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RRR Is Unstoppably Exuberant In Its Jingoism
Rating: ****
RRR Movie Review: There is nothing in RRR that is not massively massy. Rajamouli’s eye for spectacle is as unerring as the arrows that Ram Charan playing a a character called , you guessed it, Ram shoots dressed up as, yes that’s right, Lord Rama.
But that’s a good 2 hours and 45 minutes after the film’s wondrous whirligig has started.
RRR is three hours of non-stop hecticity. Rajamouli wants every frame to exhale a breath of flushed air. It’s all about size. And those who think otherwise are not familiar with the Rajamouli school of thought.His cinematic vision is many sizes larger than what an average blockbuster builder of Bollywood imagines to be epic in scope.
There are many extraordinary action sequences in RRR. Come to think of it ,RRR is short of drama and emotions. Except for a potentially heartrending sequence at the preamble when a little tribal girl is snatched away by a villainous British couple who, according to the sporadic voiceover which comes and goes lazily,think they can take whatever catches their fancy.
Barring a pretty lass named Jenny(Olivia Morris) who takes a fancy to one of the heroes, all the Britishers are potential hellraisers and fiends with one of them barking about the “Brown rubbish”.
Well, it takes white trash to recognize rubbish.
Miraculously the girl Malli survives all the brutal hijinks and the torrent of high drama. .Rajamouli unleashes a brutal sensory assault.Hundreds of junior artistes(goodlooking ones, let me hasten to add) participate in the pitched battles where the Gora Log behave as though they have just seen the unedited version of The Kashmir Files and have taken tips on racial brutality.
The Governor’s wife (played by someone named Alison Doody) is specially vile . “Where is the blood? I want more blood,” she bellows when Bheema(NTR Jr) is tied and whipped by Ram(Rama Charan).How and why things have come to such a sorry pass, I will not reveal. Partly because my mind was numbed by the onslaught of opulent truculence.
Bullets and arrows fly from all directions while our two heroes do a Jai and Veeru from Sholay including of course a dosti song. Ram Charan has the more curvaceous character to play while NTR is the innocent wide eyed one.Their bonding makes for a perfect love story. What was the need to bring in a female love interest for both of them when the heroes love each other to death?
When they fight another they are super-driven. When they join forces to fight the common enemy they are deliriously impassioned. But when they dance together, they are something else.
Oh, there is a third hero . No, not Ajay Devgan. But Cinematographer K K Senthil Kumar who has the knack to make every frame look like pop poetry.
RRR is loads of fun to watch. But it is bereft of an emotional bedrock. In this conspicuous absence, the narrative chooses the path of choreographed action as the only panacea to kill the looming sense of lopsidedness in the plot. The women including Alia Bhatt are just faint sketches while the even the minor male characters(like Bheem’s comrade in arms) are given a prominent place in the plot.
The action sequences are to die for. Comparable with their counterparts from any part of the world. When it comes to filming crowds and spectacles S S Rajamouli is next to only Sanjay Bhansali. What is missing is character-driven drama and a more controlled narrative pitch. These absences do not dampen the spirit of the endeavour. RRR knocks the socks off all probing and evaluation. It is what it is. A big epic fantasy with heroes so valorous they make you gasp even as you suppress a giggle.
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Shabana Azmi Breaks Her Wrist, Flies To Budapest For Spielberg

Shabana Azmi’s commitment to getting it right, no matter what it takes, is by now beyond legendary. She is known to go to extreme lengths for her characters, the quick-reference what-Shabana-can-do-for-a-role film being Shyam Benegal’s Mandi where she had put on 30 kgs to look like a ‘Madame’ and convey her message in a brothel.
Now , Shabana flies to Budapest on the night of 8 February in spite of having broken her wrist.
“What to do, I have to.I’ve to shoot another schedule of my second season of Halo(the series produced by Steven Spielberg) . There is no way I can postpone it. I am very upset with myself. It was such an unnecessary accident. I was in Jindal . I took a jump and landed with a fractured wrist, ” says Shabana angrily.
This is not the first fracture that Shabana has suffered in recent times. Before the wrist that’s broken now, she had broken the other wrist. And prior to that she had broken her shoulder.
“I’m supposed to be shooting till the 28th of February. And it’s all very tough physically rigorous scenes. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I am really annoyed with myself for being careless.” Shabana sighed before signing off.
Knowing her the way I do,I can only say, nothing is impossible for Shabana Azmi.
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Shobita Dhulipala On Her Close Aquatic Connection To Her Character In The Night Manager

