Govinda announces comeback with self-produced film Roopa; says, “People kept saying, ‘Now he won’t appear in films anymore’”

Veteran Bollywood star Govinda is all set to return to the big screen with a brand-new project. The actor recently hosted a press conference to officially announce his comeback film, Roopa, marking his return to cinema after a prolonged gap. At the event, Govinda unveiled the first poster of the film, introduced newcomer Rani Swarankar as the leading lady, and revealed that he is also producing the project. Once among the biggest superstars of the 1990s, Govinda has largely stayed away from films in recent years after a string of releases failed to leave an impact at the box office. However, the actor appeared confident and optimistic as he spoke about embarking on a fresh journey with Roopa. Opening up about the challenges he has faced over the years and his determination to keep moving forward, Govinda said, “Maybe it was destiny that I was written off so many times. People kept saying, ‘Now he won’t appear in films anymore.’ But I always started again. I pray to God that this film ...

Napoleon review – Joaquin Phoenix makes a magnificent emperor in thrilling biopic

Ridley Scott dispenses with the symbolic weight attached to previous biopics in favour of a spectacle with a great star at its centre

Many directors have tried following Napoleon where the paths of glory lead, and maybe it is only defiant defeat that is really glorious. But Ridley Scott – the Wellington of cinema – has created an outrageously enjoyable cavalry charge of a movie, a full-tilt biopic of two and a half hours in which Scott doesn’t allow his troops to get bogged down mid-gallop in the muddy terrain of either fact or metaphysical significance, the tactical issues that have defeated other film-makers.

Scott cheekily imagines Napoleon firing on the pyramids in the Egyptian campaign as well as witnessing the execution of Marie Antoinette (but not the humiliation of Louis XVI by the Tuileries mob, which he might actually have seen). Out of deference moreover, Scott and his screenwriter David Scarpa suppress all mention of Napoleon’s reintroduction of slavery into the French colonies. But above all, there’s a deliciously insinuating portrayal of the doomed emperor from Joaquin Phoenix, whose derisive face suits the framing of a bicorne hat and jaunty tricolour cockade. Phoenix plays Napoleon as a military genius and lounge lizard peacock who is incidentally no slouch on horseback. Others might show Napoleon as a dreamy loner, but for Scott he is one half of a rackety power couple: passionately, despairingly in love with Vanessa Kirby’s pragmatically sensual Josephine. Scott makes this warring pair the Burton and Taylor of imperial France.

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