EXCERPT:
“I wanted to shake these bratty SMS-era youngsters by the shoulder and tell them that this story needs this pace – if it’s a slow film, it’s because it isn’t set in a fast world. I wanted to tell them that this was, after all, the 1970s – an India of tonga carts and unsliced [...]
Archive for Qalandar
I promise somewhat irregular posts on (in no particular order) Indian politics, cinema, and anything else that catches my fancy... Why "Qalandar"? So-called "liminal" religious traditions are a particular interest of mine, and "qalandar" is the sort of untranslatable, ambiguous, yet enormously evocative word that for me touches upon and articulates the experience of the sub-continent's "little" traditions in a particularly memorable way...not to mention the fact that in popular lingo the word has more than a merely religious/spiritual connotation, and can mean a bunch of other things, including a smart alec, wannabe, what-have-you...
REBIRTH OF THE COOL?
Fifty years into an endlessly fascinating career, here’s a wish (no, make that a pipe dream) that Kamal Hassan would go back to having fun, being cool.
AUG 23, 2009 – IN THE YEARS I WAS GROWING UP in a balmy nook of Madras – ensconced in an ethos that was part-Peter, part-Pattabhiraman [...]
LOS ANGELES — The spring and summer box office has murdered megawatt stars like Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell.
Can Brad Pitt escape?
[Rooney from the Shoutbox requested me to put this up; the actress in question is a classmate of his -- Qalandar]
Hey guys! Meet my classmate of law college, Madhurima Banerjee, the beautiful bong, who is making her debut in the Hindi Movie “Toss”. A perfect combination of grace and beauty, she has a [...]
Instead of scattering comments across different threads, lets add them here…
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Cultures and Sexes Clash in the Aftermath of a Rape in Turkey
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
In an early scene of “Bliss,” the glowering stepmother of Meryem, a teenage rape victim in eastern Anatolia, gives the girl a rope with which to hang herself for bringing dishonor to her family, and you prepare to endure a Turkish variation [...]
Just got back from Love Aaj Kal. It has its moments, but overall I was greatly disappointed: in particular, the dialogs/writing for the “modern” pair of Saif and Deepika was trying so hard that the effect was the opposite of the laid back confusion of the sort of romance that the film insists is [...]
In an interview with CNN-IBN’s Entertainment Editor Rajeev Masand, actor Imran Khan speaks about his new film Luck, being compared to Aamir Khan and his friends in the industry.
Rajeev Masand: It’s been a little over a year since your debut film Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, what is the one thing you know now that [...]
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July 20, 2009
In India, New Life for Comic Books as TV Cartoons
By VIKAS BAJAJ
MUMBAI, India — Like many Indians who came of age in the 1980s, Samir Patil grew up on the comic books published by Amar Chitra Katha. Made up of Indian-style Aesop’s fables, religious parables and biographies of historical figures, they taught him [...]
[Off-topic, but does bear upon the broader cultural environment within which Hindi films "happen". On the Sai Baba point, of course, recall Rishi Kapoor's Akbar singing at the shrine in Amar Akbar Anthony: Desai isn't just "representing" a tradition there, but capturing a dying mode in amber. -- Qalandar]
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We’ve been discussing these themes for years now on various blogs, so it was somewhat heartening to see it make it to the “mainstream” (albeit poorly framed, as per usual, e.g. as a trade-off between realistic and escapist cinema (by Mayank Shekhar); or as between “global” and “local”/domestic films (by the journalist, and by John [...]
Not exactly an expert in this - but having lived most of my life in Rural area in MH in ...
These hindu fanatics must be stopped or we are going back to the Dark Ages! Why is the government even ...
Definitely Action replay is a prestige film.And will be a huge success. 
I guess after the Rahul Gandhi visit, where Sena could not do anything, they ...
This is really getting murkier now... 
Both 3 Idiots and Ghajini(along with RNBDJ) came like Saviours at the time and really helped the exhibitors and Distributors. ...
I am saddened to see VHP too in this mudbath. 
Chavan dares VHP, will watch SRK's 'My Name...' with family
New Delhi, Feb 8 (IANS) Stating that nobody would be ...