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JOHNNY GADDAR-MY STORY

This is not a professional review, just my feelings after watching Johnny Gaddar.

It was 10 am in the Sunday morning and I was talking to my cousin on phone “ chal yaar film dekhne chalet hai.” He asked” Kaunsi?” I said” Johnny Gaddar”…. “koi English film hai kya?”…. “ nahin re, hindi film hai par achchi hai aur suspense thriller hai”. He asked “who are the actors?” I replied “Dharmendra and a new hero called Niel Nitin Mukesh with Rimi sen” he laughed. But somehow I managed to convince him for the movie.

Now it was 2.45 pm in afternoon and we were at theatre. There was no poster of Johnny Gaddar. Only posters of Dhol and Dhamaal were seen. I asked for ticket” the ticket person asked “which film?” I said “Johnny Gaddar” “you are the first person who asks …

First of all let me tell you I am not a film reviewer.. I don’t want to be one as I believe all the reviewers have their own biases and preferences like any other audience watching the film. I also believe most of the great films have boring reviews and sometimes the greatness of a film is beyond the reach for many of the reviewers.. of course all badly made films provide much better opportunity to have the most entertaining reviews on them..

On the following lines, you will not find a review but a reaction and its a reaction to a comment I read sometime back, by a person I admire to a great extent Javed Siddiqui saab. A comment that set me to a journey to find answers and made me to actually review a film.
It was about a film that is one of the …

iView Author:
Shifas Bin Mohammed
(Pune, India)

EMAIL:
shifas007 [at] gmail.com

My Dad is RIGHT…!

We all talk, discuss, debate and fight about movies, and there are great number of movies being discussed on PFC…

Summary

Well, I would like to look beyond for a second…. Beyond the brightly coloured movie posters, beyond the flashing cameras, beyond the multiplexes, beyond the hot popcorn, beyond the spotless face of the heroine, beyond the perfectly sculpted body or steroid induced muscles, beyond the gossip and accusations, reviews and critics

At the ordinary film lover who aspires to make films .like the ones that fires his imagination and enthralls him every Friday…

Lets look at the struggling film maker ,or rather, as our neighbors or relative describes as the” good for nothing” jobless guy ,who is busy watching films all day and scrippling things on to his prized dairy .. or …

Very sorry for the weirdest and worst article title that you may have ever seen- feeling to brain dead right now to think of some coherent thoughts, leave alone a proper header. Whew…I realize that I haven’t posted on PFC for ages again…so I decided to pull up my socks before Oz paaji pulls me up again…well, well, there isn’t much going on here in Calcutta- the initial excitement of college is finally settling into a more boring existence.

Well, well- Kartik has been nagging me on the phone for weeks now to “GO OUT AND MAKE A FILM!!!” – unfortunately am really short on time and ideas- especially ones that fit into one minute…still there is this group project that we have got to do that includes making a photo narrative comprising approximately 40 stills- have been working hard on it and wracking my brains- some of the planned shots …

When I was a child, I would like reading books. As I was not the intelligent kind, I never read classic literature. I read thrillers and detective novels. The beauty of thrillers and detective novels was to read as the mystery unravels, as the story twist and turns and ends to a perfect climax. I would be so excited reading that I wanted to finish the novel in one go without jumping to the end. After all the fun was as much as in the journey as it was in the climax.

As I watched “Johnny Gaddar” (JG), I felt the same rush, the same excitement and the same fun of reading a thriller novel and this ends in less than three hours. JG is a fast paced thriller. The question here is not about who did it but about, he did it, now what?

It about a gang of 5 …

Shriram Raghavan’s electric caper ‘Johnny Gaddar’ begins in reverential silence as it doffs its hat to the pulpmeisters- Vijay Anand and James Hadley Chase, black and white photographs accompanying the written tribute.

Thus, begins its no-holds-barred obsession with images- pulp and kinky washed over with the electric tangerine and sound- retro Rafi by way of pure spin jhankaar.

Glance at the posters. Imagine the colors leaking out the posters. Imagine the charcters come to life. Imagine a low-life world of neon and intrigue. That is Johnny Gadar. Popculture overdrive. From the insane title-credits that implode with fury and the smudgy color of dime-store novels like you bend a comic in your hands …

If there is one score which has literally been rocking the Bolly-circuits, it is Johnny Gaddaar.

It is the stuff that dream OST’s are made of – flawless compositions, enormous visual quality, repeat factor, that little extra bit in every track that makes it special for you and creates associations in your head. Add a truckload of nostalgia to all this, and you get the OST of Johnny Gaddaar.

These are good times for the film OST scene in India. I remember long back, I had written about it in the context of the Hindi film industry, and how the future is looking pale looking(then) at an onslaught of remixes and uninspiring item numbers. Well, that was last year and thankfully for that, all my fears didn’t come true.

