Marking its tenth anniversary on January 7, 2020, is filmmaker Raj Kumar Gupta’s No One Killed Jessica. The screen adaptation of the controversial Jessica Lall Murder Case, the film stirred the nation’s collective conscience – just the way the brutal incident did. Unlike several other Hindi films based on real […]
Read Time : 9 Minutes
‘Shakuntala Devi’ review – a math wizard’s story designed as a glitzy melodrama
Director Anu Menon’s Shakuntala Devi is one film that seriously made me ponder. At what point does a filmmaker decide a non-linear screenplay structure to his/her film? Maybe because I am revisiting several pre-2000s films in days of quarantine – some good, some bad and some which shouldn’t have existed. […]
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‘Mission Mangal’ review – a simplistic science film that is also obsessively religious
“101 se shuru karna chahiye tha…”, rues a Hindu priest present during the launch of ISRO’s ambitious rocket GSLV Mk-III: Fat Boy. Not to anyone’s surprise, the launch fails and the team receives massive wrath from the authorities for all the budget that went waste. No, this is not the […]
Read Time : 7 Minutes
Top 10 Bollywood Actresses of 2017 | YEARLY ROUNDUP
Ranking. That was quite a task when it came to compiling the list of 2017’s finest female actors. With each one of them putting their best feet forward in films that demanded them to be anything but pretty wallflowers, the year also saw the stereotype of the classic Bollywood heroine […]
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“Begum Jaan”… Loud and louder!
The theme of a brothel madame’s intense attachment to her kotha is well-dissected in Hindi cinema courtesy various films centred on bygone tawaif culture. We have seen that in Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan (1981). The tepid re-adapatation in 2006 took a twist that is similar to Begum Jaan‘s crux. Shabana Azmi’s Khanum Jaan refuses […]
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“Kahaani 2″… It’s all about the first half!
Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani was no ordinary film. A taut thriller that gave us no scope to spot bloopers, the film was also a benchmark in the so-called ‘heroine-centric’ realm of cinema. Helmed by the same lead actor (Vidya Balan), Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh is no sequel but also no […]
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Te3n – Strange concoction of good drama and bland suspense!
Ribhu Dasgupta’s Te3n – One instance where the genre turns out to be a film’s liability. At times, an endearingly honest story of an old man dealing with a loss that he was responsible for, the film’s dramatic scenes do strike a chord. Right when the writers (Suresh Nair, Bijesh […]
Read Time : 12 Minutes
How ‘Parineeta’ evolved in Bollywood from 1953 to 2005…
June 10 – Marks the anniversary of Pradeep Sarkar’s sparkling directorial debut with Vinod Chopra Productions’ Parineeta. With an unconventional title and a debutante female actor playing the title role, the film was a risky proposition on papers. Sarkar had his belief in place and the producers laughed all their way […]