ratnakar-sadasyula By Ratnakar Sadasyula Tony Scott was not an auteur, nor was he a director with an artistic touch. Unlike his brother Ridley, whose Blade Runner has been dissected  and analyzed, and whose Alien was as a landmark in sci fi horror, one would not  really ponder over every frame of Top Gun or even his best picture to date True Romance. Make no mistake, Tony Scott was as popcorn  as it gets, his movies were hard core entertainers all the way.  Still it takes some amount of skill to churn out an entertainer by itself, and Tony Scott was extremely good at it. His... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Seeti Maar Anand and The Shawshank Redemption By Ratnakar Sadasyula There are movies and then there are movies that cease to be mere cinema for you. Those are not the movies which you just see, enjoy and forget. Those are movies which touch your heart, which are a kind of close personal experience for you. The characters are some one you relate to. If i were to name two movies which have touched me personally, which would be my all time favorites at any given time in my life, there are 2 movies which would come to my mind any time- Anand and The Shawshank Redemption. In one... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Seeti Maar Classics revisited: Satyakam By Ratnakar Sadasyula When India gained independence in 1947, the generation of the 50’s were imbued with a spirit of optimism, hope inspired by Pandit Nehru’s call for a tryst with destiny. For the most part the 50’s was a decade of peace and optimism in India. We were not a rich nation, but the optimism was there in every Indian that we would soon take achieve our tryst. But the defeat in the 1962 War to China, shattered the Indian morale. There was a sense of disquiet whether the lofty ideals propounded by Nehru, would have any... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Seeti Maar Hemant Kumar- A league of his own By Ratnakar Sadasyula Apart from books and movies, Music has been one of my other passions. And i just have a big time passion for old Hindi movie songs, especially the Golden era of 50′s and 60′s. Madan Mohan, S.D.Burman, Shankar Jaikishan, O.P.Nayyar each one of them distinct from each other, each having their own styles. With his distinctive voice, excellent compositions and melodious tunes, HemantaKumar Mukherjee or Hemant Kumar was in a league of his own. Hemant Kumarwas not just a singer, he was also a music composer... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Seeti Maar A Trip down Masala Lane By Ratnakar Sadasyula I am one of those who grew up on a steady diet of 70′s, 80′s and 90′s masala movies. Even to date, i have no compunctions in sitting through a good old masala flick on TV. Yeah even some of the torture series ones, just for the campy fun. I was one of those movie goers, who thronged the single screen theaters, standing in the queue, jostling for tickets, watching movies in theaters, with no proper air conditioning or fans and gorging on the watery snacks. Even now, i prefer to watch a movie, in a theater, i just... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Seeti Maar Dr.Strangelove-Or how i started to love Stanley Kubrick By Ratnakar Sadasyula How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo [Leonardo Da Vinci] had written at the bottom of the canvas, ‘The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover’? This would shackle the viewer to reality, and I don`t want this to happen to 2001.-  Stanley  Kubrick Stanley  Kubrick  is  one of  those  directors, who  strongly  believe  in  the  cinema  being a  visual medium, and  let the  audience  interpret  it.   Not for  Kubrick, the ... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Seeti Maar Kevin Spacey- Meet John Doe, but beware of him. By Ratnakar Sadasyula There could be certain spoilers in the post, please note. One of my earlier  article  was  about  an  actor, who  had  perfected  the  role  of  playing  the  common man, the  guy  next door, a  certain Tom  Hanks,  an  actor  who  played  the sort  of   nice folks, whom you  would love to have  as a friend or  a brother. Kevin  Spacey  Fowler,  aka Kevin  Spacey,  is  another  actor,  who  has  perfected  the  role  of  the  average  Joe,  the guy... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Seeti Maar Al Pacino and the Mob… By Ratnakar Sadasyula Al Pacino a name that immediately brings into mind intense roles and a crackling screen presence that can chew up the scenery. Ask Keanu Reeves, who ended up as a glorified extra in The Devil’s Advocate. And yes those wonderful monologues, which basically comes from Pacino’s penchant for Shakespearan Theater. In his long career, Pacino has portrayed crooks, gangsters, cops, lawyers, football coaches, blind colonels, crusading journalists, city mayors and even the Devil himself. But a common thread in most of... 

Ratnakar Sadasyula Tom Hanks- The Nice Guy Next Door By Ratnakar Sadasyula Among  the classic  movies of  the  earlier generation,   two  of  my  eternal  favorites  have  beenMeet  John Doeand To Kill a Mockingbird. Now   currently  if  some one   in Hollywood  would  have  wanted  to  remake  these  2 classics,  the  choice  of  the  lead  actor  to me  would be  fairly  simple, a certain Thomas  Jeffrey  Hanks or  better  known  as Tom Hanks. To  me,  Hanks  is an actor,  who  is a throw back to actors  like James  Stewart ,  Gary Cooper...