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July 27, 2016
All hail the prolific, eclectic Ekta Kapoor
'If Kapoor sees something in a film, or an idea, she will ensure it reaches the most eyeballs -- by any means necessary,' points out Raja Sen!

June 15, 2016
Censorship, <em>Udta Punjab</em> and the state of Indian cinema
Much as we'd like it to, all hasn't changed. In our country, the revolution must be polite and careful not to offend. Still, Raja Sen assures, there is hope.

January 14, 2014
Golden Globes 2014: Leave it to the Wolf
Raja Sen looks back at all the 'genuinely thrilling' films and artists that were honoured at the 71st Golden Globes.

March 01, 2011
How the Oscars bamboozled us
Raja Sen feels severely let down by this year's Academy Awards.

July 15, 2010
He loved irony, but how I wish it loved him less
'And then came a mail from Sourabh, talking about how I'd forgotten his birthday but also --in that offhand way -- mentioning how he'd been diagnosed with cancer.'

January 15, 2010
The name's Man, Spider Man
Here's why Sony and Marvel should pitch Spider-Man as a prestige franchise like James Bond.

August 10, 2009
Why everyone should watch The Breakfast Club
Remembering John Hughes, the wonderful filmmaker with the ability to tap into all our childhoods.

June 11, 2009
How Indian television's stretching the point
The major reason Indian television winds on forever is that shows are built around a set-up instead of an actual plot.

May 29, 2009
Why Archie should marry Veronica
For once, Archie has gotten it absolutely right. He's gone with the girl he wants, not the one everyone thinks he should end up with.

May 13, 2009
99 not out, and nervous as hell
Raja Sen tells us why we should watch 99, a film starring Kunal Khemu, Boman Irani, Cyrus Broacha, Amit Mistry, Soha Ali Khan, Mahesh Manjrekar and Vinod Khann, which he has written the dialogues for.

April 30, 2009
How Bollywood could react to IPL 2
Raise a toast and check out what Raja Sen thinks could be the filmi fallout of IPL 2009.

April 10, 2009
Senterfold: Oh shut up, Warner Brothers
Dear WB, put a sock in it, willya? The megalithic movie studio has now suddenly issued Indian producers a notice saying they have no right to remake one of their movies. Stern action, they promise, will be taken.

March 18, 2009
Senterfold: The Reader Review Champions
Raja Sen reveals the winning ones.

February 23, 2009
India conquers the Oscars
Indian cinema has gone from winning two Oscars in all its lifetime -- a lifetime achievement Honorary Oscar for Satyajit Ray, one for Bhanu Hathaiya for Costume Design in Gandhi -- to adding three more in the same day. Wow.

November 25, 2008
The Reader Review Challenge
Pick a movie you absolutely loathe and then spend 100 words telling our columnist Raja Sen just what makes that particular movie truly godawful.

November 19, 2008
Riffing With The Readers, Vol 2
Raja Sen answers some of your most burning questions.

November 14, 2008
An Open Letter to Sir Salman Rushdie
A fan's plea to let Midnight's Children be.

October 16, 2008
The father of all DVDs
The Godfather, its fantastic sequel and that misunderstood third film have been spiffied up digitally and restored to super quality -- complete with remastered sound -- in a lovely box-set called The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration, and for all of us fans, it's a DVD-set we can't refuse.

September 23, 2008
Bollywood's most interesting bloggers
There indeed exists a tribe of filmi bloggers from our very nation who use the medium wonderfully well, provide insight and perspective and humour, and deserve to be celebrated. These are the folks making sure the sky isn't falling on our heads just yet.

September 17, 2008
Is Abhishek Bachchan trying too hard?
Abhishek Bachchan is playing some sort of mythic superhero and -- while there could definitely be something interesting bubbling under the bright-gold surface -- the actor seems decidedly miscast in the role. Again, we are judging based on pre-release imagery, but even if the role is a great one, I daresay most of us would be surprised. There's just something about Abhishek that doesn't quite lend itself to a simplistic superhero movie.

September 09, 2008
The children's cinema stalemate
If our kids want Mallika more than Malgudi, there's clearly something very, very wrong.

August 26, 2008
The funniest show you've never seen
Or if you actually have seen HBO's sensational comedy show Flight Of The Conchords, then more power to you, mate. I just had to spread the word.

