A huge animation boom is happening in the Indian film industry right now. The Western media have even coined a new term for it - 'Bollymation'. The animation sector is growing so rapidly that India is facing a major skill shortage. According to Variety uptil now India would produce about 5 animated films a year. At the moment there are 92 animated films in production.
The animation boom of course also means a lot more special effects in Hindi feature films. Science fiction and fantasy are genres which require a lot of special effects and have so far been very under-represented in Bollywood. This is now set to change... Normally I would be very excited about this, but for a change I'm rather negative - this is because what Variety writes rings veeeery true:
Critics suggest Indian animators may have a hard time adjusting to original movie productions as they require greater skills, time and capital than subcontract companies focused on TV and advertising work are used to.
"There is no lack of creativity in this country. Every nook and corner has stories and art. There is, however, a lack of imagination, and that comes from not having confidence and being overly dependent on technology alone," says Shailendra Singh, joint managing director of Percept, the company behind "Hanuman."
I mean check out the trailer for the next Amitabh Bachchan release...
Doesn't it remind you of something?
Showing posts with label Bollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bollywood. Show all posts
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
How To Get Back At Film Critics: A tutorial by Ram Gopal Varma ;)
One of the latest trends in Bollywood is blogging. Some of the biggest Bollywood names that are now blogging (much more regularly than I do btw!) are Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan. The latest person to start one is Ram Gopal Varma - one of the more "auteur" directors in Bollywood. While I have blissfully ignored the blogs of Aamir Khan and Mr Bachchan (whenever they write something more unusual the Indian tabloids report it anyway) I think I will seriously have to consider subscribing to Ram Gopal Varma's because his is so hilariously bitchy ;)
Anyway, RGV has just had a new film (Sarkar Raj) released and once again the reviews are bad. His response is hilarious:
The critics have a tendency to be bitchy to ridicule, to make sweeping statement to camouflage their ignorance of cinema with profound sounding lines and the reader for want of an opposing view might get taken in. So as long as the critic or anyone else has a right to review I think I have a right to review the reviews. So read on my review of reviews of SARKAR RAJ in my blog.
He then proceeds in totally taking all the reviews apart, sentence by sentence - it's hilarious ;)
I think my favourite one is when he takes apart the review of Mr Subhash K Jha. Some of the highlights of that one:
1. Sarkar is about the lacerated life of a Thackeray like family with the concept of spatial harmony acquiring a surrealistic meaninglessness because of the disembodied camera movements.
Ans: Does it mean that if the camera movement were embodied (whatever that means??!) it will become meaningful reality?
2. In Sarkar he observed, studied and pondered.
Ans: What did I observe, study and ponder?
3. He drags the uneasy relationship between Subhas Nagre and his kicking, screaming and wailing son into an arena of heightened scenes no exacerbated emotions.
Ans: I am impressed with your English. I would be more impressed if I understood what it means.
(...)
14. Prabhavalkar is a bizarre representation of Gandhism in these troubled times when fathers kill daughters and ministers go to prison.
Ans: Whatever that means.
15. Amit Roy’s cinematography and Sunil Nigvekar’s art are a raga pf rusty browns.
Ans: You want it to be blue or what?
So if you ever make a film and need to get back at the film critics giving you bad reviews, this is the way to do it ;) I'll be curious to see if he gets a response to this from the media lol
Anyway, RGV has just had a new film (Sarkar Raj) released and once again the reviews are bad. His response is hilarious:
The critics have a tendency to be bitchy to ridicule, to make sweeping statement to camouflage their ignorance of cinema with profound sounding lines and the reader for want of an opposing view might get taken in. So as long as the critic or anyone else has a right to review I think I have a right to review the reviews. So read on my review of reviews of SARKAR RAJ in my blog.
He then proceeds in totally taking all the reviews apart, sentence by sentence - it's hilarious ;)
I think my favourite one is when he takes apart the review of Mr Subhash K Jha. Some of the highlights of that one:
1. Sarkar is about the lacerated life of a Thackeray like family with the concept of spatial harmony acquiring a surrealistic meaninglessness because of the disembodied camera movements.
Ans: Does it mean that if the camera movement were embodied (whatever that means??!) it will become meaningful reality?
2. In Sarkar he observed, studied and pondered.
Ans: What did I observe, study and ponder?
3. He drags the uneasy relationship between Subhas Nagre and his kicking, screaming and wailing son into an arena of heightened scenes no exacerbated emotions.
Ans: I am impressed with your English. I would be more impressed if I understood what it means.
(...)
14. Prabhavalkar is a bizarre representation of Gandhism in these troubled times when fathers kill daughters and ministers go to prison.
Ans: Whatever that means.
15. Amit Roy’s cinematography and Sunil Nigvekar’s art are a raga pf rusty browns.
Ans: You want it to be blue or what?
So if you ever make a film and need to get back at the film critics giving you bad reviews, this is the way to do it ;) I'll be curious to see if he gets a response to this from the media lol
Sunday, March 30, 2008
I am currently addicted to...
...a totally random Bollywood film clip on youtube. It's from an old Shahrukh film which I haven't seen called Zamana Deewana (1995). From what I understand the story is about the police trying to stop the violence between two rival gangs. Rather than tackle the gangs directly the police have decided to try and make the children of the two gang leaders fall in love.
The clip is a dance number between the children. If I'm not mistaken, at this point the two of them have been captured by the police and handcuffed to each other. They've realized what the police is trying to do, so they pretend to be in love (while hitting and strangling each other when the officers aren't looking) so as to make the police let them go.
I'm not sure why I'm addicted to it... Mid-90s Bollywood is usually not something I get addicted to easily - especially if it's a dance sequence. But somehow I keep turning this one on again and again...
The clip is a dance number between the children. If I'm not mistaken, at this point the two of them have been captured by the police and handcuffed to each other. They've realized what the police is trying to do, so they pretend to be in love (while hitting and strangling each other when the officers aren't looking) so as to make the police let them go.
I'm not sure why I'm addicted to it... Mid-90s Bollywood is usually not something I get addicted to easily - especially if it's a dance sequence. But somehow I keep turning this one on again and again...
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Krazzy 4 - the item boys
Hopefully, this post will mark my proper "comeback to the internet" (yes, maybe I'll even start replying to e-mails soon ;-P). When one doesn't have internet for a long time, one kind of almost gets used to not having it and now that I've finally gotten it back I have no idea how I ever found time for it in the first place. I still haven't gotten through all the news in my RSS reader btw, so I have absolutely no idea what's happening in the world right now ;-P
But anyway, I should probably stop moaning about not having had internet for a month in every post - it's not exactly gripping reading, is it? I'm not sure the rest of my blog is either, but hey - even Bollywood's gotta be more interesting than me not having internet, right? ;)
Publicity for Krazzy 4 is in full throb at the moment. From what I understand it's a comedy about four guys who escaped from a mental institution:
It doesn't have any major stars in the lead parts, but Rakesh Roshan (Hrithik Roshan's dad), who is the producer of the film, put a different "strategy" in play. He got the no.1 and no.2 Bollywood stars (not everyone would agree with the "numbering", but that's the "numbering" I usually hear ;-P) to do item numbers to the same song. To translate that into plain English for people who are perhaps less interested in Bollywood than myself - an item number is usually a song & dance number in which a star who isn't in the rest of the film takes central position. Naturally, the main idea is to make the star look sexy and often the number will have nothing to do with the plot. The ingenuity of Rakesh Roshan in this case is that he got what are possibly the two biggest stars in Bollywood - Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan to do an item number to the same song (Shahrukh's starts the film off and Hrithik's plays during the closing credits).
Here's the promo for Shahrukh's:
And here's the one for Hrithik's:
It's curious to see Shahrukh take up this sort of "challenge" cause against Hrithik he has to lose ;) Hrithik is so much more the "item boy" type. But I guess he doesn't lose as badly as I thought he might when I first heard of this ;)
And it's kinda interesting (at least IMO ;-P) to compare how the numbers were put together. Hrithik is out there solo and almost entirely in wide shots, while SRK gets a whole troop of dancers and lots of close-ups instead. Good choices for both of them I think - they get to play to their strengths.
But anyway, I should probably stop moaning about not having had internet for a month in every post - it's not exactly gripping reading, is it? I'm not sure the rest of my blog is either, but hey - even Bollywood's gotta be more interesting than me not having internet, right? ;)
Publicity for Krazzy 4 is in full throb at the moment. From what I understand it's a comedy about four guys who escaped from a mental institution:
It doesn't have any major stars in the lead parts, but Rakesh Roshan (Hrithik Roshan's dad), who is the producer of the film, put a different "strategy" in play. He got the no.1 and no.2 Bollywood stars (not everyone would agree with the "numbering", but that's the "numbering" I usually hear ;-P) to do item numbers to the same song. To translate that into plain English for people who are perhaps less interested in Bollywood than myself - an item number is usually a song & dance number in which a star who isn't in the rest of the film takes central position. Naturally, the main idea is to make the star look sexy and often the number will have nothing to do with the plot. The ingenuity of Rakesh Roshan in this case is that he got what are possibly the two biggest stars in Bollywood - Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan to do an item number to the same song (Shahrukh's starts the film off and Hrithik's plays during the closing credits).
Here's the promo for Shahrukh's:
And here's the one for Hrithik's:
It's curious to see Shahrukh take up this sort of "challenge" cause against Hrithik he has to lose ;) Hrithik is so much more the "item boy" type. But I guess he doesn't lose as badly as I thought he might when I first heard of this ;)
And it's kinda interesting (at least IMO ;-P) to compare how the numbers were put together. Hrithik is out there solo and almost entirely in wide shots, while SRK gets a whole troop of dancers and lots of close-ups instead. Good choices for both of them I think - they get to play to their strengths.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
The Happening
The trailer for Shyamalan's The Happening has been out for a while and it looks like this:
As you may remember "The Happening" is on my list of films to see in 2008 because it's the first time that an Indian production company is co-producing what is essentially a Hollywood film (and I'm weird enough to be excited about that). But I must say the trailer has made me doubt whether I really want to see it ;) It looks dreadful!
As you may remember "The Happening" is on my list of films to see in 2008 because it's the first time that an Indian production company is co-producing what is essentially a Hollywood film (and I'm weird enough to be excited about that). But I must say the trailer has made me doubt whether I really want to see it ;) It looks dreadful!
Film Award season 2008
I finally have internet courtesy of TP S.A. *grin*
So I have to get back to posting... faaaast! There's just too much I want to post ;-P
Anyway, the two biggest film industries in the world had their most commercial award ceremonies last month, on the same day no less (24th February).
You can check out the winners here and here.
I've been following the chances of Katyń at the Academy Awards on this blog, so I guess I should now inform everyone that it lost ;) Polish speaking readers of this blog can check out some speculations about why it lost out on the award (not commercial enough, not universal enough etc. ;-P).
