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Category: Movies

  • My Favorite Movie List

    Since my interest in Bollywood goes beyond being an avid movie-watcher, many friends and colleagues ask me for my favorite movies and my recommendations. Nothing special here, I am a normal passionate movie fan. The following are some of my favorite movies (I will keep updating it) – what are your favorite movies?

    Hindi – All Time Favorites:

    Anand
    Mother India
    Mughal E Azam
    Guide
    Amar Prem
    Abhimaan
    Silsila
    Andaz Apna Apna
    Swades
    Deewar
    Saaransh
    Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge
    Kabhi Haa Kabhi Naa
    Satya
    Manorama Six Feet Under
    Dev D
    Dil Chahta Hai
    Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
    Munnabhai MBBS
    Hum Tum
    Taare Zameen Par
    3 Idiots

    Hindi – Recent Movies:
    Kahaani
    No One Killed Jessica
    Udaan
    Ab Tak Chappan
    Ek Haseena Thi
    Company
    Gulaal
    Tanu Weds Manu
    Pyaar Ka Punchnaama
    Rang De Basanti
    Chake De India
    Gangs of Wasseypur
    Paan Singh Tomar
    Vicky Donor
    English Vinglish

    English – All Time Favorites:
    Gandhi
    Citizen Cane
    Life Is Beautiful
    The Bridge On River Kwai
    The Bourne Series
    The Dark Knight
    The God Father
    Vertigo
    The Bicycle Thieves

    English – Recent Movies:
    The Help
    The Descendants
    Avatar
    Hugo
    The Girl And The Dragon Tattoo
    The Da Vinci Code
    Midnight In Paris
    The Contagion
    The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

    Marathi Movie:
    Shwaas

    Definitive Bollywood:
    Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham
    Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
    Maine Pyar Kiya
    Hum Aapke Hain Kaun
    Dil To Pagal Hai
    Devdas
    Aashiqui
    Taal
    Pardes
    Kal Ho Na Ho
    The Dirty Picture
    Om Shanti Om

  • Mobile Ticketing Experience Needs Improvement !

    Mobile Ticketing Experience Needs Improvement !

    Working on weekends and holidays has implications for marital bliss. I tried to compensate via movie tickets for the latest flick.

    Since I was away from the office and at client location, I decided to use mobile ticket booking apps. My first choice was BookMyShow App. The start was very quick – dates selected, movie selected, theatre selected, tickets chosen…but oh oh…Try again ! It happened for 3-4 times. Patience is a virtue, but not always.

    Let me try the PVR App. It was trying to auto-detect my location. It tried and it tried and it tried. I was wondering why did it not have an option for me to input my location manually.

    Mobile Maven Kinjan was with me. He tried to download a multi-booking app on Blackberry App World. He got weird results when he typed Book My Show. I tried Cinemax App. All were same !

    Finally, I gave up ! We had spent more than 45 minutes on this exercise. It had also partly to do with our own bias and secret hope that some Mobile App would work. You always believe in the medicine you preach – mobile nirvana !

    I went to the theatre on the way back to home. Got my tickets booked in 90 seconds via the good old box office counter!

    There were many culprits – badly designed apps, faulty logic, failure in back-end theatre connectivity, unreliable 3G Networks, discovery of new apps, failure of thinking customer experience etc. Think like the end user when designing the app – remove our internal bias – and the magical Instagram and Flipboard like app would there! And would create more smiles !

  • 3 Idiots Online @ Yahoo Movieplex

    Watch All Movies of Vidhu Vinod Chopra @ Yahoo Movieplex – Free !

    http://in.video.yahoo.com/movieplex/

  • The Rise Of Gujarati Cinema – Kevi Rite Jaish

    The Regional Cinema in India has seeing a good upsurge in the recent times. The Corporatization of the Indian Film Industry and The Professional Management Practices have started making an impact beyond the Hindi Film Industry. The New Story Lines, The Young Talent, The Effective Use of Technology and The Business Management Mantras have yielded rich results for Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi Films.

