By Ashwin Kumar The other day, I was on the phone with a friend. We both used to buy DVDs and watch movies together back in the early 2000s. As we reminisced about the films we were discovering then, he remarked: “I don’t know if we’ve really aged, or if the standards have fallen.” That […]
By Samyogita Hardikar “… Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea.” I still remember the first time I read those lines. It was exactly at that moment that I realised that poetry can transport you to anywhere you want. You could be sweltering in a hot Nagpur summer, and […]
By Rocky I recently came across the post by BR on songs representing the Navrasa . it had me thinking which songs would I pick . the list started becoming so large that I had to narrow it down to just Bachchan songs to begin with . I would love to do a similar list […]
John Mauldin’s book “End Game: The End of the Debt Supercycle and How it Changes Everything” and his weekly publication ‘Thoughts from the Frontline’ address the topic of debt and in particular when debt-fuelled asset price explosions seem to be…
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By Vinu Karthick I watched the Coolie premiere in Berlin at midnight, in a full house. I was burdened by expectations. I caught most of the movie through all that mental noise. This meant more analysis and less enjoyment. Somehow, the expectations limited my capacity to receive the movie openly as it wanted to be. […]
By Vijaysree V In the 1963 Tamil film Paar Magale Paar Cho Ramaswamy made his debut on the silver screen as “Mechanical” Madasamy. The character’s backstory: as a teen, he stole money and ran away to Madras, where he sampled freedom, McRennett buns, and spiced Irani chai. He also earned a mechanic’s certificate in record time and […]
Srinath Lalgudi wrote a counter to my review of COOLIE here: https://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2025/08/17/readers-write-in-842-are-we-drinking-sand-in-tamil-cinema/ In the piece and comments that followed, I replied to one particular point. Srinath asked: “Did it being a superstar movie make LK choose not to write a proper emotional arc between Deva and his estranged daughter?“ This was my take: This is […]
The re-release of “Sholay” shows us, again, that this isn’t just a great action movie, but a great movie, period. Ramesh Sippy offers a whirlwind tour through his career as Baradwaj Rangan listens. https://baradwajrangan.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/those-days-we-could-afford-to-launch-a-film-without-a-script/ Review: Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag Revisiting Euripides’ Greek tragedy Medea through the lens of Lars von Trier, Pasolini and Sholay https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/rev
By Sai Prasath On why some films never leave you, even long after the credits roll I love Prem Kumar as a director, but more so as a person. I heard his interview before Meiyazhagan with Baddy on YouTube, and the clarity he had, the kind of person he came across as, his beliefs, it was rare. […]
I’ve always been on the lookout for different economic indicators not just GDP per capita. One which (literally) caught my eye was the size of Alan Greenspan’s (former US Fed Chair) briefcase before a US Fed interest rate decision. –…
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By Srinath Lalgudi There is this scene in the movie The American President, a lesser popular work by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (it was kind of a dress rehearsal before his immensely better and popular `The West Wing` TV show) where the thirst for leadership is discussed between the President and a member of his staff. […]
By Srinivas Sridhar Malayalam cinema has done it again! With almost depressing regularity they keep churning out movies that are unlike any other in mainstream Indian cinema. The plots are rooted in an Indian context and evolve organically. The character arcs are believable and anchor your attention. All these elements are there in Narivetta. The […]
I’ve been intrigued by Julia Garner ever since I watched Ozark, a terrific series on Netflix. She gets a hell of a role in Weapons, and the film is one of the best I have seen this year. The story isn’t much. A bunch of children disappear. What happened to them? In other words, it’s […]
