Change Your Image
laurenta
Reviews
The Mistress of Spices (2005)
Wrong in so many ways, hilarious at times
This movie is bad, and also wrong. It steers very close to "so bad it's good" territory but does not quite get there.
Plot summary: A neurotic workaholic Indian woman completely loses it but love finds her because she looks like miss-world '94.
Some of the movie's underlying message is very offensive, let's do a quick rundown:
"any problem can be solved by the use of the appropriate spice" - consumption is the answer...
"you must not use your powers for yourself, must not touch a man or leave the store" - you also happen to be a woman...
"there is one spice for each person" - your personality is a constant, no need for free will...
"this store customer experienced trauma, violence and injustice in the home country he had to leave as a refugee, let's give him some spice so that he forgets all about it" - small people should not expect justice...
Then there are the countless holes in the script, for example how come the mistress of spices never talks about her strange obligations even though her cult leader never explicitly forbid talking, how did she gets to the US, how did she open this very nice store, could this cult with its amazing powers not have more ambitious goals, like world peace or something? There is nothing about these script holes that can be explained away by declaring this to be "magical realism", as the point of magic is tricking the audience into not seeing what's happening behind the scene, and in this movie it's the exact opposite, the magic weighs a ton and is obvious scaffolding for the rest.
There were moments of total camp that had me working hard to suppress laughter: the bike ride across San Francisco bay, the car ride, the whole falling in love part, the add-styled imagery.
I guess that magical realism is one of the most difficult style to write a script in, to follow through with the ideas in this movie properly would have required years of additional work on the script, lots and lots more thinking.
Finally, the actors' performance were not so bad. If they had been, this movie would definitely have entered cult territory.
23 - Nichts ist so wie es scheint (1998)
Hacking History
A well researched accurate but still fast-paced movie.
This movie is of some significance to the history of computer hacking. Karl Koch may have been the loonie the movie presents, and I'm not sure he invented the concept of a Trojan, but the depiction of BBS/hacking/phreaking in the late eighties is nice and nostalgic.
The acting really works, very believable. Also reminiscent of cold war madness and fears. The "illuminatus" aspect is a bit of a sideshow, maybe true to what really happened, but it's not so certain. Who knows what really went on between these crazy Germans?...