The Critique

Dir: James Ponsoldt Starring: Emma Watson, Tom Hanks Dur: 1 hr 49 mins Genre: Drama PG: One swear word Rating: 3/10 The Circle is a technological thriller. What I mean is it takes a relevant topic: media and technology, and maxes out on it. The story is basically the good ol’ technology v/s humanity struggle, which plays out in the same old-fashioned way with humans coming out on top. Here however, it is slightly tweaked to bring in other issues which I found to be great. For example, the chief focus of the film can be summarized in two words: “privacy” and “transparency”. Both are important and good but if pushed to maximum it could have disastrous results, as the film pointedly shows. The Circle is a great film. It’s watchable but is hardly enjoyable. However, it does work as a springboard for discussion on topics related to media ethics, media influence, innovation and the like. Some punchlines from the film really stick. Take for example the line Eamon (...

Jim Powell, Postmodernism for Beginners , Chennai: Orient Longman Ltd., 2001, ISBN 81-250-2023-3, pp. 163, $12.74, Rs. 246. Recently, I attended a course on Postmodernism. The aim of the professor was to debunk some of the false notions people had about postmodernism. This of course, was not revealed to us at the start of the course. He began by asking us to share whatever we knew about postmodernism. All of us had something of significance to state and evidently our knowledge was very vague and clouded by hearsay. None of us had made an attempt to understand what postmodernism was about in the past so the professor made it his chief task to get us acquainted in no uncertain way with the philosophy of postmodernism. In my zeal, I challenged myself to do extra reading on the topic and found myself the present book which I am reviewing. I must say that I was at once taken up with the book. The minute I laid hands on it and flipped through a few pages I knew that this...

Dir: John Gunn Starring: Ted McGinley, Mira Sorvino, Andrea Logan White, Lee Majors, Alexa PenaVega, Sean Astin, Madison Pettis, Cybill Shepherd and Brian Botsworth. Dur: 1 hr 55 mins Genre: Christian Drama Rating: 9/10 Do You Believe is a dramatic story about the cross of Christ. It has received negative reviews from a handful of people at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic one of the probably reasons is because it is overtly evangelical in nature. It spares no pains to ensure that Christ is preached despite the consequences. The very fact that it has received negative reviews is a sign, according to me, of its success. The movie depicts the dilemma of following Christ even though it means personal suffering and film is witness of its own story. It is evidently rejected by those who have reviewed it but for those who are searching it holds great treasure. The film is actually a follow up on God’s Not Dead which is by far one of the best movies I have ever seen. Do ...

Dir: Anna Foerster Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Lara Pulver Dur: 1 hr 31 mins Genre: Action – horror Rating: 2/10 PG: Extremely gory. The action is graphic. One of the antagonists wears revealing clothes. A few kisses. One expletive. I had watched a part of one of the previous films in this series but don’t remember much save for the feeling I had: disgust. I was wondering why I felt that way towards the film but could not recollect. When I heard about this film my first reaction was to check out the trailer. The trailer did reveal that there would be a lot of bloodshed and gory violence with a story of a woman who is out to save herself and her daughter. Things were looking good so far but then it came to actually watching the film… and I must confess it was awful and disappointing. Somewhere towards the end I remembered why I had stopped watching this series before: it was nonsensical, violent and downright silly. I am no fan of vampires. Frankly, I ...