Review
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Ever had a meal where you had so much to eat that the flavours just piled up on your tongue, one on top of the other, so you couldn’t really recall what the heck it was that you ate? The cinematic equivalent of that experience is called Iron Man 2. Let’s see: You’ve got Tony…
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There is a moment in Bandslam when the hero Will Burton (played with appropriate geekiness by Galean Connell) is being consoled by his mother (played with appropriate kookiness by Lisa Kudrow). She begins to explain why she got married to his dad, and we’re thinking, okay, we know how these conversations go. Until Will interrupts…
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There is a moment somewhere around the halfway point in Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya that encapsulates both its strengths and weaknesses. It involves the two major characters — Karthik and Jessie — in an intimate conversation. The conversation involves the sort of truth-telling that characterizes much of Gautam Vasudev Menon’s writing. When his characters fall in…
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An old professor of mine, well known for his generosity in handing out F grades, suddenly turned lenient as he progressed towards retirement. When asked why, he said, “When I used to regard my students as my children, I was tough on them. Now they seem like my grandchildren, so I find myself pampering them.”…
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Hollywood: Mere pass Hot Shots hai, Scary Movie hai, Naked Gun hai! Tumhaare pass kya hai? Thamizh cinema: Mere pass Thamizh Padam hai. As spoofs go, this one is about as good as it gets. From the gender switch on Karuththamma right at the beginning to an acknowledgement of A R Rahman’s Golden Globe win…
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Perhaps one ought to recognize a genre that can be described as “Shut Up and Watch” movies. While this applies to the audience in most cases, in this case I refer to instructions for the filmmakers. Or to be more specific, movies where the instruction was followed. A very small group of films qualify. Of…
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I spent a good bit of time trying to figure out how to write a coherent review Paa before I realized something. The entire publicity machine for Paa focuses on the fact that Amitabh Bachchan plays a twelve year-old with Progeria (a genetic disorder that makes him look like he’s pushing seventy) and Abhishek Bachchan…
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The Blind Side tells the story of a homeless African-American teenager who is taken in by an affluent white family and goes on to become a big football player. Much of the marketing emphasizes the “big” portion of that phrase — indeed, Michael Oher pretty much doubles the combined volume of the Tuohy family when…
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Beware: Here be spoilers! There is a crucial moment in Up in the Air when Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) finds himself having to talk someone out out of a course of action. It doesn’t help that the other man’s beliefs echo what he has been preaching all these years. Bingham even moonlights as a self-help…
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Vishal Bharadwaj brought The Bard into this milieu. And now, here’s his protege Abhishek Chaubey with some film noir. The ingredients are all there — criminals, a femme fatale, a dog-eat-dog world, betrayals, a tenuous code of honour… Except, it isn’t quite film noir. At a crucial point in the story, one character is revealed…
