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Once you are done with your board exams, and the laundry-list of competitive exams which follow, there is a lull-period of almost three months before you actually join college. People do all kinds of stuff during that time: some learn how to drive(and then proceed to channelize messrs Schumacher, Hamilton and Raikkonen), some take to uselessly useful stuff like the odd fag or the infrequent tipple. A few smart alecks actually manage, God forbid, to get laid(assuming they haven’t already). Some foolishly starving autodidact losers like me bummed around the house, nose buried among yellowed pages, vacant expression in place.

It was during this time that I read Richard Yates’s cruel gift to mankind…. “Revolutionary Road” was bleak, bold and brilliant. I remember my first reaction at finishing the book was “Thank God it’s over….” , and I mean that in the best possible way. Seldom does one come across such …

/** Spoiler Alert*/

When the title credits of Vertigo roll on screen, the title itself, comes from the pupils of a woman’s eyes. And then we have animated designs, spiralling in different directions, and the eye fading away, and then finally the woman’s eye comes back to screen, and we have the final credit. Even if we take the overall promos for Vertigo, we have a man in the center of many loops, and spirals. In a way that itself is an indicator of the movie’s central premise. On surface a thriller like most of Alfred …

Dev.D Music Album Soundtrack and Review

04 November 2008
Late afternoon in Bangalore. Cloudy outside. The world has just woken up to the sound of ‘Emosanal Atyachar’ and the buzz can’t get any bigger with Pintoo Meena from Sikar, Rajasthan, Animesh Pandey from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh and R.V. Natarajan from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu all resorting to incessant, tax-free use of the phrase, on/in reference to all forms of humanity surrounding them – parents, girlfriends, relatives, nobodies, random passers-by/passer-byes/passers-byes on the street, the random guy at the cyber café, the sexy elder sister of the kitaabi keeda in class, bade papaji, college warden, and the friendly neighborhood paanwaala.
EA, as analysts on NDTV Profit suggest, will soon replace all other similar sounding EA’s. Jeeye to jeeye kaise soon to be replaced by EA to EA kaise, all cool kids in college highly suspected of using EA to maximum benefit, the focus …

**/ Spoiler Alerts**/

In  my  second on  the    David  Fincher  series  i  would  be taking a look  at  one  of  Fincher’s   more underrated movie  The Game, a kind of  abstract  thriller.

The  Game  is the story  of   Nicholas Van Orton(Michael Douglas),  a multi  millionaire in  San Francisco,  but  leading a lonely life,  divorced  from his wife.  On  his  40th  birthday, his  more  bohemian,  free spirited  brother  Conrad( Sean Penn),  presents him with  an unusual  gift.    It  is a  game  offered  by a mysterious organization,  Consumer  Recreation Services,  of  which not much is known.  Not  much is really  known about The Game,  except  that it  seems to be  a  kind  of  live action role playing game,  where the person is a live participant.

Nicholas  is rejected by  CRS,  after  a lengthy  pyschological  test involving  filling up all kinds of  questionaries.  However  the real “Game”   begins  right  now  for Nicholas,  as he  …

The phrase thousand elephants has a lot of significance in Thamizh literature. The medieval classic ‘Kalingathup parani’ was written over a war in which a chola king’s army killed more than thousand elephants of an enemy in a war. In fact the grammar says that ‘parani’ (collection of songs on a king’s victory in war) should be written only if the king’s army slays more than thousand elephants. 7th century poet saint Aandal dreams of getting married to Lord Mahavishnu who comes commanding a group of thousand elephants. Gowtham Menon has tried to portray a hero who is as commanding as the literary figures alluded here. He also tries to say the same of the hero’s dad. I agree with the former - but I dont concur when he tries to stretch the same and make the dad a hero too. Lets see why.

Before I begin, I must congratulate the …

Except childhood portion, hyped & bit illogical at times. Many weaknesses are not expected in a film made by world famous director.
IMDB Link

End of the year comes a film that brings so many necessary evils of the medium back to the fore –garishly mounted song sequences, elaborate dramatic confrontations, formulaic storytelling structure, yet Ghajini does all these with an approach that is not wholly commercial in the crude sense of the word. A film that takes off with so many baggages, remake and copy and shit like that, and works its way up to a film that would be well off without these connections in a different film-world, a different story, a different point of view. The film takes no time in establishing its intentions- with a real-looking normal sequence(the hero boards an auto with minimum fuss, drops a cool line(ye mera address hai) and leaves, and an explosive outburst in the very next sequence. This is one scene where the movie screams out loud, fuck you.

