Bikes and buildings on the BQE

More coming as soon as I get off my butt.

Quijano de Manila



R.I.P, Nick Joaquin: National Artist of the Philippines, author of May Day Eve, The Woman with Two Navels, and more.

We can be happy underground

Touted Best Ticket Bargain by TimeOut NY, Loews State, inside Virgin Megastore, two floors down, supposedly shows second-run movies for half price. In my state of brokenness (as in financial ruin), I decided to try it out. Besides, TimeOut said, "All that money you save on a movie can go straight to the first CD you'll pass on the way out of the store." Besides, comfy theater seats after a long walk around Times Square, AC on a hot day, entertainment after a particularly stressful lunch, etc. sounds pretty enticing.

I picked Main Hoon Na, a Bollywood movie, as I didn't feel like watching a thriller/suspense movie (Secret Window) or a lengthy movie with a lingering effect (Lord of the Rings). To my utter dismay and horror, the ticket did not cost $5.50 as I had been led to believe (damn you, TimeOut, damn you!), but $10.25, 25 cents more than regular price. I forked over the money anyway because I really needed to sit, and I've never seen a Bollywood except for that short Jaan Pehechaan Ho sequel in Ghost World. Well, I'm glad I did, because I enjoyed it thoroughly. I was entertained, at the very least.

This is a still from the movie to illustrate my point:



The lead character, who looks like Ray Romano, is a Major in the Indian army. His dad gets killed by Raghavan, a rebel who is opposed to the military's Mission Milaapa, a project to further peace between India and Pakistan. Raghavan is intent on causing havoc, so the army's main man, General Bakshi, sends Ray Romano to Darjeeling to protect his daughter. When Ray Romano's dad was dying, he revealed that Ray Romano actually had a half brother. Dad left his family to take care of his illegitimate son, Ray Romano. His dying wish was that Ray Romano and his half brother could scatter his ashes together.

Now, Ray Romano didn't want to go on a mission to protect the General's daughter, because he would have to go undercover as a college student, and he is about a decade too old. But! But! Incidentally, this daughter, Sanju, goes to school with Ray Romano's half brother Lakshmi. So off he goes to college.

College is wonderful. Everybody loves Lakshmi, who is known as Lucky, and is, like, the coolest guy in school because he has long hair, wears torn jeans and leather jackets, has failed three times, and does his song-and-dance numbers so well. Everybody breaks into song AND dance at key points in the story. Pompom girls appear out of nowhere and everyone throws confetti all the time. Lucky and Sanju don't like Ray Romano because he dresses like a thirty-year-old undercover army major pretending to be a student. But then Lucky falls off a roof and is rescued by this nerdy over-aged student and so everybody dances, and now he is well-liked.

Oh! Oh! Lucky's favorite expression is "Avoid!" His mom: "Lucky, when are you going to cut your hair?" Lucky: "Avoid, mom!" Ray Romano: "Lucky, I think you like Sanju." Lucky: "Avoid, man!" Anyways. So Ray Romano becomes friends with Lucky and he starts to live with the Laksmans as a tenant. Lucky's mom loves him because he loves her cooking and is the son she never had.

Ray Romano has the hots for the new Chemistry teacher, who was Miss Universe in 1994, when the Miss Universe pageant was held in the Philippines. Yes, Filipino readers who lived in the Philippines in 1994 who had access to any kind of media, the new Chemistry teacher is (all together now) Sushmita Sen. Every time Ray Romano bumps into Sushmita Sen, he gets an uncontrollable urge to sing (and he does), and violinists and saxophonists appear out of the blue [see picture].

Meanwhile, Raghavan's attempts at tomfoolery are foiled by Ray Romano so he decides to kidnap the Physics teacher and pose as the substitute Physics teacher. His disgrace of a disguise works because nobody knows how Raghavan looks like anyway; he always hides behind a mask. When the students find out that the Physics teacher resigned and will be replaced by a creepy-looking fellow, they all cheer because now they don't have to wear goggles to Physics class. Their old teacher had a serious spitting problem.

Notables: the Hindi teacher who screws up her English words, the absent-minded principal, the school nerd who pretends to turn down Sanju's prom invite so she can go with Lucky.

To summarize, Lucky finally realizes he likes Sanju, they go to the prom, Ray Romano and Sushmita Sen dance and fall in love, the General and his daughter are reunited, Lucky and his mom find out who Ray Romano really is, India and Pakistan exchange POWs, Raghavan kidnaps everyone in school, Ray Romano rescues them and is forgiven by Lucky and his mom.

This movie manages to incorporate all genres: comedy, drama, romance, action (obviously in the scene where Ray Romano does a Matrix to dodge the Physics teacher's spit globules). Plus, it's actually a musical AND a socio-political commentary. It is almost three hours long, yes, but if the projector guy is kind there is an interval so everyone can run to the bathroom for five minutes, and it is worth every minute.

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Speaking of Underground, did you know that Ben Folds Five released a Complete Sessions at West 54th DVD? If so, and if you have seen it, and are female (OR male, for that matter) of a certain persuasion, don't you think that Ben Folds circa 1997 is, like, the perfect guy?