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It has been a while since we have had OST’s being released for songless Indian films.
The examples have been Black Friday, Sarkar, White noise, Bhoot, Black and more. The masters of the game are Indian Ocean, Salim-Sulaiman, Ashutosh & Dhruv, Midival Punditz, Amar Mohile, Nitin Raikwar, Monty, Sandeep Chowta etc. since Indian films have THE SONG has an indispensable element, OST’s featuring extensive background music pieces from the films, or inspired songs, become a shaky boat to ride on.

Sarkar had a brilliantly worked on 2 CD OST track, which by far has been one of the most definitive sounds or efforts in this domain. Indian Ocean’s Black Friday did it 2 years ago with original sounds, which build up the singularly arresting sound of a blast-infested Mumbai. White Noise, Snip and Bombay Boys were the showcase of Ashutosh Phatak & Dhruv Ganekar’s electronica and semi-classical fusion …

Everyone is after Nikhil Advani with hammer and tongs. Salaam-E-Ishq (SEI) is being battered to pulp. Reviewers all over the media are slashing it more violently than the melons in their kitchen. Nothing I’ve seen yet, has much good to talk about SEI… except of course the performances… So here’s a short chitty chitty bang bang on why…

oz likes SEI…

Firstly SEI is not a bad film… it isn’t a very good film either… but for inspiring screenwriters, editors and directors - if you guys watch it closely… SEI has all the ingredients to be made into an Exceptional movie.

Yes. SEI has all the ingredients present in it to be a nice, feel good movie… much more sensible than the other substandard movies that have been raking in the moolah…

So what went wrong?

Parallel Tracks

The English have done it. The Italians are obsessed with it. The South Americans have perfected …

Hi Folks,

Caught a press screening of Namesake yesterday. Like it or lump it, that is your prerogative as a viewer, what I can say is that this is not a movie you can remove immediately from your psyche. At least not from a South Asian American mindset. It lingers on well after the movie is over. It is melancholy and certainly not a “night out at the movies” type of a movie, more a “that came too close to comfort” type of a movie.

The real winner is the story. The real loser is the screenplay. It is way too long. The movie lingers on well past it’s natural end. That takes some of the effect away. Also there is no let up. It is one step at a time, in the ladder of the erieness that comes when moving from one culture to another. Also this is a story which …

With the release of Parzania and the surrounding controversies I’m reminded of another movie that dealt with the same subject.

“Dadaji, yeh ashmaan neela kyun hain”
“Kyun ki mere ko peela raang pasand nahin, toh maine ise neela rang se paint kiya”

This is one of those several memorable dialogue exchanges that characterize the Syed Mirza’s 1995 film “Naseem”. The story is about a typical Muslim middle-class family at the back-drop of communal tension prior to the Babri Masjid demolition. The movie follows their day-to-day life about a few months before the Dec 6-th events takes place. The initial few reels are spent on strong character built-up based upon the interaction between the two of the main actors. Naseem, played by Mayuri Kango, is a teenage girl who needs answer to a thousand questions. The Grand-pa, played by Kaifi Aazmi, who is living his last few days amongst his memories. …

It’s 10th of January, amidst preparation for next day hectic shoot I am informed that I have to leave for TASHKENT (UZBEKISTAN formerly part of USSR) the very next day to overlook the preparation and line up the shoot there…WHAT???…Yeah right…tomorrow…8 PM flight to Delhi and to TASHKENT the very next day, replies our line producer Mr. Inderjeet Chadda, in a very matter of fact tone. I go ‘But I had no prior information about leaving this soon, I need time to prepare myself for the trip!’…. And please carry warm clothes (very warm) as it is snowing heavily there and the temperature there has dropped to –10, again very matter of fact…end of discussion…Period!
WARM CLOTHES???? A term that I haven’t heard since I left Delhi seven and half years back. In Bombay you don’t need warm clothes…Nope…not any time of the year…not for seven and a half years …

Over the years we have been struggling to have information and finally the age has arrived but sadly so it has arrived in screenplays too, too much information as if people were morons and has no brains to understand what was being said and could not associate with what has been shown and said earlier in the film or is it because of directors who are themselves not clear what they shoot I think some level of intelligence can be expected from the audiences such audience insulting scripts are in abundance now a days.
 
Example:
Woman : yeah phool tum kahan say tod kar laa rhay hoo
Man: indradhanush say
Woman : ohhh… indradhandush manay rainbow
Man : haan whoh dheko
Woman: its so beautiful ..when you see a rainbow on the horizon
Man : blah blah blah ( in English )
Woman : ( continuously giving an expression of disblief ) wow tum to angrezi bhi …

A Bad film.

How many times have we heard that phrase?

 Countless number of times.

A majority of us use that phrase for almost every second film we hear about.

