“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” ― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair Isn’t that a beautiful start? I fell head over heels in love with the novel the minute I read that opening sentence. However, as it often happens, it was easier to fall in love than to stay in love. So, What’s It About?…
Culture
After an excruciatingly painful first half of 60 minutes, which could have been shorter or craftier, the film really kicks in. KCK is the story of Karthik (duh), a timid man, bullied around by everyone who gets much-needed help by therapeutic phone calls from himself. As bizarre as it may seem to get calls from himself, which have no existence on his phone records, he goes with the flow and trusts the caller. His life…
Hope Springs is a classic example of a movie where great acting can make up for an ordinary script. Screen legends, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, bring a lot of class to a simple yet deep story of a stagnating marriage. So What Is Hope Springs About? Kay and Arnold have been married for over 31 years and their life has inevitably set into a pattern. With the kids grown up and away with…
It’s nice to know that the circus is not dead. “Cirque du Soleil” or ‘Circus of the Sun’ retains the traditional aspects of the ageless crowd puller with a juggler, acrobat, dancer, trapeze artists, and tight rope walkers. It bumps up the experience several notches higher with fabulous choreography, music and art direction. The use of projectors and laser lighting brings a mystic and ethereal quality to the performance. It’s pure entertainment for 90 minutes…
Over the past one year, there are some books that I read and meant to blog about. However, they made so little an impression on me, either good or bad, that I never got around to reviewing them. I thought I would just mention them in a single blog post. Death At the Bar by Ngaio Marsh Marsh was a New Zealand writer, heavily inspired by Agatha Christie. I have read reviews of her works…
Someone at a Distance is a heartbreaking story of an ordinary upper middle class British family is so gripping. I have read no other work by Dorothy Whipple, so am not aware of her style of narrative. I enjoyed this from a literary point of view, but I found the book oddly regressive to feminism. Let me start with the plot, which, as the blurb shows, is ‘deceptively simple’. The Norths are a happy, self-contained family…
There is nothing wrong with the overall plot, and how it can that be, since it’s inspired from Jane Austen’s Emma, but the Bollywood movie “Aisha” falters appallingly in the execution. The story is really simple. Aisha, a super rich, good-for-nothing, rich Delhi girl passes her time setting up people together. The movie begins when she finds her new project, Shefali (Amrita Puri), a middle class girl in need of a groom. Aisha sets her…
I am not the kind of person who typically drools over actors or even fan-girls except for maybe something like Lord Of The Rings and The X-files. I either like certain people’s work or admire specific stories, styles of storytelling or directing. But when I saw the BBC’s contemporary “Sherlock” starring Benedict Cumberbatch ( yes, his real name!), I have to admit I was utterly Cumberbatched! I have never been so taken in by an…
