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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 …

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 …

Just returned back from the sets of Gulal.. For more than a week, I was so heavily occupied in the work, the I could not manage to visit the location (currently filming at Chaumu Palace, about 40 kms from Jaipur city).. and then came July 4th, the Independence day of US, became a day of freedom for me as most of my clients were busy spending time at a holiday… So I left early (9.30PM) from the office and directed my car on to the highway. It was an adventurous ride to the location.. I was so heavily engaged in my projects in last few days, that I forgot Vasan told me its Chaumu Palace and I took it for Chaksu (Near Chokhi Dhani, I remember Chokhi Dhani reference in the film so I did not even cared to confirm back) and I set off in a wrong …

Final part of the interview of Director Prakash Jha(PJ), taken by Ajay Brahmatmaj (AB), is presented here.

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[Following is the translation of the Hindi Interview and may not do full justice to the original interview so to read the exact sayings of Prakash Jha, one should go through the original interview. This is simply a trial to expose the interview to those readers who can not read Hindi at all]
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AB: Which kind of influences you were having while making Daamul?

PJ: Impact of realistic cinema was certainly there. My own thinking and understanding was also developing continuously. I developed my own craft in direction and I conceived and further developed characters according to the necessity of that particular theme. Honestly speaking Daamul was the first film which followed my own liking and had my own style and touch. These four …

Second part of the interview of Director Prakash Jha(PJ), taken by Ajay Brahmatmaj (AB), is presented here.

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[Following is the translation of the Hindi Interview and may not do full justice to the original interview so to read the exact sayings of Prakash Jha, one should go through the original interview. This is simply a trial to expose the interview to those readers who can not read Hindi at all]
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AB: You still make documentaries but if we talk about feature films then how this journey was started and why and when did you think that you should make feature films?

PJ: I was thinking about making feature films also. I had written scripts for the two stories of Shaival, Kalchakra and Daamul. I was searching producers for Daamul. Man Mohan Shetty had become my friend by then. He said …

To continue the series “Initial Steps”, excerpts from an interview of Director Prakash Jha,
taken by Ajay Brahmatmaj , are presented here.

Ajay writes

I had started my interview series with the interview of Prakash Jha. He is my elder and to some extent my guide also. Perhaps it is difficult, at present, to evaluate the contribution of Prakash Jha to Hindi cinema but he has brought a new language to the Hindi cinema.

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[Following is the translation of the Hindi Interview and may not do full justice to the original interview so to read the exact sayings of Prakash Jha, one should go through the original interview. This is simply a trial to expose the interview to those readers who can not read Hindi at all]
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From now onwards Ajay Bramatmaj will be represented by AB and Prakash Jha …

iView Author: Hemant G.
(New Delhi, India)
EMAIL: withheld

4 BOYS FROM DELHI
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It’s been almost 2 years that I stumbled upon PFC one fine morning in New York and it has continued to inspire me ever since.

My love for filmmaking started when i ran into a book - Rebel Without A Crew by Robert Rodriguez … I can admit i didn’t understand all the technical jargon then… but the seed was sown . ..There has been no looking back since then.. As I immersed myself into cinema of all kind I kept coming across inspiring stories. ..How people have since forever and against all odds gambled everything that they have and directed some mind blowing stuff.

And then I decided that it was time for me as well …

I arrived at the location a full 37 minutes after the witching hour, figuring I’ll still be the first. IST and all. But no, Badmash and Evelyn were standing outside the bar. From their unbridled disappointment at seeing me, I figured they were PFC.

We air kissed our hellos (Not), got a round of drinks and headed to the patio, It was Evelyn’s wedding anniversary, yet she said husband can wait. A PFC Meetup is more important, and hung out with us for most of the evening, while waiting on her husband to pick her up.

It was a small and intimate group and PFC author Shripriya put in a cameo.

I would be lying if I said that I was disappointed with the turn out. Not the folks that came(they were fun, and charming) …

In continuation with the first part of the interview( Ashutosh Gowarikar : I missed the Prem’s role in Maine Pyar Kiya ) of Director Ashutosh Gowarikar, taken by Ajay Brahmatmaj , second and concluding part is presented here.

AB: If you had become a successful actor then we could not have got film like Lagaan and we could have missed the director Ashutosh Gowarikar also.

AG: Yes Yes…I have thought on this many a times. I am not certain about what actor Ashutsoh Gowarikar could have done after becoming successful? But if my early two films Pehla Nasha and Baazi had worked even then also Lagaan could not have been made. It was possible then that in my old age perhaps I could have tried to make such a film. Perhaps there would not have been existed any need to do so. My producers may feel …

iView Author: DT (Mumbai, India)
EMAIL:
withheld
10th Osian’s Cinefan Mumbai film festival……

The next edition of Osian’s 10 day Delhi-based Cinefan festival, begins with its 2 day Mumbai edition at the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai.

