At the MAMI film festival in Mumbai earlier this week, an old dilemma raised its head: should one stick around for the Q&A sessions that follow some of the screenings? As a journalist, such discussions - with their insights into the creative process and a film's back-story - are often invigorating; but as a critic who is still trying to absorb the film and write honestly about what he saw and felt, hearing the crew speak about their intentions can create white noise, or sway one's feelings

Partition and its ghosts

Business Standard

I have mixed feelings about the anti-smoking ads that precede the main feature in movie halls. Mainly, they annoy me because they add to the already-considerable list of distractions before a movie begins: the line of trailers, Vinay Pathak swanning about in a bright red coat as he extols a bank's interest rates. These things can be exasperating for someone who is both punctual to a fault, and impatient. On the other hand, my sadistic side delights in the sound of pampered brats, insulated from the world beyond their velvety multiplex seats, groaning when the grislier ads play; the thought of people being confronted with such images just before the glossy movie they have come to watch is a pleasing one.I am clearer, though, about the idiocy of signs scrolling across the bottom of the screen while a film is playing. And as you may have heard, the Indian decision to turn every movie experience into a public-service advertisement hasn't pleased Woody Allen either. The veteran director has

Smoke screens and jasmine blues

When making simple distinctions between types of cinema, we often think in terms of "character-driven" (or "relationship-driven") films as opposed to action-driven (or incident-driven) films

A quiet lunch

One hazard of being both a fixated tennis-watcher and innately interested in numbers is that odd combinations of match scores and player statistics keep swirling about in your head. For example, in my long fandom of Rafael Nadal, there have been two key occasions - both on the eve of a Grand Slam final - when I have dwelled on the formula "12 versus 6", expecting it to become "12-7" the next day but secretly hoping it would be "13-6" instead. In both cases, the hope was pleasingly and unexpectedly realised.The first of these was before the 2009 Australian Open final between Nadal and his great rival Roger Federer. The head-to-head between the two players was 12-6 in Rafa's favour before the match; it became 13-6 once the final was over. The second was last weekend, when Nadal and his greatest current rival, Novak Djokovic, prepared to play each other for the US Open trophy. Going into the match, Nadal had 12 Slam titles, while Djokovic had 6. Once it finished, the comparative score lin

Nadal and the fine art of surprise

R D Burman: The Man, the Music

I have written in this column before about the pleasures of the good opening sequence in a movie. These are scenes that viewers often neglect or overlook (because they came into the hall late, or because they are concerned mainly with the "plot" and start paying attention to the film only after the title credits have gone), but when such scenes are well-executed, they can set a movie's tone, establish the mise-en-scene and even introduce visual and thematic motifs that will fully be explored later in the narrative.All this is splendidly and economically, achieved in the first four minutes of Sholay, which uses a series of shots of two men riding on horseback to take us through the entire topography of the film - from anonymous sunbaked landscapes that might easily have come from an American Western (a genre Sholay was heavily influenced by) to the hustle-bustle of daily life in a very Indian village, with its water tank, its mandir, masjid and little kirana shops. Showing this sequence

The sounds of Sholay

In 1969, three key films released - Uski Roti, Sara Akash and Bhuvan Shome - that represented new directions in filmmaking

Mr Shome in 1969

In recent years there have been more opportunities in Hindi films for the Little Big Man, or the actor who doesn't fit the image of the charismatic, fair-complexioned hero; someone who would once have been strictly a supporting player, but now gets leading roles in worthy movies because of his talent and presence (and also because a wider range of subjects and milieus are being explored). An abiding memory from last year was the unlikely but very effective romantic pairing of the short-statured Nawazuddin Siddiqui with the relatively statuesque Huma Qureshi - who seemed to tower over him - in Gangs of Wasseypur. In another, very different type of film, there was Ayushmann Khurana - cute, personable, but definitely not larger-than-life hero material - as a Punjabi munda next door, slowly learning about responsibility (and about Rabindrasangeet, courtesy a romance with a Bengali girl) in Vicky Donor.Other such actors have had their day in the sun too: take Ranvir Shorey, excellent in a d

Little big men

Apologies in advance: this column is, partly at least, an exercise in shameless fanboy-ism. But it also pertains to a recent film - Vikramaditya Motwane's lush, beautifully shot Lootera

