Archive for August, 2007

  • A Film in a film?
    Off late, I’ve been party to a short film shoot and a mute spectator to a lot of other shorts around me. It’s refreshing to see so many new ideas and concepts – ranging from worst to interesting. The whole concept of ‘short films’ is still primitive in this part of the globe. There are numerous ‘aspirants’ – the so-called intellectual ‘film makers’...
    by Srinivas at August 31st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
  • RGV ki Aag : Film Review
    Ram Gopal Verma, predictably, disappoints big time in this one. This film might create a history of sorts. Reviewers might run out of synonyms for the word ‘bad’. The film begins almost quietly, as if scared to exist amidst all the voices of dissent around. You kind of like it. The now historic events happen without any whimper, and you feel you are watching any other...
    by Tushar at August 31st, 2007 at 09:08 am
  • 28 Weeks Later: An Eye on the Apocalypse
    “Close your eyes… imagine you’re walking down a lonely path in the middle of a dense forest at around midnight. You’re entering the banyan grove- the residence of the evil spirits. You walk quietly, dragging your rubber soles through the mud, careful, so that you do not receive any attention that can turn out unpleasant. The banyan trees crowd over you. Everytime...
    by Siddharth Pillai at August 30th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
  • Guess Which Plays Our MPs Are Reading …
    Best Read Plays in India The Parliament Library is one of the richest repositories of books in India, and was established in the year 1921 to assist members of the Indian Legislature. These days, with the number of adjournments and walk-outs, it seems our MPs have nothing to do. So they make a dash to the Parliamentary Library and instead of autobiographies, biographies...
    by Ramu Ramanathan at August 30th, 2007 at 08:08 pm
  • A Fuc***g Drinker Never Dies
    Rajat Kapoor is flush with Rs 20 crores from PNC..The deal to make six films. Farhan Akhtar inks a deal with Studio 18 for Rs 230 crores..The deal is to make six films. Indian Film Company to invest the money raised upto 50million pounds to make 40-50 films.Six of them have been announced. Planman motion pictures is accelerating its film production business and ready to...
    by krysh at August 30th, 2007 at 07:08 pm
  • The First Step.
    It is the first step of getting a chance to make their dreams come true. And for fulfilling it, they prepare themselves as “the typical Indian cinema hero”. Now how exactly does our “actor” prepare himself? He wears good filmy (ZATAK; JHATAK or whatever you call it) shirt, or ‘Eastman’ colored t-shirts; Six pocket denim with Nike, Adidas & Reebok look-alikes...
    by D Santosh at August 30th, 2007 at 09:08 am
  • PROJEKT iVIEW : Of Movie Trailers and Reviews
    iView Author: SUBRAT (Bangalore, India) EMAIL: withheld I am often proved wrong with my hypotheses and it could well be the case here. But when has that ever stopped me from grandstanding on them? I am aware of only two spheres of activity where the foreplay and the after-play (to coin a term) draw as much attention as the event itself. Since one of them nestles itself...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at August 30th, 2007 at 08:08 am
  • The Johnny Gaddaar Music Video : Title Track
    [putting the trailer up again, since we lost the last post due to the downtime] Here’s the single Johnny Gaddaar track that was released yesterday. Listen, enjoy and go buy the whole track… Interesting to note that Sriram (Raghavan) gives the whole 70s retro look and feel to Johnny Gaddaar. References to the James Hadley Chase novel that Neil’s reading,...
    by oz at August 30th, 2007 at 08:08 am
  • New wave in Tollywood
    There are some directors in bollywood who were tired of the same old ghisa pita stories and decided to give audiences some new movies like Khosla ga Ghosla, EK Hasina Thi, Black Friday, Blue Umbrella, Ek Chalis ki last local etc., here are five movies from down south which I would like to *Introduce* — I chose the word introduce because, sadly, the main stream media...
    by Varun at August 28th, 2007 at 11:08 am
  • A Simple Test For The Argumentative Indian
    Greetings PFCites. If you’re prone to uttering things like Civil Liberty, Freedom of Expression and Constitutional Right then you must take the following test. To begin at the beginning, we celebrate 60 years of Independence by ruminating … - The Rupee is on a new high vis a vis the US Dollar. So the Rupee calls the Dollar; and enquires, Are you peeved? Will...
    by Ramu Ramanathan at August 28th, 2007 at 10:08 am
  • PROJEKT iVIEW : RGV or what industry musclemen getaway with
    iView Author: SANTOSH (Bombay, India) EMAIL: withheld I guess I would be among the first voices of dissent against the great maverick RGV, but bear with me till the end of the post and correct me if I am genuinely wrong. Satya floored me like so many others, which is undoubtedly one of the most groundbreaking films in recent memory. Kaun, a nice attempt to deviate from...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at August 28th, 2007 at 10:08 am
  • Director or Editor or both :: Whose job is this ?
