logo

Well  at  last  the  Delhi  HC,  has  struck  down  the  archaic, antiquated   Raj era   Article 377,  which  treated  homo sexuality as a criminal  offence.  As  usual  the  judgement  has  been  received  with  mixed  reactions,   with  quite  a large number  opposing it.  My  personal  take   is   simple,  i  support  the  judgement.  No  i  am not  Gay,  nor  do i believe  that  Gays  are the next  best  thing  to  happen  to mankind,  nor  would  i  get  out  and  wave  banners  at  a  Gay  Pride  rally.   My  take  is  simple,  why  should  a  person  be  treated  like a  criminal   for  their  own  personal  beliefs.  If  a  guy  wants  to  make  it  out  with  another  guy, in  his  own  bedroom,  or  some where  else,  that  is  his  own  personal   life.  As  long  as   what  he ( or  for  that  matter she)  does  in their  own closet,  does …

Strange are the ways of Bollywood. Fair enough. Argument taken. It doesn’t take a genius to guess it’s been a bad year. Post Delhi-6/Gulaal/Dev D that is. And the thing about bad times is that it kills one’s senses to acknowledge something minutely good that comes on the way further. I do not remember which was the last hindi film I saw and enjoyed. I guess 13B or CC2C (had written a review on it but now even I can’t find it). Both were wholesome experiences, with their fair share of music and moods to munch on. There is some fun in exploring a tune lesser heard, and embracing it and gracing it with your own Grammy(s).

CC2C had Tere Naina, one of the most soothing tracks heard in the better parts of this year. Shankar sounded fresh as ever, and the song had a ‘khanak’ rarely heard off late. …

The reviews have started trickling in. Atleast from those who were lucky to catch a few private screenings of Sankat City. Filmmakers Saeed Mirza and Kundan Shah (blog) sent in their thoughts to us on Sankat City.

Saeed Mirza

I saw Pankaj Advani’s film ‘Sankat City’ and what struck me most about the film was its anarchic splendour. The underlying theme is the need for cash, and lots of it, by people to either repay debts, to rebuild lives or to escape to greener pastures.
Pankaj’s world is of thieves and con artists, film producers, fading stars, financiers and God-men, rag-pickers and cab-drivers, underworld dons, hit-men and whores, shady businessmen and shady suitcases, shady bars and dives and even the city’s vast and stinking dumping ground.

As we journey through the frenetic and desperate …

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 …

Midway into life, Dante wandered off into a dark thicket of woods, which turned out to be the doorway to hell. He later on meets Pia in Purgatorio, where all the sins are cleansed, and the souls packed off to Paradiso, the heaven.

ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fé, disfecemi Maremma:
salsi colui che ‘nnanellata pria
disposando m’avea con la sua gemma

- Purgatorio, Canto V.

Pia, who was suspected of adultery, was left to die in the obnoxious dungeons of Maremma by her husband. She asks Dante and Virgil, ‘Do you remember me, who am Pia’. The rememberances of a crime and its aftermath, is the basic theme of Bhramaram and a Dantesque ride across various terrains, both physical and emotional form the structure of Blessy’s latest.

With a thin plot, Bhramaram retains its strength from three sources, Mohanlal, Lal and Lalettan. When actors try different gimmicks to prove their …

A Wild Night out with the boys! It’s just what the doctor ordered when you’ve been having a rough time at work. But what if this boys night out ends up with you lying face down on the floor, A baby in the closet, A tiger in the bathroom and one of your best friends missing just a few hours away from his marriage!

Yesterday, After I’d just landed in Mangalore after 2 successive flights, I wanted to go out and watch a movie to shake off the exhaustion from all the travel. My choices were New York, The Hangover and Terminator: Salvation. New York didn’t sound too appealing, Terminator would be too damn noisy, So pretty much settled for The Hangover and was joined by some of my drinking buddies. And i gotta admit, The …

Kalavaramaye Madilo – Audio Review

Kalavaramaaye Madilo (Anguish In The Heart) is Satish Kasetty’s second feature. His first movie Hope got him a national award (which tells us that Satish is a good director), and even though it had no songs, it’s got some amazing BGM by none other than Isaignani Ilaiyaraja (which tells us that Satish has an ear for good music).

