Bollywood VIEWS!!!

In today’s times, good efforts are rewarded in record time.
Take the brand new film, Welcome to Sajjanpur.
The Shyam Benegal film about a simpleton trying to turn novelist, is so well made and yet so simplistically, that the film has won the attention of none other than the British Film Institute.
The film is now being shown [...]

All those stories about yesteryear thespian Dilip Kumar being confined to the ICU of a Mumbai hospital are all trash.
He is hospitalised in a private ward and recovering. Apparently, he was being treated for a urinary tract infection.
I wish him speedy recovery!

Time was when Miss Indias were pretty as a picture and complemented Bollywood completely. Neat, clean, well-groomed, and quite a joy to behold. But over the years, and particularly after 2000, the quality of Miss Indias have come down and this year is no different. No matter what others say about beauty contests being personality [...]

Agreed, the Vikram Bhat-directed film Jannat, which has its premise on match fixing, could have been better. But then, it’s a love story with match fixing just as a backdrop. And as it is, the film is engaging enough.
However, its Engage Quotient could have been several notches higher if it had uncovered several intricacies involving [...]

The other day, I watched Ajay Devgan’s first directorial venture, U Me Aur Hum. Unlike many favourable media reports and the box office collections (”Average”), I was mighty disappointed. The first five minutes usually tell me if i would like the movie or pan it. This one didn’t tickle me at any point in its [...]

The title just about sums up the little bit of suspense that envelops SRK’s latest starrer. Ofcourse, the storyline has now been told a million times on our promotional TV channels and newspapers/magazines, so I will skip that. But what I will tell you are the following:
1. Shah Rukh Khan: His screen presence can leave [...]

I saw him the first time with Raveena Tandon at Windsor Sheraton’s Jolly Nabobs. It was the premiere of Arjun Sajnani’s film Agni Varsha. I didn’t know the guy sitting next to Tandon was Samir Singh, who took the place of Mark Mascarenhas at WorldTel.
A few days later, a chance telephonic conversation with Prasad Bidapa, [...]

Here are some more luminaries who stood out during the course of my journalistic career spanning a little more than 12 years.
Karan Johar, filmmaker: This was at the launch of his film, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. I asked him when he cried for the very first time in a cinema hall. “When Gregory Peck and [...]

I am glad Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par made it as India’s official entry to the Oscars. And unlike his previous Oscar entry, Lagaan, this film isn’t that long and neither do the songs seem out of place. So he doesn’t have to remove the songs to appease the Oscar jury this time, because they [...]

Frenetic, racy, and extremely focussed, Bollywood’s latest release ‘A Wednesday’ plays to the gallery. The Naseeruddin Shah starrer film also has a social message and that is what takes it from the purely commercial to a film with a heart in the right place. Watch it and you will know what I mean.
But don’t expect [...]