Archive for July, 2007

  • Ten tips for being “Good in a Room”
    If you’re in the entertainment industry, sooner or later you’ll find yourself to be a door-to-door salesman, albeit in various forms. And unlike most 9-to-5ers you may not have the technical qualifications on a resume to back you up, which is when it becomes even more necessary to realize the power of words. The power of conversation can hold the power to...
    by striker at July 31st, 2007 at 03:07 pm
  • BRICKS OF HINDI CINEMA
    Caution: Terrible mix of Hindi and English. Hindi filmone desh aur videsh me bahot bada maqaam haasil kar liye hai. Aaj hindi filmo ki oonchi imaarat jo hum dekh rahe hai usme bahot saari chhoti chhoti intein (bricks) lagi huyi hain. Isme se ek int nikal jaaye to imaarat ko kuchh jyaada farq nahi padega par inhi sab inton ki vajah se yeh imaarat aaj itni badi aur majboot...
    by Shailesh Limbachiya at July 31st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
  • Dutt Verdict – Justice Served
    Folks, Got the news about the Sanjay Dutt verdict. While I do feel bad for the guy, the fact of the matter is, from a legal and a “justice for all” perspective, it is heartening to know that no one, least of all the bollywood types is above the law. The Dutt saga has been a constant one on self pity (he could not handle his success, his mom passed away, etc,...
    by Vivek Kumar at July 31st, 2007 at 08:07 am
  • Obituary – Bergman and Antonioni
    This has probably been one of the most terrible starts to a week. The world has lost two great filmmakers – Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, each of whom influenced the world cinema in their own unique ways. As one of the critics truly said – ” the last links to the golden era of European art films are no more”. To top it all Sanjay Dutt...
    by Pankaj Johar at July 31st, 2007 at 07:07 am
  • Basti, Bow Barracks and Bakwaas
    There was a time when Basti sagas were the mainstay of Bollywood. A multicultural boilpot of ethnic stereotypes would come under large scale oppression only for a hero to rise and challenge the bulldozers single handedly or in tandem with a colorful ensemble in the name of livelihood, dignity and a prime piece of real estate. The early version of Amitabh’s angry young...
    by Siddharth Pillai at July 31st, 2007 at 01:07 am
  • The Zing at Osian’s Cinefan : AK, Ayesha, Karthi & Alu Chat… – Part 1 (with 28 pics)
    Never been a fan of the city….Delhi. They say big roads and big house…what’s the use if you cannot get out on it and of it unless you have a vehicle of your own. Hate the rick guys….got into fights this time too. The past ten days were split between abusing them in chaste Tamil, watching some path breaking cinema….meeting my HERO “Paruthiveeran” and meeting...
    by Vasan Bala at July 30th, 2007 at 02:07 pm
  • PROJEKT iVIEW : Bow Barracks Forever – the lens don’t do justice to the scope
    iVIEW AUTHOR: Kartick Sitaraman (Bombay, India) email: kartics [at] gmail.com I went to this movie purely because I try to follow small films, representative of the independent movement, to whatever extent possible. One good reason being, while we have witnessed a slow but sure change in the industry, to make a film like BBF and put it out there still takes some sort...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 30th, 2007 at 09:07 am
  • Unbelonging
    We boil at different degrees. But the bubbles are always there, beneath the surface calm. Waiting for the right temperature or the wrong provocation. My threshold varies. There are mornings when, like Kilgore, I love the smell of Napalm. I want to get blown up, teeter on that edge and fall off into a glorious abyss. And then there are days when I’m weaker than English...
    by Bhavani Iyer at July 30th, 2007 at 07:07 am
  • Sunday 100 : Witness
    This week’s Sunday 100 turns to a word which could lead to many different plot interpretations… Witness In 100 words exactly.
    by oz at July 29th, 2007 at 04:07 pm
  • AFI’s Hundred Greatest Films of All Time – Scripts Available Online
    The American Film Institute regularly takes a poll of 1500 filmmakers, writers and historians on the top hundred films of all time. The films are all American, and viewers may not agree with some of the choices, but after all is said and done, it is still a phenomenal selection of cinema…. Most of the scripts are available for online viewing at www.script-o-rama.com,...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 29th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
  • aanuraag kaasyap kaa jokes
    It’s the irony of this field…fanatics from various states come to this industry with a dream. But not everyone ends up being what he wanted to…..some guys who wanted to be a director are cutting soaps as an editor, some who wanted to be an actor are serving water in production houses. As soon as you’ll enter a place like lokhandwala, suddenly you’ll...