 Do we even see all the films we call crap? We often reach a decision and form a judgement about what is a bad film before seeing it. For eg, if it is a Karan Johar-Yashraj kind of a film, then its probably a bad film and not worth seeing. I remember that even before KANK came out, there were people, articles and ‘previews’ which had run down the film. I am no Karan Johar fan(havent liked his films except Kal Ho Na Ho(before climax)) but I dont think I have any right to say that his film is crap and not worth seeing(it might be..but..thats not the point).But really, have we thought what exactly is a bad film? Before that, what exactly is …

If you can’t beat them, do not join them..arrange to have them beaten..and how do you arrange that..by prayers? get God on your side? does he care? is he there?..rest of the industry wants you to help them grow, they don’t want you to grow..have i started believing in conspiracy theories..am i getting delusional again or am i reading too much into things..What is the art of survival? in the March of the Penguins, it says when the mother doesn’t get back on time with the food, the father abandons the baby to the cold winter and rushes to the ocean for its own survival..so should we abandon our children, our babies, our ideas, our dreams in order to survive..what is more important..me or my dreams..i am confused..
a question they always ask me about BLACK FRIDAY..what is your stand on the whole issue..i say we need to be more …

No I did not loose weight like Tom Hanks [I wish I had] nor did I grow a beard neither am I an expert at striking a fish from 100 meters with a handmade spear. Then why castway? I’ll come to that in a moment.

It was the last but one day of the No-Smoking shoot. Yup I know we had already declared it was wraps and we had the PFC member pics clicked with Anurag and John….yes..yes…there was some important patch shorts and an accident sequence to be canned. I reached Lokhanwala as I was told. Where? I did not know. Roamed around the place….[this I did a lot in the latter part of the day]. No trace of the crew nor was I sure whether it was an indoor or an outdoor. Was I sure of anything that frickin day?

As I roamed I spotted a few …

Ok ok finally, with the help of Wasan, I’ve finally managed to upload the short FTII student film for which I had written the story,screenplay, dialogues.

This film is titled The Tsunami Projekt and was shot on a shoe string budget with minimal resources on DV. It was a part of the student assignments/project given to the FTII students in their first year.

Shahab Alam, my collegemate from Jamia Millia Islamia, and a student of 1st year sound design has directed this film.This was the film which KUNDAN SHAH praised amongst the other ‘meaningless’ student films that were screend. I was elated !!!

The film is in english-hindi and sadly, we did not even have the fund to subtitle it.

Anyways, here’s the youtube link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aIoj1gbn_Q

If you like the film, remember that I wrote the story screenplay …

The media blitzkrieg has started..i am giving interviews everywhere..its all so strange..people ask the same questions..nothing new they have to ask me..its all so scary..i am told all the publicity we can get from the film is fine..i have started looking like a publicity hound..

Black Friday is finally releasing on 9th february..i am scared i just might breakdown..what will i say..what will happen..till now all that i have done was all speculation..now i am going to be exposed..just saw THE NAMESAKE..what a film..brilliantly written..brilliantly edited..i love Sooni Taraporewala..I adore Mira..they are going to watch my film..what will they think..how will they react..
The amount of heartaches everyone has gone through..the last time it was on the day of the premiere that they stopped us..when i was all ready to go to Eros..i remember getting that call from arindam, my producer, the true hero of Black Friday..the man who fought all …

Once upon a time our heroes did not need phony-low-budget Hollywood gadgets to beat goons/gundas(no, they are not related to me, I am Goonda - clan of thugwas) they just needed Dishoom Dishoom. If you do not believe me then please watch hindi movies from both 70s and 80s era. It was called Dishoom Dishoom era.

Our heroes used to fight against a dozen of goons without sweating or dropping a shed of blood and that too with just help of Dishoom Dishoom. Quite unbelievable!

Our heroes were not fit or athletic - they were either long-tall-slim or short-fat, and yet they used to fly around i.e flying-kicks, flying-slaps, it was sort of logic-less, no-rules type of ‘kusti’ and they pulled it off convincingly. Okay, not that convincingly, however, it was entertaining.

Only lanky Amitabh Bachchan stood out as the Dishoom Dishoom hero! I do not …

28th Jan07: Legendary Music Director O.P. Nayyar has passed away. An era, uniquely individualistic, has come to a close with him. None can replicate him and never will there be another Nayyar saab..May his soul rest in peace, in the knowledge that he is loved, admired, respected and will never be forgotten..Hopefully it will erase the destituteness of his final years. Sad but true.
The finality of death is stark. One cannot die with the dead..can at best can mourn for them.. Let us feel solace in the fact that he perhaps lives on in his melodies, and will continue to do so for aeons. The sadness that creeps in at such news is beyond words.