And that’s reason enough for the PFC (the passionate for cinema, us all) to eagerly await his second movie’s OST, the fact that Satish blogs for the PFC (Passion For Cinema, this site) notwithstanding.

Without further ado, let’s proceed with what Satish and his team has to offer to his fans this time around.

His first movie had no songs and, as if to compensate for that, his second movie has eight… out of which, four are female solo songs, three are traditional classicals — needless …

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

We’ve to admit the fact that life runs parallel to a misty unknown which has been quest of many great individuals who have tried time and again to unravel its mysteries.
Why do people fall in love? What is love and how it became a reason for wars? Who is God and why has there been so much bloodshed in His name? Why we are here on this planet and what makes us decide as to which path we are going to tread? What is that force which puts a gun in someone’s hand and makes him take a life of an unknown whom he couldn’t have possibly known? Are all my reasons as good as they sound in my head or there is some loophole? What drives a person to bitch about someone …

It was like a normal day for an I.T. guy chaos, pressure and unhappy ever demanding Management, friend of mine whom I had mentioned about New York, although he is not a film freak (as he addresses me) like me but he has developed a good taste of movie, what will happen when you make them aware with classics like Junoon, Naram Garam, Garam Hawa, lekin, Ijaazat, ek doctor ki maut and ek ruka hua faisla, Satya, Gulaal , Black Friday, and many of my foreign movie collections.

For me I religiously watch at least one unwatched foreign movie in a week which is the bare minimum count normally its more then that. So coming back to my friend I had told him about Kabir khan, his debut feature – Kabul Express- and his forthcoming …

Finally I did it, yes I watched Me Shivaji Raje Bhosale Boltoy, the move which was in news for being one of the Marathi’s big budget. The one which overtook Hit Machine Akshay Kumar’s film Tasveer 8 by 10.

Me Shiavji Raje Bhosale Boltoy (I Shivaji Speaking), with Mahesh Manjerkar acting as  Shiavji. I do not know who whether they had casting director, but casting an overweight Mahesh as Shivaji.was one of the biggest mistake.

Anyway the theme of movie has been there since time innumerable, a man against system. No matter how much Mahesh may deny that it is not inspired. The movie is Lage Raho Munnabhai meets Rang De Basanti. But it does not have simplicity of LRM or the appeal of RDB.

The story begins with Sachin Khedkar …

one very late review on Dev D and Devdas in general

Logan: Do I look like a man who exaggerates?

Wolverine has been one of my recent addictions. The comic book. I never saw X-Men films. Neither did I pick up their comic books earlier. “Too complex”, I said to both. Much later, quite recently, when the streets were done with all the Batman and Spiderman that they could think of, did I turn towards them. “This guy looks OK”, I murmured to myself, and picked up few Wolverine comic books, mostly because of their inspired artwork and versions.

Soon I was inducted into the cult adamantium planet, going through the agonies of the well-haired and well-adrenalined superhero. The books kept revealing one dimension after the other, as Loganman moved from oriental orbs to citystreet gangsters to jungle jamborees. I always thought of him as a superhero who would take to his destiny reluctant and lazy, and then weighing things as …

I cannot write reviews – I am constitutionally incapable of writing them. We have a very visceral approach to movies, both me and Kamayani. We like them on a very human level, irrespective of technique and craft, and we are extremely hard to please. Most of the blockbusters and biggies from Bollywood and Hollywood as well as ‘world cinema’ in the recent few years have left us cold and unimpressed.
I think the last hindi film we both instantly and viscerally liked was ‘Oye Lucky…’ – that’s a film I have recommended highly to everyone I know.
Now I can add one more to that list.
One line review of ‘Sankat City’ – WATCH IT PEOPLE!
Drop everything you are doing, gag your friends who want to go watch a YRF or Dharma or whatever movie instead, kidnap your loved one if they are put off by the …

