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Some people just may not be who we think they are. In Code Name: The Cleaner, someone whom many recognize as a toiler cleaner believes that he’s an undercover agent who’s been assigned the task of cleaning up more important things. The opening is nice. A fat, funny man...
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Way back in the 1970s, homosexuals marched down the streets of conservative San Francisco, and shortly afterwards, created history when their leader, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), became the first openly gay person to be elected to political office in the US. Milk is a factual account of the defining...
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Icon worshiping can be a dangerous obsession. If you ever get to know your idol on a personal level like the insecure antagonist in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, you’d realize that they are very different from the storybook character that you grew up...
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What is the point in warring all the time? Why can’t we all just live in peace? Israel’s deadliest counter-terrorism commando, Zohan (Adam Sandler) asks, in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. You can see he’s had more than enough of this degenerate enmity that isn’t doing anyone any...
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The Victorian era is notorious for its morals. So, one would expect a film on the young Victoria to touch upon the cause and course, at least to a little degree. However, The Young Victoria, like many a history book, is silent on this aspect. Quite to the contrary, Victoria...
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Preachers, as a rule, rarely follow their own preaching. Indeed, some of the soundest advice arises from a suppressed guilty conscience. In Confessions of a Shopaholic, a rave magazine columnist counsels people on how to be thrifty. What her editor and readers would be mortified to know is that...
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Wannabe writers often ask me, ‘What is the best method to protect one’s script?’ There’s no foolproof way to do it, anywhere in the world, I tell them, frankly. Further, registration with a writer’s association isn’t going help at all. Look at China Town, for example; the second half...
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The art of infusing humour into a film of a serious, sensitive theme is a very delicate one; naturally, not many filmmakers succeed. In addition to being bombed with meant-to-be-funny characters and silly scenes, The Train fails to evoke emotion, primarily, because of the frivolous manner in which it...
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Some years ago, I had strongly raised an important point: that it is high time that the censor board in India introduced a PG-12 (Parental Guidance for children under 12) classification. I wonder how the mothers and their little ones, at the Doubles screening, reacted to the surprise inclusion...
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It isn’t entirely unusual for actors to want to play with the filmmaker’s wand and direct themselves according to their own whims—such is what Guinness Pakru, the shortest actor in the world, does in Kutteem Kolum. The least they ought to do, though, especially if they lack both the...
Some people just may not be who we think they are. In Code Name: The Cleaner, someone whom many recognize as a toiler cleaner believes that he’s an undercover agent who’s been assigned the task of cleaning up more important things. The opening is nice. A fat, funny man...
Way back in the 1970s, homosexuals marched down the streets of conservative San Francisco, and shortly afterwards, created history when their leader, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), became the first openly gay person to be elected to political office in the US. Milk is a factual account of the defining...
Icon worshiping can be a dangerous obsession. If you ever get to know your idol on a personal level like the insecure antagonist in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, you’d realize that they are very different from the storybook character that you grew up...
What is the point in warring all the time? Why can’t we all just live in peace? Israel’s deadliest counter-terrorism commando, Zohan (Adam Sandler) asks, in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. You can see he’s had more than enough of this degenerate enmity that isn’t doing anyone any...
The Victorian era is notorious for its morals. So, one would expect a film on the young Victoria to touch upon the cause and course, at least to a little degree. However, The Young Victoria, like many a history book, is silent on this aspect. Quite to the contrary, Victoria...
Preachers, as a rule, rarely follow their own preaching. Indeed, some of the soundest advice arises from a suppressed guilty conscience. In Confessions of a Shopaholic, a rave magazine columnist counsels people on how to be thrifty. What her editor and readers would be mortified to know is that...
Wannabe writers often ask me, ‘What is the best method to protect one’s script?’ There’s no foolproof way to do it, anywhere in the world, I tell them, frankly. Further, registration with a writer’s association isn’t going help at all. Look at China Town, for example; the second half...
The art of infusing humour into a film of a serious, sensitive theme is a very delicate one; naturally, not many filmmakers succeed. In addition to being bombed with meant-to-be-funny characters and silly scenes, The Train fails to evoke emotion, primarily, because of the frivolous manner in which it...
Some years ago, I had strongly raised an important point: that it is high time that the censor board in India introduced a PG-12 (Parental Guidance for children under 12) classification. I wonder how the mothers and their little ones, at the Doubles screening, reacted to the surprise inclusion...
It isn’t entirely unusual for actors to want to play with the filmmaker’s wand and direct themselves according to their own whims—such is what Guinness Pakru, the shortest actor in the world, does in Kutteem Kolum. The least they ought to do, though, especially if they lack both the...
