Jai Arjun Singh

    Persistence of Vision

    A night out at the movies

  • Heard a good story?

    In an interview recently, I was asked the sort of question that makes my toes curl in terror — something about "the nature and purpose of cinema". Cornered, I reluctantly mumbled something like: "A really good film is one where … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/06/17/heard-a-good-story/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • On the other side of the camera

    As a child, my efforts to understand a movie director's place in the scheme of things were thrown out of gear by Subhash Ghai's cameo in the "Ding Dong" song in Hero. You'll remember — or you should remember — … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/06/03/on-the-other-side-of-the-camera/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Of Underreported Sensex P/E Ratios

    When it comes to stock indexes, the fact that they are based on a collection of stocks makes it difficult for us to understand their characteristics. I had explained how the Sensex and Nifty EPS (Earnings per share) were calculated, … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/05/31/of-underreported-sensex-pe-ratios/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The banal and the beautiful: Great scenes in average films

    I used to think that being a naturally funny writer was an impediment to being a good reviewer (wouldn't one constantly be tempted to sacrifice the measured assessment at the altar of a reader-pleasing witticism?), but the work of David … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/05/19/the-banal-and-the-beautiful-great-scenes-in-average-films/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Bada star, chhota frame: the Amitabh cameos

    Many of us have fond memories of the so-called "Middle Cinema" of the 1970s and 80s — the relatively low-budget films made by such directors as Basu Chatterji, Sai Paranjpye and Gulzar. Their virtues — the understatement, the clean humour, … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/05/05/bada-star-chhota-frame-the-amitabh-cameos/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • “An essential moment, beyond all the formal planning”

    A few days ago I saw an old Alfred Hitchcock interview in a documentary titled "The Men who Made the Movies" (you can watch it here). Among other things, the Master discusses his method of preparing such sequences as the … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/04/21/an-essential-moment-beyond-all-the-formal-planning/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Mat jaane bhi do yaar: idealism and self-deception in Satyakam

    When I was doing the research for my book on Jaane bhi do Yaaro two years ago, writer-director Ranjit Kapoor (the film's dialogue writer) told me about an incident that changed his life. It was 1969 and Kapoor was a … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2011/04/08/mat-jaane-bhi-do-yaar-idealism-and-self-deception-in-satyakam/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Sympathy for the Devil

    A depressive, hung-over actor named Toby Dammit is being asked a string of banal questions at a press conference. He answers them crabbily; he looks like he hasn't slept in weeks. "Do you believe in God?" asks a reporter with … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/11/19/sympathy-for-the-devil/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The musical conquests of Goopy and Bagha

    I'm watching Satyajit Ray's fantasy-adventure classic Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, about two simpletons - the singer Goopy and the drummer Bagha - who use their music and their generally upbeat outlook towards life to help save the land of Shundi … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/11/05/the-musical-conquests-of-goopy-and-bagha/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Discreet charms of Luis Bunuel

    I figured my friend Amit Varma was being tongue-in-cheek when he wrote, in his Viewfinder column, about the artistic value of the reality show Bigg Boss. But then this sentence struck a chord: "Pundits say that the purpose of art … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/10/22/discreet-charms-of-luis-bunuel/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • A film and its cover

    Two very nice things happened to me last week. First, Manjula Padmanabhan (friend, multi-talented author and illustrator who once put me in a comic strip with the peerless Suki) dropped in with a gift: a couple of posters that she … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/10/08/a-film-and-its-cover/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The great director as movie buff

    A long, long time ago, I got my hands on The Variety Book of Movie Lists, a collection of "best-of" listings in numerous categories. The contributors included critics, authors and directors, and most of their lists, as you'd expect, were … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/09/24/the-great-director-as-movie-buff/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • How to stop worrying and lose your moustache

    Here's a trivia question. (Don't scroll down too quickly.) This popular director helmed two films - call them Movie A and Movie B - in the same year. A sequence in Movie A has the central character visiting a studio … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/09/10/how-to-stop-worrying-and-lose-your-moustache/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The Cowardly Samurai

    I've been a big fan of classical Japanese cinema for a long time, and like most other viewers who develop an interest in that country's movies, my approach route was through the three big names: Ozu, Kurosawa and Mizoguchi. But … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/08/27/the-cowardly-samurai/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Scared and loving it

    It was in Ludhiana of all places - during a three-week-long summer reunion between my mother and her cousins in 1989 - that I had my first ever brush with a Friday the 13th film. There wasn't much for me … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/08/13/scared-and-loving-it/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The art of the editor

    There's an unfortunate tendency in mainstream film "reviews" (you know, those hurriedly written 300-400-word things that appear each weekend in our newspapers) to break a movie up into its constituent parts and "grade" each of them: acting is Average, cinematography … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/07/30/the-art-of-the-edito/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Memories of Master Mayur

    The human mind is a worryingly unreliable thing. For years, I had the most vivid memory of an early scene from the 1973 film Yaadon ki Baaraat. Boy steals something from a shop, escapes pursuers, leaps off a bridge onto … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/07/16/memories-of-master-mayur/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • The Distorting Mirror

    When a film is based on a popular Broadway musical - full of loud and flamboyant production numbers - you expect it to begin with panache, or at least with a little light music. Instead, Bob Fosse's Cabaret opens with … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/07/02/the-distorting-mirror/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • Lights, Camera, Animal

    If you were a child watching Chitrahaar in the mid-1980s, the title song of a film called Teri Meherbaniyan undoubtedly lies buried in the dark crannies of your mind. Its refrain was almost too soulful to bear - prolonged and … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/06/18/lights-camera-animal/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

  • We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes

    How did Psycho come to infect my life? I clearly remember my first viewing of Hitchcock's great film - even the exact date, May 12, 1991. (It helps that I kept a diary at the time, but I would have … <a href="http://blog.tools.news.yahoo.com/opinions/2010/06/04/we-all-go-a-little-mad-sometimes/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>