All stories by SREEHARI NAIR
Review: Hindi Medium is a fascinatingly frustrating film
Rediff.com19 May 2017Hindi Medium works because it manages to stretch itself beyond its scrubby elements, easy half-baked jokes, lessons about consumerism and our love for English, into a simple story about a boy who would do anything to see his girl smile, feels Sreehari Nair.
Sarkar 3 Review: The cycle of doom has been completed
Rediff.com13 May 2017Ram Gopal Varma is back with Part Three of that series, which presented to us the first clear evidence that the great man was slipping, rues Sreehari Nair.
Baahubali 2 Review: Rajamouli keeps winking, and we keep falling for it
Rediff.com28 Apr 2017Baahubali: The Conclusion doesn't enlarge the scope of the first picture or deepen its meaning, feels Sreehari Nair.
Begum Jaan Review: A Vidya Balan Summer Project with a cold, sadistic heart
Rediff.com14 Apr 2017Begum Jaan makes a lot of noise, cuts a lot of throats, but sucks up to kiddie-ideas of history and revolution, feels Sreehari Nair.
Review: A Death in the Gunj: Minor achievement, minor disappointment
Rediff.com12 Apr 2017Despite its many problems, A Death in the Gunj is an important work says Sreehari Nair.
Review: Laali Ki Shaadi Mein Laaddoo Deewana is naive
Rediff.com7 Apr 2017Laali Ki Shaadi Mein Laaddoo Deewana is insipid, terribly made, and yet a Warm Enterprise, feels Sreehari Nair.
Trapped! A metaphor for Motwane's movies
Rediff.com6 Apr 2017'In Udaan and in Lootera, the initial sensations that drove Vikramaditya Motwane to make those pictures never quite travelled beyond the walls that contained them.' 'Here, in Trapped, this sensations-strangled-by-the-walls feeling becomes the movie's real tune,' says Sreehari Nair.
Poorna Review: Goes for mountains, settles for mole-hills
Rediff.com30 Mar 2017There is no escaping Rahul Bose's compassion. He wears it like a name tag in Poorna, feels Sreehari Nair.
The best Indian film you will see this year
Rediff.com20 Mar 2017'In Angamaly Diaries, dreams, kinks, small corruptions, cheap lives, and hopes are all given their due and that attitude frees us up to believe that perhaps there is more good than bad in the sum total of us.' 'This is a coming-of-age tale taken straight out of a diary written in blood,' says Sreehari Nair.
Rangoon and the dangers of straining for poetry
Rediff.com7 Mar 2017'In Vishal Bhardwaj's now fully set world of manufactured poetry, characters wear their emotions at their most prescribed anatomical positions -- courage on their chins, pride over their chests, and innocence in their faces,' observes Sreehari Nair.
Haraamkhor: The pervert wants you to hold your ears
Rediff.com17 Jan 2017Sreehari Nair explains why Haraamkhor may just be the most liberating Hindi movie made since Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi.
2016: A year at the movies when India thumped Hindi
Rediff.com29 Dec 2016'2016 was the age of convenience for Hindi movies; of down pat effrontery and planned feeling triumphing over attempts to discern something complexly beautiful,' says Sreehari Nair.
Nation Building at the ATM
Rediff.com24 Nov 2016'As citizens of this country, we often expect sweeping changes here, but find the smallest of abdications that we may ourselves be called upon to make far too inconveniencing.' 'Think about it deeply -- about the move and the reactions it has gathered -- and we will actually learn a lot about ourselves,' says Sreehari Nair.
How the North Indian Launda saved Hindi movies
Rediff.com8 Nov 2016'Pink a movie that's assembled especially for that section of prejudice-free Indians who are all on this side of the screen.' 'Look...there's virtuosity staring at you, 24 Frames per Second.' 'Soak it in; more power to the revolution, more wax to the candlelight vigils,' says Sreehari Nair.
'Sex is beautiful only when it's hinted at'
Rediff.com22 Aug 2016'It took a 75-year-old director to teach the reformist set of Facebook users that Evil is not an aberration, but something that resides in the most regular seeming of human beings,' says Sreehari Nair.
'Relax son, it's just advertising'
Rediff.com8 Aug 2016'Cynics don't make it big in advertising.' 'Often, the medium calls for a rock-like commitment to puny, easily digestible ideas.' 'Here's a text that understands this facet of advertising and one that keeps its tone breezy and reporter-like; that's set across a wide canvas but one that never overstates its own importance,' says Sreehari Nair.
Udta Punjab: Conservative's miscalculation, liberal's fantasy
Rediff.com5 Jul 2016'Is there a connection between the way we pitched the entire issue of Udta Punjab's censorship and the apologetic, full-of-very-specific-answers tone of the movie?' 'Maybe it's just me, but as an Indian liberal, I am more scared of us liberals than I am of the average Indian conservative bloke,' says Sreehari Nair.
To appreciate Raman Raghav 2.0, you will have to surrender to it
Rediff.com30 Jun 2016'There is no way you can view the movie from a distance, from a moral high ground, and get to its core.' 'To truly appreciate what Anurag Kashyap is trying to do here, you may have to lose a part of yourself to it, first,' says Sreehari Nair.
Thithi: What a win!
Rediff.com4 Jun 2016When you walk out of Thithi, you walk out with a feeling of having been completely inside its characters' heads, says Sreehari Nair.
Seeing Red at the Malayalam Movies
Rediff.com1 Jun 2016Malayalam film audiences, who had spent close to two decades waiting for something truly interesting to watch at the movies, seem to be finally getting their due.