Interestingly, this year the Academy Awards had the lowest TV ratings ever. I think this is a good excuse not to link to any clips from the ceremony ;-P (another good one is that judging by youtube, they're monitoring for clips not to surface ;-P and also the one I did find was boring ;-P)
A clip that I absolutely must link to however is this:
It's Saif and Shahrukh hosting the Filmfare Awards and trust me - you want to see this clip ;) (or at least the beginning of it)
I watched the whole show on youtube and I have to agree that SRK and Saif are the most politically incorrect hosts ever. I think this is their third time hosting, but this year was particularly "bad". Or maybe this is just the first time I followed the Indian tabloids well enough to get most of the subtleties ;) - some of the jabs they were making at films and people were potentially veeeery offensive. If anybody cares they made a few jabs at Hollywood and the Academy Awards too ;) (not that I fully understood them as a lot of them were done in Hindi ;-P)
So I have to get back to posting... faaaast! There's just too much I want to post ;-P
Anyway, the two biggest film industries in the world had their most commercial award ceremonies last month, on the same day no less (24th February).
You can check out the winners here and here.
I've been following the chances of Katyń at the Academy Awards on this blog, so I guess I should now inform everyone that it lost ;) Polish speaking readers of this blog can check out some speculations about why it lost out on the award (not commercial enough, not universal enough etc. ;-P).
Interestingly, this year the Academy Awards had the lowest TV ratings ever. I think this is a good excuse not to link to any clips from the ceremony ;-P (another good one is that judging by youtube, they're monitoring for clips not to surface ;-P and also the one I did find was boring ;-P)
A clip that I absolutely must link to however is this:
It's Saif and Shahrukh hosting the Filmfare Awards and trust me - you want to see this clip ;) (or at least the beginning of it)
I watched the whole show on youtube and I have to agree that SRK and Saif are the most politically incorrect hosts ever. I think this is their third time hosting, but this year was particularly "bad". Or maybe this is just the first time I followed the Indian tabloids well enough to get most of the subtleties ;) - some of the jabs they were making at films and people were potentially veeeery offensive. If anybody cares they made a few jabs at Hollywood and the Academy Awards too ;) (not that I fully understood them as a lot of them were done in Hindi ;-P)
Friday, January 11, 2008
2007 MEETS 2008 | PART 3: Bollywood 2007
So much for dividing things into parts so as to avoid writing long posts ;-P
I've compiled my lists mainly on the basis of this article. Another interesting article to look at is this one in which they asked a few Indian directors what they thought were the best films of the year.
The release dates given are the Indian ones. The only film amongst these that was released in Poland is The Namesake (and it's one of very few films listed in this post that I've seen).
MOST SUCCESSFUL STARS OF 2007
The two biggest hits of 2007 (Om Shanti Om and Chak De! India) were both delivered by Shah Rukh Khan. Om Shanti Om has now broken all records and become the highest grossing Indian film ever (Shahrukh was also the producer of the film). Chak De! India on the other hand is the first time Shahrukh has been commercially successful in a subdued and restrained role.
However, it is Akshay Kumar who delivered the most hit films this year (Namastey London, Heyy Babyy, Bhool Bhulaiya and Welcome). While it's difficult to determine how much Bollywood stars earn for a film, the Indian media likes to publish who was the highest tax payer in Bollywood in a given year and in 2007 it was Akshay Kumar. It's reported that he had to pay the equivalent of about $6.5mln in taxes and the gossip is that his asking price for a film is now over $5mln, perhaps the highest in Bollywood. Surprisingly enough, Akshay is still not seen as a threat to Shahrukh's dominance in Bollywood.
THE BIGGEST BOX OFFICE SPINNERS OF 2007
So this is the list of the biggest commercial successes of 2007. I tried to keep it shorter than this, but as you see it didn't work out ;-P
Guru
Release Date: 12 January 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQRZHHY2oJM
Director: Mani Ratnam
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Vidya Balan, Mallika Sherawat, Madhavan, Mithun Chakraborty
The story of a villager who rises to become one of the leading businessmen in the country. Not only was it a huge commercial success, but received great reviews from Indian critics (even the more artsy ones).
Namastey London
Release Date: 23 March 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYjLLmuEiqA
Director: Vipul Amrutlal Shah
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif
A guy from Punjab marries a girl from London and for some reason the film's promotion featured a very bizarre song where the guy is dressed as Father Christmas...
Chak De! India
Release Date: 10 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvSpW2ZaYxU
Director: Shimit Amin
Cast: Shahrukh Khan
One of the strangest hits of the year... The story of a female field hockey team coached by a guy who has been discriminated against because he's Muslim. There are no song and dance numbers in the film (though some were recorded for promotional purposes).
Chak De! India was the only 2007 film made under the Yash Chopra banner (the biggest production house in Bollywood) that was a hit. The other (more formulaic) films they released underperformed in the box office.
Heyy Babyy
Release Date: 24 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AF-IQAMmnI
Director: Sajid Khan
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Fardeen Khan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Boman Irani, Anupam Kher, Amrita Arora, Malaika Arora
A couple of guys have to take care of a baby.
Bhool Bhulaiya
Release Date: 12 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPRK-ZGDhnk
Director: Priyadarshan
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Shiney Ahuja, Amisha Patel
Er... well there's definitely a ghost in the story...
Jab We Met
Release Date: 26 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSlkJfCozwA
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Cast: Shahid Kapur, Kareena Kapoor
Its success was a surprise. It seems to be one of those films that gets a large audience thanks to word of mouth. Basically, it's a romance, but it's said to put the DDLJ formula totally upside down.
Om Shanti Om
Release Date: 9 November 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_ostdGo6vc
Director: Farah Khan
Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Arjun Rampal, Kiron Kher, Deepika Padukone
This is a totally unapologetic masala movie, which involves reincarnation and makes fun of 70s and contemporary Bollywood.
Taare Zameen Par
Release Date: 21 December 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQwtyc82AX8
Director: Aamir Khan
Cast: Aamir Khan
About a little boy, who is very unhappy at school and then one day a new art teacher comes along... It's getting great reviews and is said to look at children in a very interesting way. Apparently, there is only one song and dance number in the film.
Welcome
Release Date: 21 December 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gz2orY0IK8
Director: Anees Bazmee
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Mallika Sherawat, Anil Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Malaika Arora
Romance in the mafia with lots of comedy.
2007 INDIE FILMS OF NOTE
One of the oddest things I've discovered about the way the film industry works in India is that to watch an art house film you have to go to a multiplex ;) The big, single hall cinemas tend to go for the most commercial stuff.
So this is a list of the films released in 2007 that ran in Indian multiplexes. There were loads of films like this, these are just the ones that caught my attention (and this is therefore probably the most subjective list in this post). Four out of the seven films on my list faced problems in India because of controversial subject matters.
Parzania
Release Date: 26 January 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epy4hqEI4Ng
Director: Rahul Dholakia
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah
Based on a true story of a Parsi boy, who went missing during the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat. The threats made by Hindu extremists in Gujarat resulted in theatre owners refusing to screen the film. When a man filed a complaint against this he was kidnapped.
Black Friday
Release Date: 9 February 2007
Trailer: http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/trailer/7410.html
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Kay Kay Menon
The film deals with the 1993 Bombay blasts. Its release was delayed by over 2 years because the Indian court ruled that it could not be released before the verdict on the Bombay blasts case was passed.
Water
Release Date: 9 March 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RewNn2r2P3g
Director: Deepa Mehta
Cast: John Abraham, Lisa Ray
The film was actually made with Canadian money, so it's not even close to being Bollywood, but I'm including it on this list anyway ;-P
It's the story of a little girl, who is married off to a much older man (child marriages still happen in India). When she's 8 her husband dies and she has to go through all the customs of being a widow. Deepa Mehta intended to make this film in 2000. They started shooting in India, but Hindu extremists destroyed the sets and production was halted. She finally shot the film 4 years later in Sri Lanka.
The Namesake
Indian Release Date: 23 March 2007
Polish Release Date: 19 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sOaA-4Y8tI
Director: Mira Nair
Cast: Irfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn
This definitely should not be classified as Bollywood as it's really a US produced film, but it was an important film for Indian audiences this year, so... Basically, it's a serious exploration of emigration and national identity.
Gandhi My Father
Release Date: 3 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3yZDHwRRb4
Director: Feroze Khan
Cast: Akshaye Khanna
This is a film that shows Gandhi as a grey figure rather than the white figure he is usually portrayed as. It is based on a play which explores Gandhi's troubled relationship with his eldest son, Harilal. Many of Harilal's decisions (like his marriage and dream of becoming a barrister) were opposed by his father. Harilal was eventually disowned and died an alcoholic.
Naturally, the release of the film in India faced protests.
The Blue Umbrella
Release Date: 10 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-w495xNIU
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Shriya
It's set in a small village. A little girl gets a beautiful blue umbrella and this creates all sorts of discord.
No Smoking
Release Date: 26 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53D_Qs1C6k4
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: John Abraham
It's a little bit as if Anurag Kashyap decided he wanted to mix the Bollywood formula with a David Lynch style film and at the same time play around with the controversial ban of smoking in Indian films (Indian films can now show actors smoking only if the film very obviously states that smoking is wrong). It's the story of a character called K, who is trying to stop smoking and seeks help from people who turn out to be completely insane.
OTHER BIG RELEASES OF 2007
So this is a list of big films that flopped or didn't do as well as anticipated (at least not well enough to put them alongside the biggest hits of 2007).
I decided to have a list like this because many of the films on it sound just as interesting to me as the films I've already listed :) Also 2007 was a year of surprises in terms of what did and didn't do well. A lot of very hyped films performed worse than expected.
Salaam-e-Ishq
Release Date: 25 January 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQYOIalqP-I
Director: Nikhil Advani
Cast: John Abraham, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Anil Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Akshaye Khanna, Vidya Balan, Govinda, Isha Koppikar, Ayesha Takia
From what I understand it's lots of love stories with a really huge cast of stars and the director of Kal Ho Naa Ho. Nobody really knows why it flopped, but it did...
Eklavya
Release Date: 16 February 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFEc48n5oRE
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Vidya Balan, Jackie Shroff, Boman Irani
It's about a majestic fort in contemporary India. The royal family living in it are modern people, but the guard lives as if nothing has changed.
The only thing that was praised in this film was Amitabh Bachchan's performance as the guard. Otherwise the film was panned by both critics and audiences.
This is India's official Academy Award candidate albeit a very controversial one. Personally, I don't understand why they didn't go with Chak De! India - the Academy have already honoured its script, so surely that's a fairly straightforward indication of their tastes?
Nishabd
Release Date: 2 March 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_6VccYqC4g
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Jiah Khan
This is a love story between an 18 year old and a 60 year old.
Some say Indian audiences aren't mature enough to deal with such topics and some say it just wasn't a good enough film to pull in the crowds.
Tara Rum Pum
Release Date: 27 April 200
Trailer: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9081324916291040803
Director: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherji
A guy becomes the best formula one racer in the world - he has a loving family, lots of money and success. Then one day he has a serious accident and things go downhill from there.
