The Great Ganesha

Its nothing new that the majority of movies coming out of Bollywood are mostly junk. In fact, I may even have said a thing or two about it. But when the indomitable Naseeruddin Shah speaks, people listen. An article a few days ago on the BBC, has him ranting hard about pretty much everything on [...]

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After three years of downright boring ceremonies, Ellen brought the Oscars back to their original glory – with all the glamor, glitz and glitter that Hollywood is associated with. And, of course, by glitz and glitter, I mean Botox and Silicone. Seriously though, this time the Oscars were actually fun to watch, even though they [...]

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?[From my Thirsty article] You may read elsewhere that this movie is categorized as a drama, a thriller, a fantasy film or even science fiction, but one crucial component is left out from all these labels ? political film. Guillermo Del Toro creates the perfect vehicle for political propaganda by creating a child protagonist at [...]

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[From my Thirsty article.] Like The Last King of Scotland, this is a novel-to-screen (from P.D. James? novel of the same name) adaptation, but this is a work of art independent of the book, not unlike Kubrick?s A Clockwork Orange. Alfonso Cuaron has created a masterpiece with this tightly shot film which is, by far, [...]

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[Adapted from my Thirsty article and crossposted on Desicritics.org. What can I say? I'm lazy.] Imagine that you never know the real identity of the people you work for, or even what they look like. Imagine that you are forced to interact with people who are your ideological opposites to the point where you must [...]

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[This appeared in this month's issue of Thirsty Magazine here. Incidentally, stay tuned for next month's issue where they will publish my interview with Man Push Cart director Ramin Bahrani.] Ahmad is a sad, young man. Once a budding rock star in Pakistan, with a hit album in 1995, he immigrated with his wife and [...]

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This appeared in this month’s issue of Thirsty [here] and a version was posted to Blogcritics [here]. Two films stood out among those that were screened at the 2006 South Asian Film Festival in San Francisco organized by 3rd I (San Francisco) on Nov 10-11-12. Omkara What if Othello were to come on Oprah? She [...]

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(Crossposted at Desicritics.org [link].) Meet Nicholas Garrigan. He’s rich, young, and charming. Fresh out of medical school in Scotland, he wants what every male youth wants – to annoy his father. So Nicholas goes to Uganda, to a charitable mission run by a Brit doctor and his wife (Gillian Anderson) where, through a series of [...]

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Pakka NRI Ok. I’ll admit it. I’m one of those desis who only really started watching Hindi films once I came to the US. Before that, I got my dose of Bollywood on the occasional Sunday evening, when Doordarshan screened its weekly movie. And the only reason I really watched them then, was to avoid [...]

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Grade: B Here’s an interesting recipe. Combine: (1) a failing motivational speaker; (2) his heroin-addicted father; (3) his Nietzche-obsessed step-son; (4) his chubby, prepubescent, Miss America-wannabe daughter; (5) his weary wife; and (6) her brother, a suicidal Proust scholar. Throw them all into a beat-up, banana yellow VW van, get them on the road, and [...]

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