By Srinath Lalgudi As I thought about headline options for this piece, I went through the myriad thoughts & emotions this movie created in me and the one word that stood out again and again was – ‘Unearned’. Starting from what this movie wanted to make the audience feel and ending with the deluge of […]

The story gets going when a baby gets “stolen”, but along with the investigative thriller, we get a superb micro-portrait of the rich and the poor. The rest of this review may contain spoilers. Karan Tejpal’s Stolen dives into its premise and its themes right from Scene One. The premise is spelt out in the […]

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By Pranav Jain Pranav Jain is an incoming civil servant and also a columnist. “Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar, bas ishq, mohabbat, pyaar”. This is not merely a lyric from Rakeysh Mehra’s Delhi-6, but a declaration. Delhi does not ask to be loved, it assumes it will be. There is, simply, no city quite like […]

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Celine Song seems to have wanted to move away from Past Lives. Her new film is more mainstream and (thankfully) more messy, both in terms of structure and in terms of what it talks about. I wasn’t as wowed by Past Lives the way many of my friends were. I found it too neat, too […]

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What is a universe? This is the thing this extraordinarily beautiful film makes you think about: not “what is the universe”, but “what is a universe”! We all know what The Universe™ is. It is that vast entity made of fiery suns and dark moons and the sandy symmetry of Saturn’s rings. But The Life […]

When this invite came, I was so thrilled. It was another “I have arrived” (“aatha naa pass aayitten“) moment, I guess – because Cyrus is one of the OGs in terms of what we today call “content creation”. I had a lot of fun, and perhaps this is the closest to the real “me” that’s […]

By Caesium Thug Life invariably made me think about other gangster movies, specifically those done by Kamal. And no, not Nayagan, but Vasool Raja MBBS. These are two distinctly different brands of thugs, and I’m in no doubt on which camp I preferred. First, we have our eponymous Vasool Raja MBBS. This wasn’t your garden-variety […]

So Sara posted this comment. BR, saar neenga kaasu vaangittengalaamae? From 29:40 onwards. Thought it would be fun to put this out as a separate post. My response to Sara: Sara: Why do you believe everything anyone says on the internet and why do you feel the need to bring this to my attention? I […]

HT to colleague David Parr for this image. This protester against the Trump Administration’s use of tariffs has drawn a graph showing the impact of tariffs on quantity supplied, demanded and the pointless deadweight loss – see image below as… Continue reading →

By Sai Prasath Nobody is born with a unique voice. We all start out as collectors. We absorb words, mannerisms and jokes from parents, family, friends, cartoons, movies & songs. A unique voice isn’t god-given, it’s actually more like a password you generate by picking your favorite characters and references, rearranged just enough that it […]

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The story is about two cops patrolling a small town, and the many things they encounter over the course of one night. But slowly, we become aware that some of these many things may be linked to a crime. The rest of this review may contain spoilers. Shahi Kabir is the screenwriter of Joseph, Officer […]

Doing negative externalities with my NCEA Level 3 class and we looked at what is happening in Denmark and the chance of this eventuating in New Zealand. Danish farmers are facing a US$100 annual tax per cow for the emissions… Continue reading →

The story is about a group of youngsters from very humble backgrounds who want to set the stage on fire in the Michael Jackson era. As always in Malayalam cinema, the way this simple story is told is fantastic. The rest of this review may contain spoilers. In an early scene in Moonwalk, a young […]

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I have read many books about Orson Welles, seen many interviews. I have rarely met anyone so willing to open up – but this is not about Welles or even about cinema. This is about the condition we call “no regrets”. There are times I look back and do the whole “what if I had […]

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