Blog Posts by Kunal Guha

 

The exotically named Kalki Koechlin, who debuted in director Anurag Kashyap's acclaimed ‘Dev D’ and more recently, went on to marry the director, has famously been known as Bollywood’s trouble child. This image has been inflicted upon her for the kind of roles she has chosen to do. While most ‘white’ girls have been confined to item numbers and dialogue-less roles, Kalki surely stands alone with meaty roles that have helped her carve a niche for herself. Her performance in the critically-acclaimed ‘Shaitaan’ and the festival-hopper ‘That Girl in Yellow Boots’ declared one thing- she’s here to stay. Clearly excited about her next release ‘Shanghai’ she met Kunal Guha from Yahoo! India for a chat. Excited- because she reached the venue (a dingy manager’s room at PVR Juhu) before this reporter did. Here is a transcript of the conversation:

What inspired and excited you about your role in ‘Shanghai’?
I am a big fan of Dibakar’s work. When he called me in the last minute and told me about

Read More »from Firangs are perceived as morally bankrupt

Cast: Pulkit Samrat, Amrita Pathak

Directed by Supavitra Babul

Rating: *

While Ranveer Singh’s Bittoo (Band Baaja Baaraat) set the mould for Punjabi jats with Bollywood dreams to chuck their diction classes and mouth desi-speak, this Bittoo doesn’t manage to perfect the imperfections required. Or you could say that his crudeness and misplaced machismo seems scripted and rehearsed and his stubble- meticulously parlour-ed. So for those comparing this film to Ranveer’s debut dhamaka, don’t. That one had substance, a story and well, Anushka Sharma.

Read More »from Bittoo Boss review

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Asin Thottumkal, John Abraham, Jacqueline Fernandez, Riteish Deshmukh, Zarine Khan, Shreyas Talpade, Shazahn Padamsee, Mithun Chakraborty, Rishi Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Boman Irani

Directed by Sajid Khan

Rating: *

Comedy fueled by confusion yields very little. And in Bollywood, this leads to people repeating their punch lines, screaming while spitting with expressions more animated than the next Pixar production. Here we have a house full of just this. The success factors are the usual: foreign locations, a minimum of two top stars (John-Akshay) and a maximum of two average stars to make the top stars feel more significant (Shreyas-Riteish). Then there has to be unaccountable opulence (since the audience wants to escape from their middle-class drudgery), dhishooming at the ratio of 30:1, naach-gaana by the united blues of Thailand and so on.

Read More »from Housefull 2 review