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“(It was ahead of its times)That’s one of the reasons I postponed watching it.”
-Professor ATM Yadav

Enough of this Slumdog humbug. It truly pains me to see everyone singing Jai Ho to an astonishingly overhyped British film, while the Indian masterpiece for which the Oscar winning song was originally composed lies unsung, brutalised, trashed.

It all began when I read this article where our very own showman Mr. Subhash Ghai stoically said- “Yuvvraaj was ahead of its times… it will be appreciated in a few years for sure. I will continue to make films in spite of all the criticism that I get for them.”

I winced and felt dwarfed by guilt and self doubt. It was after all, this very so-called film reviewer who last year, mercilessly ripped apart this futuristic classic and labelled it the worst film of the year. …

Just came across a few updates, so thought why not write another post-besides it helps me keep my hopes and optimism alive after being scarred by Chandni Chowk To China. (To read my review, click here.)

After Professor ji’s profound and stupendously entertaining analysis, I don’t think there’s much left to say. On the other hand, things aren’t all dreary and dry at theatres- the uproariously funny, quirky and satirical The President Is Coming is fortunately still showing at a few screens, and for all those of you who haven’t seen it yet, this one is a must catch. It’s amazing really how the Sippys could produce both CC2C and TPIC- one being high on budget and zero on concept, and the other, thankfully the exact opposite. No wonder folks here are wary of these big bamboozlers- seriously with its wide release, if CC2C is what is representing us at …

(1/5) Pure Chinese torture- B.E.W.A.R.E!
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Ekdum kadak. Last year may have ended up being a little underwhelming ultimately atleast IMO, but 2009 looks to be one helluva exciting year at the movies. There are films from some of our best- Ashutosh Gowariker, Raju Hirani, Rakeysh Mehra and Vishal Bhardwaj to name a few- and what’s more, an astonishingly diverse mix of themes and genres. Take a look at a Bollywood lineup that should get you licking your chops:

3 Idiots
Raju Hirani is back in a much needed break from the Munnabhai series. And while ‘Why So Serious’ Mr. Khan as a student might be difficult to swallow, the director the rest of the cast (Sharman Joshi, Madhavan and Kareena Kapoor) is enough for us to wait eagerly for this one. In Raju Bhai we trust.

Chandni Chowk To China
Kung Fu meets Bollywood in Nikhil Advani’s zany looking film produced by Warner Bros., no less. It’s a total …

(3/5) A stuttering start, some tender moments and too much apologising.

Okay, if you’ve recovered from the title, you may begin to read what may sound like a blasphemous attempt to defend a monster ‘brand’ that is responsible for countless crimes against all cine-buffs, cinema and the whole of humanity in general. What it really is is random thoughts, straight from the heart.

Why do I suddenly feel like sticking my neck out and going out on a limb for something so altogether futile and meaningless? I don’t really know. I loved Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi- and I am not ashamed to say that while it’s far from being the best Hindi film I’ve seen this year, it is probably the one I loved most unabashedly and uncompromisingly. It really is a film with a good heart, a film that is honest like Surinder Sahni. Maybe what really propels me like Jerry Maguire to write this foolhardy piece is the fact …

(4/5) Puts the ‘Yash’ back into ‘Raj’.

Intense, intelligent, funny, touching, erotic, beautiful.
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Finally, the audience actually seems to be appreciating quality. Don’t be mistaken- Golmaal Returnses, Singh Is Kinngs, Welcomes and Races will still be hits, and Fashion will still be acclaimed as a realistic and pathbreaking film. Never mind. Why should I grudge them that (ill-deserved or well-deserved, depending on your viewpoint) success? What’s good is that the Johnny Gaddaars and Mithyas- basically the kind of films that we at PFC are accused (?) of being biased towards and ‘promoting’ are also being appreciated.