Sobhita Dhulipala has constantly tried to make an impression with her intriguing performances and roles. In The Night Manager she slips into the mysterious role of Kaveri.
Talking about her character, Sobhita Dhulipala says , “There’s a certain intrigue to Kaveri. On better days, you feel like you get a sense of who she is, but you could never be too sure of what she is.”
Being a water person Sobhita enjoyed her character’s aqueous antecedents, “There is a very visible parallel that’s drawn between Kaveri and water throughout the show.They both can be so gentle, so nourishing, but also very tumultuous and deep. Kaveri seems like that. She has this tenderness as well as a current within her.”
Sobhita comes from an aquatic family and feels a deep affinity to water. “I have in the past been compared with water’s energy and I thought it was a tremendous compliment. So, to be able to give form to that feeling, that connection I feel with it..it’s great. My father is a sailor. And I spent many of my younger years at sea, also the home I grow up in was by the shore. I also love the name Kaveri and I always thought when I have my own child, I’d name him/her by a river! So, I think there’s, resonance, all of it really comes together for me.”
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The Romantics Adi Chopra’s Show All The Way

Netflix’s The Romantics profiling the legend Yash Chopra in four episodes , happened only because Netflix gave complete creative control to Yash Chopra’s son Aditya Chopra, the scion of the Yash Raj family.
A source very close to the project reveals, “If it wasn’t for Adi’s nod, the project wouldn’t have happened. He not only greenlighted the project, he also personally supervised every aspect of the project. Smriti Mundhra is on board as the director of The Romantics. But it is Adi who decided what goes, and what not.”
Apparently the thirty-five interviewees speaking on Yash Chopra in The Romantics were all personally approved by Adi Chopra who also agreed to do his first video interview ever for the docu-pic on his distinguished dad.
Adi Chopra’s one and only print interview was with film critic/editor Khalid Mohamed.
The Romantics starts streaming on Netflix on Valentine’s Day February 14.
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I’m very excited to be doing my OTT debut: Shahid Kapoor

As Shahid Kapoor Gets Ready To Make His Digital Debut, He Takes Time Off For A Q & A With Subhash K Jha
Farzi is your first foray into the OTT space. How would you describe the experience? Is it any different from doing the films for the big screen?
I’m very excited to be doing my OTT debut, as everybody calls it. I think I did it because I love the directors Raj and DK and their work, and I actually really really liked the idea and the concept behind Farzi, the world of counterfeiting . I felt Sunny was a character that was as challenging as some of my most challenging characters as I’ve done yet. So I immediately wanted to do it.
And was it any different shooting for an OTT series?
Of course, it’s different because you’re watching the character over five to six hours as opposed to maybe two to two and a half hours. So it’s a deeper, wider opportunity to bring a character to life, that’s it.
Farzi gave you the opportunity to work with the great Vijay Sethupathi and also the creators Raj and DK. So what was that experience like?
With Raj and DK, I’ve loved Family Man very much and we’ve met over time and always wanted to collaborate. So I was really looking forward to it. In fact, I asked them if they have a show because they were calling me for a movie because they didn’t really expect… they didn’t think after Kabir Singh, I’d like to do something like that , or whatever. But I actually asked them for it and probed for it, and then they actually told me about this concept which we had discussed as a movie earlier.
So why was the feature film converted into a digital series?
It was just too elaborate to turn into a movie, to fit into a movie. It was only extremely sensible of them to turn it into a show because it deserves that much screen time.
What was it like working with Vijay Sethupathi?
With Vijay sir, it’s been a pleasure. And I want to see how people receive the show. He’s a fantastic actor who has always rediscovered himself and given people completely different experiences when he has come on the big screen. So it’s a privilege to have him on the show. And I had a blast working with him.
Shahid, it’s been twenty years since you started as a leading man. How do you look back on your career so far?
I feel very fortunate to still be here. And I feel grateful that people find my work relevant. I feel there’s a lot more that I would like to do. And I think I am as charged as I was at the age of 21, giving my first shot, as I am today. And I think that’s the best part of the entire journey, that I still am as excited and as curious to get on that film floor and give my next shot. I think that’s what drives any artist.
Tell me about your forthcoming projects?
I’ve got Farzi coming out on 10 Feb. And then there’s a movie with Ali Abbas Zafar, which is an action thriller, a slick action fun film, which will come out in the middle of this year. And then there’s a high-concept quirky love story that I’m doing with Maddock Films, which is directed by a new director. His name is Amit Joshi. It has me and Kriti Sanon in it, and Dharam ji and Dimple ma’am and various other very talented people.
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