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Review: Rajni’s Kochadaiyaan is a bad puppet show
Holy subtext, Batman. Rajinikanth stands amid a collection of statues, pretending to be his own effigy. Deepika Padukone, the patroness who has commissioned said sculpture, looks appraisingly over...
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20 reasons Pulp Fiction is better than your favourite film
On 23 May 1994, a film called Pulp Fiction won the Palme D’or at the Cannes film festival. Twenty years on, Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece is hailed as an absolute classic, and is arguably the single...
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Queen: What Madhuri Dixit did next
“What did you choose? The coffee?” There is such a thing as a very Andheri office. One building away from Mainland China, one alley away from a horrid little advertising agency I worked in for a few...
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Review: Holiday is too slow to thrill
Offensively bland movies often throw up unrelated food for thought. While enduring the painfully boring Holiday, for example, I wistfully wondered how much fun things could be had the filmmaker chosen...
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Review: Kabir Sadanand’s Fugly
Take a dash of Dil Chahta Hai. Throw in liberal doses of Shaitan, add several tablespoonfuls of Fukrey, with a climactic heap of Rang De Basanti on top. Meticulously take out all the actors, all the...
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Review: Sajid Khan’s Humshakals
Two nights ago, I had a dream. I dreamt (I kid you not) that I watched and didn’t actually loathe Sajid Khan’s Humshakals, which led to me waking up disturbed and profoundly confused. Is it possible...
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Review: Mohit Suri’s Ek Villain
Let’s start with what we know. We know, by now, that Mohit Suri can direct. He knows how to block a scene, he knows how to use actors competently, he knows the importance of a strong moment, and the...
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Review: Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya
I was fourteen when more than half the boys in my school suddenly started wearing their shirts half-untucked. Not the slightly tousled careless untucking caused by a hurry or negligence, you...
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Review: Sajid Nadiadwala’s Kick
It was bound to happen. At some point, a canny producer was sure to realise that all that matters in the kind of movies Salman Khan does nowadays is Salman Khan. After looking at, for example,...
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Review: Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel
Pastry is a beautiful thing. Layers of differing consistency, perfectly harnessed flavours inventively brought together to complement each other as well as to throw up the odd surprise, covered with...
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Review: James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy
It all begins with the most, most ideal song. Not just is I’m Not In Love a smashing mid-70s anti-ballad dripped in cynical coolth, a suitably atmospheric song as crammed with irony as Marvel’s latest...
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Review: Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey
Once in a particularly blue moon, comes a film that makes you wolf-whistle. One that then ties you to the edge of your seat, forcibly pins you there and pounces on you, eventually leaving you sitting...
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Review: Rohit Shetty’s Singham Returns
Yo, Rohit Shetty, what’s with the volume, bro? It’s clear what a director like Shetty — one with a box-office track-record even more invincible than his superheroic leading men — is trying to do with...
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Review: Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny
Some beholders like it big. Colombian artist Fernando Botero, a fine fetishist of the fleshy, spent decades drawing and sculpting the ornately obese, men and women chubbily camouflaged by an abundance...
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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...
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Review: Shashank Ghosh’s Khoobsurat
Some movies are like candy. Wrapped in bright plastic and frequently too sweet for your own good, they act as sunny, unsurprising treats that lead to sticky, syrupy smiles. Disney Pictures is founded...
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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...
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Review: Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider
Something is rotten in the state two countries call their own. Not that we’ve really let that show on screen. Hindi cinema hasn’t looked into Kashmir, preferring to gaze at it instead. Haider changes...
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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...
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Review: Farah Khan’s Happy New Year
One of the reasons certain tennis players grunt distinctly and even iconically on the court, besides sinus and habit, is to throw off their opponent. The idea is to intimidate via bellow, to try and...
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