Shruti Haasan is finally back in Bollywood, and with two releases! I saw her last in the movie Luck (2009). The movies wasn’t impressive, but Shruti had touched me. It was her first major role, and I thought to myself what a pity her debut was overshadowed by a mess of a movie, poorly written and executed. She showed promise tho, I thought, and then I hadn’t heard about her anymore. Not that she hadn’t been active. She is also a singer and a composer, and she appeared in a few South Indian movies, (those that hardly ever get shown here in the US).She had a small role in Bhandarkar’s movie Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji. But nothing commensurate with her talent.
Shruti had some corrective cosmetic surgery done, more plainly: a nose-job, but surely the size of a nose doesn’t determine if one can act or not. And acting she can! She is sublime. There is an ethereal quality to her. Her eyes are magnetic. She has a wonderful screen presence. I haven’t seen Ramaiya Vastavaiya but I saw D-Day yesterday. And again, she stood out and left a mark as Suraiya, victim of abuse, turned prostitute. There is some stillness in her amongst the turmoil of the unfolding story. Again, it’s her performance that touched me. The eloquence of her eyes, her voice. I love this girl. I am almost tempted to watch Ramayia Vastavaiya, in spite of the negative reviews. I would watch it just for her.
Born into an elite acting household, daughter of legendary South Indian actor Kamal Hassan and Sarika Thakur,actress in her own rights, she must have eaten filmi rootis for breakfast every day. She was probably immersed in all aspects of film from an early age on. As a matter of fact, I learned, she started out as a singer.
I am going to watch Khiladi this weekend, and I am excited. Not so much because I love bodies flying through the air, car collisions and firecracker-Kung-Fu. Well, I do love Akki, but that’s besides the point.
My autistic and predominantly non-verbal student LOVES Bollywood music, so whenever a new movie comes out I am showing him the trailer and the songs. I show him Stardust magazines with all its glamorous Bollywood stars. When I point and ask him “who is this?” he will identify the star with 100% accuracy. On our frequent walks I may start humming a BW tune and lo and behold he will know one or two lines of the lyrics -without understanding a word. Point in case I was humming after a very long hiatus Chammak Challo and he knew the title and who’s acting in the movie.
Today I was telling him about the upcoming Khiladi and I went on Youtube to show him the trailer and then the songs. I had seen the trailer but I had no idea how many beautiful tunes it had!
From my student’s point of view here are the songs he liked best: (with passionate repeat-listening..)
Hookah Bar
music and lyrics and vocals by Himesh Reshammiya
in second place came The Lonely Song, credits go again to Himesh and Yo Yo Honey Singh & Hamsika Iyer
Lyrics by: Shabbir Ahmed
followed by Saari Saari Raat also by the ultra-talented Himeshji, GEE!!
and we liked Long Drive, music Himesh. sing sing: Mika Singh
for some reason Balmo came last in our favorite countdown:
music Himesh, singers Shreya Ghoshal and Sreeram
I mean, this movie is a musical treasure chest
and off I go to buy the CD :-)
can’t wait to see these beautiful songs on the big screen!!
– which makes me laugh because before my Bollywood mania days I DESPISED music and dance in movies. Go figure. What a turnaround.
Thank you Youtube, Eros Entertainment and T-series for all these great Bollywood video clips
And thanks Bollywood for adding another dimension to my life. With its colors, its music, its stars, it just brings so much joy, not just to me but all the peeps I can share this passion with. Like my wonderful student.
This movie is truly pagal. But I loved EVERY MOMENT of it.
The cinematography by Amal Chaudhary is outstanding and makes me want to see his other movies.
The premise is simple enough: Meenakshi (Rani), a Marathi girl, needs to get married as her family insists, preferibly to a nice Brahmin bouy, an ad is put in the paper. While Meenakshi daydreams through her life, seeing herself as a famous Bollywood actress, her nutty parents are pushing harder to line up candidates. she wants to find a way to become independent financially and goes looking for work. She lands a job as a librarian at a college, where she and her nose fall head over heel for the withdrawn and taciturn Surya (Prithviraj), an aspiring artist, who seems oblivious to her infatuation.
