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This ever happened to you? You are watching this amazing movie (maybe your third or fourth time) and suddenly you feel that the scene on the screen/TV/monitor shouldn’t be there at all. That the movie would have been even better without it? I am not talking about the usual suspects, the songs in our movies which pop up suddenly from nowhere but scenes with action and dialogue.

I am going to talk about a couple of them. Both of them have 2-3 things in common. Both scenes come right at the end. Both come immediately after a killer poignant scene. And both of them try to install a feel good factor in the movie. Of course this is a personal subjective opinion and many of you might think that I am a depressed spoilsport who hates Christmas but I think the below mentioned movies are just a teeny weensy bit …

I don’t watch horror films ’cause I live alone. At least, that used to be my excuse for the last three years. I had a nice little 3-room first-floor pad all to myself for just 3500 bucks a month in Guwahati. Visitors always asked why I needed such a large place. Well, I couldn’t find a 2-room place in time, that’s all. Unfortunately, even in those days of living alone, I did end up watching quite a few horror films – Dhol, RGV Ki Aag, Buddha Mar Gaya, Fool ‘n’ Final, etc.
I’ll never forget that I watched Bhoot in the very first row of 3 C’s in Lajpat Nagar, Delhi. I think it kind of masochistic to be a horror film fan. Personally, I …

I have been meaning to write this for eons now but as the Dark Knight is just round the corner, it felt as the right time to write this. God how clichéd am I….

Well what can be written about Batman? For those comic virgins, I have a small primer in the next 2 Para(s). For all those twats like me, who did nothing much other than read comics, live in a warped world of their own, gloss over the next 2 paragraphs as its my take on what comics are & who Batman is

There are comics and then there is a world outside that. I have for the past 27+ years unsuccessfully tried to battle between these 2 worlds but I can hardly say I have ever lived in one world for all time. Comics are a genre of books that can take you quite quickly into a world so …

a larger perspective on Sarkar Raj that brings Ramu’s kind of film-making and the latest syndrome ofthe Bachchans into focus

One of the things that is odd about the way people in our part of the world look at films is the attention they pay to hygiene factors – production values, general level of slickness, etc. It is odd because it is often at the cost of the content - the story, the characters and the general standard of story-telling.

For example, not much else can explain the rather idiotic response to the recent Pakistani film Khuda Ke Liye, the first one from across the border to be released in India. It is an outstanding clear-headed film, with both thematic weight and storytelling momentum, and tremendous relevance. And yet, many of the reviews, despite praising the film, pointed out its “poor production values” and “uneven performances”, to the extent where you often hear people looking for those moments to justify not giving it the kudos it deserves, conveniently overlooking the …

Khalid Mohamed starts his blogging journey on PFC, with his diary - Cinema Ray. Please extend a warm welcome to Khalid, who opens his diary with the first post titled Ray to Go!

Okay, so an indulgently kind and persuasive cell phone voice, belonging to Kartik (surname not quoted), invited me over to blogland. Not quite techno-whizzy, I procrastinated. There were thel hmmms, i don’t know, I’m the good old ink and paper type, Remington typewriter was so sturdy..but yes, I can handle PCs with not a little help from my friends and colleagues. Since this is actually on blogprint, guess I’m smartening up.

     Enough of I-me-moi. I’m here because to blog means to express  whatever, I can’t on other platforms, and I’m not talking railway stations.

      The column title ‘Cinema Ray’ alludes, of course, to my god of small and big things, Satyajit Ray. The intimacy he struck with his narratives of people..rich, poor and middle class, remains untouched. Pather Panchali..was a life-altering film. I watched it at a film society screening in Bombay’s Tarabai Hall.

       After that I’ve never looked at farmhouses zipping …

I am a very happy man, and the reason is the just announced 54th National Awards. My favourite movies for the year 2006 makes it to the list and importantly in the right category it deservers.
 
Lage Raho Munna Bhai
Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment,
Best Supporting Actor: Dilip Prabhavalkar
Best Screenplay: Abhijat Joshi, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Lyrics: Swananad Kirkire…

I had just quit whatever I was doing till then and had taken a solemn oath of eternal poverty and struggle. Cinema…..Was writing for someone those days…..donno what happened to that script. We were having a narration…..half way thru we had a sutta brake. The person whom we were narrating was a reputed editor…..he mentioned “Gulaal ruk gayee…..this was Anurag’s last hope…”…Did not know him then…and never imagined I would ever be writing this…..

There are many films you wished you were a part of. Like I always wished I was a part of Dil Se.. donno why…the feeling for Gulaal was the same….when it was launched…..when it was stalled….always wished…I wanted to be a part of it. June 28, 2008 am in Jaipur, already into the 4th day of shoot.

Gulaal for me was the beginning of the most exciting Director-DOP combo in the industry…maybe after Guru Dutt – …

Here’s the trailer of Shoot At Sight, directed the keeps-coming-back again and again, Jag Mundhra, stars Naseer, Om Puri and Brian Cox. (tip: Uddhav Ranjan Ghosh)

As an avid, loyal fan of hindi films, as well as being a lifelong student of cinema, I’ve wondered for several years why the most basic elements of narrative and storytelling are missing from so many prolific commercial hindi movies.

