Posted inBollywood
Ishqiya, the Kachori Western Served With Noir Ki Chutney
Abhishek Chaubey's Ishqiya retains the intensity of a Western through poignancy in dialogue, a classic trope of the Western that sets the men apart from the boys
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Suhana Suffer: Stop Whining about the Vogue Cover
Can we please stop the hand-wringing over Suhana Khan on the Vogue cover? Don’t blame the magazine or nepotism – blame yourselves for falling over each other to see her #AirportLook. This is a classic case of the privileged, whining on about the super privileged.
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Only 90s Kids will Remember: Sumeet Saigal, Avinash Wadhawan, and 50 Shades of Hamming from Forgotten Heroes
While watching Aayush Sharma in Loveyatri, I was reminded of the stock ’90s hero – someone who had the inherent talent of hamming and could champion patriarchy while celebrating matriarchy; could flex muscles as well as emotions; and become taller, sharper and stronger as the narrative progressed.
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Why Dulquer Salmaan is the Pan-Indian Hero We Need
After successfully foraying into Telugu and Tamil cinema, Dulquer Salmaan, a bonafide Malayalam star, made his Bollywood debut with Karwaan and is following it up with The Zoya Factor. His soaring fan-following that defies language and age barriers is because he feels like the realest actor we’ve witnessed in a long long time.
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PM Narendra Modi Review: The Most Lacklustre Endorsement of NaMo This Election Season
Biographical films, by design, are expected to remain true to facts. But PM Narendra Modi is bound by no such restrictions, mainly because director Omung Kumar hasn’t made a film. Instead he’s directed a 131-minute-long product placement of Narendra Modi.
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Sushant Singh Rajput, the Bollywood Outsider, Who Showed India How to Live Life on His Own Terms
Sushant Singh Rajput starred in Chhichhore last year, a film that centred around suicide, and the way we treat life as some kind of competition. What he leaves behind is proof of an attempt at living a life, of trying to make sense of its intricacies and puzzles, of giving it all to decode it.
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13 Years of Omkara: How a Play About Race Became a Critique of Toxic Masculinity
Thirteen years ago, Vishal Bhardwaj gave us the masterful Omkara based on Othello, the Shakespeare play about race and misogyny. The play is tailor-made for Indian sensibilities, where race turns into caste and the misogyny is dialled up several notches.
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From Yash Chopra, With Love: The Man Who Convinced India Dil Toh Pagal Hai
Here’s the thing about Yash Chopra – despite the cliché that he is associated with, he never could be pinned down to a stereotype. Even as he defined the romantic canon, he went about redefining it with each film. Chopra was to India what Mills & Boon was for the rest of the world.
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How to Write Empathetic Women Characters: A Lesson from Abhishek Chaubey’s Sonchiriya
A dacoit film set in Chambal and headlined by an all-male cast is hardly the expected backdrop for a biting commentary on gender prejudice. But for all the testosterone simmering on the surface, Abhishek Chaubey and Sudip Sharma infuse Sonchiriya with grassroots feminism.
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Tabu: Eternal Beauty in the Era of Manufactured Comebacks
Words do no justice to the versatility of Tabu, but her performances certainly do. She is ethereal as the courtesan Saeeda Bai in Mira Nair's A Suitable Boy, and in Andhadhun, her eccentric and evil Simi steals the show.