VOD/DVDebut: Leena Yadav's PARCHED tracks women's struggle for freedom in today's India

A soap opera that offers just about everything a woman (along with certain men) could want in a juicy, enjoyable melodrama -- from a nasty, vicious husband who abuses his barren wife to a zipless fuck with a hot, horny and super-caring sex partner, and even a little lesbian-leaning massage for good measure -- PARCHED is a movie with a lot on its mind and a nearly two-hour time span to work out all of its various plot lines. These involve a widow raising a problemed son, that son's new-and-not-so-willing bride, the widow's best friend who works as a stripper-and-paid-sex-partner for the town's horny husbands, and -- oh, yes -- that aforementioned abused wife.

Filmmaker Leena Yadav, shown at right, manages to juggle all these plot lines quite well, so that we easily follow their machinations, together with all the ups and downs of our quartet who are doing their best to bring India and its women into some kind of state of modernity. It ain't easy, given the patriarchy that has ruled this country (despite the blip that was Indira Gandhi) for so long. As writer, producer and director of the film, Ms Yadav sees to it that all these stories and characters get served -- eventually with their just desserts. And while the movie allows too much coincidence for us to take it all that seriously as drama, it also turns its main character, the mother known as Rani (Tanishtha Chaterjee, below), into a full-bodied warts-and-all woman.

In movies such as this one, the men are usually pictured as less than sterling. And so it is here, with the exception of the fellow who has brought his "foreign" wife to town and is helping the women start and run their own little weaving/textiles/tchotchke business. The remainder of the guys -- with the exception of that "sex therapist" who is rather like a deus ex machina with penis -- are either venal and nasty or, as in the case of the fellow (below) who pines for that stripper (and also works for her boss), simply stupid.

Especially nasty is the abusive husband, below, who manages to lambast his poor wife at every turn, no matter what. (His comeuppance proves particularly awful and more than deserved.)

But it is the women who count most, and they are brought of fine life by the quartet of actresses who play the roles. The stripper/sex worker (Suveen Chawla, two photos above) is gorgeous and feisty. In real life, however her attitude would probably have gotten her a number of good beatings by now. Their lack is part of the melodramatic fun here.

As the abused wife, Radhika Apte, above, is properly submissive, slow and sweet, and her quiet growth into a stronger woman is one of the more real aspects of the movie.

The young bride of Rani's shithead son is the female we learn least about, but, as played by Lehar Khan, above, she is innocence and sweetness personified. And since the character has most of her life still in front of her, we can simply be happy at the prospect of her eventual freedom. How and why this happens is among the movie's more moving moments.

Visually, Parched is a knockout, featuring some great locations and excellent cinematography (by Russell Carpenter); the consciousness-raising among the women proves intelligent and enjoyable; and overall the film is a perfectly good example of soap-opera, Indian style -- feminist and a lot of fun.

From Wolfe Releasing/Wolfe Video, after a limited theatrical run, the movie hits both DVD and VOD this coming Tuesday, August 9 -- for purchase and/or rental.

John Carpenter's finest? Judge for yourself, as THEY LIVE gets a silver anniversary re-release

Those of us who saw THEY LIVE upon its original release some 25 years ago knew we were in the presence of something special. But who'd a thunk the film would hold up this well? It does indeed, and although a new They Live appears to be in development now -- oh, it'll be glossier and filled with more expensive special effects, all right -- it's difficult to believe that it could be any better than its predecessor.

Directed and with a screenplay by John Carpenter (shown below), from a short story by Ray Nelson, the movie burst upon us just a couple of months prior to the end of the administration of Ronald Reagan, as a kind of angry and ironic thank you for the horrific damage Reagan and his cronies had wrought on the U.S. populace (many of us had only begun to understand the extent of the damage at this time).

Chock full of politics, economics, culture and philosophy -- all of which were turned into a riveting "message" about consumerism and a populace put to sleep -- this is a story of, yes, an alien take-over of America in the form of the most seemingly benignly Capitalistic means imaginable. If it takes awhile (maybe one full third of the film) for They Live to get going, that first third is so full of progressive ideas it must have had poor Kyle Smith (if he saw the film first time 'round) shitting a brick. Set in a Los Angeles where jobs are scarce and the pay is woeful, the film shows us the working poor (after the de-taxation of the rich, an increase in the national debt, the union busting and other Reagan "achievements") reduced to eviction and living in shantytowns -- which are from time to time destroyed by the police.

If this does not sound so far afield from what we can soon expect if our politicians and Supreme Court continue their current "work," you can probably imagine what it was like for audiences a quarter-century ago to go into the theaters expecting monsters and scares and to come out 93 minutes later frightened in a whole new way -- with their brains de-frying then re-composing. The "everything you know is wrong" scenario sure found fertile ground in this film!

