comedy
-
PIKU (Dir. Shoojit Sircar, 2015, India)
What would Satyajit Ray have made of Piku? There was a sundry of questions running through my head as I left the cinema. There is no doubt he would have agreed that the central female protagonist of Piku (Deepika Padukone) educes the classical Ray woman: progressive, perceptive and selfless. Some critics have commented that Piku’s Continue reading
-
PK (Rajkumar Hirani, 2014, India) – $100 million and counting…
Indian cinema’s attempts to take on the science fiction genre have been patchy, misconstrued and at times downright embarrassing. Certainly, recent Indian science fiction films have operated in the realms of ‘sci-fi’, focusing on familiar superhero tropes. Given Rajkumar Hirani’s illustrious track record at the box office, each of his films tends to accumulate an Continue reading
-
DELHI BELLY – (Dir. Abhinay Deo, 2011, India)
After the critical and commercial success of Dhobi Ghat, Aamir Khan returns with his second release of the year as a producer. If one was to unpack Delhi Belly and look carefully then it is plain to see the film uses many conventional elements of the multi protagonist crime comedy but adds a mischievousness that Continue reading
-
DO DOONI CHAAR / TWO TIMES TWO EQUALS FOUR (Dir. Habib Faisal, 2010, India) – Social Inconsistencies
It was refreshing to come across what is clearly one of the stronger mainstream Indian releases of the year. I have never really been a big fan of Rishi Kapoor – I thought the sweaters he wore in so many of the terrible films he made in the eighties were simply inexcusable and unflattering to Continue reading
-
SANKAT CITY (Dir. Pankaj Advani, 2009, India) – To Live and Die in Mumbai
Written and directed by Pankaj Advani, Sankat City is a rollicking and unpretentiously inventive comedy caper that was released in the summer of 2009 to little commercial success. However, it was favourably reviewed on its initial release and I can see why it works so well as a reflexive postmodern take on mainstream Indian genre Continue reading
Movie Mahal 