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iView Author:
Abhinav Katoch
(New Delhi, India)

Email:
Witheld

Bloody Musical

‘Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’ immediately introduces its hero in a breathless credit sequence: I mean Blood–Blood trickling through the damp streets of London,flowing freely between the wheels as it smothers everything in its thick shades ….. In Dante Ferretti’s created world this blood is a magnet–wherever,whenever you go you are moving towards it.Tim Burton’s adaptation of Sweeney Todd(based on lyrics by Stephen Sondheim) might as well be the bloodiest musical in history perfectly in conjuction with the ghoulish musical productions the French theatres specialised in…

Seeing so much of blood being spilt,it hardly comes as a surprise that the two central protagonists are so pale in their appearance as though all blood has been sucked out of their veins..this isnt a pretty world(for that matter nothing in Burton’s films usually is)

Benjamin …

iView Author:
Sudhir Nair
(Mumbai , India)

Email :
With Held

Spot this Movie with “Rent Boy”

A few years before Morpheus talked about Choices that one makes in Life, Ewan McGregor had the following to say as Renton in Trainspotting:

“Choose life, choose a job, choose a career, choose a family, choose a F@$#ing big television, in short - choose everything under the sun and choose life…but I chose not to choose life. Reason? Who needs reason when you’ve got Heroin.”

This has to be one of the best opening hooks in the history of movies. The moment Renton utters these magic words as his cronies are being introduced one by one; we know instantly that we are in threshold of watching something extraordinary. And for once we are not disappointed.

Trainspotting is directed by Danny Boyle and is based on a novel of the same …

……the words stayed with me, for long. Does it happen like this ? Emotionally troubled while mixing the film…do you get so much involved…even during mixing the film…..i had heard something like this for the first time. Could not believe it. And was he talking about the same film ? Gandhi My Father. When i met Resul Pookutty (do check out his filmography here to know his range), he was busy mixing saawariya for the dvd. He told me that generally people take the film print copy for the dvd as well. But there are only few who take the trouble to change things for the dvd so that you get the best sound even in your home theatre. you change some technical specifications also, i dont remember now. He did the same for Black’s dvd and now for saawariya. Because Sanjay Leela Bhansali wants it. He is …

Did you know this legendary hero was a despicable bully when he was 10, and used to beat up other children if they didn’t let him win the game of marbles?

Did you know his friends used to always complain that he walked very fast and needs to slow down and wait up?

Did you know he used to roam around wearing cycle chains a la garlands?

Did you know he was a tea boy, a rowdy, a coolie, before he became “the bus conductor who got noticed for his flair to be a star”?

Rajni! Pera Kettaley Chumma Athirudhulla? (Isn’t the sound of his name simply earth shattering?)

All this detail and more about this simbly south super star’s private life will be made available to his ardent masses when the hero’s biography is released during this weekend.

The book “The name is Rajnikanth” in English (Tamil version of the book is titled “Rajni …

iView Author:
KP
(NYC, USA)

Email:
Witheld

The Genius of the Coens

I finally gave into the hype and went to see No Country for Old Men. It exceeded the hype. The Coen brothers have outdone themselves in an entirely new way and the Oscar was well-deserved. Bardem and Brolin are outstanding as the psychotic killer, Anton Chigurgh and Llewelyn, a fairly shrewd country bum.

The movie starts with a lovely ode to what is to come. Tension, pregnant spaces…both physical and auditory…force you to stop squirming in your chair and focus. The barren Texan landscape, the gradual introduction into dialogue … all capture what the film is about in its entirety. Most of the scenes are in the sprawling, bleak landscapes of Texas or in tiny, claustrophobic motel rooms. The tension between the spaces used adds to our nerves. In the bleak empty …

iView Author:
Medha Dutt
(Kolkata, India)

E-mail:
primidutt [at] gmail [dot] com

“24 Truths per Second ”

The famous French New Wave director, Jean-Luc Godard, was very right when he said of Cinema, that it is “24 truths per second”. And nowhere do we find it more so than in the films of Ritwik Ghatak.

I know there are many others, like, Ray, Sen, Benegal, Nihalini, Mani Kaul, but maybe being a Ghatak fan, his name is the first to come to mind! No offense!

