I saw this one a couple of weeks ago. At the outset, I must admit, it falls into the same trap of ‘book being a better read than it’s cinematic adaptation’. But I also truly believe it is unfair to judge a book by it’s cover and movies by their ability to adapt a best seller. Most best sellers always allow a lot of room for reader imagination, which can go wild. The movies however, are just a 120 minutes visual experience based on the directors vision and creativity.
I read …

Background: Dev D is an adaptation of  the epic Indian novel called Devdas. The book is set in early 1900’s in West Bengal, in and around Calcutta, where the lead character ‘Devdas’ looses his childhood love ‘Paro’ due to circumstances, develops into an alcoholic, and finds some solace being around a sex worker ‘Chandramukhi’ , who is madly in love with him. This is the basic theme of Devdas that has been adapted at least a couple of times in bollywood. Dilip Kumar in the 1960′ and Shahrukh Khan in …

Bravo is the word that comes to mind for Danny Boyle and his crew to execute this in the dingy realities of Mumbai in stead of an air conditioned atelier. Magnificent is the script by Vikas Swarup and Simon Beaufoy that connects the daily tortures of a slum life onto an ability on a quiz show. Fantastic is the background score by A.R. Rahman that adds depth to the drama, crime and romantic sequences. The movie is at par excellence on most technical counts. I noticed the use of snorricam on Jamal …

Dasvidanya, rusian for goodbye, is a nice and easy movie with few sweet and sad moments with enough intensity to put lump in your throat. Essentially hindi drama low budget movies are never really successful and this one seems to be no exception. People in India go to cinema’s to watch larger than life actors, over the top make up, heavenly locations, catchy songs and tons of emotion. A drama movie like Dasvidanya rely mainly on a good script and actors who are willing to pull every inch of their acting muscle …

I must say this out loud that I am not big on bond flicks. And the mere fact that I just referenced a piece of cinema as ‘flick’, would suggest that I don’t really rate it either. Maybe I can’t quite comprehend a superhero without any spiderbites or flying suits, or maybe it is just the retarded old lady heading MI6 that I can’t stand, or maybe I happen to have bad taste in cinema. In any case when it comes to Bond, I am not quite impressed.
Quantum of Solace …