News

Subhash K Jha profiles the brilliant career of the late Manoj Kumar in this special feature celebrating his birth anniversary.

The little boy in Abbottabad in the North-West Frontier province saw Dilip Kumar in a film called Jugnu. Then and there, little Manoj Goswami decided he wanted to be a film actor. Many years later, when Manoj was a handsome young man, eeking out a living with his large family in Delhi, a cousin, Lekhraj Bhakri, who was also a filmmaker, suggested that Manoj try his luck in films.

Manoj left Delhi for Mumbai in 1955. He got his first break one year later in a bit role for a film called Gangu Teli. The director Homi Sethna was so happy with the debutant’s work that he paid him Rs 1,000 extra. In his cousin Bhakri’s film Fashion, Manoj played a walk-on part of a beggar. He was only 19.

H.

Nargis Dutt, who sadly passed away in 1981, was loved reel and in real. Subhash K Jha celebrates the actress in this very special feature.

Nargis was in her 20s when she played her future husband Sunil Dutt’s 70-year-old mother in Mehboob Khan’s magnum opus Mother India, an epic tale of Good Son, Bad Son and Conflicted Mother with Nargis in a performance that defined dramatic acting for all times to come.

Later on, Nargis was to confess she never thought the film would become synonymous with her career. She did other female-oriented films like Lajwanti and Raat Aur Din. But everywhere she went, she was hailed as Mother India.

Nargis Dutt was a very strong woman. She had the inner strength to walk out of a relationship with Raj Kapoor when she saw no future, no marriage, in it. Within months of the breakup, she met and fell...

There has been years of speculation in the social media whether Karan Johar is related to I S Johar whose birth anniversary falls on February 16.

Now it can be told: yes, Indra Sen Johar was Karan Johar’s uncle.

When I narrate a quote that the iconoclastic, irreverent tongue-in-shriek, rabble-rouser of the 1960s, gave to The Sunday magazine to Karan Johar, he laughs, “Yes, that was I S Johar, shockingly irreverent and ahead of his times. He wasn’t afraid of speaking his mind. He did some really cool stuff in his time. And yes, we are related. He is my father’s second cousin. I never got to meet him in person. He passed away when I was just a child. But as I grew older I heard stories about him. He was quite an enfant terrible.”

The most notorious story about I.S Johar is the one about an...

I noticed something curious. Director Siddharth Anand of the film ‘Fighter’ says that his film flopped because 90% of Indian moviegoers have never sat in an airplane! I was amazed, amused, but, most of all, I was worried. Worried, because this is how the maker of a Rs 400-crore film thinks!

My mind instantly went back to Shakti Samanta’s ‘An Evening In Paris’ (1967), where a bikini-clad Sharmila Tagore is sea skiing as Shammi Kapoor courts her hanging from a helicopter. After learning what Malhotra had said to explain why his film had failed, I wondered how many people hang from a helicopter to court a woman! I don’t know anybody who has done such a thing and still, ‘An Evening In Paris’ was a major hit! I can cite hundreds of such examples.

Of course, the audience must first identify with the subject of a film. The other factor...

Shukranu movie review is here. Produced by Reliance Entertainment and Sweta Agnihotri , the humorous take on sterilization premieres on ZEE5 from February 14, 2020. Directed by Bishnu Dev Halder, the movie stars Divyenndu Sharma, Shweta Basu Prasad and Sheetal Thakur in lead roles. So does the movie ?delivers?? Let?s find out in the movie review of Shukranu.

Immediate reaction when the end credits roll

This is something uniquely quirky that can make Shoojit Sircar (director of Vicky Donor) and the legendary actor, writer, producer and director late I.S. Johar smile with pride. To know why?. Please read on.??

What is Shukranu?

Shukranu bole toh, matlab, it means sperm.

The Story of Shukranu

Set during the emergency, Shukranu is the story of (Inder) Divyenndu Sharma who is forced to undergo sterilization just two days before his marriage with Reema (Shweta Basu Prasad). The incident haunts him and prevents Inder to get close his newlywed wife.

Alec Guinness: Before Obi-Wan Kenobi, there were the eight D’Ascoyne family members (photo: Alec Guiness, Dennis Price in ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’) (See previous post: “Alec Guinness Movies: Pre-Star Wars Career.”) TCM won’t be showing The Bridge on the River Kwai on Alec Guinness day, though obviously not because the cable network programmers believe that one four-hour David Lean epic per day should be enough. After all, prior to Lawrence of Arabia TCM will be presenting the three-and-a-half-hour-long Doctor Zhivago (1965), a great-looking but never-ending romantic drama in which Guinness — quite poorly — plays a Kgb official. He’s slightly less miscast as a mere Englishman — one much too young for the then 32-year-old actor — in Lean’s Great Expectations (1946), a movie that fully belongs to boy-loving (in a chaste, fatherly manner) fugitive Finlay Currie. And finally, make sure to watch Robert Hamer’s dark comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets...

“I always believe that my films should give some hope to the man who comes to watch them for those three hours. If he goes home on an optimistic note, I would feel satisfied at having done my duty.” – Yash Chopra

It was indeed a sad day when news spread that one of India’s finest filmmakers, Mr. Yash Chopra, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 80. Mr. Chopra is an undisputable legend and he has crafted some of the finest commercial films the Bollywood audiences have ever feasted their eyes upon. If Satyajit Ray is considered by Indian film enthusiasts to be the supreme director when it comes to art-house cinema, Yash Chopra can be classified as the definitive director when it comes to mainstream cinema. Yash Chopra is largely famous for making wonderful romantic films, though he has directed a handful of non-romantic films also. Yet no director...

The very moment one hears the evergreen track 'Bade Miyaan Deewane', one is instantly reminded of the impeccable pairing of I.S. Johar and with the yesteryear heartthrob Joy Mukherjee. News is that Joy has now been suffering from respiratory problems of late and has been admitted at the Lilavati Hospital since the last few months. Talking about his condition, Dr. P Prabhudesai from Lilavati Hospital said that the veteran star is on ventilator and under observation. Reports also have it that the ageing star had a mild septicemia with renal failure and respiratory problems when he was brought to the hospital few months ago. The present day condition is that the 'then slim and trim' Joy now weighs a whopping 115 Kg, as he suffers from obesity, for which the doctors had asked him to lose weight. Very few people know that Joy, who debuted in films with Love In Simla...