Ghatak’s filmography is deceptively small – in his lifetime, apart from short films …

It was a muddy sunset(77 years before) and the last rays of the sun were collapsing into the walls of Jamia Millia University Delhi and Premchand was about to leave for Lucknow and suddenly a man comes to him and asks for a brand new story for “Jamia Risala” (Jamia’s literary magazine). Premchand told him that he will send it after reaching Lucknow but the man was in hurry as the materials were about to go to the press. Premchand then cancelled his journey and wrote a story in the same night. The story was “kafan” which is known as one of the great work of Indian Literature. He always stood with his words “main mazdoor hoo jis din na likhoon us din roti khane ka mujhe adhikaar nahi” (I m a worker and don’t have any rights to eat without writing). The characters of “Kafan” Ghisu and Madhav …

Aishwarya Rai, Chitrangda Singh and Kajol , three actresses of contemporary hindi cinema enjoy one common thing that their married status has not affected their popularity among audience or their fans.

Now Kajol is going to share screen space again with her husband, where Ajay Devgan is going to make his debut as a director also.

Time will tell what U, Me aur Hum brings before the audience and how it entertains them but marketing of film has seen already one good thing. A poem has been released inside a promotional release of the film. Has Film made Kajol a poet? If yes then its always good to see creative side of a person.

As per the news , Kajol writes following poem.

“Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed
We vowed our true love though a word …

Just saw Wes Anderson’s latest fratricidal fun-on-the-run The Darjeeling Limited! Totally loved it. Love the meandering (and seeking) nature of the narrative, which is similar in structure to the Coens’ comedy work but yet so different. And that’s got a lot to do with Anderson’s dialogues, which sound profound if put on paper but in the context of his films are completely redundant.

Like this scene towards the end of the film when Francis (Owen Wilson) unwraps his bandage to reveal the wounds he suffered in an accident (maybe attempted suicide). The three are all looking at the bathroom mirror, with brothers Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) checking out Francis’s bloody face reflected on the glass.
Francis: I guess I’ve still got a lot of healing to do.
Jack: Gettin’ there, though.
Peter: Anyway, it’s definitely going to add a lot of character to you.

It’s completely sumptuous but what makes …

Can’t write much, can’t talk much.

Just heard (or rather read) the news here

Tamil Writer Sujatha is dead

The key person behind the development of the Electronic Voting Machine and an eminent writer, S Rangarajan alias Sujatha, has died.

To be very honest, I have never read a single sujatha’s story (I cant read/write Tamil unfortunately). Although i do watch tamil films eagerly. And the films written by him …I’ve loved.

The article further adds on

Sujatha was a pioneer in the field of science fictions in Tamil. He also wrote short stories, novels, screenplays and columns in weeklies

Here’s some info from another site

His true name was Rangarajan, Sujatha being a pseudonym. He has written over 100 novels, 250 short stories, ten books on science, ten stage plays, and a slim volume of poems. His very first story featured in a magazine called Sivaji in 1953. His short …

I have seen ‘Welcome’, in cinema, and I went to see the film on Christmas Day, last year. I did not like the film; I found it quite pathetically ridiculous. Perhaps slapstick comedies are meant to be ridiculous, but this film was clearly not a good one. There were a few good scenes and all of those good scenes were between Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor. Katrina Kaif looked hot - she is like on old school actress - cannot act - just for song, dance and sex appeal. Anyway, the film has been in news recently, because the film was officially released in Pakistan theaters a few weeks back.

Pakistan government has shown signs of softening its stance on the long-standing ban on screening of Indian films by allowing the release of latest Bollywood blockbuster Welcome in theatres on Friday.

The release of the film …

iView Author:
Danji Thotapalli (Los Angeles, USA)

E-mail:
withheld

Received an email from Danji, a die hard volunteer at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. It’s due to such devoted volunteers that festivals promoting Indian films in foreign land are able to present so many different movies besides the traditional Bollywood stories. Danji has been volunteering since the last six or more years and is a die hard film fanatic, shuttling between his regular day job (executive in finance industry) and volunteering for non-profit organizations like IFFLA.

Back to the email, Danji mentioned he had just finished making his first short film and wanted to put it on PFC and get a honest opinion… so without much delay, here it is

~ oz

Metastasis (9.27min)

Logline:

This short film, inspired by certain real events and personalities involved in the illicit nuclear trade in South Asia, is …

Up until Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodha Akbar was released, the defining film on the Mughals was K.Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam (1960) – the passionate tale of a lowly courtesan Anarkali (Madhubala) threatening to become the queen and a son (Dilip Kumar) rising in revolt against his emperor father, Jaluddin Mohammed Akbar (Prithviraj Kapoor in a towering performance). One suspects that however much Ashutosh Gowariker cites secondary research material as basis for his film, Jodha Akbar, it is K.Asif’s majestic work that underpins his latest picture.