What follows is well, very …

Ghazini has similarities with many films like Memento, Jhootha Kahin Ka and Pasand Apni Apni etc, but does it reduce the intensity of hard work Aamir Khan needed to put in the character, he has played?
Had his job become easy because scenes or ideas have been taken from above mentioned films?

Sholay is said to be inspired by many films (Hindi and Western) but does this reduce the impact of the film?

Satte Pe Satta’s first half had similarities with Seven brides for seven brothers but did those similarities reduce the quality of Satte Pe Satta or stop audiences of Hindi cinema to enjoy the film?

No. Satte Pe Satta was a hit film and people have been enjoying the film since last 26 years.

Reason to like some films inspired by other films made in past has been only one and that is the conviction of makers and actors who have played …

I’m part of a theatre troupe in my college. I remember, about 18 months ago, it was my first day in the group, and the very first thing I was told was “exaggerate”…… A.R. Murugadoss sure seems a guy who knows the meaning of that word! For “Ghajini” is exaggerated with a capital E…..and this is likely to be the bone of contention among those who love it and those who trash it. It is a throwback to the “good old times”, where Bollywood films were very much the sum of their parts, comedy, action, romance, tragedy; each emotion drawn out with a measuring cylinder, and doled out in the requisite amounts….(I understand many Tamil and Telugu films still rigourously follow this regime)

First, the obvious questions and the banal stuff out of the way…..Ghajini is NOT, repeat NOT, Memento, nor does it aspire to be. Ghajini is your more conventional revenge …

Passion, Pain and Loneliness – that’s the order that a man is driven when dedicating a life to an Endeavour. A passion grips you when you are young, when you are able and when you can conquer the world. Pain hits you when you realize it’s all but a gift that is cruelly snatched away from you time and again when the body & mind start slipping. And loneliness hits you when you are left with bitterness about your life’s work… when the best that you have done is all but a piece of paper or a sporadic haze of recognition on someone’s face. It’s sad, but it’s the truth. 
The Wrestler is a movie, true to its hype, comes along once in a while. It’s a movie that has a heart and a soul that shadows a pro-champ wrestler who …

iView Author: Munis Syed (New Delhi/India)

Email: boxroomtalk [at] yahoo.co.in

Ghajini EXPEreviewANCE: Aamir Khan like never before!
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Aamir Khan the ‘thinking’ actor/film person experiments & is driven by his immense guts.Aamir Khan the superstar it seems knows the pulse of the masses.So this time, Aamir Khan the superstar is back after a long long time & has unleashed his star power in Ghajini like never before in his 20 years long career.Ghajini is not ‘great’ cinema.It may not even be ‘good’ cinema(I use the word cinema on purpose). But Ghajini is a great fillum.Unabashed about its dumbness & going all out with it.

Yes, technically this is not a review of Ghajini.Because I don’t have much to say about the film simply because the film doesn’t say anything.Its dumb.Its not the kinda film that you will watch on …

iView Author: Dr.Mandar V. Bichu (Sharjah/UAE)

Email: drmandarvb [at] yahoo.com

Dhoop Versus Heroes: When the war is over
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What happens when the guns finally fall silent on the war-front? What happens when the widely televised ceremony of ‘national leaders’(!) laying wreaths on tricolor-draped coffins is over? What happens to the grieving families of the soldiers who laid their lives for the nation?

Dhoop and Heroes are two movies worth watching for the Bollywood’s take on these prickly issues, which most of us conveniently sweep under the carpet once the urgency and emergency of the wars and terror-dramas is over! Of course, these two takes are as different as chalk and cheese in their portrayals and they also suffer from the typical Bollywoodian hangover!