It's the first Indian film to use animation for part of a song & dance sequence.
The poor performance of the film has been blamed on mainstream Indian audiences not being able to deal with the scenes in the New York slums. Whether that's true or not, its flop was unexpected. It had very big stars and was produced under the Yash Chopra banner (the leading production house in Bollywood).
Cheeni Kum
Release Date: 25 May 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqBjoZD58Ls
Director: R. Balki
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu
This is a romance between a 34 year old and 64 year old with lots of cooking in the background.
It did better than expected, but not well enough to make the hits list.
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
Release Date: 15 June 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VqEom35TFQ
Director: Shaad Ali
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Bobby Deol, Lara Dutta
A guy and a girl fall in love, but they're both engaged to other people.
Yet another film made under the Yash Chopra banner that didn't do as well as expected.
RGV Ki Aag
Release Date: 31 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z32UIP2LsX0
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Abhishek Bachchan, Urmila Matondkar, Mohanlal
This film is on this list not to try to encourage anybody to watch it (the trailer speaks for itself, right?), but because it's made history. It's the biggest flop ever in Indian cinema. It ran for only a week (and to empty cinemas)!
Even more ironically, it's a remake of Sholay (1975) - one of the biggest hits ever (it ran in Indian cinemas for 5 years!).
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag
Release Date: 12 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLddw_8hHIg
Director: Pradeep Sarkar
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukherji, Jaya Bachchan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anupam Kher, Hema Malini
A girl from a small village ends up earning money by prostitution.
Another film made under the Yash Chopra banner that flopped despite big expectations for it. Some try to explain it away with the topic matter (who wants to see a nice, family girl get into the flesh trade?).
Saawariya
Release Date: 9 November 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt4C8dZr5U
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Salman Khan, Rani Mukherji, Zohra Segal
It's the first Hollywood-Bollywood co-production ever and although Sony Entertainment say they're happy because they did earn money on it, it performed much worse than expected (the expectations were very high and the press have called it the year's biggest flop barring RGV Ki Aag).
Pretty much everybody who's seen it says it's one of the most aesthetic films ever made, but that it has almost no plot and has an agonisingly slow pace (and for a Bollywood film it's actually quite short - just 142min.).
Aaja Nachle
Release Date: 30 November 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBGG9e0NCeA
Director: Anil Mehta
Cast: Madhuri Dixit, Irfan Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Konkona Sen Sharma
A New York dance instructor goes back to her home village in India to save the local theatre from being demolished.
Yet another 2007 Yash Chopra production that didn't do well.
It's Madhuri Dixit's comeback film. From what's been said Madhuri is great in it, but the story sucks. Some of the press have suggested that Bollywood just doesn't know how to write a story with a 40 year old female lead.
One thing the promos of the film have sold me on is Madhuri's dancing. I never really understood why she's considered the best ever dancer in Bollywood. But of course with the exception of Devdas I've only seen her in the films she made in the 90s with rather boring choreography and cinematography. In Devdas she did seem more impressive to me, but she was wearing costumes that weighed over 10kg, so one could hardly expect her to show her skills to the fullest extent. Fortunately, modern choreo and cinematography has finally opened my eyes ;) Check this out.
THE BIGGEST TABLOID EVENTS
Bollywood would not be Bollywood without the tabloids ;) Naturally there was lots of amusing (and usually totally stupid and untrue) gossip in 2007, but there were two events that seemed to get written about for weeks.
By far the biggest one was the wedding of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. The press naturally managed to find a huge amount of angles on this, but one of the most amusing ones was that the Bachchan family made Aishwarya marry a tree for astrological reasons before she could marry Abhishek. This caused outrage amongst Indian feminists totally unnecessarily as Amitabh Bachchan later rubbished the reports.
The other much talked about event was the split up of Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor. Most people were expecting them to tie the knot soon (they'd been going steady for 3 years or something like that). The timing of it was also very strange as it came right before the release of Jab We Met (with everyone expecting it to effect the film negatively, but on the contrary - the film has done much better than expected). Soon after the split up Saif Ali Khan confirmed that he is now dating Kareena.
I've compiled my lists mainly on the basis of this article. Another interesting article to look at is this one in which they asked a few Indian directors what they thought were the best films of the year.
The release dates given are the Indian ones. The only film amongst these that was released in Poland is The Namesake (and it's one of very few films listed in this post that I've seen).
MOST SUCCESSFUL STARS OF 2007
The two biggest hits of 2007 (Om Shanti Om and Chak De! India) were both delivered by Shah Rukh Khan. Om Shanti Om has now broken all records and become the highest grossing Indian film ever (Shahrukh was also the producer of the film). Chak De! India on the other hand is the first time Shahrukh has been commercially successful in a subdued and restrained role.
However, it is Akshay Kumar who delivered the most hit films this year (Namastey London, Heyy Babyy, Bhool Bhulaiya and Welcome). While it's difficult to determine how much Bollywood stars earn for a film, the Indian media likes to publish who was the highest tax payer in Bollywood in a given year and in 2007 it was Akshay Kumar. It's reported that he had to pay the equivalent of about $6.5mln in taxes and the gossip is that his asking price for a film is now over $5mln, perhaps the highest in Bollywood. Surprisingly enough, Akshay is still not seen as a threat to Shahrukh's dominance in Bollywood.
THE BIGGEST BOX OFFICE SPINNERS OF 2007
So this is the list of the biggest commercial successes of 2007. I tried to keep it shorter than this, but as you see it didn't work out ;-P
Guru
Release Date: 12 January 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQRZHHY2oJM
Director: Mani Ratnam
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Vidya Balan, Mallika Sherawat, Madhavan, Mithun Chakraborty
The story of a villager who rises to become one of the leading businessmen in the country. Not only was it a huge commercial success, but received great reviews from Indian critics (even the more artsy ones).
Namastey London
Release Date: 23 March 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYjLLmuEiqA
Director: Vipul Amrutlal Shah
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif
A guy from Punjab marries a girl from London and for some reason the film's promotion featured a very bizarre song where the guy is dressed as Father Christmas...
Chak De! India
Release Date: 10 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvSpW2ZaYxU
Director: Shimit Amin
Cast: Shahrukh Khan
One of the strangest hits of the year... The story of a female field hockey team coached by a guy who has been discriminated against because he's Muslim. There are no song and dance numbers in the film (though some were recorded for promotional purposes).
Chak De! India was the only 2007 film made under the Yash Chopra banner (the biggest production house in Bollywood) that was a hit. The other (more formulaic) films they released underperformed in the box office.
Heyy Babyy
Release Date: 24 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AF-IQAMmnI
Director: Sajid Khan
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Fardeen Khan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Boman Irani, Anupam Kher, Amrita Arora, Malaika Arora
A couple of guys have to take care of a baby.
Bhool Bhulaiya
Release Date: 12 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPRK-ZGDhnk
Director: Priyadarshan
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Shiney Ahuja, Amisha Patel
Er... well there's definitely a ghost in the story...
Jab We Met
Release Date: 26 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSlkJfCozwA
Director: Imtiaz Ali
Cast: Shahid Kapur, Kareena Kapoor
Its success was a surprise. It seems to be one of those films that gets a large audience thanks to word of mouth. Basically, it's a romance, but it's said to put the DDLJ formula totally upside down.
Om Shanti Om
Release Date: 9 November 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_ostdGo6vc
Director: Farah Khan
Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Arjun Rampal, Kiron Kher, Deepika Padukone
This is a totally unapologetic masala movie, which involves reincarnation and makes fun of 70s and contemporary Bollywood.
Taare Zameen Par
Release Date: 21 December 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQwtyc82AX8
Director: Aamir Khan
Cast: Aamir Khan
About a little boy, who is very unhappy at school and then one day a new art teacher comes along... It's getting great reviews and is said to look at children in a very interesting way. Apparently, there is only one song and dance number in the film.
Welcome
Release Date: 21 December 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gz2orY0IK8
Director: Anees Bazmee
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Mallika Sherawat, Anil Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Malaika Arora
Romance in the mafia with lots of comedy.
2007 INDIE FILMS OF NOTE
One of the oddest things I've discovered about the way the film industry works in India is that to watch an art house film you have to go to a multiplex ;) The big, single hall cinemas tend to go for the most commercial stuff.
So this is a list of the films released in 2007 that ran in Indian multiplexes. There were loads of films like this, these are just the ones that caught my attention (and this is therefore probably the most subjective list in this post). Four out of the seven films on my list faced problems in India because of controversial subject matters.
Parzania
Release Date: 26 January 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epy4hqEI4Ng
Director: Rahul Dholakia
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah
Based on a true story of a Parsi boy, who went missing during the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat. The threats made by Hindu extremists in Gujarat resulted in theatre owners refusing to screen the film. When a man filed a complaint against this he was kidnapped.
Black Friday
Release Date: 9 February 2007
Trailer: http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/trailer/7410.html
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: Kay Kay Menon
The film deals with the 1993 Bombay blasts. Its release was delayed by over 2 years because the Indian court ruled that it could not be released before the verdict on the Bombay blasts case was passed.
Water
Release Date: 9 March 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RewNn2r2P3g
Director: Deepa Mehta
Cast: John Abraham, Lisa Ray
The film was actually made with Canadian money, so it's not even close to being Bollywood, but I'm including it on this list anyway ;-P
It's the story of a little girl, who is married off to a much older man (child marriages still happen in India). When she's 8 her husband dies and she has to go through all the customs of being a widow. Deepa Mehta intended to make this film in 2000. They started shooting in India, but Hindu extremists destroyed the sets and production was halted. She finally shot the film 4 years later in Sri Lanka.
The Namesake
Indian Release Date: 23 March 2007
Polish Release Date: 19 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sOaA-4Y8tI
Director: Mira Nair
Cast: Irfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn
This definitely should not be classified as Bollywood as it's really a US produced film, but it was an important film for Indian audiences this year, so... Basically, it's a serious exploration of emigration and national identity.
Gandhi My Father
Release Date: 3 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3yZDHwRRb4
Director: Feroze Khan
Cast: Akshaye Khanna
This is a film that shows Gandhi as a grey figure rather than the white figure he is usually portrayed as. It is based on a play which explores Gandhi's troubled relationship with his eldest son, Harilal. Many of Harilal's decisions (like his marriage and dream of becoming a barrister) were opposed by his father. Harilal was eventually disowned and died an alcoholic.
Naturally, the release of the film in India faced protests.
The Blue Umbrella
Release Date: 10 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-w495xNIU
Director: Vishal Bharadwaj
Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Shriya
It's set in a small village. A little girl gets a beautiful blue umbrella and this creates all sorts of discord.
No Smoking
Release Date: 26 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53D_Qs1C6k4
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Cast: John Abraham
It's a little bit as if Anurag Kashyap decided he wanted to mix the Bollywood formula with a David Lynch style film and at the same time play around with the controversial ban of smoking in Indian films (Indian films can now show actors smoking only if the film very obviously states that smoking is wrong). It's the story of a character called K, who is trying to stop smoking and seeks help from people who turn out to be completely insane.
