3rd Habitat Film Festival

IHC's film club is organizing 3rd Habitat Film Festival.

The festival spans across 12 days(till 18th May 08) and will include lots of
regional films and a retrospective on "Sudhir Mishra" of
"Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi" fame.

Two films will be screened in the evenings on weekedays
and four films will be screened on the weekends.

you can checkout the schedule here
http://www.habitatfilmclub.com/filmcalendar.asp

Entry is supposedly free and tickets are available at the venue itself.
You can also expect some celebrities there.

See you at IHC

Osian Film Festival - 2007 (20-29July)

This goes out for all the cinema lovers out there..

"Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art" is organizing 9th Osian's-CineFan Film Festival in
Delhi starting from the 20th to 29th July(in 7 theaters across Delhi).

[from Osian's site]

Osian’s-Cinefan is one of Asia’s leading film festivals devoted
principally to Asia and the Arab world. Established in 1999 in New Delhi
in July every year, the Festival enjoys an international reputation for the
quality of films screened over nine days complemented by panel discussions,
one major seminar each time, an Auction of Popular Culture and Film
Memorabilia along with a number of exhibitions, the Talent Campus for
budding young filmmakers from South Asia, and the presence and
participation of film professionals from all over the world and all over India.
We present a Lifetime Achievement Award for distinguished contribution to
writing on cinema – perhaps the only Festival in the world that recognizes the
role of the scriptwriter and the critic in the creation and the promotion.

This year, the Festival, with the tagline ‘Recreating Cinematic Culture’
will focus on Japan, with a nine-film tribute to Kenji Mizoguchi. A number
of contemporary films and films on the samurai will be shown.

A must attend event for serious Movie Buffs and a should try event
for all the rest. Those of you who prefer staying in the confines
of Bollywood can try any of the following

Shatranj Ke Khiladi(Satyajit Ray), Dor(Nagesh kukunoor)
The Rising : Ballad of Mangal Pandey(Ketan Mehta),
Mr & Mrs 55(Guru Dutt),Omkara(Vishal Bharadwaj),
Mithya(Rajat Kapoor), Khosla ka Ghosla(Dibakar Bannerjee)
Anubhav (Rajiv Nath),Thang(Amol Palekar),
Jashn-e-Azadi(Sanjay Kak), Kaal(Bappaditya Bandopadhyay),
Devdas(P C Barua),Via Darjeeling(Arindam Nandy),
Kya Tum Ho(Anish Ahluwalia), Shoonya(Arindam Mitra),
A Little Box of Sweets(Meneka Das),Chaurahen(Rajshree Ojha)
Lage Raho Munnabhai(Raj Hirani),Manorama Six Feet Under,
Jagte Raho,Return to Rajapur,1971, and even
Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd(Reema Kagti).

Piece of Advice: In case you are thinking of trying a foreign movie
search more about it on IMDB and see if fits the bill.

Drop in a comment if you plan to catch a flick,also mention the
name of the films you are planning to watch...

Hope to see you there

Ciao !!!!

Links:
1) Schedule
2) Osian's Site
3) Archives
4) Osian's Booklet
5) Event @ Facebook

The Never Ending Post .....

Yeps, it a post unlike a post and what does that mean ???
For one it means that it'll be updated and outposted......

And what we'll have in it..Hmmmm...OK
It will have some of the nicest movie quotes, lyrics,
one liners and all those sort of things

Lights, Camera, Action..........


Movie - Dead Poet's Society

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas
can change the world.
----------------------------------------------------
I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately.
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...
to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to
die, discover that I had not lived.
-----------------------------------------------------
Boys, you must strive to find your own voice.
Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you
are to find it at all. Thoreau said,
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."
Don't be resigned to that. Break out!
------------------------------------------------------
Carpe Diem! Seize the day. Make your lives
extraordinary

Movie - Me and You and Everyone We Know

I can't sleep at night thinking about her. I just wish
I had met her 50 years sooner.- Yeah.- But then
maybe I needed 70 years of life...to be ready for a
woman like Ellen
--------------------------------------------------
Ice Land is—It's kind of like that point in a relationship,
you know...where you suddenly realize it's not gonna
last forever. You know, you can see the end in sight.

Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayi(Song)

"Bin tere koi bhi aas naa rahi...itna tarse ki pyaas bhi naa rahi"

Movie - Waking Life

"What is the most universal human characteristic: fear, or laziness?"

"Actually, the gap between say Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human."

"They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life?"

"And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion."

"The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything."

" The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving."

"Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes and immediately you wake up and realize... that the whole day at work had been a dream. It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free"

Movie - Shall We Dance

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet..... I mean, what does any one life mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things..... all of it, all the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'.

Movie - Fight Club

This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Movie - Someone Like You

"There are very few things sadder in this life than
watching someone walk away after they have left you.
Watching the distance between your bodies expands
until there is nothing left but empty space and silence"

Movie - Forrest Gump

Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you`re gonna get.
---------------------------------------
I am not a very smart man, but I know what love is.
---------------------------------------

Movie-Scent of a woman

"some people live a lifetime in a minute."

Movie-The shawshank redemption

"Get busy livin or get busy dying..."

Movie - Being Cyrus

Once the game is over both the King and the
pawn go to the same box

Movie-Phenomenon

George: "Do you think that you could love me for the rest of my life?"
Lace: "No, I'm gonna love you for the rest of mine."

Movie - Vanilla Sky

Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.

Movie Karam (song)

Tinka Tinka Zara - Zara
Hai Roshani Se Jaise Bhara
Har Dil Me Armaa Hote To Hai…
Bas Koi… Samjhe Zara

Movie-Masoom (Song - Tujhse Naaraz Nahi...)

Jine ke liye socha hi nahi dard sambhalane honge.
Muskuraye jo to muskurahton ke karz utarne honge.

Song - Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you
want to do with your life. The most interesting
people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most
interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes
you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind.
The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can.
Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Movie - Clueless

Cher: I want to do something for humanity.
Josh: How about sterilization?

Movie-The Lion King

...the way I see it, you can either run from it,
or learn from it.

Movie-A Beautiful Mind

I don't exactly know what I am required to say in
order for you to have intercourse with me.
But could we assume that I said all that.
I mean essentially we are talking about fluid exchange
right? So could we go just straight to the sex.

Movie-Departed

Marriage is an important part of getting ahead.
It lets people know you're not a homo.
A married guy seems more stable. People see the ring,
they think "at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch"
Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must
have some cash, and your cock must work.

Movie - Swordfish

You know the problem with Hollywood? They make shit.
Unbelievable, unremarkable shit.I'm not some grungy filmmaker-
wannabee searching for existentialism through a haze
of bong-smoke. It's easy to pick apart bad acting,
short-sighted directing, or the purely moronic stringing
together of words many of the studios term as prose.
No,I'm talking the lack of realism.Realism.
Not a pervasive element in the modern American
cinematic vision.............

ROBERTS: You know, this movie of yours, I don't think it would have worked.
GABRIEL: Really? How come?
ROBERTS: Audiences love happy endings.
GABRIEL: Pacino escapes. With the money.Boyfriend gets the sex change operation. They live happily ever after.
GABRIEL: No?
STANLEY: No.
GABRIEL: Homophobia?
STANLEY: Bad guy can't win. It's a morality tale. One way or the
other, he's gotta go down.
GABRIEL: Oh, well. Life does tend to be stranger than fiction

Movie - Hitch

One dance, one look, one kiss, that's all we get, Albert. Just... one shot, to make the difference between happily ever after, and oh? he's just some guy I went to some thing with once.

So how does it happen, great love? Nobody knows... but what I can tell you is that it happens in the blink of an eye. One moment you're enjoying your life, and the next you're wondering how you ever lived without them

Movie - The Notebook

I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

Movie - Omkara

Mann meri nahi maan raha hai aur main mann ki

Quote:

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. - Aldous Huxley

Films I Watched

Here's a list to keep a track of the films that I watched..