The music in her head stops every time he stands in front of her without really seeing her (what a wonderful little cinematic touch!). Another great detail: the paintings Surya works on are actually WONDERFUL. Usually I am disappointed when film tries to portray a painter, the art is usually yucky, here its GREAT! you can smell the colors, you are almost drawn into the moment of creation. I LOVED that about this movie. The mania of the true artist, the artist who can’t be contained, shines through.
The colors used for the set, the costumes, the wardrobes, it’s all so beautifully choreographed. This whole movie is a visual feast. Rani Mukherji has never beguiled me more than as the daydreaming somnambulant Meenakshi, who follows the seemingly divine smell of her desired man, regardless of how many foul things are being said about him. She follows him whenever he turns up not finding the courage to talk to him, (one of the mysteries when we fall in love..) even on the verge of being married off.
Unfortunately way too many crazy characters are flooding the film, from her ga(r)ga-ntuan-ly annoying colleague (Anita Date), her mom to gold-toothed and bewheelchaired, hysterically laughing grandma, there is not one character in the movie that makes you take a deep breath of calm. and that’s the biggest downfall of the movie. The nutty characters are floating around without much connection and integration.
But other than that, the cinematography, the music, Rani’s acting and Prithviraj, the Tamilian eye-candy, the surrealism pervading the movie, the sets, choreographies, the locations are just magnificent.
It’s a film on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but it’s highly “intertaining”. Rollercoaster me anytime again soon, Satish Kundalkar-ji!
The extraordinarily talented South Asian cinematographer and director Santosh Sivan, who brought us movies of the caliber of Asoka, Dil Se, The Terrorist, Meenaxi: tale of 3 cities, Raavan (photography), Fiza, Before the Rains, Mistress of Spices, was honored by being awarded membership to the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers. Well-deserved! He creates sheer magic.
Asoka
Dil Se
The Terrorist
Meenaxi: tale of 3 cities
gurls, if your heart stops at the beat of the 40th sec, that’s Kunal Kapoor…:-)
Before The Rains
Raavan
Mistress of Spices
Santosh Sivan first South Asian to get ASC membership
Indo-Asian News Service
Saturday, April 28, 2012 (Thiruvananthapuram)
Ace cinematographer Santosh Sivan became the first South Asian to be given the prestigious membership of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) for his outstanding work. The ASC membership is extended to individuals through invitations from existing members. “I was first invited by American cinematographer Michael Chapman, who shot Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Subsequently, two other members sponsored me. Then there was an interview that was reviewed by all ASC members,” Sivan said. Sivan said he was informed about his selection last week and it would be announced in the next issue of the ASC journal American Cinematographer. Multi-talented Sivan, who graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, is an actor, producer, director and a cinematographer who has worked in Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and English cinema in a career spanning more than two decades. A four-time National Award-winning cinematographer, Sivan has worked on 45 feature films and 41 documentaries till now. “I want to dedicate this honour to my father who was a regular reader of the American Cinematographer,” said Sivan. His father, also popularly known as Sivan, is an award-winning producer and director. The young cinematographer added that he was deeply moved by a note send out by Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Beristain who was present at the ASC meeting on behalf of Sivan’s sponsors, Theo Van de Sande and Michael Chapman.
“Everybody thanked us for proposing such an interesting and original mind to our organisation. Santosh Sivan was a big star at the membership meeting of the ASC last Saturday. He blew everybody away with his wit and phenomenal vision,” read the note by Beristain. “Just before his meeting, the committee had interviewed another prospective candidate whose main strength is in the stereoscopic (3D) world, the well attended meeting had a good deal of technical information, so they found – in their words – very refreshing to hear Sivan.”
Currently, there are 302 cinematographers from 20 countries as ASC members. The society also has more than 150 associate members working in ancillary sectors of the motion picture industry.
but OMBhagvan, you are a HOTTIE, Ram Charan! So, Ram Charan is asking his fans and the press not to call him Ram Charan Teja. We politely comply with the request.
My dad named me ram charan not ram charan teja.so i feel good wen people call me just”ram charan”I also request the media to note this.
In the country of numerology, some say that hopefully it won’t have a negative impact on his stardom trajectory which started blossoming in 2007 when the Chennai-born Ram Charan (b.1985) made his debut as the lead in the movie Chirutha, which earned him a Filmfare award for Best South Debutant Award.
