«
»

Movies That I remembered




Here are some of the movies which I remember liking and staying with me ( I was born in late sixties)-

In the seventies-
1. Amar Akbar Anthony
2. Roti Kapda aur Makaan
3.Hum Kisi se Kam nahin
4.Maa
5. Haathi mere Saathi
6.Sholay


In the 80’s I remember liking the following-
1.Kranti
2.Qurbani
3.Sharabi
4.Dostana
5.Naseeb
6.Saagar
7.Karma
8.Razia Sultaan
9Junoon
10.Nayakan

In the Nineties
1.Darr
2.Aakhiri Raasta
3.Saajan
4.Raja Hindustani
5.MPK
6.HAHK

This entry was posted on December 1, 2010 at 10:32 AM and is filed under Refugee. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

49 Responses to “Movies That I remembered”

  1. rajen Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 12:50 PM

    Good list, Rocky.
    I guess in the last decade it would have to be RNBDJ for you!
    BTW,which Maa is this from the seventies?

    Like

    Reply
  2. Satyam Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 12:54 PM

    Hope one of the images here pleases you Rocky!

    Like

    Reply
    • rajen Says:
      December 1, 2010 at 1:14 PM

      It should. He has always been a big Manoj fan!
      The second image should be good for Saket and help him thru his male climacteric. Third image is obviously for me.

      Like

      Reply
    • Rocky Says:
      December 1, 2010 at 2:11 PM

      LOL !!!
      In fact I was watching RKM’s songs last night which triggered this post !!

      easiest way to get out of household work is to say- main bachhchon ka sambhaal raha hoon, and then sit with all of them in front of the TV !! LOL

      Like

      Reply
  3. Satyam Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 12:55 PM

    By the way do you mean Nayakan or Dayavan?

    Like

    Reply
    • Rocky Says:
      December 1, 2010 at 2:12 PM

      Nayakan, saw it at a Film festival ( free paas so why not kind of thing) in Delhi and was bowled over it.

      Like

      Reply
    • Rocky Says:
      December 1, 2010 at 2:32 PM

      that is how I saw ” Paar” and never went back to a film festival screening since then. LOL!!

      Like

      Reply
      • Saket Says:
        December 1, 2010 at 4:02 PM

        I saw Paar on Doordarshan. As a kid I couldn’t make head or tail of it but my parents couldn’t stop raving about the film and Naseer’s performance in it. Only much later, in terms of movie watching experience, could I appreciate the visceral punch that Naseer packed in that film…

        Like

        Reply
    • Rocky Says:
      December 1, 2010 at 2:36 PM

      From the Peepli Live special features – they wanted Naseer to play the role of the farmer who was digging a ditch thruout the movie, ( recreating “Paar”) Naseer agreed and started to lose weight byt then they found the right guy and had Naseer play the other role.

      Like

      Reply
  4. Satyam Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 1:12 PM

    Speaking of films from the 70s I am pretty confident no one has seen this one:

    !!!

    Like

    Reply
  5. Rocky Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 2:14 PM

    I am sure , I am missing many eg.- “Roti ” (rajesh khanna) used to be my fav.

    Like

    Reply
  6. Saket Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 3:58 PM

    Can everyone post their year-end top 10s already? Hindi+English+European would do!

    I need to seriously watch some movies and compile my own top 10!

    This is how my watch list reads at the moment:

    1) Udaan
    2) Rakth Charitra I

    Like

    Reply
    • GF Says:
      December 1, 2010 at 4:46 PM

      Have a couple movies I want to see (Peepli, KHJJS and Rakht Charitra 2) before I make a list but the two best movies of the year for me are Raavan and Ishqiya.

      Like

      Reply
      • GF Says:
        December 1, 2010 at 4:49 PM

        Make that three with Udaan.

        Like

        Reply
      • Saket Says:
        December 1, 2010 at 4:54 PM

        Ishqiya is pretty good. Didn’t think much of Raavan. I wouldn’t call it a fault per se, but for me, the film was emotionally distancing. And uneven with songs sticking out like a sore thumb. I say this in general with ‘Thok De Killi’ being the biggest culprit in this regard…

        Like

        Reply
        • GF Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:05 PM

          I think part of the problem (and I’m not necessarily blaming you for this perspective, but I tend to hear more of this complaint these days and it doesn’t always resonate with me) is that the modern film culture in Hindi has an increasing tendency (part of a larger movement towards a loss of the cinema culture’s basic identity) to use songs as a background element, or if not this then as an MTV-inflected item song designed to titillate with no sense of thematic or narrative attention. I think Ratnam tends to lean more on the former (that is thematic attention) rather than the latter—the songs may not consistently work to advance the narrative but they always, always extend thematic concerns in a vital and engrossing way. The problem is that the “song” no longer matters as much in a film culture that is less and less interested in what makes it distinctive and seems more focused on either playing to a wider international audience (with all the concessions and changes therein) and because filmmakers here are increasingly informed and influenced by the way music is used in other cinema cultures. The result is that when a filmmaker (like Ratnam or Santoshi) does a song in a traditional vein, it starts to look like an aberration or an unnecessary contrivance, shoehorned into the narrative as a prop rather than an artful stroke.

