It feels like the era of the superstar may be over, which is probably not a bad thing for the future of the Hindi movie industry. it also feels like the hegemony of big studios has been disrupted , with big showy films with known leads tanking at the box ...

One is used to watching execrable movies made out of beloved books. Rarely is the converse true. Slumdog Millionaire, adapted from the mediocre Q & A, is a jolt to the senses.

Heavily inspired by I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Dostana is a product of Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, directed by debutant director Tarun Mansukhani. I suppose the best way to describe it is a gay-medy. Handsome horny hunks Kunal and Sam(eer) find themselves pretending to be a gay couple so ...

From the dingy, dark, drinking holes in Chandni Bar to the spotlit world of high fashion in quite an arc for filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar, who makes another faintly exploitative movie exposing the dirt under the complexity that is Mumbai.

On paper it looks like such a slam dunk; Yash Raj Films, a top quality production house with access to the biggest talents in Bollywood, and Disney Films, an animation giant, collaborating to make a cutting-edge animated movie entirely produced in India. On screen, the result is pretty sad. Created at ...

A Wednesday has been unfairly clubbed with other movies dealing with bomb blasts in Mumbai. Terrorism is a subject that goes deep into the psyche of the average Mumbai resident and it is not surprising that different filmmakers try to deal with it in their own unique way. But this particular ...

Why give your movie an English name when it is entirely set in the North India heartland? Shyam Benegal’s latest is set in the sleepy village of Sajjanpur, situated at a vague distance from the big bad metropolis of Mumbai and populated by quirky characters straight out of Nukkad.

Imagine you were cleaning out your closet and came across photos of yourself and your friends from a few decades ago. Would the pictures make you laugh or would you cry? Did you live up to the promises of those snapshots in time or did you end up making compromises like everyone else? And whatever happened to those great guys you knew? Director Abhishek Kapoor explores the angst of nostalgia in his second film, Rock On, starring an ensemble cast with the only familiar face being Farhan Akhtar. Farhan, who directed another superb buddy movie, Dil Chahta Hai, gets in front of the camera this time, delivering a knockout performance which is sure to leave more than a few knees weak.

By Shreyasi Deb On a moist work evening in Mumbai, on my way home I decided to drop by at the mall next door without any great purpose. I walked to the multiplex area and while I was wondering how ‘The Vagina Monologues’ would feel in Hindi (our emotions have language?) I hit upon the wonderful poster for ‘Persepolis’ almost hiding apologetically behind its blatantly colorful cousins which spoke of movies I’d turn in my grave to watch. “I must do this” I said and soon I went in (my stomach sorted with a quick sub and a quicker coffee) expecting a ‘private viewing’ of the movie on a weekday late evening show. The theater didn’t have a single soul (although a dozen odd co-viewers did walk in after a while) and what began is a great show about life. Persepolis is based on a graphic novel( or comic as we call them). An autobiographical account of author Marjane Satrapi's childhood, the comic is inked in black and white and tells of her coming of age in the turbulent times of the Iranian revolution. The movie, animated to resemble the book, is co-directed by the author.

By Vidya Pradhan An American on a steady diet of Hindi movies may be forgiven for thinking that most Indian men are called "Raj Malhotra" - a name that is popular in Bollywood these days in the way Vijay used to be a couple of decades ago.  Even the heroines have some pretty standard names - Pooja for the A-list and wannabe A-list, Priya for the low budget movies and Aditi for the offbeat ones.  Kismat Connection tries very hard to be offbeat and quirky, though it does not seem very low budget, and is completely undone by pedestrian direction and a weak script.