May 15, 2012
Just to let you know that I’ve made lots of updates to the Galleries above, including the Nahiiin! Face one. It still cracks me up to look at it, every time :)
And in that spirit, I thought I’d share this lovely photo of Memsaab favorite Lalita Pawar, probably from sometime in the late 1930s (before the accident resulting in a wonky eye), courtesy of my friend Sudhir via the most excellent “Filmography of Silent Cinema: 1913-1934” by Dr. R.K. Verma (it’s honestly more like an encyclopedia of silent Indian cinema).
Posted in Hindi movies |
46 Comments »
May 10, 2012
This post is dedicated to my dear friend and song blogger extraordinaire Atul, who tells hilarious and sweet stories about his own menagerie.
Most of you are familiar with the Memdogs (little scamps) and beloved Gemma before them; and many of you have animals in your own lives who are as precious to you as anyone. One of my very favorite things about Hindi movies is how so many of them contain anipals, as Todd puts it. Filmi animals are usually more intelligent and capable than the people around them (eg Khoon Bhari Maang‘s Raja the horse and Jumbo the dog, Dharam-Veer‘s Sheroo the Wonder Bird, etc.), but they generally speaking don’t have nearly their fair share of song time. I mean, have you ever seen a dacoit serenading his smart and loyal horse? (If you have, TELL ME.)
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Posted in Hindi movies, Memsaab's lists |
61 Comments »
May 7, 2012
“Zorro” doesn’t even begin to cover it. “Zorro meets Robin Hood meets the Wild Wild West meets Arabian Nights meets Ugly Bridesmaid Dresses and everybody’s last name is Singh!” is a fair start. Dharam-Veer wasn’t this much of a potluck! My friend Mike, who watched some of it with me, remarked that it looks like the wardrobe and set people went crazy in a bunch of studio warehouses and used every single item they found in them. While they were doing that, I think the writers were combing through as much world literature as they could find for their own influences. I’m also pretty sure a lot of the original film is edited out or lost, because transitions between scenes are very abrupt and the whole thing quite choppy, so Lord only knows what other cultural and historical references have gone missing along with that footage.
Almost everything is also very weirdly played for laughs, even atrocities being meted out to villagers. This sort of defeats the whole purpose of atrocities. But never mind: there is just so much to look at, much of it shiny.
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Posted in Hindi movies |
68 Comments »
May 3, 2012
In which Shashi is a zombie and everybody is stupider than stupid.
Given the caliber of the main players (Sanjeev Kumar, Raakhee, Shashi Kapoor), I might have had hopes that this would be a decent film at least, but having read the Post-Punk Cinema Club’s review some time ago I knew better. Still, I expected some bright spots. But there weren’t any, unless you like pork. Everytime I thought the film could not possibly get any dumber or the acting worse, it got dumber and the acting got worse. I guess when a plot is this moronic with characters this poorly drawn, there is nothing much else to do except ham it up—and ham it up they all did. My God.
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Posted in Hindi movies |
35 Comments »
May 1, 2012
I am a pretty big fan of director-producer-writer-actor Arjun Hingorani’s work. His listing on imdb is probably incomplete, but the films he made that I’ve seen (four of them now), I have really enjoyed despite some issues. Those issues are very small in the face of his laboriously tangled—but coherent—storylines, stylish camera work, fabulous music, and the people he loves to cast: Dharmendra, Ashoo, Hiralal, Shetty, Jankidas, Keshav Rana and more. I also appreciate his penchant for casting himself in his films, not always in a heroic light but always in a terrible wig. In essence, his movies are solidly entertaining and a real delight to sit through if you are willing to overlook a certain glossing-over of logic and moderate level of preachy melodrama (which I am).
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Posted in Hindi movies |
55 Comments »
April 27, 2012
All I can think of when I look at Filmindia magazines, especially the covers and color plates inside, is candy.
Glorious, gLoRiOus CANDY!
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Posted in Baburao Patel's Poisonous Pen, Hindi movies |
33 Comments »
April 26, 2012
I have created a page called “Edu Productions” which you can always access from the menu across the top of this site. It contains links to download dvd files, YouTube (watch the whole film) and reviews where possible. I will keep it updated as more films are restored and subtitled by the Edu Productions team (to date: Tom, Raja, Ava, Muz, me, and our inspiration Edwina).
Enjoy!
Posted in Hindi movies |
8 Comments »
April 23, 2012
Oh my.
I love you, Kismet. I can see why, for 32 years until Sholay, you held the record for longest run at the box office. I love your story, I love ten-year-old Mehmood, I love VH Desai (whom Saadat Hasan Manto called “God’s Clown”), I simply adore Ashok Kumar in all his youthful kind-hearted con-man glory. I love your unwed pregnant girl, your runaway son; I even love your songs, which is sometimes hard for me with movies as aged as you are. I can’t wait to see you with subtitles (thanks Raja!) but even without them you are enthralling, you dear old progressive masala template of a film, you.
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Posted in Hindi film history, Hindi movies |
43 Comments »
April 16, 2012
Now with English subtitles!
I’ve said it before and I’m likely to say it again: I love Sunil Dutt as a dacoit. He is just so perfectly suited to the black tilak, the mouche, the gold hoop earrings, the manly bullets slung around his tall form.
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Posted in Hindi movies |
75 Comments »
April 8, 2012
Shammi’s pain and suffering (much of it self-inflicted) is nothing compared to sitting through this movie, I can assure you, and that is saying something.
Posted in Hindi movies |
29 Comments »
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