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Is there no justice in this world? Lex Luthor argues that since God takes sides, he cannot be a just hero, and likewise Superman, who is revered as God’s agent on earth. What if Superman went rogue, he postulates? So, he asks the White House to allow him to import kryptonite (rock from Kal El’s native planet, Krypton, that robs him of his superpowers) from an ancient ship wreckage in the Indian Ocean, just in case....
Senators are not impressed, possibly because instead of behavin...
Eye in the Sky, Review: Mor(t)al blows
Collateral damage has been an emotion charged topic for debates world-wide, ever since the USA began bombing foreign locations, where, it believed, wanted persons were living, hiding or gathering. Along with its allies, notably the UK, the USA has been carrying out pre-emptive air-strikes for decades. Eye in the Sky (the title does not do full justice to its theme and thrust) is about the compunction experienced by a group of high-placed government offic...
Race, Review: Giving racists a run for their money
How long does it take for an Olympic champion to run 100 metres? Less than 10 seconds. Jesse Owens (1913-1980) was the first American in the history of Olympic track and field to win four gold medals in a single Olympiad. Back in 1936, the attention span of viewers must have been considerably longer than in this age of nano-second technology. Therefore, to make a 2h 14m film on events that occurred 80 years ago, to attract dwindling audiences...
The Program, Review: Enhanced performances
First, there was a musician called Louis Armstrong. Then most of earth and all of moon heard about Neil Armstrong. Much later, we read and saw the exploits of cycling champion Lance Armstrong. Louis remains a musical great. Man-on-the-moon was an unimaginable theory that captured the hearts and minds of the whole world, but has now found its detractors, probably growing steadily in number, who claim the whole program (American spelling intended) was ...
Triple 9, Review: 9 pins
If bodies count in a crime drama, the body count in Triple 9 is very high. In fact, hardly anybody is left alive in the end. So that makes it morbid. Decapitation and gore galore make it really blood-curdling. Cops and criminals mixing and mingling, while betraying and killing each other, make it confusing. High-profile robberies, blackmail, drug dealers, buddy-buddy cops, uncle-nephew, brother-brother, alcoholic cop, titillation (if the censors have let it pass), bet...
13 Hours-The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Review: Michael? No Bay!
This 144 minute film is a good 44 minutes too long for its own good. It reconfirms the golden rule that true stories are not necessarily film material, unless worked-on real hard by a team of talented individuals, more behind the camera than in front of it. That it is produced and directed by Michael Bay adds to the disappointment. How accurate it is, in terms of recent history, is a matter of debate, both in the USA and in Li...
Zootopia (known as Zootropolis in some countries) is Disney’s 55th animated feature, in 3D computer graphics. The theme--unlikely buddies teaming-up to solve a crime--is not exactly a novel idea in Hollywood productions, but buddy comedy-drama takes an entirely new meaning when the buddies happen to be a rabbit and a fox, and the villains are animals too, for this make-believe tale is set in Zootopia, a highly civilised, modern and automated mammal world, sans human beings. Though there ...
London Has Fallen, Review: The Butler did it
If he can save the White House, can London be far behind? To be accurate, it never really fell. Yes, London Bridge was blown up. A few hundred armed terrorists, with a few dozen combat vehicles, had gained access to the city’s communications network, donned local police uniforms, blown-up most of the historical monuments and deployed surface to air missiles locked at the escaping US President’s helicopter, and all was well, until Mike B...
45 Years, Review: 95 minutes of great cinema
A tender and touching British film waits you in the shape of 45 Years. If you have had enough of mass destructive action, comic superheroes and animation, try this slice of life that challenges you to find artificiality in either the narrative or in the performances. No action at all, no heroes, no animation, very little comedy, a few dies of subtle humour, and the sex quotient is a lesson in bedroom manners.
The film takes place across six days, ...
An Australia-United States co-production, Gods of Egypt was shot in Australia, predominantly on green screens, at Fox Studios, Sydney. Most ‘Egyptian’ Gods are played by Caucasian actors and the boundaries between earth, the sky, heaven, hell, man, god, ferocious bird, plasto-metallic creatures, life and death, are all blurred. CGI, forced perspective, shooting with two cameras side-by-side, motion control, are the flavours of the day.
Authenticity is conspicuous by its absence. R...
It happens around Christmas, so Carol is the quite the name of the season. Yes, there is snow and Christmas trees and gifts, but Carol is no innocent Santa Claus tale. Rather, it is an exquisitely woven love story, between two women. We can call them lesbians today, without looking over the shoulder, but when Patricia Highsmith wrote the novel, in Senator McCarthy’s America of the early 1950s, a time of witch-hunting, the term would surely invite wrath. Sixty-four years later, there are ...
One look at the well-produced brochure and the handy schedule told me that a whole lot of personnel and corporate bodies had contributed, in cash and in effort, to put FFFF together. For the forty- two odd films screened, the festival sponsors and partners thanked for their participation numbered the same. With such support, a much better show could have been put up. But that’s another story.
Question arose, why were there only 42 films in three days and three venues? Because many films...
FICCI FLO Film Festival, Report, I: FLO Mo
Known for organising India’s biggest three-day Media and Entertainment conclave in March every year, FRAMES, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) held its first film festival in the city of Mumbai, during February 18-20, a fortnight after the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) and six weeks before FRAMES. It was organised by the FICCI Ladies Organisation, FLO. Unfortunately, due to a host of reasons, FICCI F...
