, when you can look like a basketball?” I actually really enjoyed parts of this score. It really all depends on how well you like foreign films.  This score has India written all over it, and that is a flavor of music I can definitely enjoy from time to time.  What needs to be mentioned though, is how atrociously awful those Bollywood songs were.  Maybe I am spoiled because my first Bollywood experience was Slumdog Millionaire, which brags a fantastic soundtrack from start to finish.  If you think it is unfair to judge music from 30 years ago based on a soundtrack from five years ago, then maybe you have been huffing too much spray tan, you degenerate.

Roy: Speaking of degenerates, did you see Ravi shoot some poor kid in the back because he stole some bread and was running from Police Inspector Nancy....uh I mean Ravi!? Literally told him to stop running or he’d shoot. Then… he actually shoots. The kid falls, Ravi walks up to him and slaps him in the back of the head and tells him that he only shot him in the leg (really!? looked like a back shot to me). While overall I enjoyed this movie, some of the stuff was absolutely ridiculous. Like Vijay ascending to the top of his criminal organization after only two jobs. Maybe we missed some things because of the culture difference, but America’s movies in the 70s at least made sense for the most part. Changing the H in Hollywood to a B doesn’t make it near as good.

Cody: Yeah, I know what you’re saying.  They clearly didn’t have the budget to make sure this had continuity throughout.  At least when Harmony Starbright shot his brother Vijay at the end, it was a clear kill shot.  Well, by that I mean he obviously shot him in the back, the bullet wound was clearly shown to be in the arm, and then Vijay bled to death within a minute.  See, ignore the middle part of that sentence, and all of it almost makes sense!

Roy: It’s clear we both really like Vijay and hoped that he got to live while the underwhelming Glitter Von-Sparkleton was the one to not make it…. OH MY GOODNESS, we almost ended this review without mentioning the weirdest part of the movie. When the Dad leaves the family he gets on a train and is intermittently shown throughout the next twenty years… on the same train.  He eventually dies, twenty years after leaving his family… in the same type of clothes…. on the same train! Did this guy never get off the train!? Did it take a conductor twenty years to notice him!? Is there a fate worse than being banished to a train for all eternity!? This is seventh-level-of-hell stuff, people. *shudders*

Cody: I think we both know what is going on here.  The trains started this uprising far before we imagined, Roy.  They have been at this since 1975 at the very least!  There is a train in India that once you get on, you never get back off.  It is the train to nowhere.  The train that eats people’s souls!

Roy: Too bad that Anand didn’t take Ravi with him when he got on.

The COARD Special Edition I: Tombstone (1993)

Synopsis

Movie:  Tombstone

Director: George P. Cosmatos (But really Kurt Russell and Kevin Jarre, but mostly just Russell)

Notable Characters: Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp...duh

Doc Holliday, Awesome

Morgan & Virgil Earp, Wyatt’s well meaning brothers

Curly Bill Brocius, Cowboy - bad

Johnny Ringo, Cowboy - extra bad

Josephine Marcus, Traveling actress - Wyatt swoons

DISCLAIMER: As always, there will be spoilers. But come on… this is Tombstone. It’s also history by the way. Wyatt Earp, OK Corral, Morgan Earp dies, Virgil Earp basically gets his arm shot off, Wyatt and Doc kill everyone. Like seriously. Crack a history book, people. - Roy

DISCLAIMER 2: This is a “special edition” COARD entry.  Every once in a while, we will shake things up by reviewing a movie that we believe deserves to be on the list of 1,001, but didn’t make the cut.  The first special edition comes to you by way of request from my good friend Michael, the biggest movie snob I know. - Cody

DISCLAIMER 3: Also it was The Masters weekend, and if we were going to spend time not watching golf we sure weren't going to spend it watching a three hour long, Indian movie from the 70s about two brothers and their struggle to overcome their daddy issues. Even if it is  "maybe the most iconic Hindi film of all time." So we aren't directly saying The Masters had something to do with this “special edition” COARD.... but we're not not saying that either. - Roy

P.S. We have fixed the comments so anyone can contribute, and we take requests! If you have a film you want to see reviewed let us know. We will keep it in mind for our next special edition COARD.

