10 Reasons You Will Never Make It As A Movie Reviewer

While watching Mangal Pandey: The Rising, instead of concentrating on the storyline, the direction, the cinematography, and all the important bits, you spent more time:

1. speculating on the possibility of any attraction between Mangal Pandey (Aamir Khan) and William Gordon (Toby Stephens), seeing how when they fell out over the grease on the cartridges it was almost like a lovers' quarrel ("When you told me you were going out with old friends, you didn't say anything about your ex!" "My ex is an old friend!" "NO! Your ex is your ex, not 'an old friend'!" "And how was I to know you don't consider ex-partners old friends, huh?!") - and please don't even get you started on the wrestling scene (hey, boys: you know, make up-sex is great sex ...);



2. marveling at how Amisha Patel (Jwala) managed to replicate, precisely, every single expression of a helpless, hysterical damsel in distress she'd done in Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (all two and a half of them) in Mangal Pandey; to wit: compare the scenes from Gadar where villagers demanded Tara Singh (Sunny Deol) evict his Muslim refugee (Patel) with the scenes from Mangal Pandey where villagers demanded Gordon return his would've-been-Sati refugee - just goes to show: make-up is not a factor when it comes to emoting on-screen (and here you thought the weight of her make-up was responsible for the woodenness of her facial expressions, silly you);



3. seething at the utter thoughtlessness and negligence of the wardrobe designer(s) of the movie for putting Rani in a pink outfit for her mujra: pink is so not her color, you asshole(s)!;



4. raging at the lecherous bastards who put Rani and the lovely Kiron Kher (Lol Bibi) in indecent cleavage-boosting and revealing outfits - oh for shame - and whatever have you done to their breasts?!;



5. vexed and traumatized by the fact that Kiron Kher was playing Rani's, er, 'den mother' (or, as you'd rather not call it: her 'mama-san'), because the last time you saw the both of them together, Kiron had played Rani's adorable "Call me Bobby; it's my pet-name" mummy in Hum Tum;
   
   
6. worrying that Aamir appeared to have put on a couple of love-handles since his Lagaan days, and might be growing a pair of tits next, a la Govinda ... oh the horror;



7. admiring the four-man Indian Greek chorus swaying atop an impressively sized and intricately decorated elephant, singing about what would happen next (which was a good thing, since you were hardly paying attention to the story);



8. trying to figure out the point of Om Puri's voice-over narration;



9. pleasantly surprised and absolutely thrilled by the two gorgeously dressed women sexing each other up in the picturization of the song 'Rasiya' (p/s Mr. Mehta: it would've been much better had one of them girls been Mumait Khan or her equally smokin' sister), and hoping for a repeat elsewhere in the movie, even if it would've been pointless ... like Rani's and Amisha's characters (and, by default, Kiron Kher's and Coral Beed's); and,



10. prudishly shocked by the 'boldness' of Jwala's and Gordon's kiss (which was a prelude to a - gasp! - sex-scene).

At the end of it, (paid) movie reviewer or not, the best part of the movie, in your unworthy opinion, would be the same: you're goddamn glad you didn't have to pay NZD 8.50 (for a movie ticket) or SGD 12.50 (for a VCD copy of it) to watch it.



(15:05 SGT)