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Few days back I was sitting with a brilliant filmmaker friend of mine and we were discussing casting for his upcoming film. His script is so bloody mature and International that ace filmmakers like Anurag, Shashank or Aditya are excited to get it produced. But the problem is, he is having tough time for casting for the film. We can’t think of anyone else than Irfan or KK. But what if they say no?? What if they don’t have dates?? What if we couldn’t afford them?? I don’t know whether we have shortage of actors or we are not ready to experiment with other actors. Even if we experiment, producer needs star cast.

Now it’s a serious problem. If you are writing a hardcore cult character for your film, we have to count on few faces only, and at certain level even they are getting over used …

Govinda……… govinda…… govinda……… govinda………… goooooovindaaaaaaaa.

I have hearing problem. Left side is almost dead, some medical complication. And now I feel so lucky that after watching Contract, right side is still working. Or I would have no option but to sue the filmmaker.

Had a hard time convincing myself to watch Sarkar Raj. Recently saw it on the net and concluded that “the man has lost his craft”. And I can’t figure out how. I understand if your art doesn’t connect with your fans and audiences or fans and audiences are dumb enough not to understand your art but how do you lose your craft ? Like VVC’s Eklavya, SLB’s Saawariya or AK’s No Smoking. All these films are well crafted, brilliantly mounted. Anyway, being an old Ramu fan, I could not stop myself from watching Contract. Third film of his underworld triology.

Since it was a special screening, when we entered the …

What’s in a name? (Part III)

It’s that time again. Let’s play the marketing game!!! Has your film marketed well, does your title appeal to me, and most importantly will I pay to watch your film?

Again I will throw my disclaimers out. These are mini capsules on what I know about films that are coming out this year. I am not looking up any information for these films, but merely going by what I already know or is obvious from the title, and if I know nothing, I take a wild guess based on the title. The purpose of this is to show the power of marketing in its many facets. All the links are looked up after I say what I gots to say about the film in question. (I only disclaim to save my own ass from being accused of ignorance about …

Sort of in between a rant and musings…

Was at the Sarkar Raj press show at Famous yesterday. Well, as expected was house full. The sixty-seater was exploding with around hundred people from the press (we have SO many reviewers amongst us and not ONE to be proud of???) with so many sitting on the floor, including yours truly.

Well, this is not the first time this has happened. I remember once last year some movie evoked a similar response. And it is when the preview halls are jam-packed that they become the best opportunity to learn something about the cult of our hallowed film journalists/reviewers. That, I felt the same vibes I felt the last time I was among the ‘intellectual elite’ of Bbay’s film-dom and media, I felt an urge to share thoughts on it.

Everyone from Taran Adarsh to Khalid Mohammed to Mayank Shekhar to, I assume, Raja Sen (I …

Before discussing any kind of points, first we must read this wonderful poem of
Jacob Riis

When nothing seems to help
I go and look at a stone cutter
hammering away at his rock
Perhaps a hundred times
without as much as a crack showing in it
Yet at the hundred and first blow
It w’d split in two
And I know it was not
That blow that did it
But all that had gone before together

Keep the essence of the above mentioned poem with you as it will be supporting the whole hypothesis.

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Are you a person related to some parts of cinema? Actor? Director? Producer? Writer? Cinematographer? etc etc ?

You believe that you want to do work, taking cinema ahead and you are not interested in doing regular stuff only? …

He is friggin 34!!!!
Christian Bale is just 34!!!!

Another thing I didnt know about.. (well not just the fact that it involves the resurrected Batman) that theres a Golden Trailer Awards!!!

and guess who won it ?? no prizes for guessing.

