Tag Archives: Piku

The Best of Indian Cinema in 2015: A Perspective

2015 has been an interesting year overall for Indian Cinema, there have been a lot of films across languages which appealed to both the audience and critics alike. Writers and filmmakers seem to have shown their willingness to explore a variety of topics, often surprising people in the process. As for Hindi Cinema it was a decent if not an excellent year and there were quite a few interesting developments observed. There were some good Hindi films in the first half of 2015 including Baby, Badlapur, Dum Lagake Haisha, NH10, Piku, Tanu Weds Manu Returns etc. This clearly indicated that variety was key and that even a big star like Akshay Kumar was keen to try out meaningful films within the commercial boundary. The third quarter of the year was dominated by two biggies, Baahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijaan, while thankfully a relatively smaller film like Masaan also got noticed. Baahubali’s success in Hindi is unprecedented, as no dubbed film has performed anywhere close to how Baahubali has performed in Hindi. It will be interesting to see if this remains an exception to the norm or whether there will be more such films to follow. The last quarter of the year saw some interesting films like Talvar, Titli and Bajirao Mastani, while the success of Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 took everyone by surprise. SRK showed that he definitely is good at marketing, but that alone can’t change the quality of a film like Dilwale. Sooraj Barjatya returned after a long hiatus with Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, which despite having Salman Khan in a dual role, didn’t do as well as expected.Continue reading “The Best of Indian Cinema in 2015: A Perspective”

Top 10 Bollywood Films of 2015

Let me start the post with the disclaimer that I haven’t seen some of the acclaimed films of 2015. The most prominent ones among them are Titli, Manjhi, Drishyam,Maragarita with a Straw and Court (though I am told that the last one is mostly in Marathi). On the other hand, I have purposefully kept BAAHUBALI away from this list because the Hindi version is primarily a dubbed one. So, my post may suffer from the problem of exclusion. At the same time, it’s a highly personal choice and in no way reflects the true merit of any film.Continue reading “Top 10 Bollywood Films of 2015”

Bollywood Movies 2015: The Year End List

2015 was arguably a good year for Hindi Cinema. Though there might not have been any landmark movies, but there were many brave attempts and I am sure a few of them will live long enough to be discussed on forums like these.One can never possibly compile the year’s best list. A movie, like love, is an extremely subjective experience. So I won’t say this is my list of year’s best films,but rather list of 10 films that engaged me sufficiently and a few of them left an impact deep enough to mull over them for days in a row.Continue reading “Bollywood Movies 2015: The Year End List”

Box Office: Why Should Bollywood be Wary of Its American Big Brother

Hardly a week back, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra threw a bash in Mumbai to celebrate PK’s unprecedented success in China – an unconventional and largely untapped territory for Hindi films. The event was attended by a visibly beefed up Aamir Khan, Anushka Sharma and other cast and crew of the film. Around the same time, in the same bustling and humid Mumbai, the members of the fabled Bhatt Camp were huddling and wondering what exactly went wrong with their ambitious Hamari Adhuri Kahani. Like they say, every Friday fortunes fluctuate in Mumbai and few would know it better than the Bhatt brothers – Mahesh and Mukesh – who produced the Emraan Hashmi-Vidya Balan starrer. So while PK has taken Bollywood to dizzying new heights (in terms of business) by grossing over a staggering 100 crores in China, back home in India, things do not look so bright for a film that’s backed by one of the most reliable and profitable film production houses.Continue reading “Box Office: Why Should Bollywood be Wary of Its American Big Brother”

Box-Office Analysis: Lessons from TWMR and Piku Success Stories

The Hindi film industry can’t hide its excitement. Almost like a young girl going out on her first official date with her childhood crush. The buzz in Mumbai is that ‘Acche Din’ are finally here and there’s now no looking back at what has been a disastrous, to put it in polite words, first few months of 2015 at the box office. With not a single ‘Super Hit’, forget about Blockbusters, and hardly a couple of clean ‘Hits’ in the Jan-May period, the industry was clearly looking down the barrel in terms of business and revenue. But, with Tanu Weds Manu Returns (TWMR) getting a phenomenal response from the audiences all across the country, we are all set to witness the first Blockbuster of 2015. Yes, you read it right. That elusive blockbuster is finally off the block!Continue reading “Box-Office Analysis: Lessons from TWMR and Piku Success Stories”

Piku Movie Review: “Bhaskar nahi, Bhaskor!”

Recently, I’ve been playing this game on facebook – in which I say my favourite thing about the people who ask me to. It is lovely, emotionally draining and cathartic. More relevantly, though, it has become a parade of me asking myself, why am I sad I’m not this person? Why can I not even conceivably be this person? And that is usually my favourite thing about that person; this is not an accident – Elementary‘s Sherlock Holmes agrees with me:

one of the things I’ve gained from our collaboration is a working definition of the word “friendship.” Friendship, I’ve come to believe, is most accurately defined as two people moving towards the best aspects of one another.

Not long after I played this game (well, began playing this game; I still have two people left), I was watching Shoojit Sircar and Juhi Chaturvedi’s Piku.Continue reading “Piku Movie Review: “Bhaskar nahi, Bhaskor!””

Piku Movie Review: ‘Motion Se Hi Emotion’ an Honest Tagline for an Honest Film

Imagine you are on a date with someone, perhaps this is your first date with him/her and unfortunately you go on to discuss things related to excretion and bowel movements due to some unavoidable reason right in front of the person. How do you think the date would work out? In Shoojit Sircar’s Piku there’s a scene when Piku (Deepika Padukone) meets a guy (Akshay Oberoi) on a date and later leaves the place frustrated along with her friend and business partner, Syed Afroze (Jisshu Sengupta). Piku confides in Syed that she didn’t like the guy whom she met for dinner and states reasons like he doesn’t watch Satyajit Ray films 🙂 etc to support her decision, while Syed only asks her one question-did she talk to her dad while her date was on? You will need to watch the film to understand why such a simple scene like this clearly conveys the crux of the tale so wonderfully.Continue reading “Piku Movie Review: ‘Motion Se Hi Emotion’ an Honest Tagline for an Honest Film”

Piku: A Quick Review

Piku PosterJust like the name is an esoteric movie. You can narrate its story in a moment as it doesn’t have a ‘definitive storyline’. Yet its story is the daily life of its characters- Dee’piku’, her constipated father -Bhaskor Banerjee (played by  Big B) and the taxi owner Rana Chowdhury effortlessly enacted by Irrfan Khan.Continue reading “Piku: A Quick Review”