Film makers are giving respect to background scores now and are …

Movies some times test Intelligence of audiences and questions it. But Johnny Gaddar is different you know who the Gaddar is but it still succeeds in creating the air of suspense amongst viewers and characters in the film. Johnny G is Sriram’s homage to Vijay Anand and James Hadley Chase. I’m not going to review this one but there are somethings that I would like to share with y’all and I’m not going to reveal the whole story so I will say why you should watch Johnny G

Plus points:
There are lot of things in Johnny G that work here are few to mention….

1) Titles: It reminds you of technology that was available in 70’s & 80’s and it blends in very well with the narrative style.

2) Music: Johhny G has Kick ass music, Back ground score is simply superb, you get this feeling that you are …

Had just shut my alarm and rolled over to sleep when my cell phone woke me up again. An unknown number flashed.
“hello”, I answered groggily.
“What’s wrong with you”, was the reply.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s Vipin, we were in college together, remember”
“My god! Vipin..it’s been more than seven years. How’ve you been?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Matlab..”
“Why did you pinch Dolly Bindra’s bottom..and when did you start drinking…”
“Hain!”
“Hain kya? I’ve just read it in today’s paper…and you never told me you are married to Shweta Tiwari…my wife is dying to meet her…”

That was my first introduction to my namesake, the other Raja Chaudhary. The article in the paper read, “Raja Chaudhary, husband of actress Shweta Tiwari aka Prerna of Kasauti Zindagi Ki got drunk at a party last night and grabbed Dolly Bindra’s bottom. A tearful Dolly Bindra later filed a police complaint”
I received a dozen or so calls that day from old …

I am THE hardcore movie fan. I am the fan that spends his hard earned money to buy a ticket and see a film. I am the Fan that goes to a multilplex with the same fervour as he goes to a single hall dingly theatre.That is why I am here. But the fan is pissed off. Like hell. It takes a lot of hard work to earn money and then to pay 500 bucks for a movie ticket shows passion. and what does the fan get in return - crap. The fan is sick of jargons - new wave, old wave, indie, cinefile, ffi, iifa, abc, xyz, - screw it all. The Fan doesnt care. The fan wants his movies crisp and tasty. And he is sick of being taken for granted. He is sick and tired and is raving and ranting…

The Fan is sick of shit being dished …

So it happened yesterday evening before the formal release of Johnny Gaddar the much awaited film of the year. Though Sanjay Routray the executive producer had already told me a day in advance about the screening I was totally unsure of whether I would be making it or not because of my commitment towards ‘Horn OK Please’

The best coincidence was Sanjay celebrating his birthday today along with the films release… so there were two reasons for the entire team of Johnny Gaddar to celebrate. The screening went of well and I would not write much about it for three reasons one because Sriram will always feel that my views are slightly biased towards him (which most of the time they are and they will be always, except when it comes to his scripts), secondly because his brother Sridhar Raghavan will continue to feel that I am not to be seen …

So what relevance does this insignificant insipid post of sorts hold in a site that is supposed to promote cinema? Nothing absolutely… But its a fable. Part of a heritage we all grew up listening to… A fable told exactly the way it should be……

Long before it was theorized that the universe actually consisted of layers of amorphous solids floating endlessly, much before it was discovered that an atom could actually be disintegrated into smaller sub-atomic particles, much much before it came to the notice of a certain Samaritan that an apple falling freely from an apple-tree wasn’t a mere occurrence but it had its base in a scientific fact, ‘they’ have been existing; Co-existing in harmony. Yes, the ants and the elephants despite their cultural differences, linguistic variations and divergent outlooks had always found solace in each other’s company. This is the story of one such ant and one …

Sudhir Mishra is very angry and… very sad. Met him at Colaba’s Mukesh Mills where he is currently shooting for his new film Ab Tera Kya Hoga Johnny. So… here it is all… Sudhir Mishra on Oscars, India, Eklavya, Bhavna Talwar, Hazaron Khwashein Aisi, Paheli, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Is Raat ki Subah Nahi, Screen awards, Swades and why he will never be part of any jury…. all uncensored and uncut…. and no bullshitting as the name of his diary goes… enjoy…..

Over to Sudhir -

I think there is hardly any criteria. Let me say one thing… the FFI needs to do lot more homework… there are lot of films. India is a large country. You make 800 films. That needs to be lot more films that needs to be represented. Where is the Kerala film? where is the Bengal film? It’s a question and it’s a mood point. You should …

The second Rome Film Fest, which runs Oct 18-27, has announced its full programme.

