Hindi movies
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Usually, when I review new releases these days, I add a spoiler warning. Thankfully, this time neither movie needs one.. In some ways, these two movies are diametrically opposite each other. Jab We Met is a formulaic rom-com that simply tries to do the best it can within the framework of that genre. No Smoking is an experimental…
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Warning: Here be spoilers! Here is a movie that could have been wonderful, if only the makers had chosen to tell the story that had the most potential. A woman from a once-rich family in Benares goes to Mumbai to earn a living and solve her family’s financial problems. To paraphrase Simon & Garfunkel, she…
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In recent times, I’ve been a regular reader of the Bolly Woods column on rediff. The woman writers pretty sensible stuff on the whole, and it’s good fun to read. Her latest column titled The Mind of Karan Johar made a reference to a recent interview with the man in question. It was a fairly…
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Warning: Here be spoilers! If you haven’t seen any of the earlier versions of this movie (Manichithirathazhu, Aptamithra, Chandramukhi), you would be well-advised to avoid reading this post. If you’re looking for a quick evaluation, here it is: Go watch the movie, it’s quite good. Sometimes I feel like walking up to Akshay Kumar, grabbing…
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A plot borrowed from Kramer Vs. Kramer. A poster borrowed from Sleepless in Seattle. Music borrowed from, among other things, Deep Purple’s Child in Time, George Michael’s Last Christmas and Bruccia La Terra from The Godfather. Incidentally, one of the movie’s subplots involves a talented, original music director (who “composed” all of the aforementioned songs)…
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Ram Gopal Varma has always been a smart, articulate chap when it comes to interviews, and his assessment of Sholay ranks among his best soundbytes. See, for me, primarily Sholay never worked on a story level. The story’s basic line is of a man taking revenge on another man who killed his family and cut…
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Satya and Vaastav would always be two of my favorite gangster movies. Raw, hard hitting, intensely violent. Vaastav for me contained one of Sanjay Dutt’s best performances. Sanju was touted as the succesor to Amitabh Bachan, but his wild ways, his rank bad choice of movies, his trysts with the law would prove to be…
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I am starting a series of posts here on movie climaxes. Considering that climax is an important aspect of the movie, many movies keep chugging along well, but falter at the last. This is common to both Indian and English movies. So this is on some climaxes which have had a deep impact on me.…
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With movies that are adapted from books, you find lot of people saying: The book was better. In many cases, I’m inclined to agree. With a well-written book, our imagination creates a more interesting experience than is usually captured on celluloid. Mind you, more interesting is usually just another way of saying different. Another factor…
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The Brits know Shilpa Shetty as the woman who won Big Brother. A bunch of culture-preserving gentlemen know her as the woman who kissed Richard Gere in public. (Maybe she just got kissed, but this is a minor quibble when our centuries-old culture is at stake.) Me, I will always remember her as the girl…
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