    Some directors are editors also. Hrishikesh Mukharjee always enjoyed editing more than the direction. Tight editing is reflected in his films. Tight editing is the demand of the time also especially when film belongs to low budget category and there is no money to waste. But there are very few directors who are editors also. Shekhar Kapur believes that he should have a...
    by Rk at August 28th, 2007 at 06:08 am
  • Neville Tuli’s ‘vision’ about Cinefan
    Recently I had interviewed Neville Tuli, the founder chairman of the Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art, which organizes the Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian (& Arab – from this year) Cinema, in New Delhi. While some parts of the interview have been carried in my paper Deccan Herald, I am reproducing the whole text of the interview for PFC readers, for...
    by Runumi G at August 27th, 2007 at 08:08 am
  • A Brilliant Blue Umbrella!
    Who could have thought that an umbrella would turn out to be one of the most compelling characters seen on the Indian cinema screen in 2007? Who could have thought that a charming Blue Umbrella would gently cast its shadow over all the other movies of the year- that this ’small’ film, much delayed before its release, would stand inches tall above the best of...
    by Jahan Bakshi at August 27th, 2007 at 05:08 am
  • Prison Heat
    Warning: This post contains content that may be found objectionable by some sensitive souls. It was late 90’s. I was a grad student – and I had a car and the cable TV… HBO, Sundance, USA, Showtime, Comedy Central, and… hold your breath… Playboy. During then, this one time, we (my gang and I) saw this movie called Prison Heat or something...
    by wb at August 26th, 2007 at 09:08 pm
  • The sidekick who became a director…
    He was reclining on his chair with the confidence of an auteur and the poise of a pro. He was speaking eloquently under the single-slit illumination of a globe-shaped light source. Time had done to him, what success would do to anybody. Three movies, all of which were smashing commercial successes. The cinema illiterates stooped to their own levels, confining all his...
    by Sreehari. at August 26th, 2007 at 08:08 am
  • NO SMOKING : THE FIRST TRAILER
    And it’s here… the first trailer of No Smoking… watch and give us your first thoughts [link tip: Premal] [youtube]53D_Qs1C6k4[/youtube]
    by oz at August 25th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
  • SLB & Saawariya: Oppression of Opulence
    First, a lot of firsts. The first teaser of Saawariya (saawariyafilm.com) is out. This is the first Indian co-production of Sony Pictures. This is the first film of Rishi Kapoor’s son Ranvir Kapoor and Anil Kapoor’s daughter Sonam Kapoor. And it is being billed the first international film from India. Oh, I forgot – it’s a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film. The man who...
    by Pratim D. Gupta at August 25th, 2007 at 10:08 am
  • Look Back in Anger to HKA to Black Friday to RDB. Questioning the FEEL-for-CAUSE Part-2
    This post is in continuation with my previous post Before I can write more on this war-revolution-cause-feeling thing, I will write a poem a writer friend of mine Varun has written. He wrote this after watching Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi To The Revolution.. Hey…did you kill me… in the name of the revolution? Did you tell me, The name of the revolution..? I was a boy,...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at August 24th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
  • Heyy Babyy
    I am not only writing a review in this post of the Movie by the same name done by the GREATEST (Its Sarcastic) Director of all time – Sajid Khan but also a condolence write-up for the death of cinema and the sad growth of Crap. Yes, this movie in a nutshell is all about Crap. It starts off about crap being hit on Akshay, there is a kid that craps all along and the...
    by Thermoman formerly known as Deepak at August 24th, 2007 at 10:08 am
  • muslim hero/hindi films
    HINDI FILMON MEIN HERO KE ROLE MUSLIM ACTORS KARTE RAHE HAIN AUR AISA SANYOG RAHA HAI KI UNMEIN SE JYADATAR BEHAD POPULAR BHI RAHE HAIN.YUASUF KHAN(DILIP KUMAR) SE LEKAR SHAHRUKH KHAN TAK HAM IS TRADITION AUR TREND KO DEKH SAKTE HAIN.LEKIN AZADI KE TURANT BAAD KOI SOCIAL PRESSURE RAHA HOGA KI ACTORS AUR ACTRESSES SABHI KO APNA NAAM CHIPA KAR HINDU NAAM RAKHNA PADA.MADHUBALA,MEENA...
