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Inspired by a project that uses the arts for rehabilitation, this is an uplifting, energetic film – but Domingo’s showy performance is a little out of place There’s charm, energy and optimism in this big-hearted film, inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts project that teaches theatre skills to US prisoners. The movie’s genesis is an Esquire magazine article from 2005 about an ensemble fantasy-comedy musical performed by inmates of Sing Sing maximum security facility in New York state. The movie invites us to hear the words in the title as joyful imperatives. It is performed largely by genuine former inmates playing themselves, featuring rehearsal scenes interspersed with variously tense or moving private conversations. There is a resemblance to Alan Parker’s Fame, to which the film playfully alludes, although the proceedings are evidently too serious to allow for the more obvious comparison with Max Bialystock’s song Prisoners of Love at the end of The Producers. Everythi...

Produced by Priyanka Dutt, C. Aswani Dutt, and Swapna Dutt under the banner of Vyjayanthi Movies and directed by Nag Ashwin, Kalki 2989 AD features Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Deepika Padukone, and Disha Patani in leading roles. The film will be available for Prime members in India and over 240 countries and territories in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam, with English subtitles, on August 22. Prime Video has announced the Telugu action-adventure Kalki 2989 AD will premiere globally on August 22, 2024. After a successful theatrical run, it will be available for streaming in its original Telugu, with dubs in Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam, and English subtitles, for Prime members in India and over 240 countries and territories.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by prime video IN (@primevideoin) Whereas, Kalki 2989 AD - Hindi will stream globally on Netflix on August 22, 2024. Directed by Nag Ashwin and produced by Priyanka Dutt, C. Aswani Dutt...

The horror-comedy sequel, Stree 2, has taken the box office by storm, with its release on Independence Day. The film, starring Shraddha Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao, has not only opened to a phenomenal response but has also shattered a long-standing box office record. Midnight Madness Pays Off In an unprecedented move, additional midnight shows for Stree 2 were added in major cities like Mumbai, Thane, Pune, and Delhi just a day after its release. The response to these shows has been nothing short of electric, contributing significantly to the film's overall opening-day collection. According to early estimates, Stree 2 has raked in a staggering Rs. 42 to 44 crores on its first day. When combined with the paid previews that garnered Rs. 8.50 crore, the film's total opening day collection stands at a monumental Rs. 52.50 crores. Breaking Records This achievement is particularly noteworthy as it surpasses the previous record held by Shah Rukh Khan's Chennai Express. The 2013 blo...

Page stars in new film Close to You as a trans man navigating his relationship with his family. He and director Dominic Savage explain how it all came together The last time Elliot Page appeared in a film, it was literally a car crash. Page, who was nominated for an Oscar at the age of 20 for the teen-pregnancy comedy Juno, was starring in a remake of the Julia Roberts thriller Flatliners, playing one of a group of medical students who engineer near-death experiences to get a peek at the afterlife. His co-stars included James Norton, Diego Luna and Kiersey Clemons, but during a hazardous driving scene it was only Page and Clemons who were not given seatbelts. Stunt coordinators told them: “You’ll be fine.” Instead, they were traumatised. In his 2023 memoir Pageboy, the Canadian actor describes the shoot as “a shitshow”. It wasn’t merely the cavalier regard for his safety. He also had pressure put on him to look stereotypically feminine, and one senior crew member asked whether he was...

Daniels’s film starts well as it points up the social pressures that informed the Latoya Ammons case, but succumbs to tired horror tropes Ten years ago, Lee Daniels announced he was taking on a movie project based on the real-life case of Latoya Ammons , a single mother who claimed that her house was haunted, that her children were being possessed by evil spirits and that she needed a “deliverance” – in other words, an exorcism. Well, the resulting very silly and mediocre movie has now finally arrived, with Ammons in real life having long since moved out of the house in question; it has itself been bulldozed, and some of the more excitable and credulous media coverage which helped clinch the film deal has cooled in retrospect, leaving behind, perhaps, a greater emphasis on those heartless observers who were callous enough to wonder if Ammons’ paranormal claims were a drama-queen ruse for avoiding the rent and bamboozling social services. Daniels could have made a brilliant, heartfelt...

