Clik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation…“The amour for art cinema”
Why define “great movies” based on a cold and clinical foreign ideal of greatness, especially when so many foreign filmmakers are already making those kinds of great movies? One question I’m routinely...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation…“Totting up twelve months”
Putting together year-end best-of movie lists is mostly pointless. Moments from the movie year, on the other hand, can be quite useful, for no two people see the same film. For the first column of this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The slow death of a romance”
From watching David Lean movies on your laptop to watching a brand-new film on your TV set is, I suppose, just another step in the evolutionary ladder of cinema. Before the announcement of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Argo amuse yourself!”
The Golden Globes ceremony, as always, was a lot of fun. But now we also seem closer than ever to predicting whom the Oscars will go to. The narrative around the Golden Globes, acknowledged thus far as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “A fanciful notion of what’s real”
The question around the underwhelming ‘Les Misérables’ isn’t how realistic a musical should be but whether musicals need be realistic at all. Mere days after Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Les Misérables...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Innocent until proved guilty?”
It’s easy to blame cinema as the reason we behave this way and that, but doesn’t some of the responsibility lie with us? A few days ago, in panel discussion about the objectification of women, I found...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Pictures for posterity”
A fascinating new documentary throws the spotlight on an indefatigable preserver of Indian cinema. Who is PK Nair? The release of Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s Celluloid Man should answer this question...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘What else can I do?’
AR Rahman isn’t in the mood to talk about his music for ‘Maryan,’ but about everything else he’s happy to hold forth. AR Rahman seems to like having his picture taken. He’s seated at the edge of a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Dreams die first”
Can you believe QSQT is a quarter-century old? And can you believe that love, once, was so unattainable? I’m sorry if I’m turning this column into some sort of nostalgia machine, remembering movies...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The lost action heroes”
Why are stunt professionals so invisible in Hollywood? Is it because it’s the writers who dream up those action scenarios in the first place? The new Iron Man movie is, thankfully, less about Iron Man...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Our men… from Venus?”
Has there ever been a pure “guy’s night out” movie made in our country, or do we like our action only if mixed with lots and lots of sentiment? I heard an interesting phrase a few weeks ago, in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Borne ceaselessly into the present”
Some thoughts on Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Great Gatsby.’ That’s right – not F. Scott Fitzgerald’s but Baz Luhrmann’s. Baz Luhrmann likes dramatic, scene-setting openings. At the beginning of Moulin Rouge!,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Century Bazaar
Hindi cinema still dominates India’s vibrant film culture. IF YOU ARE FROM THE NORTHERN PARTS of the nation, or if most of the movies you watch are in Hindi, you may not have heard of K Balachander....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ayyo, Rama, what’s aappening?
What is the appropriate response to stereotypes in cinema? Well, that depends on the kind of film, doesn’t it? When I reviewed Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar, an update on the Heer-Ranjha legend that situates...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “A lover in another language”
Thoughts from re-watching a Hindi hit in Tamil, and the inevitable issue of (and issues with) dubbing. The first viewing of a film is so spent on who the people are and what they do and how the plot...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The bad man of Bollywood
Wrote this tribute when Pran won the Phalke. Seems appropriate to post it now. Filed under: Cinema: Hindi
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Cartoon villains and real blood”
‘The Lone Ranger’ isn’t memorable by any stretch – but given the state of our ‘action movies,’ it’s not a total write-off either. I hate the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I hate them because they’re...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “A bit of critical thinking”
On the prospect of missing the frenzy around the opening weekend of a film and watching it, quietly, later. Or not. By the time you read this, I will hopefully be in Thimphu – hopefully because I’ve...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Through a prism, differently”
Among the great pleasures of pop culture is the viewing of cinema through the skewed eyes of someone else. Bill Condon, the director of Gods and Monsters, Kinsey and Dreamgirls remembers his reaction...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Forty years after…”
Comparing the song situations in the old and new ‘Zanjeer’, we see how much has changed – in society as well as cinema. You could argue that the new Zanjeer needed to be made for a few reasons – for...
View Article