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The year has been virtually empty when it comes to film releases . Those that managed to get released before the strike were all major disappointments and the year has been so far not good . The first half of 2009 has almost got over and now we finally have a film that one can look forward to , New York . The film’s subject matter is known to everyone and this film is not a typical entertainer . When a production house like Yashraj makes a film like this it is bound to get a bit commercialized . What matters though is that does the core subject matter of the film gets lost under the glossy outside .

The answer to that question is no . Kabir Khan is an intelligent film maker and he …

1941: World War II was raging on in Europe and, back home in India, Tagore passed away. The year also saw the first trilingual production of an Indian film—Wadia Movietone’s The Court Dancer or Raj Nartaki, directed by Modhu Bose (1900-1969), which was released in English, Hindi, and Bengali. According to the film credits, The Court Dancer was “the first Indian film with dialogue in English to be entirely produced in India with an all-Indian personnel”.

Once, in the late 1980s, Doordarshan broadcast the English version of The Court Dancer in the late-night slot. (Unfortunately, old classics are typically relegated to the hours of slumber.) After finishing my school homework well in advance, I was up that night with my video recorder to capture this momentous piece of Indian film history. I was very …

iView Author: Varun Grover (Mumbai, India )

Varun, a long time PFC reader, is out with his first movie as a co-writer.

Bachhon ki film? Who cares

Disclaimer: This is not an appeal to the readers to go out and watch this film because ‘humne isse khoon pasiney se banaaya hai’. Not a gaali-bhara-post to those who won’t go out. Not an endorsement of small/indie/thoughtful films we need badly. Not a rant against biggies and ‘Kites-flying’ mehlon-mein-rahne-waale-bade-producers….

What it is then? Well…it’s a story told many times before, by all who have made a film or been a part of it. And still, it’s something that needs to be repeated. And since flash-cuts seem to be the most preferred way on PFC articles, let me steal the format without any sharm-lihaaj.

CUT TO:

MAY 2005

I was new to Mumbai. Had …

iView Author : Nikhil V.

Nikhil V. is the writer a writer working with Sujoy on a few projects. He’s filling in for Sujoy, who is caught up in the post production work of Aladin.

ON SPENDING 2 MINUTES WITH ‘ALADIN’

It is strange this had to start in tears.

More than 4 years and countless sacrifices, sleepless nights, the kind of pressures none of us could even imagine, de-prioritizing and putting off everything, sometimes even the most important things in our lives: kids birthday parties, friends’ weddings, promised visits to parents, anniversaries, time with loved ones; losing sleep, losing weight, losing hair, losing our mind, finding faith, finding an unknown strength among …

iView Author: Nivedita Ramakrishnan (California, USA )

Email: niveditaramakrishnan [at] gmail.com

David Lean’s Hobson’s Choice (1954) and the art of straddling realms

There lived in England, between 1545 and 1631, a man named Hobson who owned a horse-rental business. He was quirky in that in he would rent out horses only according to his choice. It was, quite literally, Hobson’s choice for his customer who could either ride away in the horse that was offered or not ride at all. By the end of the film, David Lean’s Hobson’s Choice (1954) turns out to be exactly that—an instance of Hobson’s choice—for the portly Henry Hobson (played by Charles Laughton, 1899-1962), who has no say anymore, neither at home nor in his business. The film comes a full circle with the authoritarian, although bumbling, Hobson of the …

iView Author: Saurabh Jaiswal (Indore, India )

Email: mail_saurabh3 [AT] yahoo.com

New York : Music Review

New York is the first big film to hit the screens after the long strike between the producers and multiplex owners and also Yashraj’s first film for this year . Yashraj had a terrible last year with RNBDJ being the solo hit of the year and they would expect to start this year on a positive note . This film by Kabir Khan of Kabul Express fame is based on different subject matter and is not usual Yashraj entertainer . The film as we all know has the backdrop of 9/11 WTC attacks and the story revolves around that incident . The trailers of this film had hit the cinema halls long back along with Rab Ne.. but the release …

iView Author: Rahul Surendran (Cochin, India )

Email: godfader [AT] gmail.com

Two murders and a Kid’s Atonement

Disclaimer:

First things first. Sorry. This isn’t an article on Cinema. At all. But, it was a stray thought about a film which triggered this post off. Just an old memory. An accidental, involuntary recollection.

