logo

Note: This article has no pics.
Second note: I am competing with Acharyaji.

A screenplay or script is a written plan, authored by a screenwriter, for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing works such as novels. A screenplay differs from a script in that it is more specifically targeted at the visual, narrative arts, such as film and television, whereas a script can involve a blueprint of “what happens” in a comic, an advertisement, a theatrical play and other “blueprinted” creations.
The major components of a screenplay are action and dialogue, with the “action” being “what we see happening” and “dialogue” being “what we hear” (i.e., what the characters utter). The characters, when first introduced in the screenplay, may also be described visually. Screenplays differ from traditional literature conventions in ways described below; however, screenplays may not involve emotion-related descriptions and other aspects of …

It started with Hassan Jehangir, Salma Agha, then later went on to Ali Haider. Ofcourse, Ustad was always there. But we are not talking about Ustad here. Our focus is the pages of memory that got fader through the years. The music from sarhad ke us paar that knew no barriers. And never will. Lets go over few pages of past and come to where we stand now.

Late 80’s
Hassan Jehangir is what I call ‘salad days’ memory.
The song that made Hassan Jehangir a household name across the 2 countries - Hawa hawa.

Hawa Hawa was a revolution of sorts for reasons best known to the late 70’s/80’s borns.

This song was followed by aaja aaja dil hai deewana. And the only image that comes to my mind is a shoddy album cover with a guy …

There are ways in which one follows a different culture, a different set of values, beliefs and mannerisms. It’s all highly subjective, but you do grow to be more inclined towards a particular way of life and less inclined towards the other. Your beliefs keep changing as you move through life. Lessons learnt, and stories heard.

Similar is the case with me. I see Bengali culture as an assortment of colors. Good bad ugly unforgettable, and like that.
Films make sense to me for the most or least weird reasons in the world. But sometimes, films are fun even if they have to scream to reach you. This entire hurdle to the screaming bit sometimes gets more visible while one is reacting to a medium. In cinema, that part manifests in the look of a film, the camera and the likes.

A film works on multiple levels. The story, the way the …

A fidayeen attack is a suicide tactic used by militants. Such attacks are especially common in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. In a fidayeen, an extremist equips himself (most fidayeens are men) with weapons and a sizeable amount of ammunition. He then proceeds to gain entrance into a public gathering or other crowded area and proceeds to open fire on law-enforcement personnel and the general public. He continues his attack until he runs out of ammunition, at which point he is either gunned down by security forces or committs suicide. Fidayeen militants sometimes do attempt to escape but are almost always shot by anti-terrorist squads shortly afterward due to the fact that the militants rarely have a “getaway” plan chalked out. These militants, like suicide bombers plan on being killed during the execution of the attack.

-from Wikipedia

Cinema is a rewarding experience for the world it creates when …

I have been mildly excited about some nice music that I have procured and have been trying to procure off late. 2008 seems to have begun on a melodic note indeed. May be it’s the Rahman effect. May be it’s the wonderful possibilities of the online world that benefits the one field that couldn’t do with all the restrictions – music. Music is truly breathing, mushrooming, sprawling and singing in this dangerously limitless domain.

Through all these voluntary and directed excursions, I have realized one thing – the best music is always out there, and you still haven’t heard it. This fantastic impossibility makes it a high that it is. You look at some news article or some old picture and are reminded of a song, you want to hear it NOW, you google it and in the next 2 minutes, you are transported to that very time period you …

AR Rahman: The Maestro
In a world of chaos and endless insanity, there are a few things one wishes always keep coming….
Morning steaming cup of tea and untouched newsprint, the unruffled texture of Scotch, an astonishing book you feel blessed to lay your hands on, good cinema and of course, good music.

They restore your faith in life, in that after all the grilling, you will be treated to your 15 some day. AR Rahman’s music constitutes one of those healers for me. And it not only remains intact in its untainted form, it gets better by the day. Here is one guy who refuses to look back. And thank God for that.

Jodha Akbar is the final period film composition from Rahman, or so we are told. So I would like to give the score what it deserves, an …

Somehow it looks cluttered, with too much….

The grandeur is missing….

The balance between mythology and contemporary elements misses a few plot/reference points….

The modern references are understandable to a certain extent, but at the end of the day, it is based on a central character who demands that glitter in the eye reverence, which is seen only in a ‘well shot’ sequence in the climax….

I took my 4-year old nephew out for watching Return of Hanuman today. It was a first for me, I had never ventured out with this mature an audience for a film from one of my favorite contemporary film makers. And that too after the recent glycerin assault of stars. Watching the film has been an experience for me, for many a reasons. I realized we might have a million why’s and how’s for every film, for kids its quite literally a different ball game. They care a …

Some of the most memorable moments of Taare Zameen Par are the ones that just flash you by, they will never be shown on those award screens, they will die a silent death…

A sulking Ishaan in the blue bed of the dark night, making images in the dark, his rabbit eyes piercing through the darkness, while another morning comes and brings in new stories, both in the narrative and his screen life….

