If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or email alerts. Thanks for visiting!
Indian Express is right in lamenting the fact that Bollywood has completely taken over the 35th International Film Festival of India. Although Bollywood is only a part of the large Indian film industry, the proportion of quality movies from its stables hardly reflects that fact. For example, this year only the following movies caught my attention amongst the slew of skin flicks:
- Ab Tak Chhapan
- Maqbool
- Ek Hasina Thi
- Lakshya
- Phir Milenge
I am hopeful about Swades but will keep it off the list until I see it and I haven’t seen Veer Zaara yet. What movies caught your attention this year?
by Patrix | on Sunday, December 5th, 2004 at 11:40 pm | 
Movies . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
December 6th, 2004 at 4:13 am reply
Maqbool
Naach
Ek Hasina Thi
Phir Milenge (this movie bombed bigtime)
haven’t seen Veer Zaara, but am certain that its not IFFI material (i swear by King Khan by the way. and even then) if we leave aside the crossborder love affair bit. although Swadesh does look like it has potential.
December 6th, 2004 at 4:38 am reply
forgot to mention Yuva in my list. it was a movie which definitely had a storyline, with a message. it was made to flop cause of it’s political overtures.
December 6th, 2004 at 9:06 am reply
yuva rocked … through n through
lakshya was eminently seeable
December 6th, 2004 at 10:56 am reply
I watched Veer-Zaara just cause SRK was in it. And unless you are a die-hard fan of his (like I am), you’ll hate the movie. It should be watched once at least cause some parts are really nice esp towards the climax but overall it didn’t ‘touch my soul’. Couldn’t remember any of the songs after the movie which is a big negative in my opinion.
Another movie which I liked was ‘Dhoom’ cause of the super-kewl bikes and John Abrahams. Haven’t watched the rest of the movies mentioned except ‘Hasina’ and ‘Maqbool’ and yes, those were really good. Looking forward to watching ‘Swades’.
December 6th, 2004 at 11:22 am reply
Pompy - Yuva was good in parts but I didn’t like it too much.But Naach, I can understand although for a dance-oriented movie I would have liked better songs.
Adi - It was the vice-versa for me for Yuva and Lakshya.
Nami - I guess then I am simply gonna hate Veer Zaara..any movie with SRK is not gonna touch anywhere, let alone my soul :) I am not gung-ho about either, so Dhoom wasn’t a big thing for me.
December 6th, 2004 at 2:28 pm reply
Liked ‘Chokher Bali’ , Hated ‘Veer Zahra’ - stupid concoted emotions ….
Hmm have to see Maqbool and Naach…
was ‘Mr & Mrs Iyer’ this year or last ??? cant seem to remember
December 6th, 2004 at 2:42 pm reply
Lamya - Mr.& Mrs.Iyer was released last year otherwise would have definitely figured in my list. Choker Bali was too confusing for me…followed the book too religiously…should have adapted the screenplay better.
December 6th, 2004 at 5:20 pm reply
Lakshya! In fact thats the only Hindi movie I saw this year :-)))
December 6th, 2004 at 5:22 pm reply
Oops! Waise Id seen Yuva too. (N)
December 6th, 2004 at 6:28 pm reply
Ab Tak Chappan was surprisingly good. A real, good & nasty cop movie. More people should watch that one.
In the U.S. there used to be a tradition of detective fiction (and cinema) called “hard-boiled.” It’s dead now, but R.G. Varma seems to be on the verge of reviving it in India…
I also agree with the other assessments: Maqbool and Yuva were especially good. Lakshya did some adventurous things, though it was a little silly on the whole.
Hint on Veer-Zaara: leave at intermission. That way you have better feelings about the whole thing. It has nice Punjabi dance sequences (first half), but a ridiculous plot and too much “emotion” (second half).
What about Kal Ho Na Ho and Main Hoon Na? I thought Main Hoon Na was nice to watch for the comedy and the cool fight sequences. And if you get the Finance Minister (Chidambaram) riffing on your lines, you know you’ve made an impact…
December 6th, 2004 at 6:52 pm reply
Anil - Glad you saw the good ones at least.
Amardeep - RGV’s Factory is churning out nice experimental movies. Hopefully they will catch on. I liked Lakshya for the performance and the cinematography..or maybe after LOC, any Kargil movie seems good :)
KHNK and MHN were masala movies…you enjoy them but think again, the quality aspect was sorely lacking. For e.g. compare their soundtrack, you will see that they follow the same pattern.
December 7th, 2004 at 12:22 am reply
Lemme see, first of all, i fess up… i luv Ab’s baby. So,
Yuva, Phir Milenge and Dhoom most certainly caught my eye… and held it.
Ab tak chhappan was good.
Veer zaara… *choke* *sputter* *gag*… bakwas…
Liked Main hoon na… coz it was a crazy, stupid spoof.
Dying to see swades and raincoat.
Raincoat has lovely songs and i kind of think ajay devgan is a good performer.
Havent seen naach, but would like to and the biggest let down for me has been vaastu shastra… how could RGV and Sushmita Sen go this wrong :O(
December 7th, 2004 at 10:23 am reply
Quality and Bollywood are two words that should not appear in a single sentence. Films like ‘ab tak chhappan’ are just exceptions to the rule. Shouldn’t count on more than one or two of these every year.
December 7th, 2004 at 12:28 pm reply
Toinks - I guess your Ab’s Baby had a nice 2004 but I only loved one of his movie…Raincoat should be interesting although it sounds like a wierd condom ad.
Parag - You seem to be burned quite a lot by Bollywood :)
June 3rd, 2005 at 12:11 am reply
We had some real good movies this year. Surprisingly, the box office thought otherwise. Yuva rocked. AT56, Phir Milenge, Ek Hasina Thi, Dev & Maqbool were quality products. Lakshya was an eminently watchable inspiring movie. Swades was an example of high quality meaningful cinema. Yet somehow, apart from AT56 which made some profit, the box office gave a thumbs down to all these movies. There is something I have observed from my regular visits to Cinema Halls. A large percentage of Indian audiences consider themselves to be too smart for Indian Movies, as if they could make better movies than the filmmakers. I am not being passionately critical. This is something that I have observed.
I am a bit surprised at the thrashing Veer Zaara has received on this site. I happened to like it, not for SRK, not for any star value etc., but for the movie itself, very beautifully scripted by Adi and made very well by Yashji. It happens to be one of the noblest movies I’ve seen. The most ridiculous comment I’ve heard seems to be “stupid concocted emotions”. The movie is high on emotional content, and must be felt, not critically examined and butchered.
Thorough entertainers like Dhoom & MHN achieved their purpose, but it saddens me that audiences don’t look beyond entertainers.
Raincoat was brilliant, to say the least. Naach was an interesting attempt, but as xpected, didnt go down well with Indian Audiences.
January 12th, 2006 at 3:48 pm reply
i have never liked indian movies, until veer~zahra, it touched my heart lol, no but really it was good, dont hate on it.