The List for 2016

So here's the list of films, combining Martin Scorsese's and Spike Lee's lists:

1. 400 Blows 
2. 8'1/2 
3. A Face In The Crowd 
4. A Matter of Life and Death
5. Ace In The Hole 
6. Aguirre, The Wrath Of God 
7. Ali: Fear Eats The Soul 
8. All that Heaven Allows
9. America, America
10. An American In Paris 
11. Apocalypse Now
12. Apocalypto 
13. Arsenic and Old Lace
14. Bad Lieutenant 
15. Badlands 
16. Band Of Outsiders 
17. Battle Of Algiers 
18. Beauty And The Beast 
19. Before The Revolution 
20. Big Deal On Madonna Street 
21. Black Orpheus 
22. Black Rain 
23. Blow-Up 
24. Blue Collar 
25. Bonnie And Clyde 
26. Born on the Fourth of July
27. Boyz N The Hood 
28. Breathless 
29. Cape Fear
30. Casablanca 
31. Cat People
32. Caught
33. Children Of Paradise
34. Chinatown 
35. Citizen Kane
36. City Of Gods 
37. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind 
38. Cool Hand Luke 
39. Coolie High 
40. Day For Night 
41. Days Of Heaven 
42. Dead End 
43. Death By Hanging 
44. Deeds Goes to Town
45. Dial M for Murder
46. Dirty Pretty Things 
47. District 9 
48. Do the Right Thing
49. Dog Day Afternoon 
50. Dr. Mabuse. The Gambler
51. Dr. Strangelove 
52. Duel in the Sun
53. Empire Of The Sun 
54. Europa ’51
55. Faces
56. Fat City 
57. Force of Evil
58. Forty Guns
59. Germany Year Zero
60. Gilda
61. Grand Illusion
62. Gun Crazy
63. Health
64. Heaven’s Gate
65. High And Low 
66. Home Of The Brave 
67. Hoop Dreams 
68. House of Wax
69. How Green Was My Valley
70. I Am Cuba 
71. I Walk Alone
72. Ikiru 
73. Il Sorpasso 
74. In The Heat Of The Night 
75. Is Paris Burning? 
76. It Happened One Nght
77. Jason and the Argonauts
78. Journey to Italy
79. Julius Caesar
80. Kansas City
81. Killer Of Sheep 
82. Kings Of The Road 
83. Kiss Me Deadly
84. Klute
85. Kung Fu Hustle 
86. L'Avventura 
87. La Dolce Vita 
88. La Strada 
89. La Terra Trema
90. Last Tango In Paris 
91. Lawrence Of Arabia 
92. Le Boucher 
93. Los Olvidados 
94. Lust For Life 
95. M*A*S*H
96. Macbeth
97. Mad Max 
98. Marathon Man 
99. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
100. Mean Streets 
101. Metropolis
102. Midnight Cowboy
103. Miracle In Milan 
104. Mishima
105. Napoleon
106. Nashville
107. Night and the City
108. Night Of The Hunter 
109. North By Northwest 
110. Nosferatu
111. On The Waterfront 
112. One Flew Over The Cuckoo'S Nest 
113. One, Two, Three
114. Open City
115. Othello
116. Paisan
117. Paths Of Glory 
118. Patton 
119. Peeping Tom
120. Pickup on South Street
121. Raging Bull 
122. Raising Arizona 
123. Ran 
124. Rashomon 
125. Raw Deal
126. Rear Window 
127. Rocco and his Brothers
128. Rome Open City 
129. Sansho The Bailiff 
130. Secrets of the Soul
131. Senso
132. Seven Samurai 
133. Shadows
134. Shock Corridor
135. Shoot The Piano Player 
136. Singin' In The Rain 
137. Smith Goes to Washington
138. Some Came Running
139. Some Like It Hot 
140. Spartacus 
141. Stagecoach
142. Stranger Than Paradise 
143. Stromboli
144. Sullivan’s Travels
145. Sweet Smell of Success
146. T-Men
147. Tales of Hoffman
148. The American Friend 
149. The Bad and the Beautiful
150. The Band Wagon
151. The Bicycle Thief
152. The Bridge On The River Kwai 
153. The Conformist 
154. The Conversation
155. The Fall of the Roman Empire
156. The Flowers of St. Francis
157. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
158. The Godfather 
159. The Godfather: Part 2
160. The Hustler
161. The Infernal Cakewalk
162. The Lady From Shanghai
163. The Last Detail 
164. The Leopard
165. The Magic Box
166. The Maltese Falcon 
167. The Marriage Of Maria Braun 
168. The Merchant Of Four Seasons 
169. The Messiah
170. The Mystery Of Haspar Hauser 
171. The Player
172. The Power and the Glory
173. The Red Shoes 
174. The Rise of Louis XIV
175. The Road Warrior 
176. The Roaring Twenties
177. The Rules Of The Game
178. The Third Man
179. The Train 
180. The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre 
181. The Trial
182. The Wizard Of Oz 
183. Thief 
184. To Kill A Mockingbird 
185. Tokyo Story 
186. Touch of Evil
187. Two Weeks in Another Town
188. Ugetsu 
189. Umberto D 
190. Vertigo 
191. Weekend 
192. West Side Story 
193. White Heat 
194. Yojimbo 
195. Zelig 