Synopsis:

Dhoop
Year: 2003
Director: Ashwni Chaudhari
Cast: Sanjay Suri, Gul …

iView Author: Anand (Chennai, India)

Email: withheld

People are loving it, people are bashing it…Critics are saying it is ok, Critics are bashing it. Rajeev Masand’s review hits bull’s eye as he has understood the spirit of the film and given a well analyzed review. So I am not here to review Ghajini as a film. Instead what I want to do is this: It worked beautifully in Tamil for the audiences and therefore became a huge money-spinner, but I feel Hindi version is better. Here’s why: (Warning – Spoilers throughout the post)

1. Sanjay Singhania Vs Sanjay Ramasamy – Have you heard the name Sanjay Ramasamy before? Tamil Cinema’s obsession with unique names coupled with its obsession for No.1 (You see – Sanjay Ramasamy was India’s No.1 Rich guy) lessened the connect with the …

Another psychoanalytical review

This week we had Aamir Khan’s Ghajini hitting the screens across the country. As usual, our readers have a huge number of questions regarding the film. As they say in government organized functions, it is our ‘proud privilege’ to have Professor Armando Trilokesh Minimovich Yadav (Prof. ATM Yadav) among us to answer these questions. Prof ATM Yadav holds a dual PhD in sociology and economics and has a specific focus on Bollywood films. As usual, we’ll save everyone’s time and get into the Q&A directly.

People are boring. 
You, are boring. You get up with a foul smell in your mouth. You do stuff when people are not watching. You are confused in public and act macho in private. You are always thinking how it would be to be the guy with the girl. You sing the opera in the confines of your car. You steal glances at the price-tags and buy the unnecessary out-of-budget excess because you want to impress someone pretty who you in all mathematical probability will never ever see again.  That you escape from the ‘now’ and the ‘then’ conveniently to sing the chorus and and never the song is anything but the ultimate victory of banal surrealism that is as chronic as the ability of a man to “think” itself. Yet, inspite of all this knowing, the one constant feeling that a man cannot rid himself off , inspite …

Ghajini Movie Review

Gunda ?? Yes, if you havent heard, read or seen the film yet then you seriously have missed something in your life. Do check it out. It’s Mithunda’s cult classic. For more, here is the link.

I belong to a tribe which sometimes gets to meet the stars and even ask them few questions. Short term memory loss, tattoos, polaroid camera and revenge drama…everything in the films’s promo was shouting out one word…MEMENTO! So, when i raised the same issue with Aamir, his reply was….lets have a bet. If its Memento, he will do what i want him to do and if its not Memento then i have to do what he wants. I was game. Aamir you won the bet but WTF IS GHAJINI!!!

I was expecting Ghajni to be Memento for dummies! But we were expecting much from a man called Murgadoss to grasp,copy,crack and …

Son yells,”Kulta (Slut)”, and runs to hit his mother.

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People read or watch very easily that Kunti goes to Karna and tells him that he is her eldest son and asks for the lives of Pandava brothers.

People read or watch with ease that Karna was born before Kunti was married. People take it easy to read or see that all the five Pandava brothers know it later that Karna was their brother.

Its an easy thing to digest when things are seen from a distance.
[ It has happened in somebodyelse’s life. It’s a tale. Its Ok.]

Now bring it to the life of somebody we see or know and body may start perspiring.

A mind is conditioned since childhood and it thinks and responds within those conditioned boundaries only.

One (male or female) may always be interested in enjoying physical relations with every third or fourth person …

Kurz und schmerzlos – Short Sharp Shock(1998)

Gabriel, Costa, and Bobby. Three Turkish, Serbian & Greek friends meet again after Gabriel gets out of prison( I could associate this to Spike Lee’s brilliant and lesser talked about 25th Hour). They experience their changing relationship in the darker alleys of Hamburg, Germany. Bobby, the babyface blazer-clad young gangster hopeful has to prove his mettle at in organized crime and treats every chance encounter as a possible link/event to his larger and deeply desired ambition, of gaining the respect that comes with being a gangster, he idolizes Tony Montana. He even has a girlfriend to try all them Scarface girlfriend-bashing scenes with. A rather tough scene where he takes out his girlfriend for a dinner with his immediate boss(an Albanian mafiosa) and mentor here is executed with utmost ease by Akin. The girl and the men are having Italian food, she asks …

iView Author: Jehan Handa (Delhi, India)
Email: jehanhanda580 [At] yahoo [DOT] co [DOT] in

