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A REBEL Called Preity Zinta

'I am not the kind of person who will stand up and complain. I have no complaints against anyone. If I've been away from the entertainment industry, it's because I am not into selling myself.'





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Can You Watch 384 Films In A Year?

Aseem Chhabra watched some great films and some huge disappointments in 2021.




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Badhaai Do Is A Giant Step Forward

Two men smiling, eyeing each other as they briefly let their guard down, with no care of what the world around them is thinking, that has almost never been shown in a Bollywood film, notes Aseem Chhabra.




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Mohanlal: An Emperor Defeated By Love

'Once Mohanlal's ever-swelling entourage grasped his enormous worth, once it realized that the innate Mohanlal appeal could be profited from, it set about to exploit, to make uproars, to create the Mohanlal brand.''And he wasn't meant to be a brand. He was meant to be an artist, a tireless explorer of the unique seas inside him,' asserts Sreehari Nair.





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The MAGIC Of Bappi Lahiri

Bappida's softer more creative work got buried in the noise, rues Subhash K Jha as he picks the late lamented composer's most soulful songs.







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Jaya, The Tallest Bachchan

Jaya is a woman of steel in the truest sense of the word.Despite being the first lady of filmdom, she's as real and rooted to the ground as anyone can get, notes Subhash K Jha on the actor-politician's 74th birthday.






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A NOT-SO-SENSITIVE Guide to Badhaai Do

Badhaai Do carries its audience on the wave of those little farces that come with being queer in India, a land where masculinity still has some say, observes Sreehari Nair.






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'Sanju remembers her only for the love'

'I don't think my troubles would have happened if she was with me. I kind of lost my way after she was gone,' Sanjay Dutt once told Subhash K Jha about his mother Nargis, the legendary actress who passed away this day 41 years ago.




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Is Jaideep Ahlawat India's Finest Actor?

If Irrfan could have been our finest professor of empirical philosophy, and Nawaz is our foremost poet of that space halfway between the gutter and the stars, then Jaideep Ahlawat has to be our greatest artist-scientist, asserts Sreehari Nair.




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The Small Big Pictures Of Rajamouli & Co

RRR isn't the "spectacle" it is made out to be, argues Sreehari Nair.




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Is Ms Marvel Really EPIC?

<em>Ms Marvel</em>'s first episode did not bore me, but it made me question the very existence of the first Muslim superhero, observes Subhash K Jha.




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'Difficult to keep up with Ranveer'

Ranveer is loud, but not shrill, notes Subhash K Jha.As in singing, in acting holding your pitch in the higher notes is a Himalayan task.Ranveer resides on the highest notes of the musical mountain and still manages to be coherent, fluent and persuasive.




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Lijo Jose Pellissery's Women And Mine

Pellissery's women continue to express the beauty in our common humanity. And often, these women go so far into expressing our hopes, desires, absurdities and follies that they end up acting at variance with the ethical prescriptions of our age. And this, I believe, is precisely why they remain "invisible" to a whole bunch of viewers, says Sreehari Nair.




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Why Priyanka is UNSTOPPABLE!

I have heard cynics say that Priyanka Chopra Jonas as we know her today is the creation of a PR machinery, but that is rather a poor reading of a determined woman and the work she has done to get to where she is.Aseem Chhabra salutes the movie star on her 40th birthday on July 18.




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Ranveer Looks Tired And Quite Unsexy

Far from outraging any woman's sensibility or sense of modesty, Ranveer looks like he could do with a hot meal and a hug, notes Deepa Gahlot.




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Darlings Is Daring!

I cannot think of another Hindi movie that has, without so much as a hint of cynicism or speechifying, brought out that fundamental fact of Muslims being an integral part of the Indian culture while being at the same time a subculture with its own polite niceties, observes Sreehari Nair.




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Thallumaala: One Of The Films Of 2022

Friendships are not merely severed, but built over scuffles.And just about anything can stir things up -- a long-standing feud, a pointless stare, a disrupted moral stance, a fist that ricochets off a face and smacks another face in the near vicinity, observes Sreehari Nair.