OTHER BIG RELEASES OF 2007
So this is a list of big films that flopped or didn't do as well as anticipated (at least not well enough to put them alongside the biggest hits of 2007).
I decided to have a list like this because many of the films on it sound just as interesting to me as the films I've already listed :) Also 2007 was a year of surprises in terms of what did and didn't do well. A lot of very hyped films performed worse than expected.
Salaam-e-Ishq
Release Date: 25 January 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQYOIalqP-I
Director: Nikhil Advani
Cast: John Abraham, Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Anil Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Akshaye Khanna, Vidya Balan, Govinda, Isha Koppikar, Ayesha Takia
From what I understand it's lots of love stories with a really huge cast of stars and the director of Kal Ho Naa Ho. Nobody really knows why it flopped, but it did...
Eklavya
Release Date: 16 February 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFEc48n5oRE
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Vidya Balan, Jackie Shroff, Boman Irani
It's about a majestic fort in contemporary India. The royal family living in it are modern people, but the guard lives as if nothing has changed.
The only thing that was praised in this film was Amitabh Bachchan's performance as the guard. Otherwise the film was panned by both critics and audiences.
This is India's official Academy Award candidate albeit a very controversial one. Personally, I don't understand why they didn't go with Chak De! India - the Academy have already honoured its script, so surely that's a fairly straightforward indication of their tastes?
Nishabd
Release Date: 2 March 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_6VccYqC4g
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Jiah Khan
This is a love story between an 18 year old and a 60 year old.
Some say Indian audiences aren't mature enough to deal with such topics and some say it just wasn't a good enough film to pull in the crowds.
Tara Rum Pum
Release Date: 27 April 200
Trailer: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9081324916291040803
Director: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherji
A guy becomes the best formula one racer in the world - he has a loving family, lots of money and success. Then one day he has a serious accident and things go downhill from there.
It's the first Indian film to use animation for part of a song & dance sequence.
The poor performance of the film has been blamed on mainstream Indian audiences not being able to deal with the scenes in the New York slums. Whether that's true or not, its flop was unexpected. It had very big stars and was produced under the Yash Chopra banner (the leading production house in Bollywood).
Cheeni Kum
Release Date: 25 May 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqBjoZD58Ls
Director: R. Balki
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu
This is a romance between a 34 year old and 64 year old with lots of cooking in the background.
It did better than expected, but not well enough to make the hits list.
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
Release Date: 15 June 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VqEom35TFQ
Director: Shaad Ali
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Bobby Deol, Lara Dutta
A guy and a girl fall in love, but they're both engaged to other people.
Yet another film made under the Yash Chopra banner that didn't do as well as expected.
RGV Ki Aag
Release Date: 31 August 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z32UIP2LsX0
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Abhishek Bachchan, Urmila Matondkar, Mohanlal
This film is on this list not to try to encourage anybody to watch it (the trailer speaks for itself, right?), but because it's made history. It's the biggest flop ever in Indian cinema. It ran for only a week (and to empty cinemas)!
Even more ironically, it's a remake of Sholay (1975) - one of the biggest hits ever (it ran in Indian cinemas for 5 years!).
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag
Release Date: 12 October 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLddw_8hHIg
Director: Pradeep Sarkar
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukherji, Jaya Bachchan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anupam Kher, Hema Malini
A girl from a small village ends up earning money by prostitution.
Another film made under the Yash Chopra banner that flopped despite big expectations for it. Some try to explain it away with the topic matter (who wants to see a nice, family girl get into the flesh trade?).
Saawariya
Release Date: 9 November 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt4C8dZr5U
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Salman Khan, Rani Mukherji, Zohra Segal
It's the first Hollywood-Bollywood co-production ever and although Sony Entertainment say they're happy because they did earn money on it, it performed much worse than expected (the expectations were very high and the press have called it the year's biggest flop barring RGV Ki Aag).
Pretty much everybody who's seen it says it's one of the most aesthetic films ever made, but that it has almost no plot and has an agonisingly slow pace (and for a Bollywood film it's actually quite short - just 142min.).
Aaja Nachle
Release Date: 30 November 2007
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBGG9e0NCeA
Director: Anil Mehta
Cast: Madhuri Dixit, Irfan Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Konkona Sen Sharma
A New York dance instructor goes back to her home village in India to save the local theatre from being demolished.
Yet another 2007 Yash Chopra production that didn't do well.
It's Madhuri Dixit's comeback film. From what's been said Madhuri is great in it, but the story sucks. Some of the press have suggested that Bollywood just doesn't know how to write a story with a 40 year old female lead.
One thing the promos of the film have sold me on is Madhuri's dancing. I never really understood why she's considered the best ever dancer in Bollywood. But of course with the exception of Devdas I've only seen her in the films she made in the 90s with rather boring choreography and cinematography. In Devdas she did seem more impressive to me, but she was wearing costumes that weighed over 10kg, so one could hardly expect her to show her skills to the fullest extent. Fortunately, modern choreo and cinematography has finally opened my eyes ;) Check this out.
THE BIGGEST TABLOID EVENTS
Bollywood would not be Bollywood without the tabloids ;) Naturally there was lots of amusing (and usually totally stupid and untrue) gossip in 2007, but there were two events that seemed to get written about for weeks.
By far the biggest one was the wedding of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. The press naturally managed to find a huge amount of angles on this, but one of the most amusing ones was that the Bachchan family made Aishwarya marry a tree for astrological reasons before she could marry Abhishek. This caused outrage amongst Indian feminists totally unnecessarily as Amitabh Bachchan later rubbished the reports.
The other much talked about event was the split up of Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor. Most people were expecting them to tie the knot soon (they'd been going steady for 3 years or something like that). The timing of it was also very strange as it came right before the release of Jab We Met (with everyone expecting it to effect the film negatively, but on the contrary - the film has done much better than expected). Soon after the split up Saif Ali Khan confirmed that he is now dating Kareena.
Friday, January 04, 2008
2007 MEETS 2008 | PART 2: 2008 in Polish cinemas
This is a list of films that I'm excited about, ordered by the Polish release date (the dates may of course still change). You can treat it as an open invitation to see any of these films in the cinema with me ;)
18th January, 2008 Lust, Caution
Why I'm excited?
It's Ang Lee's first film after Brokeback Mountain, so I guess I would have always been curious about it (like a lot of the cinema going world I think). But the controversy surrounding it has made it even more of a must see for me. It received an NC-17 certificate in the US which is very rare - especially for such a mainstream director. And Ang Lee isn't known for sexually explicit films.
The Chinese angle is also very interesting for me - it's a China-USA co-production and I guess somehow just the idea that a Chinese production company would be doing a film that is that explicit has an interest factor in it for me (even if the film was cut significantly for Chinese audiences).
Surprisingly enough there is also a Bollywood angle to the film since Anupam Kher has a small part in it (his face will probably be familiar to you if you've watched a few Indian films).
Finally, this is the film that won the main prize at the Venice film festival in September and of all the big film festivals and award ceremonies Venice is probably the one I trust the most.
Previous mentions on my blog
15th February, 2008 The Kite Runner
Why I'm excited?
Well, I'm not expecting it to be the best of films (even though AFAIK the reviews in the US have been good), but somehow I'm just getting a kick out of Hollywood making a film that is so heavily based in Afghanistan, but at the same time doesn't seem to be particularly political (I may be wrong about this, but that's my impression thus far).
The story itself sounds rather interesting (I'm just hoping it won't be told as sentimentally as it's treated on the trailer). It's about two boys who are good friends. The turning point is when one of the boys gets abused and raped and the other just lets it happen. And then the rest of the film is largely about the guilt of allowing that. Apparently, a lot of people wanted the director to take out the rape scene (leaving in just the violence). But he said it was necessary because you had to feel how terrible the deed was for the attempts at redemption to follow naturally. I guess that comment got me even more curious.
Previous mentions on my blog
None
22nd February, 2008 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Why I'm excited?
Do I even have to explain this one? lol
Previous mentions on my blog
? March, 2008 Dhoom 2
Why I'm excited?
Bollywood + Hrithik Roshan + Abhishek Bachchan + a trailer like that = fun ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
13th June, 2008 The Happening
No trailer available yet.
Why I'm excited?
For a reaaaaally dumb reason - it's the first time that an Indian producer (UTV) is co-producing what is essentially a Hollywood film.
That said, it's directed by M. Night Shyamalan, so there's hope that in ecological thriller terms it won't be so bad ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
? September or October, 2008 Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
Why I'm excited?
Because more Bollywood in Polish cinemas is always a good thing and when it involves Abhishek Bachchan then it's even better ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
None
28th November, 2008 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
No trailer available yet.
Why I'm excited?
Because I'm amongst the Harry Potter fans who think the films are getting better and better ;) Plus there's a few scenes in this one that I soooo want to see on screen *dreamy eyes*
Previous mentions on my blog
None
Some time during 2008? I'm not there
So far there's no release date for Poland, but the film sounds big enough to have gotten a distributor, so I expect we will be seeing it at some point during 2008 (the world premiere was in September 2007).
Why I'm excited?
Because Cate Blanchett, Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and a little boy I don't know called Marcus Carl Franklin are all playing the same person and according to the buzz the film actually works lol All of these are terrific actors, so it should be quite something.
Previous mentions on my blog
None
late in 2008? Om Shanti Om
2008 is probably wishful thinking on my part as no Polish distributor has bought the rights as of yet, but hey - a year after its initial release is not exactly soon ;-P I'm pretty sure *somebody* will pick up the rights as Om Shanti Om is on its way to become the highest grosser in Indian cinema history.
Why I'm excited?
Shahrukh Khan is quite enough for me to be excited about any film ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
Late in 2008? Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt
No trailer available yet.
Why I'm excited?
This is Sacha Baron Cohen's next and I like him, so I guess a project with a title like that has to get some curiosity from me ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
None
18th January, 2008 Lust, Caution
Why I'm excited?
It's Ang Lee's first film after Brokeback Mountain, so I guess I would have always been curious about it (like a lot of the cinema going world I think). But the controversy surrounding it has made it even more of a must see for me. It received an NC-17 certificate in the US which is very rare - especially for such a mainstream director. And Ang Lee isn't known for sexually explicit films.
The Chinese angle is also very interesting for me - it's a China-USA co-production and I guess somehow just the idea that a Chinese production company would be doing a film that is that explicit has an interest factor in it for me (even if the film was cut significantly for Chinese audiences).
Surprisingly enough there is also a Bollywood angle to the film since Anupam Kher has a small part in it (his face will probably be familiar to you if you've watched a few Indian films).
Finally, this is the film that won the main prize at the Venice film festival in September and of all the big film festivals and award ceremonies Venice is probably the one I trust the most.
Previous mentions on my blog
15th February, 2008 The Kite Runner
Why I'm excited?