          Like

        • Satyam Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:09 PM

          very well summed up…

          Like

        • sm Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:30 PM

          The irony is that the “wider international audience” is only attracted to Indian films for their distinctive song and dance aspects, and is getting more and more disenchanted with the Hollywood clone aspect of “modern” Bollywood films. I’ve always wondered about why Indian film makers are going down this road. Even from a purely business point of view, it makes no sense, since the way to attract new customers is to offer them something they’re not already getting in their market, not offer them inferior copies.

          Like

        • Satyam Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:45 PM

          agreed completely.. but again there is ideological overdetermination here.. even if there are a 100 Dabanggs or Ghajinis or what have you Johar will still keep producing IHLS! He’s just the worst symptom here but the others are not too dissimilar. Take Farhan Akhtar. From a production like Game to his own directorial efforts in Don and the sequel he’s just interested in doing Hollywood-style hi-tech/glitzy stuff. The examples could be multiplied but these directors don’t consider Dabangg or Ghajini as instructive models. Even if they had to someday do this sort of thing it would be for very cynical reasons or if they were really pressurized into doing so. Johar is now producing Agneepath, a film which already moves away from the traditional masala aesthetic and incorporates a more ‘auteurist’ approach to the genre. And yet we see what’s happening with this with all the casting decisions. The ideology is again writ large. The original villain of the film, this suave, sophisticated guy contrasts with Vijay’s crude, monstrous, even over the top ‘elemental’ self. Johar switches it around. Now it’s Hrithik who offers ‘class’ in this subject whereas Dutt will do his downmarket fare (what he’s done many times before). These filmmakers really see everything through the prism of their class and do not mind re-ordering not just the Bollywood past through this lens but also are quite happy to start off with a smaller share of the box office pie to advance these ends.

          Like

        • Satyam Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:37 PM

          the fundamental fact here is that songs work in a certain way in Hindi films. But directors today see no distinction between the film song as it was traditionally used, the Hollywood musical (which is basically the Broadway format on screen), the score as it is used in Hollywood (with snippets of songs and so on), and finally the whole MTV aesthetic. As a result we see music that is usually not even designed to be in a film. It becomes part of an ad campaign for the film and the songs are then ‘snuck’ into the film somewhere. Sometimes even the biggest seller on a soundtrack is part of only the title credits on a film or some such thing (Dus is a good example of this). The directors just don’t know what to do with the music. And to the extent that their films are increasingly inspired by Hollywood formats it is that much harder for them to do so. This is just another symptom of the erosion of the Bombay film past. One sometimes objects to obvious remakes and clones and what not but Bollywood by and large is today a ‘clone’ of Hollywood in terms of its genres, formats, filmmaking styles and so on. Very film films are exceptions to this rule. And even the films one otherwise likes still owe something to Hollywood codes. Total exceptions to all of this are extremely rare. For example I have criticized Dabangg for not being cathartic enough for its format. But it’s not just adopting a perspective of ‘ironic distancing’ with respect to the masala past. This very mode comes about because one is probably well versed in certain Hollywood schools.

          Like

        • Saket Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:50 PM

          The use of songs, their placement in a given context and their use are all valid points. I’m not debating that for a second. I’m actually questioning Rathnam’s use of songs in Raavan. And he actually uses songs in the background as well.

          What I am talking about is the relative misplacemnt of songs, which either results in breaking the flow of the story or appears to be there for embellishment. I find that to be the case in Raavan. The most common complaint about Raavan is that it’s ‘uneven’. Well, I’m trying to point out one reason why it’s percieved as uneven.

          Like

        • sm Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:55 PM

          Satyam, I agree with everything you have said on songs and Hindi films, but I really differ with you in your interpretation of Dabangg. I guess I’ll have to write that second review that Rooney keeps bugging me about! 🙂 (On Dabangg the problem that I see in your view is that you insist on thinking of “masala” in a very rigid way, and think anything that doesn’t fit that box is not “true” masala. I didn’t think there was any “ironical distancing” at all in Dabangg; in fact I detected no irony whatsoever, but a straight forward story about a main character. The only “masala-like” moment, in the sense of being over the top, was the final fight, that was obviously put in for audience appeal.)