My psychic fingers are tingling. I smell a big Telegu/Bollywood crossover here, which is as big as an Australian or British actor making it big in Hollywood.
Ram Charan was born into an illustrious filmi family. Son of the huge Telegu star Chiranjeevi. From Grandpa to uncles everyone in his family was involved in film and entertainment. So it probably didn’t surprise anyone that he would follow into filmi footsteps, but as I always say, that’s not enough to make it.
His next movie, Magadheera became a blockbuster and garnered him another Filmfare award
His subsequent film Orange wasn’t as grand of a success but his performance was lauded.
His next and the last movie he made became again a super-hit: Rachcha.
looks great, hai na? He has covered magazines, appeared in Pepsi, Airtel, and regional Tata DoCoMo ads. And he owns a Polo team. How cool is that?
What’s most interesting to Bollywood fans is what’s coming next! He will be in the remake of legendary Amitabh Bachchan’s movie Zanjeer, next to Mahie Gill and Arjun Rampal. Should that tank, which we hope it won’t, we’ll know it’s because he dropped the Teja out of his name. But then he could just re-instate it :-)
Good Luck, Ram Charan! – in Bollywood & Tollywood and everywhere in between!
Whoever ropes in Jackie Chan for a Bollywood production will hit the jackpot and it will be finally a movie shown in US mainstream theaters so I welcome it with open arms.
and for the numerology fans out there: Aascar covers the whole nine yards between Oscar (prestigious) and Nascar (popular) – What could possibly go wrong there? :-)
quite an ambitious project. i wonder if multi-lingual means a movie shot in three languages, dubbed in three languages or mixing them happily all together?
Indians don’t like their movies dubbed. I figured that much out. But I think it would be beneficial in promoting Bollywood productions here in the US. Dub them and then show them on cable. I don’t understand why this isn’t happening already?
Salman Khan making history with Rs 300 crores movie?
With his back to back success in films like Dabangg, Bodyguard, Wanted, superstar Salman Khan is all set to make a history now. If reports are to be believed, Salman Khan was approached by producer Aascar Ravichandran to star in a multi-lingual epic opposite to Jackie Chan and Kamal Haasan.
Reportedly the film will be made in Hindi, Tamil and English with a whopping budget of Rs. 300 crores. Ravichandran informed a leading website, that he has been in talks with Jackie Chang about the film since last few years as the actor had earlier expressed his desire to star in a Bollywood film.
He further disclosed that the movie would have a different setup. If all goes well, this will turn out to be be the most expensive film in the history of Indian film industry.
Mani Rathnam, who gave us movies of the caliber Dil Se, Kannathil Muthamittal, Guru, Raavan, Bombay is going to enchant us with a new film: Kadal.
Rathnam is the Terrence Malick of Indian cinema. He is political, he is lyrical. He creates not just cinema, but paintings, indelible images, which will stay in your memory forever. His collaboration with the worldwide renowned composer A R Rahman goes back to 1994 when they worked together on Thiruda Thiruda, which was followed by Bombay in 1995 and since then they have created movie magic together.
The first look of Mani Ratnam’s Kadal is out on internet. Several posters of the film set against the sea are doing rounds on the net.
Now, we are bringing you one of the posters, which shows a boy and a woman playing on the beach side. The first look clearly indicates that the story of Kadal, as the title suggests, is set at the backdrop of a sea.
Mani Ratnam’s romantic tale, which has started the shooting of film in Manapad, a fishery coast between Tuticorin and Tiruchendur, stars veteran actor Karthik’s son Gautham and hot and happening Samantha to play the leads. Arjun Sarja, Arvind Swamy and Lakshmi Manchu are also doing some important roles in the forthcoming Tamil movie.
Mani Ratnam’s trusted men AR Rahman and Rajeev Menon are handling the music and cinematography department respectively in Kadal.
It’s a rare occurrence for actresses to come clean on what kind of jobs were done on them to make them look perfect.
