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Hi Folks,
So in my limited time with this group I take it that most people, at least who air their views in this forum, consider Yash Raj and Karan as business people first and artist second. I respect their views and also totally disagree. Films in my view are about mass communications (no surprise that it is taught in that department in most universities) so see no problem in communicating with the masses. In Yash Chopra’s defence if it is all about “business,” why then were these below “artisitc” products made. Most if not all of them did not do that well in the box office. This was a post I did in 2005 (in another group), but still believe in the thoughts expressed here——————–Read on

 Hi Folks,

As mentioned in my prior post, it is not about marketing, it is about
making brilliant films and long before the MBA’s decided that they
had …

Directed by: Shyam Benegal
Actors: Sachin Khedekar, Rajpal Yadav
Year: 2005
Running Time: 222 minutes

Apun Indian hain magar apne ko apni hee ithiaas ke baare mein kuch nahi maloom. So I was a bit skeptical about watching ‘Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero’, as I would not know what part is the fact and what part is fictitious. And I think, I should not be writing a review on this movie since I have not got a clue about Subhas Chandra Bose and Indian history, so I will just give my opinion on Shyam’s direction and the performance given by the actors.

Shyam Benegal started the movie with stating that movie is based on fictitious events and historical data. I cannot remember the exact phrase as I saw the movie a few days ago. Anyway, the point is that it was good of him to state that, …

Every Friday new films are released and few people, named as film critics, try to seal the fate of these new films through their review writings. Film critic has to earn bread and butter so s/he has to write about the films. No wonder some of the criticisms are sponsored also as a part of promotion of the films and some times there are well planned efforts to sabotage a film by declaring it as a bad film even on the 1st day its release.

People always have short memory and they have so many other things to do in life so who can recall who wrote what few years ago about an actor or a film?

When an Engineer or a Doctor or any professional joins his job then seniors and others dont expect much from them and its a understood thing that they will learn with time and even if …

Sometime ago, in June actually, Oz had a post about “The highest paid Indian actor” and invited Tamil movie goers pitch in with their views. That prompted me to email this post to Oz who told me to sit on it and post it on PFC (which was then in the planning stages I think).
Once PFC started, coupled with the fact that I am a borm procrastinator, I also got hit by some work issues. Finally I got off my lazy ass today and posted this. This post is by no means complete. I shall touch on other things that made the man the Superstar as we know him.

Hi Folks,

Another in my series of articles which I expect some strong responses
against.

I hear all this hue and cry about piracy, but then I go to
Variety.com and under box office collections I see the following:

American Desi — $1.5 million
Monsoon Wedding — $23 million
Bend It —- $60 million
ABCD —– $120K (K= thousand)
Green Card ——- $181K
American Chai —-$135K
( Now you know why I say There is American Desi and then there are
all the others…MW & BILB are in a separate category, American Desi
is in the gnere of the Indian American Film Movement)

And these are just theatrical release collections, add to that the
dvd/cable and I am thinking , people are crying piracy as the root
cause for their film failing, then how come these films made
reasonable money (as in probably recovred their costs and then some).

So are the “piracy criers” really following the adage on ” a bad
workman or workwomen (being gender sensitive here) …

I discussed this idea with oz, and he was all up for it, so I figured what better outlet?

I got into acting during my final semester at Virginia Tech in 2001, where I took an intro course as an elective to satisfy my requirements for graduation. I had no desire to get into acting before this, and I looked at this class as an easy A. I finished the class with a B. But it was probably the most significant B I’ve ever gotten in my life, because it made me realize I really needed to pursue this bug and see where it leads. So after graduating, along with signing up with an agency and going on auditions, one of the ways I would hone my own skills is by practicing monologues from various movies and taping myself on camera. I was very adamant on …

Considering the commercial success of recent films (starting from late 90s) Satya, Lagaan, Company, Dil Chahta hai, Sarkar, Black, Rang de Basanti, Omkara, Lage Raho Munnabhai etc. Even the relative success of the small budget films without Star cast at the box office eg. Page 3, Iqbal, Corporate, Hazaron Kwashian aisi, Khosla ka Ghosla, Dor, etc is a clear signal of people liking genuine Cinema.

  Producer Ronnie Screwala quoted, “If the film is good and it given good publicity it would work at the box office”. Some of the prominent actors, who have sensed the changing scenario are making distinct choices, which puts them into a different league altogether. This league would include Amir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Ajay Devgan . The slection of script by itself makes Amir Khan special. While the other bunch of actors are still reluctant of coming out of the traditional formula driven films. …

Guru is a very important film in the career of Manirathnam. Through this post, I do not wish to give out the already heard multiple grapevines about the film, I would just like to share my observations on the man the industry affectionately and respectfully calls Mani Sir, and assess what to expect from his latest venture.

