In the mood for Mood Banaleya, with Amruta Fadnavis Her instant intro on Instagram reads, “Banker, Singer, Social Worker, Unadulterated Free Spirit! What you have many can have...but what you are no one can be! Stay Unique!” Click on www.amrutafadnavis.in, and you can discover her biography, in her own words. “Amruta Fadnavis is a trained classical singer, a social activist and a banker. She is married to Deputy Chief Minister (and former Chief Minister) of Maharashtra, Deve...

Wonder-dancer AJ stakes claim as India’s answer to MJ Amit Jadav, aka AJ, a Mumbai prodigy, is a singer-dancer who can leave you wonder-struck with moves that are leaves right out of Michael Jackson (MJ)’s work-book, including the moonwalk and spin. At the performance on 07 May at the Birla Matushri Sabhagar, South Mumbai’s prestigious hall, a packed auditorium found their jaws dropping when he wowed them with act after act, syncing hundreds of moves with video-projection of...

Bachchan Paandey, Review: Gangsters are best played by real-life gangsters Why would you choose a name like Bachchan Pandey, unless you thought you could cash-in on the franchises called Amitabh Bachchan (name of a real life actor) and Chulbul Pandey (name of a reel-life character, played in several movies by Salman Khan)? Point is, does a superstar himself, like Akshay Kumar, who plays the title role, need these props? Leaving the Paandey behind, ‘Bachchan’ is made to speak some ...

Super 30, Review: Inequality, equality and variable quality Two basic tenets form the paradigm of Super 30: a real-life story about a nondescript do-gooder who is a super achiever must strike a chord with audiences, and, secondly, any tale of a low caste and poverty-stricken protagonist, sacrificing his lady love and filthy lucre for the cause of educating fellow under-privileged ‘untouchables’ in his society, will have them rooting for the unlikely hero. How these doctrines pan o...

Hume Tumse Pyar Kitna, Review: Limerence, belligerence and incoherence A clutch of songs, exquisitely picturised, with little or no lip sync, linked together by a skeletal story about obsessive love, came to Mumbai cinemas today under the title Hume Tumse Pyar Kitna (How Much Do I Love You). Taken from a hit number from the film Kudrat that was popular in the early 80s, the title of the film is appropriate, and the original song itself occurs several times in the film, on the radio, or as a ...

Kalank, Review: Masochistic miasma Everything in Kalank (blemish, stigma) is grand, both in content and in form. Sets and décor, riches and poverty, locales and vehicles, make-up and costumes, dances and fights, colours and luminance, all are designed to make your jaw drop in awe. All this opulence is merely the canvas on which a heart-wrenching tragedy is painted, around the time of India’s partition, with the entire ensemble cast at the receiving end of a woeful operatic wail, ...

Toilet—Ek Prem Katha, Review by Siraj Syed: Loo and behold! There is no point getting revolted by the title. Any fear that the film might have ‘dirty’ scenes can be laid to rest by the realisation that we have a robust Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) that sanitises every film before release. And almost every Indian knows that the current Prime Minister launched a campaign two-and-a-half years ago, to ensure that millions of villages and small towns in rural India ...