I don’t know anyone who didn’t love Johnny Gaddaar. Or Manorama Six Feet Under. Or Mithya. And Dasvidaniya (acchcha, fine I do know one person who didn’t )That obviously means they are being appreciated and liked- but then why are they still flopping? What is sad is that the audience who does like these films are not being compelled enough to come to the theatres, to lift their …

Soulful and astonishingly natural musical romance, with a soundtrack that soars.
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(2/5) Ponderous, plodding, pretentious drama that’s almost as stiff as its characters.
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Vinay Pathak gives an unassuming yet brilliant performance in a film with a heart of gold.
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(4/5) A gripping saga of rivalry that plays out like a dazzling magic trick.
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Way too indulgently slow for me. A good snooze.
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This is not a review. Almost every week I watch films that don’t evoke anything in me- thought, laughter, joy, happiness, pain, sadness- nothing. At the most, it is mild disgust. I force myself to react to them in some way, even as I actually feel nothing about them, and these reactions I puke out week after week, trying to be convincing in what they call ‘reviews’.

So this is not a ‘review’. I will not harp about how superb the cinematography was, how stirring the music was, how great the screenplay was, or how mindblowing the actors were. When a film gets under your skin like this, all that really ceases to matter. Firaaq may not be ‘great cinema’ as such- as ‘objectivity takes over, I begin to notice its lack of a cohesive plot or structure among other things. Actually, I don’t even know whether that is a flaw …

It’s bloody delightful. And Helena Bonham Carter is the best thing about it.
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Tauba tera jalwa
Tauba tera pyaar
Tera emotional atyachaar

YES IT IS, but before we move on to that, allow me to inflict upon thee some “emotional atyachaar”!

Love it or hate it, No Smoking has been one of the most discussed and debated film all over the blogosphere for the last one year, and continues to be so and Anurag Kashyap is here to stay. And if the trailer of his latest film is anything to go by, the stay is going to be a rocking affair for film buffs around India.

DEV.D, based on characters from Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic Devdas is as far detached from the book as the characters are from sainthood. In Anurag Kashyap’s own words he has used Devdas as an adjective and not as a work of literature or cinema; it’s a look at relationships through the phenomenon that is Devdas.

Abhay Deol, who also came …

(5/5) Blew me gulliver apart. Kubrick’s genius isn’t stunning, it’s baffling.
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(3/5) Depriving Felicity Huffman of the Oscar for this was a crime- what a performance.
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[Note: This post may come across as an opinionated, even a little misinformed rant. What I am attempting to do is briefly elaborate (?) on a somewhat common issue I had with Lost In Translation and The Darjeeling Limited. Haven't really gone the whole hog nitpicking in detail, but tried putting across my point all the same. Do let know of your opinion on the same.]

Just because you are a character, doesn’t mean you have character.

-Winston Wolf in PULP FICTION

There are numerous exceptional films which imbibe and absorb a city/country into their narrative, soaking and embedding themselves in the geographical and cultural landscape of the location and reflecting its ethos so beautifully that we describe it saying that the city/country is ‘a character in the film.’

And then there are those films- perhaps much more common- which turn a full blooded geographical/cultural/political entity into a ‘character’, the kind Winston …

(4/5) Revisited this tour-de-force after years, and was left stunned again- its visceral emotional power makes even Bhardwaj’s brilliant Omkara pale in comparison.
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(0/5) Harry Baweja manages to prove this beyond any doubt: While God limited the intelligence of (Har)man, he certainly did not limit his stupidity.
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(4/5) A thrilling, inspiring, moving and real story about courage, grit, passion for cinema and how one of the best Hindi films ever got made.
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(2.5/5) I didn’t get what the big deal was about- it’s visually lush, Murray’s great and Johanssen’s hot, but(t) I found it more inert and racially offensive than melancholic or funny.
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Note: I did not hate Taare Zameen Par. Or Rock On. Or A Wednesday. Not even Black. But the excess praise that came to these nice, but far from extraordinary films really got to me. Somehow, too much unwarranted praise can actually make one dislike the film more and more and magnify its flaws even more.