He died of a sudden cardiac arrest in Thane, probably still under the care of his foster family

Who can forget the lilting, romantic numbers unforgettable renderings, which had a distinct …

Parzania, as expected is not releasing in Gujrat. Rahul Dholakia was distributing the film himself in Gujrat and few other territories. But now exhibitors are scared to touch it. And thats obvious. Isn’t it ? When the Big Brother of Bollywood, Yashraj Films could not do anything about Fanna except few ads in newspapers saying “Fanna making this n that much crores and that too without gujrat” what can Rahul Dholakia do. But the good thing is he is getting lot of support but still its big task ahead……..
CNN IBN carried half hour special on Gujrat and Parzania. As asked by Oz, m putting the video links here. Its in three parts, interview with Rahul Dholakia, Naseeruddin Shah, Sarika and the Mody Family. Parzania is based on Mody’s real life story.
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/32115/01_2007/gujarat_revisited_seg1/watch-video-gujarat-revisited.html
And talking about Guru. God, I dont how to react. One full page ad in Mumbai’s Bombay Times and Delhi’s …

Am forwarding an eMail I received from friends in Gujarat. It may help in the larger scheme of things.

Dear friends,

Once again we are threatened by the goondas of Bajrang Dal that they will not allow any discussion, debate or acceptance of the carnage that tore up the people of Gujarat in 2002. They have threatened that they will not allow screening of the film Parzania. This threat should immediately be countered. I appeal to all of you to do the following:

1. Meet the police commissioners of our respective cities and demand the screenings of the film be allowed peacefully.
2. All of us should showup in theatres in full strength on 26th Jan. These goondas are only afraid of one thing-a crowd bigger than theirs. (contact Gaurang for more details)
3. If for some reason, the goondas are able to stop the film from being screened, then we will all hold a …

a.k.a… Sorry for the break… for PFC going off again, on again in the last two days… The heavy influx of hits since Jan 23rd caused the servers in my hosts’ words “to reach critical mass” and boom…

We are on a war footing and moving PFC on new more robust machines at the earliest possible… which should take not more than a week, thanks to the efforts of my site host, who has along with me gone without sleep for 30 straight hours. (that’s the reason why I’ve missed watching Salaam-E-Ishq and publish it’s review on DT and here)

On a side note… we are looking for an expert in PHP programming who may be a bit familiar with Wordpress (though it is not a requirement)…

If you think you have the time to offer your help to us (and we need help ASAP :) )… we’ll put your name and contact …

The hero and the heroine gets married and live happily ever after. Most of the old Indian movies ended with the hero and heroine getting married in the end. The other alternative to the end would be the song from the movie shown again with “The End” shown. The marriage end would have the title as “The beginning”

Kedar Shinde’s Marathi movie “Yanda Kartavya aahe” (YKA) starts from the point where the above movies had ended. The days after the marriage. The only difference is that the marriage is an arranged marriage, not the typical love marriage. The term “Yanda Kartavya Aahe” literally translated means Taking responsibility this year and actually means that the person is ready for marriage.

YKA is a sweet funny story about two people thrown into matrimony and discovering each other. It could be called a realistic version of Sooraj Barjatja movies without the overly candy floss treatment. …

By now the shoot was happening with full speed. Amit Roy and gang were bang on in synch with RGV’s supersonic speed of shooting. The production department, the art department, direction department, in fact all the departments were superb and extremely efficient under Sheel’s leadership. Plus having RGV at the helm of affairs ensured that there were no fuck ups or less fuck ups. But just tell is there any shoot where there are ‘NO’ FUCK UPS? Adiyta my Intern, in spite of me telling him not to carry hajjar papers in his hands continued to do so. Aparna’s assistant Sachin, later on her jilted lover as we used to tease her, I mean who had come on the shoot as her assistant ended up being somewhere in between. A very talented guy, he was with Praveen now Vishram Sawant of D and RISK. He assisted him and god knows …

Being a filmmaker is one of the most amazing jobs - you have the opportunity to make a movie, communicate a message, share a passion, move people, change their lives even.
I love it when filmmakers use these amazing skills to do good. When I was a kid growing up in Madras, Mani Ratnam would often donate a print of his movies to our school (and other non-profit organizations) to enable them raise funds. He’s done that again with Guru - thank you and congratulations!
Another example close to home for me personally, is Mahesh Mathai. Mahesh directed Bhopal Express in 1999 and recently completed work on Broken Thread in London. Mahesh is also on the UK Board of Magic …

Salam-e-eeks

Just dread to write about this film. Kal Ho Na Ho seems like Milestone cinema in comparison. Instead would like to list the films I would like to watch instead of Saalam…instead of the six stories these are the six films I recommend you watch….3.5 hours of Salam-e-eeeks=18 hours of these

1] Awal Number – For the inimitable Dev Saab..urf Vicky Saab. Apart from the wonderful anthem like “khel hoga shuru poune gyarah……yeh hai cricket….”

Plus the Vicky interrogation of Kundi [Kulbushan Karbandha's name……and in Tamil it mean the behind.] and Macmohan…… “wohwohwohwohwohwohwohwohwohwohwohwowhowohwohwohwohwohwoh……..baarud kahan…..hai…..” created ham history. Awesome cinema…..You may not have “Guide” in your DVD collection but you need to have this.

2] Aag Hi Aag – There was just one reason. Chunky Pandey. It was his debut and how can any cinema fanatic miss this one. And yes it also had Darma Paaji….the budget of the film was…….1 crore…..10 lakhs …