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Browsing All Posts filed under »Cinema: English«
Readers Write In #327: Bridgerton is no Jane Austen
(by Doba) Those of us who were not satisfactorily entertained by the drama at the Capitol – no offence to the fine performances of the ladies and gentlemen, there, but they were sadly lacking in sex appeal – have turned to Netflix’s period drama Bridgerton in the last few weeks. With the devastatingly handsome leads […]
Ekwa Msangi’s ‘Farewell Amor’ is an immigrant drama about coming to terms with a father/husband who’s now a stranger
December 19, 2020
https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/ekwa-msangis-farewell-amor-is-an-immigrant-drama-about-coming-to-terms-with-a-family-member-whos-now-a-stranger-9112601.html The protagonist’s situation is not very different from that of the Indians who go to the Gulf to work. They don’t have a “family life”, as such. It’s the waiting area at John F Kennedy International Airport, and our eyes are drawn to a man holding a white name card. There are others, of […]
Readers Write In #313: Mank, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the Real Magic of the Movies
December 16, 2020
(by Karthik Amarnath) If there’s one kind of movies adored by Hollywood, it’s movies about Hollywood. David Fincher’s Mank, playing on Netflix, is the latest entry into this echelon of self indulgent cinema. Mank presents a questionable account of Herman Mankiewicz’s questionable screenwriting process, inspired by Upton Sinclair’s questionable media portrayal, which leads to Randolph Hearst’s questionable depiction […]
Readers Write In #312: Why Hillbilly Elegy may not be such a misfire after all
December 13, 2020
(by Madan Mohan) There are films lately where the critical consensus is so different from my own impressions that I am left to question whether I am going bonkers. Or whether the critics are. Or if this is just life happening, me getting older and forming perceptions based on my own experiences and worldview rather […]
Mank on Netflix, with Gary Oldman: David Fincher’s evocative drama is about a crisis of conscience
December 4, 2020
https://www.filmcompanion.in/reviews/hollywood-review/mank-movie-review-netflix-david-fincher-evocative-drama-is-about-a-crisis-of-conscience-hollywood-gary-oldman-baradwaj-rangan/ This isn’t really about the authorship of ‘Citizen Kane’ or even a “biography” of its writer Herman Mankiewicz. Gary Oldman leaves us with one hell of an impression. Spoilers ahead… David Fincher’s Mank is about the man most famous today for having written (or co-written, depending on what you choose to believe) Citizen Kane […]
Readers Write In #306: Of lacking Office Space… or not!
November 30, 2020
(by An Jo) The name of the movie, ‘Office Space’, itself spells out such a broad spectrum of imagined meanings that it made sense, or makes sense, now, in these days of CV-19 that have dictated WFH [Work? from Home]. And so, there are articles/pieces coming out that decry the necessary evil of WFH. Be […]
Readers Write In #303: The art of Arrival
November 18, 2020
(by Shiva Prasad) Arrival opens with the camera slowly moving down, from the darkness of a ceiling to the brightness of a glass wall on a lake shore home. A silhouette of the dining table informs us, a couple probably drank wine and left midway. It feels like dawn. The blue hour. The transition from […]
Readers Write In #295: The Queen’s Gambit
November 10, 2020
(by Sundar) Streaming on Netflix and consisting of seven episodes, each with a runtime of about an hour, The Queen’s Gambit could be termed as a coming of age drama of an orphaned girl who is a chess prodigy. Based on a novel by Walter Tevis, The Queen’s Gambit happens in the cold war years when the race between […]
The name is Connery, Sean Connery: Goodbye to the first and finest James Bond
October 31, 2020
https://www.filmcompanion.in/features/hollywood-features/sean-connery-james-bond-obituary-007-dies-at-90-hollywood-baradwaj-rangan/ As he got older, oddly, the cruel veneer in his on-screen persona slipped away and he became more avuncular. This is possibly his best phase, his most beloved phase. When I think of Sean Connery, I think of James Bond. But of course. He was in one of the greatest of those films, the […]