Prologue:

I was watching this interesting interview on television with Malayalee actor Prithviraj. He was speaking of his films and the talk diverted to one of his films, ‘Vargam’. Though Prithvi was exceptional in the movie, it turned out to be a dud at the BO. The storyline of the film was so similar to the yesteryear Mohanlal classic, ‘Devasuram’.

The basic theme of both the films is that of sinning and subsequent reformation of the hero. The plot is a oft-told one: …

iView Author: Jonivestal (Mumbai, India)

Email: jonivestal [at] hotmail [dot] com

Non Film Industry Unions Demand Compensation

“THE FILM INDUSTRY SHOULD COMPENSATE US!!!”
A mob of professionals’ alleged demand rocks the biggest film industry in the world

Times of Media News Agency

Mumbai: Since last two days, angry mobs have laid siege outside Film City, Goregaon demanding compensation from the film fraternity. In what seems to be a first of its kind, various non-filmi unions such as the Maids’ Union, Drivers’ Union, Construction Workers’ Unions, Waiters’ Union, Cooks’ Union etc. have come together for a common cause, that they be compensated for the financial emotional losses that they were incurring because of the films being made in India.

This comes as …

iView Author: Nick (Phoenix, USA)

Email: withheld

Baader-Meinhof: Urban Guerillas or Barbaric Terrorists

As the Rajapaksa government completes it rout of the Tamil tigers, eroding the last remains of the Eelam to a 60×40 box buried 10 feet below, the debate rages on. A separatist martyr or an executed terrorist, a freedom fighter or a merciless murderer? The inventor of suicide bombing or the creator of Eelam? The assassin of Rajiv Gandhi or the savior of the Tamil aspirations? Who is Prabhakaran? My father, a core business once quizzed an adolescent me, “You are neither Tamil nor Sinhalese. Prabhakaran, LTTE, T.N.P (He meant TNT ) are not even in your history books and …

iView Author: Arjun Narayanan (Noida, India)

Email: arju1987 [at] hotmail [dot] com

The undying torch of Satyakam

There are times when a work of art goes unrecognised in the public eye and is less talked of in the same breath with other works of art by the later generations. Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Satyakam, perhaps is, one such work. After the success of Anupama, Mukherjee went on to turn the light of truth inwards. The result was Satyakam.

Satyakam begins with Sanjeev Kumar’s voice over, who tells the mythological tale of Satyakamjabala, a boy who inherits his mother’s name instead of his father’s as his lineage is doubtful. The movie shifts to the year 1946. Satyapriya (Dharmendra) along with his friend Naren builds a bright dream of …

iView Author: Akash Kaushik (Delhi, India)

Email: akashkaushik_25 [at] yahoo [dot] com

DEATH IN OUR FILMS

It is said that death is ultimate truth and when ever death comes to my mind, what also comes is our films… because as a true filmi bug, i use to correlate everything with our bollywood films. This is very strange that we all know that death will come one day but still we are not able to accept it…well leave it, we’ll discuss this on some other day. So, here i am discussing about death in our bollywood films, i think the best is defined by Big B in Anand in beautiful lines as :-

Maut tu ek kavitaa hai mujhse ek kavita ka vada hai milegi mujhko
doobti nabzon mein jab dard ko neend aane lage
zard sa chehra lekar …

iView Author: Nivedita Ramakrishnan (California, USA)

Email: niveditaramakrishnan [at] gmail [dot] com

Rantings of an old-movies buff

I sit in my California apartment, happily surrounded by my old, tottering VHS tapes of Hindi films from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Like King Midas with his gold, I proudly survey my precious collection, which is my only tangible link to a world that is far away in both space and in time. Having just embarked on the process of digitizing my film collection, I realize, though, that I will have to fortify myself. Case in point: When my tape of Calcutta New Theatres’ film Wapas (1943) jumps, my heart jumps too—heavily. The pain of seeing that vintage, irreplaceable treasure in that tattered condition is no less than the pain of seeing a dearest person wasting away. In my …

iView Author: Vishal Chaturvedi (Bangalore, India)

Email: vishalc2005[at] gmail [dot] com

Stanley Kubrick: The creative genius

A character in a movie is usually defined with reference to the script; it does not exist beyond the confines of the script. The character exists because the story needs to progress, the There may be some film-makers who try to flesh-out the character by mulling over the likely responses to a designed situation. But a rare few see m to think of the characters as actual entities beyond the action–response cycle. The peculiarities of the character are pre-defined, and it does not usually grow, it does not evolve into a more violent, a more loving or a more disgusting person as the story progresses. His mannerisms, his gait, his eccentricities, his dialects, the people he loves or hates, are …

iView Author: ScriptLarva (New Delhi, India)

Email: turn360degree [at] hotmail [dot] com

The ‘character versus plot’ debate in scriptwriting

(Warning: spoilers for Dev.D, Race, Swades)

A lot has been said about this. But I thought I should add some points.

