Ghost, Review: Jailhouse Rock ‘The Warden threw a party in the county jail, The prison band was there and they began to wail’ wrote Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, for the legendary Elvis Presley to sing, in the 1957 film, Jailhouse Rock, a jail film, as the title suggests. 66 years later, we have an Indian jail film that draws no inspiration from Jailhouse Rock. In fact, it is not clear at all where the inspiration, if any, for Ghost, came from. Could it have come from a ghost? A ...

Radhe Shyam, Review: Goodness gracious, how flirtatious! At its core, Radhe Shyam rakes-up an interesting debate, between destiny and those exceptions who surmount their pre-ordained destiny, and, in some cases, defy it. For destiny, read ‘predictions based on palmistry’. And yet, it tilts the balance strongly in favour of destiny, putting forth emphatically the theory that 99% of us cannot escape what has been written on our palms. Had this been the track that the screenplay deve...

Siraj Syed’s IFFI 2016 diary, IV: BRICS by bricks A film festival, with a competition section, was held in September, in New Delhi, preceding the Brazil, India China, Russia and South Africa (BRICS) summit, to which Goa played host last month. 20 films (4 each from member countries) were screened. Awards were given in five categories: (i) Best Film- Thithi (India); (ii) Best Actor Male- Thabo Rametsi (South Africa); (iii) Best Actor Female- Yulia Pereslid (Russia); (iv) Best Director- H...