I'm yet to cross off the films I've seen, I may rewatch them and write about them as well... not sure.

A 2016 Resolution.

In the middle of my maiden feature, I can't help but feel that something is missing. No... i don't mean in the film, or the process of it, not that i'm saying its a cake walk, it does have its fare share of ups and downs but hey what are the ups without the downs? Anyway, coming back to the point about something missing... a bit of context:

I Love Watching Movies...

And that's the one thing that i have not been doing. The reason i'm living the dream of making a feature is due to that simple fact and in the middle of the dream i'm living i have stopped to do what i love to do the most.

In an unplanned break in the shooting schedule, i got a chance to catch up with a lot of films i had missed in the past 6-8 months. Sicario, Masaan, Talvar, The Martian, Titli... to name a few that i missed and caught up on recently... And oh boy am i pumped up to resume the mammoth task of completing the feature.

So my new year resolution for 2016 is to watch films... wait that's a bit to vague... lets get down to the specifics:

In 2016 I have decided to watch and write about the 85 films recommended by Martin Scorsese here, plus the 39 foreign films he recommended here and also the 86 films from Spike Lee's list. 

I will be compiling them into one list, editing out the repeats and the ones i have already watched.

Stay tuned for the list...

This was inspired by this.

My Take: Ek Villain.

Knowing that Ek Villain is a rip-off of I Saw The Devil [Korean], I decided to do a little experiment. Now generally once i find out that a film is going to be copied from some another movie, it is likely that i have already seen the original and if i haven't then i watch the original before i go for the copied version [there's a good story behind why i do this, maybe i'll cover it in a later post]. Anyways coming back to the experiment, i decided to give Mohit Suri a fair chance and not watch I Saw The Devil before i watch Ek Villain. I did this so that i don't crib during the movie about how pathetic it is and oh boy! I was so... so... wrong.

Without ruining Ek Villain for anyone, like that's possible, or critically analyzing the whole thing i have these points:

• Shraddha Kapoor's acting was just absolutely pathetic.
• Song after song after song.
• Just when you think there's no more.....BOOM! there's another song.
• If I was casting Kamaal R Khan, I would make sure he acts like himself not like any other tom dick n harry.
• Remo reminded me of Katrina Kaif in Dhoom 3: I have no purpose here but i'll keep on popping in again and again to remind you that i'm in this movie. I can turn the lights off with Katrina but not with you, Remo.
• Too many cliches: mother's curse, things to do before i die, love turns bad into good, girl drops dairy hero picks it up and don't even get me started on the dialog.
• I have to give points to Mohit Suri for trying out the single shot on the ship.

At-least the plot had potential. So I thought well since I already know the plot, through this crap, how can I Saw The Devil possibly amaze me any further coz once you have a basic idea of how a story is going to turn out, you tend to loose interest at some point but oh boy! I was so... so... wrong again. 

The best way i can sum it up is:

Ek Villain is like the first draft of a film and I Saw The Devil is the master draft. In other words Ek Villain is what you get when you de-write I Saw The Devil. It's like if you have written a script for the first time, any seasoned writer will advice you to rewrite as many times as possible, coz every time you rewrite you will catch the cliches/weak scenes/bad dialog and what not. The writers of Ek Villain thought that we can't make I Saw The Devil any better so lets just dumb it down.

