Showing posts with label Kishan Shah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kishan Shah. Show all posts
Meet the Cringe culture fans
9:49 AM
Still from Sar Kati Laash (1999) by Teerat Singh
Social media accounts hold on to the charm and extravagant nature of pop culture of the ’90s by collecting moments from cult B movies and candid star interviews
Sucheta Chakraborty (MID-DAY; December 5, 2021)
For ’90s kid Aseem Chandaver, a love for B movies started with Sajid Khan’s Kehne Mein Kya Harj Hai, which brought out the funny details in films and Channel V’s Colossal Chaos Countdown, the ideal Sunday morning show for any B movie buff, that aired in 2002. “Even as a 15-year-old, I could tell that these were very high concept films that couldn’t be executed properly because they didn’t have access to good technicians,” says Chandaver, who has been collecting them over the years, owning over 500 such films that he has plans of further digitising for safekeeping. His @babajogeshwari account on Instagram, which originally started as a YouTube channel around 2006, collects B movie memorabilia, curating moments that stood out.
The period when B movies flourished was between 1992 and 2010, says Chandaver, its golden period spanning the years 1998 to 2003. Films like Khooni Dracula, which he calls “the holy grail” given its unadulterated entertainment value, Hatyarin with its “Hollywood-level effects”, and its director Vinod Talwar working at his peak, Bhoot Ke Peeche Bhoot by Kanti Shah’s brother Kishan Shah, and Sar Kati Laash by Teerat Singh are among his favourites.
“The best part about these B movies was that the villain was the real hero, while the hero himself was expendable. The villains had more control, more liberty in the way their characters behaved,” he says, while observing that more than sleaze, it was horror that was the real draw as it had erotica, action and effects.
These are cult films, says Chandaver, the reason behind the renewed focus on them being the recent Hollywood film The Disaster Artist about American B movie actor, director, screenwriter and producer Tommy Wiseau. “People realised that every country has a B movie industry and we should pay attention to it,” says Chandaver.
“These movies were the ‘upside down’ of Bollywood, which was an entirely upper crust industry,” he adds, it being the home of more marginal filmmakers. While they couldn’t execute things the way Bollywood did in spite of having good dialogue writers, they had raw honesty in their filmmaking. “The fact that they got the movies done under any circumstances whatsoever was heartening,” he notes, citing the resourcefulness of the art director of a film where a radioactive substance was shown by using a screwdriver with a glowing bulb in it. “What they set out to achieve, happened, and that is the best part about B films.”
For Sudarshan, a Mumbai-based writer, who runs the Instagram account @notwhyral, watching BTS videos on Lehren got him interested in curating moments from interviews of stars from the decade, which caught them in a moment that seemed genuine and not manufactured or promotion-driven. While the 23-year-old feels little nostalgia for the decade, the followers of his account do, he admits. “I try to imagine that if there was internet back in the day, would this particular moment turn into a meme,” shares the writer, who usually curated content for his account by picking an actor and watching all their interviews till he finds a moment worth uploading.
Among his favourites are one of Amitabh Bachchan getting angry during a Manmohan Desai film and a Waheeda Rehman clip where she speaks of the time when she was asked to change her name.
For screenwriter Vaibhav Vishal, who along with a few others, runs a Facebook group called I love Trashy Hindi Movies, the mid-1980s and ’90s were the most exciting decades “because we graduated from analogue to digital, and saw two distinct worlds. We have actually been an integral part of the two Indias that Vir Das talks about [Vir Das’ Kennedy Center monologue ‘Two Indias’] because what we were and what we became are very distinct. There was gradual change from the 1960s to the ’90s, but post the ’90s, it was a different world altogether. That was the last time we ever were innocent.”
The Facebook group was started 12-13 years ago, he says, as a way to celebrate this middle-brow culture and its world of villains, smugglers and item girls, and look upon it with affection, admiration, respect, and some associated fun and laughter, but never as a way of mocking it. “That was all the entertainment we had,” says Vishal. “It was part of our television viewing and our cinema routine and we treated it with seriousness. In the ’90s, our horizons suddenly widened and that’s when we realised how basic it was. And yet, these are films of a time that can never be replicated.”
While visitors and followers of the group routinely send in clips, the content that works ultimately, he says, are clips that are enjoyable enough to be returned to a second time. “It displays the inflection of the ’90s cinema with a lot of love and warmth.”
