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 […]
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 […]
Two particular scenes at the beginning of the film prepare the viewer for 32-year-old NYPD Detective, Andre Davis’s (Chadwick Boseman) tough, no-nonsense character – as a 13-year-old, he silently weeps at his father’s funeral – a sincere policeman slain in the line of duty; and later, as a detective specialising in killing cop-killers, standing up […]
“For my whole life, I didn’t know if I even really existed,” – the reader would be forgiven if even a glimmer of likeness was to be found with similarly titled films! Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a part-time clown, part-time stand-up comedian, with minimal success in the latter vocation, but who’s grown up idolising […]
It took the intervening three films for First Blood to transform into Last Blood. And the generation gap is as much pronounced when Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal) tells her foster-father, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone, of course), “Nobody writes letters any more.” Gabrielle drives from their ranch in Arizona to Mexico, when she receives a tip-off that […]
“It’s true – the rich are different,” these words are uttered at one point in the film. Little would Grace (Samara Weaving), brought up as a foster child, have imagined that her wedding night excitement could extend to desperately attempting to save her life from her in-laws, with her husband Alex (Mark O’Brien) being a […]
It’s the sequel to the 2017 sleeper hit ’47 Meters Down’, where a couple of girls in a cage crash down into the ocean, with oxygen depleting. This one, for obvious reasons has a suffix: Uncaged. It involves four girls – twice the number, but with half the thrills and excitement. Mia (Sophie Nelisse) and […]
“Stories have the power to hurt or heal,” says a child’s voice at the beginning of the film. In this film, adapted from the series of stories by Alvin Schwartz, one wonder what power this film could have – to hurt, heal.. or horrify! Set in 1968 during Halloween (that’s a given), in the small […]
In one of the scenes in the film, Maatun (Urmila Mahanta), promoted from a lowly housemaid position to a responsible post in the office, is the only one who doesn’t arise from her chair to greet her boss, Abhiraj Malhotra (Narendra Jha). That eloquence just about sums up the genre of the film, besides the […]
To an extent, Farhan Akhtar’s tryst with musicals continues in his latest ‘Lucknow Central’. It’s a wonder that, having sung in six of his previous films, he doesn’t croon a single song in LC despite being the lead musician in his group! But moving ahead… Kishen Girhotra (Farhan Akhtar), an aspiring singer from Moradabad, is […]
It seems the action directors (too many to enumerate) and John Stewart Eduri, who conducted the background music score, had a deal in place : whenever one of them was off duty, the other would take his place. So we have fistcuffs by the dozen and/or a ear-splitting background score, lest you fall asleep. And […]