The worst part is that Mohit Suri has actually denied the fact that his film rips off I Saw The Devil. To which i have to say:

Dear Mr. Suri,

You can fool the world but not me. I have enough sense to know that at times stories can be similar, out of coincidence or when you are inspired and trying to pay homage to the source but when the whole structure and even scenes are the same but worse, you cannot deny that you plagiarized. Its film makers like you, Mr. Suri, who are the reason Bollywood is digging its own grave. You better sleep with an eye open...

Sincerely, Your Villain.

You may think that i'm overreacting to this whole ripping off business, when every other Bollywood movie is doing it. Well you see, i'm reacting to the damage it has done to the average Indian movie goer. They gave the audience this pathetic piece of crap about serial killers, so now if I have a good script about serial killers, minus all the love and songs which are needed for a commercial success, no producer will take it. He would even have a valid point because minus all the hype surrounding Ek Villain songs and 'from the makers of Aashiqui 2', the film is actually pathetic and wouldn't do well at the box office.

Fun Fact: Kin Jee-Woon is the director of I Saw The Devil, who also made A Bittersweet life which Mohit Suri ripped of as Awarapan.

That's the kind of exposure that is given to the Indian audience by film makers like Mohit Suri. The other side of this argument is that Indian audience wants this kind of masala so we have to Indianize a story like I Saw The Devil. To that i have to say 'Hum kichdi khana choddenge, tum acha pasta banake toh dikhao'. Stop treating us like retards. Make a genuine effort to make a good movie, even if you are ripping off at-least make a good rip off.

The Cursed Month Of January: Part 2

Has the curse of January been broken with the releases in 2014? Let's take a look:

January 2014: A new ray of hope for Bollywood.

• Mr Joe B. Carvalho: Why Mr Warsi, why do you do such films. Maybe Mr Warsi should stick to Hirani's Munnabhai series because most of what he does other than that is just, for the lack of a better word, shit.
• Yaariyan: If this movie reflects the youth of this nation, then the future is worst than it seems. The film did good business due to it's songs, all thanks to Dir. Divya Khosla Kumar's music video experiences. Maybe she should just stick to that.
• Karle Pyaar Karle: What do bored rich kids do? This film. If you are looking for the next Sachiin Joshi or Jackky Bhagnani look no further.
• Jai Ho: When Salman Bhai's film is tagged as a semi-hit, you know there is definitely something wrong with the month of January.
• One By Two: Does Abhay Deol have a family to feed? If not for the money, why else would Abhay do this film?

The above mentioned films are responsible for keeping the believe in the curse of January alive but change is nearer than it seems with the following films:

• Miss Lovely: This is the Indian Boogie Nights. I wish movies as such got a wider release. Indian audiences need some exposure to this kind of content driven cinema. This film was never even meant to release in India but got picked up at some festival a la Lunchbox.
• Om-Dar-B-Dar: This is a film that got released after 26 years. If, and only if, this film had been released in 1988, Indian Cinema would have been at par with the world by now. But better late than never. 
• Dedh Ishqiya: January seems to be a boon rather than a curse for Dir. Abhishek Chaubey. This turned out to be one of the better sequels Bollywood has to offer. Frankly, it could have been better but you what hey say: In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Thank you Mr. Warsi for undoing the damage of Joe B Carvalho. 

On a side note i do have to mention:

• Sholay 3D: I do agree the 3D wasn't the greatest ever, nor did it set the Box Office on fire. But the very fact that i got to catch an Indian Cinema classic on the big screen was good enough for me.

The question still remains whether releasing your film in January is a curse or not. The answer to which is quite simple:

If you believe in Bollywood shenanigans, which include but are not limited to:  star power, over the top emotion, over the top action, over the top anything basically, Kapoor clan, Chopra clan, The Khans, 100 crore club, 200 crore club, she dated Bhai club....... If you believe in all of this and more, then yes you are the reason the curse exists.

On the flip-side:

If you believe that content is king, have enough exposure to good cinema and have a brain then this curse is null and void for you. You are the cure to this curse.

Unfortunately, majority will actually believe in Bollywood shenanigans and that is the reason Indian Cinema is on the verge of extinction in the shadow of Bollywood. Things are changing now, although not fast enough but something is better than nothing.

