Cine Qua Non

Mainstream Hollywood cinema is cliche-ridden. All cliches start as facts, and then they become what they are. After a point, many become irritants. Here's my pick of the 25 most irritating ones: Let’s get out of here! Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Don’t you die on me! Breathe, dammit! Cover me. I’m going in. You can't do this to me. I'm a American citizen. You’d better come in. Follow that car! I’m not leaving you. Is this some kind of sick joke? What seems to be the problem, Officer? I...

Out there every film critic worth his or her salt is writing about the fifty years of Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de soufflé ( Breathless), including those in Hollywood which has suddenly remembered that the French filmmaker deserves an honorary Oscar. Back home anyone with half a glass cinematic eye is celebrating the golden anniversary of Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara ( The Cloud-capped Star), his biggest commercial success at that time. Both, needless to say, were landmark films. But there...

Sometime back I chanced upon a moth-eaten book at a relative’s place. The author’s name on the spine had caught my eye and I was sure I had struck gold as I gingerly pulled the paperback out from under a pile of books that were meant, quite possibly, to be disposed of. The writer was, to me, one of the greatest names in Indian cinema. His repertoirSometime back I chanced upon a moth-eaten book at a relative’s place. The author’s name on the spine had caught my eye and I was sure I had struck...

With a title as seemingly trite as The Bank Job and a cast spearheaded by B-films action hero Jason Statham, one might have expected this to be a routine bank caper involving a Transporter pulling off something of an Italian Job. But it isn’t – it is a film that goes far beyond your simplistic expectations. You would have seen scores, even hundreds, of bank heist films, but this one seems real. It does, because it is a fictionalised account of a real event. But there have been others too of the...