Indian Filmmakers Cannot Compete With International Moviemakers In The Use Of Technology

Mega-budget superhero movie
“RA.One” is Shah Rukh Khan’s
most ambitious project and he is
trying to make it a world-class
film, but at the same time he
feels Indian filmmakers cannot
compete with international
moviemakers in the use of
technology.
“I don’t think we are anywhere
close to competing with
international filmmakers. I don’t
mean to offend anyone. We
have great storytelling, good
technology and do great stuff…
we are the largest film
producing nation in the world!
“But having said that, when it
comes to technology in films like
‘Batman’, ‘Superman’ and
‘Spiderman’, I don’t think we
should even try to compare
ourselves to them as yet. They
are way ahead. Their resources
are really huge compared to
what we can do,” Shah Rukh
told reporters here.
“RA.One” is directed by
Anubhav Sinha and the 45-year-
old plays the superhero in the
film. His costume, described as
stiff and heavy, has been
designed by a team of
specialists in Los Angeles.
“It’s fortunate that I have the
resource to take ‘RA.One’ to a
certain level. I don’t have the
resources to take it to a bigger
level yet, but if the market for
Indian films increases, of course
we can do it.‘RA.One’ is the first
step towards that,” said the
actor-producer who is co-
producing it with Eros
Entertainment.
The budget of “RA.One” is said
to be over Rs.100 crore and
Shah Rukh said he might have
certain stunts in 3D to woo his
younger audiences.
“RA.One”, which is replete with
visual effects, also promises to
change the movie-going
experience for cinegoers here.
For the first time, the Dolby
surround 7.1 system is
reportedly being installed in
several multiplexes in the run-up
to the film’s release.
The technical team of “RA.One”,
including Oscar-winning sound
engineer Resul Pookutty, headed
by Shah Rukh will be in Los
Angeles this month to work on
the special sound effects.
Internationally acclaimed
filmmaker Shekhar Kapur has
already showered praise on the
film after seeing its 30-second
trailer, saying“RA.One” has
raised bar on VFX technology in
Indian cinema.
It’s payback time for him, says
Shah Rukh, who plans to cash in
on the Diwali season by
releasing the film, which also
stars Arjun Rampal and Kareena
Kapoor, Oct 26.
“I have worked for 20 years in
this industry and I owe my life
to it. I feel this is what I would
like to give back– I give this
technology to all new directors
and actors so that they feel‘Yes,
we can do it’ and much cheaper
than Hollywood. I hope the
scope and audiences of Indian
films increases and we get more
money to make good films as
wonderful as‘Iron Man’ and
‘Spiderman’,” he added.
Shah Rukh is not hopeful of his
film being picked as India’s
official entry for the Oscars, but
he will be content with a
welcome response from the
audiences and a Filmfare award
or two!
“I don’t think it’s our choice that
which film must go for the
Oscars from our country. I don’t
know the process…I don’t know
if popular cinema should go for
it, or our parallel cinema, like
‘Paheli’ was. But franky, I don’t
think this film (‘RA.One’) will be
chosen as an Oscar nomination
from our country,” he said.
“I think I’ll be happy with one or
two Filmfare awards for the VFX
in my film,” he added in his
trademark witty style.
Shah Rukh’s earlier production
venture “Paheli” was short-
listed as India’s official entry to
Oscars by the Film Federation of
India (FFI) in 2006.
“I was shocked when ‘Paheli’
was selected,” said SRK.

Salman Khan Wants To Show''Chillar Party''

Bollywood
star Salman Khan wants to show
“Chillar Party”, his first venture
under his banner Salman Khan
Being Human Productions, to
Minister for Information and
Broadcasting Ambika Soni.
“I want to show this film to
Ambika Soni to make it tax free.
Let’s see if that happens,”
Salman told reporters here
Friday night.
The actor had come to launch
the first promo of the film that
will release July 8 and is his co-
production with UTV. It has
been helmed by first-time
directors Nitesh Tiwari and
Vikas Bahl.
“Chillar Party” is a film about a
gang of innocent yet feisty kids
from Chandan Nagar in whose
lives enter two strangers. The
film describes how things
revolve around their lives.
Khan, on being asked whether
he would produce more films
under his banner, said:“We will
produce more films. When we
get good scripts and good films
to make, we will definitely
produce them.”

A Strange Love Story Movie Review

A few weeks back, RAGINI MMS released, which had a blend of sex and horror. Now, A STRANGE LOVE STORY goes a step further by mixing love, horror, suspense and murder mystery.

The film is about a photographer Kabeer (Eddie Seth), who's an expert in getting work done at the last moment. He invites trouble by shooting at a haunted dargah in the night, despite being warned by his friend Jennifer (Riya Sen). A few minutes after he starts shooting, Jennifer mysteriously passes out. After this incident, weird things start happening with Jennifer as she feels the presence of a person around her, who can't be seen. She's also accused of killing Kabeer's friend Baljeet Billy (Raj Zutshi), after which Inspector Iqbal (Ashutosh Rana) arrives from Delhi to investigate the case. A sequence of incredulous events ensues.

