A question for Ravi, Bhalla (and anybody else who shares their opinion) - any reaction to the fact that directors who impressed you (like Mishra and Jaideep Varma) have seemingly unanimous praise for Anurag Kashyap? Is that a niche industry thing, or where is that coming from? Haven't seen any of his films myself, so I'm sort of curious in a bystander-like fashion.

Yeah, I want Chacko's question answered too. What do you folks make of Kashyap?

Kashyap's a very ambitious and individualistic director which in itself is a rare thing in the days of hacks. I say this after having seen only Black Friday, which had a lot of holes as far as its research and scripting were concerned, but there's no denying his desire and tenacity to tell the sort of stories that most Hindi film-makers won't even attempt to. No Smoking and Paanch also have unconventional story-lines. He's also full of himself which makes him something of an asshole so far as his blog entries go, but at other times he can be interesting because he's at least not doing the "everyone is nice ji and we work like a family ji" routine.

@ buggshash: i am in mumbai and i'd be much obliged if you could burn me a copy of dharavi. thank you! i asked the man about where his movies could be found and he mentioned this website: jaman.com

@ bhalla and suresh: much thanks, gentlemen. i suppose we could divide the questions amongst ourselves and start transcribing asap, yes?

@ chako and laddu: i haven't seen any of kashyap's earlier movies but dev d does look pretty damn impressive. let's hope he doesn't do a 300 with a kickass trailer and a fuckall movie.

I just saw Black Friday and I liked it. He certainly made some lapses but overall it was a tight flick. It certainly takes some balls to portray some of the scenes [ families being used as baits] and some dialogues the way they were. I heard a lot of praise abt No-smoking but never managed to see it. At least it is some fresh air from the usual spunk coming out of Bollywood.

trix wrote:
@ buggshash: i am in mumbai and i'd be much obliged if you could burn me a copy of dharavi. thank you! i asked the man about where his movies could be found and he mentioned this website: jaman.com


Cool! Jaman has Main Zinda Hoon but still no Yeh Woh Manzil Toh nahi

@Chacko - I guess the one reason Mr. Mishra and Jaideep have a favourable opinion of Kashyap is that he gives filmmakers like them a platform to vent their opinions and promote their films through his passionforcinema website. He has a legion of fans who swallow everything he has to say thanks to Black Friday, his avowed support for world cinema posing as a desi Tarantinoesque figure and the fact that he has been highly vocal against a lot of mainstream Bollywood personalities in interviews (particularly Anil Kapoor and the Darshans). He has a big hand in drawing his fans into their films by posting reviews on them. If I remember right, he was the first guy to unreservedly recommend both Hulla and Khoya Khoya Chand.

Plus, as Suresh said, he makes films that are very unconventional regardless of their merits. I was pretty mixed on Black Friday. I thought it was technically marvellous but really loose in it's scripting. No Smoking was much better, despite being pretentious at times and having John Abraham in the lead. My opinion is that he hasn't made a lot of films for anyone to really know how good he is. So any praise for his skills as a filmmaker by the industry guys has to be because they like his passion for the profession and expect great things from him, which is fair enough.

I don't mind all the adulation he gets but yeah, he can be very annoyingly self indulgent as a result and resort to things like name dropping obscure French directors at festivals just to make him look even better.

Order Number: 2901
Date Ordered: Monday 26 January, 2009
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Products
1 x Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin (VCD) Rs 99
1 x Dharavi (VCD) Rs 99


Found this on some site called linux bazar who have COD. Really hoping this comes through.

I couldn't stand Black Friday. It was overlong and almost psychotically obsessed with being 'sympathetic' to the people who engineered and carried out the blasts. To the extent that the vacuous cow, Raageshwari (who assaulted our ears with the treble farting of 'Duniya' through the mid-90s), who was at the screening I attended said during the interval: "It's so terrible! The way the police were beating that poor man." I wanted to tell her "that 'poor man' blew this city up. He totally had it coming!" but seeing as I was there with tickets I'd cadged off a colleague, didn't want to cause a scene. And then the part where Dawood shows up for the first time is built on the lines of the definitive 'badass villain' entry and it wouldn't have surprised me in the least if people began to whistle or cheer. I still think it was a necessary film to be made though, if only to let more filmmakers consider making movies on contemporary history. Hopefully, someone will come up with an equally sympathetic film about the people affected by those blasts, many of whom had their careers seriously impaired.

I had all of Bhalla's reservations about No Smoking but liked it somewhat in spite of its shortcomings. Dev D from the trailers seems really interesting though.

trix wrote:


@ bhalla and suresh: much thanks, gentlemen. i suppose we could divide the questions amongst ourselves and start transcribing asap, yes?


Yes. You do the division.

@ bhalla and suresh: let's do this is three installments. bhalla, it would be great if you can take the first five questions, transcribe and post them.
suresh, please take the next five questions, transcribe and post.
i'll work on the last five once this week is through.
kapisch?

I think it'd be better if we do the instalment transcripts and mail the docs to you, then you can upload the final piece.

ravenus wrote:
I think it'd be better if we do the instalment transcripts and mail the docs to you, then you can upload the final piece.

all right, let's do that then.

@trix:
I PM'ed you about this earlier. I'm done with my bit of the transcript (Q.6-10). You guys get your stuff done and let's put this up before this piece gets old and redundant.

Finally heard this. Great interview and I think I'm one of those fans who loved Is Raat Ki Subaah Nahin and didn't really like anything else that I've seen of his. Great interview.

ravenus wrote:
@trix:
I PM'ed you about this earlier.

where did you PM me?

@gk: thanks! i've only seen hazaaron and khoya khoya chand and liked them both. i want to watch all his earlier stuff now.

We don't have PM setup here. He's bullshitting you.

I meant "e-mail" link on your profile...unless you signed up here with some bullshit e-mail you only use to sign up on sites for.

So, Suresh anna looks like somebody inhaled no? :p

You're the guy that liked Is Raat ki Subah Nahin. Go figure.

Now, you've been PM'ed, Ravenus.

no. wait. e-mailed.

I shall PM aka email my share by tomorrow morning.

@ kikuchiyo: have you e-mailed me yet?

With respect to Sudhir Mishra's Devdas I think the latest news is that he has shelved it. The apparent reason is that he doubted he could give it a sufficiently different experience from Dev.D

Kikuchiyo wrote:
Order Number: 2901
Date Ordered: Monday 26 January, 2009
Click here for a Detailed Invoice
Products
1 x Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin (VCD) Rs 99
1 x Dharavi (VCD) Rs 99


Found this on some site called linux bazar who have COD. Really hoping this comes through.

Did you get these? I am planning to order a few movies from them