Archive for August, 2010

This is one film we are eagerly waiting for – Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Paan Singh Tomar starring Irrfan Khan & Mahie Gill. Some on locations pics of the film are out on the internet. Check it out.

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And here is the official synopsis of the film…

Paan Singh Tomar is an untold true story of a simple farmer, a loyal soldier and a champion athlete who became one of India’s most dreaded dacoits!

Paan Singh was a small town lad who went on to win the steeplechase at the Indian National Games for 7 consecutive years! He broke the national record, a feat that was unsurpassed for 10 years! A series of life changing events however forced Paan Singh to give up athletics, pick up the gun and become the scourge of the infamous Chambal valley in central India. Filled with deep emotions and fateful twists, Paan Singh Tomar is a gritty, no holds barred action adventure set in the heart of India’s gangland, Chambal.

And if you are more interested, click on the play button to check out how Irrfan Khan trained for the role…

And there is some more! Click here to read a damn kickass interview of Irrfan Khan, done  by GQ’s Iain Ball, on the sets of Paan Singh Tomar.

We struggled really hard to figure out what to write on this D-day, how to write a new post on the legend, and write something that has not been written or said before.  Or something that his fans haven’t seen before. Naah, everything has been discussed and dissected million times in trillion ways. 116 (chaand ki raatei) has turned into a magical number too, with everyone having their own theory about it.  From Bandini to Beera, Kinara to Kaminey, Dil Se to Dil toh baccha hai ji, he never fails to surprise. Will there ever be any Gulzar ? Well, we all know the answer.

Click on the play button to see if the video surprises you…if you have seen Gulzarsaab in this avatar before…

Got it ? If no, read on. The film is Jallianwala Bagh and was produced and directed by Balraj Tah. As the name suggests, its based on the historical Jallianwala Bagh incident. Gulzarsaab played an Indian student studying in England, and as a part of freedom movement, he delivered speeches in the campus. He played a friend to Parikshit Sahni, who was one of the main characters in the film. The music was by R D Burman.

As the story goes, most of the people were associated with this production because there were in good terms with the makers of the film. Hrishikesh Mukherjee was also involved with the film as a “friendly” director. In Gulzarsaab’s words..

Kyonki production mein bahut saari cast ki zaroorat thi, isliye jitne bhi log film mein backstage pe bhi involved the un sabko in front of camera khada kar diya..(except Pancham) aur sabse kaha ki ek ek role kar lo.. meine jo specific character kiya wo sirf isliye kiya ki film Thand ke dino mein shoot huyee thi.. aur film mein kewal mera character ki dress pullover (fully covered) mein thi :)… isliye wo character meine maang liya.”

And now its time to test your GQ – Gulzar Quotient. Guess the names of  the films in which he has made onscreen appearance.   Clueless like us ? Well, check out this song from Basu Bhattacharya’s Griha Pravesh starring Sanjeev Kumar, Sharmila Tagore, Sarika and Dinesh Thakur.

Can you remember any other film where he has made onscreen appearance ? Do let us know in the comment section.

PS – And as always, thanks to Pavan Jha for everything!

Kiran Rao’s directorial debut Dhobi Ghat is going to have its world premiere at  the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). It stars Aamir Khan, Prateik Babbar, Monica Dogra and Kriti Malhotra. Some new pics of the film are out…check it out…

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And here is the official synopsis of the film…

In the teeming metropolis of Mumbai, four people separated by class and language are drawn together in compelling relationships. Shai, an affluent investment banker on a sabbatical, strikes up an unusual friendship with Munna, a young and beautiful laundry boy with ambitions of being a Bollywood actor, and has a brief dalliance with Arun, a gifted painter. As they slip away from familiar moorings and drift closer together, the city finds its way into the crevices of their inner worlds.

And to read what Cameron Bailey, Co-director of TIFF, thinks about Dhobi Ghat, click here.

Here is the trailer of a new film called Emotional Atyachar – The film and two posters of other two new films – Jhootha Hi Sahi & Action Replayy.

Emotional Atyachar – the film is directed by debutant Akshay Shere and stars Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak, Mohit Ahalawat, Kalki Koechlin, Abhimanyu Singh and Ravi Kissen.

