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Taran

Taran Who?

Taran Adarsh, the one in the whole of India who always publishes the first review for any Bollywood release.

So the first review comes in. Now Singh is Kinng is supposed to be complete masala - that is a given. I’m looking forward to it.

Sadly the first review comes in from Taran Adarsh and it almost kills the movie, even though he praises it.

Out of his entire vocabulary of 12.5 words, Adarsh begins his review like this

Just a word of caution before you watch this film: SINGH IS KINNG is not for the intellectuals or those pretending to be one. It’s not for the hard-nosed critics either.

Hole 1: Not for intellectuals, hard nosed critics (check Adarsh’s past records where every second review of a big flick will have this line)

What does this mean? SiK is for idiots or those who pretend to be an idiot? …

IView Author : Magik
Email : magikworx@gmail.com

Have been waiting for this day for what seemed like an eternity. Yay. A story that needed to be told, was ticking away within me, like a time bomb waiting to exlpode. I knew I had to make it. I knew it would be made. When? How? that I didn’t. Then last year, I came across PFCOne Film Fest. I promised myself that this will be the screening ground for my semi-autobiographical film - Ek Deewana Tha (EDT).

Due to some inexplicable oddbal situations I could not submit my entry. The last date passed by, like just another deadline. I kicked myself. Got drunk. No make that totally sloshed. Another wasted opportunity. Life goes on. EDT kept coming back over the months on various occasions (which almost always involved me getting drunk). I kept on developing & …

One of the things that I do to kill time is a IMDB search on what my favorite actors and directors next movies are. I just made a small list of my anticipated movies to watch out for in 2009( 2008 has been boring according to me so far). This list was made keeping in mind the abstractness and complexity of the plots. I have excluded the indie movies here.

Rendezvous with Rama

Director: David Fincher
*ing: Morgan Freeman

Rendezvous with Rama is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke published in 1972. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a thirty-mile-long cylindrical alien starship that passes through Earth’s solar system.The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its
mysteries. Because all extant names for Roman and Greek gods have been used on other newly-discovered celestial objects at this …

Aapke Deewane is a romantic comedy film having love triangle in the plot. AKD was the debut film for Rakesh Roshan as a Producer.

AKD is a fun film like other films of Rishi Kapoor, came out in the 70s. Influences of films like Khel Khel Mein and Rafoo Chakkar can be found in AKD. Campus based fun of KKM is present in AKD also and like Rafoo chakkar, male character here also pretends to be a woman to earn some money and to win the heart of his love interest.

Hritik Roshan also made his debut in acting with this film. In same year 1980 Hritik was also seen in the film Aasha which was made by his maternal grandfather J Om Prakash. After few years he appeared again as a child actor in Bhagwan Dada. …

This year has seen some abysmal productions, some “just there” kinds and a smattering of good ones. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, as the case may be), reviews and blogs have torn into some of the movies that have done well. Some horrible ones have just been put aside, dismissed, if that is the right word. I foresee some more in this category starting with “C Kkompany” or whatever the numerologically inane name is!!
Frankly, cinema, as we know it, and all of us discuss very energetically here, is going through one of its most difficult transitions in its history of 80 odd years in India. Let me put up some unpalatable facts here:
Arthouse or alternative cinema is not doing well in India and this is …

In Shallow Hal, Anthony Robbins asks Jack Black, “Would you rather have a girl with half a brain or only one breast?” to which the reply is “Is this breast big?”
 I don’t really know why I wrote that. I was trying to think of a witty analogy to describe my feelings about Ugly Aur Pagli, because the Ugly half, Ranvir Shorey, is expectedly fantastic, whereas the Pagil half, Mallika Sherawat, falls waaaaayyyyyy short of angel-faced Gianna Jun, the heroine of My Sassy Girl.
 For those who don’t yet know, Ugly Aur Pagli is a remake of the Korean film My Sassy Girl, which happens to be one of my all-time favourites. I’m a big fan of the Korean rom-coms that …

Singh seems to be flavor of the season..Sardar Manmohan Singh winning a confidence motion towards the end of July and in the process nuking the entire opposition..Then Harbhajan Singh mending his way and doing the Ajantha Mendis by taking six wickets in an innings in the second Test Match between India and Sri Lanka a day before..

And now Singh Is King screaming to scorch the screens the same day the Beijing Olympics are inaugurated..

Akshay Kumar in the role of a Singh with designer turban and gaudy sherwani—trying to improve upon the sartorial tastes of Daler Mehndi..Akshay Kumar as a Singh!..Ye baat kuchh hazm nahin hui..

