Clik here to view.
Rituparno Ghosh, tender as the night
I met Rituparno Ghosh earlier this very month when he invited me on the sets of his new film, Satyanweshi, in Calcutta. Ghosh and I shared some common friends and had tweeted cordially to each other...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Ayan Mukerji’s Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani
When we can’t stand something a certain way, we’re instinctively prone to wishing it were the other way around, the opposite. This, naturally, is a huge fallacy, since the opposite is hardly ever what...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel
You’ll believe a man can sigh. That’s what the godlike alien in Man Of Steel frequently does as he looks around, before he glowers and scowls and, perhaps most importantly, poses. There is very little...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Raj Kumar Gupta’s Ghanchakkar
The finest, most fascinating mysteries are the ones where we find the red herrings stashed away in plain sight all along. In Raj Kumar Gupta’s Ghanchakkar, the true clue to the proceedings is barely...
View ArticleClik here to view.
So many heroes, only one Pran
So much lay in that smirk. Even if the smirk was frequently invisible behind a tough mouth. A mouth that was, in turn, protected from absolute inscrutability by a slight curling of the lip, toward a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sonam Kapoor, all shook up
“Do you think Elvis is dead?” Posed with dreamy yet dolorous vagueness, the question comes out of nowhere on the heels of a rather impassioned conversation about books. But then Sonam Kapoor is about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Ajay Bahl’s BA Pass
I love the word Taut. One of the finest words to describe films about crime, it’s a delicious word, evoking images of a tightrope yanked to within inches of breaking point, a tensed muscle coiled for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Rohit Shetty’s Chennai Express
Kings, they are a-changin. Six years ago, Deepika Padukone made a celebrated debut opposite Shah Rukh Khan in a rollicking entertainer that marvellously spoofed his stardom. At the time, her acting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobara
Not very long ago, I rhapsodised about the words “Once Upon A Time,” and how a recent movie shone light upon them in rather sublime fashion. This week, a film releases with a name that starts with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Q’s Tasher Desh
The thing about building a house of cards — indeed, a country of cards — is that its very existence is rooted in caprice. With Tasher Desh, radical filmmaker Q takes on Rabindranath Tagore’s play and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Apoorva Lakhia’s Zanjeer
Zanjeer was never a particularly great film. Sure, it had Amitabh Bachchan at his most primal, all flammable eyes and sincerely-furious baritone. And it had Pran, who brought dignity and warmth to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Young love beats afresh with Shuddh Desi Romance
Shuddh Desi Romance begins like Annie Hall. Which is to say it begins unlike any other Hindi movie romance, ever. A character talks to the camera, equates relationships and commitment to Vikram and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox
One of my favourite parts in The Lunchbox is when a character buys himself a painting. No, sorry, scratch that; it is when a character narrates how and why he bought a painting. It is a street-side...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Ron Howard’s Rush
Formula One has the habit of making other sports look absurdly insignificant. What, you run real quick? What, you flog a bit of leather? What, you hit another bloke in the face? Well, I battle gravity...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Rakesh Roshan’s Krrish 3
If your idea of a fantastic time at the movies involves Hrithik Roshan wrestling with a man’s tongue, then, my friend, you’re in for a blessed treat at the movies this week. Ditto if you’re a retailer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ramleela
Begone, pretenders. Why must Bollywood try to claw vainly at the works of The Bard? Or, to be fair, why must directors overreach as they aim for instant literary endorsement? In the last year and a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
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...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Vijay Krishna Acharya’s Dhoom 3
Twenty minutes into Dhoom 3, reeling from the assault of cinema so amateurish it’s hard to believe it was put together by grown men, I began to ask myself precisely what this film was trying to be....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nimrat Kaur: The Actress of 2013
My big Irrfan Khan moment came when I reached the cafe a half-hour late and saw Nimrat Kaur sitting by herself, waiting. I did spy her from a distance, but unlike Khan’s character Saajan Fernandez in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The worst Hindi films of 2013
It’s always harder to make a Worst-Of list than one chronicling the best of Hindi cinema, largely because we’re all so spoilt for choice. Thumb-rules, therefore, come into play. My basic rule is to...
View Article