Music
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Airlift ends with a surprisingly affecting song: Tu bhoola jisse. It begins with the tricolour being hoisted in Jordan. And when I saw this film in the movie theater, I found myself wanting to applaud. This doesn’t happen often. The only other flag hoisting scene in the movies that has well and truly worked for me
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I started thinking about this post because of this song: Aside: The version in the film is sung by Shahid Mallya — this version is a reprise on YouTube, sung by Diljit Dosanjh (who is part of the film’s cast) and tells part of the Alia Bhatt character’s back-story. It’s an interesting idea. In one
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There’s a lovely scene in Begin Again when a drunk Mark Ruffalo first hears Keira Knightley singing at a bar. You get the usual reaction shots at first — from a bleary-eyed “What am I listening to?” to a more awake “Oh, this is good”. But then… See, Keira is just sitting on a stool with a
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Forget the drama about who might win, the post-performance gushing or even the insightful commentary from some of the judges, the “comedy track” about fat kids and Tamil accents and whatever else the producers’ desperate, picayune imagination can come up with in order to fill the airtime with something other than just music. Here’s the
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A few years ago, I fell in love with a musical called Once. I would sometimes enthusiastically recommend it to people, only to be asked, “What’s it about?” I hate that question. Oh, it’s not an unreasonable question. Everyone asks that. I do too, when someone recommends a film to me. Trouble is, the films
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Regular readers of this blog, such as there are, know that one of the genres I have a soft corner for is the one where a bunch of unlikely musicians get together to form a band. Bandslam approaches this from the point of view of a boy who wants to manage a band, not play
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This is not going to be about how good an album Kadal is, or how Rahman’s doing a great job of importing blues and gospel to our shores. This album may not rank among his absolute best, but it is certainly very good. More importantly in the context of his recent collaborations with Mani Ratnam, melodious —
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I’ve heard Yerikarai poongaathe a number of times, but I never really listened to it until I read this sublime little description at the end of a Gautham Menon interview by the always-readable Baradwaj Rangan: Think Ilankaathu veesuthe, or further back, the godly Yerikarai poongaathe, which, despite being sung by KJ Yesudas, is no solo
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Nearly every review of Rockstar will tell you the following things: Ranbir and Rahman are in top form. They are let down by a meandering script that shines in individual moments but lacks brevity in some portions and depth in others. Nargis Fakhri looks like a million bucks. Acts worth a dime, if you’re feeling generous.
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Now, the answers to Trivia Challenge #1: 1. The connection I was looking for is Joseph Conrad. Apocalypse Now was based on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (Coppola’s wife made a documentary on the making of the film, titled Hearts of Darkness). Amitabh’s character in Kala Paththar was indeed based on the protagonist in Conrad’s Lord
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