Articles in category: Just-a-Thought
How often have you come out of the theater shaking your head in despair and saying/hearing, “the first half was good, but they completely @#$%&* it up after interval, man!!!” This is what I call the first half-second half syndrome. Of course, there are times when the movie becomes more …
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Among other things, the application form for the film appreciation course I am doing at National Film Archives of India (NFAI) required the applicant to name five movies that s/he liked and why. It was easily the toughest question to answer. At the end of an extremely long yet enjoyable …
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So, what does make a movie enjoyable? There is no blanket 'one-line' to answer that question. It does depend… While watching a drama, the constant nagging thought has to be, “What’s going to happen next…How are they going to get out of this one?â€. You should be at the edge …
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I love movies. I almost always find at least one thing to like in a movie and cannot, just cannot leave a movie half-way through, even the crappiest one. My favourite genre is comedy, I think a good comedy is the most difficult to make. But, slapstick is comedy for …
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He comes across as an awesome person and an awe-inspiring personality from the things he says and his body language, in his interviews and stage shows. The life he puts in his dances, both on and off screen, is truly energizing… … what I can’t handle though, is his acting… …
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Songs are certainly not necessary, but they have a purpose, that of entertaining. Some do just that. Some take the story forward. Some express a situation. And then there are the ones that exist just because…these, of course, are the irritating kind. I love songs in Hindi movies. But, when …
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Yesterday I was walking by a local street market. A market of the vendors who sell the latest Chinese cell phones, international magazines and novels printed with ink which can dissolve into thin air if exposed to it, all the funky t-shirts with ‘DIZEL’ written on them and also CDs …
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In Ghajini, the best sequence for me, and for everyone else I guess, was the one when Sanjay Singhania gets a bout of short term memory loss amidst the bashing of Ghajini Dharmatma and forgets everything only to be told by the latter that Ghajini was coming the other way. …
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For the uninitiated, DDLJ stands for Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. And since you’ve apparently not seen the movie yet, don't read this, go watch it at Maratha Mandir, Mumbai. 700+ weeks and the balcony was still full. There's something really warm about visiting a heritage theater and watching a film …
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Feeling cheated and yet Rahman Rocks! I don't think we need any explanations on why 'Rahman Rocks'. I feel inadequate to use adjectives to describe his compositions. But, I cannot resist mentioning that he is just an awesome singer. His performance of "Khwaja" (Jodha Akbar), "Arziyan" (Delhi 6), and of …
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In tough times like "new release strikes!", the theaters are pumping fists and feet in air trying to entice viewers. So, it’s good news for all ye out there who either missed some of the "superhits" in the last couple years. Or for those of you who don't mind a …
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A conversation between a wogma reader (!) and non-yet-reader (?) - ?: Why read a review? !: Should I watch it or skip it? Pitch it or ditch it? ?:How does a review help? It's just the writer's point of view which could be absolutely different from yours. !: Could, …
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Here goes the mandatory annual round-up post. I'd been wracking my brain on how to make this one different from my usual laundry list of films. As a starting point I glanced at some numbers and I saw an interesting trend. Thought I'd share that with you instead - Rating …
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I get extremely miffed when something I've written is copied and pasted elsewhere without permission. And yet, I find myself more liberal towards "inspired" movies. The anomaly has always bothered me. One obvious factor is that the remake of a movie is not a blind copy-paste. However bad it is, …
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Anurag Kashyap – one may call him the flag bearer of independent cinema in India. He already is a superstar for all the aspiring directors in the country. The cheer he garners for his blink-n-miss roles in his own films confirms this fact. But the "aarambh" (beginning) was never "prachand" …
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My husband (Navin Kabra) was in the news lately... Trust me, there's a reason why this is on wogma. Watch this - Scroll down just a bit... Well, this is on wogma because I co-wrote the dialogues and was hovering around, poking my nose while this film was being made …
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'Growth' of the Indian audience Morals have been Hindi cinema’s catharsis. It’s been an age-old debate: Good vs. Evil, Right vs. Wrong. Bollywood has always found a way to maneuver the script to make a moral judgment at the end of the film. We have it all, from explicit to …
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When wikipedia has a web page for a phrase that did not exist till about 5 years ago, you know it's an official trend. Considered an upbeat, catchy song with provocative lyrics and women dancing with revealing clothes, an"item" number has slowly become a mandatory part of any Bollywood masala …
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For as long as one can go back, the depiction of love and sex in Bollywood, characterized by melodrama or cliché, has only included heterosexual portrayals; passed off as the bar for anything normal. Even if we ignore that these characters were mostly dramatized and very far from reality, we …
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The top and bottom line of enjoying a movie is, "Expectations make or break the experience". Now, by definition -> remakes involve comparisons -> the very base of comparisons is expectations. Add to this equation the fact that today's remakes involve Amitabh and Rekha in the originals and you have …
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2008 - the most mercurial years Bollywood has seen in recent past. It was a year where most of the big films proverbially bit the dust and some small ones conjured biggest of surprises. It was a year where the small indeed became the new big. Hindi cinema saw an …
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This article was written for Pune Mirror for their 2011 new year issue. The topic assigned was Bollywood and Hollywood - 10 years gone by 10 years to come. * January 1, 2001Imagine the world of a half tech-savvy/gadget freak. No Wikipedia. No iPod. And google barely existed.About 10 years …
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Is it just that Alia Bhatt is a good sport? A very good sport? Is that the only thing that makes her self-parody awesome? I think not. And here's why.
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