45 years after ‘Gupt Gyan’, the first sex education Hindi film was released, debutante director Shilpi Dasgupta comes up with a film centred around a sex clinic. A few years ago, we had well-made flicks on the subject – Vicky Donor and Shubh Mangal Saavdhan. Sonakshi Sinha plays the protagonist Babita (Baby) Bedi, who inherits her…
This film, which lost out to last year’s Cannes winner, ‘Shoplifters’, is a riveting tale of love, sacrifice and life in North-west China, near Mongolia, at the turn of the century. Local gangster Bin (Liao Fan) is reluctantly pushed to the helm of affairs after his boss is bumped off by rivals. Bin’s moll Qiao (Zhao…
CGI-created wildlife, in all its glory, comes alive in the opening frames of The Lion King, exactly 25 years after the earlier version was exhibited to awestruck audiences worldwide. The occasion – Simba, the month-old lion cub, and the newly anointed heir to Pride Lands, is greeted with obeisance by his father, King Musafa’s subjects….
‘A world without the Beatles is infinitely worse’, we are told at one point in this film. Worse than what, we aren’t told. Doesn’t matter, because the film is about the Beatles, though not exactly. Confused? Then read on… Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) is an amateur singer, working in a cash-and-carry in a coastal town in…
The best example a law professor could impart to his students in a lecture regarding ‘abetment’ of crime would be to round off the director and writer of ODJD. Jokes aside, while the director deserves to take flak for some hamming by even talented character actors (Rajesh Sharma, Murli Sharma), writer Alaukik Rahi should be…
Winner of the coveted Palme D’or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and directed by the redoubtable Hirokazu Kore-eda, ‘Shoplifters’ is an affecting and poignant tale of the Shibatas, an impoverished joint family – none of them blood-related – who makes ends meet by indulging in shoplifting in supermarkets. Patriarch Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky) has…
Director Anubhav Sinha catches the viewer unawares, opening the film with Bob Dylan’s contemplative ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, as IPS officer Ayan Ranjan (Ayushmann Khurrana) arrives at Lalgaon, in the hinterland of UP, to take up his latest assignment. On the way, amidst the chatter of folklore by his driver, they pass by a group…
When you see the hero of the film chasing the housemaid around the neighbourhood block just because she’s broken a glass you know what to expect. When that senior medical student confronts the Dean (Adil Hussain in a forgettable cameo) with illogical arguments and in a challenging tone, you know you’re in for a torrid…
When the first in the series was released in 1995 – though fairly successful – one barely had the hunch that three more would follow: in 1999, then in 2010 and now, nine years later. Sequels are rarely meant, or expected to be as lucrative as the original. That ‘Toy Story 4’ debunks this popular…
The major advantage of watching an international production (in this case French/Indian/Belgian) is that it’s shot in a variety of locations – in this regard the film scores. The inherent drawback is that the film tides over a multitude of subplots too briskly for comfort. At a mere 101 minutes, the film packs in a…
‘Keeping him safe is a full-time job’, says Max (voiced by Patton Oswalt) of his young master, baby Liam (Henry Lynch). This just about sums up the premise of the hour-and-half long sequel to the 2016 fairly successful and enjoyable, ‘The Secret Life of Pets’. Katie (Ellie Kemper) falls in love and marries Chuck. Her…