Jhootha Hi Sahi is directed by Abbas Tyrewala and stars John Abraham and Pakhi (Abbas’s wife). But why is Pakhi missing from the first poster ? Isn’t this her big debut ? Any conspiracy theory ? Action Replayy is by Vipul Shah and stars Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

In yesterday’s Mint Lounge I-Day Special Edition Sidin Vadukut had a piece where he argued that Twitter is better than blog. Just 140 characters, say it, over and out. But we don’t agree. What do you do when you have to make a list ? So, we are back to a post which was in drafts for long time. And what better day than I-Day to put it out.

So, here is our list of Top 10 Twitteraties who blocked us in the last one year or so. And some, for damn fcuk funny reasons. Its time to celebrate our gag order and do tell us who blocked you and for what ? In no particular order…the new members of Fight Club Hall Of Shame…read on…

1. Mahesh Bhatt – He makes us feel that Itchgaurd will never make a loss till he is alive. But he gave us some brillant movies too. He is the biggest importer of talent from across the border, at the cheapest possible rate. But we loved his book A Taste Of Life too.

This time he was tweeting about how the Copyright Bill is not good for Bollywood. We decided to burst his tweets, retweeted them with the correct facts, that how its going to stop the exploitation of lyricists, singers, composers and how they will finally be able to retain the copyright of their compositions. With no straight arguements in hand (ok, may be he was busy itching), he clicked the BLOCKED button.

2. Vikram Bhatt – If Uncle is here, can the nephew be far behind! The director delivered more than dozen duds, all in a row. But we loved the HT Cafe covers that he wrote when Khalid Mohamed was the editor there. Aha, that love story also went kaput. Back to our story.

He tweeted – Mahakshay Chakraborty is the next big thing. Whoever disagrees has something coming! And we dared to disagree. Which sane person wouldn’t ? BTW, Mahakshay is MIMOH reloaded! And when we reacted in the nasty possible way, he told us – don’t be in too much of a hurry to write someone’s obituary. You are not even what he is.

But as Arnab Goswami would put it The country wants to know, who wants to be Mimoh or Mahaskahy and why ? Tell us NOW! Not us and we don’t know anyone with such  a wish. But we have to thank him, he made us bit more (in)famous!

3. Shirish Kunder – This is our favourite story! It seems he discovered Adaptation quite late and tweeted that its a brillant film written by Charlie & Donald Kaufman. We corrected him. There is nobody called Donald. He again tweeted that how Charlie & Donald Kaufman were nominated for the Oscar Award for Adaptation. We again corrected him and retweeted that Donald Kaufman doesn’t exist. And don’t expect us to be sober when we are telling you something about someone whom we consider to be the God of screenwriting. And then boom..Blocked.

BTW, we think he shot some of the songs in Jaaneman superbly. His next is JOKER with Akshay Kumar. #JGrin. Get ready for all the puns, Mr. Donald Duck!

4. Sajid Khan – Aha, the gasbag! What do you call someone who made supershits like Heyy Potty and Housedull ? Not Filmmaker for sure. We call him Pottymaker. You need some talent to make such expensive potties and make people eat it too!

The last nail in our  BLOCK coffin – he tweeted that Up In The Air was boring. He could not finish the film and stopped it midway. Ooh la la. Reaction and his action! Last heard, he is MIA on Twitterverse. We have started following the fake one.

5. Suhel Seth – Nobody knows about his day job. But we all know  that he is a fuckall actor (Courtesy Pooja Bhatt). Does he sleep in tv studios ? How come he is such an authoritative voice on everything…from Arundhati to Arunachal and Commonwealth Games to Chinese Cuisine ? Does he have a twin brother ? Because sometimes he is on air at 2-3 channels at the same time. HOW ? Plus, he writes Agony Uncle columns too!

Can’t find the piece now but someone wrote a feature on him and enlightened us about his day job. We retweeted it with all our genuine concerns. The Agony Uncle went BANG! We like his Agony Uncle pose though! Check out the pic here,  on the top left-hand corner of the website.

6. Shatrughan Sinha – Can’t locate him on Twitter now but swear, he was there. Was tweeting about his son Luv Sinha’s Saddiyaan. Guess it was the beta tweeting on behalf of daddy dearest. Ok, so we can cover both the Sinhas together. Go check No. 7.