    by Ashish Shukla at July 29th, 2007 at 09:07 am
  • In conversation: A.R. Murugadoss
    I was actually planning to publish this post after some time, but thought it apt to post it now seeing the reactions to Pratim’s post on Aamir Khan and ‘Memento.’ Perhaps it will help clear the air about ‘Memento’ and Murugadoss. When I met A.R. Murugadoss a couple of weeks ago, he was getting ready to go to South Africa to scout for locations to shoot...
    by venky at July 29th, 2007 at 05:07 am
  • David Dhawan : some observations over the years
    If I go back ten years I remember a sleazy, apologetic emotion I felt around watching David Dhawan films. They had a kindergarten script, a lousy look, a no-claim execution, and a general lack of obsession written all over. They went through various ups and downs, as the genre underwent many transformations itself, from slapstick to pajama-naara-khatiya jokes to marital/infidelity/double...
    by Tushar at July 28th, 2007 at 02:07 pm
  • The Bas#@rd Children of Films
    This is my first post for PFC (ahem ahem). This should be fun and please be tender :-) I did not put up that rather profane title for this post to get your attention but meant it. If it got some guys as an added bonus to read it, then fantastic I am trying to simply highlight a rather true piece of data about a lot of people from my generation. We are part of a family...
    by Thermoman formerly known as Deepak at July 28th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
  • Indian cinema — the culture/tradition argument
    (updated) I shall be jotting down a series of musings to raise questions about the different conceptions of Indian cinema floated by living room “experts”, academics, and practitioners. I would like to put forth the various imaginations of Indian cinema. Some of them are grounded persuasively, while others use a logic that looks plausible — at least on...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 28th, 2007 at 07:07 am
  • are things really changing?
    I was looking forward to watching ‘Jashn-e-Azaadi’, the documentary by Sanjay Kak at Prithvi on the 30th and i get this email today: “Dear Friends, We write to bring to your notice yet another violation of the freedom of expression in India. On Friday, 27 July 2007, a posse of policemen attached to the Dadar police station in Bombay broke into a private...
    by Smriti Vij. at July 28th, 2007 at 06:07 am
  • Age, years, timespan
    I wonder if it is that difficult to put some thought on the way that the characters will age when you show a timespan in a film. In Hum, it is referred again and again that “fifteen years have passed” and then you show that in those fifteen years,a toddler has become as old as Rajnikanth and not only that, he is now married and has a 8-9 year old daughter. I...
    by Manasvi S at July 27th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
  • Comments Off
    ‘The Sheltering Sky’ – Painting With Light in the Sahara
    At the heart of the human condition lies a vast emptiness. An emptiness that we try to fill with the things of life….actions,events,people,memories…. Here on the physical plane, the closest manifestation of that endless expanse is the desert, where shamans, mystics and truth seekers of all persuasions have gone since the beginning of time to be one with...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 27th, 2007 at 05:07 pm
  • RAINS–Slushy For Mumbai, Sexy For Bollywood
    Mumbai rains played truant almost throughout July..Then suddendly today it started raining again..Not raining..But pouring..It hardly drizzles in Mumbai. Whether it becomes Shanghai or not one thing is for sure, Mumbai scores over it in terms of rainfall. It receives almost the double the amount in Shanghai.For your gyan the average annual rainfall of 2120mm is almost...
    by krysh at July 27th, 2007 at 01:07 pm
  • ….and now for something completely different!
    (Note: This piece is written by Khushboo Ranka. Both Anand & Khushboo post their essays under the nick Recyclewala.) Monty Python and their Cinema. Circa 1970. War, blind faith, ignorance, intolerance, institutionalized blandness, monotonous cinema, extreme capitalism, aberrations of socialism and most importantly, failure at finding the meaning of life. The answer?...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 27th, 2007 at 01:07 pm
  • Glorifying Govinda!!!
