Owen Brents, the unassuming winner of the sixth season of Masterchef Australia reveals how he went from being a bobcat driver to a culinary sensation
'This is a giant film, a magnum opus drunk on its own magnum-ity, and it is perfectly clear early on, as the narrative races out the gate and gauntlets are flung up in the air and shot through with arrows, that a film like this can only work as opera,' says Raja Sen.
Madras Cafe is a swift, smart and serious study of an inglorious chapter of history, writes Sukanya Verma.
'It was a lifetime opportunity for an actor to get such a vast platform and play the sexiest and most powerful God.' Mohit Raina's life admittedly changed when the titular role in Devon Ke Dev... Mahadev came his way.
'There are a lot of things to make the series The Night Of relevant.' 'The decision to make it -- not only South Asian, but Pakistani Muslim -- is intensively relevant with what's going on today.'
Sukanya Verma lists the lessons Bollywood taught us this year.
'On my way to Aamir Khan's office, I was thinking about what to say, how to react. I thought that I should get a picture clicked with him because the casting probably won't happen, as it's too big a film.' But Sakshi Tanwar *was* cast as Aamir Khan's wife in his sports drama, Dangal.
'While Television generally tends to Clarity,' says Sreehari Nair, 'Arnab Goswami's The Newshour Debate portrays our confusions. Each episode offers both the potency of an intensely-fought boxing match and the giddy pleasures of an orgy.'
Away from the cricket field, it was a year in which Sania Mirza was unarguably the biggest success story with her staggering 10 titles on the Tour -- two of them Grand Slams.
The most thrilling, romantic, terrifying, musical and comical tring tring moments!
'When I see the final moments of Padmaavat, it reminds me of how strong and powerful and intelligent women are.' 'I feel so powerful and alive as a woman.'
Sukanya Verma shares her exciting filmi week with us.
Even as France mourns the bloodiest terrorist attack for 20 years, let's take a look at some major standoffs witnessed in the past:
'The entire Ufa fiasco was predictable and predicted. The Ufa venue had created international interest in the initiative and its failure may have implications for both Pakistan and India. What remains for Modi to do is to produce a prettier rabbit out of his hat next time to deal with the Pakistan imbroglio,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Sukanya Verma shares her exciting filmi week with us.
On Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 91st birth anniversary on September 30, we bring back a Rediff Special done on the brilliant filmmaker in December 2002.
The BJP's national leadership seems to have convinced itself that with a weakened, post-Jaya AIADMK for company, they should be able to strike roots before long, and start by winning about 10-15 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Peter said he needed a broom to sweep his cell because, he joked, there are no vacuum cleaners in jail.
'How can the BJP give Muslim candidates tickets if they don't have any good Muslim candidates?'
Purab Kohli on fatherhood, Rock On!! 2, POW and more...
'To identify with the common man, Modi had to look like one.' 'The disastrous suit with his name written on it never made its reappearance.' 'Frequent dress changes during the day, which led Arvind Kejriwal to calculate that Modi spent crores on his attire ever year, too stopped.' 'Instead, a newer Modi emerged: Humble and eager to serve.' Narendra Modi has cleverly repositioned himself as a man of the masses in the past three years, says Aditi Phadnis.
Ronit Roy talks about the second season of Adaalat and his upcoming Hollywood and Bollywood projects.
In our special series revisiting great Hindi film classics, we look back at Randhir Kapoor and Jaya Bhaduri's 1972 film, Jawani Diwani.
Intensive training and meticulous planning have gone into the making of Dangal.
Three films and one TV show old Suraj Sharma is glad that an acting career means he is not behind a desk. Aseem Chhabra finds out that despite a life that can be heady Suraj hasn't lost sight of reality
Salim-Javed's speciality was conjuring the kind of violence that played on your mind rather than the sort that played out only in front of your eyes.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled out making "wholesale changes" in the collegium system of appointment of judges for higher judciary.
Mekhail delivered the most deliberate heart-tugging line of the day: "If a son asks his mother for money is wrong, then tell me." At the back Indrani gave one of her most beaming smiles that was meant to convey the exact opposite. This was no mother happy that her son had said he turned to her when he needed money because she was his mother.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
Saif Ali Khan shares his dilemmas as an eager-to-experiment star actor and his kids' probable foray in Bollywood.
'I had seen Waqt, starring Balraj Sahniji, and I can never forget it. There is a happy family and an earthquake later, everything is gone. That movie got stuck in my head. How one man loses his entire family and becomes a pauper. The same thing happens in Airlift.' Akshay Kumar, and his lovely leading lady Nimrat Kaur discuss their latest film.
Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street could set a bad precedent, feels Aseem Chhabra.
'We have the political will to take this to the very end.' 'But what eventually happens depends on the effectiveness, honesty and missionary zeal of the officialdom in the frontline of the battle against corruption,' says S Muralidharan.
Malayalam film audiences, who had spent close to two decades waiting for something truly interesting to watch at the movies, seem to be finally getting their due.
Does Pranab Mukherjee want to be 'PM' by office, not just by initials? The very prospect, with memories of the Narasimha Rao years scarred into their memories, scares the Nehru-Gandhis, says T V R Shenoy.
The AgustaWestland issue was fiercely debated in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday with members of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress blaming each other.
Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali looks back at his movies.
'The man who never knows when he is beaten deserved, on the day he played what will be his last World Cup game, mates who were not beaten in the mind before they were beaten on the field.' Prem Panicker salutes 'India's best one day captain by a long margin who led superbly throughout the tournament.'
'Thirty years ago, if you walked into a chawl, there would be three TV sets in 30 houses. Today, you'll see TV sets in all 30 houses. So the viewers have increased, but of a certain strata. Sadly, the educated and upper classes have stopped watching TV shows because of the availability of the Internet.' Balika Vadhu writer Gajra Kottary tries to explain to Ronjita Kulkarni/ Rediff.com where Indian television is going wrong.
'Every Ali obituary I read made the point that he 'transcended his sport' -- a reference to the many battles he fought with America even as he fought in America.' 'What the obituaries leave out is that Ali equally transcended the boundaries of geography and of information -- as witness the Chennai teen who assimilated that most mobile of fighters through still images shorn of context.'
