Flies, but not too high The man who makes movies with swings and saris, ghaats and boats, Rabindrasangeet and Read »

Resurrected, but to what effect The experience of watching a Bengali film can be disappointing these days. Watching a few of them in a row will help you grow a steady conviction that while Bengali filmmakers have the advantage of new technologies and marketing tricks, most of them lack two very basic virtues: guts and seriousness... Read »

'Peepli Live': a review A superstar producer backing an unknown talent is a necessary evil. Necessary because the producer has to make his money and refurbish his image thus also guaranteeing the film an automatic initial audience. Evil because fans are made to chase the sparks of a shooting star which disappear with the ... Read »

'Aisha': a review Aisha the movie is full-on ‘nyaka’. A word which can never be correctly translated in English or Hindi but you know it when you see it. Yes, it’s very much a Jane-Austen-meets-Sex-and... Read »

'Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai': A review Dialogue pe dialogue, dialogue pe dialogue, dialogue pe dialogue... in Milan Luthria’s world, people spoke only in dramatic dialogues Once Upo... Read »

Lamhaa: A review Lamhaa depicts multiple issues plaguing Kashmir but doesn't delve into any. The subplots rush you through a village of half-widows waiting for their husbands, who were taken by the police a decade ago; army officials selling their souls to the enemies of the... Read »

'Udaan': A review Udaan  is being pushed by its makers as a coming-of-age tale of the protagonist who turns 18 in the film. But actually it’s not. Vikramaditya Motwane’s first film is a story of self-realisation, of a boy finding the mental (and physical) strength to act... Read »

Shukno Lanka: A review Shukno Lanka is the story of Chinu Nandy (Mithun Chakraborty), a middle-aged junior artiste at the studio para of Tollygunge. Life comes in bits and pieces to this man, like his brief appearances in films, through an ... Read »

I Hate Luv Storys: a review Chance meeting. Check. Initial dislike. Check. Dance song. Check. Silly fights. Check. Freak friendship. Check. Buddy song. Check. Girl love. Check. Happy song 1. Check. Boy rejection. Check. Sad song 1. Check. Boy love. Check. Happy song 2. Check. Girl rejection. Check. Sad song 2. Check. Airport ... Read »

Off the charted course, charmingly Ace cinematographer Avik Mukhopadhyay’s directorial debut Ekti Tarar Khonje is definitely watchable, but it stops just short of being an effective film. No doubt it’s a significant entry in terms of visual story-telling and editing. What it lacks is a factor... Read »

Raavan: a review Mani Ratnam is God. For those born in the 1970s and 80s and dropped into the valley of cinema with the synthesised sound of Yeh haseen vadiyan. So it’s ironic that he would choose to show his demonic side with a film where he questions the roleplaying of Read »

Ley Chakka: A review Reviewing a mainstream Bengali film has always been difficult, especially one with no pretensions. While a harsh review would be a show of laughable pedantry, a reviewer worth his salt can't possibly shower praises on such a film. The golden mean in this case would be to analyse what the film in qu... Read »

'Mahanagar @ Kolkata': A review The six protagonists of Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Mahanagar@Kolkata portray fear that lurks behind the cacophony of a metro life.

One wonders which kind of fear is more terrible. The kind where there is a clearly defined bad guy (or group) that can be assi... Read »

Raajneeti: a review In Raajneeti, Prakash Jha’s power-pagal parivaar starts off with Mahabharata, picks up pace with The Godfather and then nears the finis... Read »

'Kites': A review Kites  is a film about languages. The heroine speaks Spanish, the hero speaks English and there’s also a smattering of Hindi thrown in there somewhere. So how about a Bengali limerick to sum up the most awaited movie this summer? (The director would app... Read »

It’s A Wonderful Afterlife : review Aburlesque comedy thriving on mad moments and grotesque exaggeration, It’s A Wonderful Afterlife promises too much and delivers too little. Filmed on the lines of an Ealing comedy where raucous humour meets pure silliness, this Gurinder Chadha film elicits e... Read »

Badmaash Company: review A con film is allowed to be many things. It can be devoid of emotions. It can have a weak love story. It can have average acting. But one thing it just cannot be is stupid!

