Mojave is a new thriller film starring Oscar Isaac, Garrett Hedlund, Louise Bourgoin, and Walton Goggins. Academy award winner William Monahan wrote and directed the film. Monohan was a novelist before he began writing for Hollywood. In 2007 he won an Oscar for his screenplay for The Departed. It will be interesting to watch this film since… Continue Reading
Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest Bollywood film Bajirao Mastani appears to be a hit in the San Francisco Bay area according to an unscientific poll I conducted. The first few days were sold out explained the ticket sales person at the local Silicon Valley theatre when I went to see the film. I, of course, waited for a… Continue Reading
Tim Sika is hooked on films, and therefore it should come as no surprise that he is the host of Cellouloid Dreams, a radio show from San Jose and also contributes to 810 AM KGO radio station and is the President of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. As if he did not have enough… Continue Reading
Our interview with author and essayist Pico Iyer on writing, traveling, American pop culture, data obesity, mass distraction, films and Bollywood. Earlier this year Iyer was in San Francisco, which is where we recorded this interview. Is travel writer the best way to describe Iyer? He calls himself a “transport writer.” Transformation is a subject that… Continue Reading
Director John Crowley’s new film Brooklyn is a wonderfully evocative film set in the 1950s. At first blush Brooklyn seems like a simple story about family, love and finding a home in a new country. Living abroad is never an easy choice. It is a complicated & knotty choice and that is the theme this picture underscores brilliantly.… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Jay Roach’s new film Trumbo takes you back to the start of the Cold War period and the fight for the American way of life in Hollywood. The film revisits a dark phase in Hollywood’s history and how fear propelled people in the film industry to act in different ways. The film highlights how Trumbo… Continue Reading
Renowned and versatile actor Saeed Jaffrey passed away on November 14, 2015. The 86-year-old actor died of a brain hemorrhage in London according to the BBC. A jewel of International cinema as Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian put it, Jaffrey got his start on radio and stage in India. In the 1950s he came to the… Continue Reading
Jordanian filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar’s debut film Theeb is a stunning coming of age film of a young Bedouin boy. This period film is set in 1916 during World War I when the powerful Ottoman Empire was crumbling and losing its hold over this part of the Middle East. The film was shot in Jordan… Continue Reading
Director Tom McCarthy’s new film Spotlight is based on a true story uncovered by an investigative team at The Boston Globe. In 2002 the newspaper published a series of reports about the pedophile priests in the Catholic church in Boston. The name of the investigative team in the newspaper is called Spotlight. McCarthy’s film premiered at… Continue Reading
Spectre, the new James Bond picture by Sam Mendes delivers on its promise with a couple of reservations that I will mention later on in the post. This is the 24th film of James Bond, a sauve and smooth talking British secret agent, who lives a charmed and dangerous existence. Spectre revolves around Bond (Daniel… Continue Reading
Sarah Gavron and Abi Morgan talk about their new film Suffragette, which tells you the story about how women fought for their right to vote in Britain. The film takes you back to the 1912-1913, the early years of the movement and how women from various strata of the society came together to fight for one… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Lenny Abrahamson’s new film Room is based on Emma Donoghue’s novel by the same name. The film is about a mother-son relationship in a little room, which is where they have been confined for a few years. That little room represents the whole universe for the little boy, and the only visitor they get is… Continue Reading
Freedom is the theme for this year’s 3rd i San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. This year marks the 13th year of the festival that takes place in San Francisco from Oct 22 through Oct 25, 2015 in Palo Alto on Nov 1, 2015. The festival features features, shorts and documentaries from various South… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Cary Fukunaga’s new film, Beasts of No Nation, releases today in theatres and on Netflix.This is the first time that a feature film is releasing simultaneously in theatres and streaming online. With this film could Los Gatos-based Netflix became a key player in the film industry? We spoke to Fukunaga and Abraham Attah, the young… Continue Reading
Is Bollywood listening? Idris Elba is open to working in Bollywood films as he tells us in this interview we recorded in 2010. Fast forward to 2015 and Elba is a sought after actor and has garnered praise for his work on the small and big screen. Right now the buzz is around his role… Continue Reading