    The Gujarati Film Industry is the next in line to redefine itself. Ritam Bhatnagar is one shining example of the young talent leading the way. As an executive producer of Kevi Rite Jaish, he has invested in a script that youth can relate to, used the latest technologies and gave it the right contemporary look which people can relate to. And the results seems inspiring – the first look of Kevi Rite Jaish is interesting ! Have a look:

    More Power to young talented film makers like him and others !

  • Tees Maar Khan – Shah Rukh Khan Will Have The Last Laugh !

    Tees Maar Khan has been in the news from Day One ! Farah Khan had tried to outdo Om Shanti Om marketing for TMK – from the name to the marketing promos, from the conception of the movie to the Sheila Ki Jawani Number, from the Farah-SRK-fight to Salman-wooing tricks.

    But her Bollywood spoof fails. The movie does not have a soul ! It is a hotchpotch of funny dialogues (not always funny!). Farah Khan has fallen in her own trap. Akshay Kumar’s bad run continues – Blue, Khatta Meetha, Action Replay and now TMK ! Hopefully Patiala House will help him. He needs a serious re-look at his choice of films and try something different now – time to reinvent himself ! Katrina’s silly acts and over-acting of Akshay Khanna do not help.

    Munni Wins ! SRK Has The Last Laugh !

  • International Film Festival Ahmedabad – Rejoice !

    International Film Festival Ahmedabad – Rejoice !

    Cinema is an integral part of our lives. Apart from enjoying movies with our dear ones over Popcorn Tubs, we learn, understand ourselves and cherish values. Cinema is our passport to the great culture, principles and living of our brethren across the globe. Cinema is a unifier. It is a celebration of human endeavor and spirit.

    One of the things I missed the most in Ahmedabad was world-class cinema and special screenings of foreign movies. I had to feed my hunger for quality cinema through DVDs. But my dear friend Shiladitya Bora was a beacon of hope for discerning movie fanatics in Ahmedabad. He clubbed his passion with organizational expertise and brought the First Short Films Festival, International Film Festival and the weekly movie screening through Sunset Boulevard. Of course, there will be a movie on the struggles and times of Shila to make this Film Festival and Film Culture a reality !

    And finally the new avatar of Film Festival is here – The International Film Festival Ahmedabad.

    Visit the Site www.ifilmfest.in for more details.

    Let me share the quick overview:
    – Gala Opening Ceremony on August 4, 2010 evening.
    – Opening Film: Harishchandraschi Factory
    – Special Screening of AISHA with Anil Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Cyrus Sahukar, Lisa Haydon & Ira Dubey
    – Film Appreciation workshop by Kuhu Tanvir, India Editor of WideScreen Journal.
    – Filmmaking workshop in association with Whistling Woods International by Anjum Rajabali & Somanth Sen
    – Special screening of The White Elephant with Mr. Aijaz Khan, Piyush Mishra, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Prashant Narayanan
    – An exhibition of rare film posters & show cards of past 50 years.
    – Best of National Institute of Design(NID) Live Action & Animation Short Films
    – Best of Whistling Woods International Short Film Package
    – Best of World Cinema
    -Independent Feature Film competition
    – 23 award winning film screenings across 5 days at PVR Cinemas, Acropolis Mall, the festival venue.

    Check The Video Report on the last year’s festival:

  • Inception : A Must Watch Movie!

    Inception : A Must Watch Movie!

    Inception – Awesome! Mind-Blowing!! Just Watch It !!! You Cannot Afford To Miss It !!!!

    Inception is a sure fire Oscar winner ! Christoper Nolan Directed Leonardo DiCaprio Starrer Inception is an intelligent thriller ! The Movie focuses on the life of Dom Cobb, who enters the dreams of the people and steals the information which otherwise is never accessible. In order to re-unite with his family, he is given a challenging task of planting an idea – Inception ! This is one of the most difficult and risky job for Cobb. But he takes it up and creates a team to help him.

    The concept is truly out of the world. The execution is flawless. Chris Nolan’s direction is awesome. The screenplay and the pace of the movie are exciting. The cinematography and special effects match up with the acting power of the top class cast.

