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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 6:18 am 
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Queen of Bollywood



Edited By Duplicate Govinda on 1066717181


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:02 am 
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Aamir's new look for THE RISING.....

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 5:27 pm 
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What are DDLJ and Devdas (2002) doing on this list? Take those out and put in Satya or something!


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 5:54 pm 
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DragunR2 wrote:
What are DDLJ and Devdas (2002) doing on this list? Take those out and put in Satya or something!

Just out of curiosity, do you have a top 10 list of anykind? (ie. top 10 all time favourite Indian and/or hindi films?)

And you gotta love Aamir Khan, much like Guru Dutt(and possibly the only Indian actor after Guru Dutt), Aamir too takes his work very passionately.

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PostPosted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:02 pm 
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DVD Collector wrote:
DragunR2 wrote:
What are DDLJ and Devdas (2002) doing on this list? Take those out and put in Satya or something!

Just out of curiosity, do you have a top 10 list of anykind? (ie. top 10 all time favourite Indian and/or hindi films?)

I'm not a big fan of lists, especially when they only have 10 spots, but I'll name some of the outstanding Indian films I've seen (in no particular order):

Apu Trilogy (Bengali)
Pyaasa
Bhumika
Arangetram (Tamil)
Satya (owes a lot to Scorsese IMO, but it is Indian enough that I will include it)
Nenjil Ore Aalayam (Tamil)

I've included arthouse fare because by cutting them out, you cut out a lot of good movies.

Overall the Time list isn't too bad, but it shows a bias towards mainstream hits. A list of the the 10 best Italian films by the same people would most likely include The Bicycle Thief and 8 1/2, so why not include Indian art films?

If I show a non-Indian friend an Indian film, I will tend to pick more esoteric films like a Satyajit Ray film or the drug trip scene in Abhay, just to show something different.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 4:17 am 
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Eros?? Baba?? :bash: :D

10. Where can you get DVDs?

All the places we mentioned last time, plus some distributors' websites, such as Baba Digital (for a good selection of classics) and the more comprehensive Eros Entertainment (classics, moderns and song compilations). If you're near a theater showing Bollywood product — there are more than you'd think — you can get advance tickets at Sulekha.com, "the #1 Indian online community." For other Dilwale dish, try the news-'n-gossip site indiafm.com, which currently has this morsel: "Rumours are that Aamir Khan might be featured on the cover of TIME Magazine." (If it were true, wouldn't I tell you?) ......

http://www.time.com/time....00.html


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 5:48 am 
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DragunR2 wrote:
Apu Trilogy (Bengali)
Pyaasa
Bhumika
Arangetram (Tamil)
Satya (owes a lot to Scorsese IMO, but it is Indian enough that I will include it)
Nenjil Ore Aalayam (Tamil)

I've included arthouse fare because by cutting them out, you cut out a lot of good movies.

The article stresses on Bollywood movies, not Indian cinema.

Bollywood means Hindi films. The new films the article mentions are ones I would watch, but they offer nothing new to Indian audiences...

Its a shame the article only looked at Hindi films. As Telugu cinema seems to be growing in terms of Box-Office grosses (and I won't be surprised the moment it beats Hindi movie grosses), while Tamil, Malayalam & Bengali are top of the crop in terms of creativity and technicality. Also Indian Punjabi cinema is growing with the advent of going DTS and of using AVID editing system.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 6:03 am 
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Shahran Sunny Audit wrote:
Its a shame the article only looked at Hindi films. As Telugu cinema seems to be growing in terms of Box-Office grosses (and I won't be surprised the moment it beats Hindi movie grosses), while Tamil, Malayalam & Bengali are top of the crop in terms of creativity and technicality.

Haven't the grosses in AP been the highest for a while? I don't know if that includes films in Hindi, English, etc., but I hear that they are the most film crazy people in the nation.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 6:18 pm 
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It seems that they don't care about the quality of the films they put on the list. I think they want to feed the people who follow trends and not good films. It's like saying If you are interested in Hollywood, we recommend 'Glitter', 'xxx' and 'dude where's my car'.
I'd rather see them select some films from Hindi, Tamil, mallu and other regional languages that feature good film making and show them as "This is Indian cinema!" and not as like some 3 hour freak show.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 7:20 pm 
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spike86 wrote:
It seems that they don't care about the quality of the films they put on the list. I think they want to feed the people who follow trends and not good films. It's like saying If you are interested in Hollywood, we recommend 'Glitter', 'xxx' and 'dude where's my car'.
I'd rather see them select some films from Hindi, Tamil, mallu and other regional languages that feature good film making and show them as "This is Indian cinema!" and not as like some 3 hour freak show.

