We are stern. And resolute. Don’t forget resolute.

In Deewaar: Let’s Bring Our Heroes Home, Bollywood produces a stark, grim image of prisoners of war. Even though their war is thirty-three years gone, Maj. Ranvir Kaul and his Indian soldiers are still kept in a prison camp in Pakistan. Conditions are bad as the soldiers work long hours with little food and water. Kaul and his soldiers keep alive, however, surviving on the hope that they will one day escape and live to see their homes again.

Yeah, sex is messy.

I’ll answer the question first: yes, there is nudity in this movie. No, it’s not Caligula level, just some naked women and simulated sex. If you’re looking for porn, this is not for you.

Death in miniskirts.

I was trying to explain this movie to a friend of mine and he said “oh, Anime.” What a brilliant observation. The plot is classic yuri, just live action and American.

So: the S.A.T. hides a secret test the government uses to identify young women they can groom for superspydom and initiate into the DEBS. The DEBS (the acronym stands for “Discipline, Energy, Beauty, Strength”) go to school at an all-women spy academy, where they undergo rigorous training and take on the odd mission. Our DEBS are Dominique (Devon Aoki, also of Sin City), Max (Meagan Good, You Got Served), Janet (Jill Ritchie, Herbie Fully Loaded), and the “Perfect Score” DEBS prodigy Amy (Sara Foster, almost nothing). Dominique, Max, Janet, and Amy are close to “Endgame” — that’s graduation — and they’ve been given a vital mission: spy on secretive super-criminal Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster, Annapolis) as she meets with former KGB assassin Ninotchka Kaprova. “What does a reclusive criminal mastermind want with a Russian trained killer?”, asks one of the DEBS.

Having re-watched it this last weekend, I’m pretty sure So I Married an Axe Murderer is one of the most underrated romantic comedies of the nineties. What I really want to say here is SIMAM is the underrated romantic comedy, which would imply that it is impossible under normal circumstances to underrate a romantic comedy, a film genre I loathe. But that would be hyperbole, and we’re all about the reasoned discourse here at Anvil and Sprocket.

It’s light fare to be sure (romantic comedy) and the plot falls apart if you look at it a sideways (romantic comedy), but Mike Meyers’ Stuart MacKenzie, the aging scottish LaRouchie, is funny enough to make you shoot haggis out your nose. SIMAM eschews the meet-cute for an unusual first date, as Charlie (also Meyers) helps Harriet (Nancy Travis)out in her busy butcher shop. Under director Thomas Schlamme, the movie flirts briefly with cloying, but cloying never even makes to to first base.

Unlike most romantic comedies, So I Married an Axe Murderer at no point glorifies stalking.

There are lots of great skit-like moments in the film as well. Phil Hartman is a barely stable Alcatraz tour guide (“My name is John Johnson but everyone here calls me Vicki”) and Alan Arkin is a sensitive, soft-spoken police chief. Steven Wright and Michael Richards have less memorable cameos, but Tony- and Emmy-winning Ammanda Plummer is excellent as Harriet’s slightly creepy sister Rose.

Considering it’s available new in the bargain rack at many places for under $10, it’s hard not to call this one a keeper.

Danny plays with his balloons.

“Danny’s a cement man. He’ll never be anything but a cement man. He’s one of the little people,” says Trudy (Justine Clark), and what really hurts is Trudy is Danny’s girlfriend. Has been since high school. Danny overhears this conversation, and after seeing Trudy on a lunch date with local Sydney sportscaster Sandy Upman, he ties a bunch of helium balloons to his deck chair and floats away. Hence the title of the film: Danny Deckchair.

Enjoy the shot – these legs get a lot of screen time.

*__The Aviary__ is an independent film and is available exclusively from theaviarymovie.com*

While furloughed from her airline in 2002, Silver Tree decided to use the time to write a screenplay that would tell the story of a flight attendant with honesty and sensitivity. The result is a film called The Aviary – the story of flight attendant Summer Pozzi who attempts to rebuild her life after a surprise transfer to San Francisco takes her away from her family and boyfriend.

“You know, I really thought we’d draw a bigger crowd.”

As the elderly Cole Porter watches his younger self playing piano on the stage, he wonders aloud if this is going to be “one of those avant-garde things,” reminding the Director that musicals are supposed to be entertaining. The question we ask as the audience is, can it be both?

“Tell me more, tell me more – was it love at first sight?”