Basically the debate is whether development of a story starts from a set of interesting characters or an interesting plot thread. The question may sound absurd or irrelevent. As long as one develops a story, what does it matter whether you start from a character or a plot twist? But it does matter to the final product. And I think that remembering from where you started will help to improve the script.

For example consider Dev.D. From where did it start? Creative process most probably started on imagining Dev and Paro and Chandra as contemporary individuals …

iView Author: Arjun Narayanan (UP, India)

Email: arju1987 [at] hotmail.com

The Multiple Roles of Bhumika

How will it be for an actress to act like an actress? Effortless, one may think. But one gets used to ‘act’ different roles to such an extent that one often forgets to ‘live’ it. Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika is the tale of one such actress, who, in the course of living different roles, forgets to live her life. And by the time she realises it, she has crossed miles in her life, the clock of time being irreversible.

The young Usha is a free spirited, sensitive girl. Her caring self is portrayed in the scene where she runs with her goat to save it from the knife of her mother and refuses to eat when served the same for lunch. Her …

iView Author: Gaurang (Pune, India)

Email: j.gaurang [at] gmail [dot] com

Frozen : Access Denied

My experience of Frozen was a Déjà vu. Not in the terms of its content, but the emptiness, the frustration and resentment, which I experience when a supposedly awesome film leaves me blank, confused, indifferent and untouched.

I still remember seeing Taxi Driver few years back. One of the most appreciated Scorcese feature. I saw it, tried to feel it but in vain and ended with frustration of not connecting with Travis Bickle (except for 2 scenes, one when he takes the girl to a shady porn theater and the “You talking to me?” scene). I consoled myself by telling “Boy!! This is just your initial foray into the cinema of the west. Don’t worry, it will take time.” But I was …

iView Author: Biswa Prasun Chatterji (Mumbai, India)

Email: biswaprasun [at] gmail [dot] com

A postscript on remembering Harisadhan Dasgupta – a forgotten filmaker

In response to interest generated by my blog on Harisadhan Dasgupta I
write this as a postscript. I agree,the incidents that I remember about
his eventful life are enough to make a movie spanning several nations and
diverse set of International movers and shakers of a bygone era. Allow me
to recollect one by one. But please be assured that by this article I do
not try to malign anybody, living or dead. These are about interesting
individuals and their far more interesting choices about life. And these
are not figments of my imagination. Harisadhan himself told me and I am
writing these from my memory.

Ingrid Bergman and Isabella Rossellini…..both came to Calcutta to meet
Harisadhan.

…

iView Author: Jonivestal (Mumbai, India)

Email: jonivestal(at)hotmail(dot)com

Film Titles Galore

Ever since I stumbled upon PFC, I had been wanting to write my own blog. But like in most cases, I couldn’t come up with an apt filmi topic to write about. I did a feature film as a production assistant some few years ago and there were some funny incidents related to it when I travelled to and fro from Allahabad where most of the shooting took place. This post would have suited PFC but then I had already posted something about it on another blog site and since PFC rules didn’t allow reposting, well…

Ok back to the numerable nights I spent lying awake thinking what to blog about. And after tearing my hair out at times,I hit upon the idea why not write …

iView Author: ahmad raza (Allahabad, India)

Email: raza000 [at] gmail [dot] com

An ode to jim morrison

Some say he was a poet

Some say he was a ghost

Sashayed on parapets

Of roofs and lives alike

Punctured with images

From an otherwise plain childhood

They pinched him every now and then

He dabbled with pain

Death was his high

Words were his flight

The snake was his respite

He traveled all alone

Whether they were his barred caves

With Indians and lions

He talked only to himself

And listened only to himself

Writing fresh chapters

Experiencing gravity-less highs

Words cascaded from his mouth

In the voice of gods

He listened to his voice when it came out

And heard gods speak through him

He saw life standing from a bridge

Which parted the known from unknown!

And felt torn apart in both directions

Like he felt …

iView Author: Gaurang (Pune, India)

Email: j.gaurang [at] gmail [dot] com

Harishchandrachi Factory: We all owe a bit to Dadasaheb

Q. What if Dadasaheb Phalke hadn’t ventured into making a drama out of moving pictures?
What if he wasn’t determined enough to overcome the financial crunch and societal disdain?