The event will be held on the 13th and 14th of June, with a felicitation of Shammi Kapoor as its centrepiece. The helmer shall be honoured at the Grand Finale after a screening of Shakti Samantha ’s Kashmir Ki Kali.

The 2 day preview shall also witness the screening of some of the highlights of the upcoming 10 day Cinefan in Delhi, to be held between the 10th and 20th of July. Selections include new works by Hou Hsiao Hsien, …

As informed in the post Director is like a God walking on earth : Shyam Benegal a new series “Initial Steps” is started with this interview of Director Ashutosh Gowarikar.

Thanks a lot to Ajay Brahmatmaj who provided his detailed Interview with
Ashutosh Gowarikar to PFC.

Here is the first part of the interview.

From now onwards Ajay Bramatmaj will be represented by AB and Ashutosh Gowarikar by AG.

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[Following is the translation of the Hindi Interview and may not do full justice to the original interview so to read the exact sayings of Ashutosh Gowarikar, one should go through the original interview. This is simply a trial to expose the interview to those readers who can not read Hindi]
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AB: Where you spent your childhood. You belong to Mumbai or came here from outside. When you were introduced …

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 …

Orson Welles, Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, Andrei Tarkovsky, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Bernardo Bertolucci, Frank Capra, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Fellini, Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonioni, Roman Polanski, Sydney Pollack, Steven Soderbergh, James Ivory etc etc
and
PC Barua, Sohrab Modi, Mehboob, Kedar Sharma, Bimol Roy, K. Asif, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Mani Ratnam, Gulzar, Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Mani Kaul, Basu Chaterjee, Hrishikesh Mukharjee, Chetan Anand, BR Chopra, Yash Chopra, Vijay Anand, Ramesh Sippy, Shekhar Kapur etc etc are the names which have been taking us on the visual tours to show us their chosen stories and we have been enjoying these virtual rides sitting under mesmerisation of the over all phenomenon of the cinema. We have laughed and cried by seeing their films. Rather we have been re-living again and again all 9 rasas by watching …

This man makes movies as if he was making jalebis..ek ke baad ek…His Sarkar Raj releases this weekend. I will surely watch it, no doubt, afterall its a freaking RGV movie, however bad it might be..it still is RGV movie.

While on that note of Aamir getting splendid reviews from Raja Sen of Rediff, i chanced upon this trailer of Phoonk from RGV. Well the trailer says it all. Its about Black Magic. Its starts off with the camera going mighty close to a broomstick, to a woman cooking in the kitchen to a man shaving in his bathroom..and then the shrill…we have seen it all in RGV trailer, but for some odd reason, this one did excite me.

It has all the trademark RGV in it..ajeeb camera angles, the suspense building formula, et al. But, one thing that i liked about this trailer was …

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 …

Image Courtesy ScifiMovie

iView Author:
Kenny Basumatary
(Mumbai, India)

Email: Withheld

PFCWallahs, Cast Your Terminators

I just came across one very very good piece of news, one more piece of good news and one really, really bad piece of news. The very very good news is James Cameron’s finally coming up with another film - Avatar, a sci-fi/action/adventure film scheduled to release in May 2009.

The other piece of good news is Christian Bale has signed on to restart the Terminator franchise with a movie titled Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. The really, really bad news is that the director is going to be McG, the guy behind the extremely irritating Charlie’s Angels movies.

Image Courtesy Cinematical

There’s something in me that …

The Trailer is out!
I caught it along during Indy and it looks EPIC (kindly overlook the malnourished, pale Kidman if u wish)
its Baz’s AUSTRALIA. Enough said! Take a look

AUSTRALIA is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II. In it, an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local (Hugh Jackman) and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world’s most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. With his new film, Luhrmann is painting on …

Dr. Jones is back… While many of the heroes and super heroes have not gone beyond a triology at the most, its his fourth outing in 27 years.. Though it took nineteen years in the re.re.return to yet another adventure journey and in the mean time Harrison Ford, the 46 year old “Junior” of The Last Crusade(1989) now grown up to 65 year old in so many years, the adventure ride continues with same fun and excitement with the entertainment never seems to end.

After all “Its all about the mileage, not the years”.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull is releasing tomorrow world wide with great expectations from the Indy Die Hards all over..

The BO is excited too as per this report
Expert trackers agree that Harrison Ford’s Indy Jones might whip J. Depp’s Captain Jack’s …

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!!!

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 …