Category: Movies

MUMBAI: The third edition of the Jaipur International Film Festival will be held in the capital of Rajasthan from 27 to 30 January.

Five new awards have been instituted this year. They are: The Golden Camel Award for the best director; The Red Rose Award for the best film released between October 2009 and October 2010; The Green Rose Award for the film that gives a global message; The Yellow Rose Award for the upcoming film; and The Award to Best Short Animation Film.

The Film felicitated with the Yellow Rose Award would be world premiered at the festival. It will also organise the world premiere of the film winning the best feature trophy on TV cable networks.

This year’s edition had received 350 entries from 41 countries. Out of these, 87 films were screened at the festival and 12 awards were given away in different categories.

MUMBAI: Ruskin Bond is making his first appearance on silver screen in Vishal Bharadwaj‘s Saat Khoon Maaf, based on his own novel titled ‘Susanna‘s Seven Husbands’.

An Indian author of British origin, Bond‘s writing has lured several filmmakers into making films of his novels. ‘The Flight of Pigeons,’ for instance, was adapted by Merchant Ivory films to make the Shashi Kapoor-starrer Junoon. This is the second time that Bhardwaj is adapting Bond‘s book, the first being Blue Umbrella.

In the film, Bond will star opposite Priyanka Chopra. In one scene, he has to give her a peck on the cheek. The director says the cene took quite a few retakes “because he is very shy.‘‘

This is not the first time a writer has appeared on screen. Bhisham Shahani, who wrote ‘Tamas’, played an important character in Govind Nihalani‘s adaptation into a tele series. Even Salman Rushdie did a cameo in both Bridget Jone‘s Diary as well as Then She Found Me. Urdu writer Ismat Chugtai featured in Merchant Ivory‘s Junoon while Arundhati Roy featured in Massey Sahib, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones and Electric Moon.

Director: Pradeep Sarkar Producer: Aditya Chopra Editor: Sanjib Datta Cinematography: N Nataraja Subramanian

MUMBAI: Yash Raj Films’ Lafangey Parindey has some catchy tag lines……Neil Nitin Mukesh is described as ‘born to fight’, Deepika Padukone is ‘born to fly’ and the film itself as ‘play the game’; turns out that these taglines are just about all that is interesting or eye catching in the film.

Lafangey Parindey is old wine in new bottle. Born off the chawls of Mumbai where the harmony is so symbolic, Govinda and Diwali festivals are celebrated on walls skirting a mosque!

The hero fights blindfolded in a warehouse boxing ring to make a living and is a local legend. The heroine is, typically, a mall salesgirl and aspiring to win a talent reality show; this being the contemporary touch of the film! That she has turned blind following an accident but she won’t let that deter her and that is the story.

Warehouse boxing, didn’t they make such films in the 70s and the 80s Hollywood to be instantly copied in Indian films? The Bambaiyah lingo sounds forced and none of the players seem comfortable mouthing it. The police investigation angle is corny and lacks logic. As the love tale starts, the pace slows down, the chemistry refuses to work. There is no support from the music score except in choreography, which is excellent, especially in skating dances. Even though the hero is projected as a toughie, there is no action in the film except few boxing scenes which all look repetitive. The revelation in the end about the cause of Deepika’s blindness is flat with no drama at all. 

The story hardly demands histrionics from its cast and Neil Nitin Mukesh makes the most of it, carrying one expression throughout the film. Deepika is bubbly and does well. Rest of the characters are caricatures, shadows of the lead pair.

While the money spent on the film shows, its justification does not. In that, the script is routine and direction is lacklustre.

Lafangey Parindey has not generated much interest pre-release and has opened with poor collections. That’s half the battle lost.

MUMBAI: Of late filmmakers are coming up with new ideas that would attract audiences at large like the recent Tere Bin Laden that was a spoof on Osama Bin Laden‘s tape controversy. Sanjay Gupta has come out with a novel plan for his new film, Bigde Nawab.

The film will take a no-holds barred look at some of the spectacular films, biggest scandals, stars and exposes in Mumbai‘ s film world. Bigde Nawab would not only take an in-depth look at sham, glam and bedlam of Mumbai‘s film industry, but it will also be formatted as a straight-off thriller.