Not that there aren't plenty of scary monsters (above) and jolts along the way. But these are all used sublimely well in service to the message: How do you shake off the clammy hand of abusive power, no matter the species that is wielding it.

Slavoj Zizek, in his new film The Pervert's Guide to Ideology uses They Live as one of the better examples of an under-sung Hollywood classic that also possesses intelligence, wit and a philosophy. It surely is. The film also reminded me not a little of Nat Christian's 2011 Monday Morning, but with a much heavier use of the fantasy/sci-fi element.

In addition, the movie gave actors like wrestler Roddy Piper (two photos above), a young Keith David (just above), and Meg Foster (below, whose gorgeous, odd, see-through eyes make her look like an alien already) the opportunity to shine, appearing in a movie that is destined to outlast them -- and us -- all.

After the many thrills and plot machinations, Carpenter's ending is absolutely terrific: funny, nasty, dirty and exactly right for a movie that politically, socially and philosophically knew exactly what it was doing and did it damned well. So, come on, remake: Let's see what you're made of!

Meanwhile, you can peruse the original, from Universal Pictures, which opens this Friday, December 6, in New York City at the IFC Center, before eventually, I hope, coming to VOD, DVD and maybe Blu-ray in its crisp new high-definition DCP image.

Philippe Diaz's NOW & LATER: hot stuff that wears heart/social conscience on its sleeve

Making its Blu-ray debut just yesterday, NOW & LATER -- a little 2009 movie from filmmaker Philippe Diaz (shown below), who earlier gave us the documentary The End of Poverty -- is quite a different kettle of fish. Full of hardcore sex scenes (five of 'em, plus one more -- maybe the hardest -- as part of the DVD Extras), the movie also tells an interesting story of a predatory Los Angeles-based banker named Bill, now disgraced and on-the-run after jumping bail, who finds an "outlet," not to mention a liberal/socialist education in the arms (and an orifice or three) of a very unusual young woman.

Played by Shari Solanis (below, bare-breasted), Angela is one ministering angel, all right. She takes in our poor hero -- who has nowhere to go, having been kicked out by wife and family -- and proceeds to "nurture" him like nobody's business, teaching him a quickie version of The People's History of the United States (and for that matter, the world), putting him in touch with his feelings (and her body) and in general turning the guy into a liberal, left-wing prince. Now, I have nothing against liberal, left-wing princes. In fact, I wish there were many more of them. But I'd like to be able to believe that what I'm seeing is real. And it's here that Mr Diaz's movie fumbles badly.

As good a little actress as Ms Solanis proves herself, and as hunky and hard as her co-star James Worthham (above, pointing) proves himself (both are making their screen debut), and as believable as their "Honey, let me educate you" dialog sometimes is, there is just too much of it, finally, to be at all credible. For all its hot, hardcore sex, the movie is patently an exercise in consciousness-raising.

But it's an exercise that stretches its vaginal and penile muscles as often as its gray matter, and this actually makes the experience pretty damned enjoyable. It is indeed liberating to see love scenes in which the guy is full frontal, as well as the gal, and in which he's erect, to boot. In addition to the missionary positions, we get some voyeurism, masturbation, and finally a threesome (below) with another guy, a former-and-still-burning flame of Angela. It seems that our big-dicked banker is getting quite an education from his little angel.

The movie's title takes on more meaning than you might initially imagine, with the characters co-opting "Now" and "Later" as monikers, though the screenplay finally beats this notion to near-death. And even though events would seem to necessitate it (after all, Bill must get out of the country fast), too much change is packed into too little time for any of it -- except the sex -- to register as entirely credible.

Still, it is an encouraging thing to see a filmmaker attempt to combine a strong political statement with decent story/dialog and some good-to-acceptable acting (Mr. Wortham is more believable as the newly-changed "leftie" than as a bad-boy banker) with sex scenes that are portrayed realistically and yet, for all their hardcore status, do not seem pornographic. I hope we'll see more of this sort of thing, as well as seeing these two leading actors again. (I notice on the IMDB that neither of them seems to have anything pending.) It would be a shame if their appearance here were to in any way stunt their careers.

Now & Later, 99 minutes, is available now on Blu-ray and DVD from Cinema Libre Studio -- for sale or rental. The Blu-ray transfer, by the way, is quite nicely done -- with the two "extra" scenes adding some oomph to the proceedings. One of them is extremely hot, as noted earlier; the other is all dialog, and both would have made, for my money, fine additions to the film. But they also would have pushed the running time to nearly two hours, which may have been thought to be too lengthy for this sort of movie.