The adman and the zamindar

In its early years, cinema naturally took on the onus of depicting historical events -"History written in lightning" is what an awed Woodrow Wilson supposedly said of the 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation, which was set during the American Civil War. But with the passage of more than a century - and the self-reflective hubris that comes so easily to this medium - the benchmarks for "history" have shifted; there have been many movies about movies. Legendary personalities from Georges Melies downward have been portrayed on screen multiple times, and the results can be disorienting for those of us who still watch old films: I remember being briefly spooked when, a few days after watching the real Orson Welles in the 1940s film The Lady from Shanghai, I saw an actor convincingly portray him in Ed Wood (made in 1994, but shot in moody black and white).Last week I saw two recent films that are dramatised stories about real-life directors: one was the 2012 Hitchcock, about the strain on Alfred

Two directors, two films

The discussion about whether movies are "better" or "worse" today vis-Ã -vis an earlier time is a pointless and irresolvable one, subject to shifting benchmarks, individual tastes and hard-line biases that run from the Golden Ageist syndrome (the past was always a better place than the present) to contemporary chauvinism (old movies are awkward and black-and-white is boring). But one area where consensus is possible is in assessing technological improvements. Though I haven't seen the new Superman movie yet, I have no trouble accepting that it is probably much more visually fluid - and a grander aesthetic experience - than the 1978 Superman; and this despite the fact that I have irrationally defensive feelings about the latter, having grown up with it.However, agreeing that technology is objectively superior today is not the same as saying that modern CGI is always more effective than techniques used in the distant past. In films like the silent fantasy Siegfried or the original King K

Out of the past

Watching the trailers for Yamla Pagla Deewana II - the Deol family film, which releases this week - I was assailed by nostalgia and headed YouTube-wards to watch the song sequence from which the film gets its name: "Main Jat Yamla Pagla Deewana" from the 1975 movie Pratigya. As a friend, a fellow Dharmendra fan, observed during a recent conversation, this is one of the most carefree, exuberant songs in Hindi-movie history. "All the director had to do was put a liquor bottle in paaji's hand, give him a large open space to goof around in, along with a jeep and a few other props, and tell him to invent whatever dance moves he felt comfortable doing. And the result was magic."Perhaps it was also a minor carry-over from Dharmendra's superb, boisterous performance as Veeru in Sholay, made a few months earlier. But watching the song, I was struck by something else - it is remarkable how unselfconscious a screen personality Dharmendra was. In most of his best work (and some of his worst work,

An actor sans ego

A new book contains accounts of making the film described by Nair and her crew

From book to film

Much of the recent discourse around sexual harassment and rape - including the many insensitive statements that continue to be made by people in positions of authority - centre on personal morality and the gap between "modern" and "traditional" ways of doing things. Much voyeuristic attention is directed at the "westernised" woman whose lifestyle and dressing sense are perceived as being directly related to the bad things that might happen to her. In this context, I was intrigued by the narrative structure of Unni Vijayan's film Lessons in Forgetting (last year's National Award for Best Feature Film in English), which leads the viewer down a winding path by offering a range of perspectives on a free-spirited young woman.The film (adapted from Anita Nair's novel) opens with the information that 19-year-old Smriti had a terrible accident (though it might also have been an attack) on a beach in a Tamil Nadu town: having suffered brain damage, she is now in a vegetative state, and her fath

Lessons in perspective

As a long-time horror-movie fan, I know how vulnerable such films are to genre-snobbery. When it comes to assessing their worth, people routinely put intellect before instinct: there is the well-documented phenomenon of viewers being genuinely affected by a horror film while they are watching it - and responding in exactly the ways that the director wanted them to - but then emerging from the hall and dismissing it as cheap escapism. This is a pity, because the immediacy of the movie-watching experience - that special thing that happens to us when we are in a darkened hall - is being overridden by post-facto analysis.At the same time, it can be a mistake to judge a horror movie only by its ability to make you cringe in your seat, or to splay your fingers across your eyes. The fact is that cinema - by its very nature as a visual medium - can achieve such things with relative ease, given basic technical competence. But to be really satisfying and effective, a horror film needs as much ri

