A Cinephile’s Choice

1. Deewar
2. Deewar
3. Deewar

1. Guns of Navarone
2. Guns of Navarone
3. Guns of Navarone

I watched lots of french movies in my teens but cant recall their names now. So, with tributes to our video rental guy back then and his clandestine collection of french porn..

1. French porn
2. French porn
3. French porn

Asif:

When I clicked on this link I was hoping to be lured into this wonderful world of cinema that I so love and see what another cine-lover has to say...I am sure you realise this does not qualify as an article (not even a bad one). As a `cinephile` you must have an opinion or even interesting anecdotes, and that ought to have been reflected in the piece. Why did these films give you pleasure, what made you watch them over and over again? You might do so in the interacts, but that is not the point...

Very disappointing...and it isn`t that you have not written on FP before.

Yaar, how did you miss out on Sholay?

farzana -- while your criticism is valid i wonder what you think chowk is ? it`s certainly no salon or thenation.org -- please, just because you grace its `pages` does not make it a mainstream quality site

this belongs in an i-log!

...duh!!!

`Hero` is a beautiful movie. Magical cinematics and sound effects. Although it`s full of Jet Li`s fly-so-high-and-touch-the-sky martial arts, it still has a very romantic appeal. There are a few beautiful moments in the movie, like when Snow (or whatever that beautiful womans name is) kills that other girl in a wood, and the colors slowly turn from brown and orange to varying shades of red. Or when Jet Li fights one on one with a long weapon wielder, and one musician with a japanese kind of instrument resembling our sarangi plays beautifully, matching the movements of the two fighters. And I love that scene when the school is showered with arrows, and when Snow and Jet Li defend the school with their super fly-so-high-and-touch-the-sky martial arts.

`Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon` is a kachra movie.

Terminator 2 doesn`t look good on Number 30.

Maula Jutt doesn`t look good on Number 10 either.

Where is Star Wars?

A short list of movies people liked best provides insights into their perspective on life, it has been said. Fortunately, I had made my short-list long before I heard that one. :-)

So here is my hopefully unbiased short list. And in deference to some other interactor`s suggestion, I will try to say why I liked what I liked.

Bimal Roy`s ``Bandini``, for it says something eternal about the Woman and her strengths. Don`t ask me to explain what, for it is for us to sense it rather than debate it.

For some similar reason, I liked the more recent ``Bawandar`` starring Nandita Bose. But I found the husband`s character to be more memorable. This gentleman hardly speaks a sentence in the entire movie, does nothing spectacular to fight the injustices that the feudal as well as the ``modern`` societies heap upon the hapless couple. But he is always there for his wife, in his own inconspicuous, yet very empathetic manner. May be that is why he also appealed to a wide spectrum of women (7 to 70, traditional and modern) who watched that movie here in the US.

In terms of the sheer impact it had on me, I must mention ``Bandit Queen``. I was devastated by the violence that the director managed to create - and I do not refer to the blood and gore type vilolence, which of course is there in plenty. I am talking about the palpable threat of imminent violence about to be perpetrated as the husband tries to exercise his conjugal rights upon his young bride as an extension of his sadistic beating up of the poor girl. There are many other things that are very effective in that movie. But it would take a separate article to describe them.

I have a special regard for Balraj Sahni, and the dignity that he brought to the most ordinary of roles. Two of his movies are particularly important to me. ``Garam Hawa``, where he plays the patriarch of a large family torn between the pull to migrate after the partition and the desire to stay on where one grew up and called it home. In Bimal Roy`s ``Do Bigha Zamin``, he is again the patriarch - but more of a breadwinner who struggles to make ends meet against forces he does not even understand, and yet tries his hardest to maintain the values he cherishes. His loss becomes our loss in the end, and his determination to survive, our hope.