Like all Yash Raj Films movies which try to simplify and sugarcoat things, Parmeet Sethi’s directorial debut aims to be... Read »

Housefull: review Dear Sajid Khan, we know reviews don’t matter to you. You cancel press shows because, well, you don’t care what critics say about your film. You make it for the audiences, you say. So, here’s an open letter from (just) an audience member because truth be told your so-called masterpiece doesn’t exac... Read »

Apartment: a review Can’t there be some global rule where you can just not use a title of a classic? You can make a Godmother but not call your film Godfather. Sorry Jag Mundhra, but Apartment for... Read »

Jodi Ekdin: A review Ian Wyndham lives with his girlfriend Samantha Andrews. A busy businessman, Ian has little time for Samantha who is a musician. The first part of the story shows a day in their life that ends in a heated altercation between the two. Tired of being taken for granted, Samantha finally snaps and decid... Read »

Jodi Ekdin: A review Ian Wyndham lives with his girlfriend Samantha Andrews. A busy businessman, Ian has little time for Samantha who is a musician. The first part of the story shows a day in their life that ends in a heated altercation between the two. Tired of being taken for granted, Samantha finally snaps and decid... Read »

Love's labour's lost "Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other." – Susan Sontag

If you are looking for a cinematic illustration of Sontag's aphorism, go watch The Japanese Wife... Read »

'Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai': Review Ten minutes into Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai is a capsule of cameos by some of the top names in Bollywood. From director Sajid Khan who rues the fact that a newbie superstar Desh (Ruslaan Mumtaz) has kept him waiting for hours outside the make-up van (“Read »

Hum Tum Aur Ghost: Review Hum Tum Aur Ghost is me, you aur some laughs — and a whole lot of yawns!

Writing, producing and acting in HTAG is Arshad Warsi, who we all agree is a natural actor and c... Read »

Love, Sex Aur Dhokha: A review It's not your Bollywood take on Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), although its name seems to chime in with the Soderbergh film. Dibakar Banerjee's Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (or LSD) ... Read »

Right Yaaa Wrong: review Irrfan Khan cannot be wrong. He is always right. During the making of Rog Pooja Bhatt had once said that when Irrfan’s in the frame, you can just start the camera and forget about saying ‘cut’. She couldn’t have put it better. Whether it’s Read »

Road, Movie: A review A smart, crisp script makes Road, Movie a welcome change from the usual fare. It’s fresh and thought-provoking, minus the melodrama.

iPod-toting Vishnu (Abhay Deol) is wedged in a hair oil-selling family. All he wants is to escape the reach of Atma Read »

All that glitters... In an interview to ilovekolkata last week, first-time film director Birsa Dasgupta said filmmaking runs in his blood. “My grandfather was sort of a pioneer in documentary filmmaking in India. Since childhood I’ve been seeing the flashbulbs, watching my father... Read »

Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?: Review On day one of Chachaji’s (Paresh Rawal) stay at his nephew Puneet’s (Ajay Devgn) plush Goregaon flat, the elderly man puts his legs up on the sofa and farts loudly, much to the horror of everyone present. On day two, he lets out another stinker at the dining... Read »

Teen Patti: review Is magic simply another word for mathematics? Is everything and everybody in this world governed by some mathematical theory or the other? Does a simple math equation have the power to change lives? A tale of gambling and greed, deception and death, Teen PattiRead »

Cerebral and kinetic, Abohomaan charms Novelists and poets have used non-linear narrative technique to great effects. Film, an art form that takes a lot of money and labour to crank up, cannot always show the same agility. But among a few good directors who use it to their advantage, Christopher Nolan is foremost.

This is not jus... Read »

My Name Is Khan: A review There’s been much hullabaloo over what Shah Rukh Khan had said about the exclusion of Pakistani players from the IPL 3. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s followers have been up in arms against the Bollywood actor and his My Name Is Khan. The film’s release has... Read »

Rann: a review In Rann, director Ram Gopal Varma attempts to expose how the country’s electronic media is increasingly sacrificing journalistic ethics at the altar of sordid sensationalism, all in a cut-throat bid to stay ahead in the TRP game.

