the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Giovanna Rampazza and Babu Patel, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode thrown in.

This year, we are proud to announce Indian Summer, a fortnight looking at two of the Indian films on the list. We hope to make this an annual event. This year, we’ll be covering Rajkumar Hirani’s PK and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti. This week, we’re discussing the second of those two films, Rang de Basanti.

A documentary filmmaker Susan travels to India in order to produce a documentary about the daring Kakori Train Robbery in August 1925. While there, she strikes up a friendship with an unlikely group of listless young students who are looking for purpose and meaning within their own lives.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 195th best movie of all-time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show notes:

• Recorded 8th September 2018.
• Rang de Basanti at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDb 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
• Follow The 250 on Twitter.
• Eric Pfanner at The New York Times on Rang de Basanti as a Bollywood film with its eye on the foreign market, May 2006.
• Ronnie Screwvala talks to The New York Times about his desire to bring Indian films to international audiences, December 2016.
• Anushka Asthana at The Guardian on plans to re-edit Rang de Basanti for international audiences, May 2007.
• Lawrence Van Gelder at The New York Times on the success of Rang de Basanti at International Indian Film Academy Awards, June 2007.
• Tracy McVeigh at The Guardian reports on Michelle Obama dancing to the theme of Rang de Basanti, November 2010.
• Rob Cain at Forbes on the box office strengths of Bollywood stars like Aamir Khan, December 2017.
• David Sims at The Atlantic on the importance of the “multiplier” in determining a film’s success or failure, January 2018.
• Somini Sengupta at The New York Times on the civic protests over the murder of Jessica Lall, inspired by Rang de Basanti, March 2006.
• Danny Bowes at The A.V. Club on No One Killed Jessica, a film inspired by the response to the killing of Jessica Lall, August 2015.
• Anna Fazackerley at The Guardian on the crisis that Brexit has created for universities who need international students, April 2018.
• The Irish Times on Ireland’s status as the nineteenth most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International, February 2018.
• Ronak D. Desai at Forbes on India’s ranking as the eighty-first most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International, March 2018.
• The Bugle podcast, October 2007.
• Andrew North at the BBC on the problems with India’s air force planes, October 2014.
• Kabir Taneja at The New York Times on the safety concerns around the MiG-21 fighters used by the Indian Air Force, August 2013.
• Tahiat Mahboob at The Atlantic on celebrations of patriotism in Indian cinema, August 2012.
• Wersha Bharadwa at The Guardian on the use of British actors in Bollywood films, June 2007.
• Zoe Williams at The Guardian on the first female orgasm to be featured on the BBC, August 2018.
• Sam Levin at The Guardian on the strange idea that young people must choose between avocado toast and a mortgage, May 2017.
• The BBC figures out exactly how much avocado toast young people would have to stop eating to afford a house, May 2017.
• Sasha Brady at The Irish Independent on Bank of Ireland’s advice that young people should live with their parents in order to afford a mortgage, August 2017.
• Elizabeth king at Pacific Standard Magazine on the tendency to blame millennials for ruining the world, November 2017.
• Sean Illing at Vox on the way that baby boomers unfairly blame millennials for bankrupting America, April 2018.
• Damon Young at The Guardian on the rich white privilege of Brock Turner, June 2016.
• Rishi Iyengar at Time on Salman Khan’s conviction for culpable homocide, May 2015.
• Swati Deshpande at The Times of India on Salman Khan’s acquittal for culpable homocide in a hit-and-run case, December 2015.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: Aamir Khan, babu patel, bollywood, fight club, giovanna rampazza, indian summer, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Rang De Basanti |