Farooq Sheikh passes away of heart attack

Veteran actor Farooq Sheikh, noted for his contributions to Parallel cinema in 1970's and 80's, is no more. The actor died of heart attack late Friday night in a hospital in Dubai. He was 65. His body has now reached Mumbai after completing all the formalities.

 

Whole Bollywood industry is under trauma after being heard of legendry actor's death. Actress Shabama Azmi expressed her grief on the disheartening news, "He was a very fine actor and a very dear friend. His death is a big loss." Actor Om Puri also stated, "It is a very tragic and shocking news. He was a very pleasant and non controversial personality." Lyrisist Javed Aktar commented on his death, "He was an avid reader and we discussed about books whenever we met."

 

Farooq born on March 25, 1948 and stepped into cinema with Garam Hawa in 1973. His rememberable flicks include Chashme Buddoor, Saath Saath and many more. He worked in many recent flicks like Shanghai, Tell Me O Khuda etc. In Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Farooq essayed Ranbir Kapoor's father's role Thapar. He was on two upcoming project Club 60 and Listen... Amaya. The award-winning actor also glammed the small screen with his most watched serial Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai.

Read more »

Star Wars Episode 7

JJ Abram's directorial Star Wars Episode 7, is set to release next year.

With its tradition of releasing in the summer, episode 7 too will follow the same, claiming the rumours of the film being postponed for Christmas release, as false.

This space opera film will likely see Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher from Episodes IV, V, and VI.

Guess the fans will have to continue craving for the film, until official announcements are made.

Read more »

sholay 3D

 The much-awaited 3D version of epic film “Sholay”, set to release Jan 3, has been made on a budget of approximately Rs.20 crore, which includes restoration and conversion, says producer Sascha Sippy.

Sascha is the grandson of late filmmaker G.P. Sippy, who had originally produced Amitabh Bachchan-Dharmendra starrer “Sholay”, directed by his son Ramesh Sippy.

“It took two years to make ‘Sholay’ and three years to restore and convert it into 3D. As far as the budget is concerned, it is close to Rs.20 crore to Rs.22 crore, which also includes the marketing and publicity of the film besides restoration and conversion costs,” Sascha told IANS.

The original “Sholay” was reportedly made on a Rs.4 crore budget.

“We had this idea for a very long time as there is a great respect for the movie and we wanted the new generation to watch it. We started working on it 3 years back. We thought converting it in 3D was a phenomenal idea,” Sascha added.

Read more »

Nosferatu

                                                   

                                                                           Nosferatu

As a special Halloween treat, this newly restored version of one of silent cinema’s undisputed classics –Nosferatu – receives a theatrical release as part of Eureka’s award-winning The Masters Of Cinema series, and as part of the BFI’s Gothic Season.

Filmed in 1921 by legendary director W.F. Murnau(Sunrise, Faust, and Tabu), the German expressionist horror Nosferatu - A Symphony Of Horror is the first screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, albeit an unauthorized one, since the studio could not obtain the rights. Hence, the main action takes place in the fictional town of Wisborg (filmed in Wismar and Lübeck), in the year 1838. Additional scenes were shot in Slovakia (substituting for Transylvania), and JOFA film studios in Berlin.

While the main characters from Stoker’s novel remain, (though obviously with German names), other characters, like Arthur Holmwood, Quincy Morris, and the three vampire brides, had been scrapped altogether. 
For example, Mina Harker here is Ellen Hutter (Greta Schröder), while Jonathan Harker is Thomas Hutter (portrayed by Gustav von Wangenheim). Mad Renfield has his name changed to Knock, and actor Alexander Granach plays him with a perfect mixture or utter repulsion and troll-like mischief. 

The most prominent change, however, is that of the film’s title character – no longer Dracula in Murnau’s silent classic, but Count Orlok instead. Berlin-born stage actor Max Schreck (Schreck means ‘terror’ and ‘fear’ in German) delivers an unparalleled performance as the tall and cadaverous looking bloodsucker, whose pointy ears and sharp teeth resemble a terrifying combination of a skull and a bat’s head. Equally unnerving are the count’s elongated fingers and fingernails, more like talons really. 
Schreck’s ‘Count Orlok’ obviously provided the visual inspiration for Reggie Nalder’s vampire character ‘Kurt Barlow’ in the 1974 Stephen King adaptationSalem’s Lot. There is nothing even remotely romantic or seductive about Count Orlok, and the famous scene in which we see his shadow climbing up a staircase has influenced numerous expressionist and film-noir style movies!

The story starts with Ellen Hutter, who is troubled by melancholia and sleepwalking, affectionately petting a cat, and then embracing her beloved husband. The idyllic scenario soon is clouded however, when it emerges that Thomas Hutter, an estate agent, has been commissioned by none other than Knock to set off to Transylvania and set up a contract with Count Orlok, a client who wishes to purchase property in Wisborg. In fact, the property happens to be almost opposite from the Hutter home. Leaving his beloved Ellen in the care of his friend Harding and sister Anne, Hutter embarks on the long journey into the unknown. During a stay in an inn, the locals warn Hutter of Orlok’s castle in the Carpathians, while the following day, the coach drivers refuse to take him any further than to a bridge. Laughing off the superstitious beliefs of the locals, Hutter takes his bag and continues his journey by foot. 
“And when he had crossed the bridge, the phantoms came to meet him.”
In this case, a disguised Count Orlok and his phantom coach come to meet him, taking him to the castle. This particular scene feels odd, because the sequence is filmed in fast motion, whereas modern audiences will agree that a coach rolling along filmed in slow motion as much more eerie! 
At the castle, not much time is wasted to unfold the terror awaiting Hutter. Forget about seductive vampire brides or creepy servants. The Count dishes up dinner himself and studies the contract, while his guest heartily tucks into his meal. It’s only when his cuts himself while slicing bread that he realises his host seems more than a little strange. Unnerved, he reclines for the night and reading a book which the concerned people at the inn gave him. Legends of Nosferatu, the ‘bird of death’, seem to come true when Hutter is bitten that very night…

