Top Rated Films
Deepanjana Pal's Film Reviews
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One By Two offers one of the least insightful and most shallow portraits of India’s urban youth. If the upcoming generation of Indian men is really like the ones in the film, I predict a sharp and dramatic rise in the country’s lesbian population in the next census survey.
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…a straightforward, chronological look at Mandela’s life from boyhood to old age. It’s a carefully balanced film that may not do full justice to Mandela, but it’s more invigorating than the filmi Mandela we saw in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus.
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…is good fun if you can distract yourself from the illogical bits by focusing on the wigs or gaping necklines of Amy Adams’ outfits.
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Miss Lovely moves slowly, unravelling like real life. It demands the viewer read into silences, see the phantoms hidden by smoke and the cheap dazzle of measly successes and the menace lurking in smiles and embraces. The violence and degradation that characterise the films that Vicky and Sonu make, seeps into their lives subtly. The point at which Miss Lovely flounders is in its last chapter.
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Somehow, the Coen brothers manage to make the fictional Llewyn Davis, with all the surreal elements in his life, feel more painfully real. Does the fact that his songs are such exquisite, melancholic gems make up for everything that Llewyn goes through and for the fact that he’s among those who are doomed to be forgotten? That’s the question that every unknown, struggling artist faces and to quote Llewyn, it’s a question that’s “never new and it never gets old.”
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The film contains an ode to the lyricism of classic Urdu poetry, mobsters as well as the familiar two-against-the-world formula that has powered so many legendary films. Chaubey weaves all of this together to create a fictional India in which you’ll love losing yourself. Madhuri, Naseer and Arshad dazzle in this delightful film.
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As The Secret Life of Walter Mitty shifts gears to make Mitty fit a more stereotypical mould of “cool”, the gorgeous cinematography and mellow, indie-rich soundtrack become the film’s saving graces.
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If you’re appalled by the vacuousness and superficiality of Belfort’s world, then perhaps you’re seeing the ambiguities that one would expect of a Scorcese film. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to figure out whether we’re imagining them or if they’re actually there.
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This new Mahabharata isn’t so much a kid-friendly version as one made for dummies, by dummies. It’s awkward, sanitised and dissatisfying to those who know the epic and to those who don’t, it’s boring and ugly.
Do your kids a favour. Tell them stories from the original epic and steer clear of this film.
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…feels wonderfully Middle Earthy and manages to be satisfying whether or not you’re a fan of the book. Jackson takes a few chapters with very little substance and turns it into three hours and ten minutes of magnificent adventure. The plot is threadbare, but there’s enough drama and tension to keep you on the edge of your seat.