First up, was Where's The Party, Yaar? -- a film that I thought had tremendous potential, tremendously wasted; the sole redeeming factor was an assured performance by Kal Penn.

Anyone seen it? Send me your reviews, please.

Then came a press briefing by Subhash Ghai, followed by the screening of his home production Joggers' Park, directed by the late Anant Balani.

Again, I am curious to know what those of you who saw the film made of it

Balani's story is intriguing. I remember watching Gawahi, a more than competent effort based on the Ayn Rand courtroom classic Night of January 16^th.

A couple of years later, while working for Mumbai's Mid-Day group, I was asked to do an on-the-sets story on Pathar Ke Phool, focusing mainly on debutant Raveena Tandon, the latest filmi kid on the blocks at that time.

It was, as I recall, a fun afternoon. A snatch of song was being canned; the shot was on a skating rink, and there was this line about the heart breaking like glass or some such.

The trick was that the glass had to break at the exact moment in the song. So, for most of one afternoon, what happened was, they would set the shot up; action was called, Salman twirled out onto the rink, the glass broke. Only, it broke either just before, or just after, it was supposed to.

So everyone had to back up and do it all over again.

That afternoon, they must have broken over a dozen sheets of glass, while I sat off in a corner, watching the proceedings with amusement and talking to Raveena who, since she was not required for that shot, had nothing else to do anyway.

When I got on the set, the director, Balani, had said we could chat after he got this shot done. But as sheet after sheet of glass broke, the poor guy got increasingly frazzled; I read the signs as being particularly unwelcoming, and left without actually talking to him.

He vanished off the map after that movie. Could it be because the film bombed? Somehow, I doubt that. If all the directors whose films have done a dive were to vanish, Bollywood wouldn't have anyone left.

So where did he go, and what did he do, for 12 years between that 1991 film and now? Anyone out there who knew him, and can fill in some blanks in the late director's back-story?

Since I reviewed the film for rediff.com, I won't go into it in detail again here. While watching the film, though, I was somewhat surprised at the speed with which a potentially interesting conflict -- Zorabian's tussle with her rapacious uncle over some property -- was resolved.

The trick for this film was to have the ageing judge and the young girl thrown into frequent contact, in order to allow the relationship to develop in all its nuances -- struck me as strange, therefore, that the property tussle, which offered the storyteller the perfect excuse to put the two together over a period of time, was disposed of in the space of a couple of scenes.

Be nice if those of you who saw it could write in, with your own reviews, so we can all get a feel for what the audience made of it.

A sidelight to the whole thing was this call I got, two days after the review and interview went up on the site, from Subhash Ghai.

'My PR agency called me,' he says, 'and asked if I had fought with rediff.com.'

I'm like, huh? So he goes, 'Apparently you've written some not so nice things about my company in the review.'

Not, I said. I asked him if he had read the review and interview; turned out that though he was originally scheduled to leave New York the day after the screening, he had extended his stay by a couple of days (it sparked some rumors that he was unwell and needed treatment; apparently the rumors were wrong); he hadn't read the pieces yet.

So I'm like, okay, do ask your PR company to get in touch with me and tell me what the problem is as they see it. I haven't heard from them yet, though.

The other films I saw, over the last few days, were Matchstick Men (on which more tomorrow); Kaaka Kaaka, the latest Tamil hit starring Surya and Jyotika, which Feroz Khan reportedly plans to remake in Hindi with son Fardeen and Preity Zinta in the lead; and two DVDs: Thelma and Louise, which I revisited for the nth time, and Peter Brooks' Mahabharat, a stunning production on which, too, more anon.

Over to you, for your reviews of Joggers' Park, Where's The Party Yaar?, Kaaka Kaaka or, in fact, any other movies you may have seen lately and liked enough to write about.

On my way out the door, I have a query for Tamil movie fans. Boys, Shankar's latest film, seems to have created quite a ruckus. I've been trying to get hold of a DVD or cassette, hopefully one should come my way soon-ish.

As I understand it, the film has drawn protests for its sexually explicit dialogues; I heard from a friend in the industry back in Chennai that producer A M Ratnam wanted the film re-edited, but Shankar put his foot down, arguing firstly that the film had already cleared the censors and therefore, any further censoring in the face of protests was not on; and secondly, that he had accurately characterized how young boys behave, and to pretend otherwise was sheer hypocrisy.

So what is the fuss all about, really? Do any of you know? Anyone saw the film, and can send in a review?

Till later.