7. Luv Sinha – Who ? Yes, that should be the first question. But then, thats how Bollylalaland operate. Ok, here is the joke of the century. Luv Sinha has two fan clubs on twitter. Here & here. But then, he can reply in another joke – Even Uday Chopra has a fan club. Aur bolo ?Can we please have one too ? Hands up ?

As we were busy cracking Sadiyaan jokes, the baap-beta duo shouted KHAMOSH!

8. Jitesh PillaaiBus naam hi kaafi hai ? Ok, Test your Bolly Quotient – Tell us the name of one editor who calls Sonam Kapoor as My Shona Chona  or something like that ? Well, if you edit the most expensive and glossy  toilet paper in the country, guess you can do so. We were cribbing about the toilet paper for a long time and finally one day he woke up and did the good tweed of the day!

BTW, did Kalmadi order the same toilet paper  from filmUNfare office for CWG? It needs lot of talent to fill so many pages, issue after issue, with so much shit! Oh yeah, finally after ages they did a nice feature recently where they got Dibakar Bannerjee, Zoya Akhtar, Shimit Amin, Anurag Kashyap and Madhur Bhandarkar together for a delicious chat. But Madhur ????

9. Sarita Tanwar – We love Mid Day for all the sleaze and the goss. But she edits the Hit List. We loved the fact that its editor Abhijit Majumder didn’t compromise his stand after his famous altercation with Amitabh Bachchan.

But how can you let anyone to rate Once Upon A Time In Mumbai 4.5/5 stars!!!?? Even more than Peepli Live and many other such films. We happily crowned her the Jackass Critic Of The Week. And there she went…chore ko toh dikhte hai sab chor!

BTW, a bitchy actress called up to say that by the weekend she was celebrating the success of OUATIM at her best friend and producer Ekta Kapoor’s party. And she makes it to our sHIT List!

10. Like all those morons who dedicate their tweets to Anupam Kher, this one is dedicated to all those nameless and faceless creatures who blocked as for all the right reasons. Go kiddos, make your list and make us more famous. We Love Hate Storys and We Are Family for sure! Aha, KJo always comes so handy! Even on I-Day!

If Apne wasn’t enough, the Deols are back again! This time with  director Sameer Karnik and actress Kulraj Randhawa. And if you are wondering whats the title is about, well, we are guessing its three adjective for three Deols. If you can’t read the text, click on the pic.

And here is the unofficial synopsis of the film…Dharmendra and Bobby  Deol play a crooked father-son based in Varanasi. Sunny Deol plays a Canada based upright man who gets to know after two decades that he has a father and brother in Varanasi. The film is about Sunny’s journey to his past and finally apne to apne hote hai!

This time POTD is not Pic Of The Day but its PICK Of The Day. Take a closer look at both the pics and pick the odd wig man out! Both the pics are from the music release function of Rajinikanth & Aishwarya Rai starrer Robot (Endhiran).

And if you think its a futile exercise, click here. Its even made to Answers.com page. So, don’t put the blame on us. We have never been able to understand the reason though. And he is so desperate that even when he is being taken to the hospital on a stretcher bed, he doesn’t forget to cover it. Scroll down and  take a closer look at the pic….aha, the hand!

Dear Boss, you can do everything. Can you please crack this puzzle ?

Moving to Junior B. The kid who is tweeting for his new film Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey should be immediately banned from Twitterverse. Why ? Check out this timeline. They did 24 hours countdown to reveal a new KHJJS pic of Junior B. Here is another puzzle…tell us whats so special about this pic ?

Their answer – Its part one of our independence Day surprise.

Our answer – Please take back our independence if this is the surprise!

And if the background music and the song in the trailer is any indication of the film to come, well, its time for #BOJam (Inspired by #MeterJam). Again! Southern Superstar Surya makes his bolly debut with this one. Plus,  it has the bolly superstar (atleast he thinks he is) Vivek Oberoi alongwith Priyamani, Shatrughan Sinha, Abhimanyu Singh and Radhika Apte.

Whats more, its in two parts. So, two movies, back to back, one after another in just few weeks. Get ready. Seriously!

