Mani Ratnam’s latest film is not simply a matter of getting back to basics. It feels like a veiled response to his critics, and to populist Indian cinema, stating he can take the most perfunctory of romantic narrative situations and invigorate them with his own graceful sensibilities. Basically, Ratnam can do it better, much better. Ratnam’s […]
Category: Urban
NH10 (Dir. Navdeep Singh, 2015, India) – Hindie Urbanoia
The quartet of Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Madhu Mantena and Vikas Bahl founded Phantom Films in 2011. Since then Phantom has produced a notable slate of Hindie films with differing mainstream sensibilities. Films such as Lootera, Queen and Ugly have featured popular Indian film stars. This has been balanced out with edgy scripts, new directors, […]
Anatomy of a sequence: Collateral (Michael Mann)
Tom Cruise as Vincent in Mann’s Collateral. I was going to post an entry on Manhunter, based on my enslavement to chronological film analysis, but since Collateral is a Mann film I saw again recently on Blu-ray, I was compelled to offer a closer look at a key sequence which includes the introduction of Vincent’s […]
KILLING THEM SOFTLY (Dir. Andrew Dominik, 2012, US) – ‘America’s not a country, it’s a business…’
Brad Pitt as enforcer/hit-man ‘Jackie Cogan’ ‘And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our […]