Meanwhile, Count Orlok leaves with several coffins, shipped down river by gypsies on a raft before they are loaded onto a schooner set for Germany. By the time the schooner arrives at the destination, captain and crew are dead, apparent victims of the plague. No one suspects the presence of pure evil in the shape of Orlok has arrived with the ship. The rest of the story isn’t too far removed from the Dracula story, with the vital difference that in Nosferatu it’s not only the vampire who comes to an end, but also the female heroine – Ellen Hutter – who sacrifices herself to save her husband and the town. 
Despite various deviations from the original source, the screenplay by Henrik Galeen (The Golem, The Student Of Prague) delivers a feel of unsettling and claustrophobic terror. It remains a classic of its genre – spawning a 1979 remake by director Werner Herzog (with Klaus Kinski in the title role), as well as inspiring the movie Shadow Of The Vampire (2000), in which Willem Dafoe takes on the role of the bloodsucker.

Expertly restored by the world-renowned Friedrich-Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung, Nosferatu promises to frighten and thrill on a grand scale, and with a score to match!

Read more »

New York

                                                       New York

New York is a 2009 Bollywood thriller film directed by Kabir Khan, produced by Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films, and screenplay by Sandeep Srivastava. Visual effects are by Visual Computing Labs, Tata Elxsi Ltd. It stars John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Irrfan Khan. New York begins in 1999, ends in 2008, and tells the story of three students studying at the fictional New York State University whose lives are New York begins in the United States in 2008, with the arrest by the FBI of Omar Aijaz (Neil Nitin Mukesh) after guns were found in the trunk of a taxi cab he owned. Omar, a young Muslim man originally from Delhi, is then taken into custody and interrogated by FBI Agent Roshan (Irrfan Khan) (also a Muslim man originally from South Asia who has been living in the United States for twenty years). Omar then discovers that he was set up by theFBI in order to force him to spy on a former college friend, Samir Shaikh (John Abraham), whom he hasn't seen in seven years and who the FBI believes is a terrorist. In the process, Omar discovers that Sam has married Maya (Katrina Kaif) (whom Omar had a crush on in university and another friend) and finds out that Samir and Maya have a young son, Danyal (Aidan Wagner).

Roshan orders Omar to tell him everything he knows about Samir. The film then flashes back to September 1999, when Omar begins his studies at (the fictional) New York State University. He is befriended by his international student counselor Maya and learns that though she was born and raised in New York, she is fluent in Hindibecause of her mother's interest in Bollywood films. Omar also meets Sam, another Indian American who is also Muslim and fluent in Hindi due to the fact that his father is a professor of Indian studies. Over the next two years, all three become inseparable friends and gradually Omar falls in love with Maya. When Omar realises that she loves Sam, however, he distances himself from them both. Their carefree days finally end with the onset of 9/11.

After finishing his story, Omar agrees to help Roshan (rather reluctantly), if only to prove that both he and Sam are innocent. He reunites with Maya and Sam and stays in their house, all the while spying for the FBI. Omar learns that Maya is a civil rights activist who is helping one of Sam's employees, Zilgai (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) overcome his experience as a former 9/11 detainee. Zilgai was eventually released due to lack of evidence and has been having difficulty adjusting back to "normal" life.

As time progresses, Omar feels satisfied that he can find nothing to warrant the FBI's suspicions and is ready to leave when a series of events forces him to reconsider. In the process, Omar learns from Sam that ten days after 9/11, Sam was arrested and detained for a period of nine months as a suspected terrorist, a charge which everyone, including the FBI and Roshan, now agree was incorrect. Though he was eventually released due to lack of evidence, the impact of being detained and tortured permanently changed Sam in ways which are difficult for those surrounding him to understand, leaving him with feelings of deep resentment towards the FBI. Omar thus finds that Sam ultimately resorted to plans for terrorism as a means of revenge.

In addition, Maya is unable to help Zilgai resolve the trauma of being a detainee. After a routine traffic stop escalates and an NYPD police officer gives Maya a very rough full-body search, Zilgai becomes agitated. He drops Maya at her home and eventually kills the police officer the same night. After being declared a fugitive, Zilgai leads the police on a long chase ultimately ending in his suicide.

The climax of the film rests upon the attempts of Maya, Omar, and Roshan to prevent Sam from committing an act of terrorism by telling him that if he perpetuates towards terrorism, others will suffer as he has. Finally convinced, Sam surrenders and aborts his attempt to bomb the FBI building. However, the moment he drops his cell-phone (which was originally intended as a detonator for the bomb) he is shot and killed by FBI snipers. The cell phone falls benign to the ground without activating anything. Maya, who was running toward Sam, is also killed by stray gunfire and Omar, bereft of speech, breaks down. Six months later, he is later comforted by Roshan who explains to him that; everybody was right in their place, but the timing was wrong. As for Sam, the path he chose killed him. Everybody has moved on after 9/11, as its high time. Omar has adopted Danyal, and Roshan has received commendation for aiding in the anti-terrorism cause. They reconcile each other. The film ends with all three of them going out for pasta and a side note describing the after effects of 9/11.changed by9/11 and its aftermath.

Read more »