The Other Side of Hell (1978)

Sometimes when you dig old grounds you find gold. Based on nonfiction book called “The Shoe Leather Treatment” by Bill Thomas, 1978 TV film The Other Side of Hell is one such gem. Set in a mental institution, this is as realistic as one can get about the subject of actual functioning of such establishments […]

Once upon a time in Tarantinoland…

  Cliff Booth of Tarantino’s supposedly penultimate film, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019), is in many ways like Jules Winnfield of Pulp Fiction (1994). The path of the righteous man… there we go again! Some may ask, what’s the point of the film? The long drawn recreated scenes of movies and TV […]

8 MILE (2002)

Set in the hip-hop scene of 1995 Detroit, a young rapper, B-Rabbit from the wrong side of the 8 mile road tries to keep it together. The odds…a troubled mother…wasters as friends…a rival rap group called ‘Free World’ up his ass and his ethnicity…a white man trying to make it in a predominantly ‘black’ art […]

FUNNY PEOPLE

Whoops…Adam Sandler does it again…the passive-aggressive thing, in his very own inimitable style. ‘Funny People’ is not a comedy in the ‘laugh a minute’ way, it’s a rather serious film about comedians, their aspirations, the way they work and finally bringing home the fact that comedians are as human as other people, its not like […]

NO WAY HOME

Saw this small, independent American film recently which is largely about fall of the American dream done through a study of very intimate characters and situations. The film is set in a suburban neighborhood which brings in the intended mood of ‘nothing ever changes here’. The minimal plot tells of a paroled prisoner played brilliantly […]

This was WANTED!

Recently, there have been attempts to bring the 80’s style exploitative cinema back into the Bombay film with the films like Garv: Pride and Honour (Puneet Issar/2004), Big Brother (Guddu Dhanoa/2007) and Halla Bol (Rajkumar Santoshi/2008) but these films failed to make any considerable difference to the overall scenario which was monopolistically ruled by candy […]

ERIN BROCKOVICH

It’s perhaps a bit late in the day to have reflections on this film but I am so fuelled by seeing it again that I have got to write what I felt about this film of sheer power and beauty. To me, the film is primarily the story of a woman’s determination…a woman, who despite […]

On…Dev.D

Dev.D took a text which is a true reflection of Indian male psyche and transforms it into a very contemporary film about an individual which has got less to do with the pain of the lost love and has got more to do with the self destructive streak in the individual himself. The film also […]

The Importance of ‘Ghajini’ -AKA- A Film to Remember

Despite the accusations of being a ‘copy’ and being a film full of logical flaws…’Ghajini’ is here to rule. The fact that it has become the biggest grosser of all times in India says a lot about what people really want and crave for. This is the return of quintessential Hindi film where a heroine […]