Topic | Movie | Year | Language | Director | Producer | Starring | Specifications |
Cinema Show | Marvel of The Century | 7th July 1896 | Description: It carried details of the “Living Photographic pictures in life-size reproductions and was arranged by the agents of two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere, pioneers of the Cinematography in France, at the Watson Hotel in Bombay, also Advertised on same day in “Times of India”. | ||||
Bioscope | In 1898, Prof. Stevenson brings “first Bioscope” to Calcutta at the Star Theatre. “Panorama of Calcutta”- an early Indian coverage by foreign cameramen. | ||||||
Short Film | The Flower of Persia | 1898 | Bengali | | He created India's first Advertising Films & quite possibly India's first political film. A fire in 1917 destroyed all of his films. | ||
Reality Film | The Wrestlers | 1899 | - | Wrestler Match between Pundalik & Krishna Nhavi, which was specially arranged at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay | He is the first Indian to handle Cine Camera from London at a price of 21 guineas and made a topical in 1897. His later films also were all reality films. He is not known to have made any long duration "feature films". | ||
Documentary Film | Sir Wrangler Mr. R. P. Paranjpe | 1902 | - | | It is on Dr. R P Paranjpe in Mumbai when he returned as the first Indian Wrangler of Cambridge University. | ||
Theatrical Film | Pundalik | 18 May 1912 | | N. G. Chitre, P.R. Tipnis, Ramchandra Gopal Torney | Notes: Shreepad Sangit Mandali, a professional theatre group of Bombay, was performing a theatre play “Pundalik” during 1911 in Bombay. Narayan Govind Chitre alias Nana Bhai Chita of India Press, Bombay sought help from R.P. Tipnis, Manager of Corontion Cinematograph, and decided to picturise the stageplay Pundalik. They took R.G. Torney alias Dada Saheb Torney, along with them to direct the proposed film. M/s Bourne and Shepherd, a British concern, took keen interest in the venture and joined hands with the promoters by providing them a cameraman, Johnson to shoot the film at Mangaldas Wadi in Bombay. The film also named “PUNDALIK” was exhibited on May 18, 1912 at Coronation Cinematography, Bombay. | ||
Full Length Film | 3rd May 1913 | Marathi Silent Film | D.D. Dabke, P.G. Sane | The film had an all-male cast, so the men played all the female roles; the film reel was 3700 feet long, roughly 40 minutes. | |||
Talkie Movie | 14th Mar 1931 | Hindi | Ardeshir Marwan Irani | Ardeshir Marwan Irani | Vithal, Zubeida, Jilloo, Sushila, Prithviraj Kapoor | It was shot with the Tanar single-system camera, which recorded sound directly onto the film. | |
Color Movie | 1937 | Hindi | Moti B Gidwani | Ardeshir Marwan Irani | Padma Devi, Jillo | V. Shantaram had earlier produced a Marathi film Sairandhri (1933) which had scenes in color. However, the film was processed and printed in Germany | |
Cinema Scope Black & White | 1959 | Hindi | Waheeda Rehman, Guru Dutt, Baby Naaz, Mahmood, Johnny Walker | The film's music was composed by S. D. Burman. In the 2002 Sight & Sound critics' and directors' poll, Khaagaz Ke Phool was ranked at #160 among the greatest films of all time. | |||
Cinema Scope Color* | Pyar ki Pyaas | 1961 | Hindi | Mahesh Kaul | Anupam Chitra | Shreekant, Nishi, Manmohan Krishna, David Abraham | Music by Vasant Desai |
3D Film | 1984 | Malayalam | Jijo Punnoose | Navodaya Appachan | Its gross profit is | ||
Film Certified | 1920 (US Film) | Silent English intertitles | Gish Sisters | This film underwent censor cuts due to Indian Censorship Act 1918. | |||
Banned Film | 1921 | Silent | Kanjibhai Rathod | Dwarkadas Sampat’s Kohinoor Film Company | Dwarkadas Sampat, Maneklal Patel & Homi Master | Banned in Karachi & Madras. | |
Women on Screen | Mohini Bhasmasur | 1913 | Silent | Durgabhai & her daughter Kamalabhai Ghokhle | It is Dadasaheb’s Second film. | ||
70MM Film | 1967 | Hindi | Pachhi | Pachhi | It is made using the blow-up method with stereophonic sounds. G P Sippy's Sholay (1975) was shot in 70-mm format along with four-track stereo phone. Music Director: Shankar Jaikishan | ||
Golden Jubilee Film | Sant Tukaram | 1936 | Marathi | It ran over a year. | |||
Box Office Hit | Lanka Dahan | 1917 | Silent | It ran for 23 weeks in Bombay. It is on record that the money collected at the counters had to be transported in bullock carts with armed guards! | |||
‘A’ Certified Film | Social Evil | 1929 | Document Drama | - | - | - | To give guidance to ignorant youth about sexual problems. It was the first film given the "For Adults Only" A certificate. |
Dual Role | Lanka Dahan | 1917 | Silent | Anna Salunke played both Rama & Sita. It is 5th movie of Dada Saheb Phalke. | |||
