POORLY FRIDAYS

Who's feeling poorly this Friday?

Tony Leung Kar-fai is feeling poorly after being sentenced to two months in jail for his recent drunk driving shenanigans. Originally his sentence was for three months, but it was reduced to two thanks to Tony's "good attitude". Unfortunately, TLKF just can't catch a break. Before he could put all those jailhouse skills he picked up in PRISON ON FIRE to use, the judge suspended his sentence (and his license) for three years. Poor, poor Tony.

Who else is doing poorly? Bollywood film websites that get used like kleenex in a whorehouse. Bartering away their dignity in exchange for "access" these sites wind up running ridiculous, planted stories like this one claiming that the Examining Committee of the Central Board of Film Certification burst into applause when they finished screening ZINDA, the Bollywood remake of OLDBOY. "With so much going in its favor," IndiaFM gasps, "ZINDA should prove to be a landmark film for Gupta, Dutt and John." Is Bollywood in such bad shape that a knock-off like this can film writers an attack of the vapors? Someone's doing poorly, I'm just not sure who.

Chen Kaige's THE PROMISE is getting beaten on like a red-headed stepchild, but that hasn't caused Chen to lower his opinion of his own film one bit. Then he has to go and give a quote like this in an interview over at Monsters & Critics, "THE PROMISE is very interesting - I told myself that the first thing to consider is not the story, not the characters, but the imagination...ALEXANDER THE GREAT, I love that film, not because I know Oliver Stone pretty well but because no matter how this movie was received I think it`s a very powerful movie done with great imagination." If Chen Kaige is defining imagination as a country bounded by THE PROMISE on one side and ALEXANDER THE GREAT on the other then, I'm sorry, but there's no other choice but to conclude that Chen Kaige is feeling poorly.