Glitter, LOL. That was a flop. But I see your point.

Not too many classic Malayalam, Bengali, or Telugu, etc. films are available on DVD with English subtitles, so such a list wouldn't be useful to neophytes. I don't think even that many new Malayalam films make it to DVD. Pyramid has released quite a few DVDs of classic Tamil films. They're VHS quality, but they're still better looking than the Eros and Baba DVDs that Time is shilling for.




Edited By DragunR2 on 1066850448


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 7:47 pm 
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I'm shocked to discover that I make an appearance in this column right at the end. I wrote to Mr. Corliss while I was home on maternity leave anxiously awaiting the birth of my baby. Here is the section:

"But Bollywood fever can be stoked any place: where you see movies, where you shop, where you eat. We take testimony from Ohio's Jennie Sexena, a film preservationist for the Library of Congress and, she confesses, "an unapologetic film geek since about the age of 11. So, in July of 1999, when I visited an Indian restaurant/market that also had Bollywood DVDs available, I bit. My first film was 'Bombay,' my second 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,' and I was a goner. I also took the opportunity to infect my fellow co-workers at the preservation lab. One is now enthusiastic about Hrithik Roshan and another is absolutely bonkers over Shahrukh. ... There is something almost intoxicating about movies that are so emotional and unashamed of it.

"Two years after my initial exposure I was on a plane to visit India. That trip was life altering. ... And now, four years later, I am married to an Indian man and about to give birth any minute (Please!) to a half-Desi little girl. And in true Indian fashion, my husband's parents are living with us right now, although I'm sad to say they will be returning home to India in a couple of months. So I'm an American bahu in a joint family! I often tell my husband that depending on how he feels about his life at any given moment, all praise or curses must be laid on Bollywood!"

So you see how a case of Bollywood fever can lead to wedding bells, and leave the victim with the warm shivers of shaadi-freude."


I am upset however, that he mispelled my name - it is Saxena, actually.

Jennie


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 11:00 pm 
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Quote:
I don't think even that many new Malayalam films make it to DVD


The state of Malayalam movies on any kind of Home video is pathetic. I think no industry can beat Mallu films when it comes to situational comedies. Many of them have yet to see a dvd release. The 'orginial' vhs of new movies look horrible. They are pan and scan. We are talking awkward panning through 2.35 frame. There are some good mid 80's and early 90's movies available on dvd. They are being produced by SURYA, RAFA and other crappy companies. With some movies SURYA truly come close to AYNGARAN quality. But SURYA is very inconsistent, some dvds feature good pq, OAR and anamorphic. Others cropped and bad pq.
Some good mallu dvds:

YODHA featuring music: A R RAHMAN cinematography by Santhosh Sivan with Mohan Lal

ARYAN directed by Priyadarashan with Mohnan Lal

Chanderlekha with Mohan Lal

:nopity:


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 9:11 pm 
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PagalChand wrote:
I'm shocked to discover that I make an appearance in this column right at the end. I wrote to Mr. Corliss while I was home on maternity leave anxiously awaiting the birth of my baby. Here is the section:...

WOW! I would have never suspected the library of congress
to reside here lit by a crazy moon.
:-)


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 11:02 pm 
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spike86 wrote:
Quote:
I don't think even that many new Malayalam films make it to DVD


The state of Malayalam movies on any kind of Home video is pathetic. I think no industry can beat Mallu films when it comes to situational comedies. Many of them have yet to see a dvd release. The 'orginial' vhs of new movies look horrible. They are pan and scan. We are talking awkward panning through 2.35 frame. There are some good mid 80's and early 90's movies available on dvd. They are being produced by SURYA, RAFA and other crappy companies. With some movies SURYA truly come close to AYNGARAN quality. But SURYA is very inconsistent, some dvds feature good pq, OAR and anamorphic. Others cropped and bad pq.
Some good mallu dvds:

YODHA featuring music: A R RAHMAN cinematography by Santhosh Sivan with Mohan Lal

ARYAN directed by Priyadarashan with Mohnan Lal

Chanderlekha with Mohan Lal

:nopity:

Chandralekha was decent quality. Wasn't it remade in Hindi?

Vanaprastham is out on DVD, from Acorn Media, I believe, and it is supposedly of poor quality.

Chemmeen, an old Malayalam film, was authored for Surya Movies by Super Digital, and it was progressive. It had print problems and some compression artifacts because it was a 2.5 hour movie on one layer.

