The Fabelmans: I wasn't too keen to watch it but am happy that I did. Spielberg based it on his own childhood and had to wait for his parents' death to finally make it. It's not easy to make a movie in which your mother's infidelity is and the subsequent unraveling of the family is … Continue reading What I Watched – July 2026
In 1881, America was a relatively young country while Europe was associated with grandeur, heritage and an aristocratic culture shaped by centuries of history. The psychological complexity of America’s engagement with this was the heart of Henry James’ fiction. He was the brother of the equally famous psychologist William James and the two of them … Continue reading Isabel Archer in ‘The Portrait of a Lady’
Emily Wilson’s translation of Homers ‘Odyssey’ is excellent and I was engrossed in the epic over the last few days. Around a decade back, I had read the Robert Fagles translation and even after this reading my opinion of the epic hasn’t changed much. The Odyssey is overrated. I also understand that a lot of … Continue reading Some thoughts on ‘The Odyssey’
The Housemaid: I predicted the twist in this 'psychological thriller' within a few minutes. I liked Sweeney. There's something in her, probably her droopy eyes? Dossier 137: What a movie! The quality of a democracy is driven by the integrity and professionalism of its institutions. An investigator investigating police misdemeanors tracks the propagators of a … Continue reading What I Watched – June 2026
Perfect Days: Wrote about this here Vaastuhara: Aravindan's last movie. A friend of mine, while helping her parents shift residences from Delhi to Kolkata, reset a password for her dad as 'Vaastuhara' - The Dispossessed. Reminded of the movie that I probably watched decades ago, I found it on YouTube. Mohanlal at his peak, a … Continue reading What I Watched – May 2026
Earlier this month, I saw a few scenes of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ when my daughters were glued to it. There’s this scene where Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) puts Andy Sachs (Anne Hatheway) in her place when she expresses disdain and nonchalance over some high-end luxury garment. In the space of a few minutes, Priestley … Continue reading Luxury, Desire, Economics: The World Behind ‘The Devil Wears Prada’
In popular imagination, the Allied invasion of continental Europe is dominated by the Normandy Landings. The opening amphibious landing scene in Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and the Cold War narrative of the joint Anglo-American thrust to free Europe and clear the road to Berlin have both contributed to this narrative. The truth was that months … Continue reading The Forgotten ‘Battle for Italy’ and Naples in 1944
Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy is essentially a meditation on whether a copy of a work of art can possess the same “essence” as the original. I watched it mainly because it featured Juliette Binochet, and the film certainly did not disappoint. It was charming, eccentric, strange, and undeniably brave in attempting something though Kiarostami could … Continue reading Warhol and Jasper Johns’ ‘Coca Cola’
After “A Room with a View’, I felt I had to read Forster’s other famed work – “A Passage to India’. Though I’m late to the party, I’m convinced that this book would rank as one of the best works of fiction written by a foreigner about India. The closest rival to this claim would … Continue reading Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’
I finally watched Wim Wenders' 'Perfect Days' which came out in 2023 only to discover that the wonderful movie was commissioned as a marketing pitch for the 'Tokyo Toilet' project. The 'Tokyo Toilet' project was an initiative of Nippon Foundation under which 17 toilets were redesigned by 16 world famous architects including Pritzker awardees, in … Continue reading The Tokyo Toilet
