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PFC Ronin

Firstly, a big thank you to the jury for helping PFC out and sticking through all the six rounds of Ronin. Most of the contestants stuck through all the rounds, a big thank you. The contest has given us more ideas that we plan to use for the contest next year.

Finally the winners.

The PFC Ronin for 2008 is

Trasie Stittsworth (Los Angles, USA)

Here’s the final rankings

1. Trasie Stittsworth (Los Angeles, USA)

2. Satish Naidu (Pune, India)

3. Praveen Gopal Krishnan (Bangalore, India)

4. Rajesh R Kallidumbil (Pune, India)

5. Shantesh Sunil Row (Dubai, UAE)

Congratulations to all the participants. And a big thank you to you dear readers. We hope we can bring in a bigger, better and more exciting Ronin contest next year… until then Adios!

Round SIX

The movie to be reviewed by the contestants is Saaransh

Here are the submitted reviews for Round Six! Contestants are listed in order of their rankings after Round Five. If two or more contestants share the same ranking, they are listed alphabetically.

1. Praveen Gopal Krishnan (Bangalore, India)
Saaransh : More than just a gist.

Death and love are recurring themes in most Mahesh Bhatt movies - hardly a surprise for someone who has flicks named Murder and Aashiqui in his filmography. Saaransh is where it all began for Bhatt - before he met Mallika Sherawat on the sets of Murder, who I have a sneaking suspicion cued him in on the fact that leaving little to the imagination might have a greater impact at …

Round FIVE

The movie to be reviewed by the contestants is DROH KAAL

Here are the submitted reviews for Round Five! Contestants are listed in order of their rankings after Round Four. If two or more contestants share the same ranking, they are listed alphabetically.

1. Praveen Gopal Krishnan (Bangalore, India)
Droh-ed by Droh Kaal

It’s hard to imagine what kind of an audience did Droh Kaal attract when it hit the theatres way back in 1994. This movie is neither an entertainer nor a nationalist rabble-rousing one - not that it would have made much of a difference if it were one anyway. The entertainment seekers would have flocked to ‘Hum Aapke Hai Kaun’ and the nationalists would have beat their chests in the aisles of …

Round Four

The movie to be reviewed by the ten contestants is SUNDAY
The backup movie review, if the main movie did not release in the city of any contestant was Anukokonda Oka Roju. - All contestants were given a 1000 word count limit to write their reviews within.

Here are the submitted reviews for Round Four! Contestants are listed in order of their rankings after Round Three. If two or more contestants share the same ranking, they are listed alphabetically.

1. Praveen Gopal Krishnan (Bangalore, India)
Sunday: Sun-Dazed!

The strongest possible warning about this movie is what it calls itself - ‘Sunday’. You know that when they start naming movies after days of the week - a scheming marketing ploy hoping that you make a mistake …

[This is a re-posting of a review originally posted elsewhere, on PFC, on January 14, 2008 at 8:04 pm]

Street Theatre practitioner, & Cinema-Hero-aspirant, Ashfaque (AjayDevgan) has just managed to get the go-ahead from his father, to chase his heroic dream in Bombay. He meets the ladylove of his life, Sneha (VidyaBalan), in a farewell-walk in the environs of a Goregaoned small-town India (a Cinecitta-like abode of Bollywood filmmaking called FilmCity). While Sneha has been fully supportive of Ashfaque’s dreams, she still doesn’t resist herself from asking the unfair question of what he would choose if he were to, between her and his acting career. Ashfaque relents honesty, with the fair reply of choosing his acting career. The Ashfaques have become even more endearing to the Snehas, & Shalinis, of the world. Sneha has just elected herself an Amoural Martyr, an equivalent of the much-celebrated male of the species – …

Round Three

The movie to be reviewed by the ten contestants is Bombay to Bangkok
The backup movie review, if the main movie did not release in the city of any contestant was Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. - All contestants were given a 1000 word count limit to write their reviews within.

