Movies Blogs

Abhishek Kapoor“There’s nothing more powerful than Zero to elevate – or, reduce you to it”

In India, cinema is a celebration.  Befitting enough, the centenary of Indian Cinema calls for one.  Packed with music, colours, ever-reinventing takes on our epics, modern-day avatars of Rama and Krishna..

We celebrate the past with hopes for a better future.  Time then for Introspection to clarify vision. The journey from Years 0 - 100 has got us to this point; where does it travel to from here?

The answer is simple: wherever we take it

The believer in me hopes for a Renaissance movement and for Institutionalization in the craft & trade of cinema. But, silver linings tend to be bed-mates with dark clouds.  The pragmatist in me whispers slyly: is my wish-list just wishful thinking?

Is Bollywood really a Kings Speech industry living in a Social Network world, struggling to change its DNA? Unsurprisingly, it is so.

Two negatives making for a positive only in the world of maths (& nowhere else)

Behind every great

When it comes to representing India abroad, why do we always go overboard? Here’s why

When Anil Ambani walked the Oscar red carpet last year with his Dream Works Studios partners Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider, one couldn’t help notice the contrast in the attires. Ambani opted for black velvet, red-trimmed bandhgala, with ruby and diamond buttons, as opposed to a tuxedo. While it is commendable that he went for the Indian attire, surely he could have done better than the ill-fitting pants and the over the top bandhgala. The otherwise suave businessman is known for his crisp suits and formal clothes but why did he lose the plot while walking the red carpet?

Cut to 65th Cannes Film Festival, the hotbed of the latest in style, fashion and couture. Cannes 2012 saw Aishwarya Rai bounce back after the public backlash regarding her weight post pregnancy. Ash chose clever make-up and a Roberto Cavalli kaftan to hide her pregnancy fat. It worked. Well, almost. However, L’Oreal Paris brand

Kate and Riz in 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'Cast: Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber, Imaad Shah

Direction: Mira Nair

Rating: ****

Mira Nair takes on the daunting task of adapting Mohsin Hamid’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ and skillfully transforms a monologue into an engaging plot. She weaves an elaborate tale, infusing it with warmth and texture.

Mira Nair’s narrative feels like a constant dialogue with the audience where she questions our presumptuous notions of the “other”. She introduces a third act; what does her protagonist do once the alienation is complete, after Changez (Riz Ahmed) decides to give up his American dream and return to Pakistan, a nation in turmoil? The third act provides a perspective and makes us hopeful of a possible closure.

Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed) is charming and intelligent, excelling first at Princeton University and soon establishing himself as a successful business analyst on Wall Street. His professional achievements are complimented as he finds himself falling in love with the beautiful

http://in.movies.yahoo.com/photos/meet-the-policewalas-in-aurangzeb-slideshow/

Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Rishi Kapoor, Jackie Shroff

Direction: Atul Sabharwal

Rating: ***1/2

Atul Sabharwal weaves an intriguing tale in ‘Aurangzeb’; the collusion of the powerful and the corrupt. The nexus of ministers, real estate developers and the police is almost impenetrable and there is no place for those who don’t fall in line.

Arjun Kapoor in a double role is undisputedly the star of ‘Aurangzeb’. Twin brothers separated when young usually makes for a clichéd portrayal. Actors try so hard to play the two characters differently that the depiction eventually looks forced but Arjun doesn’t fall into these trappings. He plays brothers Ajay and Vishal, one is the spoilt brat born with a silver spoon, smug about his position of privilege. The other is a small town boy, unaware that he could have been the successor to an empire. Arjun plays the two characters with aplomb, there are some similarities and yet, he manages to create two distinctive characters, each immensely

Meet the zombie hunterCast: Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu, Vir Das, Puja Gupta, Anand Tiwari

Direction: Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K.

Rating: ***

Are we familiar with zombies? Not really…okay, may be. But do we understand entertainment? Of course, we do. The directors of ‘Go Goa Gone’ understand that zombies are a completely foreign concept for many of us. They have therefore infused the narrative with dollops of comedy to ensure that this unusual premise is made palatable for the average Hindi film buff.

Saif Ali Khan plays the Russian Mafioso whose rave party in an isolated Goan island goes all wrong. The revelers indulge in some red drugs and the morning after, they are loitering around zombified, hungry for blood. Blonde Saif nails it as Boris, the zombie hunter; he speaks with a twang, peppering his dialogues with choicest desi abuses (he is actually from Delhi). His portrayal, much like Javed Jaffrey’s pseudo- Australian accent in ‘Salaam Namaste’ (2005), remains the most memorable one from the film.

Mira Nair on the setsWhile finishing ‘The Namesake’, in New York in 2007, Nair read the manuscript of Hamid's unpublished novel, ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’. She found it immensely readable and was thrilled to have found a springboard from which to enter the worlds of both modern-day Lahore and New York. Through her own Mirabai Films and Pilcher's New York-based Cine Mosaic, the two optioned the film rights to the novel.

Mira Nair is in India passionately promoting her forthcoming release ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’. Excerpts from a candid chat:

Q. ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ is essentially a monologue. How difficult is it to translate a book like that into a film?

It was possibly the most challenging adaptation that I have ever been involved with in my work so far because when a director chooses a novel you bring a lot of things to it; you want to inhabit that world for more than few years of your life. So I view a novel as a springboard for my imagination and besides the inherent challenge of

Shootout At WadalaCast: John Abraham, Tusshar Kapoor, Kangna Ranaut, Anil Kapoor, Sonu Sood and Manoj Bajpai

Direction: Sanjay Gupta

Rating: **1/2

Sanjay Gupta relies on style and noise to bail him out of a plot that’s replete with loopholes and a script that reeks of shoddy writing. ‘Shooutout At Wadala’ is not lacking in visual sheen, if only a toned canvass, low angle shots and tight close-ups could substitute the need for a rational narrative.

It is a typical Bollywood gangster saga; reminiscent of the storytelling style in ‘Vaastav’ and this film’s prequel ‘Shootout At Lokhandwala’, the story unfolds in flashback as our protagonist (John Abraham) reveals how Manohar Arjun Surve became Manya Surve. The sketchy characterization however evokes neither compassion nor repulsion. Whether it was Raghu (Sanjay Dutt) in ‘Vaastav’ or Maya (Vivek Oberoi) in ‘Shootout At Lokhandwala’, their performances were a layered rendition distinctively angst ridden and restless. Abraham grapples with the portrayal,

Tribute to Indian Cinema: Bombay TalkiesCast: Rani Mukerji, Randeep Hooda, Saqeeb Salim, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vineet Singh

Direction: Karan Johar, Dibakar Bannerjee, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap

Rating: ****

‘Bombay Talkies’ boasts of superb craft; crisp writing, skillful direction and brilliant performances. Four directors, four stories, one film; is there a common thread? Maybe. One of the characters in each of these stories is extremely influenced by some aspect of Bollywood – old Hindi film songs (the street child who is a gifted singer), acting (a talented theatre actor who never really pursued his dream), dancing (a small boy aspires to become a dancer like Sheila) and stardom (Vijay who comes all the way from Allahabad to meet Amitabh Bachchan). For all of us who are aware of these directors’ previous works, each of them has his or her own USP and they play to their strengths.

It’s delightful to see Karan Johar recognize that his core strength is relationships and not mush. KJo steps away from his usually voluptuous