I’ll Do It My Way: In Response to the Response

When I chose to write a book on Aamir Khan, I always knew it would be controversial. Not simply because he is an actor whose work has impacted Hindi cinema, but because he always seems to evoke two extreme responses – adulation or extreme dislike (on the belief that his work is overrated and his [...]

127 hours

I watched Danny Boyle’s 127 hours the other day. I thought it was an extremely interesting film, especially because it takes special skill to make an engrossing film, when about two-thirds of the narrative has your main protagonist wedged between two rocks, with no rescue team in sight. The film is based on the real [...]

The Godfather: Why some films set the trend, and others can only follow

The Godfather has been on my ‘must see’ list for the last decade. I finally got a chance to see the film on the big screen a couple of weeks ago when PVR played a re-run of the old classics. There are many things that make a film a classic. One of them is that [...]

Movie reviews move out of this blog to Citizen Matters

I first became a blogger five years ago in November 2005. It was a month after I had gotten married, and I think that blogging was my way of keeping in touch with the Christina who always wanted to “create”. It was a part of me that I was not going to let die, as [...]

From Here To Eternity

I watched From Here To Eternity Today. In fact I remember watching this film many years ago when I had just become a teenager. The film had a huge impact on me at that time. But this around, inspite of the 8 academy award nominations and a delicious cast (that includes Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatara [...]

The Caine Mutiny

This film that created a sensation in 1954 was based on the 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Stanley Earl Kramer. Among the other outstanding films that Kramer would go on to produce/direct was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Like the novel that it [...]

116 movies that I would like to see…

Along with my book list, I’ve also made a movies list of the films that I’d like to see before I reach the end of my break from the corporate world. The focus is on Hollywood and world cinema. Here’s my list… 1.Nosferatu (1922) 2.M (1931) 3.Duck Soup (1933) 4.It Happened One Night (1934) 5.Mutiny [...]

Reading & movie watching

I completed the manuscript of “I’ll do it my way” on May 22, 2010. After that, I’ve spent the last week re-rejuvenating my spirit. Snatches from the films I watched and the books that I read… Capote: Let’s start with the worst film of the lot – Capote. Philip Seymour Hoffman won 2006 Academy Award [...]

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

I re-watched this film after over a decade last week and found that I fell in love with it all over again. Here are some quick thoughts on why I thought this was a very good film… The treatment of racism blends humour with honest criticism and self analysis at a time when racism itself [...]

To Sir With Love

I re-watched To Sir With Love the other day, and followed this up with reading the book for the first time. The interesting thing is that I came away from both the film and the book with an overwhelming sense of it being very British. But I don’t remember even noticing this element of the [...]