Director Duo Abbas-Mustan (not otherwise known as 'The Brothers Burmawalla') have been steadily putting out pulp thrillers since their early 90s hit, Khiladi. The brothers' latest offering, Race, hit theatres a couple of weeks ago, and since then has gone on to do unexpectedly good business. Some of this success can be attributed to the fact that it's the first truly 'Bollywood' movie to come out for months; whether we admit to it or not, posh city folk like nothing better than an indulgent entertainer now and then. The last one that fit the bill -- Om Shanti Om -- was released last October. If only someone would tell our filmmakers, who are increasingly shifting their attention towards an output of macho noir violence-fests, epic historical snore-a-thons, Oscar bait (and always failing that, Filmfare Critics award bait) and trendy urban train wrecks distinguished by their characters calling each other 'Guys' a lot and knowing what ribbed condoms are.

In this age where the term 'Pulp Fiction' is more synonymous with an overrated art movie than the vibrant genre that supposedly inspired it, it's nice to see that someone, somewhere at least isn't trying to reinvent the wheel or make a genre of pure entertainment 'relevant to this post 9/11 world.' Wielding the twin cannons of amoral pulp and bollywood exuberance (with both genres' devil-may-care attitude to realism as their car's engine) the brothers have came out with a winner.

Over the past five years I've been amassing an eclectic collection of cheap used books on my trips to Bombay. At Rs.10 apiece (around $0.25 US) they aren't expensive or significant (most of them are, in fact, the very opposite), but they are valuable to me, insomuch as they are weird -- and I love weird. I have read very few of them; Of the hundreds (and by now, thousands), I have only finished a handful. There have been plans ever since I started blogging to talk about them, to read and review them, but this has so far not happened.

I was reminded of this recently when Dan blogged about his bookshelf, and in the comments I lamented that most of my books were in boxes (he suggested I just take a picture of the box). "That's it," I said to myself, "enough dawdling!" I looked through a small box of them and chose seven -- none of which I have read -- but which I think are interesting. Maybe this will give me the impetus to actually read some, but for now I will talk of their weird and wonderful subjects, their pretty and often breathtaking covers, and their all-round coolness. I hope you find them as fun as I do.

Dubai-itis is the term I use for that low, frustrated feeling that sets in almost immediately after I return from vacation, to suddenly realise that I live in a flat, hot, congested city where people dress up to go to shopping malls. Any place that makes me miss even the most tedious aspects of a city like Bombay (the chaos, the infrastructure or lack thereof, the garbage and the idiots) is noteworthy.

My escape often comes in the form of a trip to the movies. I begrudgingly overlook the snip-snip of the censors and the twenty minutes of brain-killing advertising, and do enjoy myself. The pre-fab box multiplex model that cinema has transformed into doesn't damper my spirits (I am, in fact, thankful that for now at least the projection and sound quality is better in multiplexes), and once the lights go down I'm a sucker for the experience.

The good thing about living in a country with a Friday/Saturday weekend is that movies release a day earlier than other places, and because of the extra day an early evening screening can still be relatively empty (most people are still at work). Not that I expected a huge turnout for Sudhir Mishra's latest, Khoya Khoya Chand, but in multiplexes Hindi films are shown in the smaller screens, and those hundred odd seats can fill up quickly.

Starring a bunch of well regarded actors who aren't quite stars yet (and one wonders why), Khoya Khoya Chand is a gorgeous, quirky and ultimately satisfying movie about Indian movies. Om Shanti Om from a couple of weeks back also was an homage, but while it was a loud and tongue-in-cheek pastiche of 1970s potboilers, Mishra's film is a subversive, adult drama set in the fifties and sixties, the transition era from black-and-white melodramas to technicolour kitsch. It does so with class.

There are a few of laughs peculiar to the cinema. There’s the stifled, back-of-the-throat rumble. There’s the quick “ha!” and the long giggle. There’s even genuine rolling-in-the-aisles, uncontrolled mess of laughter that filmmakers actually have to anticipate and incorporate pauses into the movies for. This is one the true joys of coming to a cinema, the ability to have your silly laugh literally drowned out by everyone else’s silly laugh.

Then there are the fake ones. You can spot these very easily because they always come a half second after the genuine laughs - or worse, a half second before - and are always too long and theatrical. It’s painfully obvious that this person is trying to show to everyone else that they get it,‘it’ being some kind of joke; usually an unfunny one that wasn’t worth laughing about in the first place.

What would you define as a good movie?

Award Winning? Critically Acclaimed? It has your favourite star in it? All your friends like it?

For me, it's a movie that entertains me, plain and simple. Now, entertainment is a broad term that can be very subjectively defined. For instance, I never let professional critics' opinions sway me from watching 'bad' movies -- in fact, more often than not I find these bad movies to be highly entertaining, and yes, even good.

There's a special type of 'bad' movie I love, that doesn't follow any rules or logic and usually makes it to people's 'Top 5 Worst Movies' list. These are movies that are so off-the-wall, so zany and silly that they put off most people, but I'm forever glad that someone had the good sense (or a lapse of it) to put some money behind them and get them made. These are the kinds of movies that, even on paper, don't sound like a good proporistion.

These are also some of my favourite movies, and here's my top 5 list. If you've never heard of them, or have heard of them but in a negative way before, I hope this list will do a little to change your mind and get you to see them:

...I can't believe I just gave my money to these people.

Like I mentioned in the previous post, I had gone to the mall to watch Music & Lyrics. We usually don't go to the mall on weekends as getting a parking space even in the enormous Mall of the Emirates parking lot on Friday can be a problem. However, it was not yet evening and with nothing else to do, we decided to chance it. The parking lot was quickly filling up, but we did manage to get a space.

I don’t know about your schools, but in mine (Indian School Muscat, or ISM for those of use who have survived that enigma) Drama and Theatre weren’t big. Oh sure, you did have the odd teacher who’d come along every few years, fuelled by passion and memories of his or her golden youth (usually five years past) in some sleepy hill station boarding school where ‘The Classics’ were paraded out -- bedsheet togas, pathetic iambic pentameter and all -- and put on show in some august hall whose seats were varnished every other week. They’d pick up everyone who ever scored in the top five in English in every class*.

(* - Thankfully, despite achieving this, I was never taught by one of these imbeciles or was considered too uncharismatic. The few times I was pulled up I stood very still at audition and read in a continuous, droning whisper.)

Just back from seeing Don: The Chase Begins Again. The short version:

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW.