| Ram Gopal Varma and Company:
Indian Goodfellas
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This series is an Egyptian
Theatre Exclusive!
Maverick Indian filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma burst on the scene in
1990 with his startling debut, the groundbreaking crime film SHIVA. Previously an
assistant director, no one was quite prepared for this southern India native abruptly
taking the Indian film industry by storm. Although he has gone on to great success making
more traditional Bollywood type films, Varma has also remained true to his roots, not only
still directing gritty underworld sagas and creepy horror pictures, but producing debut
efforts as well by a number of other audacious young directors, mostly in the crime genre.
Just now starting to receive recognition in festivals in the west, Varma is taking no
prisoners with the brand new remake of his initial SHIVA (which will receive it's
World Premiere in this series), a runaway mad bull of a movie chronicling one young cop's
struggle with corruption. We'll also be screening Varma's acclaimed magnum opus of the
Mumbai underworld, COMPANY from 2002. Plus two efforts produced by Varma: director
Sriram Raghavan's volcanic 2004 epic of a wronged woman's vendetta against her criminal
boyfriend, EK HASINA THI (aka THERE WAS A BEAUTIFUL GIRL); and first time director
Shimit Amin's shocking AB TAK CHHAPPAN (aka 56, SO FAR), the chronicle of an
"encounter specialist," a cop who acts as a secretly-sanctioned hitman of
criminals. Ram Gopal Varma is "...a major discovery on the film festival circuit -
a director of the caliber of Tsui Hark and Johnnie To - who hasn't received the
international attention he deserves." - Film Comment
Friday, August 18 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
World Premiere! SHIVA,
2006, The Factory, 130 min. Director Ram Gopal Varma remakes his first breakout
movie from 1990 as a big-budget action picture about law enforcement corruption. One of
the most anticipated Bollywood films of the year, it stars Mohit Ahlawat as a cop
just out of the police academy, unpreprared for the harsh realities that await him. With
Nagajuna, Nisha Kothari. In Hindi with English Subtitles.
L.A. Premiere! EK HASINA THI (aka THERE WAS A BEAUTIFUL GIRL), 2004, The
Factory, 145 min. Dir. Sriram Raghavan. A gothic women’s revenge film that
starts like a heavenly romance but ends up in hell. Longtime Ram Gopal Varma actress, Urmila
Matondkar, stars as a buttoned down office worker who falls in love with a guy
who’s just mysterious enough to make her feel sexy and special. In love for the first
time in her life, her icy shell quickly melts, and soon she’s a dewy-eyed lovebird.
Even after she takes the rap for his crimes and is sent to prison, she still can’t
believe that her man has done her wrong. But it doesn’t take too long for the
rat-infested hell where she’s been sequestered to flip her switch. What her ex-beau
(hunky Saif Ali Khan) didn’t count on is that this pouting, pretty girl has a
screw loose, and it’ll take more bullets and bodies than he can throw at her to stop
her revenge. The highlights from every female action movie ever made are stitched together
into this insane Frankenbeast of a film, produced by Ram Gopal Varma, that comes
screaming at you with blood under its nails and a mad, empty gleam in its eyes. In
Hindi with English Subtitles.
Saturday, August 19 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
COMPANY, 2002, The Factory, 155 min. The epic saga of
the rise and fall of an international criminal cartel and the men and women who built its
marble halls on a mountain of corpses. Combining Francis Ford Coppola’s panoramic
sweep and Martin Scorsese’s delicate touch with actors, director Ram Gopal Varma
delivers one of the greatest crime stories to hit the screen since GOODFELLAS. Malik (Ajay
Devgan) recruits slum-thug, Chandu (Vivek Oberoi) to beef up his side in an
internal war. Together, the two build an international business consisting of extortion,
murder and movie producing! Virtuoso sequences are thrust at the viewer like candy: rainy
hits, subterranean negotiations, blood-slimed power plays, and a bravura setpiece which
proves that while the cell phone is mightier than the gun, the gun is a lot more
satisfying. "Ram Gopal Varma brings us an intense film with a dark message...first
and foremost, this is one of the finest group of performances from an ensemble cast that I
have seen since Steven Soderbergh´s TRAFFIC." - Planet Bollywood. "…certainly
ranks as one of Bollywood’s best of 2002."- Derek Elley, Variety.
In Hindi and English with English Subtitles.
L.A. Premiere! AB TAK CHHAPPAN (aka 56, SO FAR), 2004, The Factory, 129
min. In Mumbai, there are incidents between police and thieves where the bad guys wind up
mysteriously dead and no witness can be found to say who pulled the trigger. This is the
work of "encounter" specialists, cops who work as hitmen for the department,
rubbing out criminals on command. Produced by Ram Gopal Varma and directed by
first-timer Shimit Amin, this is the story of just such a cop whose days are
swiftly drawing to a close. Sadhu (the great Nana Patekar) is the doomed encounter
specialist with 56 notches on his belt, and competing with a colleague to get to number
57. Sadhu cooly threatens gangsters on his cell phone while driving his wife to work,
interrupts casual conversations with a bullet and fabricates evidence as easily as
breathing. The movie is loosely based on the life of Daya Nayak, a gregarious,
glad-handing vegetarian who is also a real-life encounter specialist claiming to have
survived 83 encounters in three years. Ruthlessly realistic, this is crime film where the
"good" guys are murderers and the only rich people are crooks! In Hindi with
English Subtitles. |