  

Cody: This is the story of one Wyatt Earp.  He brings his two brothers to Tombstone, Arizona in search of a quiet honest living, and well…...maybe a little side action from the lovely Josephine.  Unfortunately this here bein’ the West, and with Wyatt’s legend preceding him, the mayor John Locke!! tries to solicit Wyatt in helping to defend the town from the cowboy scum. However, Wyatt has no interest in doing much more than making a quick buck as a card dealer.  Meanwhile Doc (Val Kilmer) is doing Doc things (gambling/drinking/delivering incredible lines/spinning tea cups around impressively) and steals the entire movie from currently-lame Wyatt.  Wyatt’s well meaning brothers decide to pony up, and they become lawmen in the town.  The two brothers go all liberal on the town and enforce a strict, no-guns-in-city-limits rule.  Well of course the cowboys don’t give one rat’s foot of a care for this rule. Tension builds, the Earps’ attempt to arrest some cowboys, they refuse, shoot-shoot-bullet-bullet-gun, and uh-oh. We’ve got ourselves a SHOOTOUT AT THE OK CORRAL!  This is where it gets really cool.  The remainder of the movie is a series of gun fights back-and-forth between the good guys and the bad guys.  Every scene brings new casualties.  Morgan Earp is assassinated and Virgil is shot.  Now you dun it you ign’ant cowboys!  Wyatt, engage rampage mode!

Review

Roy:  Where to even begin? Let's start with the cinematography. Holy crap-snacks, is this movie beautiful! The scene where Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, along with Doc Holliday, are walking down the streets of Tombstone all dressed in black, and there is a raging inferno burning a small building down behind them might be the COOLEST movie scene of all time. Yup.... I said it and I'm not sorry.  The symbolism can be taken in multiple ways; the fire raging inside our heroes, how this action they are headed towards figuratively burns the town down, or they did it because it just looks so friggin’ cool. How about the numerous shots of "Wyatt Earp and the last charge of his immortals" silhouetted against a burning sunset?  The landscape is practically a character in this movie.  The directorial collective took their cues from John Ford's brilliant lead in how he shot this film (Ford was the first director to feature scenery in the western). HOW did this movie not make the list!? It's just.... I dont.... how do you even..... it's a traveshamockery is what it is.

Cody:  I wholeheartedly agree with labeling this as a prototypical traveshamockery situation.  Can’t label it any other way. Well, I guess this is as good a time as any for “Cody’s Movie Score Moment,” brought to you by Abercrombie Cologne.  “Abercrombie Cologne, for alerting people you are a douche without having to say a word.”  I must say, I am going to love it every time we review a 90’s film.  I say this on a whim, but I think movie scores peaked in the 90’s.  This western score just hits me in all the right ways.

Roy: Am I writing this review while listening to this soundtrack?? So what if I am!? Are YOU gonna stop me!? *Doc voice* “Well you’re a daisy if you do.” But seriously. There is literally a crap-ton that is wonderful about this movie. Can I just take a moment and say that my ultimate manly-moment-fantasy in life is to pull a “Wyatt Earp?” This is to be confronted by a complete Cocky McButtface who gets in my grill and shows me his pistol resting in his belt. This action is intended to threaten me. Instead I grab his pistol and clock him on the head with it so hard, he hits the ground like a sack of meat in front of me. Because that’s THE dream.

Cody: I am not sure what context you would find yourself in, where you have the opportunity to live out that dream, but I completely approve regardless.  Shouldn’t there be a Disney World/Universal Studios for adults, where you get to be a part of some of these not kid friendly iconic film settings?  Oh, they already have Disney World for adults and they call it Las Vegas.  That makes more sense, but, alas, I digress.  Fun fact: A man named Wyatt Earp from Perkins, Oklahoma was an actor in this movie!  How gunslingingly fantastic is that?

Roy: Almost as fantastic as the fact that he is Wyatt Earp’s 5th cousin!! But let’s circle back to your adult Disney World idea here. You can have Vegas, dude… but what if I told you, you could gunfight at the OK Corrall, be a Tolkein elf, or a jedi knight, or just camouflage yourself in mud and wait for a vietnamese soldier to walk past you before you Rambo the crap out of him!? DUDE. The COARD Presents: Movie Dreams Come to Life (a working title) (™). You see that ™ people!? This is the internet. We have proof! That ™ means this idea cannot be stolen.  We could open this place up in Vegas. What an idea! Big things are happening here, Cody. Big things. So uh… there is no graceful way for me to jump out of this rabbit hole. This movie was painstakingly made as close to the real events as possible. For example: during the gunfight at the OK Corral, Doc’s words to Mclaurey before he killed him are what the real-life Doc Holiday actually said, "You're a daisy if you do!" How can this movie get any cooler?? I will answer that for you. It can’t. None. None cooler.

