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Rediff.com  » Movies » What Finding Fanny has in common with Delhi Belly

What Finding Fanny has in common with Delhi Belly

By Joginder Tuteja/Rediff.com
September 21, 2014 10:00 IST
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Dimple Kapadia, Deepika Padukone in Finding FannyEnglish titles, desi actors!

Very few Indian movies have English-language titles.

Homi Adajania's recent release Finding Fanny, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Dimple Kapadia, Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor, is an English film, also dubbed in Hindi.

Homi, in fact, likes to give his films English titles, irrespective of the language it is in -- like his debut Being Cyrus and his biggest hit so far, Cocktail.

Here's a look back at some movies with English titles.

Being Cyrus

Homi got Saif Ali Khan to feature in his 2005 English language film, Being Cyrus.

With Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia and Boman Irani, the psychological drama was way ahead of its time. It did reasonably well.

Delhi Belly

The Imran Khan starrer Delhi Belly also had mainstream Bollywood actors featuring in an English language film.

Its quirky humour and crisp narrative went down well with urban audiences.

It was produced by Aamir Khan and went through many edits and some reworking to emerge a box office hit.

Little Zizou

Chances are, you may not have heard of this sweet little film that was released in theatres a few years ago.

The film, directed by Sooni Taraporevala, did break even but would probably have done better with some more publicity.

The film had Parsi characters, as well as actors -- Boman Irani, Sohrab Ardeshir and Shernaz Patel -- with a cameo by John Abraham.

Loins of Punjab Presents

This was one riot of a movie that did well with word-of-mouth publicity.

It was a satire centred on a singing contest. The ensemble cast was led by Shabana Azmi.

The film had some inventive pieces of writing narrated well by director Manish Acharya.

Acharya died at the young age of 40. This was the only film he directed.

The Great Indian Butterfly

The Great Indian Butterfly was produced by Sanjay Gupta, director of commercial potboilers like Kaante, at a time when he was looking to expand his company by attempting diverse genres.

Aamir Bashir, Sandhya Mridul and Koel Puri gave credible performances. The film had a very poor release and disappeared from public view very quickly.

The Last Lear

With a star cast that included Amitabh Bachchan, Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta, this film ought to have been a great success.

Every one of the actors turned in a stellar performance.

However, director Rituparno Ghosh kept the treatment pretty art-house. The film failed to be a commercial success.

The President Is Coming

Produced by Rohan Sippy, The President Is Coming was, surprisingly, released with practically zero publicity.

It didn't make any waves at the box office either.

The subject of this Konkona Sen Sharma, Shernaz Patel and Ira Dubey starrer was unusual: which Indian would be chosen to shake hands with the President of the United States.

The film had its moments but never got its due.

Snip!

One of the quirkiest English language films to have emerged from Bollywood at a time when the multiplex era was yet to begin, Snip! was directed by G P Sippy's grandson Sunhil Sippy.

The film was fun and featured Saurabh Shukla, Nikhil Chinappa, Makrand Deshpande and Sophiya Haque.

It had some good music too. Unfortunately, it came at a time when this genre of films was still in its infancy.

Everybody Says I'm Fine!

Rahul Bose had just begun to make his presence felt as an actor, when he attempted to direct Everybody Says I'm Fine!

The film worked in select pockets of the country.

It also starred starred Pooja Bhatt, Koel Purie and Rehaan Engineer.

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Joginder Tuteja/Rediff.com in Mumbai