According to Gupta, the two biggest inspirers in making this film have been Gulzar and Salim Khan.

It may be interesting to note that films made on the industry have had mixed response. While Ram Gopal Varma‘s Rangeela and Farah Khan‘s Om Shanti Om fared well at the box office, Guru Dutt‘s ckassic Kagaz Ke Phool failed commercially and so did Meraj‘s Sitara and Zoya Ahtar‘s Luck By Chance.

MUMBAI: Krishna Shah, who is still remembered for his film Shalimar-starring Dharmendra and Zeenat Aman, is soon launching a biopic on the late prime minister Indira Gandhi. And to play the role, Shah has zeroed in on Priyanka Chopra to essay the role.

Initially, Shah had approached Madhuri Dixit to play the late prime minister‘s role, but the latter excused herself citing her mother-in-law‘s illness.

Titled Mother: The Indira Gandhi Story, the film will be a big-budget two-part film on the life of the Indian leader who was known as Iron Lady. Shah is working on the casting with Academy Award-winner make-up artiste Jenny Shircore.

‘Yes, I am in conversation with Jenny who thinks that Priyanka is the one who can fit in the character of Indira, but it will be too premature to talk about casting as we have not approached anybody as yet,‘ Shah said in a statement.

The first part of the film will be based on Indira Gandhi‘s life till the 1971 war, while the second part will look more into her personal life as a mother to her sons — Rajiv, who succeeded her as the prime minister, and Sanjay Gandhi.
 

MUMBAI: Inox Leisure has launched its fourth multiplex today, adding four screens and 896 seats.

Said Inox Leisure CEO Alok Tandon, “With the launch of our fourth multiplex at Raja Park, we at Inox take pride in bringing the best moviegoing experience once again to our patrons of Jaipur. We will continue to offer the Inox hospitality and ensure more and more patrons choose Inox to watch movies.” 

Once at the cinema, the customer experience is further enhanced at ‘Refuel‘ the in-house brand of theatre food, which serves an extended menu of flavoured popcorn, hot and cold snacks, beverages and a variety of combo meals.

With the launch of the multiplex, Inox currently has a total of twelve screens in Jaipur. Nationally, the theatre chain has 36 multiplexes and 136 screens in 24 cities across India.

MUMBAI: Maya Entertainment is in talks with Warner Brothers to release its 3-D animation film, Ramayana – The Epic. Directed by Chetan Desai, the film is expected to hit theatres during the Dussera festival this year.

Juhi Chawla, Manoj Bajpayi and Ashutosh Rana have lent their voice for the characters of Sita, Ram and Raavan respectively. Popular villain Mukesh Rishi will be dubbing for the character of Hanuman.

For these actors dubbing for animated characters is a first. While Ashutosh and Manoj found motion picture dubbing far more challenging, Chawla feels it was a kind of a challenge to dub for the much-reverred Sita. She admits that it was tough emoting for a character that exists as a sketch.

Manoj and Ashutosh said while dubbing for a film one has to recreate the expressions that one had on the set and match the lip movement accordingly but for an animated film one had the freedom to imagine and the graphics would be tweaked to suit the actor‘s dialogue delivery.

The first theatrical trailor is expected to be launched with the release of Dabangg and We Are Family.

Says Chetan Desai, “The last animated version of Ramayana, released a decade ago, was in 2D. Our film has lot of challenging shots. There are over fifty thousand characters in one shot and we have done an action scene in rain as well.”

MUMBAI: Prabhat Chitra Mandal is organising a film festival of contemporary Romanian films in Mumbai in collaboration with Federation of Film Societies in India (FFSI) from 23 to 30 August.

While The Rest Is Silence, directed by Nae Caranfil, will be screened on 23 August, The Survivor will be shown on 26 August. Both these screenings will take place in the evening at 6:30.

On 30 August, two films will be shown. Crossing Dates, directed by AnCa Damien, will be screened at 6:30 pm while The Paper Will Be Blue, directed by Radu Muntean, will show at YB Chavan Centre at 8.10 pm.

This month onwards, Prabhat Chitra Mandal will also screen a regional film every month at Dadar Matunga Cultural Centre. The first film is this series is Meghe Dhaka Tara by Ritwik Ghatak which will be screened at 6:30 pm on 17 August