Many before him have tried to don the pagdi of a Sardar in their screen avatars..Amitabh Bachchan did it in AB TUMHARE HAWALE WATAN SAATHIYO..He had also done a different take of a Sardar in the movie SUHAAG where he tries to persuade Shashi Kapoor …

HEAVY RAINS LASH MUMBAI - I found myself staring at this byline scrolling across the bottom of most TV news channels on Sunday evening, 27th July.

This news had me distraught for a few minutes.

 I was scheduled to leave for Mumbai early next morning on a three day trip, which included amongst other things submission of scripts for the Sankalan script lab. I had it all neatly planned out. Arrival in Mumbai at 8.30 am, a visit to the Film writers association office at 2 pm, followed by a trip to the Biascope office, return in time to browse the shops at Hill road and then catch up with an old school friend over drinks and dinner.

Would these plan materialise? Would it stop raining? Or were we going to have a near repeat of the floods that happened a few years ago? The latter seemed improbable, I’d read somewhere that the administration had worked on …

It is one of the most awaited film of the year, apparently. The film is directed by Anees Bazmee who has given successful hits like ‘No Entry’ and ‘Welcome’. Yes, both films were shite, but they were hits! You cannot beat that. The film stars Akshay Kumar - he is the king of entertainment. And he has been giving successfully films last so many years. And there is Katrina Kaif! Sighs! Hence there is a lot of hype/buzz around the film. Or I have been watching only one music channel. Anyway, I am looking forward to this movie. I reckon it could be a decent film, in some parts.

I saw ‘Welcome’ last year on Christmas day. It is one of the most illogical and ridiculous film I have ever seen. A cartoon would have far more logic than the film had. ‘Welcome’ is a bad non-animated cartoon - that …

Harry Callahan: Where’s the girl?
The Killer: You tried to kill me!
Harry Callahan: If I tried to do that your head would be splattered all over this field - now where’s the girl?

As we move from the opening telescopic view of a psychopath killer eyeing a PYT bathing in the rooftop sun set against a brilliantly sparse, sexed-up Lalo Schifrin jazz, blood slowly brings in the elements of crime so smoothly in the City by the Bay perfection and serenity. In enters an iconic cop, call him a detective if you will, the frame and moment he enters you know he will satisfy all theories of ‘exception’ that you know of in context of cinema. Adding the much needed spice to a 70’s classic narrative, set-piece grandeur, Inspector Harry Callahan walks the sun like he is gracing the moon bathed coastline of North Beach, his cool coefficient doesn’t need …

iView Author: Rita Bhattacharjee
(Jacksonville, Florida, USA)
EMAIL: Withheld

Title: Satyajit Ray’s Pikoo - An Affair to Remember

Pikoo is a short film Satyajit Ray made for the French television based on one of his own short stories, Pikoo’s Diary. It tells the story of a young boy, Pikoo, who comes from an upper middle class family comprising his father, mother, and ailing grandfather, who’s been bedridden after a paralytic stroke.

One night Pikoo (Arjun Guha Thakurta) wakes up to overhear his parents arguing, but he doesn’t realize it’s because his father (Soven Lahiri) has found out that his wife (Aparna Sen) has been having an extra marital affair. The next day Pikoo stays back home since his school is off for the day and receives a call for his mother from a family friend played bu Victor Banerjee (whom he calls kaku, meaning uncle), …

Aamir Khan, Imran Khan, Abbas Tyrewala, Mansoor Khan.

They are the above-the-line talent associated with the recent smash Jaane Tu, and there were quite a few “technicians” with similar sounding names. What they have in common is that they are culturally muslim as indicated by their names. I don’t know what their personal religious practices are and it doesn’t concern me. or YOU.

Jaane Tu is the archetypal Bollywood film, a youthful romance musical with some comedy, melodrama, and action thrown in. Most of our matinee idols have made their debuts with such films. They all have one more commonality. The protagonists are never muslim characters. This actually also extends to other genres such as thrillers, mindless comedies, mindful comedies and David Dhawan films.

The only genre film that regularly portrays muslim characters is the gangster film.

I should be a little more specific. I am talking about characters where them being …

Jan 1st 2001. The first day of the year. I was at I think one of the lowest points in my life. Ironically, I was standing at the highest point above the ground I’d ever been. Maybe 100ft and I was scared when I looked down. No not scared, I was shit scared. But I jumped. I mustered up whatever little courage I had left and jumped. As I hurtled towards the ground, I lost track of everything..time, my mind, my sight. It was only when the bungee cord pulled me back up did I regain my senses. The feeling was exhilarating. The throbbing in my head wasn’t. The sudden rush of blood to my head made it hurt. Actually, I was at the Andheri Sports complex where a bungee jumping camp was being organised. I had four hours …

I received a text message from a friend last week who had just finished Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The one thing that intrigued him, in this accomplished work, was this line somewhere at the end of the book – “since then, I have felt rather like Kurtz waiting for my Marlowe.” What did that refer to, was the question in the message.