Song | 14th Mar 1931 | Hindi | Ardeshir Marwan Irani | Ardeshir Marwan Irani | Vithal, Zubeida, Jilloo, Sushila, Prithviraj Kapoor | "De De Khuda Ke Naam Par Pyare" was sung by W M Khan | |
Music Directors | 14th Mar 1931 | Hindi | Ardeshir Marwan Irani | Ardeshir Marwan Irani | Vithal, Zubeida, Jilloo, Sushila, Prithviraj Kapoor | Ferojshah M Mistri and B Irani composed music for seven songs | |
English Song | 1933 | Hindi/ English | "Now The Moon Her Light Has Shed" sung by Devika Rani. During the screening of "KARMA", Devika Rani was honoured by an invitation of the B.B.C. at London to act in the first television broadcast in Britain which was relayed throughout the country. She was also chosen to inaugurate the first B.B.C. broadcast on the short wave length to India. | ||||
Songless Film | Naujawan | 1937 | Hindi | J B H Wadia | Did not have any songs as it was a fast paced thriller. | ||
Horror Film | 1972 | Hindi | Tulsi Ramsay | Ramsay Brothers | | ||
Digital Film | 2001 | Hindi | Digvijay Singh & others | Anant Nag, Mita Vasisht, Nitya Shetty, Mukesh Bhatt | This is perhaps not really a Bollywood movie, but it's in Hindi |
Saturday, 27 November 2010
Indian Film History
For further more details click link WIKIPEDIA
Saturday, 13 November 2010
TITANIC (1997)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson and Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater, members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. Although the central roles and love story are fictitious, some characters are based on genuine historical figures. Gloria Stuart portrays the elderly Rose, who narrates the film in a modern-day framing device, and Billy Zane plays Cal Hockley, the overbearing fiancé of the younger Rose. Cameron saw the love story as a way to engage the audience with the real-life tragedy.
Production on the film began in 1995, when Cameron shot footage of the actual Titanic wreck. The modern scenes were shot on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, which Cameron had used as a base when filming the actual wreck. A reconstruction of the Titanic was built at Playas de Rosarito, Baja California, and scale models and computer-generated imagery were also used to recreate the sinking. The film was partially funded by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox – respectively, its American and international distributor – and at the time, it was the most expensive film ever made, with an estimated budget of US$200 million.
The film was originally scheduled to open on July 2, 1997, however, post-production delays pushed back its release to December 19 instead. Titanic was an enormous critical and commercial success. It was nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, eventually winning eleven, including Best Picture and Best Director. It became the highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide gross of over $1.8 billion, and remained so for twelve years until Cameron's next directorial effort, Avatar, surpassed it in 2010. Titanic also has been ranked as the sixth best epic film of all time in AFI's 10 Top 10 by the American Film Institute. The film is due for theatrical re-release in 2012 after Cameron completes its conversion into 3-D.
"The story could not have been written better...The juxtaposition of rich and poor, the gender roles played out unto death (women first), the stoicism and nobility of a bygone age, the magnificence of the great ship matched in scale only by the folly of the men who drove her hell-bent through the darkness. And above all the lesson: that life is uncertain, the future unknowable...the unthinkable possible." — James Cameron
The reconstruction of the RMS Titanic in Mexico. The blueprints were supplied by the original ship's builder and Cameron tried to make the ship as detailed and accurate as possible. The set included a Titanic model 775 feet long (the real one was 886' 9"), of the port side of the ship. It was constructed in a giant water front tank in Baja California, Mexico, near Rosarito beach.
The set was mounted on hydraulic rams so that when the sinking was being filmed, the set could be partly submerged at the correct angle in its water tank. Following the completion of filming, the model - basically a thin metal skin over chipboard, supported by scaffolding, was too badly damaged to be safe for public viewing. It was demolished, and individual props were auctioned off, many items at J. Peterman's web site, though no items remain for sale there. Some of the remaining rooms, clothes and models were used in the Titanic Movie Tour exhibition, and could be seen at various places around the world.
