Feluda Returns

For last few months a long discussion was going on what character Abir Chatterjee should choose Feluda or Byomkesh and finally he chose to play Byomkesh. From then onward there was buzz around many names who can be the new Feluda but finally Sandip Ray has announced his next Feluda movie and once again Sabysachi Chakraborty will be play our most loved sleuth Feluda. 

Earlier Sabysachi Chakraborty had played the character in TV series and in five movies but as he was growing old and putting on weight so he had been replaced with Abir Chatterjee. But now Sandip Ray has returned to his favorite actor once again.This time it will be a celebration of 50 years of Feluda so it will be a double treat for the viewers as there will be two Feluda stories separated by one interval. Not only that for the first time the movie will be named after Feluda not on the name of the story. It has been named as #DoubleFeluda. As Sandip Ray is yet to find an actor to play Jatayu, after the sad demise of Bibhu Bhattacharya, so once again he has chosen two such stories where there is no track of Jatayu, the two stories are "Samaddarer Chabi" and "Golakdhaam Rahasya". The actor for playing Topshe is yet to be decided.


The movie is supposed to be released during the winter holidays , this year end or by the start of next year. Best of luck to the whole team.

Byomkesh Is back with new chapter #ByomkeshPawrbo

Byomkesh Bakshy is ready to start his journey to discover the truth once again with a new chapter. After making super successful #HarHarByomkesh last winter, the same team of Venkatesh Films and Director Arindam Sil have started  their next Byomkesh film which has been titled as #ByomkeshParvo. 

This time it will be set in the beautiful locations of North Bengal, the story will be based on #AmriterMrityu. The lead trio of Abir Chatterjee, Sohini Sarkar and Ritwick Chakraborty will be there playing the same characters of Byomkesh, Satyabati and Ajit. Although the original story has no track for Satyabati but considering the popularity Sohini Sarlkar has gained in the last film,her track has been added in the story. Along with the main cast another attraction will be the glamorous actress Sayantika who has been seen in mainstream commercial movies only so far. In this movie she will be seen playing an important character.

In this movie Byomkesh will be seen doing some hand to hand battles and also horse riding so Abir Chatterjee has started taking lessons for that. The shooting has already started in North Bengal and it is scheduled to release this winter during Christmas season.We hope #ByomkeshParvo will be proved to be yet another big hit.

In the meantime Anjan Dutta too has started his version of Byomkesh with Jishu Sengupta playing the title role. He has chosen the story #Chiriakhana, the same story on which great Satyajit Ray had made his only Byomkesh film with Uttam Kumar.

Jishu Sengupta is making a comeback to mainstream commercial Bengali movies

Surinder films and Venkatesh films have announced their next commercial entertainer directed by Raja Chanda.
The main highlight of this film will be Jishu Sengupta's comeback to mainstream commercial cinema after a long gap. Apart from Jishu this multi-starrer comedy will feature Dev, Ankush, Mimi, Nushrat, Kaushani and Sayantika in the lead roles.

This film will be a comedy loosely based on the superhit Hindi movie #NoEntry and it is scheduled to release on this Eid.

Review of Nil Battey Sannata

There are few movies which gives you something more than just entertainment and #NilBatteySannata is one of those few movies. Literal transformation of the word #NilBatteySannata means if you divide zero by zero you will get nothing and it is referred to the person or situation which is totally hopeless like a fuse bulb but ironically this film is exactly opposite. It gives you hope to nurture your dreams; it enlightens the bonding between parents and kids. Though it does not have big stars but among the crowd of big budget films of Khans, Kumars and Kapoors, such small films with big heart should be made and should be watched.

It is the story of Chanda (Swara Bhashkar) a single mother who works as domestic help to an

elderly couple. She also works at different places like pickle factory, shoe factory and dhobi ghaat for some extra income as she has to save money for the future of her only daughter Apeksha fondly called Appu(Ria Shukla). Chanda has high hopes for Appu on the other hand Appu is just careless, ambition less young kid who hates studies specially maths. She is absolutely sure that she is not meant for studies, as she has to be a maid in future just like her mother. She has her own logic “Doctor ka beta Doctor, Engineer ka beta Engineer aur Bai ke beti Bai banegi”. Chanda is clueless about how to bring back her daughter on track and with the suggestion of the lady (Ratna Pathak Shah) to whom she works, she takes admission in her daughter’s school in the same class, class X. Appu feels too much embarrassment to share the same class with her mother and she gives her a challenge that if she can score more marks than her mother in maths in the semi-annual exams then Chanda have to leave school. What happened to the mother daughter duo as aftermath of the challenge that forms the rest of the story.

