I have always had this dream of Indian Cinema becoming globally relevant like Hollywood is and have a major mark in Cinema history but recently, i have realised that it’s a very futile dream.

I never thought that our creators were any less than anyone in Hollywood but their priorities always seem to be in the wrong place.

There’s no aspirations to make good cinema, it’s always about proving something to someone and you don’t achieve success like that. You have to believe in yourself first and then others will too.

Namit Malhotra’s Ramayana is everything wrong with this industry compiled into one movie. The producer is obsessed with attention, he goes on interviews to make big claims, he incorporates his name in the title, he takes up all the attention instead of giving actual creators their credit, just because he invested money.

Then there is bad makeup, bland cinematography, glossy look, even lighting in every scene with studio lighting being incredibly obvious despite having DNEG, which is 8 times academy award winning studio.

The most embarrassing part is the desperation for western approval. These people will spend millions of dollars in conventions, screenings, premiere in LA but never ever think of prioritising its own domestic fans.

It has always pissed me off how Hollywood never does any big events here and that’s because they think of us as guaranteed audience, that they don’t even care to do events for us, they will have their actors record a video in a studio and that’s it. Despite being the most populated country and a very large audience base, that is our value to them and then comes Namit Malhotra, who spends $250 million on the movie and goes straight to do world premiere again in LA and London before India, even our own creators don’t prioritise us and when you point it out, they will be “We know the story, we don’t need it” our own audience is so accustomed to being treated like an afterthought and they really don’t want to be respected, they want to please others.

“We will watch it anyway, go promote in west” i guess this is why even Hollywood doesn’t care about us because we are so desperate for their approval, their movies that they don’t even have to think about us, we are irrelevant to them and even our own creators.

Instead of trying to build big film festivals here, doing giant nationwide events, domestic first screenings, we would rather please Academy Awards, Hollywood reporter, Collider and Variety because their opinions matter far greater than our own industry, thar we will only be relevant if they look at us and give us their fraction of attention and we will then celebrate it for years to come.

We will hire Hollywood crew, studios, pay in dollars for them to look at us and claim it as an achievement of Indian Cinema because even out creators think we aren’t good enough on our own without their help and guidance. So, we flex it like an honour, for them to give their gracious talent on our movies and treat it like a blessing.

This mentality isn’t going to improve, if you question it, you will get attacked and even called “anti national” because pleasing whites seems to be our national duty.

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Some people from a particular region of India began posting negative reviews of a movie without watching it. Was this because none of the cast members were from their region, because of an excessive tendency to idolize actors, or out of fear of being stereotyped? Such behavior was unexpected. It also suggests that, for some people, regional identity takes precedence over national identity. The movie never claimed to represent any specific region of India; rather, it represents Indian cinema on the world stage.

Bhujiya bhaijan

Continue this trend

After watching Ramayana trailer and music in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada, there's no Flippin way I am watching anything except Tamil.. The (supposed to be) og Hindi feels so bland that even Shreya Ghoshal couldn't do a carry job😭😭

Hello,

Me and my family (around 50 yo father and mother and late teen sister) are planning to watch a movie tomorrow.

But I am confused which one to watch because

- I watched Jailer 1 and I felt the story is all over the place and my parents might not like Jailer 2 + they havent watched the 1st part so I thought I'll give the basic context.

- Udta Teer's trailer was unwatchable to me, but if my family has a great time, I don't have any issue

- Prahar might be too serious and intense for my mother, but my father and sister will definitely like it

What do y'all recommend?

I am primarily taking them out since my mother hasn't been to cinema theatre in over 2-3 decades; she used to watch a lot of movies in theatre before her marriage (generally the aamir khan, salman khan, etc movies from 90s).

If there is some other recommendations please help!

I live in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, so it has most of the hindi movies (cant go for drishyam 3 because that's a lot of context to give).

Edit1 - I have to go out tomorrow itself unfortunately so cant wait for ramayana

im 17 and have very little knowledge about indian politics. im a science student, so i don't have political science as a subject either. i wanna start learning about indian politics, so can anyone suggest some movies based on real-life events that could help me understand it better? not fictional political dramas but movies based on actual events and real people.

Whhhhyyyy?

edit - its dubbing. the thumbnail really got me..darra hi diya tha ( i was disappointed ). good they dont make a remake of it.

now lets make one thiing clear, the main character is definetly kabir khan (sharukh khan) there is no question about it, but out of the team players who do yall think is most important to the story of chak de india?? i think its bindi naik (the arrogant senior)

Dune has a contract like Odyssey with Imax so Imax will be dedicated to Dune only

I recently watched the conversation between Jithu Madhavan and Baradwaj Rangan, where Jithu explained why he deliberately chose not to reveal Ranga's complete backstory in Aavesham.

His reasoning was interesting: when you explain everything about a character, the story that the audience imagines in their heads can become smaller than what they had originally envisioned. Instead, giving the audience a few glimpses of the character's past while keeping the complete story hidden allows them to imagine something much bigger. At the same time, the film can stay focused on the character's present.

That got me thinking about Leo.

For me, the first half of Leo was incredibly engaging. Parthiban was an intriguing character, and the uncertainty surrounding his identity was one of the film's biggest strengths. There was so much curiosity about who he really was, what he had done in the past, and why he was so desperate to protect his current life.

But when the flashback finally explained his past in detail, I felt that some of that mystery and intrigue was lost.

What if Lokesh Kanagaraj had taken a similar approach to what Jithu described?

Instead of showing us the entire backstory of Leo Das, what if we had received only a few glimpses of his past? Maybe some disturbing memories, brief visual clues, hints about his relationship with Antony and Harold, and enough information to understand why his past was haunting him — without explaining every single detail.

The film could then have remained focused on Parthiban's present life, his family, and his struggle to keep his past from destroying everything he had built.

Imagine leaving the theatre with questions about Leo's past, with different viewers imagining different versions of the character. Wouldn't that have made him even more intriguing?

I'm not saying that withholding information automatically makes a film better, or that the flashback was the only issue with Leo. The present-day storyline and the villains' motivations would still need to be developed properly.

But I genuinely feel that Leo's mystery was one of its biggest strengths, and perhaps explaining less could have made the character and the film feel much bigger.

What do you guys think? Would Leo have had a greater impact if Lokesh had left more of Leo Das's past to the audience's imagination, or was revealing the full flashback necessary for the story to work?

Jithu Madhavan and Baradwaj Rangan's interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M5a1vjjZtE

Credit: Cleansodaa (Instagram)

🎥: Dorothy (2026)

It’s been so long since a film has captivated me this deeply, where every frame, every scene, and every emotion feels so nuanced, intentional, and crafted with such beautiful emotional maturity and conviction. A visual masterpiece that will stay with me for a long time. Easily one of my most memorable cinematic experiences this year.

In case you’re a little unconvinced with the ending, I made a post on my regional language sub about how the ending makes perfect sense. Do let me know if you guys see what I saw. There are many subtle parallels and references all over the film that make the ending all the more beautiful.

Watched Gang (2000) recently,
Nana Patekar, Jackie Shroff, Kumar Gaurav, Javed Jaffrey everyone was so good. The performances felt raw, the action felt real, and nobody had that typical Bollywood hero plot armour.

I genuinely wonder how this film got lost over the years. Yes, the story has its flaws, but there’s something about it that just stays with you. The bgm is fantastic too, even if some of it draws from James Horner’s work.

Underrated gem. Glad I discovered it.

We should have Gang 2.0 on contemporary crimes of today’s world.

AP livestream: https://youtube.com/live/CEYNYBsyfVQ?feature=share