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Before the Rains is a landscape movie, a sensuous story of love between an English spice exporter and his married Indian housemaid, shot and directed by Santhosh Sivan in God’s own country, Kerala.

Deepak Chopra in his recommendation compared the movie to E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” and stories like “In the Bedroom”, “Little Children”, “The Savages”, and was delighted to find such layered sophistication coming from India, via “Before the Rains”.

The official selection of Toronto International Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival and Dubai Film Festival, Before the Rains has won 3 awards in the Houston WorldFest — Best Picture; Best Cinematography: Santosh Sivan; Best Music: Mark Kilian.

Mira Nair recalled the movie as “Unforgettable! A hothouse of sensuality, empire, class and guilt.”

NYT called it “A lavish, beautifully photographed film…”

New York Observer called it “A lovely, sweeping film. Stunning!”

And now, Santosh Sivan was interviewed by …

No IMDB
0.5/5 Whoa! He’s KRR’s P0ndi-Rangadu. Watch NTR’s original instead.

So, about this place which I call home…

Kangaroos, dingos, kookaburras, diggers, beaches, BBQs, UTEs, mates and vegemite… and movies.

There you go. That about sums it up, pretty much!

Yes, I am talking about the Downunder, the Australia or, in short, Oz.

IMHO, this magical sounding geographical namesake of the founder of PFC is, in some ways, not very unlike PFC itself.

Australia, at its heart, is a values based organization which welcomes anyone with open arms as long as they abide and live by its fair go values. It’s passionate about movies as an artistic form of expression - passionate and expression being the keywords here - and tries to showcase its passion in perspective of the amusingly warped milieu it cherishes, which we aussies call home. Which, in spite of all its shortcomings as a movie loving nation, still - manages to unearth a gem or two, produces …

1.5/5. A Monochromatic Miscarriage.
wiki link

0/5! Doom - after Boom, Dhoom, and Jhoom (barabar jhoom) - no fire, all fume.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995752/

2/5. This wannabe boo is more like a boo hoo; Shitty shitty, Pang, Pang!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0865496/

2.5/5. Stale nacho, minus salsa.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1191121/

Sorry about a late Sunday 100… took time to recover from the self flagellation of the weekend movie watching.

First Krazzy4, then Jalsa, and then U, Me aur Hum.

So this Sunday 100, which could have been crazy or kinky now gets mushy.

So here goes…

(you know something? it’s not my mistake - because our dear Honhaar Goonda’s AWOL is messing the series).

So this week the topic is :

Remember those Archies/Hallmark cards you have fastidiously handpicked, remember those love track CDs you have painstakingly compiled, remember those poor attempts at being Keats… and, you know something? The topic is —

First Love

Christopher Walken is having a family reunion!

(Saturday Night Live - April 5, 2008. Thanks to Mainak for the tip!)
 

And is planning a Surprise Party!

Enough said!
 

The Buzz — PFC is powered by your submissions. Send in your news, tips, scoops, hot topics

Say we’re playing word association, and say one of us says “David Fincher.”

The odds are 10 to 9 in favor of the other person going “FIGHT CLUB!”

That’s the reputation of the guy and the movie that made him immortal in our minds (in my mind at least).

So, why wouldn’t I be curious when I hear that the auteur and the actor are getting together again.

And curiouser when I come to know that the movie is an adaptation of Scott Fitzgearld’s flash fiction “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.

Okay, it is not going to be a Palahniuk’s black comedy, but still… Fincher is known for his painfully meticulous (and not meticulously painful) adaptations - Zodiac is the case in point.

And the theme is fantastic.

The protagonist Benjamin Button is born as an eighty years old feeble man, and keeps aging in reverse until he becomes a baby at the …

The following are, in no particular order, a few hopefully good super hero movies that I anticipate will make my/our mainstream movie watching experience worth its buck!

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY

Guillermo del Toro returns, with the dark horse of this year’s comic-book movie, bolder bigger and better than its 2004 predecessor, to give the other superheroes a run for their money.

THE DARK KNIGHT

Nolan and all his key cast members are back (except for Mrs.Cruise, who, thankfully, has been replaced by Maggie Gyllenhall). Heath Ledger’s unfortunate passing, sadly, makes this his final farewell gift to the moviegoers. His reinvented joker is one scary psycho and is the darkest of them all. Can’t wait to see him beat (almost) our brooding superhero.

BABYLON A.D.

Vin D dropped out of windy s/Hitman to essay the lead role in this scifi …

I am sure most of you must have seen this already, still, couldn’t contain myself from sharing it here.

I was thrilled beyond words when I saw this.

Romance, Pathos, Patriotism, War - the multi colored canvas of this man’s life — Kashmir Singh, what a prophetic name! — isn’t it full of emotions?

This story, literally, is the real life replica of all those awesome (and awful) movies that the makers, from JP Dutta to Yash Chopra, have doled out, by and large, in the name of epic cinema.

Kashmir Singh, an Indian jawan, was arrested in Pakistan in 1972 on charges of spying and sentenced to death by an Army court. He is being released after spending 35 years in Central Jail, Lahore.

1972! 35 years!! Most of the PFCians haven’t even been conceived by then, so to speak, when Kashmir Singh was damned to waste a life time …

 
“The reels roll.
Colors of yesteryears
bloom again!”

It’s that time of the year again! Bidding adios to the old while you usher the new year in — sure, we’ve stopped having new year’s and have been having recycled years instead, but that’s a different post though — and getting reminiscent about the best of the movies during the year that’s gone by.