Vishal further speaks of Altaf Raja, Kader Khan, and Mohammed Aziz, key figures, he says who play an important role in the history of Indian pop culture, a culture whose contribution endures in a Sambit Patra rejoinder, or a Raju Shrivastav comedy show or an episode of The Kapil Sharma Show. “They still are using ’90s tropes. The Tanishk Bagchi remixes are those of ’90s hits. The decade never really left us.”
Aseem Chandaver and Sudarshan
B-grade & C-grade films making a grand comeback
8:07 AM
Kaamleela, Love, Sex Multiplex, Pyasi Chudail — B and C grade movies with some interesting titles are lined up for release this year
Bharati Dubey (MID-DAY; March 26, 2014)
They might not evoke the respect that A grade movies get, but one cannot take away credit from the imagination that’s used in the content and titles of B-grade films. hitlist takes a quick look at the B-grade film industry which seems to be more active than ever before.
Some of the most bizarre and funny titles registered with film associations generally belong to B-grade films. It is obviously a tactic to attract eyeballs and draw audiences inside theatres that still thrive on these kind of films. The industry went through a lull for a while, but now it’s back with ahem, a bang. A decade ago, filmmakers such as Kanti Shah, Kishan Shah, Dilip Gulati, Komal Gulati, the late Jeetendra Chawda, the late Joginder, Chandani Gupta, Sanjay Khandelwal, Kumar Adarsh, Ravi Patwa and Robin Ghai were credited with making popular B-grade films. Some of these players are back in the scene now, and are busy making similar films.
B and C-grade films make a comeback
Trade analyst Atul Mohan says, “Yes, sleaze is trying to make a comeback. A decade ago, we had at least one or two films release in a week. Back then, most filmmakers in this category were working round the clock to churn out one film after another. We had 40-50 films releasing in a year. These cost around Rs 3- 4 lakh to make and managed to garner business worth around Rs 10-12 lakh. Then supply exceeded demand, and technology too grew rapidly with mobiles and computers becoming affordable. Sex-driven content was not only relegated to films.”
He adds that the basic plot in most of these films was a revenge drama with a generous dose of sex. The market for their films was so big that producers would make a film every two months. An announcement about their next film would be made on the day their latest film had released.’’ In the last five years, these films reached a saturation point and it became more difficult to find audiences for their films. Some filmmakers diversified into other fields; some opened post-production studios and others moved to the Bhojpuri film industry. With the slow disappearance of these films, C-grade English films were dubbed and presented with titles such as Chulbul Haseena, Sexy Secretary, Haseen Raatein and Mast Saali. But looks like times are changing again in their favour and some are now making sequels to their earlier hit films.
Competition heats up
Producer Sanjay Khandelwal is busy making Vatsyayan Kamasutra 2, a sequel to his earlier hit film, Vatsyayan Kamasutra (see pic on top). Kumar Adarsh, who is making the sequel to his film, Secrets of Sex, claims he is responsible for the revival of this section of the film industry.
He says, “A trade magazine
said that because I started work on this sequel, others are back to
making similar films.” However, Adarsh hates his film being dubbed as C-
grade. He says, “Secrets of Sex Part 2 is an educational film on sex. I
have used the abbreviation SOS in the title to hint at an emergency and
thus draw the audiences’ attention. The film’s intention is solely to
educate people about sex and the taboo attached to it. My first film,
SOS, was hugely popular online and managed to get about 20 million
views,” he says. After this film, Adarsh will make a film called Red
Light.
Kanti Shah and Kishan Shah, who are considered the
undisputed badshahs of B and C-grade films, are also adding new films
to their repertoire. If Bhansali made Ramleela, Kanti Shah is busy
making Kaamleela (right). Shah says, “If there can be a Ramleela, why can’t
there be a Kaamleela?” It may be recalled that soon after Katrina Kaif ’s item song, Sheela Ki Jawani, was aired, Kanti Shah made a film called
Sheela Ki Jawani. This film hit the screens even before Farah Khan’s
Tees Maar Khan, which featured Kat’s item song, was released in
theatres. Along with Kaamleela, Shah is also making another film called
MMS Kaand, which is expected to release soon. Kanti’s brother Kishan too
is getting ready to release a film unabashedly called XXX.Good business
These films are released in single screens in B and C centres in Mumbai, and the producers make business to the tune of around Rs 60,000 per week. But some of them fight shy of saying that their films are only made to titillate. Producer Sanjay Khandelwal says that his films are not porn. “One of my films is stuck with the Censor Board for eight months now. Many films made by reputed producers have far more explicit scenes.” Well, that again is a topic for another debate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)