'He was not a matinee idol. He was overweight and mostly seen in crumpled clothes. His scruffy, unshaven look had become his identifier and he did not seem to give a damn.'
'He represented the warmth, gentleness and goodness that existed in Hindi cinema before Bollywood became a loud commodity.' Aseem Chhabra on the legendary actor he admired for over 40 years.
Skip Fifty Shades of Grey. Watch these well-made films recommended by Aseem Chhabra.
'In our film industry, there are not many opportunities for actors... Our films are not character based, they are hero and heroine based. The only roles we have for character actors are to play the girl's or boy's dad or a police officer...'
'Her greatest strength is not her acting or her dancing abilities, but that she has an incredible number of fans.'
Jeremy Irons considered maths 'very boring' till he read G H Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology. The actor, who plays the British mathematician in The Man Who Knew Infinity, talks numbers, acting and his legacy with Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com.
Farhan Akhtar's Bhaag Milkha Bhaag does not offer anything new
'The nicest thing is that it is not my film.' 'People bring their own stories and life histories to the film.'
Aseem Chhabra lists the top 10 films at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
P K Nair dedicated his life to restoring and archiving films.
Meet Bollywood's finest casting director Mukesh Chhabra.
'Prashant has left us and it is really tragic. But I want to hold on to those little moments of happiness that he shared with me and with others whose lives he touched. That is how I want to remember him.' Aseem Chhabra pays tribute to Patang director Prashant Bhargava, who passed away on May 16. He was only 42.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's next film is about aging Pakistani musicians who get a second chance because of jazz.
'We want to provide data, we want to provide consultation, but we don't want to lecture.' 'The consciousness about this issue in India is starting to get quite high and if we can help contribute to solving this air quality issue in a spirit of partnership with the Indians, it would be a big achievement.'
'He cooked chicken curry and so because of him, curries entered the British royal kitchens.' 'Eventually, he became a political advisor to the queen.' 'This guy was disrupting the royal household. It sent shockwaves...' Ali Fazal on his character Abdul Karim and working with acting legend Judi Dench.
'I realised I didn't have to wait for a spectacular event or a character to emerge. All stories of ordinary people, of your family, are extraordinary,' novelist Yasmeen Premji tells Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com
'We look and say their life is so tragic.' 'But there are hundreds of millions of people in these circumstances and what can they do but to carry on.'
How many of the 354 films Aseem Chhabra watched in 2017 have you seen?
'I believe politics was imposed on it by the censor board, when it gave the film's trailer an A certificate, hoping to deny children, teenagers the opportunity to watch it during prime time television shows,' says Aseem Chhabra.
'I know many actors living outside India put on accents in films because they think that is how Indians talk. I avoid that.' 'I don't have to prove anything through my accent. My psyche is Indian.' Anupam Kher gives us his 500th film!
Aseem Chhabra celebrates 40 years of the prestigious Telluride Film Festival.
Here are Aseem Chhabra's picks -- 'films that mattered to me, entertained me and will stay with me through the year.'
'The city was never the same after the attack. It was scarred,' says Nicolas Saada whose movie Taj Mahal offers a unique view of the Mumbai attacks.
'One of the director's primary jobs is to make sure that all the actors perform as if they are in the same movie, playing in the same band -- one is not acting in a different band than the other.'
'There are a lot of things to make the series The Night Of relevant.' 'The decision to make it -- not only South Asian, but Pakistani Muslim -- is intensively relevant with what's going on today.'
Aseem Chhabra's recommendations for the Mumbai film festival.
'In 2015 I watched films in so many places. I attended several film festivals around the world -- Berlin, Tribeca (New York), Telluride, Toronto, Zurich, Mumbai, Dharamsala and Goa,' says Aseem Chhabra, author of a forthcoming book on Shashi Kapoor.
Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street could set a bad precedent, feels Aseem Chhabra.
Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 302 films in 365 days on airplanes, on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Hulu, DVDs and even on YouTube.
'Will anything change for you after the election?' And the man said 'Kuch nahin badlega.' And he had a smile on his face. He knew nothing was going to change.
Arjun Mathur recounts his journey as an actor in Bollywood.
Aseem Chhabra spots 10 must-see movies at the Berlin Film Festival.
'We want to be a nation at par with the best internationally.' 'But why is it in theatre we continue to have such low standards?'
Meet Srihari Sathe. Producer. Director. Professor.
Why has a nation created on strong secular principles slowly chipped away those essential values? Why are so many Indians willing to compromise their freedoms and those of their compatriots for the cause of economic progress and to see a shining India,' asks Aseem Chhabra.
Scriptwriter of Baar Baar Dekho Sri Rao gets candid about his film and Bollywood.
'We cannot be the country that created the Kamasutra and then we show flowers kiss and a child is born.'
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