Page 60 - Seniors Today - Jan25 Issues
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flirts with the chaste Hindi-speaking                             Foreman film was based on
         Pyare Mohan giving the impression that                            Ken Kasey’s spine-chilling
         she is having an affair with the driver.                          novel. The plot pits Jack
         Meanwhile, Sukumar falls in love with                             Nicholson’s rebellious
         Vasudha (Jaya Bachchan), who wonders                              Randle McMurphy, who
         why a married man is hitting on her. The                          has feigned mental illness
         prank goes on for a while till Raghav                             to avoid prison, against the
         admits that he was fooled and Parimal can          cold and brutal Nurse Ratched (Louise
         show his wife that he is smarter than her          Fletcher), who terrorises the patients
         brother-in-law. The film makes every list of       into submission. Randle stands up to her
         the best comedies made in India.                   tyranny to help the others and even tries to
                                                            organise an escape. Unable to control him,
         Jaws:                                              Nurse Ratched has him lobotomised. In the
                        A young Steven Spielberg            chilling last scene, his friend, the mostly
                        unleashed terror on                 silent Chief (Will Sampson), smothers him
                        audiences, through a vicious        to death, rather than let him survive as a
                        great white shark. Based on a       vegetable, and, cheered on by the others,
                        novel by Peter Benchley, the        escapes. Dark and emotionally complex,
                        mechanical shark chomping           the film won several academy awards and
                        on humans made audiences            is considered one of the best films of all
         scream and faint, but also became a huge           time.
         summer blockbuster, the biggest grosser
         in Hollywood till then, the record beaten          Dog Day Afternoon:
         by Star Wars two years later. It starred                          The true crime hostage
         Roy Scheider as the police chief of the                           drama directed by
         small beach town where the shark strikes,                         Sidney Lumet, starred
         and it falls on him to hunt it down, with                         Al Pacino in one of his
         the help of a marine biologist (Ricard                            finest performances, as
         Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter                         a desperate bank robber,
         (Robert Shaw). Using the Hitchcockian                             Sonny Wortzik, whose heist
         technique of suggesting horror rather              planned with two friends, fails. When the
         than showing it, the presence of the shark         bank is surrounded by cops, he takes the
         is marked with scary music composed by             employees hostage. He makes demands
         John Williams, and it worked, because              and attempts to negotiate a plan to get
         people are more afraid of what they cannot         away. Sonny is seen as a decent guy, who
         see or understand. Spielberg was already           spares those who are unwell, but is not
         considered a promising filmmaker, this film        willing to stand down. He needs money to
         put him on top of the heap of greats. The          pay for the gender reassignment surgery
         film has had sequels, spin-offs and copycat        of his partner Leon (Chris Sarandon). In
         movies, but the original is in a class apart.      his attempt to make things right for others,
                                                            Sonny falls into a trap of his own making.
         One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest:                   He is portrayed more as a tragic character
         Set in a mental hospital, this Milos               than a criminal. The film was a critical and


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