A comedy of terrors

What happens to someone like Quentin Tarantino when he becomes... boring? If you aren't seduced by the kinetic energy of a Tarantino movie, by the unending flow of razor-sharp dialogues and terrifically paced action sequences, is there anything worth sticking around for? I ask because I went into Django Unchained without the reservations that many people have about Tarantino's cinema - that it is shallow or derivative - and yet, much as I wanted to love it, my attention wandered as the film ploughed on and on.Even those who don't think highly of Tarantino give him credit for certain things, such as his imaginative use of cinematic references, and the hip, ironic writing which achieves a poetic force in his best work. Watching a Tarantino film with prior experience of his work, we know about the rhythmic interplay between the long wordy scenes and the sudden bursts of violence, the former leading up to the latter; we welcome the eruptions, brace ourselves for them.The first few scenes i

Quentin goes quiet

In his most famous movie role, he sat on a big rock with a gun in his hand and replied to his master's calls of "Arre O Sambha". It was a small part, but so iconic that his profile was used as the sole image on a "minimal Bollywood poster" designed by a website, and everyone instantly knew that the film was Sholay. Yet what did the actor MacMohan feel about being defined and shadowed by that tiny role for the rest of his career?I ask because a few weeks ago I caught a glimpse of an alternate future for the man, via a song from a 1964 film titled Aao Pyaar Karein. In the sequence (which you can and must see on YouTube here: bit.ly/Y3OF1m), the young MacMohan dances - daintily play-acting as a woman - with the movie's leading man Joy Mukherjee, while their friends sit around clapping and generally being baboons. Minus the distinctive beard and the streak of white hair, dressed in a formal suit with a bow-tie, filmed in black-and-white, MacMohan is unrecognisable from the screen persona h

A dancing Sambha

Old Hindi cinema had an impressive line-up of billionaires (but let's adjust for inflation and allow them to be mere crorepatis). For the purposes of a short column, one may divide them into two categories: the bad guys and the good guys. The former were Bond-style villains, living in lavish dens with spiky walls, quicksand pits, and floors that would part to reveal a shark tank into which an inefficient minion or the hero's beleaguered father could be dipped. The other types of crorepatis were decent  or relatively decent  people. They wore their wealth lightly, called their grown-up daughters "baby" and were good to the unprivileged in the patronising way that people who have never known true hardship can afford to be. In Yash Chopra's Waqt, a poor driver walks into a high-society party to ask his employer if he can use the car to take his mother to the hospital. The boss looks solicitous, says "haan haan, bilkul" and gets back to his socialising. It's done matter-of-factly, despite

Crorepatis, kal aur aaj

Most of us donâ€™t watch movies like Martians freshly arrived on earth, with our minds conveniently turned into blank slates. Our past viewing experiences constantly inform the current one. For instance, if an actor has a distinct screen persona, it might affect the way we look at him even when he plays a different sort of role. And filmmakers sometimes make clever use of this familiarity. Consider the witty casting of Robert De Niro as the father â€“ over-protective of his little girl, keeping an eagle eye on the nervous bumbler who is courting her â€“ in the comedy Meet the Parents. The escalating hysteria of that film depends largely on our knowledge of the dangerous or psychotic characters De Niro played in his pomp, in films ranging from Mean Streets to The Untouchables. Think back to those iconic roles as violent, explosive men and you see why Greg Focker, the unfortunately named hero of Meet the Parents, is so fearful around his girlfriendâ€™s dad.Last week, a small

Familiarity breeds affection

It sometimes happen that you think you know a beloved old movie song really well &mdash; based on memories of listening to it on the radio or seeing it once or twice on Chitrahaar &mdash; and then you watch the full film and are struck anew by how well-crafted the scene is and how well it works within a larger context. The lilting &ldquo;Bachpan ke Din&rdquo; in Bimal Roy&rsquo;s 1959 film Sujata had this effect on me. It is a happy number sung by two sisters, Rama (Shashikala) and Sujata (Nutan), who have a close relationship throughout the film; as such, it&rsquo;s easily thought of as just a carefree ode to their shared childhood. But to watch the scene is to be struck by how unusual its use of visual space is for a Hindi-film musical sequence of its type.

Beti and 'beti jaisi'

One of the charges most often levelled at detailed film criticism is that of &ldquo;over-analysis&rdquo;. You&rsquo;re reading too much into this scene, the critic is often told. Or more gently: yes, I get your point, but did the director really intend that? The easy answer to the latter remark is to quote D H Lawrence&rsquo;s famous line &ldquo;Never trust the teller &mdash; trust the tale&rdquo;, which basically means a critic is under no obligation to consider what an artist consciously intended (or claims he intended). But this line of defence can sometimes be misleading: it can be a way of ignoring how much deliberate thought often does go into the making of a film &mdash; even into the use of &ldquo;technique&rdquo; in scenes that on the face of it have nothing flashy about them.