Boilerplate Smallprint: In lieu of BF & NS, this is definitely NOT a definitive list - and having not watched *all* the movies of 2007, I am not in a position to make any claims as such. 

300

What happens when you take a group of artistes, give them a digital canvas and a box of CGI paints with multiple hues of crimson thrown in? A comic book comes alive — Togas, Sandals, Swords, Battles — an epic is unveiled. Kudos to the unflinching storytelling aptly supported by …

Spolier Alert: Please don’t read this post if you haven’t watched the movie “No Smoking”.

Unlike during the Black Friday release, the supreme powers were in my favor this time.

No Smoking was being released in Australia, at a multiplex just 10 minutes away from my home.

I was ecstatic. Booked my tickets in advance.

Day 1 - Show 1

I was too eager to experience the movie, which, in a sense, was a PFC project right from the initiation. I don’t know how to put it in words… it was like a family thing for me… Anurag.. our Anurag… is the director. I haven’t met him or spoke to him - but I still felt that he is someone I know - and told myself that I need to be there.

And… we were there… 9 members… my whole family - dad, mom, b-i-l, …

Once upon a time in India, radios, or transistors as they were called, were the primary mode of entertainment, and Binaca1 was the “most loved toothpaste” all over the country, or at least, the Hindi speaking parts of it.

Posters were the only means of communication when it comes to promoting the movies. There were posters on the walls, in the train stations, in the news papers, and everywhere else. Each poster concept was meticulously designed and hand painted by one person, whose title was publicity artist. This post is to remember some of those designers who excelled in what they did - Eeshwar, Lanka Bhaskar, Ketha, Gangadhar, Dawood, Masthan, Suresh Bujji, Paani, Diwaakar, Bapu - the erstwhile masters of that extinct art!!

Eeswar
 

Kedi Number 1 (Telugu remake of Dus Numbri) starring legendary N.T.Rama Rao (NTR) was a release movie2 in this small town in A.P. And …

It was a destined-to-be combination.

The duo ruled the roost for almost a decade, stealing the hearts and souls of all the movie goers in South India.

This is how it all started.

After producing super hits like Sankarabharanam and Sagarasangamam, Poornodaya brought in a not-so-popular young man, whose artistic debut feature was a commercial dud, to direct their next movie, his second movie.

The grateful young auteur shed his sweat and blood, and spared no effort in directing the movie. The movie got made, pending re-recording. Double positive arrived. Preview theater was booked. Producer, director, financiers - all arrived and watched the movie. The post-preview feedback was lukewarm, and almost hostile.

“What the EFFF did we just watch?”

“Where are the dialogs?”

“Yeah whatever! Weirdo.”

“What’s with all the eyes, hands, feet, shadows, boats, and the prolonged silences?”

“Looks like the fame and the fortunes Poornodaya made off …

Warning: This post contains content that may be found objectionable by some sensitive souls.

It was late 90’s. I was a grad student - and I had a car and the cable TV… HBO, Sundance, USA, Showtime, Comedy Central, and… hold your breath… Playboy.

During then, this one time, we (my gang and I) saw this movie called Prison Heat or something like that.

It’s about a group of innocent female travelers who go on a vacation to one of those police states, somewhere in the Middle East, play innocent mules to drug smugglers, get arrested by the corrupt army officials and get exploited by the prison guards - especially this angel faced babe named Lori Jo Hendrix (can never forget that name) who plays an uncorrupted american girl - she wears powder pink night gowns in the prison as a protection from …

One look at it, and you will realize that it is a typical South Indian village.

The vista evokes nostalgia in every Anna, Chetta, Thambi and Thamma — the rusty red (Mangalore) terracotta tiled roofs on the cute little row of houses that are huddled together like one single cozy family; the dusty roads, all of them ending in unison near one chowk - the center of the village and a major landmark - where a grand colonial looking statue stands aloft ceremonially adorned by the crows and pigeon poop; a post office; a cinema theater - sinima hall - that plays old South Indian movies; a push cart ice cream seller; a huge Pipal tree under which sits a fortune teller, who has decorated the tree with his handmade hand charts that explain his expertise; a beggar clad like a sadhu; a sweetshop and the disillusioned owner …

The movie begins. But the screen’s still black. Then slowly the blackness starts rising up like a curtain, unveiling the eye-piercing brightness which hits you hard.

Then suddenly you, the viewer, realize that the camera, literally, has taken you for a ride — you are in a car which just moved out of the dark garage into a sunny street, and the rising darkness was the garage’s shutters rolling up.

Just to help you appreciate the intelligence of the above scene, I will have to point you to Alfonso Cuarón’s recent hit Children of Men, where he used this same camera movement for one of the crucial scenes.

A classic example of intelligent story telling by camera - making the camera show the character’s point of view, and, at places, become a character itself.

Accident — a movie prophetically named — was one …

Booya!!!

I did it! And it wasn’t too hard. I was so effing fed up with the effing system that it wasn’t effing hard to effing convince myself “mate, it’s okay to break your own effing rules. PassionE (with an uppercase E) is bigger than effing principles”.

And I did it.

And then, there is another angle to it.

I am sure that there isn’t anyone — not even a single soul — left on this forum, besides the dunce-capped yours truly, who haven’t watched Guru D’s passionE yet.

Anyways, now there are none!

May be it’s a no-big-deal thingy to you, but mate, it matters a lot to me.

For the benefit of “hey! I am still clueless” readers, let me explain…

I HAVE WATCHED BLACK FRIDAY!

OH YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

CHAK DINCHUK!! CHAK DINCHUK!! DIPCHIK DIPCHIK DAAAA!!

Yes, it’s a big deal to me. And …