“Aurangzeb”… Games of thrones

May 19, 2013

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Something’s happened to Rishi Kapoor as he’s grown older, fleshier. He’s become a really terrific actor. When he was younger, he was always a competent performer, and sometimes even a good one, but the roles he was typecast in and the assembly-line filmmaking of the time rarely let him break out and deliver anything radically […]

“I Don’t Luv U”… <3 story

May 18, 2013

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When a film spells its title I Don’t Luv U, it’s clear that its target audience doesn’t comprise adults but the generation that came of age with Facebook and Twitter (or as a character, here, hilariously puts it, “the burger generation”) – so what might a grown-up gain from a viewing? Perhaps an insight into how […]

“Neram”… A day in the life

May 18, 2013

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Alphonse Putharen’s Neram begins with an unusual dedication, a thank-you to the director’s “ex-girlfriends (especially the last one).” Just what might a Freudian make of this, given that the heroine, here, is kidnapped, bound and gagged, and tossed into the boot of a black Ambassador? The opening scene is even more unconventional, a riff on the butterfly […]

Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The lost action heroes”

May 17, 2013

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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 than Tony Stark, the man inside the metal. Choosing to showcase a human being over a superhero is always a […]

“Gippi”… Smells like teen spirit

May 14, 2013

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Nothing’s going right for the eponymous 14-year-old heroine (Riya Vij) of Sonam Nair’s Gippi. She’s a klutz. She’s not as thin as the girls around her, and her dresses just won’t fit. (“Thoda full full” is how her classmate Ashish sweetly appraises her.) She doesn’t fit in either, which may be why she escapes – through old Hindi film […]

“Nagaraja Cholan MA, MLA”… The party’s over

May 11, 2013

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Going by the posters that screamed “Amaidhipadai – 2” and “Amavasai returns,” I was curious how Manivannan’s Nagaraja Cholan MA, MLA would play out as a sequel. After all, when we left the earlier film almost two decades ago, the unscrupulous politician memorably portrayed by Sathyaraj (we first saw him as a leering bumpkin named […]

“Go Goa Gone”… The evil undead

May 11, 2013

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The most impressive aspect of Go Goa Gone, the “zom-com” directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, may be its utter disdain for heroics. Even its ostensible hero – Saif Ali Khan, whose star wattage lit up the film’s promos, plays  a blonde Russian named Boris (he calls himself Barees) –  isn’t so much the […]