43) Bhootnath(Rating 2.25/5)
42) Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi(Rating 4.5/5)
41) The Departed (Rating 4/5)
40) The Mating Habits of Earth Bound Humans (Rating 3.5/5)
39) Opera Jawa(Rating 4/5)
38) Shaurya(Rating 2.5/5)
37)Race(Rating 2/5)
36)Goodwill Hunting(Rating 3.75/5)
35)What The Bleep Do We Know?(Rating 3.5/5)
34) American Gangster(Rating 3.5/5)
33) Anything Else(Rating 3/5)
32) Pay it Forward (Rating 4/5)
31) Taare Zameen Par (Rating 5/5)
30) Khoya Khoya Chand (Rating 3.5/5)
29) Lions of Punjab (Rating 3/5)
28) American Pie 4 Band Camp (Rating 3/5) {09/11/07}
27) Jab We Met (Rating 3.5/5) {31/10/07}
26) Mumbai Salsa (Rating 2.5/5) {28/10/07}
25) Bombay Boys (Rating 3.75/5)
24) All You Got (Rating 3.25/5)
23) Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (Rating 4.25/5)
22) Chuk De India (Rating 3.25/5)
21) Borat (Rating 3.5/5)
20) Cut and Paste (Rating 3.75/5)
19) Return to Rajapur (Rating 3/5)
18) Manorama Six Feet Under (Rating 4/5)
17) Tak-Derakhth (Rating 3/5)
16) Anuranan (Rating 3.5/5)
15) Mithya (Rating 3.5/5)
14) Hia W'Houa (Rating 3.75/5)
13) Bes Vakit (Rating 4/5) {21/07/07}
12) Sansho Dayu (Rating 3.5/5) {21/07/07}
11) Domicile Conjugal (Rating 3.5/5) {13/07/07}
10) Die Hard 4.0 (Rating 3.25/5) {02/07/07}
9) Before Sunset (Rating 4/5) {30/06/07}
8) When Harry Met Sally(Rating 3.75/5) {30/06/07}
7) Cheeni Kum (Rating 3.5/5) {23/06/07}
6) Ocean's 13 (Rating 2.5/5)
5) Omkara (Rating 4.5/5)
4) Shootout at Lokandwala (Rating 2.25/5)
3) Before Sunrise (Rating 3.5/5)
2) Life in a Metro (Rating 3.25/5)
1) Bheja Fry (Rating 3.75/5)

Dead Poet's Society

Dir: Peter Weir
Cast: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles

At some community on Orkut a random poll question read

"When u r not happy with ur surroundings wat would u do???".

I nonchalantly voted for "Watch Movies".

After two days I found myself in that very situation and I did
Watch Movie the movie being "Dead Poet's Society". I had
heard of this movie before but it was when i read
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.
We read and write poetry because we are members
of the human race. And the human race is filled
with passion. And medicine,law, business,
engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary
to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance,love,
these are what we stay alive for." that i decided DPS
would be the next movie I'd watch(at home).

Carpe Diem is the phrase that comes to mind every time I
think of DPS, as it's the essence of the movie. The movie is
beautifully written and has much more to it than the life at
a boys school, it hints rather it hits at some of the all time
deep philosophical ideas like freethinking aka freethought
and Carpe Diem. The movie is to each according to his/her
perception.

Robin Williams does his role as Keating quite naturally and is
needless to say quite good at it. Robert and Josh also do
justice to their roles and as far as other's are concerned their
wasn't much of acting needed in their roles..With some
visually appealing scenes and a nice background score DPS
is a heady mix. The movie also has it's share of some really
funny moments like this one

Keating: Language was developed for one endeavor, and that is,
Mr. Anderson. Come on, are you a man or an amoeba? Mr. Perry.
Neil: Uh, to communicate?
Keating: Nooo!! To woo women

Parent's enforcing their ambitions on their children, corporal
punishment, Institutions thriving on tradition are some of the
more explicit themes in the film. It is one of those films
that can and should be watched multiple times to bring
the prescribed thoughts home.

