Kuttey, Review: Gulp Friction Quentin Tarantino can rightfully claim a patent to the format used in Kuttey: prologue, epilogue and a non-chronological structure, with the present merging with the past and the past merging with the present. The co-writer and director of Kuttey (Dogs), Aasmaan Bhardwaj was born one year after Pulp Fiction (1994) was released, bagged top honours at home and abroad, and attained cult status soon afterwards. Twenty-seven years after he was born, Aasmaan has made h...

Case Toh Banta Hai, Trailer Launch and Press Conference: Courting laughter Trials and tribulations continue on the web. The genre has attracted Banijay Asia production house to create a show based on weird and ludicrous allegations levelled against film personalities that are debated and judged by TV/film/web veterans. A 'notice' of things to come was served to us today at the J.W. Marriott Hotel, Juhu, Mumbai. Some of the persons associated with the show were present, and many others...

Har Kisse Ke Hisse Kaamyaab, Review: Many parts, many holes, no whole, no soul In one scene of Har Kisse Ke Hisse Kaamyaab, the protagonist, an actor who goes under the screen name of Sudheer, cannot get his lines right, because he has not had a swig of his favourite brew, and gives retake after retake. We see him do seven/eight retakes, after which, mercifully, the film-maker goes into a montage, with only music, after which it is revealed that he had given as many as 32 retakes. Mercifully,...

Ardh Satya: Govind Nihalani revisits the time of half-truth Many things were happening in Indian cinema during the early 1980s. The National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) was financing and producing/co-producing unconventional, art-house, parallel cinema films, but also the rip roaring comedy Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and the blockbuster, Gandhi. A theatre like Prithvi, set-up by the husband and wife duo of Shashi and Jennifer Kapoor in Mumbai, was becoming the hub of all drama activity, and p...

Manthan and the churning of good cinema: Master Class with Shyam Benegal Standing upright at 82, the one-time swimming champion and one of the foremost directors of Indian cinema, Shyam Benegal, reminisced about the making of his milestone project Manthan (The Churning/1976), in particular, and about films and film-making in general. The occasion was a Master Class, organised on the platform of White Wall Screenings, at the Habitat, Hotel Uni-Continental, Khar, Mumbai.   Founded by...

Hope Aur Hum, Review: Hoping against hope Small-budget indies with clean, wholesome, slice of life content, surface regularly, taking you through bittersweet emotions, sans villains and super-heroes, animation and SFX. You appreciate the effort and admire the commitment. Some go on to win awards and renew your faith in alternate cinema. Some others sink without a trace, unable to match market demands and not measuring up to narrative benchmarks. Still others entertain and engage, raise hopes ...

Irrfan Khan, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri’s Alma Mater, NSD’s Theatre Olympics India’s National School of Drama (NSD) has produced many a luminary in the field of film and television, both in front of and behind the camera. An autonomous institution under Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, it is located in New Delhi. The first batch of students came in 1961. Since then, between 10 and 33 students pass out every year. NSD is now holding its 8th Theatre Olympics in Mumbai, ...

IFFI Goa 2017, XV: UnSeen Durga and the Nude that nobody saw Among the many controversies and shake-ups that IFFI Goa 2107, one concerns the exclusion of two Indian films from the Indian Panorama. S*** Durga (name altered under instructions from the Central Board of Film Certification) and Nude. Durga was made by a Keralite director in Kerala while Nude is a Marathi film. The former uses Durga only as an allegory and there is no reference to the deity, while the latter is a docu-feature on th...

Tom Alter: Actor, Cricketer, Urdu lover and Caucasian Unlikely combination of professions and hobbies for a man named Thomas Beach Alter, who hailed from a family of American missionaries. His acting abilities were never in doubt, and the barest accent betrayed his ethnicity. But his skin and hair distinguished him from other Indian co-actors quite noticeably, and he had to be content with parts showing him as a British colonial or modern day baddie. There were occasions when he was made to s...