A. Probably our film industry would have been running 10 years late or maybe even 20-30 years late.

Harishchandrachi Factory (Harishchandra’s Factory), the film, pays a long overdue homage to the man who brought cinema to India. It is by no means a sweeping or a dramatic biopic It is a very simple behind the scenes story of Raja Harishchandra, the first Indian motion picture. The film is brimming with humor …

iView Author: Dilnawaz (New Delhi, India)

Email: syedtauheed [at] yahoo [dot] com

Shakti Samanta : Dawn of romanticism

Born on 13th June 1926 at Wardhman, West Bengal, Shakti Samanta’s completed his schooling in Dehradun. He returned to Bengal for higher studies. Calcutta happened to him. Admission into Calcutta University for bachelors saw him rise to new level. Shaktida emerged bilingual with equal command in Hindi and Urdu. Bangla was his mother tongue. Dehradun’s school environment empowered him to attain bilingual confidence. Urdu-Hindi skills made him a good critique of dialogues and lyrics. Language know-how helped him to shape quality cinema.
…

iView Author: Biswa Prasun Chatterji (Mumbai, India)

Email: biswaprasun [at] gmail [dot] com

Remembering Harisadhan Dasgupta – a forgotten filmmaker

Hospitals are not the best of places to meet interesting people and forge
friendly bonds with a person four times your age. Yet it was in a hospital
room that I met Harisadhan Dasgupta – the doyen of documentary filmmaking
in India. He is much in news these days due to reasons other than his
filmmaking career-his wife Sonali’s affair with Rossellini and a recent
book “Under her spell” by Dileep Padgaonkar in 2008, the ex-editor in
chief of times of India.

Anyway, let us go back to summer of 1993. I was badly injured in a motorcycle accident and admitted in Woodburn block …

iView Author: Vineet Roy (Bangalore, India)

Email: vineetroy.mail [at] gmail [dot] com

Bollywood, India, and claiming our rightful existence

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”
– by David McCullough, there I go a very cliched beginning to my article but this one line pretty much sums up what I feel and what is going to be the theme hereafter.

Bollywood is a term that has very little historical importance if any ,the term has no definite origins but there is widespread agreement that the term first appeared in a magazine inspired from the term Hollywood ,and our fascination with the west and the west’s fascination with themselves ensured that the term became popular in public discourse, the term is in fact …

iView Author: Yusuf Tabatabai (Doha, Qatar)

Email: symehdi67 [at] gmail [dot] com

KHAFFA ( خفا ) Vs Khaffa ( کھفا )

First of all let me explain the title. When I write KHAFFA I mean the correct pronunciation of the word and the other one represents the incorrect pronunciation. KHAFFA (خفا) is an Urdu word and if not pronounced correctly, loses its meaning and effect, of course, and also, sounds jarring to the ears.

As we all know the language of Hindi films contains a lot of Urdu words. Usage of Urdu in the songs’ lyrics is even more common. That’s absolutely fine, welcome and natural. Urdu is such a sweet language and a lot of Urdu words are anyway an integral part of commonly spoken version of Hindi. But there is one hitch. …

iView Author: udtahaathi (Mumbai, India)

Email: flyingelephant [at] in [dot] com

A twist in the tale of two cities: 99 movie review

I have studied, worked and lived in Delhi from 1996 to 2007. I was actually present there in Delhi through 99 and Y2k, when those thick pencil box shaped Siemens and Motorola handsets were launched with incoming call Rs 16 and outgoing Rs 32/ minute. We had to pull out the antenna and walk to a ‘better signal area’ for getting better call clarity. I have also met many Pujas and Nehas in Delhi, I have also been cheated at many occasions; starting with the auto rickshaw-wala to the landlord to the boss. Though Delhi sucks, it has its own charm radically different from other metros.

Now, after 5 years of staying in …

iView Author: Uddhav Parab (Mumbai, India)

Email: ud.adams [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : 50 things I’ve learnt from Ghajini

Well, here I go hammering Ghajini, the so- called blockbuster and cine wonder of Bollywood. I hate hypocrites and plagiarists. For those of you don’t know (you should have figured out this, by now) Ghajini was “heavily inspired” by a movie called Memento by Christopher Nolan (Director of The Dark Night, The Prestige, The Following and Batman Begins… if you haven’t seen any of these movies and you don’t even plan to see any of these movies, I politely request you to go kill yourself by buying watching the director’s cut of Love Story 2050.)