After a long, hard-fought battle, the second official trailer for The Dark Knight took home top honors at this year’s Golden Trailer Awards (with a margin of victory of 44%). The contest, held over at USA Today, tallied votes on films from several different categories — all of which were chosen as this year’s Golden Trailer winners earlier in the month. Among the top trailers users had a chance to vote on were Enchanted (Best Animation/Family), Tropic Thunder (Best Comedy), Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (Best Documentary), No Country for Old Men (Best Drama), I am Legend (Best Horror) and Iron Man (Summer 2008 Blockbuster), among …

This was the first teaser of the film and i think its one of the best teasers i have seen in recent times. Smart n very intelligent and one that makes fun of all those body-shody type superstars’ launch….from Roshan junior to junior baweja. As soon as i saw it, i made sure that my roomies, colleagues and friends also see it. Thats what i feel like doing when i like something very much. Share it with everyone. And whats more…tirkit dhana tirkit dhana sounded peppy and it ended with rahman’s superb vocals. The perfect teaser that made me wanting for more…songs, promos and the film.

And then, came out this one…..

And what a fall!! this song killed all my expectations. It has everything that you define “typical” in …

Sensationalism of topics apart - Thamizh film director Bala is one who is never tired of chronicling people whom we dont want to notice in our daily life. He takes his audiences into the fringes of our society showing us people who are literally on their fringes. His latest journey is taking him to Kasi and to people whom we never ever care to notice that they exist. He has creatively collaborated for the first time in his career with an author, an eminent thamizh writer Jeyamohan who has written extensively about characters who live in the same street as you and me, but are totally hidden from our ‘normal’ gaze. Sensational aspects of his next project ‘Naan Kadavul’ are detailed in this behindwoods article. Forgive me for the god awful title for this post!!!

This post has no political or ideological aspirations. It is simple and evocative, that is this hopes to evoke a smile in you. BAS! Thats it!

As the drum rolls are revving up for a historic clash come November (one could argue that the historic clash is already over but still), we will be hit multiple times by messages, arguments, vilifications and so on. I would like to share, a few really nice and KIcKAss 30 sec shorts of the obama campaign which i discovered over the course of this campaign. Please feel free to add to this list, with better ones, good ones, republican ones or even lame ones if you really need to, but make it something worth your effort though.

Obama in 30…

This post, sent in by Mr. Vikas Parihar, was found to be a literal copy of the article published in Dainik Baskar at the following URL: www.bhaskar.com

Please do not send in your iView articles that are not original or do not mention the original article, that your post is based on. Please review the iView guidelines before sending in your posts to PFC for iView.

iView Author:

Vikas Parihar
(Jabalpur, India)
EMAIL:
vikas.parihar [at] yahoo [dot]com

The Story of a Raja and Rani

[this iView post is removed because it was found to be a blatant copy of another article published here]

Michael Jackson did not sing his famous song “Dangerous” keeping Charles Shobhraj in his mind but dangerous word has become synonymous with the name of Charles Shobhraj.

Charles Shobhraj has been one of the most infamous international criminal since 1970s.

As per news a film is going to be made on the life of Charles Shobhraj and Sanjay Dutt has to play the role of a suave criminal.

After playing the simple, golden-hearted Munnabhai, Bollywood top star Sanjay Dutt is set to metamorphose into a cold, calculating serial killer - a la Charles Shobhraj in a film called ‘Charles and I’.

Made by People Pictures, the racy thriller will be helmed by ace director Prawaal Raman and tells the story of the enigmatic French criminal of Indian and Vietnamese origin who sent the …

It’s Cannes time again. And it is time for some of our filmmakers to go and screen their films in the “market”, on space and time bought against hefty sums, outside the festival’s official sections, and then come back and claim through their PR companies – and the ‘anything goes’ media is only too happy to reproduce these claims – that their films have been “screened at Cannes”. (Closer home: would anyone claim that his or her film has been screened at IFFI if it is screened at the market section? The glamour of Cannes is to blame, I guess!)

It is these claims that prompted me to go to the Cannes website archive two years ago, and prepare an exhaustive list of all Indian films screened (in any official section) in Cannes since its first edition. Here it goes – in alphabetical order, and updating for 2007 & 2008 …

Don ka Intzaar to 11 mulkon kee police kar rahee hai
par Don ko pakadna mushkil hee nahin namumkin bhee hai

Amitabh Bachchan , the owner of baritone, had won the hearts of the audiences when he had delivered above mentioned dialogue in old Don, using pauses at most appropriate places to make it more impressive .