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 …

There has been so much utter garbage in the name of Hindi music coming out this year, that when I found out Kailasa (Kailash Kher, Naresh Kamath, Paresh Kamath) have come out with their fourth album, Kailasa Chaandan Mein, I was ecstatic! Songs from Aawargi, Kailasa and Kailasa Jhoomo Re still rank very high on my play list and so do Kailasa’s compositions from Dasvidanya and Pranali. Kailash’s soulful voice, absolutely gorgeous thought-provoking lyrics, music drenched in the ambiance of a village/folk setting…truly their previous albums really do transport you to a magical realm…pure heaven…it’s Kailasa…

While Kailasa came out with an album each year (Aawargi in 2005, Kailasa in 2006, and Kailasa Jhoomo Re in 2007), it is after two years that Kailasa has blessed audiences with another album—Kailasa Chaandan Mein. Granted that they had two years to put the album together, my expectations for the way the …

Recently there was a discussion. I wouldn’t say it was pleasant. I was at the receiving end for most part of it.
It centred on what credentials or knowledge I possess to write articles in an esteemed forum like PFC?
Sure I was no struggling AD in the streets of mumbai or chennai trying to make movies, not now – probably I never will be.
Sure I was not a guy who has poured over books on cinema and I surely do not get the meaning of Seventh Seal and I havent seen Pather Panchali in my life – not till now, atleast.
Neither I am a fan of ‘Black Friday’ or ‘No Smoking’, the second being way above my understanding – probably that is why it is too good a movie for me.
By the same token I am not much impressed by Yash chopra factories movies too – except Chak De.
While the accusations …

[Thoughts, thoughts and thoughts on film criticism in India and elsewhere.]

One of the first generation of American film critics, James Agee said, “There are a good many people who honestly enjoy movies, know the difference between good work and bad, and care a great deal about the difference.” But how many people, who are writing about films today, really understand cinema in this country?

Ajit Duara, a prominent Indian film critic, said that he had been struggling as a film critic for the last two decades of his career. Today all he gets is 350 words limit to review a film. But what could one possibly do other than to resort to the web space to express his views? We must not forget that critics work under editorial and market constraints and constant pressure from various people.

Since we’re talking about writing, let’s also find out when did screenwriters finally arrive …

Right from the days when I was a kid, I used to enjoy traveling by train. Whether it were the long distance journeys usually in the summer vacation or the suburban train traveling in a Mumbai or Chennai, I would always look forward to it. Over years I have gone on to notice how Indian Railways seems to have become a home away from home for a lot many people who travel by trains regularly to work. Whether you talk about the electric trains in the metro cities like Western/Central/Harbor lines of Mumbai or the Guindy-Tambaram route in Chennai, or the underground Metro rail in Kolkata and Delhi or even in places like Kerala where people travel from a Palakkad to Coimbatore (T.N) or from far off places like Thrissur and adjoining districts to Cochin/Ernakulam, this phenomena is witnessed on a …

Well as work beckoned, I was back in Chennai for a short visit of 3 days, incidentally my 2nd visit in less than 2 weeks time. Chennai has more than been home to me and so always has a special place in my heart. This visit was extra special because I ended up watching 3 movies on the big screen all in a span of 24 hours. It was back to my old days of glory and the feeling was accentuated since I saw the movies in Sathyam Cinemas, which is virtually my 2nd home in Chennai.

Considering that the last 2 months have been fairly drought prone in terms of movies, what with the strike in Bollywood (now finally called off) and hardly any major Hollywood release too, it was mainly regional cinema that kept me busy. So it was all the more interesting that I was watching a …

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: 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 …

(This post has some spoilers)
This is an unfair post title for a movie which has obviously been made with good intent and a significant degree of expertise. It’s definitely a movie which demands a watch as it dwells on topics which aren’t currently in vogue. Weavers and communism are not usually topics which inspire filmmakers nowadays and you probably won’t expect this from Priyadarshan if you have been subjected to his run of the mill comedies.

Vengadam, played by Prakash Raj, promises to wed his daughter in a silk saree, an unrealistic luxury, apparently in those days for weavers. The movie dwells on his journey to attain this goal and the trials and tribulations that he will face and the inevitable tragedy which has to befall him. Priyadarshan also tries to integrate the rise of communism and the birth of weaver co-operative societies into the thread of this narrative.

