The Vaccine War, Review: Vaccinema With a no brainer of a title, the docu-feature is indeed about the vaccine for Covid 19 Coronavirus, India’s first bio-science film. But what about the ‘war’? Granted that the pandemic had to be dealt with in a war-like situation, this is an exaggerated term to describe the war-footing under which Indian scientists prepared the above vaccine, and the desperate measures that some western countries adopted to deride these efforts. Their motiv...

Life is Good, Review: Is it? A sweeping statement, to be sure. Life has its ups and down and is good to some people while not so good to others. To the central character in Life is Good, Rameshwar, played by Jackie Shroff, life has been rather bad, on the whole. So, bad, in fact, that he contemplates committing suicide at least twice. Yes, there is a long period in between when he finds love in an unlikely quarter, but like the tagline of LG (Lucky Goldstar) Electronics, ‘Life’s G...

Mitron, Review: Food-truck’s mixed menu, part tasty, part insipid Meaning ‘friends’, mitron is among the most favourite opening words when the current prime minister of India addresses an audience. Before becoming the PM, he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat and his mother tongue is Gujarati. Mitron is set in Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat, and among its lead players are a gang of three friends. All its characters are Gujaratis, some of who speak the language occasional...

Yamla Pagla Deewana--Phirse/3, Review: YPDP 3, Y indeed? Is good judgement failing the Deols? And did any well-wisher not bring to their notice that the story and screenplay of Yamla Pagla Deewana Phirse/3 is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Or is it both? Whatever the reality, fact is that we have the Dharmendra Deol, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol starrer released this week, a weak exercise in futility. He Man Dharmendra, probably the first hero to show off his rippling muscles bare-...

  Coffee Bloom, Review: Going thru the grind Meet a Coorgi boy who speaks chaste Hindi with everybody, and practically no Coorgi or Kannada with anybody. Also, he in no way looks like his mother or brother. He meets his girl-friend in Bengaluru and she is a local. She speaks chaste Hindi with everybody too. Her husband is of a Coorgi-Keralite (colloquially called a Mallu after their language, Malayalam) mixed parentage. He has lived in the Middle East and in Australia, but it is Hindi a...