The stars’ rapport helps retain your interest in a preposterous international caper that has something vaguely to do with justice Like a good covert operation team, everyone involved in the latest in a long line of expensive yet generally forgettable Netflix action flicks is clear on the mission. They know their role, and what they’re being paid for. Mark Wahlberg, playing to type as a downhome blue-collar guy, enters the movie shirtless. Halle Berry, as a veteran intelligence agent, kicks ass while wearing a Catwoman-esque all-leather uniform. JK Simmons, as the head of a covert group of working-class secret agents (hence, the Union), conveys no-nonsense avuncular authority as only JK Simmons can. And Julian Farino, director of such shows as Giri/Haji and Entourage, wrings each of the many combat scenes for snappy but never stressful suspense. The fictional purpose, besides a vague sense of justice, is never totally clear however. Nothing in The Union is subtle, including its hope t...

Burtt, the man who created iconic moods in George Lucas’s sci-fi blockbuster, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alien and WALL-E, explains the nuts and bolts – and hammers, ceiling fans and squeaky doorknobs – of his trade When Ben Burtt Jr was invited to look at the concept art for Star Wars before filming began, he says he heard the lightsaber as much as saw it: it was the sound of a film projector. “I was a projectionist at a theatre,” he says. “I could hear a projector motor – not when it’s running the movie, but as it sat still: a musical humming. Fifty per cent of the lightsaber is that projector. I mixed it in with the buzz of a television tube.” So when you hear one of Burtt’s most famous sound effects, you are listening to cinema. Yet it’s only one part of an amazing aural universe that Burtt has created, as instantly recognisable as John Williams’ theme music. Where would Star Wars be without the sound of Han Solo’s blaster – made by hitting a high-tension wire with a hammer? Or the...

The Kolkata rape case of a medical trainee has left the country question workspace safety measures for women, especially for the ones who are required to do late night shifts as a part of their jobs. As many celebrities have taken a stand for the victim and are batting for the improvement of safety measures for women, Alia Bhatt has shared a series of notes wherein she has not only taken a firm stand against rape but has shared data research on the increasing cases of sexual assault in the country. In the first note she shared on social media, Alia Bhatt said, “Another brutal rape. Another day of realisation that women are not safe, anywhere. Another horrific atrocity to remind us that it's been over a decade since the Nirbhaya tragedy, but still nothing much has changed.” The second note spoke about the statistics and it read, “Let the statistics speak: 30% of India's doctors and 80% of our nursing staff are women. In an environment of growing violence against medical personn...

The much awaited Stree 2 had paid previews from August 14 and has opened to a thunderous response. The word of mouth is unanimously positive and the combination of humour and horror has got thumbs up. At the same time, the film also has some surprises. One of the surprise is that Akshay Kumar has a rocking special appearance. Without giving out any more details, we can say that Akshay Kumar’s scene is one of the highlights of the film and would be loved by the audience. It is written brilliantly by Niren Bhatt and executed deftly by director Amar Kaushik. This also means that Akshay Kumar would have two releases this Independence Day. He also plays the lead role in Khel Khel Mein. Interestingly, two more actors feature in more than one release this Independence Day. Tamannaah Bhatia has lovely special appearance in both Stree 2 as well as Vedaa. As for Abhishek Banerjee, he will be seen as the antagonist in Vedaa while in Stree 2, he plays the funny sidekick. Stree 2 stars Rajkumma...

Fede Álvarez’s effort is scrappier than Ridley Scott’s grandiose efforts – but everyone involved would have been better employed working on something new Fede Álvarez’s new instalment in the Alien franchise presents as a younger, grungier, back-to-basics effort, moving away from the grandiose cosmic reach of Ridley Scott’s films Prometheus (from 2012) and, five years later, Alien: Covenant while attempting a return to the downbeat conspiracy paranoia and anti-corporate satire that made the original so unforgettably good. It also, very startlingly, brings back a major character from the 1979 Alien, the actor involved having perhaps signed away CGI image use rights at the time, or conceivably their descendants have been paid a royalty fee. The resulting movie is a technically competent piece of work; but no matter how ingenious its references to the first film (let down, however, by borrowings from the A Quiet Place franchise) it has to be said that there’s a fundamental lack of orig...