They should admit to cosmetic surgery, for our sake already, women who don’t want to go under the scalpel and can’t compete with the perfection of a surgically enhanced human being. We need to pay the price at the end, feeling miserable about our imperfections. These models and actresses they walk around knowing that they cheated nature but withholding it. They get sculpted, photoshopped, dewrinkled, deflated after pregnancies, hair-volumized, extended. I mean it’s not fair. The whole world is in on this big Houdini act, the big illusion. I resent that :-)
When you look at Priyanka’s nose in her early movies…. THAT WAS THE REAL THING! maybe then we saw already something slightly modified. This big secretive club of the surgically enhanced is very Illuminati and it’s time to wikileak it, to demystify so that we ordinary women don’t have to feel miserable about ourselves.
To blame nose-jobs on deviated septums is the new It-thing. I have the feeling it’s something plastic surgeons recommend their patients to say to explain why they look so different all for sudden.
I liked Shruti Haasan before and was actually happy to see that she had a nose that gave her face some character. She is such a beautiful girl. Oh well… I shouldn’t be throwing stones perhaps. I wear eye make-up, lipstick, I trace my eye-brows and I give it my best shot to cheat, in my own little way. But hey, that’s not cheating because it’s obvious and I don’t pretend I don’t wear make-up :-)
And look at this pretty face there, I am so jealous, Shruti doesn’t need anything, just a little lip-gloss. Darn, I am so jealous, haha. I am proud of her though that she admitted to a nose job. She’s got guts.
John Abraham embarking on a new journey as actor and producer this time. It looks like he will be coming out with a film relevant to the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam under the banner of his own production company.
Here in the US we are so far removed from what has been going on in Sri Lanka. You hear sporadically news but the conflict there hadn’t been extensively covered, let’s put it this way. Ever since I watched Mani Ratnam’s award-winning movie (A Peck on the Cheek) Kannathil Muthamittal I have been paying much closer attention. That’s one of the wonderful things about films, sometimes they open windows into realities you haven’t been fully aware of. In India, of course, the situation in Sri Lanka has been on the forefront for many years. Newspaper articles just state the facts. But seeing a film makes an emotional connection, now you have people’s stories and that gets under your skin. Kannathil Muthamittal achieved just that. It won many awards. I hope this new film will have a similar impact.
8551 http://www.bollygraph.com/news/john-abraham-launches-production/8551/ : Link to an article on John Abraham’s new production company. I guess it talks about the same movie, different title perhaps
The director, Shoojit Sircar, made his directorial debut to good reviews with the movie Yahaan that dealt with the Kashmiri conflict.
By Bollywood Hungama News Network,February 23, 2012 – 01:48 hrs IST
After producing Vicky Donor, John Abraham is all set to produce and act in a movie based on the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka. The film titled Jaffna will be directed by Shoojit Sircar.
Jaffna is a political thriller and John will be playing an Indian intelligence agent in the film. The film will also deal with the subject of terrorism. To prepare for this role, John will make frequent visits to Sri Lanka to get a hang of the political situation there.
The film will be shot in Sri Lanka, South India and Delhi.
I was reading this article about this young musician, Drew Smith, outsourcing a music video to India, which I found very interesting. I am wondering why it took so long! Drew must have been kissed by the muse of genius while we weren’t looking, what a fantastic idea!
As an avid Bollywood and India fan I love it, of course, but even if I weren’t pagal about everything India, I think it’s a great business that could be generated there and profitable for all parties.
A music video doesn’t have to come out of Bollywood and done by the biggies in the industry, it can be done on a micro finance level, using young talents in India, people who want to make themselves a name and who got a good camera perhaps and ideas unlimited. This is a changed world. And I love it. Pack your suitcase, come with a camera, travel to India, make your music video on a shoestring budget. Don’t drink the tab water, so you can finish your shoot. Come back home, put it on Youtube, get the NYT write about it and become famous. Good for you, Drew! I am sure many more will follow your example.
Members of an Indian dance group perform during the production of Drew Smith’s music video “Smoke and Mirrors.” Karthik Veera via New York Times News Service
Outsourcing gets creative
• An independent musician discovers it’s no longer just for cost-cutting corporations
Drew Smith found himself in the same position as many independent musicians trying to make a living in the struggling music business. He had no record label to underwrite his career, no publicity machine to get his music into listeners’ hands and not nearly enough money to make a music video.
So he followed the route of big business and outsourced the video to India.
Last October, Smith contracted a dance school in Bangalore, India, to make a video for his song “Smoke and Mirrors” featuring original Bollywood-style choreography and Indian actors dressed as Hindu demigods and tossing colored festival powders.