I prefer the 1950`s B&W ``Analkali`` to ``Mughal-e-Azam`` as a classic. Despite its poor technology of earlier vintage, ``Anarkali`` is more compact, crisp, and far more effective in the end than the later MeA. The Urdu of ``Anarkali`` the movie is not bombastic as Prithwiraj`s Akbar would use in MeA, and the inner struggles of the characters not artificially cultivated as in Mughal-e-Azam. In fact, perhaps because of her direct simplicity and honest pleading, Bina Rai`s Anarkali is a better argument for women`s liberation than Madhubala`s defiance in Mughal-e-Azam. As to the music, while both movies provided some of the best that the two music directors ever offered, I still think that Anarkali has a better set of lyrics than MeA, and they happen on the screen more spontaneously than in MeA. And I hold on to my impressions despite having been swept off my feet by MJ Akbar`s nostalgic piece which he wrote shortly after watching the new all-color release of MeA a few months back. The opera-like quality of Anarkali is more genuine than the entertainment and grandeur that MeA was designed to provide.

In the entertainment category, I enjoyed Johny Walker`s movies, but that was because of him, rather than anything else. So IMHO, at the top of this category is probably ``Hera-Feri`` which introduced Paresh Rawal to me, and I dare say I enjoyed ``Jo Bole So Nihal`` as well, for the simple caricature of the Jat Sardar that decades of Santa-Banta jokes have created.

I guess I better stop here. :) Thank you for a chance to add my little list here.

``10. Maula Jatt (Pakistani)``

Wow..?!

Should I educate myself and go find a copy ? :))

Asif
[I think it`s more appropriate to address you as asif insteaf of naqsh for this piece:)]

I have not seen some of the Indian movies you listed but of the ones you listed the only one that would make my list would be Umrao Jaan. I would place many Hindi films like Bandini, Pyaasa, Kaagaz ke Phool, Sahib Bibi Ghulam, Jaagte Raho, Seema and Do Bigha Zameen before the films on your list, not to speak of some Bengali classics. In your defense I might say that most of these are from times before you developed interest in films, still you can buy them at most desi video stores.

As for your English selection, I am afraid I am not that much of a fan of modern films like The Lord of the Ring or Matrix. They are like reading Salman Rudhdie novels. I feel like I am solving Differential Equations in calculus rather than being entertained. My best list would include Judgement at Nuremberg, Silence of the Lambs and Apartment (with Shirley Maclain).

Essenahur:
Thumb oopar wala sign.
Re. Anarkali, I definitely agree with you regarding music. To me, Naushad was a disappointment. First, because he did not meet expectations raised by his earlier classics like Anmol Ghadi, Andaaz, Amar, Aan, Shabab, etc. Secondly, he did not meet the standards set by C. Ramchandra in Anarkali whose each song haunts us even today as it did then. Can anyone ever get tired to listening ``Yeh zindagi usee ki hai`` or ``Jaag dard-e-ishq jaag``. Prithvi Raj was too tall for Akbar, compared to Mubarak in Anarkali. On the other hand, Pradeep Kumar was no match to Dilip`s Salim in Mughale Azam.

re:#4 by omar_r_quraishi
It is exactly because people like FV come to Chowk that chowk has become a crappy place. Why does she not say what her best movies were and let us decide how the list fits the personna.
My list:
1. Ben Hur: this deserves a top place for a story well told and the spectacular chariot race
2. African Queen; for some great acting by Katherine Hepburn and Humprhry Bogart. Latter won the Oscar.
3. Sound of Music: one of the great musicals i have ever seen; I think got best picture award the year it was released (1966?)
4. Dr Zhivago: Boris Pasternak`s classic made into a movie. Omar Sherrif gives a stellar performance as Dr Zhivag. This movie takes u through Russian Revolution and how it changes lives of ordinary men and women. David Lean was the director. I think he got an Oscar. He also made Passage to India (based on E.M.Forster`s novel). I would not rate this as a classic though.
5. The Great Escape: one of the greatest War movies i have ever seen. Has all the big time actors u can imagine: Charles Bronson, Richard Attenborrough, Steve McQueen, James Coburn etc etc. Attenborough as Bartlett, ever plotting to escape from German jail (WW II), Danny (Charles Bronson) as the tunnel digger were memorable. Did it win an Oscar? I do not think it did. I thought that was unbelievable. Some people rate ``A bridge at river Kwai`` as better. I don`t. BTW, one Hindi movie copied the ``dumping the tunnel soil on to the ground`` routine. It had Amitabh Bachchan as a man incarcerated in Paki prison and some others trying to get him and others out. It was pathetic.
6. Roman Holiday: A Romantic movie with beautiful and photogenic Audrey Hepburn in the lead with Gregory Peck.
7. McKanna`s Gold: One of the Westerns i love. There are many but i like this because it has my favorite actors: Gregory Peck and Omar Sharief.
8. Titanic: This should be considered a classic. Well made but somehow not of the same class as Ben Hur.
9. The Verdict: Paul Newman plays the role of struggling (alcoholic) lawyer. The role was so well played and with such subtlity that u hardly ever notice him overplaying the ``drunk alcoholic`` part. I think he won the Oscar in that.
10. Any movie can fit in here. I personally would prefer an action-adventure. Something like Rambho. Only, i can`t think of a name.
Sridhar
P.S: Bollywood movies do not deserve a list. Best of movies were made in the South anyways and few on chowk would have seen them.

