Posts Tagged ‘Padmaja Thakore’

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    Kurbaan – Now Serving “Terror Concoction Vomit Curry”
    You are a Pakistani national and now you wish to terrorize the US. How should you go about it ? Lets see, the most effective way for you would be to cross into the “friendly” neighbour country, India (here they let terrorists enter easily, remember Kasab et al.?). Here you romance, seduce and marry a Hindu girl, only make sure that you find one who has a job in New...
    by Padmaja Thakore at November 20th, 2009 at 05:11 pm
  • 6
    Jail: A Stiff Sentence
    Madhur Bhandarkar has made a name for himself as a realist filmmaker (this and that he has won 3 national awards always precede a piece on him). His films like Page 3 and Fashion broke the art film-commercial film barrier for him. Bhandarkar has comfortably placed himself as a ‘mainstream-realist’ filmmaker. After documenting the lives of bar-girls, corporates, the...
    by Padmaja Thakore at November 8th, 2009 at 08:11 am
  • 6
    London Dreams – Is the Better of Bollywood Reality
    At the fag-end of a season of big-budget films (Aladin, Main aur Mrs Khanna, Blue, Acid Factory, Wanted) where you wondered at the smugness with which filmmakers insult the intelligent audience comes Vipul Shah’s London Dreams. I want to argue that London Dreams is different in that it tells an average story with a conviction and engages its “target” audience...
    by Padmaja Thakore at November 3rd, 2009 at 10:11 pm
  • 15
    Kaminey – Kaminey indeed but not Kaminey Enough
    Kaminey posterIt can be argued that the real test of talent of a good director lie not in his story but in its telling. In this sense, s/he would be like those classical bards who invented not the stories (and almost always borrowed from the existing mythologies) but the forms and styles to put them in. Indeed that’s how good and successful adaptations have earned a...
    by Padmaja Thakore at August 19th, 2009 at 11:08 am
  • 17
    Love Aaj Kal: Idealist then, Juvenile today
    ‘Love Aaj versus Love Kal’ is the kind of discussion you might enter if you had a couple of hours to kill, and nothing else to discuss. This may appeal to 50+ ‘generation’ with nostalgic reference to the past and perhaps as a way of coming to terms with the ‘fast’ present. In pitting the values of the past against the present one takes on very large issues...
    by Padmaja Thakore at August 3rd, 2009 at 10:08 am
  • 4
    Luck – A Review
    Taking a chance on your own luck is passé, betting on other people’s luck is the next evolutionary level. Some people are unbreakable. While others keep dying around them they survive. Reminded me of a Manoj Shyamalan’s film where he narrowed his focus to the physical ‘indestructability’ of some people and gave it a supernatural tweak (others are being reminded...
    by Padmaja Thakore at July 26th, 2009 at 12:07 am
  • 32
    Gulaal: Finding the Mole beneath the Mountain
    Gulaal starts with a rabble-rousing speech from Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon). Bana complains of treachery at the hands of the post-Independence Indian governments. The Rajput kings gave up their estates and royalties in support of a united India and in the process lost both power and wealth. And now the same political class that took away their powers is mismanaging the...
    by Padmaja Thakore at March 17th, 2009 at 03:03 am
  • 6
    Revolutionary Road: To Paris and Beyond
    Revulutionary Road is the story of the Wheeler couple, Frank and April (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), living in a Connecticut suburb during the 1950’s. Sam Mendes’ film based on Richard Yates cult, eponymous book, however, is also a story that goes beyond the specifications of time and place to unravel the disappointment and disillusionment of an entire...
    by Padmaja Thakore at March 15th, 2009 at 03:03 am
  • 5
    Siddharth: You don’t need the World to tell a Story
    The inflow of serious, experimental, low budget films although a trickle right now, could be portentous of a ‘meaningful’ shift in Bollywood film productions. They may not all be money spinners but they can surely show a broader picture to the trade pundits who limit Indian audience’s taste to big budget, song-n-dance capers. Prayas Gupta’s Siddharth:...
    by Padmaja Thakore at February 28th, 2009 at 02:02 pm
  • 10
    Slumdog Millionaire: Today is Slumdog’s Day
    The poster of Slumdog Millionaire reads: What does it take to find a lost love? Money? Luck? Smarts? Destiny? Now how the hell one distinguishes between Luck and Destiny. Come to think of it even ‘Money’ gets mixed up with these two options. And then you find yourself crying for a fifth option, ‘None of the above’. Oh! forget the details. Just...
    by Padmaja Thakore at February 22nd, 2009 at 02:02 pm
  • 9
    Delhi 6: Postcode for Simple Nostalgia and Messages
    Basking in the success of Rang De Basanti (RDB), Rakesh Omprakash Mehra decided to indulge in some nostalgia. Great films have come out of nostalgia, and Delhi with its old world charm (imagined and real), invites one to explore its narrow lanes that carry quaint names, to seek stories hiding behind high walls and close-set windows, and to regret the loss of a way of life...
    by Padmaja Thakore at February 20th, 2009 at 03:02 pm
  • 11
    Dev D.: Sarat C. is Smiling
    Anurag Kashyap’s new film is a mixed package for me. I had thoroughly enjoyed the sub-text in Kashyap’s ‘No Smoking’ (see review), and, I admit my preoccupation while watching Dev D. was again how Kashyap and Abhay Deol (who ideated the adaptation) have interpreted Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s classic novella Devdas. The setting in modern...
    by Padmaja Thakore at February 8th, 2009 at 04:02 am
  • 4
    Luck by Chance: Someone has Made Good Use of it!
    The moment that best explains the core of Luck by Chance comes from the Karan Johar character (played by Karan Johar!) – explaining how first timers get to have a go at a career and life in Bollywood. He counsels how when established stars-actors like Zafar (Hrithik Roshan) refuse a role they think goes against their popular ‘image’, the role travels...
    by Padmaja Thakore at February 5th, 2009 at 02:02 pm
  • 35
    THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY AND THE SHAMEFUL OF 2008
    A very late list but nonetheless here is what I think of the films released in 2008. The GOOD ONES: No. 1. No film qualifies. 2. No film qualifies. 3. Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye!: With a daisy fresh treatment of urban working class people and city wannabes, Dibakar Banerjee’s Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye! tops my year’s list. The film packed with Delhi eccentricities and...
    by Padmaja Thakore at February 1st, 2009 at 03:02 pm
  • 9
    Sarkar Raj: The Return of Ramu?
    Those of us who have loved Ramu for Rangeela, Satya, and Company will recall our regret on how film after film the brand RGV’s coffin was getting nailed (Naach, James, Shiva-II, Nishabd, Darling, Aag). With Sarkar Raj he saves himself from certain destruction. But then with Ramu you can never be too sure; he might have this formula working for him: get to produce &...
    by Padmaja Thakore at June 23rd, 2008 at 03:06 pm
  • 20
    Aamir: One of Our Own Million Stories?
    Aamir is ‘different’ in the sense that it seems that after eons one sees the streets of Bombay in a film how one might find them in real life. Aamir has its namesake protagonist land in Mumbai from the UK and get trapped in a nightmare situation. As soon as he gets out of the airport, he is put on call with a demanding and menacing gangster who wants Aamir to execute...
    by Padmaja Thakore at June 20th, 2008 at 02:06 pm
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