    by ajay brahmatmaj at August 24th, 2007 at 07:08 am
  • Kakha Kakha
    This post is not about the same name movie in Tamil from Gautam Menon. That movie was incredible and well proved beyond doubt to its viewers about the capabilities of Gautam. I am rather writing about the urban legend surrounding the name. Apparently Kakha Kakha is ascribed to a poem and literally means “Waiting Waiting“. Gautam had put this name as his movie...
    by Thermoman formerly known as Deepak at August 24th, 2007 at 04:08 am
  • Look Back in Anger to HKA to Black Friday to RDB. Questioning the FEEL-for-CAUSE
    I was very confused about this “The-cause” and “art-for-cause” thing. Here, I am just pondering over what I have seen and gone through and trying to find an answere to the doubts in my head… ?????? ? ??? ???, ?? ???? ?? ? ???? ???, ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???????? ??? (Even if you don’t win the world, don’t loose yourself, Just make...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at August 24th, 2007 at 12:08 am
  • The Blue Umbrella :: Hindi cinema should feel rejuvenated with most lovable thief of all times !
    Fairy tales used to have a place in our lives. If paternal and maternal grandmothers of present era have forgotten the tradition of reciting stories to their grand children and even Jagjit Singh’s most famous song , “Wo Kaghaz ki Kashti, wo barish ka pani” is failed to revive this art then Vishal Bhardwaj’s The Blue Umbrella screams loud that we have lost a very...
    by Rk at August 23rd, 2007 at 07:08 am
  • love story of a strange country
    It’s a short story of Dhirendra Asthana which inspired me to write this post..The story called “vichitra desh ki prem katha” (love story of a strange country).It’s a tale of a man whose love life is devastated by a political drama unfolds all of a sudden at the center. The backdrop used in this story is the tenure of “a poster woman.”. The protogoanist of...
    by Dipankar Giri at August 23rd, 2007 at 03:08 am
  • Looking Out For Number ONE
    24 frames = 1/1/2 feet 1/1/2 feet in 1 second 90 feet in 60 seconds/1minute 900 feet in 10 minutes 12000 feet in 120minutes Shooting ratio : 1 to 4 Raw Stock:48000 ft 400 feet = 1 Can 48000 feet = 120 Cans Final Film Length :12000 feet = 3634 meters approx in 2 hrs Block Lenses-40mm/50mm/75mm/100mm Wide Angle Lenses- 24mm/28mm/35mm Telephoto Lens- 135mm/200mm/400mm Zoom...
    by krysh at August 23rd, 2007 at 12:08 am
  • Almost Famous : An Eternal Love Affair
    The landmark poster “Experience It. Enjoy It. Just Don’t Fall For It.” Almost Famous is an almost definitive film on the Rock and Roll generation. It is fulfilling in its imperfections, and scuttles along the time period which would lay the ground rules for the future generation reeling in a lack of anything to stick to. The premise is San Diego, 1969....
    by Tushar at August 22nd, 2007 at 03:08 pm
  • India “happening” in LA
    Folks, Article in Variety indicates that India is no longer “flavor of the month,” for LA, but is on the way to becoming Londonisque, where the curry is now a British “national” dish. Read on – Choice of films though is dissapointing methinks —READ ON!!! Warner Bros. on Tuesday unveiled its first India production, the action comedy “Made...
    by Vivek Kumar at August 21st, 2007 at 06:08 pm
  • Chak de fatheh Mumbai Meri Jaan
    Mumbai Meri Jaan’s (MMJ) latest schedule just started. Ashish Shukla and I were keen on visiting the sets. The shoot was suppose to start at 9:00 am in a studio, but was delayed till 2:00 pm, as the unit had to complete the balance outdoor scenes from yesterday. Shooting outdoors is indeed a challenging task. With little control over the elements any amount of planning...
    by Manjeet Singh at August 21st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
  • PROJEKT iVIEW : Death @ Funeral @ Laughing My Ass Off
    iVIEW AUTHOR: ridemghost (Sunnyvale, USA) EMAIL: ridemghost [at] yahoo.com I’ve never laughed out so loud having watched a film maybe since`I saw Coen Brothers ‘Big Lebowski’ almost a decade back. American Driector Frank Oz weaves a clever tale having an ensemble of characters around a funeral. Its the events like wedding and funerals that bring out...
    by PROJEKT iVIEW at August 21st, 2007 at 12:08 pm