The story by Nitesh Tiwari is very much fresh and it has been treated very realistically with

characters and situation from our day to day life. The screenplay has been written by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Nitesh Tiwari, Neeraj Singh and Pranjal Choudhary, in  such a way that will never let you feel bore for a single moment. The characters and situation are so engaging that you will feel connected with them. The good thing is that it always focuses on the main track that is the sweet bitter relationship of the mother and daughter never adds any unnecessary sub plots. There are moments which will make you laugh specially the ones in school, at the same time there are moments which will bring tears in your eyes specially the climax which is cliché but heart touching. The track involving the collector (Sanjay Suri in a cameo) could have been avoided but probably the story writers wanted to give a hint that even the kids from financially weak family who could not afford the fees of higher studies in big colleges, they too have a scope for brighter future.

As a director debutant Aswiny Iyer Tiwari has done a wonderful job. First hats off to her for choosing such an unconventional subject and then for giving it such realistic touch. We are hopeful to see such wonderful movies from her in future too.

So far Swara Bhaskar has proved her acting capabilities in many movies in supporting roles,

this is the first time she is playing the lead role and it is her career best performance. As a middle aged single mother she is perfect. Her body language, dialogue delivery, expressions and every mannerism is exactly the same which is required for her on screen character.
Debutant Riya Shukla is also effective as Appu. She has wonderful screen presence. Her character is arrogant, she don't care for her mother's dreams, she argues with her mother, she is careless but still you will love her because she is absolutely normal ,she will remind you of your own growing up age. There is an innocence in her face, an honesty in her acting which will compel you to identify with her during your own adolescent times.
Pankaj Tripathy is awesome as the school principal. He is playing a strict Principal which could have been turned into a typical portrayal of strict teachers in Bollywood movies but Pankaj Tripathy with his brilliant acting has taken it to a different level. He has provided good enough comic moments with his funny facial expressions and body language.
Among the others Ratna Pathak Shah leaves her mark in a brief role, where as the three kids Neha Prajapati, Prashant Tiwari and Vishal Nath who played the classmates of Appu are very natural and impressive.

The technical team has done good job. Chandrashekhar Prajapati’s editing is sharp;

dialogues written by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Nitesh Tiwari, Neeraj Singh and Pranjal

Choudhary are very much natural sounds like taken from our day to day life. Production design by Laxmi Keluskar and goes well with the characters especially it looks authentic with the financial condition of the central characters. Same can be said about the costumes which looks very authentic. Gavemic U. Ary’s camerawork is fairly good. There is not much scope of music here , songs are mostly in background and are just okay, the only song which gets attention is “Maths me dabba gul” and it’s a funny song with funny lyrics.

Overall it is small film made with a big heart. It gives wonderful message but without compromising with the entertainment quotient. Without giving lecture it simply conveys its message that no parent tries to impose their dreams on their kids rather the kids themselves are the dream of their parents. Go and watch it you will definitely come out with satisfaction.

No Fans for SRK's FAN

Shahrukh Khan is really going with bad phase at the box office. 

Last year his #Dilwale could not perform as per expectations and this time #Fan is getting even worse response at the ticket windows. After a long time SRK had tried to experiment with his choice of movies with #Fan but it really did not go well with his fans. Although it is doing decent business at overseas but in India its performance is very poor. 

In first week it has earned  ₹ 71.5 cr which was very low as per expectations still it was okay but in the second week it saw a substantial drop with a 2nd weekend collection of just ₹ 7.75 cr [Fri 1.70 cr, Sat 2.65 cr, Sun 3.40 cr.] After the end of second week its total collection is ₹ 79.25 cr. India business. 

Now the question is what went wrong with this experiment and the answer is although Shahrukh Khan performed exceptionally well in both the roles specially as the fan Gaurav but the story was not convincing at all. From mass to class all had high hopes to see an exciting thriller in form of #Fan but the screenplay was week enough to live up to the expectations.

At the present situation it is pretty much clear that it wont be able to enter even 100cr club whereas his contemporaries are now a regular member of 200cr club and sometime they eye to even 300cr. In such condition to be in the race Shahrukh’s only hope is his next release #Raees where once again he will be seen in a different kind of role, hopefully that experiment will not be a failure.

Update of Bengali Movies in the First Quarter of 2016

The beginning of 2016 was quite good for Bengali movies though it could not continue for the whole quarter. There is nothing new in that. Normally it’s not every week or every month that you can see big Bengali movies from big directors and big actors are releasing. Normally big Bengali movies come in some selective occasions only like New year, Poila Boishakh, Summer vacation, Durga Puja and Christmas and for the rest of the time small budget movies kept coming and going without making any impact. 

Let’s have a quick recap of the first quarter of 2016.

January

It will not be wrong to term January 2016 as the month of Abir Chatterjee. There was a

moment when three big hits of Abir Chatterjee were running together in theaters, in this month. These three movies were last year’s last hit #HarHarByomkesh , 2016’s two releases #Monchora and #Bastuushaap.

