Movie reviews narrated. Beyond the ratings.
Reading Time: 3 minutes Why is it that most folklore and campfire catechisms tell of horrors that *female* forms take, usually to slake their bloodthirsty urges? Writer-director Anvita Dutt’s ‘Bulbbul’ is the visually stunning answer.
Reading Time: 4 minutes In director Satyajit Ray’s adda-styled story-telling, there’s a ruminating warmth, even if it doesn’t quite reach where it could have. But the chill of the present permeates this 1989 feature.
Reading Time: 2 minutes For Pancham’s birthday on June 27.
Reading Time: 5 minutes ‘Aandhi’ is a beautiful tapestry of the man-woman relationship that also doesn’t hesitate to tear it apart. Plus, Rahul Dev Burman weaves magic.
Reading Time: 4 minutes ‘Gulabo Sitabo’ is an ambling, light-touch look at men and their covetous ways. And while director Shoojit Sircar has plenty of them in the movie, his women are no push-overs either.
Reading Time: 3 minutes Director Cory Finley spins a tight tale about a true-life embezzlement scandal that throws light on an education system that encourages top rankings for schools at a price no one knows they’re paying. Or do they? Oh yeah, and Hugh Jackman shines in a layered act.
Reading Time: 3 minutes The mostly effective ‘Ishq’ takes a seemingly interminably long look at a night of harrowing harassment and then seeks redemption. No matter how that goes, it’s lose-lose for the woman.
Reading Time: 5 minutes The discomfiting yet must-watch ‘Paatal Lok’ takes ‘Chinatown’, Indian societal rot, and other fetid ingredients, and hammers them all to pulp. Best not to hold your popcorn tub in its midst.
Reading Time: 4 minutes In ‘The Two Popes’, resplendent with fine leading performances, director Fernando Meirelles shows what it takes for conflicting minds to meet. A good pizza doesn’t hurt, either.
Reading Time: 4 minutes Director Bong Joon-ho sets a chilling, darkly comic dystopian thriller that humankind brings upon itself in the year 2031. He was 12 years off.