We posted this one earlier….Cameron Bailey on Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat. And then got to know that he has written about Anurag Kashyap’s That Girl In Yellow Booots too. For those who are still wondering who is Cameron, well, he is the Co-director of Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

We should have put both his notes on a single post but since Dhobi Ghat is already out, this one is on That Girl In Yellow Boots. Read on…

As India’s independent film movement surges, Anurag Kashyap is at the forefront of the action. His Dev D. stripped away Bollywood’s commercial sheen to reveal a generation of urban Indians as they are today: ambitious, exciting and international. That Girl in Yellow Boots takes a hard look at those South Asians who live in between worlds. A portrait of a biracial woman trying to find her place in Bombay, it is exactly the brand of urgent, passionate filmmaking that is transforming how we think about Indian cinema.

Ruth has spent enough time in India to know how to work the system, including how to manipulate the sleazy bureaucrat at the immigration office. With her visa extended, she returns to “studying massage,” which is really a soul-squandering job servicing men at a backroom parlour. Her boyfriend, Prashant, offers no rescue from the dangers of her work. In fact, his drug use, money problems and brushes with violent criminals put her in the way of ever-present harm. But Ruth puts on a tough face and braves the risks of her challenging, urban life for one deeply personal reason: her estranged father lives somewhere in the city. As she searches for her last remaining link with her family, she falls deeper into Bombay’s underworld. But a part of Ruth seems to embrace the danger. That girl in yellow boots is a complex character: brash but sensitive, numbed to men but desperately needing to connect.

Kashyap shot the film in a mere thirteen days and it carries that anything-goes spirit. At the same time, it boasts sophisticated widescreen cinematography that pushes its characters together in the frame, compressing them against Bombay’s humid mass of concrete and people. This is an enormously stylish film, crafting intimate pockets within the city where layered performances can unfold. In both style and subject, Kashyap defines the pulse of today’s Hindi independent cinema – Hindie, if you like.

And click here for the link to the original piece.

This friday belongs to Producer Aamir Khan. Just back from the directorial debut of Anusha Rizvi’s Peepli Live. Wow! Goes straight up in our list of Top 5 films of the year. And its a tough competition there  for the films to release in the next four months. The rest four are LSD, Vihir, Udaan and Ishqiya.

Back to Kiran Rao’s directorial debut Dhobi Ghat. The film is having its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and here is a write up by Cameron Bailey, the Co-director of the TIFF. Read on..

The rains in Mumbai are a beautiful curse. Sheets of water fall over the city, drenching and cleansing and casting vast millions in the same grey, glistening hue. Kiran Rao sets her impressive debut feature during Mumbai’s monsoon season, using the sound and visuals of the rains to bridge the divides between her characters. This is a love letter to her city, most of all to the work and art that drives Mumbai, rain or shine.

Indian superstar Aamir Khan plays Arun, a brooding painter introduced at a gallery launch of his work. Uninterested in small talk, he strikes up a flirtation with Shai, an Indian American woman visiting her family in the city. The next morning, awkwardness descends and he practically shoves her out the door. But, in the way of the Maximum City, Shai and Arun find themselves inextricably linked. They share a laundry man, a dhobi, who picks up and delivers their clothes. One of the millions of workers who keep Mumbai humming, Zohaib maintains a friendly but formal relationship with Arun. Shai, however, becomes fascinated with Zohaib and wants to follow him to the dhobi ghat, the city’s sprawling laundry district, where she hopes to indulge her photography hobby by capturing him at work.

Informed by Wong Kar-wai and Tsai Ming Liang, but directing with her own intimate sensibility, Rao draws her three characters together against the backdrop of a city that gives and takes in equal measure. In a subplot that illuminates the film’s themes, Arun discovers a series of video diaries left by the previous tenant of his apartment. In them, a young woman recounts her impressions of the city and reveals a tragedy in brief glimpses.

It took years for American independent cinema to develop its own narrative voices in contrast to Hollywood storytelling. In India, the emergence of a contemporary indie style is happening right now. Dhobi Ghat marks a major step forward for Indian filmmaking. It’s exciting that Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao are taking that step together.

And click here for the link to the original piece.

PS – Tip by Umar.