Browsing All Posts filed under »Cinema: English«

Cannes 2018, Netflix, Orson Welles, Nandita Das’s Manto and #MeToo

April 16, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/cannes-film-festival-2018-netflix-orson-welles-nandita-das-manto-and-metoo-4433459.html Does the distribution model determine what cinema is? The ongoing war between Netflix and the Cannes film festival – which recently announced its line-up for the coming edition (more on that later) – has brought this question to the forefront. Cannes artistic director Thierry Frémaux said, “Any […]

Remembering Stéphane Audran’s La Femme Infidèle, and its tamer American counterpart, Unfaithful

April 9, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/remembering-stephane-audrans-la-femme-infidele-and-its-tamer-american-counterpart-unfaithful-4423949.html There’s always a general sadness when someone from the cinema passes away, but with the French actress, Stéphane Audran, it was a little personal. The VCR era had just given way to the DVD era. Libraries with extensive foreign-film collections began to sprout in Chennai, and whenever […]

Bergman’s ‘Hour of the Wolf,’ Darren Aronofsky’s ‘mother!,’ and the myth of the ‘tortured artist’

April 2, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bergmans-hour-of-the-wolf-darren-aronofskys-mother-and-the-legend-of-the-tortured-artist-4414959.html In a paper titled Bereavement and Creativity, published in October 2017 in Management Science, economists Kathryn Graddy (Brandeis University) and Carl Lieberman ( Princeton University) studied the effect of a loved one’s death on the creativity of 48 artists, ranging from Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Picasso […]

Gal Gadot’s Stephen Hawking tweet, and the unsentimental handling of disability in ‘Rust and Bone’

March 26, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/gal-gadots-stephen-hawking-tweet-and-the-unsentimental-handling-of-disability-in-rust-and-bone-4405561.html Ableist (i.e. someone who discriminates against people with disabilities). That’s a new word I learnt after the passing of Stephen Hawking, when Gal ‘Wonder Woman’ Gadot put out this tweet: “Rest in peace Dr. Hawking. Now you’re free of any physical constraints. Your brilliance and wisdom will […]

Readers Write In #37: The Awesome Mixtape Musical

March 24, 2018

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​Guardians of The Galaxy (2014) has inadvertently spawned a new genre in Hollywood – The ‘Awesome Mixtape Musical’. What ‘Guardians..’ had created, ‘Baby Driver’ ended up perfecting earlier this year. It is a bit counter-intuitive to call a movie with no real singing a musical, but maybe it’s time to expand the definition of ‘musical’ […]

The Amateur’s Art #36 – Between the Words (English)

March 24, 2018

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See here for what this series is about. This film came from K Harish, with this note: Hello sir! I’m K. Harish, a Chennai resident, and a B. Sc. (Visual Communication) graduate from Loyola College, Chennai. I’ve been an ardent follower of your reviews and articles and you took a very special place in my heart […]

Remembering René Clément’s take on ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’, and his documentarian eye for detail

March 19, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/remembering-rene-clements-take-on-the-talented-mr-ripley-and-his-documentarian-eye-for-detail-4396113.html You sometimes peg these columns on the day someone was born, or the day they died. With the French filmmaker René Clément, it’s both. He was born on March 18, 1913, and he died on March 17, 1996, three years before the release of Anthony Minghella’s The […]

Louis Malle’s incest-tinged ‘Murmur of the Heart’ is a gentle blow against political correctness

March 12, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/louis-malles-incest-tinged-film-murmur-of-the-heart-is-a-gentle-blow-against-political-correctness-4386111.html There’s nothing quite like the Oscars to put you off political correctness for a while. There’s definitely the need to say these things – about gender equality, about racial discrimination, and a huge shout-out to Frances McDormand for making us aware of what an “inclusion rider” is […]

On ‘Black Panther’, ‘Kaala’, and Pa Ranjith’s career

March 8, 2018

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Read the full article on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/rajinikanth-black-panther-kaala-pa-ranjith-baradwaj-rangan/ In which I try to figure out the irony of a filmmaker who wants say very specific things and yet yields to the generic demands of a star vehicle. I kept thinking about Black Panther as I watched the teaser for Kaala, the new Pa Ranjith […]

Erik Poppe’s Berlin Competition entry, U – July 22, recreates a horrifying event with stunning exactitude, but also raises questions

