Monika’s Pensieve

{FILM DIARY}
Chori Chori (India, 2003)
Seen: Tuesday, 18th November (DVD)
Runtime: 135′
Release Date: August 2003 in India and sometime this year in Poland on DVD
Director: Milan Luthria
Cast: Rani Mukherji, Ajay Devgan, Sonali Bendre
Plot: Ranbir gets sort of dumped by Pooja, a girl he proposed to (or rather he didn’t, he just assumed she would want to marry [...]

{FILM DIARY}
Entre les murs (France, 2008)
Seen: Monday, 10th November (cinema)
Runtime: 128′
Release Date: 24th October in Poland, September in France and October in most of Europe (USA as usual does not like French films and will only have a limited release in January ;-P)
Polish Distributor: SPInka
Director: Laurent Cantet
Cast: François Bégaudeau
Production House: Haut et Court
Plot: (from imdb)
Teacher [...]

{FILM DIARY}
Hulchul (India, 2004)
Seen: Friday night (7th November 2008)
Runtime: 167′
Release Date: November 2004 in India & probably around a year ago in Poland on DVD - I’m not sure
Polish Distributor: Epelpol
Director: Priyadarshan
Cast: Kareena Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna, Amrish Puri, Jackie Shroff
Production House: Venus Records & Tapes
Plot: Two people who hate each other (and whose families [...]

{FILM SPOTTING}
Heaven On Earth (Canada, 2008)
Polish Distributor: None as of yet
Director: Deepa Mehta
Cast: Preity Zinta, Vansh Bharadwaj
Plot: (from nowrunning.com)
Set in the Toronto suburb of Brampton, “Heaven in Earth” is the story of a Ludhiana girl Chand (Preity Zinta) who moves here after marrying Rocky Grewal (Vansh Bhardwaj) only to find herself locked in a loveless [...]

It was Shahrukh Khan’s 43rd birthday a few days ago and so there’s been a lot of media coverage in India about that, with even the producers of his next film using his birthday to promote the film (the first promo video was released - that’ll probably be posted sometime later on my blog :)). [...]

{FILM SPOTTING}
The Last Lear (India, 2008)
Polish Distributor: None as of yet, worldwide release was in September 2008
Director: Rituparno Ghosh
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal
Production House: Planman Motion Pictures
Plot: (from imdb)
An aging Shakespearean actor takes on one of the bard’s most challenging roles.
Trailer

Why it might be worth seeing
The main reason I guess is Amitabh Bachchan [...]

{FILM SPOTTING}
Slumdog Millionaire (UK/France, 2008)
Polish Distributor: Monolith Films (27th February 2009)
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Dev Patel, Irfan Khan, Anil Kapoor
Production House: Celador Films
Plot: (from imdb)
The story of how impoverished Indian teen Jamal Malik became a contestant on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to be A Millionaire?” — an endeavor made without prize money in mind, [...]

{FILM SPOTTING}
As usual I’ve got too many things saved with the intention to write about them later and a lot of these seem to be ideas for “film spotting” posts. I figured these shouldn’t be that difficult to clear up, so you can probably expect a lot of “film spotting” in the coming days :) [...]

You may remember I once wrote about the nationalist tendencies in Mumbai. At the end I asked who will be targeted next and now we know :] It’s not any particular Bollywood star or even Bollywood itself… This time it’s the Bhojpuri film industry.
The Indian film industry is unlike any other in the world in [...]

Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population in the world. Surprisingly enough, until now pornography has been very easily available in the country. Here’s a quote from a BBC article:
“These are Indonesian magazines,” Mr Kaplale said, spreading a selection of pornographic tabloids across the table.
“It is terrible, our poor country. We are a religious people but [...]