Blog Profile / Blogical Conclusion
| URL : | http://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Film / Bollywood | |
| Posts on Regator: | 868 | |
| Posts / Week: | 3.4 | |
| Archived Since: | August 16, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
“Thillu Mullu, Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru”… Titter-verse
Two strangely similar comedies have hit screens this week – and it’s not just the déjà vu brought on by the overlapping cast (Devadarshini, Bosskey, Manobala, and the seemingly unstoppable Santhanam). Both films are centered around elaborate (and somewhat mean-spirited) con jobs perpetrated on innocents. Show More Summary
“Fukrey”… 4 Idiots
Mrighdeep Singh Lamba’s Fukrey is the story of four youngsters who, needing money for various reasons, end up at the mercy of Bholi Punjaban (the awesome Richa Chadda), a shady operator who announces her predatory instincts with animal-print clothing. Her magnificence needs many mirrors – as in her gym. (Her SINDERELLA tattoo, though, is a too-clever touch […]
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The man of the story”
A documentary on Adoor Gopalakrishnan eschews biographical comprehensiveness in favour of fascinating glimpses into the filmmaker’s mind. How do you begin a documentary on a famous filmmaker? Prasanna Ramaswamy, the director of Lights on Adoor Gopalakrishnan, has the man walk into a room and ask an unseen assistant, “Is the lamp in the field? At […]
Bitty Ruminations 77
All this chatter about Naina’s introverted personality in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani just goes on to remind me of how little people know about introverts. Rather, how generically an introvert is classified as someone who’ll just sit in a corner and stare at the wallpaper. Like most things in life, introverts come in all shapes […]
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The life and times of a hero”
A book about Uttam Kumar attempts to get at the man behind the movie screen, with middling results. Swapan Mullick, the author of Mahanayak Revisited: The World of Uttam Kumar, writes early on about his curiosity about the man behind the larger-than-life personalities the actor depicted on screen. His curiosity is ours – for who […]
Century Bazaar
Hindi cinema still dominates India’s vibrant film culture. IF YOU ARE FROM THE NORTHERN PARTS of the nation, or if most of the movies you watch are in Hindi, you may not have heard of K Balachander. You may have seen the films he made in Hindi, though—Aaina, Zara Si Zindagi, Ek Nai Paheli, and, […]
“Kutti Puli”… Beastly business
When did Tamil cinema begin yoking its valorous heroes to wild animals? I suppose it all harks back to Rajinikanth, who first unleashed a Murattu Kaalai, and followed it up with a Paayum Puli. (There was also, at some point, the dull roar of a Garjanai.) Today, every hero who wants to ascend to that […]
The same old rune
Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’ is stuffed with clues, chases, chunks of general knowledge, and possibly an insight into why this author does what he does. Midway through Dan Brown’s latest thriller, I began to wonder about the future adventures of Robert Langdon, the Harvard University professor with a penchant for scouring the European landscape for answers […]
“Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani”… Wake Up Kabir
In naming his protagonist Kabir, Ayan Mukerji, the director of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, has missed an opportunity. The character played by Ranbir Kapoor should really have been named Sid, like the protagonist who was exhorted to wake up in Mukerji’s earlier film. Kabir is more mature than Sid – older, and surer of what […]
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Borne ceaselessly into the present”
Some thoughts on Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Great Gatsby.’ That’s right – not F. Scott Fitzgerald’s but Baz Luhrmann’s. Baz Luhrmann likes dramatic, scene-setting openings. At the beginning of Moulin Rouge!, over darkness, there’s the gentle roar of audience members settling into their seats. Then there’s applause as the screen brightens and a conductor is seen […]
The last of a kind
A tribute to TM Soundararajan, the voice of a generation. To know why TM Soundararajan, TMS, was the last representative of a certain kind of playback singer, you’ll first have to consider that he rose to fame in an era where not everyone could become a playback singer – not even if you had a […]
“Ishkq in Paris”… No dice
Ishkq (Preity Zinta) is a half-Indian half-French photographer who says she will never marry. Akash (Rhehan Malliek), the sports agent she meets on a train from Rome to Paris, hates weddings. We know, right then, that they will, by the film’s end, reconsider their respective positions – but we play along as they pretend to […]
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Our men… from Venus?”
Has there ever been a pure “guy’s night out” movie made in our country, or do we like our action only if mixed with lots and lots of sentiment? I heard an interesting phrase a few weeks ago, in connection with the film Shootout at Wadala. While I’d looked at the film as a stylish action […]
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “Taking a knife to a classic”
Thoughts on Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho,” Gus Van Sant’s remake of ‘Psycho,” and the ruthlessly butchered ‘Psycho’ that’s shown on television. Psycho is widely seen as the progenitor of the modern-day slasher film, yet watching it today, I wonder if that credit shouldn’t actually go to the movie Hitchcock made immediately after – The Birds, where the […]
“Aurangzeb”… Games of thrones
Something’s happened to Rishi Kapoor as he’s grown older, fleshier. He’s become a really terrific actor. When he was younger, he was always a competent performer, and sometimes even a good one, but the roles he was typecast in and the assembly-line filmmaking of the time rarely let him break out and deliver anything radically […]
“I Don’t Luv U”…
When a film spells its title I Don’t Luv U, it’s clear that its target audience doesn’t comprise adults but the generation that came of age with Facebook and Twitter (or as a character, here, hilariously puts it, “the burger generation”) – so what might a grown-up gain from a viewing? Perhaps an insight into how […]
“Neram”… A day in the life
Alphonse Putharen’s Neram begins with an unusual dedication, a thank-you to the director’s “ex-girlfriends (especially the last one).” Just what might a Freudian make of this, given that the heroine, here, is kidnapped, bound and gagged, and tossed into the boot of a black Ambassador? The opening scene is even more unconventional, a riff on the butterfly […]
Lights, Camera, Conversation… “The lost action heroes”
Why are stunt professionals so invisible in Hollywood? Is it because it’s the writers who dream up those action scenarios in the first place? The new Iron Man movie is, thankfully, less about Iron Man than Tony Stark, the man inside the metal. Choosing to showcase a human being over a superhero is always a […]
“Gippi”… Smells like teen spirit
Nothing’s going right for the eponymous 14-year-old heroine (Riya Vij) of Sonam Nair’s Gippi. She’s a klutz. She’s not as thin as the girls around her, and her dresses just won’t fit. (“Thoda full full” is how her classmate Ashish sweetly appraises her.) She doesn’t fit in either, which may be why she escapes – through old Hindi film […]
“Nagaraja Cholan MA, MLA”… The party’s over
Going by the posters that screamed “Amaidhipadai – 2” and “Amavasai returns,” I was curious how Manivannan’s Nagaraja Cholan MA, MLA would play out as a sequel. After all, when we left the earlier film almost two decades ago, the unscrupulous politician memorably portrayed by Sathyaraj (we first saw him as a leering bumpkin named […]