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How Can Shabana-Javed-Naseer Be In Tukde Tukde Gang?

'Javed Akhtar, Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi have collectively brought more pride and honour to our country than the entire film fraternity put together.''Sir, the names you have taken are institutions, pillars of India's popular art, symbolising the very essence of humanism and nationalism.'




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Pushpa Effect Makes Allu Arjun Brand Star

A little bird in the know of things tells me that Allu Arjun will most likely become the face of a global cola brand very soon.And he has jacked his brand endorsement price to an unheard of Rs 7.5 crore per day, leaving the likes of Virat Kohli and Ranveer Singh trailing by quite a margin, reveals Sandeep Goyal.




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Why Didn't #BoycottBrahmastra Work?

Nobody else needs to boycott Bollywood, they are doing a pretty good job of digging up their own foundation, notes Deepa Gahlot.




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Why Lataji Didn't Sing With Rafi, SD...

Long before she won royalty rights for playback singers, there was an undisclosed incident in Lataji's life where she not only put a male colleague in place, but also refused to sing with him thereafter.




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Amitabh@80: His Best May Be Yet To Come

'For an introduction to his career-spanning genius, watch just five of his movies: Anand, Saudagar, Abhiman, Black and Pink,' notes Kalyan Singhal, McCurdy Professor of Business at the University of Baltimore.




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Doctor G: Lazy, Dishonest, Film

Doctor G is outwardly all for women, but evidently has no interest in them, observes Sreehari Nair.




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Rare Appeal: Remembering Smita Patil

Smita has left behind a rich haul of films that showcase her enormous ability to offer us a glimpse into her soul each time she performed a role.




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The Lataji I Knew

I spent almost all my life trying to figure out how anyone could express so many shades of human feeling in her voice, wonders Subhash K Jha.




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The Lesson We Can Learn From Ariyippu

Ariyippu drives home the point that nothing can force you to leave the path of righteousness, discovers Utkarsh Mishra.




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Keeravaani's Gracious Act At Globes

The composer thanked other artists for the making of the song.




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Pathaan Is About Shah Rukh's Life

More than anything else, Pathaan is a silent and subtle statement of Shah Rukh Khan about his place, his commitment to cinema and, if one can say, his politics, observes Mohammad Asim Siddiqui.




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When Pathaan's Villain Made You Think

Let us get high on Pathaan and his simple-minded antics, sure, but let us also take a moment to think about Jim who, with that one cunning piece of dialogue, goes on to boldly state that patriotism is a many-hued thing, observes Sreehari Nair.




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Why Shah Rukh Needed Action To...

Shah Rukh had outgrown the roles that made him a star -- the menacing, obsessive lover in Darr, the regular guy in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na or the new age boyfriend in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.By the time he entered his 50s, he was struggling to find his feet, explains Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.




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How Does One Say Goodbye To Satish?

'He didn't have a single mean bone in his body.''He never had a negative word about anybody, not even those who harmed him.'




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So, What Was It About Naatu Naatu?

RRR threw a lifeline, or so it seemed -- to a world that was down in the dumps. Keeravani and his Naatu Naatu just happened to be in the right place at the right time, notes Saibal Chatterjee.




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Mammootty Gets Off A Bus; Goes Down A Rabbit Hole

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam is a masterpiece, and like most masterpieces of the cinema, it's a great act of folly, observes Sreehari Nair.




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Bahot Ho Gaya Bhai!

Why can't Salman end his self-praising screen time and play a good role instead, asks Rajesh Karkera.




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PS:2: So Who Killed Aditha Karikalan?

The question 'Who was/were behind Aditha Karikalan's killing?' will continue to remain a historic mystery despite Mani Ratnam setting out to unravel it in his own way, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.




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Why 2018 Is The 'Real' Kerala Story

Kindness and compassion is all you need to survive and build your life. And that is what makes 2018's Kerala story so relevant, notes Divya Nair.




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The Power Of The Law... And Hope

Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai reminds us that we haven't run out of instances where even the most vulnerable can secure justice against the mighty, applauds Utkarsh Mishra.