FILM REVIEWS

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY  - a film review      After watching  Bohemian Rhapsody, e vidently, it was hard for Queen fans to leave the movie theatre without shedding a tear or two. The movie may very well win the ‘movie of the year award’ going by the production extravaganza, performance and music, recreating the magic of Queen. No doubt, the story of Freddie Mercury, a musical genius of the Rock 'n Roll era, has always enchanted his fans. Covering fifteen years of the rise and then the resurgence of Queen after a short break, the film is almost a biopic on Freddie Mercury as a musician extraordinaire. With the band’s electrifying performance at the Live Aid Charity concert in 1985, fighting hunger in Ethiopia, Queen emerges as the band that remains unparalleled for ages to come. Interestingly, like many rags to riches stories of musicians around the world, Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Balsara to a humble Parsee family in Zanzibar, lear...

BALLAD OF NARAYAMA   – a Classic Film review Winner of several awards like the Palme d’Or in ’83, Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year ,  the Ballad of Narayama explores the legendary practice of obasute where out in an impoverished remote village in Northern Japan, the elderly, past the age of seventy, are carried up to Mount Nara to offer themselves to the God of the mountains. This practice is to make room for the next generation to survive on the meagre crops grown on their own fields. Written by Fukuzawa Shichiro and directed by Shohei Imamura in 1983, the second version of ‘Ballad of Narayama’ is a remake of the original version of the movie in 1958. It is the story of Mother Orin (Sumiko Sakamoto) and her family, trying to survive under extremely dismal life conditions in a village community in Japan. Orin is pragmatic but also a traditionalist who believes that her time is approaching to take the hike...

ALPHA -- a review Produced by Mark Bakshi, with exquisite cinematography by Martin Gschlacht and wonderful screenplay by Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt, Albet Hughes, the director and story writer of ALPHA has presented an epic drama of man’s struggle in the wilderness. ‘ALPHA’ is the story of Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a young boy not quite on the verge of becoming a man. His father, Tau (Johannes Haukur,Jr), is the chief of a nomadic hunting tribe. He wants to teach his son the tricks of the trade and be his rightful successor as the future leader of the clan. So Keda is forced to join his team of primitive hunters to learn the ropes of the business of hunting. But the boy is not interested in the harsh ways of the game of survival. He is a sensitive, gentle soul and, in his mother’s words, doesn’t want to ‘lead with his spear but his heart’. Separated from his tribe by an accident -- thrown off a vertical cliff by a massive bison -- Keda's odyssey of survival thro...

OCTOBER  -- a film review If you think that you can give “October”a miss -- even though it’s a Shoojit Sircar film -- primarily because it features Varun Dhawan, the  Bollywood chocolate hero for crazy teenagers, you will, perhaps, miss poetry on celluloid. Produced by Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar under the banner of Rising Sun Films, with Shantanu Moitra on the soundtrack, written by Juhi Chaturvedi and conceptualized by Shoojit Sircar, the director himself,  OCTOBER  is a love story of a different kind that remains rooted in the heart making a connection deeper than the sea. It celebrates unconditional love, unspoken and unsung, that surfaces through an awakening with a jolt. Shiuli (Banita Sandhu) and Dan (Varun Dhawan), interns at a five star hotel in Delhi, hardly notice each other during the course of their daily chores. Dan is forever irritable and gets into trouble with his seniors and peers while Shiuli is hardworking and careful....

MAYURAKSHI --  a film review This review is for those who asked me to see the film and post a review so they can decide whether to see it or not. Apologies for not being on the page for some time and taking time to post anything! In fact, after “ Paddigton”, “The World’s Greatest Showman ” and then “ Ashche Abar Shobor ” -- there was nothing much to say apart from the fact that they failed to add any value to your precious experience of bothering to go to the theatre to expect something worthwhile other than a few hours of snoozing.  “ Mayurakshi” maybe a slight departure from it. Directed by Atanu Ghosh, who is also the man behind the story and screenplay, the film is about an aged, loving father and a caring, dutiful son trying to come to terms with the anxiety of losing one’s grip on life and loneliness that engulfs man with the fear of mortality. Atanu Ghosh has strung  some beautiful and poignant moments between father and son together instead ...

WONDER  -- a film review I’m yet to come across anybody who hasn’t seen WONDER , a family drama, now playing in town. Based on a New York Times bestseller ‘Wonder’, a novel by R.J. Palacio, the movie is about August Pullman (Jacob Tramblay), Auggie for short, a boy who shuns the world and hides behind an astronaut’s head gear to escape the stares he gets from others. Born with facial deformity at birth that is irreparable and home -schooled by his mother Isabel (Julia Roberts), Auggie steps out into the real world to join middle school at his father’s insistence for the first time in life. Needless to say, he is rejected and avoided like the plague by his peers but shows quiet courage ignoring and standing up to bullying by some.  Interestingly, his fertile and active imagination helps him surface through all the cruelty meted out to him. Directed by Stephen Chbosky, the movie gets sentimental and makes it irksome to realize sometimes how bullying in sc...

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS A 20th Century Fox movie, Murder on the Orient Express  is based on a novel by Agatha Christie with the same title and is t he fourth adaptation today of one of her most ingenious works. The 2017 movie directed by Kenneth Branagh is a multi-starrer and opens in Jerusalem with Poirot ( Director Branagh himself) solving a case there and wishing to go on a ‘oliday’ (holiday) to take a break from it all. He just wants a vacation. With the help of an associate Bouk ( Tom Bateman ) working for the Orient Express, he secures a luxurious first class cabin on the train with a bunch of characters played by several stars from Hollywood such as Penélope Cruz  as Pilar Estravados, Judi Dench  as Princess Dragomiroff, Johnny Depp  as Samuel Ratchett, Leslie Odom Jr.  as Dr. Arbuthnot, Michelle Pfeiffer  as Caroline Hubbard and many more. A suspenseful mystery, the classic predecessor in the 1974 movie directed by Sydne...