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
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Satyajit Ray, Federico Fellini, Christopher Nolan, David Lynch, now Charlie Kaufman and Michael Gondry. As I shut my laptop, I felt like switching it on again, and watching it again. After watching the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind two times, I still want to watch it a few more times. And I can’t get enough of it. Seriously! I came out telling myself that I still have a long cinematic journey to cover, and till date this was my best cinematic experience. Maybe a bit too late. Better late than never I guess. Tsk Tsks Golmaal Returns and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

After reading innumerous articles on PFC about …

iView Author: crazyrals (Bangalore,India)
Email: crazyrals [at] gmail.com

This post is neither a review nor a comparison between the two movies.
It just so happens that these two ‘D’ movies released in the same week
and on the same day. I am just putting down a few observations and
points of why I watched Dostana in a multiplex and not Dasvidaniya.

Dasvidaniya seems to be a really good movie which will move people to
tears, the trailers show that there are moments of happiness and
sorrow, of unfulfilled dreams and unexpressed emotions. It has a
fantastic ensemble cast and Vinay Pathak is a joy to watch. I have
loved most of his movies in the recent past like KKG, Manorama 6Ft
Under, JGaddar, BFry etc. Inspite of all these I did not want to watch
Dasvidaniya in multiplex/theater.

Dostana has some peppy numbers, smallB and …

I’ve always felt that if one is hell-bent on re-making a film from a by-gone era, it shouldn’t be a beloved classic like Don or Sholay, but rather one of the many hidden gems of yesteryear, which may not be sitting constantly at the forefront of our filmy memories.

Besides the obvious benefits restoring and upgrading a classic to the modern era and exposing the new generation to some of our cinemas classic stories, one could simultaneously accomplish 2 goals: First, re-introducing concepts, characters and sensibilities sorely lacking in the “fast food/fast forward” cinema we’re conditioned for today, while in many cases also modifying or even rectifying some of the areas where the narrative could have greater impact.

“Dost”, the 1974 film by Dulal Guha (starring Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha and Hema Malini), has always been an ideal candidate for a modern day makeover.

Now please don’t get me wrong here, …

iView Author: Dr.Mandar V. Bichu (Sharjah, UAE)
Email: drmandarvb [At] yahoo [DOT] com

The Trouble With Harry – Hitchcock’s best comedy!
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Remember the opening mob-scene in Frenzy where a floating woman’s corpse steals the thunder away from the street speaker? Or the scene in Torn Curtain, where a famous ballerina throws a tantrum on the boat? Or the crazy chemistry between the lead pair in 39 Steps and Family Plot?

There were so many scenes from his celebrated mysteries and thrillers that showed Alfred Hitchcock’s unique flair for tongue-in-cheek dark humor. Mr. And Mrs. Smith- his only attempt at full- length goofball romantic comedy and often touted as his best comic film somehow failed to enthuse me. It was okay, even funny in parts but it seldom felt ‘Hitchcokian’! But then I saw …

I’m not saying what all is bad and what all is good. There are other better people for the same ….

Just few observations and pointers

1. You don’t have to be a PUNJABI to fall in love
1. You don’t have to be a PUNJABI to fall in love
1. You don’t have to be a PUNJABI to fall in love

2. BALLE BALLE is only a subset of celebration. Celebration doesn’t necessarily mean BALLE BALLE

3. Indian Women are smarter than you think

4. Chachi 420, Golmaal, ChakDe India are willing suspensions of disbelief. Chor machaye Shor and Rab Ne are not

5. You have donbe a very good job in the first ACT (25 mins) ..then please continue with the momentum … let’s not make a FILMY film after a non-filmy start …mixing genres doesn’t mean we mix filmy and non filmy….

6. We’re fed up of …

Okay, so Jahan pipped me to the post for this one. After a wretched two weeks of Geology field work under a harsh sun, I came back home yesterday. Within a few hours of returning, I was on my way to catch the morning show of “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi”. Two and a half hours later, dull rocks and dreary scientific instruments were but a distant memory…..

Oops……was that too dramatic?

