FJ Kashmir

  inam ul rehman   I think the last film I reviewed for any newspaper or portal was Vishal Bhradwaj’s Haider. And it was in 2014. One of my colleagues at that time, and one of the brilliant journalists of Kashmir, Mir Hilal , on reading it said that it is a rant rather than a review. I disagreed and published it. Now I agree with what Mir Hilal said.   Eleven years later here I am reviewing “ Songs of Paradise ” of Danish Renzu . A Kashmiri filmmaker’s inspirational take on the melody queen of music, Raja Begum. Remember, it is not a historical take, but an inspirational one. It is historically as correct as Salim-Anarkali stories of Bollywood , or Padmawat , the Kashmir files, Chhaava movies .  Getting sponsors for a female protagonist film is tough. In Indian cinema only a few commercial films have succeeded with a female lead. These have mostly been driven by the star power of an actress. And some even needed male star power to get wide release. Alia...

inam ul rehman  After watching the trailer of Sitaare Zameen Par , I instantly thought Aamir Khan is going to rock it with this movie.  However, what piqued my curiosity was to see the comment section where a few pointed out that the actor-producer has again made a remake ¬¬¬- this time of the 2018 Spanish film “ Champions ”! While his last two films were duds at the box office, particularly Laal Singh Chaddha , an official remake of the beautiful Hollywood movie, Forrest Gump , which meandered due to his histrionics.    So, the next thing was to find the Spanish film online. Obviously, YouTube is the first stop. There I found out this Spanish film has been remade in many languages, but sadly, couldn’t locate the movie. I sought help from my sophisticated colleague who directed me toward a website with rich content in high quality. There I saw the original version.  And man, Aamir Khan has chosen a gem of a movie.  The original movie is not didactic abou...