Barardwaj Ranjan had alluded to this topic in one of his recent, insightfully entertaining “between reviews” blogs. Here he quite accurately points out that hindi film songs, for the most part, have lost all situational value. They’ve lost their meaning, or as he puts it, their “motivation”. I’d like to take this argument a few steps further by applying this theory to many a scene and sequence, sometimes almost the entire film. The priority of writing strong scenes has quite apparently been replaced with gimickry, gratuitous gags, and senseless plot twists all in the name of entertainment. Oh, and they try way way to hard to “be cool” and …

I don’t do reviews. So what, you ask? Did we ever ask you to do it? You’ve got a point there. But I wrote that line because it felt cool to do so. People always say that to me when I ask them to review a film. In fact, lots of people I know start their post stating this isn’t a review; it’s merely a collection of their impressions after watching a movie. The world, in their opinion, will be a better place once it has been apprised of their impressions.

Bottomline (Thought for the Day): It’s socially acceptable to be found watching “Tauba Tauba” (IMDB) than seen reviewing it.

Audience (in chorus): Preamble bahut ho gaya, aage badho

I have decided to join the hugely successful group of men and women who are involved in providing the audience with the forensic reports, autopsies and personal deconstruction of narratives in …

On this day we bring you the most fitting tribute to Pancham-da. An interview with Brahmanand Singh - the director of Pancham Unmixed, an amazing documentary on RD Boss, that is looking for distribution. Will someone wake up and pick this meant to be a superhit documentary? Below is the promo of Pancham Unmixed.

Better late than never. Capturing R.D. Burman’s life in a documentary. And when it finally came out, what a way to do it! Brahmanand Singh does complete justice to the boss. We saw Pancham Unmixed at IFFLA 2007 and were blown away. Its the simplicity with which Brahmanand unfolds the flow of the documentary.

Following are two videos. The first is a 4 minute trailer of the documentary. The second is a 25 minute discussion we had with Brahmanand after watching the doc.

We’ve got to see one of highly engrossing and moving documentary in such a long time. Now if only you could… the rest of the world doesn’t know what it’s missing.

PANCHAM UNMIXED : The Promo

 
PFC talks to …

iView Author: Shashank Walia
(Delhi, India)
EMAIL: shashankwalia [at] live [dot]com

Sergio Leone – Master of technique,treatment and style
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Well I still remember the day I saw The good,the bad and the ugly – fourth film of the great Sergio Leone. The film had a huge impact on me with its dynamic cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli ,crisp and fast editing by Eugenio Alabiso and Nino Baragli, reallife locales, quality character development, brilliant background scorecomposed by Ennio Morricone,spectacular direction and screenplay by Sergio Leone.

Sergio Leone is often misunderstood by various film critics and film students as a stylish filmmaker but in real sense his techniques and aesthetical sense were as brilliant as his style. His first two …

Recently I have revelled in the close encounters with the forgotten art of close-ups in couple of movies.

Before I talk of these movies up close let me just share some masala and trivia with you on these close-ups..

The old cameramen who have gone to seed or become inactive don’t leave an opportunity to narrate how they used to relish lighting up for a close-up especially the heroine’s..And how they used to take hours together to light it up..And few of them brag that heroines literally used to lagao maska to them to light up their faces in close-ups..Have you ever heard of close-up couch..Well few of the cameramen boasted of laying the heroines for giving them a close-up that lighted up the marquee..It was like fulfilling their wish to be a diva or a Cleopetra whose face is supposed to have launched thousand ships!

The modern technology is …

After two biggies (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) and a few downers (Bah… and more bah)… Guy Ritchie is back with RocknRolla

3.5 scenes in the film and he still deserves to be called as The Naseeruddin Shah!

Simply because of his brilliant portrayal of Inspector Mike Lobo. “Short role can still be great” is proved by Naseeruddin Shah in Ardha Satya.

Mike Lobo is often discussed among policemen before he actually appears on screen. In the present time, he is a broken man, a drunkard who was suspended from the police department because he could not do compromises with the usual functioning of the department and tried to work in his own manners. He was too rebellious. Its told by other policemen that he used to say that whoever would come between he and his duty he would have to face his wrath. Whoever was found against his opinion of law and order, he fought with him. Vested interests could not bear his presence in the police force and he …

It was one of those schools that managed to tick about just enough boxes that’ll get them a license/grant/sanction to keep the institution running, teachers and staff employed and kids educated enough to sign their names, recite ‘Babes in the Wood’, do the origami, know their Gandhis, Nehrus and noble gases and pass out of the standard 10 with (as the school liked to put it in aptly multi-colored chalk on a blackboard outside the main gate on result day) “flying colors”. While there were exceptions, the atmosphere was one of general apathy and mutual disinterest and the (these days) much touted, encouraged and brochured student-teacher relationship was more like that of a comatose patient having a sudden cardiac seizure and the middle aged Malayali nurse sitting next to him engrossed in this week’s installation of sordid magazine pulp. …

Big Corporations have sold out humanity for Guru Kant Desai’s pet word ‘Munafa’, profit.

Working class toils day and night, live honestly but dont get anywhere. Steel plant workers push hard, while the bosses pushed them out. You believe in American Dream, well it is exported now. Life is so hard, things are so costly that you dont have any hope left, and working hard to stay in status quo is worser than doing nothing and drift away. Your choices are prepaid and your role in your choices is definitely not making them. Law is theirs and order is to OBEY them and they have got life  - They Live.

Offcourse the previous paragraph is not the description of the high inflation, slipping into depression American society. This is the state of America in 1988 that John Carpenter who is know more for slasher flicks like Halloween, showed in the 1988 movie …