Somewhere in Jharkhand, in a small town called Karnalganj, is a small-time politician-cum-goon (isn’t this species omnipresent in those areas?) Baba Bhandari (Akshaye Khanna), who’s perennially shadowed by two cronies and whose supplementary means of income is from kidnapping potential grooms for girls whose parents can’t afford the dowry, which runs into lakhs. The local […]
Award-winning director, Jay Roach (Trumbo) and Oscar-winning scriptwriter Charles Randolph (The Big Short) unite admirably for ‘Bombshell’ – a reconstruction of the sexual harassment cases which brought about the downfall of Fox News honcho Roger Ailes (played astutely by John Lithaow) in 2016, 20 years after setting up the news channel, although it’s difficult to […]
Shimla mirchi, the Indian capsicum, is not supposed to be spicy – not even pungent. Ramesh Sippy’s film by the same name, released after more than five years of completion, stays true to the meaning! Avinash (Rajkummar Rao) is on a holiday with his family (all women!) to picturesque Shimla where his eyes dwell on […]
The fourth in the series, and based on ‘Ju-On: The Grudge’ by Takashi Shimuzu, this one travels from Tokyo to Pennsylvania – a family experiencing something sinister in their lives when in Japan has no respite even when relocating to the US. Detective Muldoon (Andrea Riseborough) is deputed to solve a case. She realises that […]
Well, the good news, er – newwz, is that 2019 ends with one of the best comedies in recent times – and with performances to match! Varun and Deepti Batra (Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor Khan) are a high-flying couple – childless despite seven years of marriage. As a result of frequent taunts from relatives […]
Remember ‘The Trail of the Pink Panther’, Peter Sellers’s 1982 film which was made after his death from earlier deleted scenes and previously viewed footage? Well, at a particular stage in the film, the appearance of late Carrie Fisher (reprising her role of Princess Leia), certainly reminds you of the Pink Panther film, though Fisher’s […]
The 6th All-Parsee Table-Tennis tournament organised by the 134-year-old Parsee Gymkhana (Marine Lines) on 7th and 8th December, 2019, saw 90 participants – from across Maharashtra and Gujarat – vying in 5 events. The exciting two-day event got underway with the qualifying rounds of Open Singles and the Under-14, which attracted entries mainly from Pune, Godrej […]
In the age when headless torsos surface (literally) with alarming and disturbing regularity, Mardaani 2 serves as a timely reminder of the atrocities dished out against women, in particular. The sequel to the 2014 hit has Rani Mukerji Chopra reprising her role of SP Shivani Shivaji Roy. The sequel shifts to Kota, Rajasthan, as the […]
It took 22 years for the first sequel to be made – ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’. And then just a couple of years for this, the second sequel. The success of ‘Jungle’ possibly prompted Kasdan, who directed it, and one of the co-writers, to helm this one too. Jumanji, based on the 1981 picture […]
‘Lagta hai ke mera Khuda bhi ab unke saath hai’, utters the power-hungry Afghan king Ahmad Shah Abdali (Sanjay Dutt) in exasperation, seemingly outwitted by the wily Maratha commander Sadashiv Rao Bhau (Arjun Kapoor). ‘Panipat’ is all about the third Battle of Panipat, on 14 January, 1761 between the two. Nanasaheb Peshwa (Mohnish Bahl) comes […]
India’s 26/11 has been invariably, and universally, compared to 9/11 of the US – the moral bankruptcy of the perpetrators and their handlers, the meticulous planning, targeting of the commercial capital cities, the suddenness and viciousness of the attacks, and above all – the resilience of the peoples of the affected countries. ‘Hotel Mumbai’, inspired […]