Writing and Inspiration
James Cameron was fascinated by shipwrecks, particularly the RMS Titanic, and wrote a treatment for the film. He said he made Titanic "because [he] wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because [he] particularly wanted to make the movie". He said that the Titanic was "the Mount Everest of shipwrecks" and he, as a diver, wanted to tell the story correctly. "When I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an IMAX movie, I said, 'I’ll make a Hollywood movie to pay for an expedition and do the same thing.' I loved that first taste, and I wanted more," stated Cameron. "Titanic was about 'fuck you' money. It came along at a point in my life when I said, 'I can make movies until I’m 80, but I can’t do expedition stuff when I’m 80.'" Cameron's father had been an engineer. "I had studied to be an engineer and had a mental restlessness to live the life I had turned my back on when I switched from the sciences to the arts in college," said Cameron.
He described the sinking of the Titanic as "like a great novel that really happened". Yet, over time, he felt that the event had become a mere morality tale, and described making the film as putting the audience in an experience of living history. Cameron described a love story as the most engaging part of a story. As the likable Jack and Rose had their love blossom and eventually destroyed, the audience would mourn the loss. Cameron said, "All my films are love stories, but in Titanic I finally got the balance right. It's not a disaster film. It's a love story with a fastidious overlay of real history." Lastly, Cameron created a modern framing of the romance with an elderly Rose, making the history palpable and poignant. The treasure hunter Brock Lovett is meant to represent those who never connected with the human element of the tragedy. Cameron wanted to honor the people who died during the sinking, and he spent six months fully researching what happened, creating a timeline of all the Titanic's crew and passengers. At the end of the film, it was not made clear if the elderly Rose was in a conscious dream, or had died in her sleep. Cameron stated that he did that on purpose in order to leave it for the viewer to interpret the scene individually.
Cameron met with 20th Century Fox, and pitched the film as "Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic". There was a tense pause and Cameron said, "Also, fellas, it's a period piece, it's going to cost $150,000,000 and there's not going to be a sequel." Peter Chernin was among the cadre of studio executives. Cameron said, "They were like, 'Oooooohkaaaaaay – a three-hour romantic epic? Sure, that's just what we want. Is there a little bit of Terminator in that? Any Harrier jets, shoot-outs, or car chases?' I said, 'No, no, no. It's not like that.'" Fox was dubious about the idea's commercial prospects, but hoping for a long term relationship with Cameron, they gave him a greenlight. Cameron convinced them to make a film based on the publicity afforded by shooting the wreck itself, and organized several dives to the wreck of the Titanic over a period of two years. "My pitch on that had to be a little more detailed," said Cameron. "So I said, ‘Look, we’ve got to do this whole opening where they’re exploring the Titanic and they find the diamond, so we’re going to have all these shots of the ship." Cameron stated, "Now we can either do them with elaborate models and motion control shots and CG and all that, which will cost X amount of money – or we can spend X plus 30 per cent and actually go shoot it at the real wreck."
The crew shot in the Atlantic Ocean twelve times in 1995, shooting during eleven of those occasions, and actually spent more time with the ship than its passengers. At that depth, the water pressure is 6,000 pounds per square inch. "One small flaw in the vessel's superstructure would mean instant death for all on board." In addition to all of the dives being high-risk, various conditions prevented Cameron from getting the high quality footage that he wanted. After filming the underwater shots, he began writing the film's screenplay. Cameron said that diving to the wreck made him and his crew want "to live up to that level of reality" from that point on. "But there was another level of reaction coming away from the real wreck, which was that it wasn't just a story, it wasn't just a drama," he said. "It was an event that happened to real people who really died. Working around the wreck for so much time, you get such a strong sense of the profound sadness and injustice of it, and the message of it." Cameron stated, "You think, 'There probably aren't going to be many filmmakers who go to Titanic. There may never be another one – maybe a documentarian." Due to this, he felt that it "sort of [became] a great mantle of responsibility to convey the emotional message of it – to do that part of it right, too".
Monday, 4 October 2010
Film History
Movie History - The Godfather of Gangster Films
AMC recently acquired from Paramount exclusive on-air and on-demand U.S. cable rights to the Godfather films -- for nine years, beginning in 2011 (the longest TV licensing deal ever signed for the trilogy). Many accolades have been given to director Francis Ford Coppola's filmed saga, and the series has become universally revered as the definitive gangster drama. Themes include revenge, intrigue, betrayal, alliances, violence, and the corrupting influences of power, ambition, and loyalty to one's family. The first two films, in 1972 and 1974, are considered masterpieces of American moviemaking, and many film reviewers consider the second part equal or superior to the original. So just what has made this collection of films so memorable?
