BLTR

Director duo Pushkar-Gayathri’s latest web series Suzhal is an investigative thriller. The usually sleepy Sambaloor is gearing up to stage its biggest event of the year -- the nine-day Mayana Kollai festival. On the first night of the festival, two major things happen. The local cement factory burns down in a fire accident, and the fifteen-year-old Nila goes missing. The series follows Inspector Regina (Shriya) and Chakrvarthy (Kathir) as they follow the trail to solve the case. Crime investigative thrillers are not exactly alien territory -- especially ones that are set in sleepy, small towns. The most recent example would be Kate Winslet’s Mare of Easttown. And it’s a hard space to keep the audience hooked and in suspense. Crime thrillers come with a caveat -- we know the actual criminal only will be revealed at the end. It’s like watching Scooby-Doo; you just know that the ‘suspects’ in the middle of the episode will be bogus. But the challenge is to overcome this by making the ride...

The late 1960s and early 70s was a fecund time for US cinema, but not every revolutionary film from that period has achieved the hallowed status of a Mean Streets or a Badlands. One, at least, has been lost for almost half a century. Emerging out of San Francisco’s countercultural Haight-Ashbury scene, Luminous Procuress is an enigmatic, transgressive and gleefully queer journey to the divine state of enlightenment lurking just beyond the carnal. And you can’t say that about The Godfather. Steven Arnold’s first and only feature brought him to the attention of Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí, and seemed sure to set him on the path to cinematic greatness. It begins with two handsome young naifs, one in a groovy mushroom-coloured catsuit, being welcomed at the lavish modernist home of the Procuress. Played by Arnold’s friend Pandora in tarantula lashes and a horizontal pink wig shaped like a milkmaid’s yoke, she is their tour guide in a labyrinth of outre attractions. In one room, they find...

It’s tough being Chris Hemsworth’s Thor right now. As the new trailer for Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder shows us, the latest episode of the Marvel superhero’s adventures has him replaced as the god of thunder by his ex-girlfriend Jane Foster, now known as the Mighty Thor, and stripped naked by Russell Crowe’s Zeus as assorted females ogle and faint. It’s enough to get the men’s-rights brigade gasping in horror, and duly there are already umpteen threads on Reddit decrying Hollywood’s double standards. If a female character were treated in the same way, there would be an outcry, goes the common refrain. Some point to the fact that Hemsworth complained (pretty half-heartedly, it must be said) about having to take his top off in the last Thor episode, 2017’s Ragnarok. Won’t somebody please think of the poor Aussie actor’s feelings in all this? Can’t those mean women and liberals just leave him alone, for Odin’s sake? Out there in the multiverse somewhere there is probably a movie...

Top Gun: Maverick is poised to continue its epic box office run this weekend; with no major competition at US multiplexes, it’ll soon zoom past the $250m mark in domestic grosses alone, with $400m or more still well within its sights. It could wind up the highest-grossing movie of the year, at least until Avatar 2 drops. If you read the analysis of certain right-leaning pundits, Top Gun: Maverick’s triumph is their triumph, and a rebuke of “woke culture” – by which is meant, movies and TV shows that do not exclusively feature white men in their leading roles. It is indeed true that Top Gun: Maverick does not go out of its way to celebrate inclusion and diversity in the sometimes-cloying, corporate way most closely associated with various Disney properties. (If there’s no “first gay character in Top Gun” that we know of, that’s OK; Disney will continue assigning similar designations to minor and/or desexualized characters for years to come!) It stars Tom Cruise, reprising his role as wh...

Nargis Fakhri looked breathtakingly beautiful as she recently walked the red carpet at Cannes 2022. The actress donned a baby pink coloured embellished gown with shimmers for her appearance at the prestigious event. Actor Nargis Fakhri is back in India after her stunning appearance on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival 2022 and she calls the entire experience surreal. “Walking the red carpet is always exciting,” the actor, who attended the screening of Forever Young (Les Amandiers) on Day 6 of the extravaganza, told Firstpost in a conversation. The 75th annual Film Festival took place from 17 to 28 May 2022. Nargis looked ethereal in a baby pink coloured embellished gown with shimmers and completed her look with a high bun and minimal make-up. Elaborating further on the experience, the 42-year-old jokingly compared it with riding a bike. “Initially, I was a little nervous because Cannes is such a big and international festival and I think every girl gets nervous anyway because ...

Papon, who walked the Cannes red carpet, opens up on taking Assamese cinema to the global scale, wearing an Assamese shawl at the festival and more. Singer Papon was among the luminaries from India to have graced the prestigious Cannes Film Festival as the cultural ambassador of Assam. He also attended the film gala in the capacity of a producer for two of his films, The Land Of The Beats and The Mystical Brahmaputra - A Musical Journey, whose teasers were unveiled at the festival. Papon, who has belted out a slew of chartbusters like 'Kyon' (Barfi; 2012) and 'Moh Moh Ke Dhaage' (Dum Laga Ke Haisha; 2015), was also a panellist for a discussion titled The Gateway To The Northeast, which touched upon film policies, locales, cultural heritage and hospitality of Assam. We caught up with the musician who spoke to us about being one of the few singers to attend Cannes, taking Assamese cinema to the global scale, wearing an Assamese shawl on the red carpet and more. Excerpts f...