Ishaan standing outside the classroom and discovering a world of his own in the empty, dusty corridor, looking at his favorite part of the school, outside. The windows which bring him the sun in full measure. He talks to the dead painting on the wall, makes conversations will the still walls, while a bunch of nagging school kids do their on-screen duties to acceptable imperfection, he stands there, on the fence between fact and fiction.

A sleepy Ishaan runs …

Francis: [spotting some children crossing a river] Look at these assholes.

Wes Anderson’s beautifully flawed The Darjeeling Limited is an ode to his own cinema, a wronged melody, swaying in its ignominious existence. It is some sort of a sequel to the perfect portrayal of an imperfect family that The Royal Tennenbaums was. I would also include The Squid and the whale, another quirky classic in his oeuvre, something Scorsese seems to like too. While the other two play around more with the family in its visible form, this one, more like few bits of Life Aquatic, deals with its aftermaths.

Anderson gives you a fantastically painted envelope of exotica, in Louis Vuitton ‘attachies’, in a painfully postcard rural India, with its stereotypes comfortably seated in their places. The whites and the satrangis, the cartwheels and pagdis, and the …

I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found
What I’m looking for

As I was digging deeper and deeper into the rabbit-hole trap of MB’s soulful voyage of a music album, I felt like going back to the eternal U2 song. The same quest, that leads to more great things in art as time goes by.

The songs just work like a …

There are some films up to the brim with so much self-belief they include you in entirety in their flawed existence. Films which take a risk so big you wonder what inspires such degree of madness or obsession to put it mildly. The film language gets the prime importance and all the imperfections merely act as check points for a dream to be alluded as reality. Such a film creates images that entice and appease you into the fake world it paints with much dignity and poise.

On the outset, Saawariya declares the dreamscape it throws at you in the name of drama is all part of a dream. So you drop any further arguments into the plausibility of the setting. You move on to what the director wants you to watch, listen or ponder over- a wind-chiming ambient sound all through, glittering streets where no one but the protagonists …

Khoya Khoya Chand is Shantanu Moitra in all his possibilities, a rich multi-dimensional score, yet not losing any bit on perfection. Listen on, and you will know that it just might be his best accomplishment in film till now…

Chale aao saiyyaan
Chale aao saiyaan
Padoo main tore paiyaan

This song has the mujra tone with its soul in place

Diye ki main baati
Jal jal main mariaa

Chale aao saiyaan

The arrangement is very Umrao Jaan, as real as it could get…

Humko raja ji saiyyaan ji ajee neend nahi aaye
Tum baithe kothi pe bangle pe mehfil sajaaye

Meri sautan pe gaaj gir jaaye
Mere saiyyaan pe aanch nahi aaye
Salwat dar salwat dar salwat sejariya naa bhaaye
Karwat dar karwat haan karwat birhaa sataaye

Birhaa sataaye
Birhaa sataaye

Chale aao saiyyaan

Jhumka mera teeka mera kangna sautaniya ko bhaaye
Meri choonar meri moondar meri paayal bairan liye jaaye

Meri sautan pe gaaz gir jaaye
Mere saiyyaan aanch nahi …

(WARNING: Might contain spoilers)

As I walked out of the theater, I couldn’t help feeling loaded in my head. I saw the faces around me, going down and up the escalator; I kept watching the inanimate things around. I went up the mall, came back up, and went down….while humming Ashtray. Like an unending chain of reactions, I kept feeling a strange subconscious angst. At the heart of every thing around, there was this cynical abandon in my observations.

No Smoking fills you with such emotions and more. It leaves you with an unpleasing hollowness that you try to scratch and decipher. Beyond the questions of film mechanics, you wonder why you feel like K. Is he a contemporary Travis Bickle, is he the sum total of all the insignification around? A puny attitude that he wears on his nose, his glasses and his materialistic possessions, does it make the connections …

No Smoking’s much awaited music is out. There are multiple reasons for the excitement. It has been some time since a Vishal score came out for a non-Vishal film. The film’s theme centers around smoking (well, not exactly), a self-conflicting protagonist and his eccentric self-exploration. Put in an Anurag Kashyap, Vishal and Gulzar to this scheme and you get a thoroughly deep yet immensely enjoyable music score.

The smoke doesn’t leave you. The songs have to be heard in peace to appreciate the midas touch of Gulzar. It is impossible to picture anyone else yielding the pen to a film score that entirely revolves around smoking. And it is this almost divine dexterity that the words intrigue you in their surreal charm. It is no less than a full-fledged work of art(on the face, it might appear just another film score, …

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 …

Om Shanti Om’s music is a delight. One of the most elaborate score from the stable of Vishal-Shekhar(V-S). I truly salute their dexterity and courage with this one. I was waiting to write it off as soon as the promos started but I went back to the songs and started liking them. And this has never happened for a V-S score before.

Though there might be two thoughts behind putting this in the year’s top five, it still can be enjoyed as a total bhelpuri full-on masala Bollywood score.

Of all the surprises (shocks rather) popping out of the Mumbai film machinery off late, one of the top contenders would be the monstrously odd Dard-e-Disco(Sukhwinder Singh, Marianne, Nisha, Caralisa). The moment you hear the phrase a wtf reaction comes free along with. The shocking video doesn’t help much either. Javed Akhtar …