And this is not about his screen persona Don in the film, the real person AB has also been elusive and it was KBC through which ordinary people knew and saw him more.
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Shekhar Kapur could be said as one of the early birds in this forest of bloggers and he has been interacting with people since years through his homepage based blog.

Shekhar writes not only on cinema related topics but whatever appeals to him. His social, political, spiritual views can be read through his blog. His creative writings, both …

April 16 2008, News comes

Malaika Arora Khan and husband Arbaaz Khan are reportedly heading for a divorce.

The news came as a surprise to many, who considered their 10-year marriage to be quite solid. The couple has a son, Arhaan.

Reasons for the split are not know yet.
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The news comes as a surprise especially at a time when Malaika and Arbaaz are getting ready for their Kannada film together, Shaadi Ke Side Effects. The film, which is about marriage and infidelity, sees Malaika in her first lead role. One wonders if the news of the divorce at this time is a kind of promotion for their film.

Till now Arbaaz and Malaika have been taken as a couple enjoying happily their marriage. It was a bit odd news and there were doubts about its sanctity. Was it nothing but a publicity stunt?

18 April 2008 and news …

There has been discussions here before on Movies, their marketing and challenges we face in dealing with piracy - i say ‘we’ here for convenience sake (devlish-eheh). India Today organised a conclave with different entrepreneurs and main speakers Aamir Khan, Shekhar Kapur (moderator) and Ashok Amritraj recently (i believe they do it ever year) and aamirkhan.org has put up videos of the event on Youtube for all of us to see.

Aamir had this to say in an interview at the Conclave

Q: Taare Zameen Par touched many hearts. Do you think you have been successful in integrating commercial and art cinema?
Firstly, I don’t believe in the concept of art and commercial cinema. I have never distinguished them. For me, the main aim is make popular films which cater to the popular market, to the masses. To me, the audience is the one that decides. Cinema is an art form in itself. …

Its not everyday that a bunch of filmmakers I like, get together and converse on the medium. For such occasions I always had to depend on film festivals or even take a trip back in time during those glory days of DD. Most such occasion are fruitful when the moderator/interviewer is as well versed or at least someone who can hold his/her own amongst such august company.

Imagine, the thrill when Sudhir, presented the link to this gup-shup between Anurag, Navdeep, Rajat conducted by none other than Bharadwaj Rangan.

All about Old vs New Parallel Cinema - a lovely read this.

Excerpts

Nearly two decades after the demise of what was called Parallel Cinema, three filmmakers from a new age of non-mainstream cinema open up about then and now.

B Rangan: What is your personal opinion of the Parallel Cinema movement of the 1970s/80s?

Rajat Kapoor: I think great beginnings were made. There …

There are speculations
that Aditya Chopra’s third directorial venture Rab ne bana dee jodi (RNBDJ) may have inspirations from My Fair Lady (MFL), the 1964 musical film.

Classic film MFL, was based on the musical My Fair Lady, which itself had roots in the play, Pygmalion, written by George Bernard Shaw.

Basu Chaterjee had also adapted the play of Bernard Shaw in to the film, Man Pasand.

Basu Da’s Man Pasand, was perfectly an Indianised version of the play. Man Pasand, though it also followed the same content as MFL but it was still different in treatment and thus it could stand as an independent film in its own way.

Though even star cast has not been finalized by now for the RNBDJ but media has started the speculations. And the only poster released by now does not give any clue that it may have …

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 …

Theres no way I can remotely hope to recount the effect of watching “The Killing Fields”, no amount of words can effectively portray the heart wrenching effect the movie had on me and millions who saw it. Regardless of ‘when’ you watch it, it still resonates within you, the emotional aspect of the story as much as the craft of narrating this true story visually.

This comment on IMDB says it all,

“Based on the Khmer Rouge revolution in Cambodia, this is an excellent tale of hardship and friendship. Basically director Roland Joffe` did an wonderful job in exposing the detailed facts so simply in the film that you believe that you are in that time in person. The two actors, Sam Waterson and Haing Ngor both displayed godlike pieces of acting. It’s unfortunate Waterson couldn’t join Ngor in Academy Awards. In addition, the director’s credit is to highlight both the …