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Review: Gory pride, bloody prejudice
It’s not quite like anything you have seen before. Imagine going on a cruise, in a carrier that is part horse-drawn and part ship. On board, there are two sets of activities going on: a family of five sisters and their parents are trying to get the girls married by hook or by crook, and another set of creatures, called the zombies or the undead, are fe
eding on human flesh, threatening to eat up all the humans who in...
How to be Single, Review: Not this way, for sure
There is no success formula to being single, just as there is no magic prescription for being married. Time was when you were either single or married. Time is when you could be single, married, twice married, thrice married, nth time married, divorced, nth time divorced, undergoing trial separation, in a relationship, into one-night stands…. But the title of this film indicates that is about persons who are single, so let’s keep i...
After it was shown to the Central Board of Film Certification in Mumbai last week, I learnt that Deadpool was offered a U/A (under 16 not allowed unless accompanied by adults), if they deleted some content, otherwise the certificate would say A (for Adults Only). The distributors were happy with an A rating, so the content was left intact. But the question that arose then, as it had arisen when I learnt that it was rated R abroad, was why is a super hero comic cartoon character film being rest...
Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) is a successful American screen-writer in the Hollywood of the 30s and 40s. However, his outspoken support for labour unions, and his membership of the Communist Party of the USA, draws the contempt of staunchly anti-Soviet entertainment industry figures, such as columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and actor John ‘Duke’ Wayne (David James Elliott). J. Parnell Thomas (James DuMont) heads the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
Trumbo is one o...
MIFF 2016: Winners’ list
Manipuri documentary film Phum Shang (Floating Life) won the Golden Conch Award for the Best Documentary Film (up to 60 minutes) at the 14th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) for Documentary, Animation and Short Films, which ended on 03 February 2016. Swiss film My Name is Salt, and Indian entry Placebo shared the Gold Conch award for the Best Feature length Documentary Film.
In the picture are, l to r, Mukesh Sharma (Director,...
MIFF 2016: Q & A, with the International Jury
In the last press conference of Mumbai International Film festival (MIFF), three of the five members of the international competition jury came up to the Media Centre on Tuesday, 02 February, met members of the press, and answered various questions related to their experience at MIFF. Jesper Anderson from Denmark is a journalist and film curator, Don Askarian a German film-maker of Armenian origin whose award-winning films are being screened a...
MIFF 2016: National Jury speaks its mind
Films in the competition section at the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) are divided into three main categories, national, international and Public Service Advertising (PSA). A five-member jury viewed the 27 films in the national category, and, after completing their task, met the press at the Media Centre, on 02 February, Tuesday.
Two of them--internationally acclaimed wildlife film-maker Mike Pandey and Taiwan-based festival programmer and ...
Midway through Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF), the Director and the Brand Ambassador met the press on Monday, 01 February, at the Media Centre, in the Films Division Complex. It was the customary mid-fest conference, but with the addition of a new feature, the brand ambassador.
“I am delighted to see that large numbers of viewers are sitting in our halls and watching documentary, short and animation films from around the world,” began Mukesh Sharma. (He was being...
MIFF 2016: Indian women pack a punch
Ameesha Joshi, born in Canada to immigrant Indian parents, and Anna Sarkissian, of Egyptian/Armenian-Irish parentage, could not have imagined that their documentary on Mary Kom, Sarita Devi and Chhoto Loura, famed women boxers of India, would take 10 years to complete. But, like resolute boxers, they never let circumstances knock them out, and, to their delight, their ambitious 87-minute film, With This Ring (not be confused with the 2015 American TV film ...
MIFF 2016: Harshal Wadkar: Cyclic emotions
Pune-based amateur film-maker Harshal Wadkar, whose film 30-minute short fiction film Cycle was screened at the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) in the national competition section, met the press at the Media Centre, Films Division, on the 31st of January, and followed it with a Q and A session. To begin with, some clips of his film were shown, to set the tone, after which he made his opening remarks.
Wadkar said he and a group of his fri...
MIFF 2016: FD’s North-East outreach
Films Division (FD) has initiated an outreach programme to inculcate the fine art of film-making in the far-flung areas of India’s North-East. Six young, first-time film-makers were taught the intricacies of the craft at a prolonged mentoring effort. It was literally ‘a dream come true’ for Pi Lallianpuii (Deputy Director, Information and Public Relations, Mizoram), Aldrin Losanghina (Mizoram), Anungla (Nagaland), Tiakumzuk Ao (Nagal...
MIFF 2016: Mike Pandey: “We need many more documentary makers”
In 1994, Mike Pandey won the Wildscreen Panda Award, better known as the Green Oscar, for his film on the capture of wild elephants, The Last Migration: Wild Elephant Capture in Surguja. Till he made the film, nobody believed they existed off the Indian coast! He won the award twice again, in 2000 for Shores of Silence: Whale Sharks in India, and another Panda came for Vanishing Giants (2004), making it a total o...
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About Siraj Syed
 Syed Siraj
(Siraj Associates)
Siraj Syed is a film-critic since 1970 and a Former President of the Freelance Film Journalists' Combine of India.
He is the India Correspondent of FilmFestivals.com and a member of FIPRESCI, the international Federation of Film Critics, Munich, Germany
Siraj Syed has contributed over 1,015 articles on cinema, international film festivals, conventions, exhibitions, etc., most recently, at IFFI (Goa), MIFF (Mumbai), MFF/MAMI (Mumbai) and CommunicAsia (Singapore). He often edits film festival daily bulletins.
He is also an actor and a dubbing artiste. Further, he has been teaching media, acting and dubbing at over 30 institutes in India and Singapore, since 1984.
Bandra West, Mumbai India View my profileSend me a message
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