    The concepts of Totem, Dream Within Dream Within Dream, Contagious Ideas, Cobb’s Wife Track etc really are well conceived.

    Watch It ! It is a movie you want to watch it in theatres and then discuss with friends over a coffee. Do not miss it ! Chris Nolan brings another winner after The Dark Knight.

    Inception has a great run in India. It has gone ahead of all other releases with it including 3 Bollywood movies. We watched it along with a packed house in Ahmedabad – it is really an amazing movie.

    Links:

    Rediff Review

    Inception Official Site

  • Excellent Movie – The Kite Runner

    The Kite Runner is one of the best movies of the recent times. It is based on Khalid Hosseini’s best-seller. The Marc Forster directed movie is all about second chances in the life. The film’s tagline says – There is a way to be good again !

    The movie is about friendship and betrayal but it also touches upon the relation between father and his son.

    The protagonist is a novliest Amir, who gets a chance at redemption from guilt which has weighed him down since the time as a child he witnessed silently the brutal rape of his best friend Hassan. The path to contrition involves confrontation with the mighty Talibans who have taken over Afganistan and securing freedom of Hassan’s son Sohrab from the clutches of Taliban. Incidentally, Sohrab is also sexually tortured by Taliban.

    The movie is full of moving scenes including Sohrab’s escape from the hotel and the talk thereafter. The last scene of the movie is touching as well. Whe Amir offers to run the kote for Sohrab by echoing Hassan’s words, ‘For you, a thousand times over’, it purges him of pent-up guilt and signifies the sense of atonement that permeates the story.

    Go watch. This is cinema at its best !

    Check the wonderful site of the movie – http://www.kiterunnermovie.com/

  • Jai Ho ! Genius A R Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire Wins At Oscar Awards

    Jai Ho !

    Genius A R Rahman wins Oscar Award for the Best Original Soundtrack for Slumdog Millionaire and for Best Original Soundtrack – Jai Ho for the same movie. 

    Slumdog Millionaire has swept Oscars with awards in almost all categories it was nominated including Best Picture, Best Director for Danny Boyle, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing etc. 

    It was great to see Rahman’s speech of choosing love over hate. Simple message. Universal message. The feeling of seeing Jai Ho and O Saaya being played live at Oscars was really special. 

    Time to Celebrate  Rahman and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. This British Movie has done India proud !

    All TV Channels in India are Euphoric. All People are Euphoric. Let us celebrate !

    Jai Ho !

    A Blog Less Ordinary Reported about Slumdog In Nov 2008 – Movie To Watch Out – Slumdog Millionaire

  • Business of Bollywood @ IIMA

    There is no business like showbusiness!

    Indian film industry has been getting lot of academic attention recently. Institutions like IIMs, S P Jain have already introduced case studies on movies like Chak De India. 

    Finally, the film industry gets a serious academic analysis as a business. IIMA, under the leadership of Professor Tejas Desai, is a introducing a course on film-making. The course is called ‘Introduction to Contemporary Film Industry’ and starts from Dec 23. 

    Leading lights of Bollywood including Aamir Khan, Madhur Bhandarkar, Sanjay Gadhavi are going to be taking classes and sharing their insights. 

    Prof Tejas Desai is a PhD in Biostatistics, an innovative thinker and a movie fan!

    Article Archive notes the following on Prof Desai:

    When he was a sophomore, Tejas Desai, then 19, began as a film projectionist in the US. Like scores of other students, Desai took up the job to support his undergraduation studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The sophomore graduated and went on to do his PhD in bio-statistics from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    Back home, Desai joined the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) as an assistant professor, yet the short stint as a film projectionist haunted him and it didn’t help that movies were becoming his favourite pastime. That is when Desai thought he would use films as a tool to teach young management students.

    I had the good fortune of meeting Prof Tejas Desai. He said that lot of intellectual studies and analysis happen for new and old industries. But nobody is looking at Bollywood. 

    Good thinking!

    Well, this course is definitely going to be a blockbuster !