The best part is that almost all these box office wonders in Bollywood (Life in a Metro, Hum Tum) seek “inspiration” from some Hollywood movies …

iView Author: Deepak Mahajan (Mumbai, India)

Email: deepakmetro2000 [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : Bollywood, Director

Life is what?…. A list of choices made or followed except one and that is WHO WILL BE OUR FATHER? Seriously this we cannot choose (Many of us wish that to be Amitabh bachchan , Dhirubhai Ambani, why not Bill gates, guys ?). But choices are never meant to get pleasure alone, they are painful also. When I was all set to make my final move to Mumbai and was feeling fully prepared for my fortune. I thought the easiest way of all will be now to go and start working.

FLASHBACK TO:
I got a job in a leading serial production house as an AD. As the day started I was desperate to be on sets and yes I reached there …

iView Author: udtahaathi (Mumbai, India)

Email: flyingelephant [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : Poetic Liberty or Crazy Songs?

The world of Hindi film song lyric is like an ocean of expressions of emotions, mainly love and pain. For years, song writers and lyricists’ deep poetic thoughts with eloquent verses have been creating magnificent tunes which are sung across generations. Such songs are original, melodious, memorable and generally termed as ’good songs’ and often- ‘timeless classics’.

However, there are other kind of songs which neither qualifies to be lyrically enriched, nor that meaningful, but possess some unique virtue of jingle to become ‘catchy’ and create its own band of listeners for a long period of time. In most of the cases of course, the tunes and lyrics of such songs are not even original and inspired or …

iView Author: Manu Warrier (Mumbai, India)

Email: warrierm [at] gmail [dot] com

Fire Still Burns

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless. ~Honoré de Balzac

Every waking hour and day of my vacation immediately after my board exams was spent listening to a collection of some Tamil songs that seemed to be the rage with all my cousins back in Kerala. Roja was a rage and I kept wondering how Santosh Sivan moved the camera so steady, so high over the beautiful palm trees of Kerala; how did Mani Ratnam bring out the turmoil of Roja? She does not care what the military does about the prisoner exchange, she just wants her husband back. Nasser’s character is at a loss for words. Cinema suddenly became very interesting in my …

iView Author: Yusuf Tabatabai (Doha, Qatar)

Email: symehdi67 [at] gmail [dot] com

Written and directed by

In the good old days we used to have directors and we used to have writers. Most writers, of course, remained unknown or little known. Then came around Salim-Javed and films written by them used to be publicized with “Written by Salim-Javed” appearing in big bold letters on the hoardings. Anyways, Salim-Javed or whoever but mostly the two departments (direction and writing) were handled by different persons. There were a few glorious exceptions to the rule e.g. Vijai Anand and Gulzar. But nowadays it seems it has become the rule rather than the exception for the directors to write and direct.

Now when a new director talks about his next project he invariably says “I am working on the script”. As …

iView Author: Hemant Gaba (Mumbai, India)

Email: pennywisefilms [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : FROZEN – A Film Of Colors

I had heard Frozen is a black and white film, but after watching it i will disagree.
It had so many colors of life and that’s too beautifully painted. Gauri’s love for his brother, her ambiguity regarding her boyfriend, Karma (Danny) struggle to make a living …. all these were so wonderful shades of life.

I really felt for Danny’s character (Karma), who works so hard to make Jam, struggles to save his house, travels to even higher peaks against the glaciers to sell jam so that he can buy gifts for his daughter. It reminded of people like my father who know only hard work, honesty, integrity and love for their children. Rarely we find such ‘RAM’ characters …

iView Author: Ram V (Bangalore, India)

Email: Shrey.dna [at] gmail [dot] com

When is the time? Where are films we want to Patronize… Multiplexes are free

Some days ago, a really agitated filmmaker questioned the inactive audience when they were found windowshopping and psuedo-praising films without taking the one concrete action, watching them. Now, its the time for audience to stand up and question the filmmakers. Its been more than one month that ADZ is running to unpacked houses in multiplexes all over India. Dont we have a good film to replace it? Where are the filmmakers who make off beat, intellegent cinema? Now is the time, Now is your chance…release you stuff, junk or not, people will watch it more than ever before. Why are you sleeping now?
Some are disinterested in change, this article is not for them. For others, who spend hours discussing, marketing strategy, advanced techniques to study audience …

iView Author: Biswa Prasun Chatterji (Mumbai, India)