Director Cary Fukunga and actress Mia Wasikowska talk about their film Jane Eyre that released in 2011. This is Fukunaga’s second feature film. His first feature film was Sin Nombre (Nameless) that he wrote and directed. The film was received well and won him a clutch of awards. In this 2011 interview we talk to Fukunaga and… Continue Reading
The 38th Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) is currently underway and runs from Oct 8-18, 2015. This year’s festival seems to highlight the gender gap and features quite a few films where women play a central role. The films with strong female characters include I Smile Back, Room, Suffragette, Miss You Already, Light Beneath Her… Continue Reading
Get ready to watch Coen brothers new film Hail Caesare. No, not this year, but early next year around Superbowl 50 and the Oscar season. That is right, the film releases on Feb 5, 2016 . They just released the first trailer of Haile Caesare and that has already generated a lot of buzz for the filmmakers.… Continue Reading
Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary He Called Me Malala is a profile of Malala Yousafzai. The brave young Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner needs no introduction. She narrowly cheated death in October 2012 when she and her two friends were shot by the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat valley. The girls were on their way to school when their… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes is a powerful film about the untold American story on the housing bubble. The film picks up where the news media left off on what happened to folks who were evicted from their homes during the great housing bubble of 2007-2009. There was non-stop news coverage about bad mortgages and… Continue Reading
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s latest film Taxi is part of this year’s line-up at Mill Valley Film Festival, Oct 8-18, 2015. This brilliant film is shot without any fancy cameras, crew, actors or sets. The film stars Panahi as the protagonist, who takes you on a tour of Teheran in his taxi. From the confines of his… Continue Reading
Filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s new documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution opened in the San Francisco Bay area on October 2, 21015. The film traces the complex history, influence and legacy of the The Black Panthers in America, and specifically in the African-American community. The Panthers were founded in 1966 in Oakland by Huey Newton… Continue Reading
I did not know what to expect from The Intern. Like most of you I saw a trailer and then De Niro’s appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show, where he barely spoke about the film. What caught my interest is that De Niro and Anne Hathaway were paired in a film by director Nancy Meyers, who co-wrote… Continue Reading
Meet Geeta V. Patel, who directed and wrote Meet The Patels a documentary about one family’s quest fo find a suitable bride for their son. Beta, you have to get married is what Geeta’s parents tell Ravi, her sibling, who had just turned 30. Crisis, crisis, crisis is what I was thinking says Geeta. In Meet The… Continue Reading
I kept missing the various screenings of East Side Sushi in San Francisco Bay area. The film screened at the 2014 Cinequest Film Festival and I marked it as “must-watch” film, but never got around to watching it. It won the audience award at Cinequest. The film then screened at CAAMFest and I missed that… Continue Reading
Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk became the first people to ascent the central summit of Meru that is capped by a sheer granite wall called the Shark’s Fin. The trio’s difficult and challenging journey in Garhwal Himalayas in India is brilliantly captured in their film Meru, which won the audience award at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival… Continue Reading
In 2013 South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho released his first English film Snowpiercer in the US. The film is based on a graphic novel by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochelle, which Joon-Ho read in one sitting at a bookstore in South Korea. It took him a few years before he was able to make the… Continue Reading
Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi are the directors of The Boxtrolls, a 3D, stop animation film from Laika Entertainment. The film is based on Anthony Snow’s book Here Be Monsters. Annable and Stacchi adapted the boxtrolls characters from Snow’s book and called it The Boxtrolls. In this podcast interview we spoke to Annable and Stacchi about… Continue Reading
Best of Enemies is a riveting documentary film that takes you back to the 1968 Presidential elections and the intense politcal debate between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal on ABC. Buckley and Vidal represented and stood for two different visions of America during this time. The debate was not a loud one, but a… Continue Reading
Best of Enemies is a new documentary film about the famous and sharp-edged political debtate between William F. Buckley (R) and Gore Vidal (D) during the 1968 Presidential elections. The debate took place on ABC television and was a hug success because of the sparks that flew between these two intellecutal giants of that… Continue Reading
The Kamla Show 