By Aman Basha Celebrating the most wonderful and surprising film of 2022 “Inthandam daari mallinda, bhumipaike cherukunnada”. Goes the opening salvo of Sita Ramam’s first romantic song, wondering if such a beauty had lost its way, for how else could it be that she’s here today. That sentiment must have been universal with audiences watching […]

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1990 there was the predictable euphoria amongst the population in eastern block countries and although you can change a political system overnight, an economic system takes many years. That is why… Continue reading →

Spoilers ahead… No nails are going to be bitten to shreds. But at least, the crimes involving schoolgirls are gruesome enough that we want the perpetrator caught. What’s with the spelling of this film’s title? The earlier movies with this name – the one with Jeetendra and Mumtaz, and before that, the one with Vyjayanthimala […]

Spoilers ahead… There’s no melodrama in Suma and there’s no melodrama in the movie. Even love is treated with the lightest of touches. The press note for Sundari Gardens, directed by Charlie Davis, has this synopsis: “Our protagonist is Sundari Mathews popularly known as Suma. She is a quirky, geeky and bold school librarian. She […]

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By Ponnuvelraj C Ten minutes into Pa. Ranjith’s NatchathiramNagargirathu, youare introduced to a film language whose grammar is plain and simple and for some reason feels very peculiar. It makes us sit up and take note of every word that is being said and study every frame that is being shown, unconsciously searching for the subtext. The […]

By G Waugh Thank you Vijay Ramanathan for giving me a topic to write. There was a time I used to watch films only for what is often called the ‘story’. Those were early days. If a film did not have a long-winded story or a story of some ‘importance’, just like many others I […]

Spoilers ahead… Unlike ‘Parasakthi’, for instance, the dialogue is not folded into a “story”. Instead, the story (such as it is) forms around these dialogues. Pa Ranjith’s cinema has always been about breaking the status quo. In Natchathiram Nagargiradhu, he breaks the boundaries between theatre and cinema. It takes a while to settle into this […]

Spoilers ahead… The film tries to be like ‘Anniyan’, where Vikram pulled out all the stops as a man with a mental condition who becomes a superman-vigilante. Here, he’s an assassin. Ajay Gnanamuthu’s Cobra is apparently about a mathematician who’s a master of disguises. Like a snake sheds its skin, he sheds his personas. Like […]

Spoilers ahead… My reading of the title is that it is a cry for help. “Please pay me attention.” That is what the screenwriter indirectly says, both in cinema and in this particular movie. At first, it feels like one of those films where a bunch of bachelors live together. They cook. They booze. They […]

By Vijay Ramanathan Consider the following setup for a movie: A stranger arrives in a lawless town in the middle of nowhere in search of a man whom no one in town wants to talk about. If you’ve watched a bit of World Cinema, or some old Hollywood movies, you might think that the stranger […]

Interesting set of charts here that I picked up from Mauldin Economics. The left hand chart shows annually from 2019 and 2021 inflation change against the change in government disbursements. Countries with larger stimulus packages tended to experience greater inflation… Continue reading →

Spoilers ahead… The film is so overstuffed with symbolism that the main narrative feels like an afterthought retrofitted into an ideological template. In quite a few ways, Theerpu, the new film by director Rathish Ambat and writer Muraly Gopy, feels like a sequel in spirit to their earlier work, Kammara Sambhavam. For one, there’s the […]

Spoilers ahead… Tanuj Chopra is the director, and over five episodes, he and his writers expertly take us through the investigation of a series of murders in upscale neighbourhoods. Season 1 of Delhi Crime was about the gang rape case of 2012, which occurred in Delhi. But it was equally about what it’s like to […]

Below is an interesting graphic from the FT which shows GDP and Inflation over the last couple of years in New Zealand – you can select other countries as well and it is good to compare different parts of the… Continue reading →

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Spoilers ahead… The film is like a bad 80s-90s Tamil or Telugu movie where a song or a comedy track would be randomly inserted, without any care about the overall emotional arc. There’s a terrific idea for a scene in the first half of Puri Jagannadh’s Liger. That title refers to the Vijay Deverakonda character, […]

By Aman Basha Some reflections on Indian politics as Indian independence turns 75 As India celebrates its 75th Independence Day, it’s incredible just how farcical Indian politics has become in recent months. Two state governments collapsed, one born out of a pre poll alliance and the other out of a post poll alliance. The Maharashtra […]

By Vijay Ramanathan How do you take wordy source material and adapt it into a movie that has the briskness of a thriller? Sweet Smell of Success is a stellar example of how to achieve this. Director Alexander Mackendrick, who co-wrote the screenplay with Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman based on a novelette written by […]

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