Browsing All Posts filed under »Cinema: English«

Readers Write In #384: Where have the ‘Jerry Maguire’s and ‘As Good As It Gets’s gone?

July 12, 2021

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(by Karthik Amarnath) I wonder what’s happened to the Hollywood rom-com. They used to be a big budget star studded staple up until the early noughties. Forward to the social media era, and the genre has whittled down to candy canes catering to a Valentine’s Day sugar rush. I think of rom-coms as comfort food. […]

Readers Write In #372: ‘Mare of Easttown’ and the ‘Mad Men’ syndrome

June 16, 2021

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(by Madan Mohan) Mare of Easttown, the crime series starring Kate Winslet as the eponymous Mare (short for Marianne), has won much critical acclaim, particularly for the acting and more specifically for Winslet nailing the Delco accent (Delaware county of Pennsylvania). And while I did enjoy it too, I was left with a feeling of […]

My two-part interview by Raunaq Mangottil (on nostalgia, Nayagan, theaters, reading, screenwriting & train journeys)

June 11, 2021

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For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2021 Raunaq Mangottil.

Readers Write In #359: An impression of loss: Processing grief in popular culture

May 2, 2021

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(by H Prasanna) But then, Mank isn’t really about the authorship of Kane or even a “biography” of Mank. That’s perhaps why he says, early on: “You can’t capture a man’s life in two hours. All you can hope to leave is an impression of one.” –Baradwaj Rangan, Mank review So, when a character dies, we get […]

Readers Write In #357: On my love for ‘The Incredibles’

May 2, 2021

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(by Cholan Raje) I feel like I’m a film buff. I like thinking about films, talking about films, and above all, I frequent this blog– full of men and women at least 20 years older than me, with eloquent English that sounds like the result of them probably reading way more books than I do. […]

My interview on Chalchitra Talks (by Vaibhav Munjal)

March 13, 2021

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For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2021 Chalchitra Talks.

Readers Write In #342: Martin Scorsese degrades today’s Hollywood again, but it is not as bad he makes it sound

March 4, 2021

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(by Alex John) Martin Scorsese’s essay on Fellini was moving, nostalgic, and solemn, and gives a wonderful account of the Great Italian filmmaker’s life, his films, and his passion for cinema. He almost had me buying what he wrote in it entirely, but I started to feel indifferent when he continued on with what he […]

Berlinale 2021: Ted K tells the story of the Unabomber as a demented eco-activist

March 3, 2021

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https://www.filmcompanion.in/film-festivals/berlin-film-festival/berlinale-2021-ted-k-tells-the-story-of-the-unabomber-as-a-demented-eco-activist-taste/ If someone told you what ‘Taste’ was about, you may think of Zakariya Mohammed’s ‘Sudani from Nigeria’: a footballer from the African nation ends up in Asia… Spoilers ahead… While watching Tony Stone’s Ted K – as in, Ted Kaczynski, as in, the Unabomber (played by an excellent Sharlto Copley) – I kept thinking […]

My interview on Christopher Nolan @ Sollu Kaburz (by Najeeb)

February 21, 2021

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For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2021 Sollu Kaburz.

Uberto Pasolini’s ‘Nowhere Special’ is having its Indian premiere at the International Film Festival of Kerala

February 13, 2021

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https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/uberto-pasolinis-nowhere-special-screening-at-iffk-2021-is-moving-without-being-melodramatic-9299521.html This tale of a dying father trying to get his little boy adopted is moving without being melodramatic. Spoilers ahead… At some level, John (James Norton) is the bestest dad ever. That’s what his four-year-old, Michael (Daniel Lamont), might say. John combs Michael’s hair for lice. John reads Michael a bedtime story, very patiently, […]

Readers Write In #336: Thoughts on revisiting ‘The Man from Earth’

February 6, 2021

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(by Aravind R) Once in a while, there comes a moment when you have no more new movies to watch. BR’s recommendations – all done and dusted. Rotten Tomatoes – nothing above 90% in the genre you’re in the mood to watch. In the race to watch more good movies, you avoid succumbing to the […]

Rotterdam 2021: Reimagining Joseph Conrad in Lone Wolf, exploring motherhood in Aurora

February 3, 2021

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https://www.filmcompanion.in/film-festivals/rotterdam-film-festival-2021-iffr-reimagining-joseph-conrad-in-lone-wolf-australia-exploring-motherhood-in-aurora-costa-rica-tandav/ The fact that almost all the primary characters are seen through video footage becomes a distancing device, which is probably intentional. But it also makes it hard to invest in the stakes. Spoilers ahead… Jonathan Ogilvie’s Lone Wolf is based on The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. The outline is the same. The characters […]

Readers Write In #334: On ‘Talaash’…of ‘The Vanished’

January 31, 2021

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(by AnJo) (Spoilers on ‘The Vanished’ and ‘Talaash’) Very recently, I watched ‘The Vanished’ on Netflix and was struck by the similarities of the so-called other’s presence and importance in our lives: On how the process of ‘comprehending’ an event and wiggling out of it is so difficult for some people. There is a world […]

Alisha Tejpal’s Lata, at Sundance: “I want you to ask questions. I’m not interested in passive cinema”

January 30, 2021

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https://www.filmcompanion.in/film-festivals/sundance-film-festival-2021/sundance-film-festival-2021-india-lata-alisha-tejpal-mumbai-im-not-interested-in-passive-cinema-baradwaj-rangan/ The 22-minute short, which is in Competition, focuses on a domestic labourer in an upper-class home in Mumbai. Alisha Tejpal says, “My biggest question in Indian cinema across the decades, at least for me growing up in Mumbai, is the way domestic labour has been framed. How do I write a film about a domestic […]

Readers Write In #332: On long takes, and The Vast of Night on Amazon Prime

January 27, 2021

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(by Aravind R) It was a cold wintry night in Surat when I first fell in love with it. A senior was initiating a bunch of us – all from Kerala, accustomed to the usual Mohanlal and Mammooty fare and the occasional Padmarajan or Lohitadas – into all things awesome in music and movies, from […]

The White Tiger on Netflix: aka The revenge of Ramu kaka, starring Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra, Rajkummar Rao

January 26, 2021

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https://www.filmcompanion.in/reviews/bollywood-review/the-white-tiger-movie-review-netflix-the-revenge-of-ramu-kaka-starring-adarsh-gourav-priyanka-chopra-rajkummar-rao-baradwaj-rangan/ Like in ‘99 Homes’, Ramin Bahrani directs with an eye on narrative propulsion rather than subtlety – but the film is compulsively watchable. And Adarsh Gourav is a star. Spoilers ahead… The White Tiger is based on a book (Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker-winner) so let’s begin with the literariness of the protagonist’s language. He’s […]

Readers Write In #327: Bridgerton is no Jane Austen

January 18, 2021

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(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

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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

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(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

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(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 […]

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