Were Twitter to be believed, not just is Court the finest Indian film of many years, but it has also picked up an Oscar already. Ah, sweet, sweet hyperbole. This online rejoicing — with the selection of Court as India’s official entry for the Foreign Film Oscar — is, of course, indicative of the deeper malaise […]
Review: Kabir Khan’s Phantom
Old jungle saying: cast a film well. There is a lot that a film-going audience can forgive in a production – from continuity errors to script flaws, from incoherent cinematography to weak plots – but one of the hardest to overlook is when the filmmakers pick the wrong people for the principal parts. Truly remarkable […]
Review: Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan
(Full disclosure: Masaan is produced by Drishyam Films and they are the people producing my directorial debut, X, as well.) ~ It’s devastatingly hard to crush a skull. For all its lifelong fragility, the human skull is a significantly tough nut, which is why crematoriums have assistants on call to shove a stick into a pyre […]
Hindi cinema’s half-yearly report card, 2015: The bad (and the ugly)
Half of 2015 has flown by, and it’s a good time to take stock of Hindi cinema and its latest shenanigans. Yesterday, I looked at the good stuff, the films and performers that impressed us in these last six months. Today, however, the red pen is out and offenders must be informed of their grotesquery. […]
Hindi cinema’s half-yearly report card, 2015: The good stuff
Half of 2015 has flown by, and it’s a good time to take stock of Hindi cinema and its latest shenanigans. Today, I’ll focus on the good stuff, the films and performers that have impressed us in these last six months — while keeping the red pen ready for tomorrow’s more ominous instalment of the […]
My picks for the Mumbai Film Festival
The 16th Mumbai Film Festival starts today, October 14. The official website gives you everything you need to know, and lets you reserve tickets. But this here link (RS MAMI Picks), gives you a PDF of the schedule with my must-watch films of the festival — based on things I’ve read, heard and trailers of the […]
Review: Siddharth Anand’s Bang Bang
Action films aren’t what they used to be. Gone are the days when a girl would heat a knife on a candle and dig out a bullet while Amitabh Bachchan threw out a trademark grimace. Nowadays all the girl needs to do is shine a torch while the guy puts on a bandaid. Expecting these […]
