Pretty Woman. Pretty Movie.

Flashback to 1994. The day was scorching hot, the comforts of an air-conditioned theatre sounded like a cool option to two college going lads; a quick glance at their time-table revealed they haven’t much to lose. They decided to jump on the bandwagon of college bunkers and sneak into a theatre which had a classical rating of ‘A’. Though a little trepidation and hesitation nudged their hearts, yet, the will triumphed. The movie was ‘Pretty Woman’ starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.

‘Pretty Woman’, a rom-com genre, has a story as fresh as a rose and a cast that’s truly refreshing! However, it did rub a few critics on the wrong side. Cutting to chase, Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) the lead actress in the movie stars as a prostitute. Apart from a few unmentionable scenes, the film was quite an eye-opener on lot of issues. The story is all about a rich entrepreneur, who accidentally meets a prostitute and consciously falls in love with her. Sacrilegious?!  No, it isn’t.

Though it sounds incredibly ridiculous, given the circumstances they meet and the peculiar situations the heroine manages to hastily rush into – falling in love for both seems inevitable.

 A few scenes clearly turn you misty eyed, especially the one where Vivian, who is by then a transformed person, enters a showroom only to be shown the door on account of her tawdry dressing. When Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) hears about the cheap treatment meted out to Vivian, he decides to visit the showroom along with Vivian and flex his powerful, financial muscles - the staff is ready to fall down and worship.

Another occasion is when Vivian is at loggerheads as she must attend a formal dinner, but doesn’t know anything about dining etiquette. That’s when hotel manager, Barney Thompson (Hector Elizondo) steps in to show the ropes. The relationship these two share on screen is extremely touching. Scenes like these are quite a few, which never fail to soothe the emotions and add a twinkle to your eye.

What stands as the icing however is when Vivian’s dreams get answered. Vivian’s childhood fantasy of seeing her Knight in the shining armour riding out to her brandishing a sword comes true, when Edward comes searching for her atop a limo, brandishing an umbrella. 

Inside the theatre, half way through the movie, one young lad notices the other lad slowly bring out his hanky and wipe away the tears that seem to well up in his eyes. The other lad tries to hide a guffaw!

On the whole, it wouldn’t be right to say that the movie was good. Actually, it was incredibly haunting and highly romantic. In fact, last year, ‘Pretty Woman’ movie stars celebrated the completion of twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years?! That’s a long a time, you might scream. Definitely it is!

Since then, lot of water has passed under the bridge. Young lads then are grown up adults now. While one lives in America, the other, in India. While one is working as software professional. The other is wasting his time writing reviews… like this one.

Time passes on. 

However, ‘Pretty Woman’ still remains young. 

Chuck Norris. Rajinikath. Steven Seagal - The awesome, Threesome!

I used to like Chuck Norris. I still do. Really!

Not for his acting skills, but for the jokes that are cooked up on his personality. If he weren’t born, the logic-defying, weird jokes wouldn’t exist. Even when the few Indians who knew him were chuckling to themselves on the ridiculously funny witticisms on him, along came Rajinikanth.

Since then, he started taking the bullets instead of - Norris. Suddenly, everyone this side of the planet started liking Rajinikanth. The way I used to like Chuck Norris. Slowly and steadily, he became the butt of jokes. The weird and incredibly funny jokes on him would have you laughing on the floor for days, weeks, months. Alright, let’s not take it too far, but he definitely tickled your funny bone.

What’s more, Indians being Indians, the jokes only got weirder. But the weirder they were, the more they were liked & shared across various platforms.

 But anyway, where are we going with all this?!

Well, it’s got something to do with the almighty…No.   Not Evan, but Steven Seagal. I miss this guy. The last I saw him was in ‘A Good Man’. I wonder if he acted in any other movie after that!

The macho, Aikido master. Who only hits, but never gets hit. Not even once. Not even in films. 

He’s like the South Indian Telugu heroes, the likes of Chiranjeevi, who effortlessly dodge bullets from a rapidly spitting AK 47. But the poor villains – may their souls rest peace – can’t dodge from his .48 bullets which are aimlessly fired. Somehow the bullet seems to know the trajectory of its prey and follows him through lanes and bylanes before blowing him to smithereens and lighting him up in flames.

As if this inexpressible and incomprehensible technology isn’t enough to kill the audiences, Chiranjeevi is also a one man army who can defend himself against the armies of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. Perhaps with Russia thrown in too! Believe me, all alone. The directors delight in the fact that the more, the merrier. No doubt, that is a death knell for all audiences, except Chiranjeevi’s ‘die’ hard fans.

Before Chiranjeevi steals all our attention let’s turn our attention to the person in case - Steven Seagal.

I have always wondered how Seagal manages not to get hit. Not even once. The questions that go in circles at the speed of light in my mind are: Do directors ever direct him?! Or does he direct the directors?! Does he think, getting hit once is like dying?!  I mean, can’t a hero get up and fight again after he is knocked down once?! Does he secretly bribe the script writers into giving him a completely dominant one-sided role?! Does he do this for fun or out of boredom?! Someone tell me what the heck goes on behind the scenes?!  Of course, with Steven Seagal calling the shots, even god knows nothing!

Mind you, his expressions are all dicey. Happy. Sad. Tearful. Crying. Ecstatic. Or any other darn expression, nobody does it like Steven Seagal does. He carries the same frowning expression for all. Of course it’s punctuated with mystical smiles and mysterious sadness. But somehow you miss all that and your whole thought process gets stuck on his frown between the knitting of his eyebrows, which seems to be a permanent fixation on his face. Obviously, it is needless to mention – for all movies.

His most romantic onscreen presence would be walking away from the heroine after killing the villain. If that doesn’t account for romance, then I wonder what other moment of his would. He is too much of a man to kiss a girl in public and has too much of an ego to beg a girl with a ring in his hand. He’d rather hit three more bad guys than waste time on such pathetic, wasteful and time-consuming moments. Entirely, his view of course. 

However, there might exist few exceptions, but I am sure those are impracticalities pushed down his throat by  the directors. If you doubt, any of what I have said. Then, perhaps, I need to present some proof. Presto! Here you go…