Well, I'm not expecting it to be the best of films (even though AFAIK the reviews in the US have been good), but somehow I'm just getting a kick out of Hollywood making a film that is so heavily based in Afghanistan, but at the same time doesn't seem to be particularly political (I may be wrong about this, but that's my impression thus far).
The story itself sounds rather interesting (I'm just hoping it won't be told as sentimentally as it's treated on the trailer). It's about two boys who are good friends. The turning point is when one of the boys gets abused and raped and the other just lets it happen. And then the rest of the film is largely about the guilt of allowing that. Apparently, a lot of people wanted the director to take out the rape scene (leaving in just the violence). But he said it was necessary because you had to feel how terrible the deed was for the attempts at redemption to follow naturally. I guess that comment got me even more curious.
Previous mentions on my blog
None
22nd February, 2008 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Why I'm excited?
Do I even have to explain this one? lol
Previous mentions on my blog
- Initial promotion for Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd"
- Sweeney Todd trailer - yay!
- Can Johnny Depp sing?
- Second Sweeney Todd trailer
- Sweeney Todd promotion in full throb
? March, 2008 Dhoom 2
Why I'm excited?
Bollywood + Hrithik Roshan + Abhishek Bachchan + a trailer like that = fun ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
13th June, 2008 The Happening
No trailer available yet.
Why I'm excited?
For a reaaaaally dumb reason - it's the first time that an Indian producer (UTV) is co-producing what is essentially a Hollywood film.
That said, it's directed by M. Night Shyamalan, so there's hope that in ecological thriller terms it won't be so bad ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
? September or October, 2008 Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
Why I'm excited?
Because more Bollywood in Polish cinemas is always a good thing and when it involves Abhishek Bachchan then it's even better ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
None
28th November, 2008 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
No trailer available yet.
Why I'm excited?
Because I'm amongst the Harry Potter fans who think the films are getting better and better ;) Plus there's a few scenes in this one that I soooo want to see on screen *dreamy eyes*
Previous mentions on my blog
None
Some time during 2008? I'm not there
So far there's no release date for Poland, but the film sounds big enough to have gotten a distributor, so I expect we will be seeing it at some point during 2008 (the world premiere was in September 2007).
Why I'm excited?
Because Cate Blanchett, Ben Whishaw, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger and a little boy I don't know called Marcus Carl Franklin are all playing the same person and according to the buzz the film actually works lol All of these are terrific actors, so it should be quite something.
Previous mentions on my blog
None
late in 2008? Om Shanti Om
2008 is probably wishful thinking on my part as no Polish distributor has bought the rights as of yet, but hey - a year after its initial release is not exactly soon ;-P I'm pretty sure *somebody* will pick up the rights as Om Shanti Om is on its way to become the highest grosser in Indian cinema history.
Why I'm excited?
Shahrukh Khan is quite enough for me to be excited about any film ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
- "Om Shanti Om" - Shahrukh's next release
- Tom Cruise film loses out to two Bollywood films i...
- Another Shahrukh interview (OSO promotion)
Late in 2008? Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt
No trailer available yet.
Why I'm excited?
This is Sacha Baron Cohen's next and I like him, so I guess a project with a title like that has to get some curiosity from me ;)
Previous mentions on my blog
None
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Ever wondered how Shahrukh Khan started his career?
Answer: By playing a very small part in a TV film called In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones. He had only a few lines in the film and they were dubbed over by somebody else in post-production. Even more amusingly, his character in the film is gay *grin*
If you wish to see this strange turn of events with your own eyes then see below ;)
If you wish to see this strange turn of events with your own eyes then see below ;)
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Another Shahrukh interview (OSO promotion)
A lot of the time when I don't post for a long time, I re-start by posting something completely random and short, so this will be no exception ;)
Here's Shahrukh at his flippant best, promoting Om Shanti Om :) It's a 3 part interview embedded as a playlist, so I hope it works right... Part 3 is by far the funniest :)
P.S. I'm expecting to be quiet throughout January as well, but hopefully halfway through February I'll be writing a bit more :)
Here's Shahrukh at his flippant best, promoting Om Shanti Om :) It's a 3 part interview embedded as a playlist, so I hope it works right... Part 3 is by far the funniest :)
P.S. I'm expecting to be quiet throughout January as well, but hopefully halfway through February I'll be writing a bit more :)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tom Cruise film loses out to two Bollywood films in the worldwide box office
Bollywood is still a long way from properly challenging the major Hollywood studios, but for the first time something of the sort has happened (although I think these results require some interpretation ;)).
Generally, trade analysts divide box office results into the US box office and the worldwide box office (worldwide = everybody except the US). This is convenient because films tend to stack up a bit differently in the US, but also because a Hollywood film can earn about a third of its revenue in the US alone. The joke is that United Artists released Lions for Lambs in 45 countries and earned $10.3 million in the worlwide box office this weekend. Whereas Saawariya made $14.4 million and Om Shanti Om $17million in India alone. It is a bit of a blip as Variety calls it because it's Diwali weekend in India and two of the most anticipated films of the season have just released. Hollywood on the other hand is probably having a weaker weekend and it looks like Lions for Lambs is going to be a flop. But considering India's economic growth this is a very strong signal of what is to come and puts my last Hollywood-Bollywood post into perspective I think. India is now becoming a very important market for Hollywood to break into and they're going to do a lot to get there. It's significant that Saawariya was co-produced by a large American studio.
While this result tells us more about India's significance as a market than about any global trends regarding Bollywood films, both films have done very well outside of India too. Om Shanti Om has made 11th place in the US weekend box office which is I think the best result any Bollywood film has made at this point. And look closely at the screen count - Om Shanti Om has been released on 114 screens in the US while its Hollywood rivals have a 2000 or more screen count! And notice the per screen average - it's 3 times that of the other big releases. Clearly there would have been room to give Om Shanti Om a wider release than that!
It's interesting to look at Saawariya's result. It has made 24th place in the US box office which is also an excellent result. And for the first time I think I'm seeing a Bollywood release that has done well in the US and the per screen result is around what other films are collecting. Since Saawariya was co-produced by Sony, it's also Sony doing the distribution in the US and it appears that they've done it properly - released it on as many screens as it needs to be released and also it is I think the first Bollywood film to be released in the US which was submitted to the MPAA for rating (it received a PG).
Both films, but particularly Om Shanti Om has made an impact in other countries as well. Om Shanti Om has made no.7 in the UK box office, just behind the Tom Cruise flick which is at no. 6 and considering all the other numbers (54 vs 404 screens, £9,977 vs £1,629 per screen average) it looks like in the long run Om Shanti Om will be the winner.
It's done well even in Australia where it has made 9th place and as usual I recommend you check out the screen count and average per screen. Sony gave Saawariya a slightly wider release in Australia than Eros was able to give Om Shanti Om, but you can still see Om Shanti Om has done better.
Finally, because as you know I'm addicted to youtube, here are some of the trailers of the films mentioned in this post ;)
So here's the loser of this week, the Tom Cruise starrer - Lions for Lambs:
This is the trailer for Saawariya, the first Bollywood-Hollywood production:
And finally two teasers for Om Shanti Om, the Shahrukh Khan starrer (Shahrukh Khan has beaten Tom Cruise at the worlwide box office buahahaha):
And here's one of the bigger selling points of the film ;)
Generally, trade analysts divide box office results into the US box office and the worldwide box office (worldwide = everybody except the US). This is convenient because films tend to stack up a bit differently in the US, but also because a Hollywood film can earn about a third of its revenue in the US alone. The joke is that United Artists released Lions for Lambs in 45 countries and earned $10.3 million in the worlwide box office this weekend. Whereas Saawariya made $14.4 million and Om Shanti Om $17million in India alone. It is a bit of a blip as Variety calls it because it's Diwali weekend in India and two of the most anticipated films of the season have just released. Hollywood on the other hand is probably having a weaker weekend and it looks like Lions for Lambs is going to be a flop. But considering India's economic growth this is a very strong signal of what is to come and puts my last Hollywood-Bollywood post into perspective I think. India is now becoming a very important market for Hollywood to break into and they're going to do a lot to get there. It's significant that Saawariya was co-produced by a large American studio.
While this result tells us more about India's significance as a market than about any global trends regarding Bollywood films, both films have done very well outside of India too. Om Shanti Om has made 11th place in the US weekend box office which is I think the best result any Bollywood film has made at this point. And look closely at the screen count - Om Shanti Om has been released on 114 screens in the US while its Hollywood rivals have a 2000 or more screen count! And notice the per screen average - it's 3 times that of the other big releases. Clearly there would have been room to give Om Shanti Om a wider release than that!
It's interesting to look at Saawariya's result. It has made 24th place in the US box office which is also an excellent result. And for the first time I think I'm seeing a Bollywood release that has done well in the US and the per screen result is around what other films are collecting. Since Saawariya was co-produced by Sony, it's also Sony doing the distribution in the US and it appears that they've done it properly - released it on as many screens as it needs to be released and also it is I think the first Bollywood film to be released in the US which was submitted to the MPAA for rating (it received a PG).
Both films, but particularly Om Shanti Om has made an impact in other countries as well. Om Shanti Om has made no.7 in the UK box office, just behind the Tom Cruise flick which is at no. 6 and considering all the other numbers (54 vs 404 screens, £9,977 vs £1,629 per screen average) it looks like in the long run Om Shanti Om will be the winner.
It's done well even in Australia where it has made 9th place and as usual I recommend you check out the screen count and average per screen. Sony gave Saawariya a slightly wider release in Australia than Eros was able to give Om Shanti Om, but you can still see Om Shanti Om has done better.
Finally, because as you know I'm addicted to youtube, here are some of the trailers of the films mentioned in this post ;)
So here's the loser of this week, the Tom Cruise starrer - Lions for Lambs:
This is the trailer for Saawariya, the first Bollywood-Hollywood production:
And finally two teasers for Om Shanti Om, the Shahrukh Khan starrer (Shahrukh Khan has beaten Tom Cruise at the worlwide box office buahahaha):
And here's one of the bigger selling points of the film ;)
Friday, September 14, 2007
"Om Shanti Om" - Shahrukh's next release
So the marketing campaign for Shahrukh Khan's next film has started!
It's already run into some controversy, as it will release on the 9th of November - the same day as Bhansali's "Saawariya" (which was mentioned in more detail in one of my other posts) and Bhansali is angry with Farah Khan (the director of "Om Shanti Om" and "Main Hoon Naa") because he says she has ridiculed his mother.
So anyway, below is an episode of "Koffee with Karan" with Shahrukh and Farah in which amongst many hilarious answers, you will also see the supposedely offending comment about Bhansali's mother. The interview is in 5 parts - but it's really worth the watch!
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 1 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 2 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 3 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 4 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 5 - MyVideo
And below are some more clips promoting the film.