Email: biswaprasun [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : Amita Malik : the grand old lady of Indian Media journalism

‘The grand old lady of Indian film & media journalism’, Amita Malik passed away in February, 2009. She was truly the first of her kind in India.
Even, I remember Mr.Prannoy Roy decorating her with this epithet when she was invited to comment on future of Indian media journalism in a memorable
programme on NDTV three years back. From my Kolkata days, I remember her wonderful film criticism in the revered newspaper, The Statesman. Long
before Namrata Joshi, Khalid Mohammed, Anil Grover, Nikhat Kazmi came in the picture, Amita was the one who wrote about movies prolifically.
I remember a flowing and flawless article by her on filmmaker Goutam Ghosh’s documentary The Silk Route …

iView Author: Ram V (Bangalore, India)

Email: Shrey.dna [at]gmail[dot]com

Samurai’s Bushido in cinema

I have no enemy; I make Incautiousness my Enemy.
I have no armour; I make Benevolence my Armour.
I have no castle; I make Immovable Mind my Castle.
I have no sword; I make No Mind my Sword.
- The Samurai Creed

The Dawn of the Samurai

Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Shchinin No Samurai’ opened up a whole new world to the cinema audiences across the globe, one that of the Samurai. Years later when we look behind us at the body of work created based on this warrior class from Japan, we are awe-struck at the cinematic vibgyor spun in time. Seven colors of rainbow, Seven the Samurai and Seven their principle. Was Seven chosen by design, one would never know, as the great master Kurosawa never revealed his …

iView Author: Anand Samant (Fullerton, CA USA)

Email: anandsamant[at]gmail[dot]com

Gabhricha Paus: The Damned Rain – My IFFLA’09 Experience

P.S: This is not a review of the movie but an attempt to share with others about me, my journey to IFFLA and my impression about the movie

Going slightly back into my past, being born in 1982 got exposed to few good movies and numerous bad ones. By 1992 I had lost faith in Indian (Bollywood at that time) movies and its music. I hardly watched any new movie, but the summer spent in Belgaum changed it all. My cousin gave me a cassette of Roja. The clarity and the diversity of the music instruments used in the songs blew me away. At first, I did not like the tunes (may be because they were in Tamil …

iView Author: Biswa Prasun Chatterji (Mumbai, India)

Email: biswaprasun [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : La vie en rose (2007) : A review

I recommend the reader’s a movie ‘La vie en rose’ strongly. I got this movie in my collection when I found that it got 2 Oscars in 2007 – one for the best actress (Marion Cotillard) and another for make-up. I heard a lot of praise for this stunningly beautiful and young French actress but I never watched it due to lack of time. But when I watched it last weekend I was just swept away. How captivating was the portrayal of legendary French singer Edith Piaf’s life story!

Edith Piaf (played beautifully by Marion Cotillard ) was a French singer who catapulted into fame in the first half of twentieth century. Her ballads …

iView Author: Uttarika Kumaran (Mumbai, India)

Email: uttarika [at]gmail[dot]com

Show Me the Money!

I was watching a documentary on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy today. Apparently, the entire project which spanned a period of eight years, cost a preposterous $280 million to make. A lot can be said, mostly positive, about the intrinsic power of cinema to transform one man’s vision into a reality more palpable than any art form has ever come close to achieving. It is a flattering tribute to human creativity to allow such ambitious projects to take off the ground, and when executed with skill and backed up by talent, astound us all with their ability to move us to the deepest reaches of our hearts.

Of course, $280 million isn’t exactly spare change either, not for those campaigning relentlessly …

iView Author: dilnawaz (New Delhi, India)

Email: syed.tauheed [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : Rajnigandha phool tumhare:remembering yogesh

Yogesh gaur or yogesh a native of Lucknow,came to Bombay(mumbai) in search of employment.passing away of father forced him to leave studies in middle and move Bombay friends,acquaintances and self vision of employment guided yogesh to mayanagri.the untimely death of non-pensioner father led hi to employment though focus was initially not mayanagri rather a job.having no idea on what to start.what he can deliver best,yogesh began with stories,later sailed on scripts and dialogues.

satyaprakash motivated him to look for potential within.living in chawl long struggle followed. a decision to struck of “gaur” fro name made struggle shiner.the healthy childhood habit of writing and memorizing poetry made writing an option to begin with.Lucknow’s …

iView Author: Shiv (Mumbai, India)

Email: Kunwarshivsingh [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : I’m a Cyborg but that’s ok: The 7th film by Park Chan Wook

Boy meets girl, they fall in love. Shit happens, shit hits the fan, shit is cleaned up. Boy and girl are back together. That pretty much sums up what happens in most romantic comedies. It is arguably the most prolific genre in mainstream cinema, and henceforth the most prone to clichés. The best writers, Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, Hrishikesh Mukherjee amongst others, though have managed to work under these rom-com parameters and yet have managed to break through the clichés that permeate through the largely mediocre glut that is churned out of Hollywood and our very own Bollywood, year after year.

