A consolidated film diary for tracking my viewing, which I hope could also serve as recommendation. There are a lot of films – feature length and shorts – missing from this list, thanks to my negligence in jotting them down. I hope to add them to the list whenever I come across them again. The films have been rated – as an obligation – based partly on proficiency and historical importance and partly on taste and initial impressions, partly on an absolute scale and partly on a relative one. In other words, totally arbitrarily.
[Rough key: 10,9: All-time Favorites/Masterpieces, 8,7: Pretty Great/Essential, 6,5: Compelling, but with major reservations, 4,3: Mostly disappointing, 2,1: Turn-offs]
January 16, 2012 at 11:56 am
Wow. This is great :) Much more informative than /4 star rating that you used before .
January 16, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I feel so too, Richie. But I’m still a bit embarassed about rating films. Oh well.
January 16, 2012 at 1:09 pm
Yes, Detailed reviews would be ideal but those are of course a lot more time consuming. In the meantime, this helps in getting atleast a perfunctory idea of how you find certain auteurs / their films in relation to other auteurs/films.
March 2, 2012 at 8:32 am
Hi Srikanth,
Just came across ur blog. Great work.
Liked in particular, on a quick glance,the latest entry on Paul Virilio’s War And Cinema and the one on Mani Kaul.
Am trying to compile a list of documetaries and films dealing in some artful manner with the process of filmmaking or the reception/consumption of films.
I will be thankful if u could key-in a few titles that come to ur mind.
BTW, where could i find ur profile?
March 2, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Thank you, Sumanaspati,
There must be quite a few films falling in the category that you are dealing with, I guess. Right now I can think of Costa’s WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE?, Kieslowski’s CAMERA BUFF, Fassbinder’s BEWARE OF THE HOLY WHORE, Fellini’s 8 1/2, Blank’s BURDEN OF DREAMS and a few others. You should be able to get hundreds on a search engine, with the proper terms.
I don’t think I have a profile anywhere on the net!
Cheers!
December 4, 2012 at 12:43 pm
One docu I’d definitely recco roughly falling in the category you mentioned is ‘Videokaaran’ by Jagannathan Krishnan. More about the film here and here.
December 4, 2012 at 12:48 pm
*I got the second link wrong. Here’s the correct one. http://moifightclub.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/a-film-videokaaran-this-passionate-deserves-some-passion-from-each-and-every-film-lover-argues-varun-grover/
January 1, 2013 at 5:14 pm
Videokaaran has been eluding me for some time, Sujeet. Thanks for reminding again. Happy new year.
March 30, 2012 at 1:49 pm
I really liked the translation of Thillu-Mullu and Thiruda thiruda (Was it official translation?)..Btw does Va quarter cutting deserve a rating of 5? I thought it was less than that! Anyway I am really liking this diary which gives me invaluable film suggeastions apart from the ratings..Nice work Srikanth
March 31, 2012 at 11:26 am
I guess it is the official one, Venky. I’ve said it and I say it again. Forget the ratings, they are fickle. I’ve just put them on a quasi-relative scale, just for recommendation.
Having said that, I’ve to admit I was sort of warm for VA’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND-like absurdity (except when it was trying to market that absurdity intentionally).
THanks and cheers!
April 1, 2012 at 10:24 am
Quasi-Relative scale? hmm.. that’s ok..Ratings are fickle indeed. That’s just a reflection of a viewer’s (or critic’s) instant experience of a particular movie which don’t give a true picture at all.
June 18, 2012 at 1:11 am
Dear Srikanth,
Just stumbled on your blog while searching for an analysis of Mani Kaul’s Satah Se Uthata Aadmi, right after I watched the film. Needless to say the film is superb and yours is a very valuable blog, keep it going. I used to write a blog on film too, on my grand father who worked in the Hindi film industry as a make up artist for over fifty years. If you have the time and the inclination you can see it here: http://www.papaajoba.blogspot.in
Best
Anuja
July 31, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Thanks, Anuja.
March 7, 2013 at 1:03 am
Hey,
I came your blog while I was in Twitter. Enjoyed your detailed analysis on Hey Ram. I’ll watch the movie again if I get a copy of it. Also I would like to suggest something. In your “Film Diary” column you’ve rated some of the movies. It would be really useful if you can provide drop-down for each field or just for rating field. It would surely make things easy to choose a movie.
March 7, 2013 at 6:33 am
Hi Deepak,
G-docs does not allow me to do that, but I do have multiple sheets, noticeable at the bottom, where the titles are sorted based on each column.
Cheers!