Asif
You have chosen a good topic certainly beats politics, it would have been more interesting if you had gone in more depth and explain why you think these films are special to you.

Here are my favourites
1. casa blanca .With some unforgettable lines ‘here’s looking at you kid’ ‘play it again sam’ ‘of all the gin-joints in casa blanca she had to come to mine’

2. summer of 42. It reminded me of the crush I had on my English teacher.

3. sound of music. With Julie Andrew and the beautiful alps scenary those kids singing.

4. north by north west. I think one of the best cary grant’s film.

I liked bollywood films when I was young, but I grew out of them.

Dr Strangelove
The madness of militarism, the self-confidence of national insanity.

Se7en
The script is excellent. Kevin Spacey`s speech at the end is flawless in it`s delivery and intensity

Fight Club
A movie about the nature of existence. What is it to live ? What is it to live a life in conflict with one`s thoughts and emotions ?

The Matrix
``What good is a phonecall, if you are unable to ... speak?`` An antidote to solipsism if there ever was one.


Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
``I fart in your general direction! Your father was a hamster and your grandmother smelt of elderberries!!``

Lock, Stock and two smoking Barrels
Excellent pacing, breathtakingly funny.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Jim Carrey in an excellent, moving, introverted performance. Brilliant script... and anyone who`s tried to forget someone they`re in love with... will empathise with the movie.

The Triplets of Belleville
What non-Disney animation can be like. What more animation should try to be like.

just off the top of my head.

cheers,

Aha_Snark

Re: # 9

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239608/

A good movie has enough nudity, lots of comedy, and some fighting....entertains you and you smile walking out the cinema - not bawling, emotional, or exchanging deep moments....

Life and the world is miserable as it is why would someone want to watch ron dhon and `deep` movies.

i watch a 3 hour movie is about 1/2 an hour.....Fast Forward was created for a reason.


there were a lot of movies both foreign and domestic that were entertaining and kept my interest.....i rarely used the FF button.....they also used brainy stuff, because at times I went ``Oye, ai ki ho gaya.......``

Dr Zhivago, was on PBS - I watched it....pretty good....though it had none of the above three criteria of a good movie.... the chicks were beautiful though....

First of all, I did toy with the idea of writing a more in-depth article as to why I chose the films I did and maybe I will do that at a later stage i.e. choose my top 10 films in order and write about the reasons for my choices in-depth but for the moment I hope that this list of mine (which is NOT in order of preference as I stated) will result in discussion.

Right then. I like films which make me think and also are visually stunning or both or those which are about themes/subjects close to my heart.

Mughal e Azam is for me the Bollywood epic par excellence and will never be rivalled imho. The new digitised colour version is even more stupendous. I have reviewed it on Chowk already so no more needs be said. Having heard the songs from Anarkali, I still don`t think they are better than the MeA ones.

As for Oriental cinema, I think it is currently the most vibrant in the world. Hero and House of Flying Daggers surpass anything made by Hollywood in recent times. Visual masterpieces. Breathtakingly beautiful.

The Godfather is probably the greatest gangster flick ever made and as a movie it is perfect.

Those of you who have not seen French cinema could do worse than watch L`Appartement. A cool, clever, beautifully shot romantic thriller. Typically French. Chic.

I like the Matrix due to its palimpsest-like layers of complexity. Its central theme is stunningly original. (Though a lot of the ideas are taken from William Gibson`s novel Neuromancer which he wrote in 1984!) For CGI and SFX it has inspired a whole generation of directors/actors/lover of movies.

Will comment on other films later as/when I feel like it.

I was also going to put Ben Hur on my list biut