TZP’s now gone to the Oscars, and while I could bet it’s not going to get anywhere remotely close to the nominations, and despite the fact that this comes almost a year after the film released, just thought I’d post this review, which says what I originally and really thought of the film. It happens to be one of my favourite reviews of a film (by me), and wanted to share it with everyone on PFC:

Okay, okay. Even as ecstatic reviews continue to pour in steadily, I confess that I am far from bowled …

(3/5) Nice, funny and quirky but so ‘exotic’ and self-consciously detached and elegiac that it becomes annoyingly precious; even vacuous. Awesome soundtrack, though!
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(4/5) Excellent. Uttam Kumar stands tall in the kind of effortessly charismatic performance that we don’t really see these days.
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(5/5) Jack Nicholson shines with mad brilliance in this work of pure genius. A masterpiece that scared the s**t out of me.
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This is not a post on great, extraordinary films. But these films are, in fact- little underrated gems that I thoroughly enjoyed, and films that I thought were unfairly tucked under the carpet and ultimately into the black-hole like trash can of forgettable Bollywood films. Like Hulla last week, they may be imperfect, but are special for their own unique reasons. There are so many such films actually, but here are a few I can presently remember. Do write in with your own picks, and I shall perhaps add more films as I remember them.

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai
I actually have only seen Shashanka Ghosh’s first feature in parts- but what I saw had me constantly chuckling and mighty impressed. Wonderfully pulpy, irreverent, witty and with superb performances and a soulful score- this is one DVD I’m buying soon. And as I watch it, I’ll definitely be waiting for Quick Gun …

(3/5) Lack of momentum and sharpness often make it tedious, but it’s also incredibly perceptive, intelligent and relatable with excellent performances and a haunting end.
Silence On The Floor

(4.5/5) Truly a master chef’s creation. C’est d'©licieux!
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Deepa Mehta’s new film Heaven On Earth recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival while Nandita Das’ first directorial venture Firaaq was first showcased at Telluride and then at TIFF. Both films look interesting and have met with uneven but some very encouraging reactions.

Heaven On Earth is a story of a domestic abuse with elements of fantasy and magic realism. While this audacious mix might not work for everyone or possibly not work at all, Preity Zinta seems to have delivered an outstanding performance in the film, and the first promo (which otherwise isn’t extraordinary) leads me to believe that- Zinta looks ‘luminous’, as a few reviews have called her, and after her impressive performance in The Last Lear, one hopes for more. Zinta’s career, in fact is on an interesting turn right now with films …

(4.5/5) Simply beautiful. A work of art that shines with rare intelligence, wit and humanity and echoes the spirit of Chaplin’s best work.
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(4/5) Spike Lee’s tour-de-force isn’t perfect- but it’s a biopic of enormous, blazing power.
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(3.5/5) Vague, empty, shallow, unsatisfying and frustratingly random. But as I found out later, it’s also terrifying, hypnotic, audacious and unexpectedly haunting.
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(2/5) Very flat, clich'©d and uninspiring adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s novel.
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Going to the movies this year has largely been a mind-numbing experience. I had just criticized Kismat Konnection a few weeks back, but compared to the fare that the next few weeks offered (Ugly Aur Pagli, Singh Is Kinng), it really feels like a criminally underrated classic now.

Till now, there have hardly been any films this year that were good or satisfying to an extent:

Mithya, I thought was excellent, even if only for Ranvir Shorey’s superbly funny and poignant performance that blew my mind totally. The film was nice and edgy, terse and full of dry wit, and yet it touched the heart. (Though some people I know happened to find it very ‘pseudo’, for some reason )

Aamir was thoroughly gripping, tense and a pleasure to watch. Kudos to everyone behind this brave little gem- especially Rajkumar Gupta, Rajeev Khandelwal and DOP Alphonse Roy- all of who did an …

(4/5) As outrageously funny and vibrant as it is deeply moving and poignant. Beautifully realized, this is poetry in animation. A must-watch.
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(4/5) Brilliant, clever, extraordinarily inventive and extremely compelling. Superb stuff.
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(1/5) Spectacularly unfunny and unromantic. A root canal operation would have been more entertaining.
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(3/5) Powerful performances from Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. Dench creates a superbly creepy portrait of isolation.
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(2/5) Aziz Uncle, we’re disappointed- this konnection’s just not happening.
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(3.5/5) Haunting love story moves from deeply poetic to near pornographic anchored by its soulful leads.
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(4/5) Relatable, real, moving. A lifting celebration of family and life. WOW.
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Aziz Mirza is back. Okay, Chalte Chalte was a damp squib- but that shouldn’t stop us from looking forward to his next release after quite some time. The first look of Kismat Konnection is out, and hey, it doesn’t look bad at all.