Here are the submitted reviews for Round Three! Contestants are listed in order of their rankings after Round Two. If two or more contestants share the same ranking, they are listed alphabetically.

1. Trasie Stittsworth (Los Angles, USA)

Bombay to Bangkok: Lost in Translation

Actors that range from competent to very good. A stunning location. Jokes that are smarter than those in most comedic films. Running gags that throw curve balls. A …

Round Two

The movie to be reviewed by the ten contestants is Halla Bol!
The contestants were given an option to review Andrei Rublev, if Halla Bol had not released in their city. - Please note the word count restriction for Round Two was 1000 words.

The panel of judges will review these movies and we should have the rankings of the ten contestants after round one in one week.

Here are the submitted reviews! (Contestants are listed alphabetically)

Shaayon Bhattacharya (Mumbai, India)
Halla Bol: Halla Bowl Over the Front Bench

Two dacoits from the Chambal chart their way into mainstream society. One empowers the masses while the other terrorizes them. Simple small town boy Ashfaque becomes slimy Superstar Sameer Khan. Underlying dualities like these have the …

There were 92 reviews that came in until the window closed. Another few dozen came in after we closed the window and unfortunately these had to be left out of round one. The last two hours before the close saw a flood on submissions.

It all came down to 15 top notch reviews and it got tough for PFC’s internal panel to get them down to 10. After much discussion and deliberation here is the list of the Final 10 who will be fighting it out for the title of PFCRonin.

Movies for which the ten contestants have to submit their reviews will be announced each Wednesday (by 10pm PST). The ten contestants will also be notified by email about the movies. The contestants are advised …

[Sorry for the deliberately late post.]

Saw TZP alone on a saturday night. Everyone knows the film is about the relationship between a dyslexic child and his mentor/teacher.

No amount of praise is sufficient for the first half. Please take a bow Mr Khan/ Mr Gupte for the in depth research into the mind of a kid. The film instantly set its benchmarks (wrt kid’s understanding) right up with Anjali, Kannathil Muthamittal, Malli, Navrasa, Halo (Manirathnam and Santosh Sivan - two filmakers i know who are unparalleled in invoking performances from children). The film delves into the mind of Darsheel; the delightful distractions of a car tyre upsetting a puddled pot hole while class is going on, the cartoon while solving the maths questionpaper, the joys of digging your nose coolly, the pleasure in watching day to day life unfold in front of your eyes (a haunting Mera Jahaan by Adnan …

A tale of an Artist.

Starring: Darsheel Safary, Amir Khan.
Screenplay by: Amol Gupte.
Directed by: Amir Khan.

A drop of a red paint falls on a canvas. Then a finger comes and adds some yellow color to that drop. The drop shows some light turbulent mixing of smaller pigments of yellow and red, then that same finger starts mixing those colors. Then appears a creation of color on canvas as seen by Ishaan (Darsheel Safary), an 8-year old kid who just destroyed his graded exam solution of non-art subjects. Well, because he failed in those. There is something that drives Ishaan away from the books and exams to painting, to catching fishes in the gutter, to jigsaw puzzles, to almost anything that catches his eyes. He mentions his teacher that the letters in the book are dancing. That would make him dyslexic. But not dumb. Perhaps his vision is different than an average …

Game On! Time to play. And play hard. And the playground to battle it out is open to everyone (well… most of you). So without wasting any more time, here’s what PFCRonin is all about…

Announcing PFCRonin

The contest to search for the best of the best. In movie reviewing. So lets begin…

What is PFCRonin?

Ronin \Ro”nin”\, n. [Jap. r[=o]-nin, fr. Chin. lang profligate,
lawless + j[^e]n (old sound n[=i]n) man.]
a samurai with no group, clan or master - he is the outsider, the outcast

This is a contest to search for the next generation of movie reviewers. You are a movie fan, a blogger, a writer, have been reviewing movies on your website, blogsite, over chai sessions or simply screaming it out at …