Six months of 2016 are almost up, and as tradition dictates, it is time to take stock. Here I step back and take a look at what’s worked and what hasn’t. The Good The Top Films For me, there have been three standout films in 2016 so far, and these couldn’t be a more diverse […]
Review: Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab
There’s an old joke about how two smack-heads score their fix in an unfamiliar new city. They stand on opposite sides of the road, and one tosses an imaginary length of rope while the other grabs and fastens it. The first person to duck under the rope as he walks by is the man to […]
Column: Censorship, Udta Punjab and the $*&@#@ state of Indian cinema
The masterful Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi once used a fine analogy to describe the shapeshifting state of censorship in his country. “The restrictions and censorship in Iran are a bit like the British weather: one day it’s sunny, the next day it’s raining. You just have to hope you walk out into the sunshine.” In […]
Review: Duncan Jones’ Warcraft
War? Check. Craft? Check. We, however, expect more from fascinating filmmakers like Duncan Jones than literally delivering what is promised on the label — and not even doing that memorably enough. Sure, this is a loud movie with giant battle sequences and much swordplay, and the production design is significantly trippy. Yet this is mostly […]
Review: Ribhu Dasgupta’s TE3N
There are things TE3N gets charmingly right. It starts with a moment straight out of Gol Maal, set at a police station, an affectionate tribute to kick things off, serving also as a sobering reminder that Amitabh Bachchan, once the lanky lead (or lead’s closest friend) in sparkling Hrishikesh Mukherjee comedies, is now (much) older […]
Review: Shane Black’s The Nice Guys
The Nice Guys reminded me of a terrific Playboy joke. I don’t mean a specific joke (not that I could quote it here) but I have a feeling you know what I’m talking about: one of those things that’d make us guffaw and pause while leafing through a faded, ‘vintage’ back-issue, which is to say […]
Review: Ram Gopal Varma’s Veerappan
Ram Gopal Varma has never been one to let truth get in the way of a good story. His new film, Veerappan, for instance, opens with a quote that “a Society gets the criminal it deserves,” which is credited to Voltaire, who — to my knowledge — never said any such thing. The quote is […]
Review: Omung Kumar’s Sarbjit
The film Sarbjit ends with a black screen, with many a line dangling in the air and many ellipses allowing them to do so. It tells us what the film’s makers declare happened to the real Sarabjit Singh and his crusading sister Dalbir Kaur, what continues to happen today, and then, with much solemnity, it […]
Review: Tony D’Souza’s Azhar
When news of the match-fixing scandal broke, my very first thought was for Mohammad Azharuddin’s wrists. The heartbreak was unbelievable, and echoes of that particular ache still remain. Believe the hyperbole. Cricket was tantamount to religion back in the untainted day, and the idea that some of our heroes were thieves was a crushing one, […]
Review: Vivek Agnihotri’s Buddha In A Traffic Jam
Dear Indian Right Wingers, You have my sincerest condolences. Propaganda films can be dangerous, influential, misleading — and that is what they intend to be. The one true requirement of a propaganda film is that it be effective. Emphatic instruments of (mis)information and awareness, instruments geared to trigger a change in mindset, to squelch a […]
