Pop Culture Archives

Cannes Film Festival: That Time of the Year When B-Grade Bollywood Celebrities Become Relevant Again

There’s no getting away from the fact that Mallika Sherawat’s and Hina Khan’s connection to world cinema is tenuous at best. Yet they are gracing the Cannes red carpet. As for the rest of the Indian delegation? To paraphrase a modern statesman: We’re definitely not sending our best people.

Kahini Iyer June 24, 2016

Pop Culture

Neal ’n’ Nikki: When Mini Skirts Made For Movies

Neal ’n’ Nikki came to our screens and changed our young lives forever. It was exhilarating to see characters speaking like we would do, talking about sex and boning like we only did with our friends in hushed tones.

Parthshri Arora June 24, 2016

Pop Culture

Netflix’s “Unbelievable” Sets a Template for How to Sensitively Deal with True Stories of Rape

Netflix's Unbelievable, that comprises a record of both, how an investigation can go utterly wrong and how one carried out with the highest diligence can afford justice, feels like a defining show of our times. Based on real-life rape cases, the show is as much a reminder of the lapses of law and order as it is a plea that any system is as good as the people enforcing it.

Poulomi Das June 23, 2016

Pop Culture

Not All Those Who Wander are Lost: Tolkien’s Tonic for the Millennial Quarter-Life Crisis

When faced with a crisis, some people turn to religion and seek divine deliverance from their problems. I’m not religious, but I do have idols, and out of the entire pantheon, JRR Tolkien is the one who rules them all.

Dushyant Shekhawat June 23, 2016

Pop Culture

A Good Time To Be Robert Pattinson

Pattinson’s live-wire turn as Connie in Good Time – his best showing by some measure – is the most tragic character played on film last year. But does it compare with the two leading contenders for the Best Actor Award at the Oscars?

Manik Sharma June 23, 2016

Pop Culture

From Jaws to Crawl: Everyone Loves a Nail-Biting Man vs Animal Movie

Having humans as a main course for a man-eating critter is a time-honoured cinematic tradition, which over the years, has also proved to be extremely malleable. From sharks to alligators and everything in between, the dangers can be symbols of nature’s untamed majesty, or represent the consequences of our own actions.

Dushyant Shekhawat June 22, 2016

Pop Culture

Jagga Jasoos: A Lesson in Speech Therapy For Bollywood

Bollywood has almost always treated a stutter as comic relief. Maybe Jagga Jasoos will do for the speech impediment, what Taare Zameen Par was able to do for dyslexia.

Poulomi Das June 22, 2016

Pop Culture

Stranger Things and the Beauty of the Steve-Dustin Bromance

The Steve-Dustin bromance is an unlikely alliance of opposites, that cut across the boundaries of type and age. It’s also the sweetest thing Stranger Things will leave us with.

Deepansh Duggal June 22, 2016

Pop Culture

Shamshera Review: A Politically Intuitive Film that is Worth A Watch

Shamshera doesn’t quite deliver on the anticipation of a touted pan-India film, but its politics and front-foot stance is refreshing, even if unevenly portrayed.

Pradeep Menon June 22, 2016

Pop Culture

A Song of Ice and Fire and Global Warming

Game of Thrones, this rollercoaster of tits and dragons that we’ve been riding for the last few years, is a veiled allegory about the threat of climate change.

Dushyant Shekhawat June 22, 2016