This is another exclusive trailer (quite similar to the one they showed during Koffee with Karan):
And here's an opportunity to see the 6-pack that SRK and Farah were promising during the interview. Is it just me or is it really weird to see Shahrukh do this sort of thing? lol
Finally a trailer for one of the more romantic songs in the film which for some reason sounds totally like Japanese popular music to me (even though I'm sure it's not ;-P):
It's already run into some controversy, as it will release on the 9th of November - the same day as Bhansali's "Saawariya" (which was mentioned in more detail in one of my other posts) and Bhansali is angry with Farah Khan (the director of "Om Shanti Om" and "Main Hoon Naa") because he says she has ridiculed his mother.
So anyway, below is an episode of "Koffee with Karan" with Shahrukh and Farah in which amongst many hilarious answers, you will also see the supposedely offending comment about Bhansali's mother. The interview is in 5 parts - but it's really worth the watch!
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 1 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 2 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 3 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 4 - MyVideo
Srk in KwK 2007 Teil 5 - MyVideo
And below are some more clips promoting the film.
This is another exclusive trailer (quite similar to the one they showed during Koffee with Karan):
And here's an opportunity to see the 6-pack that SRK and Farah were promising during the interview. Is it just me or is it really weird to see Shahrukh do this sort of thing? lol
Finally a trailer for one of the more romantic songs in the film which for some reason sounds totally like Japanese popular music to me (even though I'm sure it's not ;-P):
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Some Indian box-office news (that will probably bore you, but I'm fascinated ;-P)
Last week, the Indian box-office saw possibly the biggest flop of recent times.
Ram Gopal Varma has remade Sholay, the 1975 classic with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead. In the new version Mr Bachchan stars as the villain of the film.
Reviews have been terrible and there's been a general uproar against re-making "Sholay" (it's a bit like doing a remake of "Citizen Kane"). The film has been taken off screens after just one week!
Ram Gopal Varma, though he did seem somewhat shaken by the reactions, took it with his characteristic cynicism:
"The messages have been pretty vocal and direct about their dislike for what I've done. I've been called names and treated to the nastiest comments. But I've enjoyed the backlash, far more than people enjoyed Aag" laughs Ramu.
On the other side of the spectrum, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) has just completed its 615th week in Indian cinemas (that's almost 12 years!) and it's still going really strong. In August when four Yash Raj productions were being shown in Mumbai, it was DDLJ that was the biggest earner! The film is a world phenomenon - no other film in the history of world cinema has played this long since its initial release (it has beaten the previous record holder - "Sholay (1975)" by about 7 years).
And finally, something I'm finding quite shocking is that Chak De! India which I thought would be a god-awful film and worth seeing only for Shahrukh, is not only a blockbuster, but is getting terrific reviews! After the first trailer came out, I was (like many people) convinced it would be horrible, but it's now going strong in its 4th week.
Reviews aside, perhaps the most surprising reaction to the film is that of the Academy (the Academy in the US that gives out the oscars ;-P) who have asked for a copy of the script for their permanent script collection.
Shahrukh has also received surprising reviews for his role as hockey coach. It's not just that they're good (which is rare in itself), but anyone who has watched him knows that "understated" or "restrained" are not adjectives that are usually associated with him.
Check out the first teaser trailer for "Chak De India" below (it promises none of the above, does it? lol):
The theatrical trailer looks a bit better, but is still far from promising the kind of reaction the film has received:
Ram Gopal Varma has remade Sholay, the 1975 classic with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead. In the new version Mr Bachchan stars as the villain of the film.
Reviews have been terrible and there's been a general uproar against re-making "Sholay" (it's a bit like doing a remake of "Citizen Kane"). The film has been taken off screens after just one week!
Ram Gopal Varma, though he did seem somewhat shaken by the reactions, took it with his characteristic cynicism:
"The messages have been pretty vocal and direct about their dislike for what I've done. I've been called names and treated to the nastiest comments. But I've enjoyed the backlash, far more than people enjoyed Aag" laughs Ramu.
On the other side of the spectrum, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) has just completed its 615th week in Indian cinemas (that's almost 12 years!) and it's still going really strong. In August when four Yash Raj productions were being shown in Mumbai, it was DDLJ that was the biggest earner! The film is a world phenomenon - no other film in the history of world cinema has played this long since its initial release (it has beaten the previous record holder - "Sholay (1975)" by about 7 years).
And finally, something I'm finding quite shocking is that Chak De! India which I thought would be a god-awful film and worth seeing only for Shahrukh, is not only a blockbuster, but is getting terrific reviews! After the first trailer came out, I was (like many people) convinced it would be horrible, but it's now going strong in its 4th week.
Reviews aside, perhaps the most surprising reaction to the film is that of the Academy (the Academy in the US that gives out the oscars ;-P) who have asked for a copy of the script for their permanent script collection.
Shahrukh has also received surprising reviews for his role as hockey coach. It's not just that they're good (which is rare in itself), but anyone who has watched him knows that "understated" or "restrained" are not adjectives that are usually associated with him.
Check out the first teaser trailer for "Chak De India" below (it promises none of the above, does it? lol):
The theatrical trailer looks a bit better, but is still far from promising the kind of reaction the film has received:
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Bollywood and Hollywood together - it's happening!
It seems like every 2-3 months is bringing stronger reasons to believe that Bollywood and Hollywood want to have a working relationship!
The first time I posted about this was in February and then again in May.
Well, now it's August and there's loads more to report :)
Hollywood is starting to take the Indian market very seriously. In other words they've realized that there's a billion people in India, that the country's economy is developing very fast, the people of India are veeeery interested in cinema and Hollywood only has about 8% of the market... oooops...
The problem is that the way they've dominated Western markets just isn't going to work in India. In the words of Gareth Wigan, vice chairman of Columbia TriStar - "The importing of American films into India is not filling a gap (...) You're not bringing a dish to a bare table. You're bringing a dish to a table where you have to move a lot of other dishes to fit in, and that's not true in a lot of other countries."
Disney, Warner Bros and Columbia/Sony in particular seem to be seeing this 8% market problem and there's no longer any doubt - they're looking for opportunities!
So a number of things have been happening...
Disney have made a deal with Yash Raj films (which is one of the biggest production companies in Bollywood) to make animated films for Indian audiences.
They've also apparently been in touch with Shahrukh Khan, hoping to invest in his production company - Red Chillies Entertainment. And they're not the only ones either, apparently Sony and Fox are considering the same move!
There's also a number of projects which are essentially Bollywood films, but with some of the money coming from Hollywood.
The first of these to come out is Saawariya, with Columbia/Sony Entertainment behind it. It will be released this November. It's directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (the director who also did Devdas) and will star Rani Mukherji and Salman Khan. The first teaser trailer is looking absolutely stunning. See it here.
Warner Bros is venturing out into Bollywood with "Made in China", which will be directed by Nikhil Advani (the director of Kal Ho Naa Ho) and will star Akshay Kumar.
Perhaps most excitingly, both of these films will have mainstream American distributors which makes their chances in the international box office much better! :)
But also Bollywood stars are being offered Hollywood movies!
Shilpa Shetty is rumoured to be in talks for the next James Bond movie, as well as possibly starring in a movie with Keanu Reeves. But there have been a number of other Bollywood stars approached for various projects, this article lists most of them.
Less dynamically, but Hollywood producers also seem to be thinking about Bollywood directors for their Hollywood projects. Santosh Sivan (the director of Asoka) has been approached with a script set in a colonial background.
Finally, perhaps less energetically, but Bollywood is making its own attempts at venturing into Hollywood and making use of their talents.
They have roped in a leading Hollywood VFX man into Pixion - a post-production studio in India. David Crawford is behind films like "Titanic", "Spiderman" and "Mission Impossible II"!
UTV is trying to make a big World War II movie with Vishal Bharadwaj (Omkara) as the director, hopefully bringing together Uma Thurman and Hrithik Roshan, but at the moment the project will remain in pre-production for a while yet.
UTV has also ventured into co-production with Fox on a Hollywood film - it will be Shyamalan's next film.
Not bad, huh? :-D
P.S. Not strictly related to the Hollywood-Bollywood issue, but I'll put it in anyway ;-P Danny Boyle's next film is set in India and he's supposed to have met Shahrukh Khan about it.
The first time I posted about this was in February and then again in May.
Well, now it's August and there's loads more to report :)
Hollywood is starting to take the Indian market very seriously. In other words they've realized that there's a billion people in India, that the country's economy is developing very fast, the people of India are veeeery interested in cinema and Hollywood only has about 8% of the market... oooops...
The problem is that the way they've dominated Western markets just isn't going to work in India. In the words of Gareth Wigan, vice chairman of Columbia TriStar - "The importing of American films into India is not filling a gap (...) You're not bringing a dish to a bare table. You're bringing a dish to a table where you have to move a lot of other dishes to fit in, and that's not true in a lot of other countries."
Disney, Warner Bros and Columbia/Sony in particular seem to be seeing this 8% market problem and there's no longer any doubt - they're looking for opportunities!
So a number of things have been happening...
Disney have made a deal with Yash Raj films (which is one of the biggest production companies in Bollywood) to make animated films for Indian audiences.
They've also apparently been in touch with Shahrukh Khan, hoping to invest in his production company - Red Chillies Entertainment. And they're not the only ones either, apparently Sony and Fox are considering the same move!
There's also a number of projects which are essentially Bollywood films, but with some of the money coming from Hollywood.
The first of these to come out is Saawariya, with Columbia/Sony Entertainment behind it. It will be released this November. It's directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (the director who also did Devdas) and will star Rani Mukherji and Salman Khan. The first teaser trailer is looking absolutely stunning. See it here.
Warner Bros is venturing out into Bollywood with "Made in China", which will be directed by Nikhil Advani (the director of Kal Ho Naa Ho) and will star Akshay Kumar.
Perhaps most excitingly, both of these films will have mainstream American distributors which makes their chances in the international box office much better! :)
But also Bollywood stars are being offered Hollywood movies!
Shilpa Shetty is rumoured to be in talks for the next James Bond movie, as well as possibly starring in a movie with Keanu Reeves. But there have been a number of other Bollywood stars approached for various projects, this article lists most of them.
Less dynamically, but Hollywood producers also seem to be thinking about Bollywood directors for their Hollywood projects. Santosh Sivan (the director of Asoka) has been approached with a script set in a colonial background.
Finally, perhaps less energetically, but Bollywood is making its own attempts at venturing into Hollywood and making use of their talents.
They have roped in a leading Hollywood VFX man into Pixion - a post-production studio in India. David Crawford is behind films like "Titanic", "Spiderman" and "Mission Impossible II"!
UTV is trying to make a big World War II movie with Vishal Bharadwaj (Omkara) as the director, hopefully bringing together Uma Thurman and Hrithik Roshan, but at the moment the project will remain in pre-production for a while yet.
UTV has also ventured into co-production with Fox on a Hollywood film - it will be Shyamalan's next film.