I have grown respecting his cinema more and more over the years. My first Mani film was Roja. I did not even get a chance to react to the film since those days, I used to live in Jaipur, and the film came with so much ‘air’ of appreciation and ‘wow’ that it was tough to say anything about it. Much later, when I saw the film, I came to understand its finer nuances. Bombay was my most memorable ‘commercial’ Mani experience. The film was huge in every sense of the word. Those were …

I was reading Sumeet’s post on filmmaker Sekhar Kammula and what amazed me was the flurry of people in filmmaking with a background in engineering and the eagerness of lot many more to join the world of cinema.

With whatever info I have I can tell Bollywood in particular has a lot of people with an engineering background. Be it the directors — Ram Gopal Varma, Nagesh Kukunoor, writers—Jaideep Sahni, actors—Rahul Dev, R Madhavan, actresses and item girls— Payal Rohatgi and Shefali Jariwalla, a whole range of people with different specialisation ala computer, civil, mechanical, electronics have ventured into tinsel town.

I haven’t included the regional cinema, as I know there would many such technicians. If you guys know about some other Bolly engineers then do mention about them as I, too, would like to know about them.

This thing has always struck me and it still does that out of all …

This is a post, I did in 2004, in another yahoogroup. Since I have warmed up to the media, but may make for some discussion—Vivek

Hi Folks,

My own reaction with the press is shades of grey. An incident when I
was 17 developed it all. I was in Mumbai near Mantralaya (the Central
Secretariat) when I see this female journalist slap a cop on duty and
the next day the daily screams “Cop slaps journalist.” Since that day
I decided that I would not really care about them since their powers
are all self assigned and for the most part they are on minimum wages
and maximum ego trip. Over the years though I have mellowed and feel
that there are bad apples in every field and for the most part they
(journalists) are hardworking and honest professionals who go about
their job in a diligent manner.

The purpose of this build up is the constant tug of war that goes …

I don’t understand Malayalam. It is to me as any other foreign language as Japanese, Spanish or any African language for that matter. But I have heard a lot of things about Malayalam cinema. Mathew is a malu. Sometimes when I went to his house, I would find the whole family watching Malayalam movies on Malayalam channels. Everybody would be so engrossed in the movie that I felt like a foreigner there. The worst were the comedies. They would be laughing loudly but I would never understand the joke. I then started translating the movie for them, interpreting it in my own way unless someone would either shout at me or kick me out.
I asked him to teach me Malayalam but he only knew how to speak Malayalam and did not know how to teach me Malayalam. I have watched a couple of Malayalam movies here thanks to a …

Hi Folks,

Now that I completed the intensive UCLA certificate in screenwriting with flying colors, it gets me rethnking about this whole debate in relation to the film industry (both US & India)- Is there a need for film education? Does it harm or help?

Unfortunately no simple answer here, just pieces of the puzzle.

For every three act structure taught by the UCLA/USC/NYU’s of the world and the industry guru’s like Syd Field/McKee/Truby/Walker/Linda etc, there are the self taught folks like Tarantino, Karan Johar, Yash Chopra,Kamlesh Pandey, Spielberg— the one thing all of these guys have in common is that their writing have POPULAR appeal, always a challenge and subsequently an achievement when got right. Each likes their own writing, but to have around 30-40% of humankind to like your writing is truly remarkable. The other thing all of these guys have in common is that neither studied OFFICIAL screenwriting (whatever that …

Went to watch Don a few days ago with some friends and one of them requested me not to write a review after the movie came to an end. I resisted the urge but the writing bug got the better of me and here I am writing about Don.
I tried my best to leave the comparisons with the original Don aside and I felt that the movie was…umm…well…not bad. Let’s look at the good and the bad points of the movie…
Good…
- As is typical of a Farhan Akhtar movie, this one too is quite sleek and stylish with some brilliant locales.
- The plot was good and the two twists in the movie (even though I predicted both) were quite good and must have taken many viewers by surprise.
- The camerawork was excellent through most of the movie.
Bad…
- The first half is quite slow and jumpy as …

Akira kurosawa’s RAN : Waah-miyan- shake-sphere – his best

Warning: This is a looong review … Spoilers and dialogues galore!!!

There’s something about Shakespeare’s plays… his tragedies in particular which rivet you and grab your attention. Be it the two adaptations by Vishal bhardwaj (Omkara- Othello, Maqbool- Macbeth) or kurosawa’s Ran (King Lear) and Throne of Blood (adaptation of Macbeth).

For all the pain staking ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and more talk/less action, Shakespeare’s tragic characters are driven by loyalty, ambition, trust/distrust and love/hatred. The most basic human emotions … which is why the screen is literally set on fire with drama (mostly) when his plays are adapted….