My Rating: 4.25/5 (after flip flopping between 4 and 4.25)

Imdb Rating: 7.7/10

Dialogues I Liked:

1) No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas
can change the world.
2) There is a time for daring and a time for caution,
and a wise man knows which is called for.
3) We're not laughing at you - we're laughing near you.
4) I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately.
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...
to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to
die, discover that I had not lived.

5) McAllister: "Show me the heart unfettered by foolish
dreams and I'll show you a happy man."
John Keating: "But only in their dreams can men be truly
free. 'Twas always thus, and always thus will be.

6) Boys, you must strive to find your own voice.
Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you
are to find it at all. Thoreau said,
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."
Don't be resigned to that. Break out!

7) John Keating: Now we all have a great need for acceptance,
but you must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own,
even though others may think them odd or unpopular, even
though the herd may go, [imitating a goat]
John Keating: "that's baaaaad." Robert Frost said,
"Two roads diverged in the wood and I, I took the one less
traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

8) Just when you think you know something,you have to
look at it in another way. Even though it may seem silly
or wrong, you must try! Now, when you read, don't just
consider what the author thinks. Consider what you think.

“Carpe Diem! Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.”

Scenes that clicked:

1) All of Keating's classes.
2) The one on soccer field.
3) The first DPS meeting.
4) Tow Knox meets Chris for the first time.
5) Tow "The world's first unmanned flying desk set".
6) Tow "Phone call from GOD".
7) Tow "Knox asking Chris for a play".
8) The last scene with boys standing up on their desks.

Trivia:
1) DPS partly inspired a Bollywood hit called "Mohabbatein"
starring "Shah Rukh Khan" and veteran actor "Amitabh Bachchan".
2) DPS is Loosely based on the experiences of private school
students with Samuel Pickering, who is currently a Professor
of English at the University of Connecticut.
3) The movie's line
"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."
was voted as the #95 movie quote by the American
FilmInstitute (out of 100)
4) Originally, Professor Keating was supposed to die of leukemia.
But the director decided to have the story focus on the boys instead.
5) The film was also inspired by the book Goodbye, Mr. Chips
by James Hilton, which has been adapted for television or film
at least four times.
6) The quotation from Henry David Thoreau read at the
beginning of each meeting is incorrect. It actually reads
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not
learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived. …
I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear;
nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite
necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow
of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all
that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to
drive life into a corner…"

Links:
1) Script
2) Wiki
3) Peter Weir
4) Misc Link
5) List of Poems in DPS

Me and You and Everyone We Know..

Dir: Miranda July
Cast: John Hawkes, Miranda July, Miles Thompson, Brandon Ratcliff

Asked a friend for a thought provoking, that's how i came across this film.
Couldn't think of anything better than watching a movie on this ideal
Saturday evening so thought of trying this one out.

Abstract, that's the word that comes to mind when I think about this
movie. Don't know why but it reminds me of a movie titled "Happiness",
hmm...probably because it's also got a whole lot of stories running in
parallel. Short stories of a few people who stay in a neighborhood and of a

few who are somehow linked to these people(neighborhood).

The best thing about the movie is the sheer variety of characters
involved and the multiple facets of the contemporary life it reflects.
I am quite sure everyone can relate to something or the other from
the movie. There are some movies that start in a not so different way
but slowly start showing their mettle while there are others that start in
a unique way and set the mood for everything that follows..MaYaEWK
being the latter. The way it starts made me sit back alertly just to ensure
i catch finer nuances of the dialogues.