          Like

        • Satyam Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 6:12 PM

          The ironic distancing as I see it is evident in Kashyap’s approach here and Salman’s entire persona speaks to this. He even laughs a couple of times at his own outlandish lines! The director’s perspective here is essentially that of someone who loves masala but who also thinks it ought not to be taken too seriously. This ‘view’ is foreign to the tradition. It’s like doing a take on the Iliad that urges us not to take Achilles too seriously! Desai in many ways had already rendered masala ‘comedic’ in his time but he nonetheless took the ‘wagers’ of this genre (or supergenre) very seriously. The point I’m trying to make is that masala draws on the reserves of an epic tradition. What we often see these days (and certainly with Dabangg) is the mock-epic. Which too would be a valid approach except that I don’t see the ‘thought’ behind this. It seems to reflect more an attitude at best or a nod to the times at worst. This is not for example the Coen Bros doing the Odyssey in O Brother Where Art Thou? I am not in any case against ‘ironic distance’ as a mode but it should serve a purpose. Too often today it seems to be a compromise made with the audience. It’s not about having a rigid definition of masala at all but being clear about what the stakes of the genre are. I’ve called it a supergenre in the past precisely because it was a fairly elastic set of film codes. If one considers some of the major directors of that period one would note extraordinary distinctions. Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai were a world apart!

          Incidentally the Dabangg move is also not wholly foreign to contemporary Southern masala. Mahesh Babu’s cinema for example is premised on placing his somewhat impish persona in the masala universe and then working off this mismatch. There is a certain tongue-in-cheek approach with some other stars and their films too. But they still do straight (even uninspiring masala) and even within the modes I have just described (Mahesh babu’s for example) the stakes are nonetheless serious by the time one gets to the end. Dabangg on the other hand is a film in a hurry to just get ‘to’ the end!

          And no I don’t define masala rigidly at all. If anything there were many varieties of masala on display in the 70s. But

          Like

        • Satyam Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:14 PM

          I didn’t have a problem with Raavan in this sense though the songs were badly handled in D6, especially surprising coming from the director RDB.

          Like

        • Saket Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 5:53 PM

          You are talking about the film that has Dil Gira Dafatan in it….

          Like

        • munna Says:
          December 1, 2010 at 6:26 PM

          Rehna Tu..

          Like

  7. Saket Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 6:15 PM

    On songs and their placement, I’m actually a big fan of all the songs in Yuva. Rathnam’s a genius when it comes to song picturization — Pachai Nirame from Alai Payuthey is another great example.

    Having said that, I was not so enthused with the songs in Raavan. First off, a song like Thok De Killi isn’t a great musical number, IMO. Second its picturization is decidedly mediocre by Rathnam’s standards.

    I’m not a big fan of Guru’s music either (save for 2 songs, I can’t really recall any other song with affection) but the dramatic thrust in the film was good enough to overcome minor objections.

    Raavan definitely picks up some pace in the second half. It’s not a bad film by any means. There’s no justification in calling it Mani Rathnam Ki Aag — that’s atrocious. But it’s also not a consistently engaging film. Not in the traditional sense anyway. Now one can argue that this (Raavan) is the way cinema is supposed to be made. That’s a different argument. My point is that the subject of ‘Raavan’ is primarily about the subversion of the Ramayan text. And in telling that story, the film fails to consistently engage…on account of some curious choices.

    Like

    Reply
    • Saket Says:
      December 1, 2010 at 6:30 PM

      I’m saying this as part of the audience who actually respects Rathnam a lot! I do get that the choices employed in the film are deliberate. I just don’t agree with them. As a film, it definitely didn’t deserve the kind of treatment it received in the end. Coming from Rathnam, it’s a disappointment though. Perhaps my views will change with the course of time but at the moment I find it hard to even call it a “good” film.

      Like

      Reply
  8. rajen Says:
    December 1, 2010 at 6:51 PM

    I watched Raavan after all the noise had ended and liked it quite a bit. More than D6. But, was easy to see why it got the kind of reception it did.
    Both, Rathnanm and Abhi must have been kiddin themselves if they thought for a moment that there was any BO potental here.

    Like

    Reply
  9. Rocky Says:
    December 2, 2010 at 11:30 AM

    Other notable mentions that I remember watching / talking about are ( and I am avoiding Bachchan’s movies because those are a given)
    Toofan ( Vikram one)
    Hatim Tai
    The Blue Lagoon
    Enter the Dragon
    Prem Shastra ( Dev Aanand)
    Abdullha ( Zeenat -for obvious reasons)

    Like

    Reply
  10. Rocky Says:
    December 2, 2010 at 11:33 AM

    I don’t know how folks from ” Zindagai Na Mile Doobara ” got my email id , but they want me to join facebook so that I can connect with ZNMD!! odd !!!

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.