Ukindia Film Page 20
Ukindia Film Page 20 These pages wont change for many months , so turn auto load images off from the options menu to save on download time and then click on any new image if you want to download it.
Mahima, Tabu , Shilpa, Sridevi, Manisha , Pooja , Ayesha , Naghma , Mayoori, Neelam , Deepti , Zeba , Dimple , Madhoo , Twinkle , Karisma , Sonali , Mamta, Kajol , Urmilla, Raveena ,Madhuri , Juhi , Ashwariya .
Also at Showcase Cinemas
Movies in Derby Sundays at 11 am and 8.40pm Tuesday . Phone 01332 296000 for more details or to www.uci-cinema.co.uk.
Movie info also on freefone 0800 192 192 and channel 4 teletext page 460
Many of these movie reviews are from the RAMLI newsgroup (rec.arts.movies.local.indian)
Amitabh as usual is some bigger-than-life superhero and the local area vigilante. Whenever there is injustice in Mumbai, people flock to him for help. Indeed, Lal Badshah cannot even leave his house without his name being cheered by the localites.
This is similar to Mrityudaata and other of his post-politics movies. For some reason, Amitabh can never play a normal regular person. It is absolutely mandatory that his character must be so great and powerful that people cheer his name each time he leaves his house. So anyways, the localites can always depend on Amitabh to beat up thugs, knock out a gang of 15 young gangsters with just one punch, and overturn mob cars with just one swing of his pole (No, I'm not exaggerating.. I wish I was..).
Manisha Koreila (I didn't catch her character's name, sorry), a beautiful young girl in her 20's, for some odd reason has a crush on Grandpa Badshah and is ready to MARRY him after just ONE cup of coffee on a date that SHE requested (uh huh... yep... right...)... Meanwhile, Lal Badshah also rescues Shilpa Shetty from some evil gangsters... Amitabh and Shilpa mysteriously bump into each other during jogs, etc... and needless to say, the 23-year old bombshell cannot look at Grandpa Badshah without a twinkle in her eye.. (*puke*)... Afterall, he is "absolutely FANTASTIC!!"
And that's all I've watched so far. Maybe someone can fill me in on the rest, as I doubt I'm going to watch the rest of this through (I wisely rented it on video, by the way... although I'm not sure if it's even worth the one dollar!)... The ONE *somewhat* interesting thing that I noticed in this movie is that they've brought back that lady who always played Amitabh's mom in movies like Suhaag, Mard, Geraftaar, Ganga Jamunaa Saraswati, etc... remember her? I don't remember her name because I wasn't concerned with actresses' names back then at that early age.. but all us kids simply knew her as "Amitabh's mom" (not Waheeda Rehman, the other one). So anyways, she's back, and she's kept herself looking relatively well. In fact, she might have made a better romantic match for Amitabh now, maybe that's something for future directors to think about...
On my typical whining final thought... Amitabh yaar, give it up! You have done more to harm yourself in the past 5 years than anyone else could have done. If you keep it up, your great 80's classics will soon be overshadowed by your late 90's and dare I say it early-2000's failed ventures. The only good movie that Amitabh has starred in since his comeback so far is Bade Miyan Chote Miyan. I admit I was wrong in writing that one off too fast. Upon viewing it a second and third time, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I would say the movie worked because (1) it was not action-oriented, and (2) Amitabh was not playing some super-popular bigger-than-life character. Even then, I think Govinda was the backbone of the film... I think I also enjoyed that film more on video during the second viewing because you can't catch all of Amitabh's wrinkles, unlike on the big screen... As for LAL BADSHAH, I'm fairly certain it'll flop..Anwar
They perform classical operas on stage but are more at ease with the Raj Kapoor hit 'mera joota ' . Geographically the people from the high mountains in white hats may be far away but they have a love for Hindi film songs.
We share a special bond with Indians , says Esen Nurambetova , a soparano with the state opera . I do not know the reason but we feel more at home with Indian songs , dances , movies than with any other country., she says.
Our TV shows Hindi movies very Friday and theaters run 'house full 'shows of Hindi movies for weeks. Russian movies are emotionally very cold . But Indian movies with high does of emotion and melodrama are very popular speically with women says Gaze.
The Enesai group perform Hindi songs almost on a regular bases . The Kirghyz school girls perform Indian dances avidly which they pick pick up from the movies and in local programmes , says ballerian Gulnara..Mo
Nusrat can tell us if he was a real person- was a wise king at the court of Emperor Akbar of India -1500s. His speciality was solving complex problems of justice .In a superb series produced by Abba International and broadcast weekly on Zee TV some of his decisions based maybe on true stories are brought to the screen.