And when a Japanese film maker of international repute such as Kurosawa (this being my first tryst with Kurosawa) makes a film on Shakespeare famous tragedy King Lear it becomes a must see !!!

For …

This evening I watched Alejandro Gonzales Iñarittu’s third installment of his fragmented narrative trilogy, “Babel”, in what I must say was quite an exceptional theater at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Sadly, the film didn’t quite live up to the exceptionality of the theater.

That said, let me articulate that I am a HUGE fan of Iñarittu’s work. “Amores Perros” is one of my all-time favorites, and so is “21 Grams”. While “Amores Perros” may have just been one story too long, “21 Grams” was built on an exceptionally taut narrative. What made both these films work was the fact that they were strongly focused, and heightened drama by underplaying it. The more Iñarittu’s characters wanted to come out of their shell, he drove them physically back into it. In a strange way, it became his style of directing performance. Something quite splendid. “Babel” in comparison is a …

Yash who? Exactly !! Tonk is a supporting actor in Indian films with
notable appearances in Ishq Vishq , he is the Rocky who keeps giving
ill advise to the leading guys and also was seen in a grey role in
Feroz Khan’s Jahnasheen as Celina’s brother.

The point is that this write up celebrates guys like Yash Tonk and
Malika Shekhawat (co incidently both Haryanvi Jats), who come in the
Bollywood Film Industry not knowing a soul and end up making some
sort of name and fame for themselves. Yes I can see you giggling at
the mention of Shekhawat’s name…real name Ritu Lamba and she ain’t
no country bumpkin, was from Delhi Public School, but the fact of the
matter is the means justify the ends and it is not as if she has
killed someone. She is doing whatever it takes to succeed in an
environment where she knows nobody.

Bollywood is a tough environment, as many American/British/Canadian
Indians discover when …

get your brickbats ready. i’m ready to take the beating. bring it on! but you won’t change my mind. i’m coming out of the closet (but not in that way). i’m obsessed with ramgopal varma, and i’m letting the world know about it. ok, so the “world” here is a bunch of cinema franatics (freak+fanatics) just like me whom i’ve never met, but that’s fine. note that these views are accurate before he introduced mohit and nisha. i now find myself at a point where i’ve started wondering what’s wrong with him. this is not a disclaimer though… i’m still a huge fan.

is it because we’re both engineers by education? is it because i just connect with the type of cinema he makes, and the way he makes them? maybe it’s his “bindaas, i don’t give a rat’s ass …

Finally shooting has begun..finally Ayesha Takia is locked in..finally major problems have begun..The day before the shoot, finally when K(john abraham)’s car arrived,,i really didn’t know what i had gotten myself into..Pajero from the fiat era..that looked like a beaten up safari..now how can my character who lives on the 35th floor in worli, signs cheques of obscene amounts without a thought could drive a vehicle like that..but its a pajero sir..who gives a fuck ..it doesn’t look like it.. had no option..asked my producer’s car crazy son to fix it or i won’t shoot.. my producer has gone nuts, he has banned smoking on the sets..a joke taken so far, that he fined me 500 bucks and then mother of them all..he gave me a reciept for it..somebody help me..
slowly i think john and me are understanding each other..it gets difficult sometimes to collaborate when a lot of …

I’ve had this DVD on my shelf for almost a month now. Finally couple of nights ago, I decided to give this lesser-known indie flick a chance. With an impressive ensemble cast consisting of Edie Falco, Tony Shaloub, Jim Colbert, and our very own Naseeruddin Shah (and Sharat Saxena), one could expect to see interesting, well developed characters. For a film dealing about the state of average New Yorkers post 9/11, this film was surprisingly hollow. Well, perhaps not so surprising, considering it’s directed by Danny Leiner, more famous “Dude Where’s My Car?” and “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.” Obviously not a style that comes naturally to Leiner, one gets the feeling someone held a gun to his head and asked him to make this film.

Juggling multiple points of view and multiple stories is always a tricky task. More often than not, only one or two stories really …

Dastak (1970)
Director: Rajinder Singh Bedi
Cast: Sanjeev Kumar, Rehana Sultan

“Hum hai mataye koocha bazaar ki tarah
Uthti hai har nigaah kharidaar ki tarah”

What happens that woman who with every knock on her door has a man propositioning her? Think about the mindset of the man who is her husband but is treated as her pimp? What about those moments of intimacy, which get crumbled under the voyeuristic pleasures of peeping Toms?

That’s Dastak. A film that dealt with the hypocrisy of the human mind and the concocted views on womanhood and a woman’s sexuality.

Hamid and Salma — a newly married couple move into a rental flat. Both of them are happy and relieved for having gotten away from the housing problem that cripples Mumbai. But little did they know that the earlier occupant of the flat was Shamshad Begum, the famous mujrewali of the town with their flat being close to the local …