Genre: Musical, Family, Fantasy Rating: 4/5 130 minutes Director: Rob Marshall The first thing one is likely to remember of the 1964 classic ‘Mary Poppins’ are the songs, especially ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ and the wonderfully made-up ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. Though set in 1935, the sequel comes 54 years later. Michael Banks (Ben Winshaw), a recently widowed dad […]
Genre: Drama, Romance, Comedy Rating: 3/5 157 minutes Director: Anurag Kashyap Whatever Punjabis do, it’s not only without inhibition but with a great deal of spontaneity. If ‘Udta Punjab’ (2016) showcased the rampant drug menace in the state, ‘Manmarziyaan’, Anurag Kashyap’s latest — a romantic comedy — has dollops of free-spirited, licentious and overt passion. […]
Genre: Action, Comedy, Thriller. Rating: 2.5/5 117 minutes Director: Susanna Fogel Had it not been for the gory violence and almost continual action scenes, I would have been tempted to classify ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ as a screwball comedy. A spin on the title of the 1977 ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (Roger Moore’s third […]
‘Bigfoot in the Park’ ‘‘These creatures don’t need our protection, they need our absence”. This would probably be true for all non-humans but in the film its referred to the extinct dinosaurs which inhabited the earth aeons ago and which were ‘revived’ a quarter century ago by the brilliant filmmaker Steven Spielberg. It’s the fifth in […]
Genre: Drama Rating: 3/5 108 minutes Director : Harish Vyas In Any Other Language Sometime during the latter part of the film, when the middle-aged couple begin to have their irreconcilable differences, the till then subdued wife utters a cliched but telling remark “Our relationship is nominal, our togetherness even more so”. Set in […]
‘A Reverse Flick’ Even the most honourable of intentions at the planning stage will not always result in an acceptable finished product. Sudhir Mishra’s ‘Daas Dev’ comes to us on screen more than a decade aafter he had conceptualised a modern-day version of the 1917 Bengali classic Devdas by Sarat Chandra Chatterjee (Chattopadhyay). The text […]
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Drama Rating: 2.5/5 121 minutes Director: Mukul Abhyankar ‘An Over-Cooked Plot’ During the investigations, Mauritius top cop Buddhu (Annu Kapoor) pensively remarks to his investigating officers “Bahut saare loopholes hain”. The viewer is left wondering whether the words refer to the case or the script. A couple, Sushant (Manoj Bajpayee) and Aparna […]
When was the last time one saw a film where tears of sorrow turned to sporadic laughter and the other way around? The third film of playwright-turned-director Martin McDonagh (screenplay too), ‘Three Billboards…’ narrates the story of Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand), a grief-stricken mother whose daughter was raped and burnt to death and is seeking justice […]
Imagine the plight of this planet a couple of decades hence — overpopulated to the extent of being almost uninhabitable, with dwindling resources and unmanageable waste. Scientists have been confounded. But not Hollywood’s filmmakers. Director Alexander Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor seem to have found the ultimate remedy. The film opens somewhere in the future […]
The film was almost ready for release when news of Kevin Spacey’s alleged sexual misconduct hit headlines and prompted the studio to beckon the 88-year-old Christopher Plummer – the oldest to win an Academy Award, at 82. The 80-year-old Ridley Scott pulled off a near miracle by refilming Spacey’s scenes (as the multi-billionaire John Paul […]
Science-fiction and fantasy films come with their own baggage – they are over-reliant on SFX, the plot is rather predictable, the climax is left open-ended for the studios to cash in on the franchise’s popularity and leaves little scope for an actor to display his/her acting abilities; unless of course, you are a fan of […]