The month of January began with Sandip Ray directed #Monchora featuring Abir Chatterjee, Raima Sen , Paran Bandopadhyay and Shashwata Chatterjee in the lead roles. It was based on the short story by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. After a long gap Sandip Ray tried something different other than a Feluda story and this time too he was successful to connect with the audience with his simple narrative of a simple story. The performance by all the lead cast was very good. The film had a good opening and it continued to win people’s heart for next few weeks which made it the first hit of this year.

The next big release of this month was #Bastuushaap directed by Kaushik Ganguly. Once again Kaushik Ganguly had come with a unique subject and this time it was Bastu and this concept had been gelled with an interesting story revolving arout a family and their problems. The main cast was full of talented actors, Abir Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Raima Sen, Churni Ganguly and Kaushik Ganguly himself and all five actors had delivered one of their finest performances. Also the music was quite popular which also worked in favor of the movie. This movie opened with good response and kept doing well for the whole quarter completing successful 100 days run at the theaters. So far it is the biggest hit of the year.

February

February is the month of Valentine’s Day and this year there were few romantic releases on the valentine weekend. Among them the two which got more attention were #KiKoreTokeBolbo and #Hero420

#KiKoreTokeBolbo was from the biggest production house Venkatesh Films, so obviously it got much better release and promotion among the other releases which helped it to get better opening. This Ravi Kinagi directed film was a romantic film with a fresh pairing of Ankush and Mimi Chakraborty . The pair looked lovely together and their chemistry was very impressive. Also the music by Jeet Ganguly was popular which was an added feature for the film.This film did an average business at the box office and continued to run at theaters for around one month.

#Hero420 was a India Bangladesh joint venture produced by Eskay Movies from India along with Bangladeshi production house Jaaz Multimedia. It was a romantic action film directed by Sujit Mondal and featuring Om and Raima Sen along with Nusraat Faria from Bangladesh. It was remake of a Telegu film which was full of mainstream commercial masala. As expected it did well at the small centers but failed at Big cities and multiplexes.

March

There was not a single big release to mention, in the month of March.

Best Film of Quarter 1 2016

• Bastushaap
• Monchora

Best Directors of Quarter 1 2016

• Kaushik Ganguly – Bastushaap
• Sandip Ray – Monchora

 Best Actors of Quarter 1 2016

• Abir Chatterjee - Bastushaap/Monchora
• Parambrata Chatterjee - Bastushaap
• Paran Bandopadhyay - Monchora
• Kasuhik Ganguly – Bastushaap

Best Actresses of Quarter 1 2016

• Raima Sen - Bastushaap/Monchora
• Churni Ganguly - Bastushaap
• Mimi Chakraborty - Ki Kore Toke Bolbo

Update of Bollywood movies in 1st Quarter of 2016

2015 was not a good year for Bollywood in terms of business. Compared to that the beginning of 2016 was quite better with few good quality movies including a 100cr hit.Lets have a quick recap of the first three months of 2016.

January

The month began with Amitabh Bachhan and Farhan Akhtar starer thriller #Wazir which had been directed by Bejoy Nambiar and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It had a gripping story with some solid performances by the whole cast lead by Big B and Farhan Akhtar. This emotional story of two friends connected very well with the audiences and it got a good opening with around 29cr collection in first week and 42cr in its lifetime, which is good enough to call it an average earner.

It was followed by the biggest hit of the year so far #Airlift featuring Akshay Kumar in the lead. It was based on the real life incident of the biggest human evacuation from Kuwait to India during the period of Pre-Gulf war when Iraq had attacked on Kuwait. It was a proud moment for Indian cinema when the glorious but almost forgotten story of Indian history was showcased in a Bollywood movie.This film had been promoted very well and also it had been released during the long weekend of Republic Day so it got good opening and became one of the biggest openers of Akshay Kumar’s career  with 44cr collection in its first weekend and 83cr collection in its first week. It continued doing good business at ticket windows even after first week because of the good word of mouth publicity which helped it to enter in 100cr club with around 127 cr collection in its lifetime.

Another well made film of this month was the last release of this month #SaalaKhadoos which was about an aspiring woman boxer and her coach. It was a wonderful story about the victory of an underdog which had been presented very well by the debutante director Sudha kangra. In lead roles Madhavan and Ritika Singh were perfect. But due to lack of star presence and weak promotion it could not make that big at the box office and flopped at the box office with just 15cr lifetime collection.

