Terry Pratchett once named a dragon after me. But that’s not important. (I mean it is, of course. It’s massively cool and thrilling — THRILLING, even — and something I’ll brag about forever. But that’s not what’s important right this second.) Right now we have to deal with heartbreak, as Sir Terry Pratchett has left […]
Why the 2015 Oscars are worth celebrating
The good guys won. Actually, it was bigger than that. I’ve annually whinged about and berated the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences shortsightedness and predictability in columns like these for far too many years now, and this is the first time I sat back through the Oscars — occasionally tense with fingers crossed […]
AIB knockout: Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bitch!
Bloody hell, they pulled it off. And, to be quite honest, we didn’t see it coming. I’ve faced my share of growls from a humourless Hindi film industry for over a decade now, which include threats and lawsuits, and thus it was most heartening to see not just two actors sporting enough to proffer their […]
Is Sajid Khan the worst director in India?
Everyone in Bombay thinks they can direct a movie. Amateurs, screenwriters, film school graduates (both those who want to change the way we make movies, and those who want to make a living), television directors, actors who aren’t getting meaty work, theatre artistes… everyone either believes that direction is the ultimate aspirational goal and that […]
Hrishikesh Mukherjee: Art For Heart’s Sake
Sunday morning, I changed the caller tune on my phone. Moved from an English oldie to Har seedhe raste ki ek, the fabulous title song from Golmaal. About eight hours later, a colleague messaged me the news, minutes before it took over the television channels. A lump hit my throat and I instantly flashbacked to last year, […]
Everything about The Oscars, 2014
In which I collate everything I’ve written about this year’s Academy Awards, and then present you with a singularly weird column. But we’ll get to that. First, the links: Previews:Â Can American Hustle really win Best Picture? |Â Martin Scorsese and the men who shouldn’t beat him for Best Director. |Â Will Leonardo DiCaprio break his Oscar jinx […]
Harold Ramis: So long, beloved Ghostbuster
There is a cycle, and the sight of a man falling from it is often hilarious. Writing about it, on the other hand, is less so. Explaining a joke — especially a bit of timeless slapstick, as with the bicycle — immediately renders it less funny; imagine the difference between reading a comedian’s monologue and […]
Philip Seymour Hoffman: Goodbye, Master
That fat guy. The first time I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman was in Scent Of A Woman, playing an uppity prep-school bully. I vividly remember that floppy hair falling onto his round face, scrunched up all the time, as if the sun was glaring right into his eyes even in the shade. That fat guy […]
Michael Matters: Our virtual vigil by Schumacher’s side
I owe Michael Schumacher my career. Writers write, quite simply, because they must. What they write, however, makes for a far more fiendish decision. I’d dabbled with journalism, copywriting, poetry and bad drafts of first novels nobody will ever get to read, but it took a certain hero to spur me on and find a […]
Who dare compare to Peter O’Toole?
British actors have always taught us how to speak. We in India have never quite been able to cast off our post-Colonial hangover, and it is that — coupled with a rigid love for perfectly enunciated Queen’s English, clipped as if cut like a cigar — that has always led us to look to British […]
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