Cody: Movie Dreams Come to Life Special Exhibit: Alien, experience the feeling of a baby alien ripping its way out of your stomach! *Thinking* Hmm...you’re right, we COULD take it too far.  Regardless, this is just the best idea.  Now we just need private funding.  Who reading this is insanely wealthy?  Eh?  Anyone?  Here is the most important question about Tombstone though, who is more awesome: Doc Holiday or Wyatt Earp?  On the one hand you have a wonderful anti-hero with amazing lines, on the other you have a perfect protagonist.  Shockingly, I am going to choose Doc Holiday, anti-hero extraordinaire.

Roy: It shouldn’t surprise you that I’m going with Wyatt here. The man who horsewhipped a guy in the face during the first five minutes of the movie because he was being cruel to said horse, then promptly moved on to pimp-slap a mean, yet pathetic, card dealer three times only to then ask him if he was “going to do something or just stand there and bleed.” Finally we have him walking into a hail of bullets unscathed to kill Curly Bill prompting the following conversation from his cohorts…

You ever see anything like that?

Hell… I never even heard of anything like that…

It’s Wyatt all the way. We could easily write five thousand words on this movie. But we won’t do that to you. If you haven’t seen this movie and don’t want to fail at life then stop what you are doing and go right now and watch Tombstone. You’ll be happy you did.

Cody: More to the point, this movie deserves five thousand words.  Instead, I will simply echo Roy’s sentiment; run, don’t walk, to Tombstone.

Editor’s Note: I concur on everything.  I love this movie.  Also, I find much more passion and believability in Kurt Russell’s Wyatt Earp than I did in Kevin Costner’s.  Neither of you mentioned Kurt’s superb portrayal. And it’s probably safe to say that this was Val Kilmer at his best….I literally forgot it was Val Kilmer on screen. It’s my job as editor to keep you two legit.

Roy: Our gift. To you.

The COARD III: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Synopsis

Movie: Kiss Me Deadly

Director: Robert Aldrich

Notable Characters: Mike Hammer, private investigator

Velda, Mike’s assistant/girlfriend

Christina Baily, escaped damsel in distress  

Nick “Va Va Voom,” Mike’s mechanic and Greek friend

Hoard of faceless bad men

DISCLAIMER: As always, this review will contain spoilers. This may upset you. Please accept our apology… ALTHOUGH if you really cared about this movie you would have watched it at some point in the last 59 years it has been out. We’ve reached the statute of limitations on spoilers in this movie. You have no one to blame but yourself. - Roy

Roy: Kiss Me Deadly is a noir detective film made in 1955 by Robert Aldrich. Just so we are all together here, “noir” is a style of film (you’ve probably heard the term “film noir”). The lighting and how it is shot is very distinctive. They light the sets to cast long shadows and it is usually a detective movie, almost always in Los Angeles, unless it is French Noir… and after last week’s movie I have no idea how to react to those two words. Mike Hammer (what a name!) is driving along a road at night and is flagged down by a terrified Christina Baily who asks for his help. As he is taking her to a bus station she tells him she was held captive, and if she doesn’t make it to the bus station he is supposed to “remember her.” Soon they are run off the road by the hoard of faceless bad men. Mike is knocked unconscious and Christina is tortured to death. Mike wakes up in a hospital room surrounded by the police and Velda. He begins investigating what happened and the whole thing just gets more awesome from here. Hold on to your butts!

Review

Cody: This movie was actually really easy to get into.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised.  Essentially we have Mike Hammer going on a one man journey (with occasional help from Velda) to get to the bottom of why Christina was killed.  Along the way he beats up numerous baddies because he can, smashes hands in drawers to get what he wants, and breaks collector’s item records just to prove a point.  All of this while making out with every girl in sight.  I am not exactly an expert on the history of cinema, but I am willing to bet this 1955 private eye who plays by his own rules may have been one of our first ever “anti-heroes.”  You think I’m wrong, unnamed reader?  Well too darn bad!  This is half my blog, and I don’t see you committing to watching 1,000 movies.  You question me again, and va va voom I’ll knock ya right into next week!  