The first two films both won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The second film was the first winning sequel in Academy history. The three films received a total of 28 nominations and were awarded nine Oscars, including a Best Actor Oscar for Marlon Brando in 1972 and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Robert De Niro in 1974. Collaborators Coppola and Mario Puzo (the author of the best-selling 1969 novel that began the legend) won Best Adapted Screenplay in both 1972 and 1974. The Godfather: Part II (1974) won twice as many Oscars as the first film. The first part of the saga was a tremendous critical and commercial success -- and the highest grossing (domestic) film of its year and time (at $135 million). With a production budget of $6.5 million, it was also the most profitable film. The second film took in only $48 million in box-office (domestic) business, while the third film grossed $66 million (domestic) and $137 million (worldwide). Its production budget was a whopping $54 million. The third film had seven Academy nominations (including the first for cinematographer Gordon Willis) but zero Oscars.
Frequently Quoted
Many familiar lines of dialogue have become catchphrases, including the following:
"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."
"Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."
"Keep your friends close but your enemies closer."
"Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel."
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
Critical, Award-Winning, and Commercial Success
The first two films both won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The second film was the first winning sequel in Academy history. The three films received a total of 28 nominations and were awarded nine Oscars, including a Best Actor Oscar for Marlon Brando in 1972 and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Robert De Niro in 1974. Collaborators Coppola and Mario Puzo (the author of the best-selling 1969 novel that began the legend) won Best Adapted Screenplay in both 1972 and 1974. The Godfather: Part II (1974) won twice as many Oscars as the first film. The first part of the saga was a tremendous critical and commercial success -- and the highest grossing (domestic) film of its year and time (at $135 million). With a production budget of $6.5 million, it was also the most profitable film. The second film took in only $48 million in box-office (domestic) business, while the third film grossed $66 million (domestic) and $137 million (worldwide). Its production budget was a whopping $54 million. The third film had seven Academy nominations (including the first for cinematographer Gordon Willis) but zero Oscars.
Frequently Quoted
Many familiar lines of dialogue have become catchphrases, including the following:
"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."
"Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."
"Keep your friends close but your enemies closer."
"Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel."
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
The Heroic Portrayal of a Mafia Dynasty
Gangster films are one of the oldest movie genres, emerging as an influential force in the early thirties (e.g., Little Caesar (1930), Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932)). But Coppola's films reinvented the genre, elevating the classic Hollywood crime film to a higher level by portraying the gangster figure as a romanticized tragic hero. The specific words "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" were not found in the original film's script; they were replaced with the more respectable term "the family."
The Story
All three of the Godfather pictures start with a party or celebration and end with a bloody retaliatory massacre (filmed as montage).
The Godfather (1972)
The first part was a modern version of Shakespeare's King Lear, featuring aging patriarchal crime king Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and three sons: volatile Sonny (James Caan), Fredo (John Cazale), and young Michael (Al Pacino). Corleone was a rags-to-riches success story, a turn-of-the-century Silician immigrant who had become the head of one of the five Italian-American families in the boroughs of New York who operated a crime syndicate. It took place from the mid-forties to the mid-fifties, a ten-year period. The "honorable" crime family, working outside the system owing to exclusion by social prejudice, was threatened by the rise of modern criminal activities: the dirty drug trade. Family loyalty and blood ties were juxtaposed with brutal and vengeful bloodletting, including Corleone's attempted assassination in 1945 after he refused to bankroll a rival's drug activities. The rich and enthralling film was characterized by superb acting, deep character studies, beautiful photography, authentic re-creation of the period, a bittersweet romantic subplot, a rich score by Nino Rota, and superbly staged portrayals of gangster violence. Its grim, dark passages and bright exterior scenes were all part of the beautiful cinematography by Gordon Willis. Romanticized scenes of the domestic home life of members of the family -- a family wedding, shopping, kitchen cooking, a baptism -- were intertwined with scenes of horrific violence and murder contracts. A total of 23 deaths littered the first film.
The Godfather:Part II (1974)
The brilliant and somber second film was both a sequel continuation of and a prequel to the 1972 film, with fewer deaths (sixteen). It followed the rise of two successive generations of Corleone power and extended over a period of 60 years. After his heart attack, in 1955, Vito Corleone (Brando, replaced by Robert De Niro in this film) was ultimately succeeded by his educated youngest son, Michael (Pacino), a U.S. Marine Corps officer in World War II who became even more ruthlessly coldhearted to persist. The major portion of the film began in 1958, about three years after the conclusion of the first film, following Michael's career from his patriarchal prime to his decline a year later, when he sought legitimacy in Nevada and invested heavily in gambling casinos in pre-Castro Cuba. The saga showed the inexorable transference of sins from the immigrant father to his modern-day son. Its final devastating image was of a ruthless, prematurely old Michael as he sat quietly and introspectively, staring blank-eyed at his chilly Lake Tahoe compound, on a lawn chair as winter approached. The film masterfully cut back and forth between the two parallel stories, contrasting two eras and their protagonists. The prologue (about a quarter of the entire film) was the background story of the rise of the youthful Don Vito Corleone, smuggled as a young boy out of Sicily to become a Mafia chief in the early aughts in the Little Italy section of New York City.