Did Ra.One, Himmatwala, Dabangg 2, Chennai Express, Dhoom 3, Krish 3, Besharam come in January? No and yet it appeared as if they were cursed. Well my friends, the truth is that the curse is not of January but the curse is of bad content. Be it January, May or December if your film is honest enough to bank on the power of  its content, then yes the curse does not effect you. If your film doesn't have content or the content is diluted due to the addition of Bollywood shenanigans, then may god be with you coz every month is going to be cursed for you.

The Cursed Month of January: Part 1.

It is Bollywood folklore that January is a month where movies come to die. Careers have ended due to a release during this month.This is not entirely true, there are always exceptions but they are few and far apart.

Should aspiring film makers be afraid of this curse? Is the curse real or just a mater of bad content? It is a fact that all major releases happen in the second half of the year to stay in the eyes of the awards. But does releasing a film in January mean its the end of your career? 

I could take a look at all the January releases till date but in this ever evolving world of cinema the audience tend to forget the past in the abundance of films that come out each year. But let me recap a few January releases from 2010 -2014.

January 2010: The month that ended a lot of careers.

• Dulha Mil Gaya [Ended Fardeen Khan's career.]
• Pyaar Impossible [Ended Uday Chopra's career.]
• Chance Pe Dance [Ended Ken Ghosh's career.]
• Veer [Started & ended Salman Khan's writing career.]

The Exception: Ishqiya [Director Abhishek Chaubey's exceptional debut salvaged Vidya Balan's career and bagged her a couple of awards.]

January 2011: The Exceptional Month.

• No One Killed Jessica [Rani Mukherji saved her career with this and Vidya Balan gained momentum.]
• Yamla Pagla Deewana [Commercial Exception. High point in Dir. Samir Karnik's career, did what Apne couldn't do for the Deols.]
• Dhobi Ghat [Dir. Kiran Rao made her mark with this debut, it also did exceptional business for an art film.]

Not The Exception:  Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji [Did not help Dir. Madhur Bhandarkar's downhill career, crashed Omi Vaidya's high dreams after 3 Idiots.]

January 2012: The month that wasted a lot of talent/resources.

• Players [Abhishek, Bipasha, Sonam, Neil, Bobby, Omi, Sikander, everyone involved with this film, including Dir. Abbas & Mustan, were on thin ice before this film. After the film's disaster their careers now lie in deep waters. Only a couple of them recovered.]
• Chaalis Chauraasi [Naseerudin Shah, Atul Kulkarni, Kay Kay Menon, Ravi Kissen together on screen sounds like a safe bet doesn't it? but it wasn't.]
• Ghost [The end of Shiney Ahuja, luckily no talent was wasted here.]

The Exception: Agneepath [Debutant Dir. Karan Malhotra did justice to this remake, did not waste the talent and the resources he had for this film. Also, Hrithik Roshan managed a film in the futile 100 Crore Club.]

January 2013: The month that had hope.

• Table No. 21 [Good performance, average flick. Inconsistency ruined the potential it had.] 
• Meri Shadi Karao [Lesser known launch pad for Daler Mehndi's son. There was no hope to begin with.]
• Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola [With Dir. Vishal Bhardwaj there is always hope but reality is a bitch.]
• Mumbai Mirror [If no one else, at least Sachiin Joshi had hopes with this one.]
• Akaash Vani [There was hope with Dir. Luv Rajan due to his Pyaar ka Punchnama. But this one lacked the punch.]

The Commercial Exception: Race 2 [Only considered an exception for its commercial success.]

The True Exception: Inkaar [Bad marketing ruined this for most of the audience but the performances and Dir. Sudhir Mishra's vision made this an exception.]

Things have changed in Bollywood drastically since 2013. But has the curse of January been broken? Wait for the second part for January 2014 review and the conclusion to this curse.

From Childhood to Adulthood: Behind The Scenes.

In the world of cinema, there are people who make it and there are people who don't. Forget about the world, just think about Bollywood and you'll see that there are people who dream, people who achieve it, people who work really hard for it and people who don't really have to work for it. Their motivations, dreams, desires may all be different but they do have something in common. They all have a behind the scenes story. Although i'm yet to make my mark or snap under pressure but i'm no different than any one of those people, i too have a behind the scenes story. A story that defines my love for cinema.