At first glance Park Chan Wook might seem the …

iView Author: Salik Shah (New Delhi, India)

Email: kathspeaks [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : Infinite wait for immortality

When I was watching The 400 Blows, I was thinking about my own stories. The same thing happened yesterday during Ivan’s Childhood. At a point, I felt this is just the making of a movie. When I am watching a film, these days I am also thinking about making it. Want proof? I thought I was reviewing Ivan’s Childhood. However, the result turned out to be self-indulgent again. I hope you approve:

One of my highly ambitious stories was set in a historical backdrop of a nation. I was trying to bring a wholesome perspective toward its cultural and political failings through an unusual relationship between fathers and sons. I was still in the high school when …

iView Author: Siddhartha Banerjee (Kolkata, India)

Email: sidban1[at]gmail[dot]com

What ails Indian Cinema?

A wrong title at a wrong time, given the mass orgasm Indians are having at the success of ‘Slumdog etc etc…’

The media is almost making us believe that we’ve arrived; the age of cosmetic cinema in the shinning multiplexes of a ‘shining new India’. With reports of Bollywood movies grossing millions and receiving awards in the International space, it may appear indeed that Indian cinema is at an all-time high. A closer scrutiny, however, may reveal a different picture.

Firstly, the millions (so proudly reported by the Indian T.V channels) flow-in primarily because of the NRI population, rather than a true broad-based International audience. Organizing a Filmfare award in Dubai or Maldives in itself can hardly create a global audience. Secondly, the …

iView Author: Akshay Manwani (New Delhi, India)

Email: akshay.manwani [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : Chaudhvin ka chand ho : A tribute to Shakeel Badayuni

The word ‘Shakeel’ in the Urdu language literally translates to beauty. No coincidence then that in 1960, Shakeel Badayuni, the great lyricist from yesteryear, penned perhaps the finest ode to the feminine form through ‘Chaudhvin ka chaand’ in the film by the same name. And while Shakeel saab passed away on this very date in 1970 at the relatively young age of 53, the beauty of his poetry radiates through the poetic landscape of Hindi Cinema to this day.

Pick up a cup of tea, switch that cell phone off, sit back and enjoy!

Shakeel was born on the 3rd of August 1916 and hailed from the small town of Badayun in Uttar Pradesh. He …

iView Author: SHITIZ SRIVASTAVA and SHAMBHAVI MISHRA (Lucknow, India)

Email: SRIVASTAVAPROBABLE [at]gmail[dot]com

Content : A FILMMAKER CONVICTED

Judge: Mr. Filmmaker. You are standing in front of jury today and convicted in several cases. All the cases will be called one by one in front of the jury and your defense in each of them will be called. You are allowed to argue and present facts based on solid evidences, not just theory and you are allowed to take time for preparing the defense, the court is allowing you that. That would be all from me.
The respected lawyer can put his accusations one by one now and the convicted filmmaker is ask to answer them in the politest way possible maintaining the dignity and decorum of the …

iView Author: SATYENDRA JHA (Pune, India)

Email: satyendrajha30 [at]gmail[dot]com

Like most of my other articles on PFC, this one has also got its seeds from one of the comments on the beautiful articles written by Ratnakar and Crazyrals paying homage to the great Shakti Samanta, who left us for heavenly abode last week. Well, the comment in question was how Shakti-da gave some memorable hits combining with Shammi Kapoor and Rajesh Khanna, and how his association with Amitabh didn’t work at all.

