DesiPundit

Four short films, directed by Mira Nair, Vishal Bharadwaj, Santosh Sivan, and Farhan Akhtar, were released to increase awareness of AIDS. Rockus has short reviews of all four movies.

Ranking according to me

4. Migration: Mira Nair has been eclipsed by the others here.
3. Positive: Farhan Akhtar does have a lot of talent. Hope that he will put it to good use.
2. Prarambha: I was hard pressed whether to give this the 1st place. A very strong contender. Santosh Sivan has done a brilliant job here. Boy in the movie is simply wonderful. If you are too lazy to watch it by registering in Jaman, just go here.
1. Blood Brothers: Gritty and good. May not rank that high in others lists, but this was the one which impacted me mostly. Vishal Bharadwaj takes the first spot. Watch the movie below!

Director Shivajee Chandrabhushan talks about the making of Frozen on Passion For Cinema.

We started the shoot. And horror of horrors, because of the long distance between the actual location, which was the main house, and the behind the hillock generator there was a huge voltage drop. The big lights were just enough to shoot candle light parties. And another shock was to see the cable wires getting snapped like matchsticks because of cold, it was minus 25 to minus 30 degrees Celsius in night.

Aspi takes us through honorary doctorates that he wishes to confer upon various Bollywood actors.

Mumbai College of Home Economics should award an honorary doctorate in Domestic Science Bliss to Big Bahu Aishwarya

Paris Institute of Existential Studies should award an honorary doctorate in Nothingness to Preity Zinta

Bachchan goes the gamut from crotchety spirit to caring grandfather-figure, his raggedy-man guise and mottled-Kabuki makeup gradually giving way to the actual human being we know and love. And Siddiqui brought out for me some of the most endearing aspects of childhood. When Bhoothnath says he’ll eventually become a star and asks Banku to watch out for him in the skies every night, Banku can’t help but ponder about a technicality: but what if there’s a cloud? After all these years of children acting like adults in our films, how refreshing it is to find them being kids again.

Baradwaj liked Bhoothnath but felt it came apart at the end. Meetu agrees that “the first half-second half syndrome strikes again“. She particularly disliked the use of religious issues in the second half.

Anand reviews The Forbidden Kingdom and recommends it highly. Starring both Jackie Chan and Jet Li, it certainly appeals to avid martial arts fans.

The film has none of the high philosophy and romantic lyricism of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; neither does it have the dark, brutal undercurrents of films like Old Boy and Romeo Must Die. It is also not a classic kung fu chopstick film in that it does not have extended fight sequences in various kung fu styles and the standard ingredients of revenge and retribution. What it does have is good fun, great fights, and two of the biggest stars of contemporary martial arts displaying their mastery.

If you have been watching various Malayalam cinema award functions and music related reality shows, you would have noticed this trend of not singing much Malayalam songs, but more and more Hindi and Tamil Songs. varnachitram compares this with the trend in other states and wonders why Malayalees are so obsessed with everything except their own culture.

We should not have hatred towards Hindi the way Tamilians do, but watching Amritha and Surya award programs, we do not see fascination, but an obsession. It is not just the award programs: in our reality singing shows there are more other language songs, and in our movies all our heroes now are settled in Pollachi. Some folks spin this as open mindedness of Malayalis, but spinning this obsession as open mindedness is just a cover for our inferiority complex

Sandhya is impressed by Pakistani director Mehreen Jabar’s debut film, Ramchand Pakistani . The movie is based on a series of newspaper articles about a father and son who were kept in India after an accidental border crossing.

The prison cell is a metaphor for communal relations – in a tiny space, men of different regions and religions are forced to coexist—and, in the process, come to realize what they have in common—a desire for freedom—far outweighs their differences… These characters make for interesting conflicts and challenges to the young Ramchand and shape his development into a young man whose main goal is survival … just like his mother Champa, who is struggling to go on with her life. The movie switches gracefully between the Pakistani village where Champa’s “life must go on” and the Indian prison, showing us the passage of time, the pain, and the helplessness that this small family must confront.

Maami comments on the recent controversies about  clothes worn by actresses at public functions down south. [Hat tip: Adithya]

While the old Dravidian canons proclaim that they stood for women’s empowerment alongside social upliftment, the cultural and gender aspirations were quite opposite. The metaphor went that maatran veedu malligai manakkum (the blossom in the neighbour’s garden smells sweeter). It’s an analogy that hints at the Tamil man’s conquest over the non-Tamil woman, a certain covetousness that he takes as part of his patriarchal privilege. Hence the non-Tamil actress is enjoyed for her fair skin and her uninhibitedness on screen for his voyeuristic enjoyment but also denigrated for indecent exposure.

Enough and more is being discussed about the latest Bollywood phormula of churning out slick movies.George discusses about the upcoming genre of multi starrer movies that dishes out nothing but buffoonery.

Not-so-recent “classics” in this mould include Dhoom (in which Esha Deol stepped out of the gym and into a swimsuit) and its sequel Dhoom 2 (featuring basketball, cricket references, the missing link named Aditya Chopra, Bipasha Basu in a double role — playing semi-clad lassies in different states of undress to titillate different areas of the male imagination and Aishwarya Rai attempting to go down the road of ephemeral epidermal embellishments while trying to look like a character out of Masters Of The Universe).

Jabberwock complains about nonsensical DVD subtitles for foreign language films

Family friend: 50,000 dollars! It is great to spend it on women!
Son: No, wouldn’t be!
Family friend: That would surprise you? I think he is erotic. He does all good for you for 20 years. Now, it is his time to explode.
Family friend’s wife (speculating that Watanabe hasn’t been looking well of late): He become skinny with rough skin.