Some Western company, I think it was Canadian, bought the rights for Gopalakrishnan's Nizhalkuthu, but only for non-profit showings or something. Man, I gotta start going to European film festivals :)


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PostPosted: Sat Nov 08, 2003 1:21 am 
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http://sify.com/movies/bollywood/fullst ... d=13302604

Hindi cinema going global?

By Subhash K Jha
Friday, 07 November , 2003, 12:43

The Time magazine's recent cover story on Bollywood "new face" has triggered off quite a debate in the Hindi film industry.

"First of all I object to our film industry being called Bollywood, Tollywood or Follywood. What do these demeaning derivatives mean?" asks Kamalhassan.

Several well-informed sources would like to know how Aishwarya Rai represents the new face of cinema when she has been in the profession for nearly seven years. Undoubtedly Rai is the one of the queens of Bollywood.

But outside the two films she has done with Sanjay Leela Bhansali- Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Devdas- and to an extent Subhash Ghai's Taal and Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali, her only claim to global fame is the underproduction Bride & Prejudice.

Not too many Indians in India are likely to see Chokher Bali or Bride & Prejudice. One of them is in Bengali and the other in English.

For better or for worse Hindi still remains the language of mainstream Indian cinema. Mani Ratnam or Rituparno Ghosh make fine, often influential Indian films. But their cinema doesn't communicate the universal resonance of a film by Sanjay Leela Bhansali or Karan Johar.

Surprisingly there's hardly a mention in the 7-page story in Time of Bhansali and Johar, or for that matter the other denizens of Bollywood filmmaking like Sooraj Barjatya, Yash & Aditya Chopra or Raj Kumar Santoshi. These are the filmmakers who forged, fashioned and shaped the language of mainstream Hindi cinema during the last ten years.

Time magazine, in all its global wisdom, ignores these heavyweights of Bollywood. Instead we have quite a lot on Ram Gopal Varma and his brand of outre cinema.

Varma who loves to shock and speaks mostly for effect delights the Time correspondent by saying, "frankly , I couldn't give a f... for the villages."

Wow! That's cool. And never mind if over 80 percent of India stills remains restricted to rural and semi-rural areas. Such sweeping metrocentric analyses of Hindi cinema suits the Time story's tenor of urban chic but doesn't say much about the impact of mainstream cinema on the average Indian's psyche.

The chic factor shrieks through faulty statements about the impact of "new" cinema on Bollywood.

"Out are fluffy romances. In are such films as Jism, Mumbai Matinee and Khwahish," croons Time. Jism and Khwahish clicked in resctricted enclaves because of the tits-and-bum factor. Mumbai Matinee didn't click at all. As for Ram Gopal Varma who seems to represent the new face of Bollywood in this startlingly myopic essay, his impact and influence are felt only in the metropolises.

In his eagerness to prove Varma the torchbearer of Bollywood, the Time correspondent Alex Perry excitedly informs us that Varma dropped the songs from Company. Actually, he didn't. As Varma himself admits, only two of his films Rangeela and Bhoot have been moneyspinners. Ironically they've made an impact because they tapped the traditional Indian movie market's formulaic feasibility. While one was song-and-dance fantasia the other was a ghost story.

Every Indian loves one of those. So what are we talking about here? While Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan who have been in the biggest hits in the last 15 years are ignored Aamir Khan is described as "Bollywood's rebel leader".

Apart from Deepa Mehta's 1947-Earth, which film of Aamir's displays a rebellious streak? The much-celebrated Lagaan about the poor oppressed farmers and the tyrannical landlords (albeit white-skinned) was done with far more sensitivity by Balraj Sahni in Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zameen four decades earlier.

The Time magazine article fails to grant Indian moviegoers the intelligence to evolve as a thinking mass of people. The Time essay is not about what they see, but what they should see. In that sense the article as well as global attitudes to Indian cinema, joyously jump the gun.

If Time wants us to believe Rahul Bose - a fine actor and a wonderful fringe player in Bollywood - is "the ubiquitous face of Bollywood" we had better re-think our partiality towards Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan. Swoon only for the cerebral.

Aishwarya Rai and Rahul Bose...hmmmm. Interesting. But rather far fetched for the simple reason that Indian moviegoers do not look at them from the same line of vision.

The fact is, Indian mainstream cinema is all about heightened emotions and dramatic summits. The performers and the performances that matter to the Indian audiences are always those which reach out and grab minds hearts and loins with every emotive faculty obtainable to the actors and filmmakers. Subtlety as a cinematic virtue doesn't really appeal to Indian audiences.

Even Satyajit Ray in the much-acclaimed Pather Panchali wasn't subtle about its drama. And he was the new face of Indian cinema 40 years ago, wasn't he?


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