I am somewhat incapacitated at the moment:
but that only means more movie-watching time!
In the meantime, in which film does a miniature Asha Parekh dance on an ashtray?
The answer is: Kanyadaan (1969) *ing Shashi Kapoor & Asha Parekh. This was a hard one—I don’t think that many people have seen this movie, with good reason. This was the best only good thing in it.
I will start off here by saying that I loved this film. As tired as I was last evening (red-eye flight the night before), I could not turn it off. I had to see what would happen next. Vijay Anand’s particular brand of brisk direction combined with a great plot and a myriad of wonderfully etched characters large and small is evident throughout. I have recently seen two of his gems from the same time period: Johny Mera Naam and Chhupa Rustam. This film is more serious than those two; a different genre more in keeping with Guide than with Jewel Thief. I found its messages about medicine and priorities just as relevant as it was 36 years ago. And the many songs by SD Burman are sublime.
She doesn’t need any other name. Every Hindi film fan knows her simply as Helen. She shook her groove thing onscreen through 3 decades of cinema, before bowing out as gracefully as she shimmied in.
A cute fairy-tale of a movie, elevated by the presence of Sanjeev Kumar and Shashi Kapoor.
Durga Devi (Nadira) is a rich widow with a stepdaughter, Shanti (Vidya Sinha), and a daughter, Roopa (Moushumi Chatterjee). She treats Shanti like a servant and is so ill-tempered that she can’t keep an actual servant around for very long. So long-suffering, patient Shanti is perpetually left with all the work.
This movie is owned by Vinay Pathak. He is just fantastic as Bharat Bhushan, a tax auditor with no social skills and a penchant for singing old film songs at the drop of a hat. But he is ably supported by Rajat Kapoor (whom I last saw as the creepy pedophile uncle in Monsoon Wedding) as Ranjeet Thadani, an arrogant, self-absorbed music studio executive.
Ranjeet is married to Sheetal (Sarika), a singer. He has a standing Friday night dinner date with some of his friends where they bring an “idiot” they’ve met to compete in a “talent” competition. The competition among the friends is really to see who has found the biggest loser of the week. Sheetal doesn’t approve of this mainstay in Ranjeet’s life but he refuses to give it up. Bharat is brought to Ranjeet’s attention by a car salesman friend who has been subjected to Bharat’s attentions on a bus trip from Pune (yes, Bharat is singing to him even though he is clearly trying to talk on the phone):
This is not a Hindi film per se but falls into the “crossover” genre; most of it is in English and it was filmed by a mostly American crew, although it stars some of the brightest stars of Hindi cinema. And I must confess that for the first half hour of this film, I was pretty bored.
I thought: I need masala like a crackwhore needs crack!
But I stuck with it, and by the end was glad I had watched it all the way through.
Karz was a smash hit in India when it was released. It has those ever-popular elements of reincarnation, deep spiritual connection to one’s mother, revenge and bad disco music. It also has a grandiose plot very characteristic of its director, Subhash Ghai. You might think from these comments that I did not care for the film, but I found it strangely enthralling. It veers crazily from one genre to another — is it a disco movie? a romance? a murder mystery? a supernatural thriller? — the answer of course is yes, all that and more besides!
The story begins with a courtroom judgment being delivered in favor of Ravi Verma (Raj Kiran) and against a mute sinister figure (Premnath), whose name is referred to variously throughout as
and 
Everyone who knows me knows that I love Shammi Kapoor more than any other actor, even SRK. Many people don’t get it, and I can understand why, because I did have to see a few of his movies before it clicked. But once it clicked — it really clicked. I would rather watch Shammi in a bad movie than many other actors in good movies. I am not saying that Shammi didn’t make good movies — he did! he did! but even his bad ones enthrall me.
Vishal Bhardwaj is a genius. He writes lovely music, compelling screenplays and makes wonderful movies. So I was thrilled to see that a movie he made in 2005 (before Omkara) was finally out on DVD. It is based on a novella by Ruskin Bond, and takes place in a small village in Himachal Pradesh—the scenery is breathtaking and of course the cinematography does it full justice. And the music doesn’t suck either. The film has been billed somewhat as a children’s story but it’s really for anyone who enjoys a good story and a beautiful film.
This is a perfect rainy-day movie about true love and reincarnation. Bimal Roy uses weather to great effect in this film, setting the mood and atmosphere for each plot development, and enhancing the emotional impact of the story.
It begins in the pouring rain with a car wending its way along a dark, steep, winding road. Inside the car, Devendra (Dilip Kumar) and a friend are on their way to the railway station to meet Devendra’s wife and child, who have cabled to say they are on the way. Although Devendra is clearly anxious to get there, they are forced to stop by a landslide which has blocked the road. The driver goes for help, and tells them to go to a nearby haveli for shelter.
The haveli has been long abandoned and is full of dust and cobwebs; but Devendra feels he has been there before. As the rain continues pelting down and thunder rolls outside, he asks the old caretaker about things the house used to contain. He finds a portrait that he remembers painting himself in a former lifetime (not as crazy in the movie as it sounds here). He begins to tell the story of his former life there…
MemsaabStory 