    The one thing the Mumbai film industry is….despite the nepotism, depspite the star children phenomenon, etc, etc, is it is a land of Opportunity. Your ethnicity, where you came from, where your parents came from, what you household income is, etc, etc, for the most part mean nothing if the AUDIENCE LIKES YOU. The year was 1986, a person came from a non descript suburb...
    by Vivek Kumar at July 27th, 2007 at 01:07 pm
  • The sureshot highs of next five months
    Had a great week.. saw some incredible movies and they underline the changing face of indian cinema.. here are the must watch hindi movies of next few months and believe me we have a great year ahead.. JOHNNY GADDAR- sriram raghavan is back and how, a MBA turned gangster, who tries to pull off few tricks too many and it’s all mayhem then onwards.. some rock solid...
    by Anurag Kashyap at July 27th, 2007 at 01:07 pm
  • Aamir’s Momentous Memento
    Friends, film-makers, and film-buffs, it’s indeed an honour to write on PFC. And since this is my first post, just wanted to introduce myself… I write about cinema for The Telegraph newspaper, the largest selling English daily in Calcutta, and I am an aspiring writer-film-maker (hopefully not the “who isn’t?” kind). I am sure many of you have...
    by Pratim D. Gupta at July 27th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
  • 60 Hindi Films of Independent India
    we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of independent INDIA.on this occasion we can make a list of 60 hindi films.whatever may be your criteria for selection of films…just post your list. my list (without any special preferences) 1. awara raj kapoor 2.aradhana shakti samant 3.andaz mehboob khan 4.ek...
    by ajay brahmatmaj at July 26th, 2007 at 11:07 am
  • PROJEKT iVIEW : I AM MARIGOLD
    iVIEW AUTHOR: Babsy (Vienna, Austria) email: babsy.a [at] gmx.at What is “Marigold – The Film” about? It’s about a blonde actress, yet unknown, who goes to Mumbai and lands a role in a Bollywoodfilm. She starts learning Hindi, Bollywood dance, a lot about Indian culture, and falls for a very good looking Indian guy. Well, I don’t know about the love story...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 26th, 2007 at 08:07 am
  • LOOKING BACK
    As I look back now two years later at the process of realizing my first film…. There are so many thoughts that surface. Year 1999 was when I met Sanjay Suri(actor) on the sets of Daman. In the remote jungles of Assam, the only occupation after pack up was to discuss ideas and concepts. That was the beginning of my getting down to actually writing scripts that we wanted...
    by Onir at July 25th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
  • PROJEKT iVIEW : Gulzar’s lyrics – Old Wine in New Bottle
    iVIEW AUTHOR: Dipankar Giri (Bombay, India) email: dipankar.giri [at] gmail.com So Gulzar fans….. you are free to screw me for the title… but Gulzar sahab has repeated his lyrics … genuinely and in a romantic way…… but as a bottle of wine gives nasha… the hangover of his song never ends let’s the sip one by one of the words/phrases he used frequently...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 25th, 2007 at 09:07 am
  • PROJEKT iVIEW : IPTA warms spirit of Independence
    iVIEW AUTHOR: Kumar Gautam (Bombay, India) email: writerdirectorgautam [at] gmail.com The year 2007 sees 150th year of first war of Indian Independence and look there are no media players to cash on this occasion. And why will there be one? Nationalism is a feeling of past and it doesn’t sell. They say love for motherland is the most exaggerated form of love and only...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at July 25th, 2007 at 12:07 am
  • QnA with Manish Acharya – Part 1.
    Manish Acharya, the director of Loins of Punjab Presents agreed to a QnA exclusively for PFC. In this two part session, Manish speaks about growing up on a staple diet of Bollywood movies, opportunities in the US, his transition from a software consultant to a film-maker, NYU film school and his own personal struggles. Over to Manish Acharya… PFC: Thanks for joining...
    by ravptor at July 24th, 2007 at 08:07 pm
  • MANOJ KUMAR–A Qunitessential BHARAT
    At the age of 10 a boy who has migrated from Lahore to Delhi in year 1947 watches a Dilip Kumar starrer Shabnam at Minerva talkies and decides that he will one day become a Hindi Film Hero and vows to adopt Dilip Kumar’s character name from that film. In 1956 at the age of 19 years this boy named Harikrishan Goswami lands at Mumbai with two dreams. One to become...
    by krysh at July 24th, 2007 at 12:07 pm