Day 1 Of 2

Managed three movies today:

• Zodiac
  This one is good. I found it a little too long but totally worth it. I would've rewatched it if not for its runtime of over two and a half hours.
  I get the obsession and it's such a horrible compulsion, but — boy oh boy — the thrill of the (paper/info) chase. YES.
• Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty
  After a great film such as Zodiac, I found myself in the mood for other similar movies but less ... heavy. So I decided on Holiday.
  I actually found this one enjoyable (despite the lousy role they gave Sonakshi, not to mention her pairing with another dude old enough to be her father) and I think it has a high rewatch value. In fact, I may even like this more than Baby.
  I like to think of Holiday as the desi Taken because there was a scene in which Akshay and the other pretty face actually had a telephone conversation along the line of "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you". Off the top of my head, there are only two Hindi film actors I can think of who should play Liam Neeson's role in the inevitable Hindi "remake" of the Taken series: Sunny Deol and hamara ek number Khiladi.
  While I found the song-and-dance sequences a pain in the ass and totally disruptive of the flow and tension of the movie, I do appreciate the brief romantic interludes (even if they featured Chi Chi — cheeeee) because they helped cut some of the tension, but what in the fucking hell were Sonakshi's screen parents thinking, matchmaking their college-aged daughter with such old men?!
  Sonakshi's role seemed to have been shoehorned in just for comic relief. Couldn't the scriptwriter just find a non-romantic comic element (which I thought the Mukund character was meant to be)?
• Rahasya
  Continuing my unusual streak of decent movies was Rahasya. GREAT WHODUNIT!!! I'm not sure I have seen a (more or less) taut murder mystery in recent years. I wonder if the Hindi film industry has produced more such movies in recent years?
  This is also the first (I think) movie I've seen in which Kay Kay Menon didn't play a villainous role. His CBI Officer Paraskar is right up there with Nawaz's Khan (Kahaani) and Ronit Roy's Bose (Ugly). If Sushant Singh Rajput's Detective Byomkesh Bakshy is in the same vein, I'm pretty sure I will like the movie as much as I've been looking forward to watching it.
  God, I hope there's a list of great detective roles in contemporary Hindi cinema that I can use to guide my movie selection. The best detectives are usually eccentric, intense, and offbeat (yes, apparently my preference is heavily colored by RDJ's and Cumberbatch's takes on Sherlock Holmes).

More on day two? We'll see.