First, let’s get …

“Two Lovers” stars Joaquin Phoenix(Leonard),Gwyneth Paltrow(Michelle) and Vinessa Shaw(Sandra), it is rumored that this is the last film of Joaquin Phoenix.The news of Joaquin Phoenix retirement from acting has prompted me to watch “Two Lovers”

The film starts with a dramatic scene in which Joaquin Phoenix(Leonard) attempts suicide by jumping into a bay but he is saved by few men and is in no conscious mood to thank the guy who saved his life.

In Dev.D and in many other films we have seen that a man embraces self-destruction when he loses his loved ones.In “Two Lovers” we see the make and break of relationships with a realistic tone attached to it with infatuation,desperation etc.. as its attributes.The kind of self-destruction which i find in the characters is so natural that we don’t call it as self destruction in real life.

Leonard is a person who is emotionally ill as her fiancee leaves …

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 …

In the classic serial killer book, Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal Lector intones that a serial killer starts his killings essentially to get that thing which he covets the most. This simple and flawless logic is seen in the movie Perfume: A Story of a Murderer where we are witness to the genesis of a serial killer. One difference here is being that since we know his intentions and motives right from the start, we actually tend to sympathize with his actions and want to root for his success.
When a friend of mine recommended Perfume: A Story of a Murderer to me, I got hold of the movie without looking it up or reading anything about it. I saw it with a clean slate (a very rare thing nowadays) and ended up being shocked and astounded by it.
Perfume’s essentially a story …

A couple of years ago,on one fine morning, I was stranded in Bangalore’s HAL airport (or the old airport as we now describe it) for some 4-5 hours. The reason being my flight and most other flights were delayed due to fog condition and so I was caught unawares. Since the agenda was only a meeting with a retail chain towards lunch time, I was hoping to catch up on some other agenda’s and catch the evening flight and return back. You see those were the pre recession days and could easily fly short distances like Chennai-Bangalore and get back the same day too . Well I do miss those days I guess. Before you wonder if this post is going to be about my ramblings on recession, flying etc- let me clarify that it’s not what I have …

We all love to watch movies; country, language, genre, or the team involved not necessarily a hindrance. Most of these movies are famous, or well-known due to one factor or the other. As we graduate in our process, we tend to endeavour for more ‘qualitatively fulfilling’ movies, and that’s where the director or the genre plays an important part in our selection. Some movies, which were once our favourite, subsequently turn out to be an embarrassment to own up. Some movies, on the other hand, which were beyond our comprehension at one point, subsequently turn out to be the most liked as we ‘grow-up’.

However, there are certain movies that we have not much heard of, or for that matter, they have not been so well-known, but we hazard to try them out on the merit of the team involved behind that ‘creation’. I chanced upon one such movie while …

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 …

All of us have been kids at some point of time. We have all had our moments of glory, moments of frustration, moments of success, moments of failures etc during our childhood. And barring certain exceptions I’m sure most of us look back with great satisfaction and happiness when we reminisce over our childhood days. Now haven’t many of us wanted to be an actor, a policeman, a doctor and many other things when were kids in school? Most of us would keep changing our desired profession of interest from time to time based on the current flavour. Like if I saw a movie where the hero ( mostly Amitabh Bachchan )was a cop then I spent the next few days imagining that I’m a cop. When I saw Ravi Shastri win his Audi car & get the Champion of Champion …

Tarantino is back, and how! Inglourious Basterds created all the anticipated storm here at Cannes. Quite surely, the presence of Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt played a major role in that. But that was outside the theatres – the Grand Lumiere Red Carpet screening will be in the evening, but the early morning media screening saw a packed house, followed by a mad scramble for seats at the film’s press conference. Hundreds of jostling journos could not get in – perhaps the first and (could be) the only time in this year’s Cannes.

Tarantino is a painter when it comes to portraying gore. Even when he literally implements the phrase “taking the enemy’s scalp”, the cruelty of the act does not repel you. In a strange kind of way, it binds you.