But in an irony of so... Read »

The game is not worth the candle The last time I visited Prosenjit at his Ballygunj residence, I saw him glow in optimism. He spoke at length about his upcoming films. The subject of Clerk came up and he described how he managed to pull off what could be the tightest schedule of his life so... Read »

Veer: A review In his interviews Salman Khan has described his writing debut Veer as a revenge story, an action film and also as a romance. Coming from the son of one half of the greatest Bollywood screenwriter duo (Salim Khan of Salim-Javed) Salman should have known bette... Read »

Bolo Na Tumi Amaar: review The plot: It’s a love story about a pizza delivery boy (Dev) and an aspiring doctor (Koel), spiced up with comic misunderstandings.

Though it all ends on a happy note, the beginning is anything but sweet. For starters, boy and girl bump into each other everywhere — college campus, South City... Read »

Chance Pe Dance: a review Chance Pe Dance is yet another telling audio-visual evidence that Bollywood writers and directors are struggling to keep up with the new kids on the block. Five years, countless reshoots, one heroine replacement, severely re-edited music videos later, direct... Read »

Elementary, my dear Ritchie "... For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation."— Dr. John H. Watson, The Adventure of the Three Garridebs.

The l... Read »

Pyaar Impossible!: A review With just over half an hour left of the 150-minute movie, Uday Chopra, who’s also written the script of the film, finally comes to the point. He dresses up Priyanka Chopra as a geek and challenges her to get the phone number of any of the happening guys in the party Read »

Aamir does a Santa for Hirani True, you can’t possibly make a contraption out of a vacuum cleaner to help a pregnant woman give birth. But then, before Lage Raho Munnabhai, who could have thought that a rose stick can move mountains?

True, whenever Baba Ranchordas (Aamir Khan) open... Read »

The many dimensions of 3-D Can a director who hasn’t made a feature film in more than a decade encash a conservatively-edited, US$ 300 million sci-fi fantasy film based on a new take on an old story, with zero superstars and a DVD market sinking under BitTorrent? James Cameron’s Avatar Read »

5 reasons why Rocket Singh doesn’t rock... Ranbir Kapoor’s Sardarji S-A-L-E-S stint is bringing on the whistles, and Shimit Amin’s Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year seems to have hit all the right notes with movie-goers. And yet, this story of the underdog’s triumph doesn’t leave you with a smile by... Read »

There is no there there “Some books are to be tasted; others to be swallowed; and some few to be chewed and digested,” wrote Francis Bacon. Had we applied this metaphor to films, R. Balki’s Paa would squarely fall into the second category that includes many other well-meaning but m... Read »

De Dana Dan: Review Sanjay Gupta copies from Korean films. David Dhawan lifts bits and pieces from Bolly, Holly, Tolly, Molly, Kolly…. Priyadarshan rehashes his own films. Just as the sarson ka khet signals a Yash Chopra film and Karan Johar’s films are known by the melodrama, ... Read »

Kurbaan: review The Quran mentions the term jihad 41 times. Love, peace, mercy and compassion find a mention 355 times. Why then is Islamic fundamentalism considered the biggest threat to civilisation today? Why are young men (and women), blinded by rage and revenge, ever ready to give up their lives and conscienc... Read »

Jail: Review Denied bail and, more frustratingly, a chance to utter a word in court in his defence for close to a year, a hapless Parag Dixit (Neil Nitin Mukesh) lets loose his pent-up anger, bashing up a rich kid whose VIP connections have worked in acquitting him in a hit-and-run case. The criminal walks free... Read »

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani: Review Oi ma! Aila! Main toh kehta hoon aap purush hi nahin… mahapurush hain, mahapurush…. Suno suno duniya ke logon, sabse bada hai Mr Gogo….

Teja main hoon, mark idha... Read »

Tum Mile: A review Once during an interview Francis Ford Coppola was asked why it took so long for Kay to leave Michael Corleone in the Godfather series. The writer-director, citing his own life, had replied that wives tend to believe their husbands when they say they would le... Read »

Requiem for a wren See this shot of Michael Jackson taken from the ground up – from, say, the musicians’ pit just below the lip of the stage: his lithe body, with pelvis thrust forward like a light-catcher, curves tautly backwards; his arms angle back from narrow, fragile-looking shoulders; his fingers stretch back a... Read »

London Dreams: A review Two years ago, Vipul Shah plucked a rustic Akshay Kumar from the fields of Punjab and dropped him into the plush streets of London to give us a beautiful love story in Namastey London. With London Dreams, the man behi... Read »