Directors Tarique Khan and Sahil Seth have tried their hands at various things, but the outcome is hideously unfavourable. The script is haphazard and after a few minutes you wonder what is going on. As if all the humdrum sequences weren't enough, a random song intended to showcase the dancing abilities of Kabeer, is thrown at you. The climax is ludicrous, and like almost the entire film, defies all logic.

You have to listen to the dialogues. Jennifer enters a police station with open shirt buttons that reveal a bit too much. Looking at her, Iqbal says, 'Buttons band hote to acha hota. Iski kya zaroorat hai? Tum vaise hi itni khoobsurat ho.' Basha Lal's cinematography is just average in spite of having the picturesque Shimla as one of the locales. Santok Singh, Dharmesh and Ripul's music is uninspiring.

The bad performances only add to the agony. Eddie Seth makes a pathetic debut. Riya Sen (seen in minimal clothing) is passable. Ashutosh Rana fails to impress. Raj Zutshi hams. All the other actors don't add any merit.

A STRANGE LOVE STORY is not only strange but outrageous. Watch it only if you find a skimpily clad Riya Sen alluring.

REVIEW: Mr. Nice Spins a Tall Tale of Drug Smuggling and Derring-do

Self-mythology has a bad name, especially among honest, discreet folk who prefer to downplay their good qualities and undersell their achievements. To hell with that: Mr. Nice is a devilish and entertaining little picture based on the possibly somewhat true story of Howard Marks, who began life in a humble middle-class family in Wales, got into Oxford just by being a really smart kid, and eventually realized he could make a lot more money smuggling drugs from the Middle East into the United Kingdom (and later into the States) than he could by teaching. Marks outfoxed the authorities for years, before finally getting caught in 1988. He served seven years in an American prison before emerging with the 1996 autobiography, full of tall tales and derring-do, on which this movie is based.
You don’t have to believe all of it — or even any of it — to enjoy the rascally charms of Mr. Nice, which was written and directed by Bernard Rose. Actually, the movie was written, directed, shot and co-edited by Bernard Rose, which sort of makes him a virtual one-man band, like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. But any potential control-freak tendencies on Rose’s part probably work in the movie’s favor: He’s dealing, after all, with a character who’s written himself to be larger than life. Why not pull out all the stops?
Rhys Ifans plays Marks, who, as a young post-graduate trying to make it as a teacher in early ’70s London, learns all too quickly how easy it is to smuggle hashish across international borders without getting caught. He’s a gentleman among smugglers, and also a ladykiller: After the dissolution of an early, hasty marriage, he meets sexy, drowsy-eyed blond Judy (Chloë Sevigny), who will eventually bear him three kids. As a couple, the two have their ups and downs: During the rough times, when Marks has to lie low to avoid arrest, they’re stuck hiding out in a camper van. But when times are good, they’re really good, involving lots of Studio 54 revelry and palatial digs in Majorca. That’s when it really is pretty nice to be Mr. Nice, which is one of the pseudonyms Marks used to escape arrest.
But wait, there’s more: Because Marks had professional ties with an IRA wheeler-dealer (played, with a suitable degree of explosive craziness, by David Thewlis), he was eventually recruited as a spy by the British government. Drug smuggler, double-agent, raconteur: You couldn’t make this stuff up. Though there’s no doubt that Marks, in his own telling of the story, embellished it plenty, and in bringing it to the screen, Rose — who may be best known as the director of the 1992 cult favorite Candyman, starring Virginia Madsen — runs with that go-for-broke spirit. At one point Marks reveals, in a purring voice-over, that the IRA, the DEA, customs and excise, the police and the press are all after him. He’s been a very bad boy, and he’s loved every minute of it.

Ifans, wearing a lush, shaggy dark wig, is great fun to watch — he looks like a rangier, more dissolute David Cassidy.

Ifans, wearing a lush, shaggy dark wig, is great fun to watch — he looks like a rangier, more dissolute (and much sexier) David Cassidy. And as Ifans handles it, Marks’ continual self-aggrandizing becomes a form of entertainment by itself: There’s enough “Who, me?” self-deprecation lurking beneath his braggadocio to keep us from hating him. That, and the fact that he really did suffer in prison. (We become witnesses to a rather unpleasant tooth-pulling scene.)
But even then, Marks does good by teaching his fellow inmates English and even, in some cases, using his prodigious coconut to help them obtain shorter sentences. (His own sentence was originally close to 25 years; he was released on parole in the mid-1990s. He also insists that he never dealt in hard drugs.) Marks is the scrapper who always comes out on top, although when he brags at one point in the film, “I’d just imported enough Columbian marijuana into the UK to get every inhabitant of the British Isles stoned,” we can see why he’s headed for a fall. Not because what he’s doing is wrong, but because he needs a rest — no one can keep up that pace for a lifetime. Rose doesn’t lay out Marks’ story as clearly as he might have — certain details and chronologies become tangled and murky — but as a portrait of a charming rapscallion and entrepreneur, Mr. Nice serves admirably. As the Small Faces sang in their own drug-dealer paean Here Comes the Nice, “I’d be just like him, if I only could.” Luckily, there’s room in the world for only one.