A cast of international top draws – each of them speaking in their own real mother tongues in the …

Is it the effect of the recession gloom I don’t know, but the peddlers of heavy stuff have all come with feel good films this time to Cannes. If Ang Lee’s ‘return-to-innocence’ ode to Woodstock, not surprisingly called Taking Woodstock, lightened the Cannes delegates’ mood left shocked and awed by Lars von Trier’s Antichrist and some gory stuff in a few other films, the smile factor is being spread also by Pedro Almodovar’s bitter-sweet comedy-drama Broken Embraces, Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric and Alain Resnais’ Wild Grass. All these are that kind of cinema which will bring a smile, though sometimes tinged with a bit of melancholy. That is what they have done at the festival in the last couple of days, especially after Lars von Trier provoked everyone with his shocking Antichrist.

Almodovar traverses known territory in his new film too, but somehow, I found it a little disappointing …

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 …

Happy days are here again. Back are the days of watching films at the CineMandir. The days of cheap thrills while watching the bewildered faces at the Box Office by asking ‘1 ticket each of 3 consecutive shows for the same film’. Aah bliss! ‘Mast naha-dhoke scent maarke’ reached Inox. Bought the tickets, bewildered the ticket guy & looked admiringly at the ticket. Read everything on it. Folded it and put it back into the pocket. Some more time before the first show started…

Got in a little early, pissed off, that the security guy took away my lighters. (I carry 2, in case one goes bust). Come on, I wouldn’t burn down my CineMandir. Anyways that done, I strolled in the alley up and down. Soaking in the ambience that I so missed for more than a month now! The smell of the popcorn. The lure of the snooty …

Dear filmmaker (and film lover) friends in India. I have just discovered the secret formula through which you can get your film into Cannes, possibly even the competition section. Get some French investment in the project, sign a big French name (such as music icon Johnny Hallyday) and develop a story which has a French connection – even a remote one will do.
That’s what Hong Kong director Johnnie To, who made that delightful Sparrow just before he made Vengeance (in Cannes competition this time), has done. It’s such a sorry effort in the name of cinema that even Charles Bronson’s no-nonsense Death Wish is a far, far better watching. At least it did not pretend to give you a philosophical lowdown on what revenge means to the fickle human mind.
A revenge drama full of some trademark To choreographed action, and quite well shot, the film’s plot was interesting to start …

Ang Lee means tragic stories. At least that has been the case in recent years. Watch Taking Woodstock, and you will be astounded his this man changes genres like we change shirts. How many directors in contemporary world cinema can we think of who has such versatility in terms of theme, treatment and making as Lee? From Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to Lust, Caution, through Sense & Sensibility, The Hulk, Brokeback Mountain et al., this man has taken up all kinds of themes. And now, he comes up with this delightful comic drama about how the legendary Woodstock Music Fest of 1969 came about. In a masterstroke, he never shows the concert itself, though some of the great music constantly plays throughout the film. Rather, it is about the lives of people around the festival, particularly Elliot Tiber who played an inadvertent but very important role in realizing the fest …

NSFW Alert: This post contains several images and words which might be, repeatedly, unsuitable for children , young and old alike, parental guidance is advised

The last fuck of any relationship, would invariably be a dud, as the fuckers would have fucked up themselves and their brains a fucking number of times. But one of them wasn’t, it was the most emotional and intimate one I had seen, in Patrice Chereau’s ‘Intimacy‘, based on Hanif Kureishi’s stories. The film revolves around Jay and Claire , who were brought together by the one gift, that every person, rich or poor, idiot or intellectual, forward or backward, even a good author or terribly bad one could enjoy equally well, intimate sex

.

Ha ha…when he could have stood on one leg for twenty four years, or travelled far and wide across the country , …

Get ready for the great debate. Was it right to open the 62nd Cannes Film Festival with a Hollywood blockbuster, animation or not? Or was it the need of the hour to uplift (pun intended) the mood made gloomy by the recessionary trend.

Whatever it is, you will enjoy Up, directed by Pete Doctor. It is that typical Disney-Pixar animation film. But there are differences between this and the usual stuff.

First, it is made in digital 3D, but does not make gimmickry use of 3D (objects flying out at you, and the stuff). What it helps in getting an unbelievably fantastic viewing experience, as the screen gets a depth that takes the viewer into the scheme of things, rather than things coming out of it.

