In an industry swarmed with lacklustre content, Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab shines with an edgy take on a bold, controversial subject. Drug abuse has plagued Punjab for years now. The film brings to the fore it’s impact on the youth; the involvement or rather the facilitation of its use — from the powers that be ...
Midway into Karthik Subburaj’s fantastic Iraivi (Goddess, 2015), there comes a familiar slow motion shot, which is usually a signal for the (male) audience to start whistling because the majestic man on-screen is going to unload his wrath that in turn will diffuse an adrenaline rush. But, in this vital slow motion shot there was ...
Money Monster is big-ticket Hollywood’s most recent attempt at uncovering narratives from within the high-stakes world of multi-billion dollar global financial markets. And like its genre-mates, it tries very hard to be an edge-of-your-seat, mile-a-minute thriller that leaves you with sweaty palms, nervous tics and impending visions of economic doomsdays. Does it succeed? Well, yes and ...
Fate brings together strangers Shiv Kumar (Naseeruddin Shah) and Tara Deshpande (Kalki Koechlin) when their respective spouses end up in the same hospital. Shiv and Tara are oblivion to what life has in store but learn to embrace hope and wait. Endlessly! Despite the dark premise, the film is sprinkled with generous doses of humour ...
From Gulzar to Sahir Ludhyanvi, writers in Hindi films have given us some of the most soulful, evocative poetry. We’ve put together the most heartwarming/heartbreaking verses/poems in Bollywood movies. Hear them out on YouTube if you can. 1. Ardh Satya (1983) Chakravyuh mein ghusne se pehle, kaun tha mein aur kaisa tha, yeh mujhe ...
Noted critic Roger Ebert’s words “Movies are like a machine that generates empathy” resonate strongly when we watch works like Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh. Set in the monumental Indian city Aligarh, the film empathetically visualizes the hypocritical treatment meted to Shrinivas Ramachandra Siras by one of nation’s most renowned universities. Professor Siras was suspended from his ...
Vikram Kumar’s Surya-starrer 24 is the kind of film that would be fiercely defended by casual movie-goers, especially in the current array of mediocre entertainment movies in Tamil. ’A high-concept film with a marvelous execution’, ‘a good mix of romance and sci-fi,’ ‘Suriya is back on the rise and Samantha is so bright & beautiful’ ...
One of the most tragic events in the history of India and Pakistan, the Partition of 1947 is fraught with stories of grief, pain, horror, disbelief. Several Indian filmmakers have explored this theme. Few such films, however, are known of, from across the border. A lot of these stories have gone unspoken, unheard. Exploring one ...
Dear Shahrukh Khan, After watching Fan, I’m rather skeptical of saying I’m your biggest fan. A doting, well-wishing fan, nevertheless! Quotidian, I know but true for whatever it’s worth. I fell in love with you in 1989. Circus. I was four then and didn’t know what love meant but I secretly relished getting an eye-full ...
Alfred Hitchcock once said, “the length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” But that hardly holds true for Hindi cinema. Our Bollywood musicals unapologetically stretch up to two and a half to three hours. Sometimes, more! Now, the duration may not have always have to do with the ...
Kipling’s Jungle Book is a work of art and the most recent cinematic adaptation takes care to stay in the background and simply provide a platform for Kipling to reach out and tell us his timeless story. “Imagine that you are seated before a fire. You are in a glade of a great forest; towering ...
There’s an understated ease in how the characters play out and the screenplay unfolds. Kapoor and Sons isn’t your staple mainstream Bollywood. The characters are unerringly drawn, real and relatable. The director (Shakun Batra) doesn’t start defining them as soon as he introduces them to us. He lets them be. They mold along the way ...
The countdown begins! 48 hours to go (as I write this). One of my most awaited films of 2016 (because Sidharth Malhotra!) Kapoor and Sons is set to hit the screens this Friday. The trio – Sidharth Malhotra, Alia Bhatt, Fawad Khan – were in town (Le Meridian, Delhi) yesterday to promote the ensemble family ...
Around the release of Neerja, we caught up with Shabana Azmi and Sonam Kapoor for a quick conversation about their film, their journey in the industry and more! Here are the excerpts: Sonam, this is your first biopic where you play a titular role/solo lead. How different or difficult was the experience compared to ...
French/Turkish filmmaker Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s poignant début Mustang, is about the socially mandated sexualization of women. It opens with a premonitory voice-over: “Everything changed in the blink of an eye. One minute we were quiet. The next we all danced.” Set in a small Turkish coastal village by the Black Sea, Mustang is narrated by a ...
Dipankar Sarkar