When questioned about it, people can generally remember the first film that they saw but frankly i don't remember at all what my first film was. But i do recall this one incident which introduced me to the world of cinema. I was probably 8 or 9 when i walked into a room full of my uncles glued to the TV and none of them were paying any attention to my presence. As a chubby 8 year old kid at the peak of his cuteness, i got offended that how come no ones looking at me, whats so important on TV?. So, i have a look at whats going on. And i kid you not, my eyes had an orgasm, my brain had an orgasm and my 8 year old body, which didn't even know what was an orgasm, had an orgasm. 

I was looking at a robot crawling through a machine on his belly trying to catch a lady and that lady pushes a button and crushes the robot.

I remember having watched movies before but this was different. This was the moment i decided 'F*ck the cartoons, this is sooo much better'. The scene i'm referring to is the climax of 'The Terminator'. I asked my dad if i could see the whole movie, he said sure we can borrow it. What started as just borrowing of 'The Terminator' turned into an addiction and i was watching 2 movies a day for over a decade. My exposure to Hollywood and Bollywood was just so intense that i started learning more from the VHS in the VCR than my teacher at school.

Movies like 'Home Alone', 'Toy Story' and 'Jumanji' taught me the nuances of being a child. Movies like 'Wildthings' and 'Basic Instinct' made puberty easier. Movies like 'Dil Chahta hai', 'Big', 'Free Willy' and 'Sholay' made me realize the value of friendship. Not only the movies but the characters portrayed by the likes of 'Shakti Kapoor' 'Gulshan Grover' and 'Amrish Puri' constantly kept on reminding me not to be like them when i grow up. They made me realize what filth is and how my choices could lead me to a life of filth. The hero is kind, everybody loves him, he saves the day and he is the epitome of righteousness. There's Govinda, Akshay, Van Damme and there's also Denzel Washington. Hero's came in all shapes and sizes but what they had in common was that they were all good human beings [on screen at least]. Movies clearly defined, at least for me, how to be a good human being.

If asked to make a choice: Be a Bond Villain with all the money and power or be the guy who is poor and struggles a lot but manages to kill the villain and get the girl. The choice is easy i'd be the guy who kills and gets the girl. But now's the actual test: How would you treat that girl? The answer is simple, I'd not treat the girl like Shakti Kapoor or Gulshan Grover would do it in the movies. So the situation in which i'd have to face a bond villain may never actually arise in real life but the way you treat women and respect them is very much a part of real life.  

It wasn't until my early 20's that i was exposed to World Cinema and i never turned back to commercial. Although commercial cinema is my guilty pleasure, especially action movies, I've moved on from commercial cinema. Somewhere around this time i seemed to have forgotten what movies had taught me and reality sank in. I had to earn a steady income and settle down. So, since i came from a business family, i started a business thinking that it would help me settle down and 10-15 years down the line i'd be settled enough to explore my love of cinema. Unfortunately the business ended up sinking with most of my families wealth.

It was a dark time, only Guru Dutt could have done justice to my state of mind. I was jobless and i was spending most of my time in front of the TV. Before i could realize it, 8 months had gone by. Then one fine day Bollywood decided to jolt me back. Moments like these, although how filmy they seem, you can't make them up.

I was in front of the TV, not really paying attention, i had the newspaper in my hand. I stumbled upon an ad for a foundation course in film making. That's when the conflict within me began. Should i do this? or try again for a steady income?. Just then, as if on queue. 'Rancho' said 'Beta kabil bano kabil, Kamyabi to sali zak mar ke tumhare piche ayegi...' [Be capable... success will follow you no matter what.]

It hit me like a hurricane, think of it like a montage if u must. What was i thinking all this time? Why had i forgotten my love for cinema?  Films were all along telling me to follow my heart... those who dream shall achieve... follow your passion. It all came back to me and i knew this was my calling. The rest is history.

That was 9 shorts ago and i'm still evolving as a film maker. I'm here to share my journey, my views and my love of cinema. I'd like to leave you with a thought:

Do whatever you must do to make your mark in the film industry but don't do it for the glamour or the money.... do it for the love of cinema.

Adios.