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Readers Write In #476: Under the surface, how Crazy is Encanto?
By Karthik Amarnath Encanto, the recent feature from Walt Disney Animation Studios, could have easily been set in India. There’s a great big joint family living in a great big house, the kind we have seen in so many Tamil movies, dating all the way back to a melodrama monolith like Vietnam Veedu. The great big […]
Posted in: Cinema: English, Readers Write In
Readers Write In #475: This Rose is still as fresh as it was in 1992
August 13, 2022
By Anand Raghavan 30 yrs back on the Independence Day, just when India had opened up its economy through liberalisation , escaping a worse economic collapse, with baby steps into a new start, came as a breath of fresh air in film music, breaking the shackles of the sound, the monotony in recording , something […]
M Muthiah’s ‘Viruman’, starring Karthi and Aditi Shankar, is exactly what the trailer promised: a generic rural-template film
August 12, 2022
Spoilers ahead… I have no problems with template films. The problem is that so little effort has been made to infuse the elements of this template with freshness. M Muthiah’s Viruman is a template film made around a series of must-have points. Point One: establish the central conflict. So we see the young Viruman with […]
Posted in: Cinema: Tamil
Advait Chandan’s ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, with Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor, has its issues but is an easy watch
August 11, 2022
Spoilers ahead… The first hour is wonderful, but slowly, a sense of dullness sets in. The film, though never unwatchable, gets into repeat mode. The Forrest Gump character is like the feather we see at the Hollywood film’s beginning. He is tossed around this way and that, borne along by the winds of chance. There […]
Posted in: Cinema: Hindi
Aanand L Rai’s ‘Raksha Bandhan’, with Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar, is an anti-dowry drama that’s more fascinating in theory than on the big screen
August 11, 2022
Spoilers ahead… So why don’t all these interesting creative choices lead to a consistently interesting movie? Because the characters are given no space to establish themselves. You know that PSA where a man named Nandu is smoking outside a hospital and Akshay Kumar comes by on a cycle? Nandu’s wife has “auraton wali beemari“, a […]
Posted in: Cinema: Hindi
Interview: Karthi (Viruman)
August 11, 2022
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Posted in: Cinema: Tamil, Interview
Interview: Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi (Paper Rocket)
August 9, 2022
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Readers Write In #474: The deceptive world of Gargi
August 9, 2022
By Shyam VS Gargi is cinematic craft at its best. But that’s not all. For starters, Gargi is a creative crafting. Everything in the movie, from acting, music to sound design was realistic, thanks to the live-recorded sound of the film, which plays a huge role in passing on the movie’s emotions to the audience. […]
Interview: Aamir Khan (Laal Singh Chaddha)
August 8, 2022
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Hanu Raghavapudi’s Sita Ramam, with Dulquer Salmaan, is a gorgeous big-screen romance that could have used more edge, more depth
August 5, 2022
Spoilers ahead… After a point, the non-stop beauty of the visuals – and the effort to write scenes that contain such beauty – begins to suffocate the romance. Dulquer Salmaan should get more films which have him in an unshaven, unkempt look. That’s one of the thoughts I had while watching Hanu Raghavapudi’s Sita Ramam. […]
Posted in: Cinema: Telugu
Sri Ganesh’s ‘Kurudhi Aattam’, starring Atharvaa and Priya Bhavani Shankar, is a series of action set pieces with no emotional glue to bind them together
August 5, 2022
Spoilers ahead… The narrative moves in fits and starts, and I couldn’t decide if it was due the screenplay itself or due to parts being trimmed off. Either way, it’s hard to root for anyone. In an early scene in Sri Ganesh’s Kuridhi Aattam, a little girl named Kanmani is seen caring for plants. One […]
Posted in: Cinema: Tamil
Interview: Kamal Haasan (on the ’50th day of Vikram’ event organised by Galatta)
August 5, 2022
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Alia Bhatt scores another big win as a survivor of domestic abuse in Jasmeet K Reen’s ‘Darlings’, which also has a terrific Shefali Shah and Vijay Varma
August 5, 2022
Spoilers ahead… The film is a domestic noir-cum-black comedy, and if the Alia Bhatt-Vijay Varma couple takes care of the domestic noir, Shefali Shah’s character keeps you in splits with her deadpan expressions. The plural title of Darlings is no accident. The protagonist Badru (played by Alia Bhatt) is from a lower-middle-class Muslim family, and […]
Posted in: Cinema: Hindi, Television / Online
‘Victim’, now on SonyLiv, is another mediocre anthology, with only Pa Ranjith’s short standing out
August 5, 2022
Spoilers ahead… Only Ranjith and Venkat Prabhu’s shorts show that they have been made by a “director”, and can be called “cinema”. The other two play like skits. Someone needs to analyse why we just can’t seem to get anthologies right, but let me offer a theory based on the directors of Victim. There are […]
Posted in: Cinema: Tamil, Television / Online
Krishand’s ‘Aavasavyuham’, now on SonyLiv, is an eco-drama that’s a brilliant subversion of both form and content
August 4, 2022
Spoilers ahead… The film plays like a revenge story mixed with a mockumentary, and. The eco-issues spoken about are all too real. But the treatment is surreal. The best thing about Krishand’s new film, Aavasavyuham, is its English title: “The Arbit Documentation Of An Amphibian Hunt”. It describes so well what’s about to follow, the […]
Posted in: Cinema: Malayalam, Television / Online
Readers Write In #473: Great Movies: What are they? An essay focusing on ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’, ‘Iruvar’ and ‘Kadaisi Vivasayi’
August 4, 2022
By Aadithya Kiran Is there any one single element in screenwriting that, if treated properly, can transcend a mediocre script into a great one? Do great movies have any definable characteristics? Is the adjective GREAT so malleable that it can be used on any film simply based on our tastes and personal experiences? Watching and […]
A small milestone at Galatta Plus
August 4, 2022
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Interview: Alia Bhatt (Darlings)
August 2, 2022
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Posted in: Cinema: Hindi, Interview
Interview: Sri Ganesh (Kuruthi Aattam)
August 1, 2022
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Posted in: Cinema: Tamil, Interview
Mohit Suri’s ‘Ek Villain Returns’ is a serial-killer sequel that’s about as scary as a teddy bear
July 29, 2022
Spoilers ahead… No, I have not spoiled anything for you. The film doesn’t need me. It does a pretty good job of spoiling itself. Remember Ek Villain? It was a superhit that said that a man can become a serial killer because his wife keeps nagging him. Now, we have Ek Villain Returns, though no member […]
Posted in: Cinema: Hindi
Baradwaj Rangan 
August 14, 2022
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