TOP 10 ROAD TRIP MOVIES OF THIS CENTURY

Guest post by: Arnab Maity

Arnab is at simultaneously a photographer, a seasoned traveler and a software analyst from Bangalore who also delights his readers and photography enthusiasts regularly at his own blog: www.arnabmaity.com His never ending wanderlust has contributed to making him develop a keen taste for road movies. Fly away with him and his list of Top 10 Road Trips of the Century from all over the world, which features a couple of our own Hindi language favorites.

We all love our road trips, don’t we? That orifice to vent out the vapors of our day to day chores, to bring us out into the open, sometimes gifting unusual sights and sometimes making us meet unusual people, who leave a mark throughout our lives.

We all have such road trips in our lives, which had changed many a thing about us and there are many such movies which have inspired us to leave our couches and get onto to the road!

This compilation consists of those movies, which had left us thinking and made us pack our bags, to explore the unexplored and meet the unknown.

An Unmissable KAHAANI! - Film Review

Shah Rukh Khan once said about his co-star Madhuri Dixit: "Madhuri is the most solid man I've met in the industry. Yeah, you heard right. She's truly like a man. She's the most solid thinker, solid emotionally, solid believer (...) She's the complete Indian film heroine."

The above quote today inevitably brings to the mind current "hero-ine" Vidya Balan. In a male centered film industry, her sound script sense and her talent currently make her one of Bollywood's most regarded professionals, up there with the sharpness of the market-savviest male stars or the talent of the best actors in the industry. She has turned the audience's focus to women characters with a solid hand, making men and women alike love her for it. After Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica and The Dirty Picture, it is today Kahaani's turn to blow the spectator away with Balan's ability to subtly perform within a team, focusing on her characters as individuals more than as female roles, while intelligently allowing her co-stars to shine along with her too.

Kahaani is the story of Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan), a 7-month pregnant woman who arrives in Kolkata from London to look for her missing husband but is confronted with clues that her husband in reality does not exist. It is natural to feel for a Vidya who struggles to know who is telling the truth while the story effectively morphs into a suspense-thriller, with the audience hanging on to every moment hoping to unravel the mystery and wishing that the main character will manage to keep her and her unborn baby safe.

59th NATIONAL FILM AWARDS: Onir, Vidya Balan, Ra.One and more

Photograph: Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images

It was an exciting and momentous day for the films and crews nominated to the National Film Awards 2011. Our heartiest congratulations to all winners!

Best Hindi Film: I AM (Onir)
Best Feature Films (2 awards): Deool and Byari
Best Director: Gurvinder Singh for Anhe Ghorey Da Daan 
Best Bengali Film: Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbo Na
Best Marathi Film: Shaala
Best Dialogue: Deool
Best Actress: Vidya Balan, The Dirty Picture
Best Actor: Girish Kulkarni for Deool

MADHURI DIXIT at Madame Tussaud's in London

 

Following in the steps of Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan and cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, it is now the beautiful Madhuri Dixit who will soon be inaugurating her very own wax statue at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London.

When will OSCAR love BOLLYWOOD?

A movie buff usually plans the Oscars soirée in advance and spends hours glued to the TV screen rooting for his/her favorites.

I am however one movie buff who barely remembers the last time she sat down to watch the Oscars. My love for films and good stories currently only motivates me to follow the Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Picture and then the list of actual winners for all categories once the gala is over.  "Why?", I have been asked time and again. This would seem a simple question to answer but, upon second thought, it sort of opens a pandora box of thoughts regarding cinema in general, Academy award policies and, last but not least, Indian cinema.