Not bad, huh? :-D
P.S. Not strictly related to the Hollywood-Bollywood issue, but I'll put it in anyway ;-P Danny Boyle's next film is set in India and he's supposed to have met Shahrukh Khan about it.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The Wroclaw Film Festival (19-29 July)
I've been horribly neglecting my blog this past month :-/
There's lot of things to write about, but I'm going to start with my impressions from the Wroclaw film festival cause otherwise I'll totally forget them (that was at the end of last month!).
It was the 7th time this festival took place (the 2nd time that it took place in Wrocław - it's been moving to bigger cities as it's been growing). I've been attending this festival ever since the very first edition when it took place on just 4 screens in Sanok (now it's 14 screens!) and I guess one of the strongest impressions I got this time round is how important this festival has become. It's by far the biggest festival in Poland now (probably the biggest in this part of Europe actually). This year they showed 460 films of which 231 were full length feature films. I don't think there are any audience numbers available but it was definitely well over 100 thousand people.
When 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days opened the festival (it's the Romanian film that won the Cannes film festival this year), it struck me how respectfully the makers of the film were treating this festival and how interested they were in our response to the film. It's very much an international scale festival now!
But lets get to the films... I saw a lot of them obviously ;-P So I'll just cover the ones that got the strongest reactions from me (in no particular order - or rather in more or less the order I watched them).
The story of 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days is a girl in communist Romania trying to get an abortion. But it's actually not about abortion or communism at all. The real topic of the film is women and how little emotional support they have from men. I don't think it paints a saintly picture of women or anything like that. For most of the film they don't tell their men anything of what's bothering them and then when finally the men pressurize them to find out what's wrong it comes out in a way that if I were a man I wouldn't understand either ;-P And I think that's quite a fair portrayal of women (I think many of us are like that). But on the other hand you understand exactly why the women are so guarded. The atmosphere that men create just doesn't allow for that kind of openness and I think the film is an amazing portrayal of male chauvinism and it's awsome that a film like this was directed by a man :)
As my criteria for writing about a film is strong feelings, here's a film I had strong negative feelings about ;-P As the Shadow is an Italian film about an Italian woman (Claudia) who is learning Russian. She develops a crush on her teacher, Borys (a Ukrainian). They sort of end up together (although it's hard to say really) and then he asks a favour of her. His cousin (Olga) from the Ukraine is coming to Italy and as he's going to be out of town for a while, he wants Olga to stay at Claudia's house. Claudia finally agrees reluctantly and then finds that actually Olga is quite a nice guest. One day Olga goes out for the night and doesn't come back.
The director of the film was at the screening and I knew I wouldn't like the film the moment she started talking. She came out and said that she's glad that so many people came to the screening (in the standards of the festival it was actually rather empty) and then started saying that this film has traveled to many important festivals and won many awards (I checked - imdb lists just one festival and award and it's a very obscure one!). The whole way she approached us was with this air of superiority, which particularly struck me because just the day before Cristian Mungiu had been so modest and genuinely interested in how the Polish audience would react (and he was presenting a film that won the Golden Palm!!). I fully expected that the Italian director would approach her topic with the same air as she did her audience and was not disappointed.
I rolled my eyes when during a conversation about alcohol between Claudia and Olga, Olga says that in the Ukraine they drink because they're unhappy or because it's cold. Not to mention the names of the Ukrainian characters - Borys and Olga? er... great... (and guess which part of the Ukraine they were from - yes, you guessed right, Kiev) And that's not the worse part... The film has lots of Russian in it, but the director didn't even bother to make it sound right. Her Borys was an Italian and spoke with such a strong accent that even I heard it (and honestly, my Russian is almost non-existant!). Her Olga was a part Polish, part Italian actress who spoke with a slightly smaller accent, but still one I thought I could hear.
The catalogue description suggested that the point of the film was to de-stereotype Eastern Europeans, but instead the director didn't do even some basic homework on the Ukraine!
I also got to see two of Guy Maddin's films :D I developped an interest in him at previous editions of the festival. He's a Canadian director who is strongly influenced by German expressionist films from the silent era and has such bizzarre storylines that I feel unable to explain or repeat them ;-P They showed Brand Upon the Brain which is one of Maddin's more recent films. I don't feel able to convey to you what the film is like in any other way but by linking to the trailer:
The other Maddin film they showed was a 1992 one called Careful which was just as enjoyable and crazy :)
A hilarious and warm film that I saw was Irina Palm. It's a big European co-production about a middle aged lady who desperately needs money because her grandson is ill and so she starts earning money in the Soho area by wanking men off...
One of the biggest discoveries of the festival for many people was Hal Hartley (there was a full retrospective of his films). He was also present for the entire festival (and apparently doing lots of film watching as well :) ).
They actually had to move his films to a bigger screening room because all the people that were interested weren't managing to get in.
I didn't have particularly strong feelings about him myself, but he's definitely an American (independent) director worth discovering. His films have great dialogues and are very amusing portrayals of American society.
They had a small section of "cinema of dance" at the festival this year. While most of what I sat through was boring enough for me not to continue with that section, the first screening made a huge impression me. It was a a few films by the DV8 Physical Theatre - they're a British dance group and the way they approach both dance and film was fascinating for me.
As this is also something that has to be seen to be explained, here's the trailer for The Cost of Living:
And here's a scene from the film:
Disappointingly, there was only one Bollywood film this year and I'd already seen it on DVD, but it was still awsome to see it on the big screen. Omkara is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Othello". It's a film where a lot of stars are acting against their image - especially Saif Ali Khan who is the ugly villain with yellow teeth (Saif usually plays cute romantic heroes :D ). Here's the trailer:
Another fun film was I'm a Cyborg, but that's Ok (Park Chan-Wook's latest film). It's a Korean film about a girl who thinks she's a cyborg.
Probably the most political film I watched at the festival was AFR. It's a Danish film made to test freedom of speech (or so the director told us :) ). When the Muslim cartoon issue came about in Denmark, the Danish (right wing) prime minister defended the right of Danish papers to publish such things. So the director of this film decided to test freedom of speech in Denmark and using all sorts of clips from TV, doing his own interviews with politicians (though not being entirely truthful with them about how the material would be used) and using actors to conduct other interviews, he created a film in which the Danish prime minister had been assassinated by his gay lover. He also made the film version of the prime minister an alter-globalist fighting for the rights of Third World countries (which is of course totally against what the right wing Rasmussen believes in). The director of the film was not punished in any way, so in his opinion Denmark passed the test ;)
A really nice Australian film that I saw was Japanese Story which is a sort of romance between an Australian girl and a Japanese businessman.
Something I really recommend people see once it releases is Persepolis. It's an animated film about a girl growing up in Iran and then emigrating to Europe. There's a lot of humour in it, but it's also packed full of Iranian history and culture. Here's a teaser trailer:
There's lot of things to write about, but I'm going to start with my impressions from the Wroclaw film festival cause otherwise I'll totally forget them (that was at the end of last month!).
It was the 7th time this festival took place (the 2nd time that it took place in Wrocław - it's been moving to bigger cities as it's been growing). I've been attending this festival ever since the very first edition when it took place on just 4 screens in Sanok (now it's 14 screens!) and I guess one of the strongest impressions I got this time round is how important this festival has become. It's by far the biggest festival in Poland now (probably the biggest in this part of Europe actually). This year they showed 460 films of which 231 were full length feature films. I don't think there are any audience numbers available but it was definitely well over 100 thousand people.
When 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days opened the festival (it's the Romanian film that won the Cannes film festival this year), it struck me how respectfully the makers of the film were treating this festival and how interested they were in our response to the film. It's very much an international scale festival now!
But lets get to the films... I saw a lot of them obviously ;-P So I'll just cover the ones that got the strongest reactions from me (in no particular order - or rather in more or less the order I watched them).
The story of 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days is a girl in communist Romania trying to get an abortion. But it's actually not about abortion or communism at all. The real topic of the film is women and how little emotional support they have from men. I don't think it paints a saintly picture of women or anything like that. For most of the film they don't tell their men anything of what's bothering them and then when finally the men pressurize them to find out what's wrong it comes out in a way that if I were a man I wouldn't understand either ;-P And I think that's quite a fair portrayal of women (I think many of us are like that). But on the other hand you understand exactly why the women are so guarded. The atmosphere that men create just doesn't allow for that kind of openness and I think the film is an amazing portrayal of male chauvinism and it's awsome that a film like this was directed by a man :)
As my criteria for writing about a film is strong feelings, here's a film I had strong negative feelings about ;-P As the Shadow is an Italian film about an Italian woman (Claudia) who is learning Russian. She develops a crush on her teacher, Borys (a Ukrainian). They sort of end up together (although it's hard to say really) and then he asks a favour of her. His cousin (Olga) from the Ukraine is coming to Italy and as he's going to be out of town for a while, he wants Olga to stay at Claudia's house. Claudia finally agrees reluctantly and then finds that actually Olga is quite a nice guest. One day Olga goes out for the night and doesn't come back.
The director of the film was at the screening and I knew I wouldn't like the film the moment she started talking. She came out and said that she's glad that so many people came to the screening (in the standards of the festival it was actually rather empty) and then started saying that this film has traveled to many important festivals and won many awards (I checked - imdb lists just one festival and award and it's a very obscure one!). The whole way she approached us was with this air of superiority, which particularly struck me because just the day before Cristian Mungiu had been so modest and genuinely interested in how the Polish audience would react (and he was presenting a film that won the Golden Palm!!). I fully expected that the Italian director would approach her topic with the same air as she did her audience and was not disappointed.
I rolled my eyes when during a conversation about alcohol between Claudia and Olga, Olga says that in the Ukraine they drink because they're unhappy or because it's cold. Not to mention the names of the Ukrainian characters - Borys and Olga? er... great... (and guess which part of the Ukraine they were from - yes, you guessed right, Kiev) And that's not the worse part... The film has lots of Russian in it, but the director didn't even bother to make it sound right. Her Borys was an Italian and spoke with such a strong accent that even I heard it (and honestly, my Russian is almost non-existant!). Her Olga was a part Polish, part Italian actress who spoke with a slightly smaller accent, but still one I thought I could hear.
The catalogue description suggested that the point of the film was to de-stereotype Eastern Europeans, but instead the director didn't do even some basic homework on the Ukraine!
I also got to see two of Guy Maddin's films :D I developped an interest in him at previous editions of the festival. He's a Canadian director who is strongly influenced by German expressionist films from the silent era and has such bizzarre storylines that I feel unable to explain or repeat them ;-P They showed Brand Upon the Brain which is one of Maddin's more recent films. I don't feel able to convey to you what the film is like in any other way but by linking to the trailer:
The other Maddin film they showed was a 1992 one called Careful which was just as enjoyable and crazy :)
A hilarious and warm film that I saw was Irina Palm. It's a big European co-production about a middle aged lady who desperately needs money because her grandson is ill and so she starts earning money in the Soho area by wanking men off...
One of the biggest discoveries of the festival for many people was Hal Hartley (there was a full retrospective of his films). He was also present for the entire festival (and apparently doing lots of film watching as well :) ).
They actually had to move his films to a bigger screening room because all the people that were interested weren't managing to get in.
