October 2- 8, 2003

movie shorts

New Movie Shorts

BOLLYWOOD / HOLLYWOOD

True to its title, Deepa Mehta’s entertaining romantic comedy is one part Bollywood musical, one part Pretty Woman. Rahul Seth is a young Indian-Canadian man who likes white girls, much to the chagrin of his widowed, melodramatic mother. When Rahul’s sister, Twinky, and her boyfriend announce their engagement, Rahul’s mother threatens that she will cancel the wedding unless Rahul finds himself an Indian wife. Under pressure to save his sister’s special day, Rahul meets an attractive, mysterious woman named Sue in a bar and pays her to pose as his fiancee. What follows is the predictable whoops-I-accidentally-fell-in-love-with-the-imposter scenario. Not always predictable is the colorful wit in B/H’s musical sequences and its parade of quirky characters that includes Rahul’s Shakespeare-quoting grandmother and his cross-dressing chauffeur. Mehta’s best work has used that sense of whimsy to highlight more fortifying subject matter. B/H, on the other hand, is a self-cannibalizing satire that seems to subsist entirely on merriment. --Elisa Ludwig(Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

CASA DE LOS BABYS

Treading water between larger projects -- last year’s Sunshine State<