Of course they are intriguing in their own right - a recent one had a greedy Pandit ( these Hindu holy men are never shown in a good light on Bollywood or TV and dont seem to object either !) was forcing a widow to sell a costly buffalo as promised by her husband for his funeral rights otherwise his soul would wander for ever ( a bit like Catholics in purgatory) .
That was the only source of income for the widow and her children , she refused , the Panchayat told her to carry out the bargain or leave the village and the Emperor Akbar was powerless to interefere in Hindu disputes . Anybody know how Birbal solved this problem ? Answer next week .
The best thing about this series are the magnificient costumes worn by the actors and actresses and the superb Urdu dialog . More like these and they would have a hit series to sell to other countries. There is a treasure trove of stories from the subcontinent waiting to be shown on screen..Mo
The first thing to ensure is that there is a market ! Its noticed that amongst NRIs and the elite in India the first generation is quite keen on these movies but they dont teach their children the language and its script . The second generation now growing can understand but not speak the language as you really need to be able to know the script to get the pronounciation right , and will watch the occasional movie .
The third generation because their parents speak to them only in English dont understand or speak the language and so one cant even drag them to these movies. If this goes on Hindi movies will die out like German , French ..
There is nothing inevitable about these changes . The Israelis with sheer determination brought back an extinct language Hebrew and now speak and write it fluently. South Asian govts should make compulsory the teaching of arts subjects in the Hindi or the local language so that the next generation of Indians are good at understanding the poetic nature of Urdu , Hindi and other languages.
These figures are off the top of my head and somebody please correct them but I think they are fairly accurate .The average movie costs Rs 10 crore or less ( $2.5m) . Some movies because of high local taxes earn more overseas than in India - total export earnings this year expected to exceed Rs 200 crores ( $50m) . The Indian govt has just made all movie and software export earnings tax free and this figure is expected to double this year . Now satellite rights are beginning to make a big difference . Screen reported Zee paying Rs 25 lakh ( $50k) for Doli Saja ke rakhna and rs1.7 crore ( $300k) for Pardes for a couple of years use. Thats just one channel . Imagine with accurate subtitling of the script and the songs what the possible figures from HBO and others could be !
Then there is DVD . A conservative figure is that the 10m NRIs overseas will buy at least 100k DVDs of each and with say a $3 profit that could net another $300k . In fact it might be impossible to make a movie without making a profit !
A recent Pakistani movie 'Inteha' has won a standing ovation at the centres it has been shown but Pakistani movies have a tough time getting theater rentals in the West and it may make sense to bring out a perfect copy DVD with accurate subtitling as soon as possible . If Pakistani movies showed a bit more of the local Pathan , Sindhi culture even if like Hindi movies they copy the story from hit Telugu ones , they could be very popular in India too.
Deepa Mehta's latest movie "Earth" has won the award for the "Best Film" in the first Asian Film Festival in Deauville town in northwestern France. "Earth" was selected from among nearly a dozen films from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Cambodia. The awards were decided on the basis of viewer response.
The film depicts a love affair between a Hindu woman and Muslim man in the tumultuous times of independence and partition of the subcontinent. The movie is set in Lahore and stars Aamir Khan, Nandita Das and Rahul Khanna.
KKHHwhich has taken $2.7 m just in Britain at the box office beating many Hollywood ones ( I think HADMRH is going to overtake it ) will be released subtitled next month . It doesnt have any deep poetic dialog so should be easy to translate. If succesful Eros promise many more subtitled movies . If they do them in the off grey color it should be unobtrusive and for heaven's sake do a literal translation so that Gorays can appreciate Urdu Shairi . Train to Pakistan and Jinnah movies have still not been able to find distributors and cant be seen on the big screen.
It rarely happens that one feels like rewinding a movie for a second viewing, immediately after the first. But that's exactly how i felt after watching the funny, satirical, irreverent, riotous 2 hour flick called "BombayBoys".
The movie is fastpaced and full of gags ,that there is hardly a dull moment. There are quiet number of reasons for making this movie into a "mustsee" category for regular(and partly regular)moviegoers of Indian films. The first would be to see Naseer's awesome performance as the Sadistic and Eccentric BollywoodFilmProducercumDon. The next would be to see something really different in terms of content, dialogues, treatment - in an hindi movie (it's partly Hindi and mostly English, but i would still call this a hindi movie). Then, here is one movie which doesn't take the audience for granted with drivel. The dialogues are common-place; Direction is novel; Acting is superb (by almost everyone) and natural; Background score is in tune with the movie. Songs are funny and situation based. The movie in the movie evokes laughter and is partly a spoof on the thrashy nature of Bollywood film making.