March 6, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/erik-poppes-u-july-22-recreates-a-horrifying-event-with-stunning-exactitude-but-also-raises-questions-4378353.html Utøya 22.juli (U – July 22), directed by Erik Poppe, depicts a terrible chapter in Norway’s history. On the day the film is named after, a right-wing extremist named Anders Behring Breivik set off bombs in the government offices in Oslo, then travelled to Utøya island, the […]

“The delusion of the constant erection is what keeps the patriarchal society going”

February 27, 2018

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Read the full article on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/q-interview-garbage-baradwaj-rangan-berlinale/ A note on Q’s ‘Garbage’, which premiered at the Berlin film festival, and an interview with the filmmaker. Q’s Garbage, the only Indian feature at this year’s Berlinale (it had its world premiere in the Panorama section), zooms in on subject matter worthy of the director’s provocative […]

Call Me by Your Name, Lolita and taming discomfiting desires on the big screen

January 29, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/call-me-by-your-name-lolita-and-taming-discomfiting-desires-on-the-big-screen-4324893.html Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name has been in the news for a while, most recently because it was nominated for four Academy Awards (including Best Picture). And it is a very good film, a textbook example for what a director does – that is, orchestrating […]

Woody Allen, Aziz Ansari and the crucible of public judgement

January 22, 2018

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Read the full article on Firstpost, here: http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/woody-allen-aziz-ansari-and-the-crucible-of-public-judgment-a-reel-versus-real-analysis-4314073.html Ever since stories about sexual harassment and abuse of power/privilege began to tumble out of Hollywood’s closets, some of us have begun to wonder if we have any business commenting at all. It’s vital to come out against systematic predators like Harvey Weinstein, but what about some […]

The Amateur’s Art #32 – The Beautiful Portrait

January 19, 2018

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See here for what this series is about. This is from Thulasidasan Jeewaratinam. His note: This isn’t the first time I’m premiering my short in your blog. If you remember, my short film, The Robbery (4th Amateur’s Art, I believe) also debuted on your blog. It’s been a year since and I happen to have […]

The Amateur’s Art #30 – The Cineaste (English)

December 17, 2017

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See here for what this series is about. Note from the filmmaker: Arjun Dinesh here, a 1st year grad student from AAT Media College, Chennai. I recently visited your blog and I saw that you were sharing some short films that you liked. I read the initial post and I didn’t know how you went about […]

Readers Write In #29: Borg-McEnroe movie explores the torment of obsessive perfectionism

December 15, 2017

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The new film on the Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe rivalry (new in India, released a few months earlier abroad), named baldly after their last names, has received a somewhat mixed if overall positive reception.  The common complaint seems to be that the film devotes too much time to Borg and too little to McEnroe.  One review […]

Interview: Santosh Sivan

September 26, 2017

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Coming on Thursday. My chat with Santosh Sivan. For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW “I like big films… You are in the midst of mass people.” “I don’t need to do much to make Mahesh Babu look good.” “Thuppakki was the first time we used digital cameras.” “With Thalapathy, […]

Bitty Ruminations 86 – Dunkirk

July 20, 2017

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I have a strange relationship with Christopher Nolan’s films. The last one I liked unabashedly, adored 100%, is The Prestige, which is the perfect “Nolan movie” in every way. It has his trademark gimmickry, but this gotcha-ness is folded beautifully into the story, which demands that gimmickry. I mean, it’s about seeing something you only […]

L’Age d'(Palme d’)Or

May 14, 2017

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If you got that headline (translation: if you are a film snob), you may be interested in my dispatches from Cannes during the next couple of weeks.  Will put up links here as they appear on Film Companion. Au Revoir les Enfants. (See, I did it again!) Dispatch 1: https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/the-caste-system-and-phantoms-from-the-past-cannes-2017 Dispatch 2: https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/cannes-2017-a-family-at-war-cultures-at-peace Dispatch 3: […]

Readers Write In #17: The Split Director

May 13, 2017

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M. Night Shyamalan’s first film was neither Wide Awake or The Sixth Sense. It was an indie drama known as Praying with Anger. Of course the film is not popular or even known that it existed unlike how the bad films by him are unpopularly remembered. Wikipedia describes the film as an exploration of a […]

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