Then, its hero is an old man, not a superhero, but a common, old man, who is fighting the land shark developers to save his old house, …

Sneaking by that bylane, those deep dark eyes having so much to convey, the starkling innocence awaiting corruption, and that naïve beauty, it all was innocently real, it had nothing false about it, it was innocence packed in a plain package of innocence. The name of the movie instantly conjured up images of either awe, shock, magic and ironically pain, bondage and obviously the literal sour coldness. It gave out nothing that a first time Indian filmmaker would dream to make, no stars to gaze at, no foreign locations, no item numbers, no over the top promotion, and most importantly, no godfather backing your baby, the baby had to come out on its own, not without its share of turmoil, pain and struggle, it certainly didn’t have a high end doctor coming and taking it out like a pot of gold. It was raw, and undoubtedly when that baby comes …

Oss!!
Exclaims Van Damme the action star in the movie JCVD (Jean Claude Van Damme)! It is not in preparation for a kick on the villains. It is rather in conclusion of a one second long monologue(to himself) that is stretched into a screen time of 5 to 10 minutes in the movie. The conclusion being the acceptance of his present state – that of a helpless victim of his situation. Not just that of a hostage in a bank robbery going awry with every passing moment – but a victim of his own success and a loss of bearings in his life. Never before have I seen a movie star reexamining himself and his career in a movie in this manner. It has always been a trend that fading stars bank on their plusses to make comeback. By default Jean Claude Van Damme – the fading action star must have made …

Ok so what do we usually expect from a Telugu movie these days, especially when it stars a popular hero? That the hero will play to the gallery and work on his strengths. That the movie will contain the typical mass elements like action, around 6 songs which includes an item number, loud villains who are more or less caricatures, nearly all the well known comedians doing some kind of inane stuff in the name of comedy, one or more heroines trying to give their share of glamour quotient, some ‘punch’ dialogues powerful enough to disturb our ear drums and so on & so forth.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch Kick- the latest Telugu release which has Ravi Teja and Ileana and also introduces the Tamil actor- Shaam to Telugu Cinema. So am I saying that this movie …

The second on my world cinema series is a film by Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Western audiences know Panahi, most recently through  his 2006 film “Offside” which depicted the efforts of two Iranian girls to get inside a football stadium, disguised as men. This film created enough of a buzz in the Western critical circles, and also bagged the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. (Although Panahi had in the past, been honoured at Cannes and Venice among others)

This post, however, is not about Offside, but about one of his earlier works, “The Mirror”(1997) which I saw last week.  “The Mirror” begins with a little girl, Mina(Mina Mohammed-Khani), who is desperately hoping for her mother to come pick her up after school. She has one arm in a sling, her school is located in a fairly crowded locality in Teheran, and she isn’t really sure about the way home.

As the …

Some films that PFC Authors have been watching…

Tushar
Arthur
Dudley Moore is good ol’ 80’s delight. An in-the-right-taste-and-sensibility film, rest is taken care of by John Geilgud and always forever Liza Minnelli.

Ghost Town
Something that starts off very accessible, but moves on(thankfully) to territories which make films like this and In Bruges different from what have you.

Wag the dog
Barry Levinson. De Niro(in that hat and beard and the look that makes you pay for even a shitty De Niro film till date). Hoffman. Political wit at its warmest season.

Bolt
A refreshingly nice and less-smarter-than-your-average-Pixar outing from Disney. Deserves a second watch.

The King
Nice indie, more in the darker realm/genre featuring the talents of Paul Dano, Gael Garcia Bernal & William Hurt. I could relate it to Buffalo 66, for some strange reasons.

Metropolis
Thanks to Mainak for the recco(along with The Unbelievable Truth, Petulia and some …

March 13th, 2009 will remain a special day for me. That’s the day when I had a very interesting experience of watching 2 interesting movies. Before anybody asks me what’s so special about watching 2 movies in a day, after all most of have us grown up watching multiple movies in a day-let me tell you that the day was unique for me due to the films watched and the person with whom I watched the movies alongside. The movies were Gulaal and Frozen and the person I saw the movies together with was Shivajee Chandrabhushan-the director and producer of Frozen.