It starts off with three "desi firangis" (as they are constantly referred to) from US, Australia and UK , stepping into Bombay, each on their own missions. NavinAndrews (the kamasutra guy) is from Newyork and wants to make it as a "hero" in Hindi movies. AlexanderGifford (looks like WasimAkram) is from London and wants to "find himself" in India; RahulBose is from Australia in search of his brother. All three of them group together and rent an apartment whose landlord is a gay (delightfully played by Roshan seth). The rest of the movie deals with the pursuit of their respective goals -- How Navin meets and gets sucked into the moviemaking of a sadistic producer whose only intention is to make a Flop and bad(very bad) movie; How Rahul searches and finds his brother and at the same time how he gets into a relationship with the producer's paramour (Taradeshpande). How Alexander goes about in his vague search of music and gay identity (vague shades of In&Out here);
The film is filled with dialgoues which shock with their directness and evoke laughter with their comicness. Look at the introduction scene of Naseer - "What i look like? Kiriminal?" And then there is that hilarious dismissive statement about Screentest; - "wohi Chu**yapanthi- fight, dance, song, rape, usual story , every philm" ;
The much talked about shocking scenes are more of a joke. The scene where these three guys do a male strip in front of middleaged aunties is done in levity ; Same goes with the Kissing scene between Naseer and Tara- here you need to watch Naseer's range of emotions- how he dismisses the photographer with a callous flick of finger etc". Also hilarious is the gay jealousy which Roshan feels when Alexander rushes off with another hunk. Mumbling with anger and range he goes and picks a male prostitute from the streets. Sometimes one feels the director has done scenes to just mock at the regular filmi stuff. For eg, when Roshan goes to meet Tara, he's bashed up by the toughies patrolling her place. Tired of bashing him, the toughies lie that she is not there and he walks of without a whimper!
There is a dig about ShivSena too, when an official brings a notice for changing the Musical band Bombay Boy's name to Mumbai Boys ;-)
Also watch out for the scene where Naveen is forced to mouth romantic dialogues with a beedismoking baldie sitting before him as a standin for the herione. One couldn't stop bursting out with laughter at this scene. Movie sponsorship by companies is also not sparred from the digs. check out the scenes involving "cherry blossom Kaalia" and Nike.
The ending is pretty funny too. I liked the one where the "Bangladeshi Bombay boys music troupe" give a concert for Bangladesh Flood relief fund. On the acting front, Naseer leads the pack with an awesome performance. Rest of the cast are competent. Definitely worth watching. cheers raj
An action movie . Some corrupt officers are smuggling Indian arms 'across the border' . Why they would want Indian arms when they have more than enough of their own is not explained but it does provide a good excuse tor lots of fights , police brutality , bazookas firing , lorries being blown up somersaulting in the air . Most Bollywood movies till now have shown Hindu customs and traditions and now there is a welcome move to highlight Islamic ones . It demystifies and lessens mistrust . Here they show I think Ajmer Sharif -a Sufi shrine and the tying of threads (dage) as wishes in life an the prayers . Some shooting is done in Jaipur but why not show the Pink palace and some sights there ?. The shots from the rooftop are good but why are the buildings with peeling paint not being repainted ? Saif Ali Khan's acting is good . Ajay should stop smoking so much otherwise he will get nicotine stained teeth , the women have too brief a role to register on the mind . There is always something good to find in a 3hr movie and in this one the best is NFAK's Sufi song - beautifully picturized by the host of Antakshari and a group of male dancers in traditional dress who go completely wild . It really is superb..
Our inlaws called and told us to see this movie. Husbandji and I enjoyed it immensely and took friends to see Aa ab laut chale a second time.
Ashwarya Rai and Akshay Khanna gave good performances as did Suman Ranganathan and Rajesh Khanna.
Jaspal Bhatti was the first real sikh I have seen playing a sardar in a long while.He and Kader Khan did an excellent job as did Paresh Rawal.The more I see by Kader Khan and Paresh Rawal the more I appreciate how versatile these actors are.Kader Khan is a pakistani taxi driver who shares an appartment with another taxi driver Jaspal In one funny scene Kader Khan looks at Jaspals long hair as he dries it and tells him "on sundays when you wash your hair you remind me of my wife(overseas).Instead of acting insulted Mr Macho Jaspal rapidly replies "every day you wear a salwar kameez and remind me of my wife."
This film is about the immigrant experience a lot of Indians and Pakistanis have coming to the USA or Canada from India.I don't want to say much as I don't want to ruin the picture for you by telling too too much..Mrs Singh