Summer Special : A Nostalgic Look at Chamatkar

A couple of days ago I had a chance to revisit this film on some TV channel, and I sat through it again, as I used to way way back (in a city far far away). I chuckled at the plot, which is riddled with more holes than James Caan's body in Godfather, but I loved the simplicity of it all. This was a movie with a targeted audience of mostly kids, and I for one used to ask my father to rent it every summer, so that my brother and I could have repeated...

Read more »

Anurag Kashyap's First Movie - Last Train To Mahakali

You were so confused about his first movie (weren't you?). Gulal, Paanch, Black Friday ? (For some it was Dev D as they could  not reach torrents). I am not going to confuse you even more.  Today we present you "Last Train To Mahakali" - Anurag Kashyap's first movie as a director (short film to be precise) and Kay Kay's second movie. You might like to call it his first movie where he played the lead and was recognized...

Read more »

On Why Raag Darbari Should Be Translated To Film (And Why it won't be)

If you have not yet read Srilal Shukl's masterpiece, then I congratulate you, because you still have the option of reading one of the funniest books in Hindi (or in any language for that matter) of all time. In fact, it is easily available in English too on all major online book-sellers, and if bought at a Hindi book-store, it comes cheaper than any of the New Indian Fiction novels (while being a million times better than all of them put together). Set...

Read more »

5 Great Gangster Bosses in Hindi Films

There was a time when it was pre-requisite for the gangster of a Hindi film to have a huge mansion, with sliding doors, strobe lights, lava pits and dancing girls (along with the well stocked bar full of VAT 69 Bottles). However, with the advent of that strange thing called 'Realism' in Hindi Cinema, the size of these huge halls of pain+pleasure reduced, and we got people living in Joint Families in bungalows or in Chawls, not entirely as impressive....

Read more »

Disco Dance and Bollywood

As mentioned in the article about Ramsays, the post-liberal generation of the 90s missed out on a whole plethora of Bollywood in the 80s and Bappi Da was one such hysteria. Looked down upon with disdain by culturally elite and misunderstood by the common man, Disco Dance was the kind of stuff that caught up instantly with the crowd but was always going to find it hard to match the boring antics of the early 80s and so the movies based upon D.I.S.C.O...

Read more »

बालीभुड के राकर जनावर - The Animal Farm

We have had bad characters, bad actors, directors, story writers etc in our long history, but what our nice film industry has never lacked is Animals who have risen to the occasion whenever demanded of them. These good actors (and often good characters) are more memorable than the combined efforts of Deepak Tijori and Aditya Pancholi, and so today (not) being Environment Day, we present an article on our favourite animals of Filmistan. Kuttey...

Read more »