And I was reminded of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and its continuing relevance over a century since it was first published. Mohsin Hamid cleverly brings up the reference at the end to round up his view of the bearded narrator, once among the best and the brightest at Princeton, who has turned renegade and his rendezvous at a Lahore café with a possible undercover American assassin out there to settle scores.

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (often featuring at the top of the heap of the greatest books …

We’re back again. After the last post of Prof Artha Shastri, we have been inundated with questions. The Professor picks up 4 that caught his fancy.

Q1

Dear Profji,

A few weeks back I watched ‘Mukhbir’ at a multiplex. I noticed that they had an interesting scheme running. You could refund your ticket at the end of the film if you didn’t like it. After I finished watching the movie, I felt I had to get that refund but I baulked at the prospects of standing in that long queue. But I remain intrigued by this ploy of the Producers. Is there an economic rationale to all of this?

Yours etc
“main aaj bhi phenke hue paise nahin uthata”

A1

Dear “main aaj bhi phenke hue paise nahin uthata”,

I share your grief of watching Mukhbir and what’s worse there was no money back guarantee for all of 4 people who watched that movie with me. But your …

First moment is always special. It can be first ever meeting, first ever visit to a place, first ever watching of some piece of art etc. It can be first day of month, first month of a year or first hour of a day or first moment of the beginning of anything which we like.

There is always a different energy level before the people in these “first” moments. But in present days hectic life style and rush of meeting up the dead lines, perhaps one does not always remain alert to really notice that today is the first day of another month. Some people notice that its first date of a month but that excitement has been lost which used to be there till some years ago. Perhaps money is more and so much is happening around the people that sensitivity needed for this kind of small thing has …

All that discussion on Munshiji in Pavan Jha’s post made me rewind down the memory lane to my plus one class when we had short stories collection for language (both english and Thamizh) non-detailed. The English non-detailed had some regular O Henry stories. The Thamizh non-detailed story had one interesting story by ‘Pudhumai Piththan’. The short story was titled ‘Paalvannam pillai’.

I have forgotten the story as such - what happened to the character etc., However the sketch painted by pudhumai piththan still stays with me. It is an awesome recollection of a typical Indian householder working as a lowly ranked clarke in a government office who speaks only in monosyllables in the office - and that one syllable is usually ‘Yes sir’ to his superiors. At home though he is terror to his wife and children. An absolute monarch who never has heard his wife or children say anything contrasting …

July 31

One of the most talked about film of the year, Kuselan (Kuselan in Tamil, Kathanayakudu in telugu) is releasing today.. The film makers and distributors are eyeing at a bumper opening as Pyramid Saimira has already bought theatrical rights for more than 60 crores. What makes Kuselan an extravagant affair is just one name Rajanikanth. The film is remake of last year’s critically acclaimed Malayalam film Katha Parayumbol and though Rajanikanth is just doing a Guest appearance of a Super Star (played by Mammootty in original), the film is customised to cash on each and every frame that Rajani appears in.. (Check out the trailer which confirms this). The film is produced by K Balachandar and being directed by P Vasu, a Rajani Regular.. The biggest superstar of India though is just playing a guest role, …

iView Author: rusted rick (Kolkata, India)
EMAIL: ritchick.mozumdar [at] gmail [dot] com

Title: LEATHERHEADS (2008) : a failed dig at screwball comedy

I remember those days from my childhood, those warm summer afternoons when it was too hot to even put your feet outside. Summer vacations were on and stuck at home I had nothing to do all afternoon but get bored until its was 5 o’clock and I was finally permitted to go outside and play.

Well not being of the habit of sleeping on afternoons ever, I used to sit and watch films with my uncle, who by that time was a retired unmarried man. Every time he went on tour abroad he used to bring home these video cassettes of Hollywood films. Mostly classic Hollywood blockbusters, dramas and comedies. They had the most beautiful looking actors, with perfectly shaven face and curled hair, …

THANK YOU Navketan, Dev Saab and Vijay Anand to give us Jewel Thief. Your film, Jewel Thief, denies to loose its charm even after 41 years. 41 years is a time period long enough to forget even the places where one enjoys the formative years in the childhood. Lovers of Jewel Thief exist in all the age groups. It does not matter at which age they saw it, film remains in the list of their top favourite films after that one watching. Years don’t matter here. Some saw it 41 years ago when it was released in 1967. Some saw it in later years but one fact remains true for all the generations of the different audiences and that is the adhesive power of the film.

Ideally, Jewel Thief can not be discussed as it fulfils the dictum, “Sweet of …