“Christmas As Usual”: fun Nflx fish-out-of-water rom-com with comedian Kanan Gill 🇮🇳, actress Ida Ursin-Holm 🇳🇴. “My Big Fat Norwegian Wedding,” basically, with built-in sequel in India. via RS
It’s like Chhoti [Small] Diwali, yaar
Flips a desi-Am trope: the white gal’s the one from a more conservative family, rural Norwegians
White people with their funny customs and smelly food
Awkward namaste
Norway only has around 5M people
Sipahi mutiny averted
Indian snowman 👳🏽♂️
Rom-coms treat the airport dash like a mandatory checkoff, like cup holders in a car
The Archies is a Bollywood nepo baby vehicle which adapts the Archie comics, huge in India. Beautiful art direction, costumes, cinematography and dance, on a quick skim.
It transplants the gang into Anglo-Indians at boarding school in the hill station of Ooty. The refs are more British than American: someone wears a Union Jack bowtie, someone’s off to school in London.
Former model Kamal Sidhu 🇨🇦 plays an evil hotel developer’s wife, called “the American.”
One musical number has a great shot where the camera recedes from light-footed dancers on a circular track.
Bollywood’s doing sunny American ’50s while T••••’s trying to revive the dark side :)
With mild b-boy update:
Instead of the blond girl next door vs. brunette vamp, they’re all dark-haired Veronicas. So they lighten “Betty’s” hair a bit.
A Kapoor playing a “Cooper” is a “Goodness Gracious Me” sketch come to life :D
The Marvels uses the Peter Parker template for Kamala Khan. The Punjabi-coded family is the relatable audience bridge, Kamala’s the wide-eyed teen supe.
Funny action scene where Ma, Pa and brother Khan fight off aliens with a wet mop, under a rap track with a bhangra sample.
Kamala crosses her forearms Wonder Woman-style and mutters “Bismillah” before loosing an energy blast.
The movie has some Hindi jokes without subtitles, nothing spicy.
Dad says, “Yah Allah.” Shahada (?) wall art in the living room, later in close-up surrounded by alien cat eggs. Khan kids played by Muslim actors, parents by a Parsi and a Hindu.
Opening scene still has Maria Qamar’s pop art on Kamala’s wall.
Samuel L. Jackson using an alien housecat as a ranged weapon never gets old.
Female leads and writers, funny double-dutch jump rope in a space station.
“The Marvels” uses the same unwilling-teleportation mechanic as “Loki” and Kowalski in “Fantastic Beasts,” and it’s funny every time, like a snarling kitten born over and over in a new world.
The unwilling teleportation / time travel / body swap mechanic is funny in “Quantum Leap” and “Big” too. Each leap is a fish-out-of-water comedy in miniature, on fast-forward. “Mork and Mindy” if comic, “Moscow on the Hudson” if tragic, every few minutes.
Brie Larson has a musical scene, just like her Bollywood-style turn with Utkarsh Ambudkar in “Basmati Blues.” Charming Iman Vellani isn’t the first time Larson’s been overshadowed by a desi actor in her own movie :)
Screenwriters love energy battles, they’re completely synthetic like greenscreen. Energy beams can vary from powerful to weak based on plot needs. You don’t have to deal with weapon range, balance, reload or gun nerds.
