La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ (1906) - Scene Guide

For a long time I've been meaning to sit down and actually watch La naissance, la vie et la mort du Christ ( The Birth, Life and Death...

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

The Siren's essay for the Blu-Ray release of Here Comes Mr. Jordan , the immortal supernatural comedy made at Columbia in 1941 and direc...

In which Gulshan Grover plays a good guy (and can't finish his bath)

[ my latest Mint Lounge column ] Middle age can make you mushy in unexpected contexts. In the 1980s, if someone had told my child-self that ...

On a biography of Shashi Kapoor, householder and movie star

[ Did this essay-cum-review for Open magazine ] My childhood memories of Shashi Kapoor are mainly of ‘Amitabh’s favourite heroine’, as one ...

From Text to Image. What Silent Shakespeare Gets Right and Modern Bible Films Get Wrong

A common response when I mention silent film versions of Shakespeare is confusion. A look that says "but how would that even work?...

"Steel and Silk": A 100th Birthday Tribute to Olivia de Havilland, at Sight & Sound

The Siren is proud to announce that she was asked by the venerable Sight & Sound to write a tribute to Olivia de Havilland on the occasi...

Chupke Chupke, with drivers, botanists and communists

[An excerpt from my book The World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee: The Filmmaker Everyone Loves . This is from Chapter 4, titled “Milavat, Banavat”...