Roy: *stunned silence*…..Cody apparently really enjoyed this movie. And I did too. This movie was good. Great, even. It was a fantastic example of a detective following a lead until it dies and digging up new leads and following those. Cops revoke your P.I. and gun carrying licenses? Mike teaches us that you go rogue and investigate without a gun. Because he’s The Hammer! Your next stop would be the dead chick’s apartment in order to find her roommate’s new address. Well….of course he has to protect the roommate. Because he’s The Hammer!  Our “anti-hero,” as Cody affectionately refers to him, works his way up the food chain of baddies by confiscating switchblades, slamming heads into brick walls, and throwing bad guys down twenty-seven flights of concrete stairs. And he does all of this because He’s. The. Hammer! He even gets his greek buddy/mechanic in on the action. The fact that he gets the poor immigrant va va vakilled is secondary. He keeps moving forward. That’s the key.

Cody: So everyone reading should just get used to the fact that I will discuss film scores on every single movie we watch.  They are probably my favorite thing about movies.  Do you ever notice that black and white film scores all sound almost exactly the same? It’s as if they only knew one way to indicate suspense.  If you were out of the room and heard the opening sequence, you would know you were dealing with a 50’s movie instantly.  I love to study the way musical scores have developed over the years.  And, on another note, if you got a problem with me being excited after watching Tom Brady play Mike Hammer and double slap people all over the place like he’s shredding the New York Jets secondary, then maybe I should just come over there and double slap you...or go for 28/32 completions and 3 touchdowns on you….or….ok their rogueish good looks may be messing with my head….

Roy: *increasingly stunned silence*………… Regardless of the fact that Mike Hammer could pass for Brady’s grandfather, and ignoring Cody’s obvious homo-erotic struggle/meltdown…. I think this movie did quite a lot for the noir genre. Mike was a man who lived on the edge. Separate from society. This is also a hallmark of the hard-boiled, detective/noir genre. The detectives operate in society but are neither a part of the criminal element they chase or the society they protect. Like Cody’s strong delusional assertion, they play by their own rules. Profound… I know…. but you should also know that I took an Art of Film class this semester….so, that makes me an expert if you need to know anything about man’s struggle against the milieu of society and his place in it. Community College fever folks! Catch it! But I digress… All this violence leads Mike to the prize the bad guy was trying to get his hands on. Some sort of radioactive material that he, no doubt, had sinister plans for. When Mike first stumbled on it I was sure he had found Marsellus Wallace's lost soul. But as it turned out, It was just an atomic explosive that burned the house down.

Cody: Why was the radioactive substance whispering?  Did 1950’s people just know nothing about atomic bombs and/or fire?  Anyway, I would like to point out a difference between men and women.  A man, in his impatience, opens this box recklessly and inadvertently kills everyone near him.  A woman cold bloodedly murders everyone and then, thinking she has the box all to herself, opens it and inadvertently kills herself.  The lesson?  Despite the many differences between both genders, all people are idiots.  That was the clear point to this film right?  The only way you can get stuff done is to do it yourself….by your own rules...because people are idiots.  I am amazing at understanding cinematic subtext/messages/imagery.  I should review movies.

Roy: *increasingly-er stunned silence* …...……………………………….. Let’s all take into account that Cody is clearly going through an “all women are evil” phase, so am I vaguely concerned that he is going to troll downtown Detroit (where he lives), pick up a homeless woman and force her into a wig to look like this? Yes. Am I nervous that he will then pay her in sandwiches to answer to the name Velda, and attempt to open a private investigating firm, giving him a forum to “play by his own rules?” Yes. Do I expect to get a call from jail asking to bail him out because he “played by his own rules” a little too much, in front of a police officer, and is exploiting the homeless?? Again... Yes. In fact, if you would like to donate to The COARD, all proceeds will go to bailing Cody out whenever he decides to emulate The Hammer. Well…. we can’t choose our friends. Wait… ….what? WE CAN choose our friends?!  I have some things to re-evaluate…...

Cody: I’m not so sure that I won’t need help getting out of jail when I don’t decide to not play by my own rules.