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It has been a crazy year at the movies. While Bollywood has mostly found it tough to spring any surprise, in the real sense, and there are hardly any films which impressed me out of the league (when compared to the last year – examples are aplenty, it had films either so good which made one shout from the rooftop or films that made you cringe and rethink about spending your money on a multiplex ticket), Hollywood was not much different.
The only few films that I thought did create a dent somewhere were Tashan, Sarkar Raj, Aamir, Jodha Akbar, Rock On, Dasvidaniya, Jaane tu ya jaane na, Mithya and probably, Welcome to Sajjanpur. I won’t bring in my guilty pleasure/antisocial-exercise films to ruin the post (in other words I won’t be talking about Contract & Phoonk). And then there were the disappointments – commercial and parallel. Commercial disasters …

iView Author: Ashwin Singh (Mumbai, India)

Email: akas100 [at] gmail [dot] com

RGV and me

This is my first post for PFC and I thought it would be apt to write about the man who is responsible for transforming me from a part time movie watcher into a full fledged cinema fanatic.

My only inclination towards movies as a kid was watching them for timepass. I had an interest in acting but I never thought I could become an actor primarily because I didn’t have the looks. I had a wheatish complexion, thin body frame and a meek voice. How could I possibly become an actor? Back then my definition of an actor was completely different. If I was to be an actor I had to be Salman Khan but …

A monkey. A giraffe. An onion. A soft toy. A lemon. A soft ball. They have all moved court to get a stay order on Ram Gopal Varma Ki Phoonk. Their claim: they have not been credited in the beginning or end of the movie. “After all we are the main characters,” says On Ion, whose appearance shot in the film is a staggering close-up filling up half of the cinemascope screen.
The monkey and the giraffe have gone to Maneka Gandhi. “We are not extinct as the film would want everyone to believe,” says Mon Key. Adds Gi Raffe: “We were promised that some point in the film we would all come alive and have a blast.” But in Ram Gopal Varma’s Phoonk everything stayed as dead as a dodo. Only the camera is on viagra and the background score has an extreme case of diarrhoea.

But what takes …

I haven’t seen ‘Singh is Kinng’ yet. But last week I saw three new (not as in recent released) films, which is more than the number of films I saw in last six months. So I want to celebrate that. By writing a post on those three films; I liked those films otherwise I would not have even mentioned it.
Actually, I saw four films: Manorama - Six Feet Under, Safar, Black Friday and Darwaaza Bandh Rakho. I had seen Black Friday before but saw it again recently (cos I liked it first time around); where as other three films I had not seen it before, so wanted to watch it.

Safar

The film stars with an ER / ICU scene and I was …

..to see how far has RGV fallen. As a follow up to Sarkar Raj, RGV comes out with a movie with newcomers and makes a film in the mold of Satya. Unfortunately, it doesn’t succeed and only plenty of irritating factors stays with you at the end of the movie [...]

Govinda……… govinda…… govinda……… govinda………… goooooovindaaaaaaaa.

I have hearing problem. Left side is almost dead, some medical complication. And now I feel so lucky that after watching Contract, right side is still working. Or I would have no option but to sue the filmmaker.

Had a hard time convincing myself to watch Sarkar Raj. Recently saw it on the net and concluded that “the man has lost his craft”. And I can’t figure out how. I understand if your art doesn’t connect with your fans and audiences or fans and audiences are dumb enough not to understand your art but how do you lose your craft ? Like VVC’s Eklavya, SLB’s Saawariya or AK’s No Smoking. All these films are well crafted, brilliantly mounted. Anyway, being an old Ramu fan, I could not stop myself from watching Contract. Third film of his underworld triology.

Since it was a special screening, when we entered the …

…..and a few more words for Mumbai industry

Recently Sarkar Raj got released. Historically, the Hindi film-goers community were divided into the one’s who think Gunda is an epic and other’s who think Gunda is a larger than life classic. But now a new division has crept into the ranks. People are now divided on whether Sarkar Raj will be the last torture to inflicted by RGV and others who think that RGV’s worst is yet to come. To clear the air, PFC TV (People Featured in Colour TeleVision) cornered Ramu for an interview. If you’ve never heard of PFC TV don’t fret. The number of people who have heard of the said channel is less than or equal to the number of people who loved Jimmy. Here is the transcript of the interview:
PFC TV: To start off with, how did you get the idea of Sarkar Raj. What was the genesis …

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

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

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

iView Author:
Krishna
(Hyderabad, India)
EMAIL:
moviecentric [at] gmail.com

RGV’s filmography

Sarkar Raj which is going be released on 6th June 2008 has attracted a lot of attention by the media and by the movie lovers due to RGV’s previous box office failure ‘Ramu ki AAG’.Let us look back into his works ,as i hail from Hyderabad i had the opportunity to watch his works from the very beginning of his career.

SHIVA(1989):
Ramu Gopal Verma made his debut with SHIVA.It was the time when TOLLYWOOD(Telugu Film Industry) was fully loaded with masala and entertaining films with big figures like Chiranjeevi,Balakrishna were ruling the Tollywood then comes a young talented guy with a powerful script based upon Student Politics and Rowdyism.The simple …

iView Author:
Bharath Vineeth
(Boston, USA)

Email :
WITHHELD

Dil Se… One Of Mani Ratnam’s Best

I don’t know how many of you still remember Dil Se. This movie was supposed to be the first true mainstream product that wanted make an impact globally like no other movie from India. It had some big names coming together Mani Ratnam, RGV, Shekar kapur.

This was the last of trilogy, the first two being roja and Bombay. Even though the music became a rage, the movie bombed and just faded into oblivion.

I first watched Dil Se when i was 15 years old, first day first show. Was a kid then so i did not understand the movie other than the fact that i was mesmerized by the music and the cinematography.

I saw dil se recently on DVD, am 24 now and have to say that it blew me away. Not stunned by the movie …