But seriously, while “Rab Ne Bana De Jodi” was not a great film, it was by all means a good one, a sincere effort(if sometimes self-indulgent) powered on by another champagne performance by Shahrukh Khan. And herein lies the rub. There has been a curious rush to trash the film in the media and the critics’ circle. Our very own Phoenix-da here wrote a scathing piece on Friday itself, in which objectivity was conspicuous by its absence. Following articles have …

Note : This post does not contain any reference/digs/mentions of Rab ne whatever….

Note 2: This post contains the combined creative energies of two world-cinema-depraved junkies creating a historical blogging event.Taaliyaan.

Note 3: Please read this post for sake of world cinema, Kerala Tourism & as KK would say, Baaaaaaa…

0930 AM
Boarding Gate : I walked in to this film, and thought it was cool, not like a festival festival film but a nice coolly aggressive Michael Madsen playout, and then I see this hot actress. The film moves on, and I begin liking it, it is a normal franco-american tale of deception, deceit, betrayal, Mahesh bhatt, S&M, and arthouse devices. I think, the hot actress is too postcard for a film festival selection, and I hear that she is in fact the one called ASIA ARGENTO.

She of the tattoos. She of …

Psychoanalytical Review of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

There’s a lot that’s not making sense in the world around us. This Friday, YRF, keenly aware of the zeitgeist, slip in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (RNBDJ) on their unsuspecting victims. We, at PFC, have been inundated with questions from readers who have been wanting to understand the various psycho-emotional subtexts in the film. After much persuasion and veiled threats, we are glad to inform you that Professor Armando Trilokesh Minimovich Yadav (Prof A.T.M. Yadav) has consented to answer these queries. Prof A.T.M. Yadav needs no introduction so we will save everyone’s time and won’t introduce him. Prof A.T.M. Yadav watched RNBDJ with our resident movie expert Kartik Krishnan.

The 13th International Film Festival of Kerala promises unlimited trips at the movies. From retrospectives to contemporary world cinema to 50 years old films to a special series on Reels and Music, it has hardly left any possible option to showcase films of all genre and time.

Here is a brief account of the Day One films:

He who must die
This was my second Jules Dassin film, after Night & the city. Though Night has its own classic appeal of presenting film noir in a human/personal manner, it is He who must die that truly caught me unawares. The story moves around a passion play against a backdrop of generational land conflict between the Greeks & Turks. One village, hypnotized by the Patriarch, chooses actors amongst shepherds, saddlers, butchers, to play …

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Movie Review

….thodi ? Its only to rhyme with the title of the film. Actually its bahut zayada pakau.

Was reading this post of Roger Ebert last nite. His list of best films of the year and how it was difficult for him to pick up only ten films and so he has come out with a list of twenty films. I was discusing the same with my freinds and we had a tough time picking five good films this year… twenty ?? …hehehe….woh subah kabhi to aayegi. And so the BIG KING Khan is here before the year ends and this one is his single release of the year. And what a disppointment!! When will our big starts learn to look beyond the scripts of their good …

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (RNBDJ) is the latest film for the stables of YRF Films which also marks the return of Aditya Chopra in the directorial role after 8 years. The music has been composed by Salim-Sulaiman and the lyrics are penned by Jaideep Sahni. Being a YRF film the expectations are high for a film that also has a tag line of an Extraordinary Love Story behind an Ordinary Jodi. Let’s see if it has an extraordinary music as well.
The album kicks off with a romantic number Tujh Main Rab Dikhta Hai sung by Roop Kumar Rathod. The song’s a romantic number sung by a lover for his beloved. The song sounds pretty okay during the first listening. But the beautiful lyrics by Jaideep Sahni takes the song to a different plane. Roop Kumar Rathod sings the song soul fully …

Taran Adarshji published Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi here and then it was removed… not sure how, why, what, kyon, haila etc. etc…

It seems PhoenixNu had already read it and emailed it to us.

For starters, the Press screening of RNBDJ is on Friday and so a very secretive screening must have been held for a select few, Adarshji being one of them.

But overall, the review praises the movie, performances and Aditya Chopra. It seems Aditya has made a movie that reminds us of his deftly directed Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.

To point out a few things in Adarshji’s review for all those very inquisitive…

Adarsh-ji gives the movie 5 stars out of 5

Since Adarsh-ji cannot digest his daily meals without using “Lets clarify”, “On the whole”, and “For all those out there” (to name a …