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Hello everybody!!!

This year’s Blue Notebook truly reflects the spirit of cinema. What an year 2012 was. Incredible, to say the least. We saw alternate cinema getting a strong ground in mainstream cinema, we saw indie doing so well and we saw emergence of actors, who till now were part of the crowd nobody remembered. What an year…

Three technical Categories… Best Art Direction. This was supposed to be tricky as the nominations covered a range rarely seen before. India won. The sleepy urban Kolkata and fiery raw rural Wasseypur. Yes… the honors goes to Kahaani and Gangs Of Wasseypur. The second technical category was Best Editing. Frankly, we found that there was hardly any contest. The most well edited movie of the year was Kahaani. Last and perhaps our favourite – Best Music. Vicky Donor seemed to lead the chart till the last morning and we saw an Usain Bolt in Cocktail who grabbed the award in the last moment with a small… real small difference.

We always argue that Bollywood, more than often, lack good stories. 2012 will be remembered as an exception. We had great stories. Kahaani, story of a pregnant women takes entire nation hostage with love, affection and care. Who would have thought that we will have a thriller there, I mean a thriller of that sort. However, the Best Story was an equally mesmerizing story of a couple, a doctor and a sperm donor. Chadhdhaji’s Vicky Donor turned out to be real Aryaputra.

National awards are dominated by regional cinema. Here goes our little tribute. Best Regional Language Film – Kaksparsh which won a close battle with Eega. The way we see cinema within India, we explore beyond borders as well. Along with blockbusters, we had  a small Kenyan movie as well. The Best Foreign Language Film was a contest between two films. The Dark Knight Rises lost. Argo won.

Coming back to mainstream…

Most compelling performances would include likes of Manoj Bajpayee, Tigmanshu Dhulia and Richa Chaddha in Gangs Of Wasseypur, Irrfan Khan in Paan Singh Tomar, Vidya Balan in Kahaani, Anjali Patil in Chakravyuh and Ranbeer Kapoor in Barfi. Contest was tough. Votes were split and there were many close calls. The Best Actor Male for 2012 was Irrfan Khan closely defeating Tigmanshu Dhulia. From Votes point of view, in the Best Actor Female category, we had a clear winner… Vidya Balan. Going by her records in Blue Notebook, we will have to think about giving her Lifetime Achievement Award soon. Chronic Offender.

Best Director! The winner has fought against odds. Over the time he has become symbol of rebellion in Hindi Cinema. People say he is the posterboy of Indian Indie. The award goes to Anurag Kashyap. However, it’s worth mentioning that it was a close call between Anurag, Dibakar and Sujoy. Brilliant cinema. Brilliant filmmakers.

Now the most awaited one. What was the best film of 2012. Its difficult to point out one winner. We have two joint winners. A tie shows the intensity of contest. The Best Film of 2012 are Gangs Of Wasseypur and Paan Singh Tomar. Rural India swept the country off its feet.

On that note, lets hope that 2013 will raise the mark.

Love

Sujoy Ghosh

5 Bollywood Movies Which Defined 2012 | Under Lens

Paan Singh Tomar: Bollywood usually present lame biopics. Even one like Guru disappoints with all gloss and glitter. After Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen, we finally had a biopic which held subject with compassion but didn’t made a martyr out of it. Interestingly both Phoolan and Paan Singh were contemporaries. Paan Singh was a champion turned dacoit. He died a death of dacoit. He lived a life of athlete. Abuse he faced as a villager can be the reason why he picked up gun but reason was definitely not justified. Dhulia, as director made no such attempt.   

Kahaani: When was the last time you saw a city as raw and natural? Kahaani was a brilliant medley of lot of things – a good story, interesting twist, strong characters, competitive actors and subtle music. Kahaani worked on two levels – emotional where viewer connects with the tragedy and trauma of a pregnant woman and affection of a young vulnerable cop and secondly as a thriller where viewer gets one of the biggest shock of their life, just below their belt.

 

Gangs Of Wasseypur: Pulp Fiction of India? Comparisons with Tarantino and Guy Ritchie might be a little far-fetched, spells out the word pretty good. GOW is one of those movies which can take on word. Yes, influences are there. You can see QT and GR written all over. You can see glimpses of City Of God. Still, the brilliance on screen will be unadulterated Indian pulp fiction seen with different lenses.  

 

Vicky Donor: Sperms!!! A taboo subject handled with love, humor and wisdom. Rare for a Bollywood film. Even if you keep performances and music aside, the story in itself is such a pleasure. The way story has been woven around characters and caricatures is simply brilliant. I agree that having good actors and spicing it up with good music helps, it should not take away anything from the writers… the third and strongest pillar.

 

Barfi: Scenes were copied. Accepted. So? Does that make Barfi a bad movie? If we keep aside plagiarism for a while, Barfi comes out as a lovely story of a guy who cannot speak or hear but lives and loves more than anyone. His handicap is not a bane. He doesn’t reason much when it comes to love. His innocent definition of true friendship can move even the slyest of all. Handicapped should be called differently abled… Barfi subtly tells us why…

Good Movies Which Failed To Make The Cut To Blue Notebook

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu: A very interesting take on cosmopolitan culture in an unconvincing plot which hardly takes away anything from the credit well deserved by the writers. Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu is not Wake Up Sid but the positive turn it takes is very similar. Music and story were two areas where this movie had a strong case but contest was too tough. A shade better would have got some.

