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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Indian Ra.One Vs. Saint

I had trouble last Thursday choosing between seeing Indian super hero film Ra. One or Belgium Christmas horror film Saint.

I gave into carnal pleasure of evisceration by Santa Claus! However, Matt Holzman did attend the Samuel Goldwyn Theater held in,  IFFLA (The Indian Film Festival of LA) brought feature of Ra.One


Which is actually playing right now in LA as I write this, just search moviefone. Matt's friend Howard brought op a good point about Indian cinema making it in America
 "My friend Howard pointed out that Americans also expect the “inciting moment” of a film to happen in the first 15 minutes; in “Ra.One” – like most Bollywood films I imagine - it doesn’t come until something like an hour in. In fact, someone on stage during the introductions acknowledged that if Indian films are going to make a dent in the American market, they’re going to have to get shorter. “Ra.One” – at 2:30ish – is actually fairly short by Bollywood standards, where the average length of a film is upwards of three hours. Which is funny when you think about it – considering the ever-increasing cost of going to the movies, you’d think we’d want more for our money. But I suppose with our hectic life-styles and short attention spans, less is more, at least when it comes to movies.
I can't wait to see what the Indian Film Festival chooses for next years films, because Matt tells 900 films are made a year in India.

Saint on the other hand might be too short, it's a totally new Christmas horror movie to get into, but can't compare to Nightmare Before or my all time favorite Rare Exports. Director Dick Maas brings an 80's movie about a murderous St. Nicholas, who is very different than the Santa to you know, Dutch customs, to scare families on the holidays. Where Rare Exports has a lot more behind it in both story and action, there's something to a evil Santa Claus riding a white horse on top of buildings around Amsterdam.

Dick Maas can't seem to get out of the 80's with the look and feel of the movie, even with cell phones and GPS the feel look dated. The special effects were on par with today's with some great grisly murders on Christmas, I loved St. Nicholas' cane. It's a darker movie than usual and even the ending comes off bad. If you think about it you'll realize that the hero is actually a murderer and ... wait it doesn't make sense with the curse. Hhhm, still for horror fans, this will be a stocking stuffer. It's been bought by IFC, so you'll be sure to see it this Christmas, maybe with another free screening at The Cinefamily.


Hahaha they dubbed it! The dub is awful, if you get it, just watch it with subtitles