Readers Write In #262: One Day: A Revisit
September 6, 2020
(by Vikas Yadav) When looking at the list of some best romantic movies, the chances of finding Lone Scherfig’s One Day is as good as spotting the Sun during the night. I have rarely come across anyone who has even watched Scherfig’s 2011 rom-com that encapsulates its basic premise in the title: Twenty years, Two […]
Readers Write In #261: Here’s to The Most Breathtakingly Excellent Dude of Them All
September 6, 2020
(by Aman Basha) A teenager wonders over how in 2019 the Internet fell for the One Few days ago, the Internet was abuzz with celebration; even the toxic minefield of Twitter had nothing but joy and positivity for his birthday. As Keanu Reeves (supposedly) turned a year older, there was nothing but good wishes and […]
Readers Write In #256: Ford v/s Ferrari is the most fun branding history lesson ever
August 31, 2020
(by Madan Mohan) I set out initially to compare the refreshing and invigorating approach to retro Hollywood that Ford v/s Ferrari laid out versus the grey and laboured approach of Irishman or Joker that is the more commonly favoured tone in retro films (you also see this in J Edgar). But I decided a deep […]
Interview: Napoleon (and his Hollywood-indie stint)
August 27, 2020
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Readers Write In #247: How do Bergman and Babu Sivan think alike?
August 19, 2020
(by G Waugh) Can man lead his life without believing in anything? The inability of man’s spirit to live and flourish without believing in anything could have been one of the reasons behind the invention of religion. In Bergman’s 1963 classic Winter Light, a fisherman Jonas is brought to the village priest Tomas Ericsson by […]
Readers Write In #241: When Lord Krishna and Woody Allen met on my account!
August 11, 2020
(by G Waugh) Arjuna, the warrior felt deeply uncomfortable about taking on his rivals, the Gauravas who were his siblings after all. He was much worried about fighting is own Guru Dronacharya who treated him like a son. It was a deep dilemma for Arjuna. He simply couldn’t pick his bow and begin fighting the […]
Readers Write In #240: ‘Motherless Brooklyn’, Edward Norton’s passion project that lost out to Martin Scorsese’s
August 9, 2020
(by Madan Mohan) In 2019, two filmmakers finally presented before the audience their respective labours of love, long gestation projects that had remained in the works for years and years. Both were set way back in the past and dabbled in crime. The first one – Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman – you know about even […]
Little Fires Everywhere, on Disney+Hotstar… A fascinating drama about two very different, yet two very similar mothers
July 27, 2020
One of my favourite sub-genres in the television/streaming space is “whatever has Reese Witherspoon in it”. She’s done the most amazing thing actresses who are no longer the It Thing can do: she’s become a producer and has begun making things that are far more interesting and satisfying than the things she made when she […]
Readers Write In #227: Kubrick ends on a high!
July 24, 2020
(by G Waugh) Stanley Kubrick’s last film before his death, Eyes Wide Shut released 21 years ago. It struck a deep chord inside many audiences then, even though it is still not rated as one of his best. But just like every other work of him, even if it works on and off at the […]
Mrs. America, on Disney+Hotstar… A riveting story about women fighting for and against the Equal Rights Amendment
July 18, 2020
T his lockdown has been a very busy time for us at work. I wasn’t actively looking for a new series to watch, because I didn’t know if I had the time and energy to commit to endless episodes. But on Facebook, I stumbled on a small video promo — a snatch of a “conservative” […]
Ennio Morricone (1928 – 2020)
July 6, 2020
Whistling + solo trumpet + guitar + snare drums + chorus + dialogue from pulp heaven = wowza! The great arena scene from Sergio Corbucci’s THE MERCENARY (score by #EnnioMoricone and Bruno Nicolai). From when movies were not apologetic about swagger. Watching the opening scene of Roland Joffe’s THE MISSION on Devi theatre’s 70mm screen […]
January 18, 2021
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