The production values may be a little amateurish by MTV standards, but for $2,000 it cost a small fraction of the typical budget for a professional film. And Smith has attracted some of music’s most important currency: attention. Since being posted to YouTube on Feb. 2 “Smoke and Mirrors” has been watched more than 179,000 times, and a recent post about it by Smith’s brother became one of the top articles on Reddit, the social link aggregator.
The video is one example of the breadth of outsourcing, which has come to include the kind of highly specialized skills — like microchip design, which IBM contracted to an Indian company in 2005 — that were once considered unexportable.
Companies in the West often claim that while they outsource factory jobs, the creative and innovative work is still done at home.
“You hear so much about big corporations outsourcing,” Smith said by phone on a break from his day job teaching English to immigrants in Hamilton, Ontario. “I was just trying to think of a unique way to release the album and promote it.”
While outsourcing was once viewed strictly as a cost-cutting privilege of giant corporations, it is increasingly available to smaller companies and even individuals.
“Multinational corporations are now more willing to experiment and take risks with outsourcing to India, and, as a result, there is a lot of sophisticated work being done there,” said Shehzad Nadeem, an assistant professor of sociology at Lehman College, and the author of “Dead Ringers: How Outsourcing is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves.” “But by sheer numbers it is dwarfed by the more rote and routine work the companies export.”
Entertainment businesses outsource some work, such as nonunion orchestras in Eastern Europe recording film scores, but the bulk of creative work is done close to home and in the hubs of New York, Los Angeles and Nashville.
Smith’s video shows the production technologies available to even the lowest-profile musicians, who now routinely stitch together recordings shuttled across the Internet from home studios around the planet.
“This is where it’s going,” said Adam Dorn, a producer and musician who records under the name Mocean Worker. “People are always going to go where they need to go, and as the major labels crumble and budgets go away, you just have to roll up your sleeves and get things done.”
Dorn himself chose to use a Polish student to do the 1930s-style animation for his video “Shake Ya Boogie” five years ago, after American filmmakers quoted him prices up to $40,000. The student charged him $2,500.
Smith, a soft-spoken 31-year-old who has released two albums of mellow, moody songs vaguely reminiscent of Coldplay, said “the absurdity” of outsourcing his video appealed to him, as well as the reduced costs. He did a quick Web search for virtual assistants — business intermediaries, often from English-speaking countries like India or the Philippines, who will perform almost any task for a price — and was connected to Asha Sarella, a young assistant for hire who also teaches at a dance school in Bangalore.
Sensing a good opportunity, Sarella gathered a few friends and quoted Smith a price that would cover her basic expenses; part of the deal was that Smith would credit Sarella and help promote her work. After paying her half up front, Smith sent the recording and his lyrics, and gave her carte blanche.
“The only thing I requested was Bollywood dancing,” Smith said. “Everything else was up to her.”
Sarella, who in 2005 achieved a modicum of outsourcing fame when she was one of the virtual assistants featured in an Esquire magazine article about exported work, said she welcomed the opportunity to do something more creative than the data-entry work or chores for distant executives that she has typically done as a virtual assistant.
“This is not something easy, not like a database job where they just explain on the phone and the assistant can do it,” said Sarella in a telephone interview from India, where she said inquiries about videos from other Western musicians were keeping her up late.
The video was shot in three days, Sarella said, and the completed film was in Smith’s inbox within three weeks. As the play count on the video started to climb, the promotional effect on his music was immediate. Within two days the song, which he was giving away, had been downloaded 1,000 times.
Smith said he knew that as a white Westerner paying a cheap price for a Bollywood-style film, he might be accused of exploitation or cultural imperialism. He denied both, saying his interest was genuine and that his teaching job had opened his eyes to other cultures.
“I live multiculturalism every day,” Smith said. “A lot of times what is considered hip and cool is only defined by borders. But I found that this translated well.”
Sarella said the project had already benefited her. The influx of potential new clients for her choreography allowed her to quit her job as a virtual assistant.
“I just made a career change,” she said.
ARTICLE ACCESS: This article is among those available to all readers. Many more articles are available only to E-Edition members
source: bendbulletin.com via NYT news service: 202170367
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