August 18, 2008
Get over the Knight
But now, the hype now isn't just deafening, it's claustrophobic.

August 06, 2008
They can't Come Soon enough
One of the reasons movies disappoint audiences often is because of how good the trailers are. It is, admittedly, easier to cut 90-150 seconds of the finest, most tantalising footage from over a 100 minutes of film and look way cooler than the film itself, but the best trailers increase anticipation to almost unreal levels --- and the ensuing films seldom live up to that kind of hype.

July 24, 2008
Too many stars spoil even the idiot box
Shah Rukh and Akshay might be the most overexposed stars in the country today, and Salman's close enough. And they're still trying to show us more, nudge us into laughing, get us glued to the screen.

July 16, 2008
What if Heath Ledger messes up?
We stand poised on the brink of certain history. I will take wagers -- at whatever odds you offer -- that despite The Dark Knight coming to theatres only on Friday, there is already more than enough guaranteed buzz about its central performance to nab it a posthumous Best Actor Oscar nomination.

July 09, 2008
The book-to-film debate, round one
I open up this space to you now, dear readers. Write in to me with examples, good and bad, of books being adapted to film, and your thoughts on the questions I'm currently thinking about. There is much I still want to discuss, and over the coming weeks this column will, from time to time, keep revisiting the subject at length.

July 01, 2008
Review: Best Batman Ever
Now, days before the undeniably, lipsmackingly promising The Dark Knight hits the screens, we have Batman: Gotham Knight, the single greatest screen version of any Batman ever, and it's simply marvellous.

June 26, 2008
Wishing for the Yash Raj theme park
Yash Raj Films have pioneeringly signed on to create a Bollywood-themed park in Dubai. Built in association with Dubai Infinity Holdings, the glitzy Yash Raj Films Entertainment District is set to open in 2012.

June 17, 2008
Fathers, films and freakin' awesomeness
Father's Day is really a bit of a stretch in terms of a day of celebration, but, especially in our mother-worshipping motherland, dads take what they can get. So I decided this week's column ought be a look at how our cinema usually says papa.

June 10, 2008
If Aishwarya Rai was a man
Why is it that directors think their interviews aren't relevant enough to last beyond the week of pre-release hype? It's insane. They say anything they want to promote their film, but what is the need for absolute falsehood? Public memory might be short, but newsprint -- and weblinks, today -- live on, yet our directors continue to say things for the heck of it.

May 26, 2008
Why angry old men shouldn't blog
Raja Sen on Amitabh Bachchan's blog, and why the superstar needs a crash course on celebrity blogs.

May 19, 2008
Movies we don't admit we love
was quite horribly ill the day Iron Man released, which is why, despite being a hardcore Marvel Comics fanatic, I couldn't review the film -- or even see it till 5 days later, while friends raved breathlessly and cruelly dropped me spoiler bits. The film is a blast, of course.

May 07, 2008
Where have all the stoner movies gone?
It's been a disastrous year for Hindi cinema, what with us in Month 5 and not one unanimously loved film among the lot. What we do have, however, are films of unparallelled idiocy, comedies each more harebrained than the other, thrillers that plumb the depths of low farce.

April 15, 2008
Written By... some guy sitting abroad
It really hurts that the very act of writing the Friday reviews has been reduced to a sort of pattern these days. We talk about the stars, the director, sum up the effort in a few brief lines, and then, almost inevitably, go on to discuss exactly which DVDs the spanking new film has been filched from. It's disgraceful, and, frankly, rather tiresome.

April 01, 2008
The Age Of The Couch Potato
American television today, thanks to edgy networks like Showtime and HBO, is producing intelligent, mature, adult content that is far superior, especially in both character development and consistency, to most anything out there on the big screen. This week, then, we'll take a look at a few shows you should hunt out DVDs for, or use your broadband connections to acquire.

March 27, 2008
Why I gave away the Race ending
Ever since it was published on Friday, the 1.5-star review for Abbas-Mustan's Race has generated considerable curiousity in terms of my revealing the film's ending. The film's makers have been constantly hounding me since late Saturday night, demanding that I take off the spoiler, simply because they just don't see the point.

November 01, 2007
Why 2007's been great for Bollywood
2007 marks the year indie cinema finally finds it's niche in Bollywood.

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