I had started knowing Shivajee through PFC just a short while before this day in March. When I realized that Frozen had already made the rounds of some 30 odd festivals worldwide and that in spite of having won some 18 …

Past is memories, the present is uncontrollable and future is unknown. In such an unsure world, we try to make sense out of things by relationships, expressions and understanding. Once in a while, someone comes across and defines the way life is percieved. They are hailed as gurus, messiahs, prophets or saviours. Cinema also has its own Sensei. To me cinema is personal, precious and to die for. And Padmarajan is the messiah.

My first post as an author in PFC, I dedicate to the master, Padmarajan.

Not even a single Malayali soul, which lived in the 1980s and later, would have been spared, conciously or unconciously, of an enlightenment from this magicians art. Yes, he was the best of them all. The most approachable, cinematically, to all and sundry and laid foundation to the glory of malayalam cinema in those years. Films of Pappettan are filled with abrupt unsurety of …

(Been home for a full five days now….. time to kick-start the blog again)

When we finally got rid of the friendly neighbourhood cable guy and his spider-web of wires, hooks and assorted paraphernelia; and switched to a DTH service, the best thing which came with it was the World Movies channel. Now, this was a channel dedicated to showing quality cinema from around the world to an Indian audience. A couple of days back, I saw this brilliant Finnish film called “The Man Without A Past” by director Aki Kaurismaki.

Like many other great films, this one, too has a very simple story. A man, newly arrived in Helsinki, gets so severely beaten up, that he develops amnesia. The rest of the film deals with his attempts to start a new life and try and find out more about his past. This leads to some darkly funny, sometimes poignant scenes. The …

This is my first post as an ‘author’ on PFC, and though the news came two days back, I was in a remote part of the country, with not much access to net, hence got the ‘good-news’ only this morning. The ecstasic feeling of finally being a ‘regular’ part of PFC is something that has neither sunk in, nor will it go away for a while. Anyway, the good thing coming out of my forced hibernation was that I caught up with some of the movies of which I had the DVD, but had not watched it for some reason or the other.

One such movie that I watched, (and I was fortunate I did so) was Sau Jhooth Ek Sach, a 2005 film directed by Bappaditya Roy, starring Mammotty (in one of his rare non-dubbed / original Hindi movies), the DVD of which I had picked up on …

Not that it matters.
I am not an academy or Golden Globe member!
I possess no influence and I am part of no media entourage.
However I feel I can say this categorically. When the stellar dust of Oscar worship settles down, in a year or two, the connoisseurs and auteurs would mark 2008 as the year when Milk was denied but could deny it no more.
For it is a far superior movie with all elements participating it with independent passion that has started to define movies of the coming years. A movie which is made with a missionary zeal, yet using the cinematic arrows with a certainty of craft that a master archer possesses.

Before we step into the post that lavishly praises the movie in a pedestal, let me give you a recap of three events.

A boy is bullied to death by his school mates and his sin? An outwardly projection that …

A decent horror film? A horror film – subtle?

Is it possible and even if it is possible, will the film still be attractive and appealing?

One film does this magic.

In Hindi cinema, horror films mean either typical products of Ramsey Brothers or Ram Gopal Verma’s factory products and few other efforts by other filmmakers here and there like Vikram Bhatt’s 1920 and Madhvan starrer 13 B.
Ram Gopal Varma’s last horror entry Phoonk was loosly based on (/inspired by) a sensible film made by Vikas Desai and Aruna Raje in 1980.

Gehrayee was the film. This film could easily be said as only sensible and good film ever came out of hindi cinema where subject has dealt with black magic, spirit, supernatural powers and ghost etc. This is the only film which does not take refuge in technical gimicks to falsely terrorise the audiences rather it goes down deeply into the psychology …

Not able to control ourselves and wait until May 8th for the movie to release, we grabbed the first opportunity made available to us to see the movie at a special screening.

Star Trek fans… amidst all your excitement we know many of you will be equally nervous. We know we were. Would the movie turn out to be bigger than our expectations or would it fall flat? Wolverine for many fans out there has been a disappointment (though we thought the action was terrific)…

All fans of this Trek can breathe now. We loved it. It went beyond our expectations. Director J.J. Abrams puts the story in the driver’s seat and …

Interesting last 25 minutes, burdened under the rest ~70-80 minutes.IMDB