Another highlight of this month was two back to back sleazy adult comedies #KyaKoolHaiHum3 and #Mastizaade. Co-incidentally both featured Tussar Kapoor in the lead. The first one was the third installement of #KyaKoolHaiHum series produced by Balaji Films, which had been marketed as India’s first Porn-com. The second one was just an extended skin show of Sunny Leone with a boring and mindless story. Both the movies were very vulgar and tasteless which provided only sex no comedy. Thankfully both the movies were rejected at the box office which is enough to ensure that such cheap movies have not any bright future at the box office. Hopefully no filmmaker will invest money in such movies in near future.

February

The month of February started with Sunny Deol’s comeback film #GhayalOnceAgain. It was a routine 90’s film which has nothing new to offer except for some solid action sequences which helped it to earn around 36cr at the box office which was not good enough to call it a hit but still it was better than expected.

February is also the month of Valentines so there were three romantic movies featuring young couples which got released in three consecutive weeks. These movies were #SanamTeriKasam, #SanamRe, #Loveshuda. All these movies had almost fresh cast in the lead with good music but unfortunately none of them worked at the box office. Among them at least #SanamRe was an average earner with 30cr collection that too because of the hit music which gave it a good opening. Among the crowd of love stories of young couple there was yet another love story in the competition that was Abhishek Kapoor directed #Fitoor featuring Aditya Roy Kapoor and Katrina Kaif in the lead. People had some high hopes with

this movie because of the successful director associated with it but this film flopped badly at the box office because of its slow pace and not so good performances by the leading cast.

Finally in the third week came the second biggest hit of the quarter #Neerja. After #Airlift it was yet another story based on real life event of a brave Indian girl who had saved the life of more than 300 passengers when the plane was hijacked where she was a flight attendant. Sonam Kapoor had played the title role wonderfully delivering her career best performance. Due to lack of big star power this film got an average opening with around 22cr in its first weekend and 35cr in its first week. But its collections kept growing with every coming day because of the good word of mouth publicity and positive reviews. As a result it kept doing good business at the box office even in its 4^th and 5^th week which is very rare now a day. That helped it to earn around 75cr collection in its lifetime.

This movie was followed by two small movies #Aligarh and #TereBinLadenDeadOrAlive. Both the film flopped at the box office but #Aligarh got good reviews for its bold subject and good performances by Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkumar Rao.

March

The beginning of the month was very bad when highly expected film #JaiGangaajal could not perform as expected at the box office. There were high hopes with this Prakash Jha directed film featuring Priyanka Chopra in the leading role of a daredevil Cop. But the response from audience was disappointing. It was followed by Himesh Reshamiya starer box office disaster #TeraSuroor.

Finally on the third week of this month came the big release of this month

#KapoorAndSons, a film about family bonding produced by Karan Johar and featuring the trio of latest heartthrobs Fawad Khan, Siddharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt. They had been joined by the veteran actors Rishi Kapoor, Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah. Because of the popular star cast and catchy music it got good opening with around 26cr collections in its first weekend. Later its collection kept doing well because of the good feedback from both audiences and critics. That helped the film to earn around 47cr in its first weekend and more than 65cr till second week. It is still doing good business at the box office. 
The last release of this month was John Abraham starer action packed film #RockyHandsome. It was decent entertainer with its superb action sequences. At the box office it got mixed opening and could not do anything big at the box office.

Overall the first quarter was quite impressive with some really good movies doing well at the box office too. There are some biggies in the second half too including SRK starer #Fan. We are hoping for even better Q2.

Best Film of Q1 2016

• Airlift
• Saala Khadoos
• Neerja
• Kapoor & Sons

Best Director of Q1 2016

• Raja Krishna Menon - Airlift
• Sudha Kongara - Saala Khadoos
• Ram Madhvani - Neerja
• Hanshal Mehta - Aligarh
• Shakun Batra - Kapoor & Sons

Best Actor of Q1 2016

• Amitabh Bachchan - Wazir
• Farhan Akhtar - Wazir
• Akshay Kumar - Airlift
• R. Madhavan - Saala Khadoos
• Manoj Bajpayee - Aligarh
• Fawad Khan - Kapoor & Sons
• Rajkumar Rao - Aligarh
• Prakash Jha - Jai Gangaajal
• Rishi Kapoor - Kapoor & Sons
• Rajat Kapoor - Kapoor & Sons

Best Actress of Q1 2016

• Ritika Singh - Saala Khadoos
• Sonam Kapoor - Neerja
• Aditi Rao Hydari - Wazir
• Nimrat Kaur - Airlift
• Shabana Azmi - Neerja
• Ratna Pathak Shah - Kapoor & Sons
• Alia Bhatt - Kapoor & Sons

Top Songs of Q1 2016

• Tere Bin - Wazir
• De Di, Soch Na Sake - Airlift
• Sanam Re, Gazab Ka Hai Ye Din - Sanam Re
• Kheech Meri Photo - Sanam Teri Kasam
• Kar Gayee Chul - Kapoor & Sons