World premieres in the Cinema 2007 programme include:

* La Recta Provincia (Raul Ruiz)
* Youth Without Youth (Francis Ford Coppola)
* August Rush (Kirsten Sheridan)
* Hafez (Abolfazl Jalili)
* L’Abbuffata (Mimmo Calopresti)
* And The Spring Comes (Chang Wei Gu)
* The Three Robbers (Hayo Freitag)
* The Private Man (Emidio Greco)
* Let’s Say (Francoise Maire)
* Have Dreams, Will Travel, (Brad Isaacs)

The festival also announced that Oscar-winning No Man’s Land director Danis Tanovic from Bosnia will serve as head of the jury, which is comprised of 50 international cinema-goers.

FULL LINE-UP

Premiere section
Across The Universe by Julie Taymor (UK/US)
The Dukes by Robert Davi (US)
Elizabeth: The …

First, Many Many congratulations to Dev Saab on his 84/85th Birthday. In his case it really does not matter which Birthday he is celebrating, he has risen somewhere to the image of a mythological figure. We often see him in media but we all different people are familiar with some different part of a huge image of Dev Saab. He has inscribed his name in the minds of cine lovers as eternally youthful actor, an evergreen star, a stylish person, a never tiring creative person etc etc.

He is oldest active film maker in the country and at the same time he is the youngest film maker also. Its said that old people again become like a child. Don’t know if that’s true or not but Dev Saab certainly lives the enthusiastic curious nature found only in children. A new idea should strike his mind and he is ready …

Was Kuleshov right in claiming new meaning from the clash of unrelated images? To put it another way, does montage have any relevance to the contemporary filmmaker, scholar, or cinephile?
Rewind: Like other Russian formalists of the era, Lev Kuleshov was looking at unveiling the formal properties of the moving image. Okay! so you have heard this argument before. For most, intellectual montage is nothing but old Soviet skullduggery in its primal forms. Afterall, Kuleshov and co wanted to give big brother a leg up for the cause of the revolution (which the bosses in Kremlin, after much initial enthusiasm, gave a quiet burial). Many film and communications studies scholars in the West set up experiments to prove that Kuleshov was wrong after all. And so besides the usage of montage as stylisation device, its worth has more or less been reduced in film debates. We seem to have lost the …

Autorickshaw drivers won’t win any popularity contests. Especially in Chennai.

The average citizen has zillions of complaints about their attitude, tampered-with meters, fleecing and crass language. And we don’t even want get into a discussion of their driving skills.

But Pushkar and Gayatri don’t think so. “The autodrivers in Chennai are very different from those in Mumbai or Delhi. They have a cool attitude. Even though they work under trying circumstances, they have a keen sense of humour.”

And the husband-wife duo decided to take this rather unusual fascination to its logical conclusion by making a film about autodrivers.

The ad filmmakers hit on the idea around two years ago while returning home from a friend’s house late at night. Their bike broke down and they had to hail an autorickshaw. Their chatty driver entertained them with quite a few interesting tales about his tribe.

“Why not make a film …

iView Author:
Ritu Singh
(Jaipur, India)

EMAIL:
ritusinghrathore [at] hotmail.com

Cinema - Food for Thought

I love cinema. Cant say I grew up watching movies and loving them but eventually as I grew older, cinema liberated the voyeur in me. For me it is living someone else’s life from a distance. The feeling of ‘this could happen to me’!, it’s the travel, the spaces, the clothes, the people, the lives and how they all come together.

I am an avid movie watcher but I do so in the confines of my own space. Technology gives us fantastic surround
sound and very large screens within the comfort of our homes and saves me the discomfort of mediocrity.

The joy of watching films with like-minded people in a comfortable environment is unparalleled. Not to forget, the post
viewing reviews….apart from tremendously increasing my adjective vocabulary, it helps me …

[Update : Sept 27/2007. Stills of songs added]

Do songs hurt the narrative flow (and form) of our films? I believe they usually do. When we were working on about the fifth draft of the screenplay (it went on till ninth by the time it was ready to be called ‘bound’), I realized that there are some ‘natural’ places where songs can have a place in the film, mostly as background thematic scores not sung out by the protagonists. To not hurt the narration, I knew the key would be the wording of lyrics befitting the narrative situation and the feel… (how they are bound together with music would be secondary – composers usually work the other way round, they have the music in place to which lyricists write the words). …

An open,cubicles- laden hall and in the corner a conference room with smoked glass door of a corporate production house..Four of them were sitting in various postures– slightly reclined ,with various versions of hands- jaw locking, to listen to my narration of a script that I had been pitching for a film project..VP (content) ,henceforth called plain VP, introduced me to his other colleagues : Nisha,Asha Vishwas and Mohan..

Without much further delay I was told to shoot–my spiel :

Me : Thanks for this opportunity..My film is set in mountainous region of upper Shimla/Manali almost six thousand feet above sea level..Where our hero Dushyant is given an assignement to supervise the construction of a dam..He hurriedly accepts it..As he is preparing to leave by road from Delhi, we show a bubbly,chirpy,natkhat,chanchal girl Shakuntla flitting across the boulders of a mountain slope and rolling stones of a rivulet. She is singing …