Sholay
The only things keeping this from getting a thumbs down on iCM are the actual musical numbers. When Sholay is actually being a musical, it's pretty good. The buddy duet at the beginning between Veeru and Jai was surprising in its sweetness given that we've just been introduced to them as outlaws with a particular proficiency in murder via arms. Veeru's invasion of Basanti's carriage is plenty of fun, although by today's standards it would seem that persistent men are harassers by default. Basanti's dance to save Veeru is mesmerizing, and Holi celebrations are just wonderful to film in general, this one given extra weight by the event that brings it to a halt with the swiftness.
Everything outside of the musical numbers, which is a huge part of this 3 hour, 15 minute film, is overdone, overcooked, and hard to watch. It's one where you feel yourself starting to make sweeping generalizations about film based on what it does wrong. In the case of Sholay: Can the zoom ever be artistic? Do people falling after being shot ever look real? Is there a right way to do an extended shootout/action scene, or are they all so mind-numbing and repetitive? It's a movie that has me needing to watch 5-10 more good movies to remember what makes movies good.
The final fight scene between our hero, Thakur, and the 2-dimensional, cartoonish villain, Gabbar, is possibly the most ludicrous thing I've seen in a movie. The way images are edited together to make it look possible for a man with no arms to jump off 8-foot rocks to give another man a beatdown, the cuts to close-ups of just his legs stomping out Gabbar in completely unrealistic fashion, and then having him somehow maintain his balance without simply wiping out is just silly.
And I get - to an extent - that the silliness gives this film its charm. But at some point, I think we get carried away with turning negatives into positives for the sake of inclusivity and artistic populism. Most of the quick zooms to show what a sneaky character is doing on-screen are bad artistic decisions. A lot of the dramatic musical flourishes come at the most obvious points and are too exaggerated. The shootouts never end and become needless spectacle, and the falls are as fake in appearance as the blood. I'd watch a musical-numbers-only version of this film, gladly. I would never sit through the whole thing again, but I'm glad enough I did it once, for the sake of education.
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Alright, one down in the Dictation/List of Shame Club! I need to start marathoning the films of 2021 now, but I am going to get back in the ring at some point in the next couple of weeks.