I didn't have particularly strong feelings about him myself, but he's definitely an American (independent) director worth discovering. His films have great dialogues and are very amusing portrayals of American society.
They had a small section of "cinema of dance" at the festival this year. While most of what I sat through was boring enough for me not to continue with that section, the first screening made a huge impression me. It was a a few films by the DV8 Physical Theatre - they're a British dance group and the way they approach both dance and film was fascinating for me.
As this is also something that has to be seen to be explained, here's the trailer for The Cost of Living:
And here's a scene from the film:
Disappointingly, there was only one Bollywood film this year and I'd already seen it on DVD, but it was still awsome to see it on the big screen. Omkara is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Othello". It's a film where a lot of stars are acting against their image - especially Saif Ali Khan who is the ugly villain with yellow teeth (Saif usually plays cute romantic heroes :D ). Here's the trailer:
Another fun film was I'm a Cyborg, but that's Ok (Park Chan-Wook's latest film). It's a Korean film about a girl who thinks she's a cyborg.
Probably the most political film I watched at the festival was AFR. It's a Danish film made to test freedom of speech (or so the director told us :) ). When the Muslim cartoon issue came about in Denmark, the Danish (right wing) prime minister defended the right of Danish papers to publish such things. So the director of this film decided to test freedom of speech in Denmark and using all sorts of clips from TV, doing his own interviews with politicians (though not being entirely truthful with them about how the material would be used) and using actors to conduct other interviews, he created a film in which the Danish prime minister had been assassinated by his gay lover. He also made the film version of the prime minister an alter-globalist fighting for the rights of Third World countries (which is of course totally against what the right wing Rasmussen believes in). The director of the film was not punished in any way, so in his opinion Denmark passed the test ;)
A really nice Australian film that I saw was Japanese Story which is a sort of romance between an Australian girl and a Japanese businessman.
Something I really recommend people see once it releases is Persepolis. It's an animated film about a girl growing up in Iran and then emigrating to Europe. There's a lot of humour in it, but it's also packed full of Iranian history and culture. Here's a teaser trailer:
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
The protests start - more on "Gandhi, My Father"
I'm following up one of my previous posts. While Gandhi, My Father will be out in about a month, we've already got the first attempt to stop its release.
The more I find out about Harilal, Gandhi's oldest son, the more I understand how heavy the material can potentially be. Check out this article and also the short wikipedia article about Harilal.
The more I find out about Harilal, Gandhi's oldest son, the more I understand how heavy the material can potentially be. Check out this article and also the short wikipedia article about Harilal.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Indian film releases I'm excited about...
So there's Chak de India, the new Shahrukh release in August, which I'm anticipating to be rather awful judging by the trailer (though of course because it's a Shahrukh release I'm still a little excited ;)). The premise of the film is Shahrukh's character coaching a women's field hockey team. The first teaser is below:
But I also think it's high time to introduce the topic of Akshaye Khanna onto this blog (yes, there are in fact Indian actors other than Shahrukh that I'm a fan of lol). Some of you may have seen Akshaye in Dil Chahta Hai. Otherwise he's not a Bollywood star that has gotten much attention before this year really. But recently his career seems to have taken off. His style of acting is rather rare in mainstream terms (I'd say he's usually a very subtle actor even in Western standards) and I think he's quite into experimenting with different things, so with the recent surge of interest in him, he seems to have had some interesting film offers to choose from. The result is that I'm quite excited about a few films with him him attached that are coming up ;)
So firstly, there's Gandhi, My Father which is probably going to release in August and is getting even some international focus. While Gandhi as a character has featured in a huge amount of films, this film seems to be a very unique (and controversial) take on him. You might like to read up on this film a little here. But if you don't - then well basically it's about Gandhi's family and the conflict he had with his son (Akshaye plays the son). They never got on well and apparently Gandhi forbade him to become a lawyer which is what his son really wanted to do. The film tries to paint both Gandhi and his son in grey colors and tells the story of how Gandhi's sacrifice for the nation was very difficult on his family. Below is one of the first trailers for this film:
On a lighter Akshaye Khanna note, there's Naqaab. I don't know when this is going to be released, but I assume probably soon as the trailers have started coming out. I've no idea what this film is about ;-P But it's probably totally crazy, as the directors of it (Abbas-Mustan) are the ones responsible for films such as Baazigar (1993) and Baadshah (1999). The difference is that now they have the special effects to pull off a silly James Bond type movie with James Bondy type effects if they really wanted to ;) Trailer is below:
Finally, on a rumoured Akshaye Khanna note, he may be part of a much talked about and controversial film (I think it's Western financing), which has been in pre-production for a very long time. Even though When Kiran met Karen seems to be appearing in news articles quite a lot considering how early the stages of its production are (for all we know it might not even get made), there's hardly any info about its plot. What mainly gets repeated is that it's a "lesbian flick".
P.S. This month my blog has been rather neglected, the reason is that June is my busiest school period, but now that's almost finished, there's hope I'll improve ;) (though I'll be off-line for about 2-3 weeks in the second half of July - first bit of August).
But I also think it's high time to introduce the topic of Akshaye Khanna onto this blog (yes, there are in fact Indian actors other than Shahrukh that I'm a fan of lol). Some of you may have seen Akshaye in Dil Chahta Hai. Otherwise he's not a Bollywood star that has gotten much attention before this year really. But recently his career seems to have taken off. His style of acting is rather rare in mainstream terms (I'd say he's usually a very subtle actor even in Western standards) and I think he's quite into experimenting with different things, so with the recent surge of interest in him, he seems to have had some interesting film offers to choose from. The result is that I'm quite excited about a few films with him him attached that are coming up ;)
So firstly, there's Gandhi, My Father which is probably going to release in August and is getting even some international focus. While Gandhi as a character has featured in a huge amount of films, this film seems to be a very unique (and controversial) take on him. You might like to read up on this film a little here. But if you don't - then well basically it's about Gandhi's family and the conflict he had with his son (Akshaye plays the son). They never got on well and apparently Gandhi forbade him to become a lawyer which is what his son really wanted to do. The film tries to paint both Gandhi and his son in grey colors and tells the story of how Gandhi's sacrifice for the nation was very difficult on his family. Below is one of the first trailers for this film:
On a lighter Akshaye Khanna note, there's Naqaab. I don't know when this is going to be released, but I assume probably soon as the trailers have started coming out. I've no idea what this film is about ;-P But it's probably totally crazy, as the directors of it (Abbas-Mustan) are the ones responsible for films such as Baazigar (1993) and Baadshah (1999). The difference is that now they have the special effects to pull off a silly James Bond type movie with James Bondy type effects if they really wanted to ;) Trailer is below:
Finally, on a rumoured Akshaye Khanna note, he may be part of a much talked about and controversial film (I think it's Western financing), which has been in pre-production for a very long time. Even though When Kiran met Karen seems to be appearing in news articles quite a lot considering how early the stages of its production are (for all we know it might not even get made), there's hardly any info about its plot. What mainly gets repeated is that it's a "lesbian flick".
P.S. This month my blog has been rather neglected, the reason is that June is my busiest school period, but now that's almost finished, there's hope I'll improve ;) (though I'll be off-line for about 2-3 weeks in the second half of July - first bit of August).
Friday, May 25, 2007
Shahrukh and Saif at the 49th Filmfare Awards
I found these clips from Filmfare Awards 2003-2004 when Shahrukh and Saif were hosting together. It must have quite soon after Kal Ho Naa Ho since they were making references to it all the time (in the film, everytime Kantaben - one of the characters - sees the two of them together it looks as if they're having some sort of romance or something). Anyway, the clips are so silly I had to post them ;)
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Random Shahrukh video
Just found this clip and thought it was hilarious, so I'm posting :) It's from one of Shahrukh's live concerts (he's hinted he might be coming to Poland on the next tour he does :) ).
Thursday, May 17, 2007
"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" - the Indian and American film industries working together
Collaborations between the two biggest film industries in the world sound like a very natural thing, but Indian cinema has never been taken seriously enough for it to happen.
Attitudes, however, are changing on many levels (also see my post from February).
For one thing - who'd have thought that tabloid stories from Bollywood would be the subject of a comedy show on mainstream American TV? (the story of a supposed fallout between Shahrukh and Big B is quite old now, but still talked about in India - they've both repeatedely said there's no truth in it, Shahrukh of course in his own unique way)
But there are also some much more serious changes. A fairly recent story is that UTV Motion Pictures and 20th Century Fox are co-producing M. Night Shyamalan’s next film - The Happening. India has been in co-productions before now (though AFAIK quite rarely), but this time we're talking about a major blockbuster.
That's not the end of things for UTV either. There's also talk of an international project which would co-star Uma Thurman and Hrithik Roshan.
The Shyamalan film sounds rather awful - toxic plants... er right... But I'm very curious how the situation between the Indian and American industries is going to develop.
Just to finish this post on a totally random note (and get rid of something that has been in my drafts since February or something like that ;-P), here are two funny clips - one from this year's Academy Awards with Ellen Degeneres as the host and one from the Filmfare Awards which are the most important awards in India (and take place around the same time that the Academy Awards do) - this year they were hosted by Shahrukh.
(if you desperately want to have an explanation for the sudden appearance of these two clips in this post then I suggest you assume that this is just a way of showing some similarities and differences between the two industries ;))
P.S. Unlike my dad I don't expect everyone to know the quote in the title of this post (since the film it comes from was made in 1942). It is from Casablanca which incidently might be remade in India.
Attitudes, however, are changing on many levels (also see my post from February).
For one thing - who'd have thought that tabloid stories from Bollywood would be the subject of a comedy show on mainstream American TV? (the story of a supposed fallout between Shahrukh and Big B is quite old now, but still talked about in India - they've both repeatedely said there's no truth in it, Shahrukh of course in his own unique way)
But there are also some much more serious changes. A fairly recent story is that UTV Motion Pictures and 20th Century Fox are co-producing M. Night Shyamalan’s next film - The Happening. India has been in co-productions before now (though AFAIK quite rarely), but this time we're talking about a major blockbuster.
That's not the end of things for UTV either. There's also talk of an international project which would co-star Uma Thurman and Hrithik Roshan.
The Shyamalan film sounds rather awful - toxic plants... er right... But I'm very curious how the situation between the Indian and American industries is going to develop.
Just to finish this post on a totally random note (and get rid of something that has been in my drafts since February or something like that ;-P), here are two funny clips - one from this year's Academy Awards with Ellen Degeneres as the host and one from the Filmfare Awards which are the most important awards in India (and take place around the same time that the Academy Awards do) - this year they were hosted by Shahrukh.
(if you desperately want to have an explanation for the sudden appearance of these two clips in this post then I suggest you assume that this is just a way of showing some similarities and differences between the two industries ;))
P.S. Unlike my dad I don't expect everyone to know the quote in the title of this post (since the film it comes from was made in 1942). It is from Casablanca which incidently might be remade in India.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