Well, that set me thinking about the great director-actor combinations. I set myself searching the net, and surprisingly, didn’t come across many such combinations in Indian Cinema being mentioned anywhere. On the contrary, I ended up having a handful of information about the counterparts in Hollywood. I decided to include the best of both …

iView Author: Yusuf Tabatabai (Doha, Qatar)

Email: symehdi67 [at]gmail[dot]com

An Aam Aadmi’s Encounter with Amitabh Bachchan

In February 2002 I was travelling from Doha to Lucknow via Delhi when I had a very brief accidental face to face encounter with Mr. Bachchan. At the domestic airport in New Delhi when I was standing on the small stand and being frisked by the security guy I suddenly heard a voice that sounded somehow familiar. Almost immediately Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav appeared on my right hand side and, without being frisked … naturally, moved to the other side of the security barrier. Another person followed him closely, this was Mr. Amar Singh. But both of them, having reached the other side, were waiting for someone. Then I heard Mulayam utter “Amitabh … aaiye”. But no one else emerged from …

iView Author: Amborish (Mumbai, India)

Email: amborish [at]gmail[dot]com

Indian Cinema: The DVD Paradox

Are you looking for a DVD of The Apu Trilogy? Log on to a site called “Movie Mail” and buy it online for 27.49 GBP…Or do you prefer Ritwik Ghatak? Get DVDs for “The Cloud-Capped Star” (Meghe Dhaka Tara) or “A River Called Titas” (Titas Ekti Nodir Nam) from the BFI website at 19.56 GBP each. All loaded with bonus features and goodies.

Now, can you get the same stuff here in India? Yeah, but not quite the same: no Bonus Features – Interviews – Commentary; old, hackneyed, barely legible prints. And the Film Buff cribs on.

Or are you into Vintage Bollywood? Befriend Moser Baer (occassionally, Shemaroo or Eagle). Labels like Palador/Moser Baer or Lumiere or even Shemaroo would go to …

iView Author: Ram V (Bangalore, India)

Email: Shrey.dna [at]gmail[dot]com

Great Indian Actors-Part I : Mammootty and the depth of emotions

‘You should not limit this ceremony to just Hindi movies. You must recognize movies in other languages also. And you should stop identifying us as South Indian movie stars alone because we are Indians’ thundered Mammootty at IIFA (International Indian Film Awards) Dubai suggesting implicitly that IIFA change its name to IHFA or IBFA (Hindi/Bollywood). His politics, and personality aside, this man is one actor that commands exceptional presence on the Silver Screen.

Mammootty’s biography, career and controversies is available in this wikipedia link. Profiling any actor is an task involving dissection of his most prominent performances. What does one do when faced with the challenge of 330 odd films spread over 29 year ? An …

iView Author: Saurabh Jaiswal (Indore, India)

Email:mail_saurabh3 [at] yahoo [dot] com

The Good ol’ Music Videos …

There was a flurry of pop songs and music videos during the 90’s and some of them were really great . The thing that surprised me was the production standards that were maintained in those videos which were much higher than the movies of those times . Some of them had a nice story to tell and it worked fine with the music . There was no lack of creativity and they could be considered as nice short films . So I went down my memory lane and tried to recall some of those music videos that were both creative and visually interesting . Here’s a list of them (in no specific order) …

Vande Matram (A.R. Rehman) : This video …

iView Author: Kaustubh Pingle (Pune, India)

Email:kcpingle [at] gmail [dot]com

Kishore Kumar : Self Portrait

Source of material : Filmfare 1956, [material is reproduced here with comments to make readers familiar with the writings of Kishore Kumar]

First part of the series can be read here :> Kishore kumar : Leaves from my diary

My comments : Continuing with my series of articles published by Kishore Kumar, so that the world can understand him better. Getting into the era bygone and if possible live in that period. Afterall we have missed the great film personalities that lived “real” lives. Their stories could give inspirations to new film personalities and try and make them aware of the path that they are undertaking.
This is the time when Kishore was climbing to the peak of his career. One of the …

iView Author: Vishal Chaturvedi (Bangalore, India)

Email: vishalc2005[at]gmail[dot]com

Piracy: Bane or boon?

Thanks to UTV world movies, we now have legal access to movies like 400 blows, 13 Tzameti, Red, Blue, White, The lives of others etc. Otherwise, the only way out was the illegal one, which, I’m against, on principle, but principles are set others’ right, to gain an upper hand over an adversary, to win an argument, not for implementing upon ourselves. But, seriously, the only way you can procure non-English/Indian language movies is from the gaudy, swarming shopping holes invariably called AC markets. They have everything laid out for air conditioning, closed areas, little ventilation, no windows, self-closing doors, everything except the air conditioner. So when you enter the place, you can get a whiff of each shopkeeper’s body odor, but you can’t make …