Chance and intention

We were all a little confused about what the word &lsquo;transgressions&rsquo; meant,&rdquo; said veteran actor Dhritiman Chatterjee, addressing the audience at last week&rsquo;s Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival. The occasion was a panel discussion titled &ldquo;Transgressions: Essaying the New in Indian Film&rdquo; &mdash; I was moderating and the other panellists were the directors Shyam Benegal and Onir, and the film critic Mira Hashmi.

Many types of 'new'

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 13: Get ready for a theatrical experience like no other! AGP World, one of India's premier entertainment production companies, is bringing the wildly popular musical comedy Blame It On Bollywood to Mumbai on Saturday 28th  &amp;  Sunday 29th of December 2024 at the St Andrews Auditorium. After receiving standing ovations and rave reviews globally, this hilarious and heartwarming production is all set to make its grand debut in the city--now revamped with fresh, exciting elements to elevate the experience even further.

AGP World Brings the Glitz, Glamour, and Chaos of a Big, Fat Indian Wedding to Mumbai with Blame It On Bollywood - A Musical Comedy Extravaganza

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 13: The Rotary Club of Bombay Queen City (RCBQC) proudly announces the RCBQC Rotary Dream Run 2024, a marathon dedicated to celebrating inclusivity and supporting specially-abled children. Scheduled for 22nd December 2024 in South Mumbai, the event will begin at 5:30 AM from Fashion Street, Cross Maidan, bringing together over 1,000 runners across three categories: 10K, 5K, and 2.5K.

RCBQC Rotary Dream Run 2024: Celebrating Community Spirit and Inclusivity

New Delhi [India], December 13: Aayush Wellness Limited [BSE: 539528], India's Smart nutrition Company and a prominent player in health and wellness segment is pleased to announce that the Company has received a significant order worth US $ 3 million from M/s Cosmos Holdings Pte Ltd, a leading distributor in Singapore, to supply various healthcare and nutraceutical products.

Aayush Wellness Limited Bags Export Order Worth USD 3 Million, Forays Into Global South Markets

Google and Samsung team up to preview Android XR platform. New features for calling on WhatsApp. ChatGPT gets a Santa-inspired voice option. iPhone 16 Pro's layered recordings. Redmi Note 14 series

Tech Wrap December 13

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 13: Natvits Beverages Pvt Ltd, founded in 2018, has quickly emerged as a trailblazer in the beverage industry with its flagship brand, AQUAPEYA. The company has carved a niche for itself by manufacturing high-quality mineral water, fruit juices, carbonated soft drinks, and energy drinks that cater to the ever-evolving preferences of consumers.

Natvits Beverages Pvt Ltd: Revolutionizing the Beverage Industry with AQUAPEYA

Markets Highlights: Friday ended in favour of the bulls, as 41 out of 50 constituent stocks ended in the green, led by Bharti Airtel, ITC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindustan Unilever, and UltraTech Cement

Dalal Street, Stock Market, Market, Crash, Funds, up, Stock, Gain, Lost, decline, statistic, Crisis, Capital, BSE, NSE

Latest news updates: Catch all the latest news updates from around the world here

(Left to right) NCP leader Ajit Pawar, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, outgoing CM and Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde meet Maharashtra Governor C P Radhakrishnan in Mumbai on Wednesday | Photo: PTI

Stock market crash: The Indian stock market crashed heavily on Friday, with the BSE's Sensex dropping 1,207 points or 1.48 per cent to its intraday low of 80,082

bear market, stocks, sensex, nifty, loss, growth, crash, index

Allu Arjun was arrested over a stampede at the Pushpa 2 premiere in Hyderabad, which led to a woman's death and her son's hospitalisation