The stories flow seamlessly into each other and back while the
background score adds another subtle layer to these stories. Love,
Experimentations with Sex, Troubled Relationships, Falling Marriages,
Fatherhood, Peer Rivalry and Longing for Companionship..the movie
has it all

))<>((

My Rating: 3.75/5

Imdb Rating:7.5/10

Dialogues I liked:

1)I'm gonna be free.I'm gonna be free. And I'm gonna be brave.I'm gonna be brave.Good.And the next one is—I'm gonna live each day as if it were my last.Oh, that's good. You like that? Yeah. Say it.I'm gonna live each day as if it were my last.Fantastically.Fantastically.Courageously.Courageously.With grace.With grace.

2)Cause it's life—It's life.And it's happening.It's really, really happening...right now

3)No one is going to live your life for you. Okay. That's not how it works, but okay.

4)I can't sleep at night thinking about her. I just wish I had met her 50 years sooner.- Yeah.- But then maybe I needed 70 years of life...to be ready for a woman like Ellen.

5)People think foot pain is a fact of life...but life is actually better than that

6)I don't want to have to do this living. I just walk around. I want to be swept off my feet,you know? I want my children to have magical powers. I am prepared for amazing things to happen. I can handle it.

7) Ice Land is—It's kind of like that point in a relationship, you know...where you suddenly realize it's not gonna last forever. You know, you can see the end in sight.

8) How did you do that? Oh, well, do you want the long version or the short version? The long one. I was trying to save my life, and it didn't work. What's the short one? I burned it.

9) I've long since stopped trying to make people...do things they don't want to do.But she's the love of your life. You're just gonna let her go? No. She's just... going

10)We have a whole life to live together, you fucker! But it can't start until you call

11) You can be sure Pam and I would be sent to our rooms for all our fighting. Yes, they would give us a time-out...and tell us we could not come out until we had really thought about what we had done. What have we done? But... there are no time-outs. There's not enough time for time-out.

Scenes that clicked with me:

1) The Opening Scene with Christine.
2) Christine and Michael try to save the fish.
3) Christine's and Richard walk towards Car Park.
4) Neighborhood Girls with Peter.
5) When Robby meets his chat friend.
6) When Christine scribbles on the inside of her car's mirror
7) "Me" and "You" shoe scene.
8) Slyvie discussing interiors of her future house and talks she'll have with her daughter.

Trivia:

1) Took me 1.5 hrs to watch the movie and about 2hrs to write this review
2) Wrote the whole of it single handedly(with just my left hand as my right thumb is injured)
3) Movie Script
4) Movie's official site

Trailer:

Waking Life

"The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving.
Saves on introductions and good-byes"

"It’s like you come onto this planet with a crayon box. Now, you may get the 8-pack, you may get the 16-pack. But it’s all in what you do with the crayons, the colors that you’re given. And don’t worry about drawing within the lines or coloring outside the lines. I say color outside the lines. You know what I mean? Color right off the page. Don’t box me in."

Above mentioned lines come straight from the script of "Waking Life", one of the movies that beckon you and without realising you are lost in 'em (or with 'em). Written and Directed by Richard Linklater, Waking Life is the kinda movie that makes me(atleast) say WOW out loud, partly maybe because its about the thing that i am quite passionate about, yes if you are observant enough its TALKING.

Mostly its about the young protagonist in a dreamy state conversing with people from different walks of life and some random people talking randomly about anything from Information Revolution to Collective Memory, Free will to Evolution and much much more..

This is just the kind of Cinema(I am in love with this word) that gets your brain cells working overtime, the way mine are right now...If you are in a habbit of thinking then chances are that you might find a discussion or two on some familiar topics. This being perhaps the only movie ever, that i watched in both directions, going back again and again to some mind-expanding dialogue or the other from the beginning right till the end.

"I’m afraid we’re losing the real virtues of living life passionately, sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life"

"In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It’s always our decision who we are."

So if you are one of those compulsive thinkers or one of those who are into experimental cinema or someone having a high curiosity index( a self coined term) or someone who found the above written prate intriguing, then you know where to go from here.

Thanks Linklater for this Intellectual Coming....

My Rating: 4.5 ++
Imdb Rating:7.4

Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?