 

The Forest: This movie had some real good art work. What worked against The Forest was the failure of Art Direction to make story convincing. It didn’t do much. The element of gore failed to enhance the thrill the way it should have. Movie turned out to be a disappointment.

 

Arjun: The Warrior Prince: Only logical reason is that we don’t have a category for animation. The way Virat episode is used to set the context for Mahabharat is a good example to follow. Sincere apologies.

 

Kshay: Frankly, only category Kshay had a strong case was Best Actress. It was out an out Rasika’s movie. The motif and protagonist blended well together. Its just that there we wanted to have 5 or 6 names and somehow the cut was a few inches high. Even without the nomination, Rasika is a winner. The DVD in my closet affirms my belief.

 

Jab Tak Hai Jaan: What went wrong with this film? Music turned out to be below par. Story was a shade over dramatic. Direction turned out to be a shadow of memories. A movie we thought would grab atleast six nominations failed to get even one. But still, Yashji we love you.  

Duds Of 2012 | Under Lens

Let the curtain fall for ever...

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu – I somehow couldn't digest the fact of two people getting drunk and marrying and then still trying to behave as friends. Also Kareena and Imran have no chemistry, infact she looked older than him throughout the movie.

Ek Deewana Tha – May be I expected too much from Gautham Menon and was biased towards the original Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa. But this hindi version lacked to display passion and madness of the male protagonist and total blame cannot be given to Prateik Babbar. And ofcourse Mumbai can never be as picturesque as Kerala. Also, the songs which were too good to hear, somehow didn't fit into the movie.

Rowdy Rathore – I just have one adjective for this one "TERRIBLE". Throughout the movie, I waited for it to end. The acting and jokes are irritating. Also no chemistry between Akshay and Sonakshi. Just a personal experience, my mom couldn't even watch it and asked me to close it as it was irritating her.

Teri Meri Kahani – Too slow and no relationship between the three stories. I felt that director and writer were themselves confused  when they chose same actors for the three stories, on whether they plan on reincarnation or just 3 simple love stories set in different times. Priyanka and Shahid were too fake.

Cocktail - The songs were awesome, the trailer was exciting and it was in my must watch list. But oops it turned to be a big disappointment !!  A great contrast that the pace of the movie is too slow, but the songs which were good end in fraction of minutes. And when I say movie is slow, I mean damn slow !! No chemistry between Diana and Saif and I simply didn't realize when he fell in love with her.

Ek Tha Tiger – I am not sure what was Aditya Chopra thinking when he wrote the story using the common formula of two rival family kids falling in love and then trying to escape wrath of their families and families joining hands to easily catch them. I do not blame him for using the common formula but why to scale it up to international level !! That was one of the worst scripts I have seen. Moreover, YRF promoted it as a spy thriller and set the expectations too high.

Student Of The Year – I read it on FB somewhere that this was less a movie and more a fashion show and after watching realized how true it was. Karan Johar took some new star kids, used Sharukh's template from DDLJ, Kareena's dresses from K3G, sets & songs from K2H2 and made a movie. Its awesomely boring and some wonderful actors like Ronit Roy, Rishi Kapoor are fully wasted.

Jab Tak Hai Jaan – The lamest story and twists possible. What did they think when showing an Asian going direct upto American army, talking about bomb and then easily dismantling it and they thank him and let him free with no questions. I think SRK forgot what he said in My name is Khan. Leaving jokes apart, bad music, as usual fake Katrina and easy to guess twists.

Son Of Sardar – Jokes are too boring. I will not say it to be a full disappointment as I expected it to be full of nonsense jokes and had entered with the same mindset. But Ajay Devgan can definetly do better comedy. Sanjay Dutt disappoints and extras (his nephew) really seem extras!!

Written By: Neha Jain

Top Chartbusters of 2012

Team TRM reviewed 50+ songs released in 2012 and came up a list of the top 11. Chartbusters which stole our heart and soul.

 

1:  Pani Da Rang (Vicky Donor)

2:  Aashiyan (Barfi)

3:  Womaniya (Gangs Of Wasseypur)

4:  Daaru Desi (Cocktail)

5:  Tumhi Ho Bandhu (Cocktail)

6:  Taar Bijli (Gangs Of Wasseypur)

7:  Phir Le Aya Dil (Barfi)

8:  Vo Dekhne Mein (London, Paris, New York)

9:  Hosanna (Ek Deewana Tha)

10: Second Hand Jawaani (Cocktail)

11: Main Kya Karoon (Barfi)

 

Comments most awaited.

Blue Notebook Version 4.0 | Editor's Pen

Hi All,

 

When we say 2012 has been a great year for cine lovers, it reflects well on the report card as well.

 

 

 

Blue Notebook Version 4.0 for Year 2012 is a quick look on Indian and World Cinema and progress it has made across the domains. The actors, the actresses, the technicians and the makers, everyone stood by the expectations 2011 set. New Wave/Parallel/Alternate Cinema is no more different from mainstream cinema. Its part and parcel… no rather focal center of Indian Cinema now. When 2013 will take over the reins, it will have herculean tasks to accomplish. Wishing the best.

 

Show your love and vote!! For cinema.

 

Love

Sujoy Ghosh

Nomination....

Best Art Direction




Best Editing




Best Music




Best Story




Best Regional Movie




Best Foreign Movie




Best Actor (Male)




Best Actor (Female)




Best Director




Best Movie