Recent Posts

• “Kaappaan”… A truly wretched screenplay makes this Suriya vehicle an exhausting action-adventure
• On the parents and children in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ‘Like Father, Like Son’
• “Oththa Seruppu”… Parthiban stars in a “stunt” film that’s barely convincing but very entertaining
• Interview: ‘Poo’ Sasi, on his journey from ‘Sollamale’ to ‘Sivappu Manjal Pachai’
• “Dream Girl”… Ayushmann Khurrana stars in an “Ayushmann Khurrana comedy” that’s his lamest one yet
• The sexually explicit ‘Extase’, starring Hedy Lamarr, and its continuing connection with the Venice Film Festival
• “Chhichhore”… Some mild amusement cannot redeem a slapdash bunch of friendship clichés
• “Magamuni”… Arya and Arya feature in a layered drama that doesn’t fully add up
• Interview: Lakshmy Ramakrishnan 2
• “Sivappu Manjal Pachai”… Siddharth and GV Prakash Kumar star in an effective action-drama with top-notch performances
• FC Recco: Tamil Translated Books, Pesamozhi Publications
• Readers Write In #95: Mr Local and everything wrong about it – in questions
• Mark Rylance, Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson in a lackluster adaptation of JM Coetzee’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’
• Meryl Streep stars in Steven Soderbergh’s slight, but very entertaining ‘The Laundromat’
• ‘Ramayana was written thousands of years ago and we’re still trying to live that kind of life’
• Martin Scorsese’s underappreciated ‘New York, New York’ is back in a gorgeous big-screen restoration
• Restored films by Luis Buñuel, Dennis Hopper and Jacques Tourneur in Venice Classics
• “After your mid-30s, politics and social issues become important”
• “Joker”… A superb Joaquin Phoenix anchors an okayish origin story of Batman’s nemesis
• “Ad Astra”… Brad Pitt is terrific in a space saga with less-than-terrific writing
• “Bombay Rose”… Gitanjali Rao’s first animated feature is a lovely ode to the city, its rains, its films, its cats…
• “Chola”… Sanal Kumar Sasidharan continues his study of oppression in a twisted, chilling retelling of the Ramayana
• FC @ Venice 2019 – Full coverage
• Tsai Ming-Liang’s enigmatic ‘Vive L’Amour’, which won the Golden Lion at the 1994 Venice Film Festival, turns 25
• Interview: Prabhas
• Readers Write In #94: Vaaranam Aayiram – A Poetic Embrace
• Creating a conversation around trans characters in cinema
• Readers Write In #93: 27 years of Rahman
• #AskBR – Once Upon A Time in Hollywood
• ‘Nivin Pauly was scared… in a really good way’
• “Mission Mangal”… Vidya Balan is terrific in a cutesy movie that never rises above ‘watchable’
• “Kennedy Club”… Bharathiraja and M Sasikumar feature in a dull sports drama from Suseenthiran
• The 50th anniversary of Z, by Costa-Gavras, who receives the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award at Venice
• “Munirathna Kurukshetra”… Darshan and Arjun star in a thoroughly mediocre take on the epic
• With ‘Kalki’ and ‘Thanneer Mathan Dinangal’, formula returns to Malayalam cinema
• The reverse chronology in Gaspar Noé’s ‘Irreversible’, which gets an Out of Competition screening at Venice 2019
• “Comali”… Jayam Ravi stars in a badly written comedy… or drama… or heist thriller… or something
• FC Recco: ‘Harivu’
• Interview: Sudheer Varma
• Readers Write In #92: ‘Dear Comrade’ gets right things that ‘Kaatru Veliyidai’ didn’t
• Readers Write In #91: Film critics vs public opinion
• #AskBR – Nerkonda Paarvai
• Bernardo Bertolucci’s ‘The Spider’s Stratagem’ will be screened as part of Venice Classics
• Interview: Boney Kapoor
• “Nerkonda Paarvai”… A subdued, dignified Ajith powers a solid “no means no” drama
• Interview: Rahul Ravindran
• “Jackpot”… Jyotika stars in a noisy action-comedy that fails on both counts
• Readers Write In #90: Why Kangana’s spat with the media is just what the doctor ordered
• Greater transparency in the process may help address the gender parity issue at Venice and other film festivals
• Interview: Nagarjuna – Part 2