Both street protestors and academics alike are harping on how no biography of Akbar, including the official one, Akbarnama mentions Jodha Bai as his wife. Second, it may not be wholly correct that the Mughal king who is known for his secular politics was equally liberal with his wife following Hindu customs (it was Akbar who banned the marriage for Mughal girls), not forgetting the …

Well, what do you know?! Today (27th February 2008) was the first day of filming Dev.D. Earlier Anurag and his crew went to Reading to film a couple of scenes; I was not able to visit the location, but fortunately, they were shooting a couple of more scenes in evening and in Central London, to be precice, the location was a ship - which was just parked opposite London Eye.

And I was there, to see what all filming is about; meet Anurag & his crew. So I shook Anurag’s hand, Abhay’s hand and rest of the crew, as Anurag introduced me to everyone. Anyway, it took them one hour to shoot a 30 seconds scene and one more scene was left - perhaps they were waiting for correct light for the scene; I left before that! I suppose, filming can be quite laborious! My first impression is that, the …

iView Author:
Adesh Prasad (New Delhi, India)

E-mail:
prasad_adesh [at] yahoo.co.in

Mith - yeah !
————————————

Earlier when I wanted to talk about Rajat Kapoor with my friends, I used to say things like “woh Dil Chahta Hai ka mama” or sometimes “Monsoon Wedding ka villain” to explain them who is this guy I am talking about.

But I think now I should not have hard time in doing that, I can simply say the person who directed Mithya.

As a viewer I feel privileged to see something as good as Mithya, specially in an industry where …

iView Author:
Arun Prakash (New Delhi, India)

E-mail:
Withheld

Mr W.Kumar travels to Bollywood,the year 2028, Part 3

‘ Kahani abhi baki thi’

‘Kahani abhi baki thi’

This is the next part of the article - Mr Writer Kumar,an aspiring Bollywood writer finds out that he has travelled in time to the year 2028.

Writer Kumar and Shanti Devi walk out of multiplex 54,having checked out the latest releases on an AUDI-HOP tour ticket and are now on their way to view a film shoot
featuring Shahrukh Khan.
As they step onto the escalator to go across to Marriot Hotel ,Kumar is overcome by a sudden feeling of despair.
He halts on the overbridge and tells himself ‘ what the hell is going on? What am I doing here….in Mumbai….in 2028?

A few hours ago he was travelling on the Rajdhani express from …

Riots are bad spots on the face of humanity. People leave humanity during riots and follow homicide on a large scale.
People of different religion keep hate towards other religions and during difficult times this hatred increases the destruction multifold. Indian subcontinent has faced many religious riots. Around a million people were killed in the riots during partition only.

Cinema is now over a hundred years old and since it’s inception it has slowly but surely metamorphosed from entertainment to the opium for the masses with due apologies to Karl Marx. One question however vexes both those who strive to create it as well as those who breathlessly ingest it week after week.

Is Filmmaking an art or a science ? You could argue both sides of the argument till Gabriel blows his horn and I don’t feel I can add something more to this debate. What I can do however, is advocate a counter opinion. I propose that filmmaking is in fact a sport. Like Sex.

All form of sport have one absolutely undisputed axiom. The more you practice the better you get. Like Sex. Sex is a sport whether you admit it or not. I will leave the pondering of your sexuality and beliefs to yourself. I’m frankly …

The title line should say it all & this article is about the scary aftermath once a movie becomes extremely popular & a big hit.

Consider this as the premise. Taare Zameen Par (TZP) was a well made movie with a very good cast (my opinion) and something that can be looked at again and again for time to come. Now the problem is not in TZP but the minute it became a popular cinema, we have had it. I am actually very scared to go to any parties or even homes of friends. I shall explain this scenario. I will be at peace with the world after a meal & relishing a nice dessert or a nice after dinner drink and suddenly there is a painting stuck in my lap and 2 gleaming (or 4 if the grandparents stay, 6 if others. you get it) adults want me to …

54. That is the number of films that I and two of my co-jury members watched in just five days at the 10th Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation films (MIFF). The festival was held over seven days, from February 3 to 9, but the films in the Indian competition section (in which I served on the critics jury chosen by the Indian chapter of the International Federation of Film Critics – FIPRESCI - along with Uma da Cunha from Mumbai and M K Raghabendra from Bangalore) were screened from the 4th to the 8th. Of these 40 were documentaries, nine short fiction films and five animation films. We had a tough task at hand, since we were mandated to give out only one award – I personally felt it was a great injustice to the films as we had to select the winner from among three …