Thankfully, neither does its lead actress, the gorgeous but sartorially-challenged Vidya Balan, who after much flak for her wardrobe on and off-screen, manages to look quite pretty here. There’s no drastic ‘makeover’ as such, but Shabina Khan’s (who replaced Aki Narula after he had differences with Vidya) styling seems to have worked well, even if it isn’t absolutely stunning. One can safely say that you can finally get over the shock of seeing her dressed as a 70’s vamp at a jewellery store launch and as a Christmas tree at the Filmfare Awards.

Okay, enough about Vidya Balan- forgive my exaggerated concern about her costumes, but I think her …

(1.5/5) Umeed kum, ‘Sugar-free’ zyaada
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430193/

Truth be told, nothing can match the joy I get from watching bad films. No, I don’t mean the likes of One Two Three, Lovesongs and the other one dozen terrible films I have been subject to in theatres owing to my work as a film reviewer. I am talking specifically of those bad films which represent some of the few guilty, vicarious pleasures life offers us. They seduce us, they entice us, they excite us in a way boring good cinema never can, shining with that God-awful brilliance only a few filmmakers manage to bring on screen.

Just the day before yesterday, while I was busy watching the wonderful Little Miss Sunshine at night after another busy Friday of college followed by film reviewing, I couldn’t help but be tempted to catch snatches of Aap Ka Suroor: The Moviee: The Real Luv Story in between- a surreal film experience I …

Jodhaa Akbar is the flavour of the month- some love it, some love to hate it- as for me, I fall somewhere in between, I guess. Maybe the reason why I am not so drastically dejected by the film is that I wasn’t really expecting a Lagaan or Swades out of it, and also that the leads actually did way better that I expected them to- admittedly, if anyone’s faltered here, it’s Gowariker- without doubt. (My review, which I cannot publish at PFC, owing to website policy is dying to be read here at my blog.)

I doubt if Gowariker is ‘the new K Asif’, as someone on PFC recently proclaimed him to be- I frankly find the comparison rather absurd- but he definitely is one of the best filmmakers we have in India- and I don’t really mind if if his film gets a little more than it deserves, …

A PLEA TO THE MAKERS OF JODHAA-AKBAR

I feel like pulling my hair out. UTV Motion pictures and Ashutosh Gowariker- what is wrong with you guys?

It’s less than a week for the release of what is the biggest magnum opus this year and what should be the most awaited film to hit the screen in a long time, and yet, strangely- though not very surprisingly- there barely seems to be any buzz at all. Other than, of course the usual yawn-inducing controversies that almost always seem to hound historical films made in India, any real excitement over the film really escapes even a hardcore Gowariker fan like me.

Can’t the producers see the writing on the bloody wall? Just making a good film simply doesn’t suffice- you have to first get bums on seats- period. And I don’t see the makers …

In what is otherwise perhaps the very definition of a thankless role, Vidya Balan in Halla Bol gets the unique distinction of being the first Hindi film heroine to refer to a man’s genitals. As nasty reporters an journalists aggresively swarm around with their super-sleazy questions, the traditional-yet-modern and empowered pativrata naari defends her spouse with equal force- “I am proud of my husband- because…he’s got balls!”

It’s only such part-startlingly crude, part-positively howlarious scenes- also like the one in which Ajay Devgan unzips and pees on the corrupt Chief Minister’s prized carpet (”From Persia!”- he proclaims with uncontrollable glee) right in front of him (as if to provide conclusive evidence that he DOES, in fact have…well, never mind)- that remain with you after you walk out of the theatre.

That’s just about as er, ballsy that this Halla Bore gets, as Rajkumar Santoshi dishes out this surprisingly shoddy film after …