Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Dec 5, 2009, 11:23 am
Dardenne brothers’ The Son is a difficult movie to classify, and hence assess in a few words as I do here. A complex and quietly unsettling character study, the movie is about revenge and catharsis ...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 25, 2009, 4:02 am
Ratcatcher, Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s exceptional debut feature film (she was earlier into making award-winning short films), is an exceedingly bleak yet hauntingly lyrical coming-of-age stor...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 23, 2009, 11:31 am
Hit List, Sandip Ray’s first foray outside “Feluda” movies (adapted from stories written by his late father Satyajit Ray) since the wonderful Nishijapon, has yielded, at best, mixed results. The...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 19, 2009, 11:51 am
An expansion of the fifth episode of his legendary ten-part miniseries Decalogue, Polish master Krzysztof Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Killing is based on the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill�...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 17, 2009, 11:02 am
El Crimen Del Padre Amaro is on a topic that is as complex as it is controversial. The movie concerns with the subject of the fundamentalist and sanctimonious nature of religious (here, Christian) pas...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 15, 2009, 12:01 pm
Katalin Varga, my second (and possibly my final) movie viewing at the ongoing Kolkata Film Festival, is a well-made, brooding, near-Dostoevskian tale of revenge and redemption from Romania. The bleak ...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 14, 2009, 1:47 pm
A few critics have accused Danish filmmaker Nils Malmros' Aching Hearts to be a mere recreation of his most famous work Trees of Knowledge. I haven’t watched the former movie, and hence (or perh...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 11, 2009, 12:40 pm
Spanish director Victor Erice, like his American counterpart Terrence Mallick, is a deeply enigmatic filmmaker (he has made just three movies in his entire career!). However, for me, the similarity do...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 6, 2009, 11:37 pm
Compiled into a behind-the-scenes kind of documentary from over 100 hours of footage filmed during rehearsal sessions for his last planned world tour, This Is It perhaps comprises of the last few popu...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Nov 3, 2009, 10:01 am
An expansion of the sixth chapter of his legendary Decalogue miniseries, Polish master Krzysztof Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Love, though on paper a cinematic recreation of the Commandment “Th...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Oct 27, 2009, 11:48 am
The Firemen’s Ball was quite an event in the career of Milos Forman, who would later become a darling of Hollywood what with his One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus. It was his first film ...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Oct 22, 2009, 10:33 am
German filmmaker Christian Petzold’s Jerichow is a modern-day variation of James M. Cain’s classic pulp fiction The Postman Always Rings T...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Oct 17, 2009, 1:48 pm
The producers of A Hard Day’s Night, in all probability, had one thing alone in mind when they conceptualized the movie – to cash in on the intense hysteria and mass frenzy surrounding the Fab Fou...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Oct 12, 2009, 10:15 am
Repulsion wasn’t just Roman Polanski’s first English language feature, it was also the Polish master’s first great masterpiece. Universally hailed as a cornerstone in the genre of psychological ...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Oct 8, 2009, 7:29 am
Second World War was a bad time for children to grow up in Finland, as nearly 70,000 Finnish children were displaced and sent to neutral Sweden. Mother of Mine tells the story of Aero, one such Finnis...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Oct 5, 2009, 11:38 am
Quentin Tarantino’s seventh feature direction (sixth if you consider the two Kill Bill volumes as a single movie) is a riotous and rambunctious rampage; there isn’t an iota of exaggeration in that...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Sep 28, 2009, 12:44 pm
The two volumes of Kill Bill have told a vengeance story of epic proportions and together form yet another feather in the shining crown of Quentin Tarantino. An unabashed homage to the violent Manga c...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Sep 24, 2009, 12:55 pm
Though most feel Carol Reed’s The Third Man was the greatest Brit noir, I feel Jules Dassin’s Night and the City was more “noirish” and definitive of the two, and hence should rank higher in t...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Sep 17, 2009, 11:54 am
Bappaditya Bandopadhyay’s Houseful is a difficult movie to appraise, for the simple reason that it IS a difficult movie. I haven’t seen any other movie by the director (his Kantatar earned him res...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Sep 15, 2009, 10:52 am
There is no denying Tony Scott his claim to fame – his ability to provide wholesome, fast-paced entertainment to the popcorn-churning public. He deserves that much, though rarely anything more profo...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Sep 10, 2009, 12:59 pm
On the surface (i.e. if one were to go by its plot skeleton) Let the Right One In might seem like a genre fare what with its tale of a vampire let loose; but scratch a little and what you have is a de...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Sep 2, 2009, 1:01 pm
Grosse Point Blank is a nice little black comedy that manages to be engaging with its slick, compact storyline, as well as highly entertaining with its intelligent, darkly funny humour. The most lauda...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 31, 2009, 11:19 am
... in his latest outing, Shob Choritro Kalponik, might just have been the most difficult to execute. The movie is about Radhika, a working professional, and the complex relationship she shares with ...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 28, 2009, 10:31 am
Pather Panchali in particular, and Apu Trilogy in general, might be his most internationally famous work, but if you ask any Bengali-speaking Ray aficionado, more often than not you’ll find Goopy Gy...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 27, 2009, 12:16 pm
Micheal Mann might be a part of the Hollywood bandwagon, but he manages to retain his signature in the otherwise faceless crowd. In his expert hands in the stylish and visually stunning Collateral, Lo...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 25, 2009, 11:42 am
The Killing was the then 28-year old Stanley Kubrick’s third feature film direction; however, where his immense capabilities coming to public knowledge was concerned, it might very well be considere...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 24, 2009, 12:36 pm
Atanu Ghosh might have made quite a few telefilms, but his inexperience in feature direction was palpable in Angshumaner Chhobi. The movie has its fair share of flaws, and that despite the fact that t...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 23, 2009, 1:48 am
Gilda, the noir classic by Charles Vidor, starts off exceedingly well. We are immediately introduced to a drifter making easy money by gambling at shady joints in Buenos Aires. And the movie reaches f...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 21, 2009, 2:18 pm
Lots of great movies get made, but few manage to attain iconic status such that they linger in public conscience long after their sell by dates in theatres. Easy examples of such movies would be Goopy...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 19, 2009, 12:56 pm
Mean Streets was the movie that established Martin Scorsese as one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation, and set him on the path to cinematic immortality. If Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 18, 2009, 1:46 pm
Gotz Spielmann, who won rave reviews for the extraordinary Revanche, earlier directed this equally stark and grim movie that, along with Revanche, manages to be highly indicative of his terrific grip ...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 18, 2009, 1:03 am
In Love Aaj Kal, director Imtiaz Ali has used the classic template of “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl” twice over; thankfully he has infused in it freshness and humour so that the e...
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Shubhajit L. posted an article on Cinemascope - Aug 16, 2009, 4:55 am
Yes, Vishal Bharadwaj has done it again! After the dark nihilism of the two Shakespeare adaptations Maqbool and Omkara, he chose to go darkly comic with Kaminey, and the end result is nearly as grippi...
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