The Godfather:Part III (1990)
The third film (generally considered the weakest of the trilogy) began in 1979, about twenty years after Don Michael Corleone (Pacino) had given the order to have his older brother, Fredo, killed and eight years since Michael and his wife, Kay (Diane Keaton), had last seen each other, after divorcing in 1959. Consigliere and adopted brother Tom Hagen was now dead, replaced by B.J. Harrison (George Hamilton), and the Lake Tahoe compound was in disrepair, as Michael had moved out of the casino business. Sixtyish Michael Corleone was taking steps toward cleansing himself, breaking his ties to the Mafia business, legitimizing his violent reputation, and buying his way toward respectability, all while trying to find a worthy successor. Michael had semi-reconciled with Kay and his estranged noncriminal son, Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio), who had aspired to be an opera singer rather than a lawyer. His main conflicts were with syndicate-crime associates conspiring against him (Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna)) and his illegitimate hotheaded nephew, Vincent Mancini (Andy Garcia), son of Michael's late brother, Sonny, who carried out unauthorized retaliatory murders. Vincent ultimately became Michael's reigning godfather heir in exchange for permanently promising to end his tempestuous affair with Mary (Sofia Coppola, the director's own daughter) -- his own cousin -- leading to more tragedy. The film ended with a coda years later, in 1997, with white-haired Michael's anticlimactic, peaceful death from a heart attack at his Sicilian villa as he slumped over in his chair while recalling the various loves of his life.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can by Frank Abagnale
Grosset & Dunlap | 1980 | ISBN: 0448165384 | PDF | 102 Pages | 686 KB
Frank W. Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams, and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters, and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was twenty-one. Known by the police of twenty-six foreign countries and all fifty states as "The Skywayman," Abagnale lived a sumptuous life on the lam-until the law caught up with him. Now recognized as the nation's leading authority on financial foul play, Abagnale is a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction international escapades, and ingenious escapes-including one from an airplane-make Catch Me If You Can an irresistible tale of deceit. The uproarious, bestselling true story of the world's most sought-after con man currently in development as a DreamWorks feature film. "I stole every nickel and blew it on fine threads, luxurious lodgings, fantastic foxes, and other sensual goodies. I partied in every capital in Europe and basked on all the world's most famous beaches."
Password: sra1
War & Peace
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Russkii Vestnik | 1869 | ISBN: 0393096726 | PDF | 1133 Pages | 5 MB
War and Peace centers broadly on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the best-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves behind his family to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman, who intrigues both men. As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy vividly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.
Password: sra1
CARRIE
Carrie by Stephen King
Doubleday | 1974 | 2.03 MB
Carrie White is a mousy, shy, repressed girl who is mercilessly teased by her fellow classmates. Her mother is a religious fanatic who walks around in a black cape and imposes her rigid restrictions on Carrie. After Carrie unexpectedly has her first period in the school showers, she is teased by the girls more ruthlessly than before. The gym teacher punishes the girls that were involved and one of them, Sue Snell, feels sorry for what she did and asks her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom instead of her. But another girl that has been banned from the prom, Chris Hargenson, isn't so forgiving and hatches an evil plan with her boyfriend that involves Carrie and a bucket full of pig's blood. But what none of the students realize is that Carrie has the power of telekinesis, the power to move things with your mind, and that when you make her mad, she transforms from an innocent girl to a rage-filled monster. And this is going to be a prom no one will ever forget.
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia (All 7 Books) by C S Lewis
HarperTrophy | 1950 - 1956 | ISBN: 0066238501 | PDF | 374 Pages | 2.38 MB
The Chronicles of Narnia have enchanted millions of readers over the last fifty years and the magical events described in C.S. Lewis's immortal prose have left many a lasting memory. For here is a world where a witch decrees eternal winter; where there are more talking animals than people; and where battles are fought by Centaurs, Giants and Fauns.
CASINO ROYALE
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Jonathan Cape | 1953 | ISBN: 0141187581 | PDF | 83 Pages | 479 KB
In the first of Ian Fleming's tales of 007, Bond finds himself on a mission to neutralize lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called "le Chiffre."
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