Irreplaceable Irrfan 7 January, 1967 – 29 April, 2020 I’m frequently asked what ‘Crossover Films’ mean. Is it just the language content? (But more of that later.) When the distressing news of Irrfan Khan’s passing poured in on 29th April, my mind wandered to the other actor – Om Puri – who had done India […]
As the continents (Antarctica excluded) of our planet grapple with the lethal and unseen enemy, one’s thoughts dwell on Hollywood’s fascination for the unknown… While the perils of viral annihilation has been the subject matter of many films, one would have thought that a pessimist genre would not work commercially for the film industry. But […]
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 […]
Sifting through 500 hours of archival footage – most of it not seen before – Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia, has constructed a lively and obsessive documentary about the world’s best-known footballer of the 80s. The film begins when SSC Napoli, a little-known football club in Italy, welcomes their newest recruit, 23-year-old Maradona on 5 July, […]
‘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 […]
The snowy locales of Himachal Pradesh is the setting for this curiously titled film, and one soon learns that it is the name of a hotel in Manali. The film opens with a person running frantically in the snow as if the devil was after him. Cut to ACP Ashwin Dixit and his wife Shikha […]
That famous victory sign, the pugnacity of the man, the perennial cigar in his mouth with those protruding jowls under the bowler hat and the oratory skills which earned him the 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature, are all brought to screen via an intense portrayal of two-time British PM Winston Churchill by Gary Oldman. The […]
Films of this genre normally start off sedately – the protagonist (being an ex-cop helps) working hard for a living, usually with a spouse and child (comes in handy as hostages), and losing his job – wondering how to break the news at home. So, in The Commuter we have Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson), an […]
A single clue is what is proffered in the middle of the film, based on the enigmatic maestro Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel by the same name. The self-proclaimed ‘greatest detective in the world’ – the fastidious and mustachioed Belgian Hercule Poirot (played by director Branagh himself) – is bound for London aboard the famed Orient […]
Directed by Bhargav Saikia and officially adapted from a short story by Ruskin Bond, The Black Cat is a quaint 20-minute short children’s fantasy film. Tom Alter, in his last screen appearance, plays the author Ruskin Bond who buys a broomstick from a curio shop. On returning home he experiences strange happenings including a neighbour […]
If ever there was a female-centric film, Kangana brings it to life in ‘Simran’. A collaboration between a National award-winning director and a National award-winning actress is bound to create more than just a flutter. Well, it does – till you realise that the writing could have had more credibility than it does. A 30-year-old […]