As Julie opens, young and wealthy businessman Mihir Shandaliya reveals on a morning news show that he is in love with a mystery woman and that he intends to marry her. Unfortunately, there is something Mihir does not know about his intended bride – she makes her living as a prostitute.

Confronted by the image of her beloved on national television, Julie faces a hard task. She realizes that she has to tell Mihir about her past, but realizes that even if he accepts her, his high public profile and her history will turn their marriage into one marred by suspicion and secrecy. So Julie decides that the one thing she can do to solve the situation is to come clean – completely and publicly. She marches into offices of the network and demands to speak to the host of the show. Hours later after revealing the sad history of her life, she walks out as the first prostitute in India ever to be invited to speak to a national audience.

“Mr. Bean auditions are down this way, right?”

I have to admit that Julie is the first Bollywood movie that I have ever watched. As such, I can report that for the uninitiated, it is a strange experience indeed. As you watch a serious romantic drama open a flashback to the main character’s young adulthood only to see the movie burst into a brightly-colored musical production number complete with kickline, you realize that you are not only watching a film from the last film industry in the world to believe in the musical as a form – but also from the only film industry in the world to believe that a musical is the proper form for any and every genre.

Musical fans will be disappointed, however. Looking back on the film, I can recall only three musical numbers in the entire two hours and twenty minutes of the movie. One was the aforementioned flashback that strikes early in the movie, the second was a pop dance number in a strip club, and the third is a romantic ballad that comes late in the film. The rest of the movie is a straightforward romantic drama that tells the story of how Julie came from her simple roots in Goa to a job as an interior designer in the big city and then – through treachery and disappointment – became a “professional fancy girl.”

Julie’s boyfriend isn’t the most creative guy….

Cinematically, Julie is a beautiful film. The colors and textures of the movie range from brash, bright comedy to dimly-lit, harsh reality. As Julie’s personal life blossoms – first with aspiring small-town businessman Neel, then by big-time heel Rohan, and finally with über-nice guy Mihir – so does the movie, erupting in scenes of grace and color. Then, as Julie watches her life torn to shreds, the film distorts and twists reality into a funhouse-mirror version of itself.

As Julie, Neha Dhupia avoids the traps and pitfalls that come with playing the typical “hooker with a heart of gold.” Julie never comes off as an innocent trapped in a rough world, nor does she ever appear to be a delicate flower tossed by storm winds. Rather, Neha shows Julie as a woman who wants to take control of her life. A woman who – after a life of constant betrayal by the people nearest to her – decides to make her living off of that betrayal, only to find one more person that she can trust.

Yup. I sense a song coming on.

Julie works because it gives you a character that you can root for. Julie is not harsh, nor is she given to self-pity. She is somebody just trying to make it through the world in one piece. The role is clearly a showcase for Neha Dhupia, former Miss India Universe 2002. There are moments of the movie where she truly shines – she encounters ex-lover Neel in a hotel room where he has just unwittingly bought her services, she explodes in fury at a client who is more interested in sleeping with her than in her designs, and she squirms with discomfort as she sits through an awkward meeting with Mihir’s family – a loving, caring family that can’t wait to accept her into its numbers.

However, as beautiful as the film is and as strong as its leading lady is, Julie suffers a handful of stumbles. The musical numbers – common to Bollywood films of all genres – don’t mesh well with the other scenes and, in the end, serve to break the mood and the flow of the movie. Added to that is the at-times laughably bad English subtitling that forces you to figure out what the translator meant to say and manages to completely garble the meaning of about one line out of every twenty.

In the end, Julie is a beautiful film with wonderful performances – but until the translation is improved, it will be little more than a momentary diversion.

Hi! I’m a traffic sign. And I’ve made a movie.

Imagine a city in neons and pastels. A city of choreographed lawn sprinklers, bizarre architecture, and flying hot dog stands. A city where – at any given restaurant – you’ll find at least one supermodel recovering from a nose job, and where the motorists on the freeway drive heavily-armed. It is, as William Shakespeare put it, “this other eden, demiparadise, this precious stone set in the silver sea, this earth, this realm, this… Los Angeles.”

Ennui is go.

Insomuch as Lost in Translation, the latest midlife-crisis ennui-fest from the Hollywood Oscar-mill, can be said to have meaningful events I am going to reveal them here. And insomuch as the movie can be said to have a resolution, I am going to discuss it here. And insomuch as the movie can have a message, I will reveal it here. In short, this review could be considered a spoiler.