Allu Arjun

Stocks to watch, Dec 13: From RIL to HDFC Bank, here is a list of stocks that will be in focus today

market, stocks, stock market trading, stock market

The gross non-performing assets of public sector banks (PSBs) stood at Rs 3.16 lakh crore as of September 30, which is 3.09 per cent of the outstanding loans, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in the Rajya Sabha that as per provisional data of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), gross NPAs of PSBs and private sector banks as on September 30, 2024 were Rs 3,16,331 crore and Rs 1,34,339 crore, respectively.
Further, gross NPAs as percentage of outstanding loan was 3.09 per cent in public sector banks and 1.86 per cent in private sector banks.
Chaudhary further said as of March 31, 2024, 580 unique borrowers (excluding individuals and overseas borrowers), each having loan outstanding of more than Rs 50 crore, were classified as wilful defaulters by Scheduled Commercial Banks.
To a query on the number of cases resolved and amount of haircuts by banks through the operation of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, Chaudhary said as per data, u

One of the most hotly debated proposals of this year’s Budget may see a tweak, with the finance ministry likely to provide relief to homeowners by finetuning the new long-term capital gains (LTCG) provisions announced on July 23 that seek to remove i

One of the most hotly debated proposals of this year's Budget may see a tweak, with the finance ministry likely to provide relief to homeowners by finetuning the new long-term capital gains (LTCG) provisions announced on July 23 that seek to remove i

According to data from the General Insurance Council, general insurers collected Rs 21,671.43 crore in premiums in November, reflecting a 4 per cent YoY increase

The customer-centric revision in surrender value norms will strengthen the bottom line of life insurers and boost penetration in the country, industry officials said. The revised surrender value norms came into effect from October 1, 2024.

According to a Nuvama report, private sector growth picked up in November 2024 as the industry adapted to the changes in surrender value regulations

life insurance

The Michelin 2024 Bib Gourmand Award was given to 'Bungalow', a restaurant in New York owned by Indian star chef Vikas Khanna. He posted the information on Instagram

Vikas Khanna

Astronomers unveiled the discovery of seven new 'dark comets' that they believe could be the mechanism by which water enters the inner solar system

NASA

Highlighting the historical presence of Hindus in Bangladesh, stating, "We are vanished from Afghanistan. We are vanished from Pakistan. This is the high time. If we are not saved now, we will be

Protest, Delhi Protest, Bangladesh Protest, Hindu Protest

Despite the growth slowdown, a rate cut-cycle is unlikely to start anytime soon

Policy

In the absence of meaningful private investment and job creation, India is slipping back into its pre-Covid-19 rut, and its economic czars are once again publicly refusing to acknowledge the slowdown

Gold

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology alleges that the essay, titled 'On Pacifism', could be interpreted as encouraging violent protests on campus

MIT University

Sitharaman said that intergenerational debt is mounting on countries, and it is important for the government and industry to work together to manage debt at the national and sub-national levels

Jai Arjun Singh

Jai Arjun Singh

Page 3 - Jai Arjun Singh

Partition and its ghosts

Smoke screens and jasmine blues

A quiet lunch

Nadal and the fine art of surprise

The sounds of Sholay

Mr Shome in 1969

Little big men

The adman and the zamindar

Two directors, two films

Out of the past

An actor sans ego

From book to film

Lessons in perspective

A comedy of terrors

Quentin goes quiet

A dancing Sambha

Crorepatis, kal aur aaj

Familiarity breeds affection

Beti and 'beti jaisi'

Chance and intention

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AGP World Brings the Glitz, Glamour, and Chaos of a Big, Fat Indian Wedding to Mumbai with Blame It On Bollywood - A Musical Comedy Extravaganza

RCBQC Rotary Dream Run 2024: Celebrating Community Spirit and Inclusivity

Aayush Wellness Limited Bags Export Order Worth USD 3 Million, Forays Into Global South Markets

Tech wrap Dec 13: Android XR, WhatsApp calling feature, ChatGPT Santa voice

Natvits Beverages Pvt Ltd: Revolutionizing the Beverage Industry with AQUAPEYA

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Market Close Highlights: Fab Friday! Sensex ends 843pts up, soars 2050pts from low; Nifty at 24,768

Live: Cabinet expansion of Maha govt on Dec 15; about 30 ministers to take oath at Nagpur function

Sensex plunges 1200pts, Nifty below 24200; Why stock markets crashed today?

Allu Arjun arrested over woman's death in stampede at Pushpa 2 premiere

Stocks to watch, Dec 13: RIL, HDFC Bank, JK Tyre, Zomato, TCS, NBCC, L&T