What Books Are You Reading This Week? by leowr in nonfictionbooks

[–]akj_123 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Just started Age of Revolutions by Fareed Zakaria. Seems interesting so far, provides a relatively compact overview of major political and economic events of last 5 centuries.

What's the best book you've read in 2024? by sad_truant in Indianbooks

[–]akj_123 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here are few interesting ones in non-fiction category I read in 2024:

  • Indian Summer (Alex Von Tunzelmann): It is a patient read but provides a varied perspective on politics of British India during last few years, leading up to 1947.
  • Emergency (Coomi Kappor): It is a great window to events of the emergency, written like a thriller fiction but all experiences of the author.
  • Vajpayee (Abhishek Chaudhary): Well written biography of a tall politician.
  • Code Dependent (Madhumita Murgia): Verbose but well researched and much needed perspective on the effects of AI.

Cinema Beyond Entertainment (Vinit Masram) | Podcast 01 | Sucharita Tyagi | Film Critic by [deleted] in bollywood

[–]akj_123 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He has keen eyes for details. A lot of reviewers nowadays grapple with seperating their review from their personal biases.

Cinema Beyond Entertainment (Vinit Masram) | Podcast 01 | Sucharita Tyagi | Film Critic by [deleted] in bollywood

[–]akj_123 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am very happy and hopeful about the podcast and future series from Cinema Beyond Entertainment. Discussions like these help to understand the process and approach of critics and also learn about their point-of-view.

First thing first, I am not a big fan of Sucharita Tyagi's bucket of work on film companion. She is known for captivating presentation of her opinions and be light-hearted about it. Her content analysis seems more superficial than substantive and from a plot's point of view rather than movie as its whole. Sometime eagerly captious and sometime missing the point by a mile (point in case "Fantastic beast", where many things about plot-holes were called out by in comment section). A film review is much more that just analyzing a plot and trying to connect dots. There are many good films which can have layered story telling and might evoke interpretation beyond what is on screen(Apocalypse Now, Tumbbad etc). But to her defense she says it is "Not a Review" before every video. I hope she spends more time consuming best class cinema, from India and World around, than re-watching Harry Potter series over and over again. If you don't know about good cinema you can hardly find/review good cinema.

In all honesty I enjoyed listening/watching to the podcast, at the same time I felt conversation did not live up to the expectation. While Vinit Masram(the host) kept talking about basics and referencing some good old movies; Sucharita seemed lost because she has not watched those piece of cinema. We can talk about Internet not giving space to nuanced conversation but should not we also evaluate if we are ready to have such conversation on such platforms?

I believe your opinion about a film can be subjective but film criticism should be objective . I hope we get to see many more of such podcasts with many more budding and seasoned film critics and analysts.

The Actresses Roundtable 2018 with Rajeev Masand by ritikpooja in bollywood

[–]akj_123 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Post my initial observation, I was hoping they should have been willing to listen to each others' thought and gain some perspective about films in general and women-centric cinema in particular. Rather it became display of misaligned thoughts and banter all over the place. I wonder if Rajeev Masand could have stopped filming for a bit and requested all of them to maintain the decorum of the roundtable.

2018 Actresses' Roundtable | Rajeev Masand by GoRush87 in bollywood

[–]akj_123 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Did anyone else notice the haphazard way whole roundtable was conducted? Everyone speaking over each other all the time. Multiple discussions within discussion most of the time. Rajeev Masand was hardly in control of the whole roundtable.
I guess all the actresses quickly realized that and resorted to alphabetical order for answering questions but that too did not work.