Thursday, 3 March 2011

It's a Wonderful Afterlife
(2010)

RATING: 60%
FORMAT: DVD



A pure Mills & Boon romance whose amusing side does not successfully conceal its arbitrary plotting and weak characterization.

This is the story of an Anglo-Indian mother's determination to marry-off her Plain-Jane daughter before the parent dies. This becomes such a desperate desire that she turns to serial-killing those who have turned her daughter down for being too fat or too sexually-unattractive or whatever - as in Serial Mom.

The cultural specificity is such that some of the humor will be lost on non-Sikh and non-Jewish audience members. This is made-up for with a broad horror-comedy making pointed visual references to Alien and Carrie. Like so many comedies about familial oppression (eg, Rhoda), there is an abiding love for both the community and the religion being parodied (in the absence of anything better) that offsets the oppression, since the parent here is - rightly or wrongly - wanting the best for the child.


Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.