Bombay Talkies Movie Reviews

Bombay Talkies begins with a young man pushing his father against a wall and angrily declaring that he is a homosexual and not a eunuch. From that moment on, you know that this isn't going to be your regular Hindi movie. The anthology of four short films by Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap and Zoya Akhtar is a celebration of 100 years of Indian cinema. But this is no vacuous song-and-dance party. It's an evocative essay on our love affair

It's a fact... Cinema and cricket are pursued with religious fervor in India. Cinema connects us. Cinema unites us. Cinema is indeed the predominant influence on our lives. Cinema is, without doubt, an integral part of every movie lover... Indian cinema, which completes its 100th year this year [RAJA HARISHCHANDRA, the first full-length feature-film made by Dadasaheb Phalke, was released in 1913], ought to be commemorated. What better way

Viacom 18's 'Bombay Talkies' is a sincere realistic tribute to the magic of cinema, that also serves as cogent current commentary on how cinema continues to inspire, motivate, influence our life's and how our life's inspires, motivates, influences the cinema which in its hundred years has not turned old but grown up without leaving its magical impact on its lovers notwithstanding the age, sex, class or creed. Sheer magic. On 21 April 1913 at the Olympia Theatre

‘Bombay Talkies’ boasts of superb craft; crisp writing, skillful direction and brilliant performances. Four directors, four stories, one film; is there a common thread? Maybe.

Review: The year of the 100th birthday of Indian Cinema – the glorious century of films that have changed lives, given a positive meaning......

Two men shift nervously, seldom making eye contact, as they listen to a beggar girl at a railway station footbridge singing an old Lata Mangeshkar gem whose words seem to have particular significance in their unlikely situation. A father, determined to enthrall his bored daughter, narrates a story in mime, his energy palpable, his excitement contagious. A little boy, attired in his sister's dress and his mother's make-up and heels, shakes his hips

You cannot define Bollywood . Not in one film with four short stories, it is simply too complex. But when four of the brightest filmmaking brains of GenNow come together to capture the frenzy that drives popular culture in India, the attempt has to be special. Look beyond the mandatory tribute item frill featuring 20 top stars, and Bombay Talkies - Bollywood's toast to the 100 years of Indian cinema - is doff of the hat to the common cine-lover

A sexually repressed wife and her successful husband’s subtle marital discordance is exposed in the open when a young homosexual boy, befriends the lady at work. The story which follows henceforth is heart breaking-ly spectacular. The second story heavily based on Satyajit Ray’s Patol Babu Filmstar is an emotional film where a man from a theatrical background, questions his caliber and aspirations. His motives are centered on becoming a hero

A five-minute scene, sans dialogue, just before the interval. A shot of a man elated, reliving his magical day as the rest of the world goes about its own business – these five minutes alone make “Bombay Talkies” worth a watch. Dibakar Banerjee’s segment, based on a Satyajit Ray short story, is evocative, sensitive, subtle and gets to the heart of why cinema brings magic into the most mundane of lives. And his film, dare I say it, is leagues ahead

Bombay Talkies may or may not celebrate cinema in the direct sense. Except for its hopelessly tacky end-credits — a complete waste of star power and resources, Bombay Talkies is an absorbing ode to the language of cinema that is part of our collective system. It honours the imagination and enthusiasm that attracts so many young men and women in this country to embrace a life of risk and rush – filmmaking.

So, BT’s a good experiment, celebrating movies, mindsets and Mumbai’s moods – but it isn’t the coolest film doing so. Woh picture abhi baaqi hai, mere dost.

Bombay Talkies is a film that gives you what all good films should: it has stories, it has emotion, and it has drama. It has people you want to know.

Bombay Talkies is a format that needs to be praised for its concept. The sequencing of the stories works and the pace is swift, never showing signs of lethargy. If this was a tribute to 100 years of cinema, then we need to have an array of directors from different genres pay such homages more often.

It is genuinely not possible for me to pick a favorite or rank them in any order as tempting an idea it might sound. Each film has something to say, and their authors get it across effectively and without fuss. Sure they have their blips and flaws, but Bombay Talkies made me want to stand up and break out into spontaneous applause on multiple occasion. The best film of 2013 so far.

We celebrate Vidya Balan’s nomination as a jury member in Cannes. We don’t take the elevator after watching Ek Thi Daayan. We remember Satyajit Ray on his birthday by visiting his Bishop Lefroy Road home. We hum Aashiqui 2 songs in the bathroom. A strange beast, we the Indian movie buff. And perhaps the only way our hunger could be satiated in this 100th year of Indian cinema was to have four of the best filmmakers of the country

The expectations were firmly set as soon as it was announced that a quartet of contemporary Mumbai directors was making four quickies to mark the centennial of the Hindi movie industry. The primary point of interest was inevitably focussed on how each filmmaker would interpret the medium that has defined Indian popular culture for a hundred years. Bombay Talkies serves its principal purpose quite well: each segment of this cinematic anthology

We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved a hundred years ago that we will lose ourselves to the world that eccentric and ordinary, genius and deranged, mediocre and delinquent men and women conjure up on screen every Friday, approach Bombay Talkies with respectful anticipation. Just like a child’s visit to an ice-cream parlour, to the different coloured buckets full of unknown delights — feet and emotions pell-mell, eyes wide with excitement

‘Bombay Talkies’ is made by four directors who don’t seem to be on speaking terms with each other. Their films don’t hand the baton to the next one. Each one dwells in its own universe, gyrating mostly on the director’s pet peeve.

Such moments of epiphany are rare in Bombay Talkies. One is left with the feeling that a once-in-a-century cinematic experiment should have had more heart and heft.

Bombay Talkies plays out dreams in four separate films. Each film is a mirror to a different reality of Mumbai. Each film is a reflection of different memories of Bombay.

There’s not much to savor except the brilliance of Nawazuddin Siddiqui. If only for his performance and a brief cameo in the same frame by Sadashiv Amrapurkar, you will not mind walking in.

BOMBAY TALKIES is experimental cinema with four different directors telling their tale. This experiment was first attempted in DUS KAHANIYAN in December 2007. While the regular cinemagoers will find it hard to digest, those who prefer the 'festival circuit' will like it. For one, these are four stories told by directors whose narrative styles are poles apart. Secondly, as soon as one story is over, you are in the process of absorbing another

The combination will remind you why you love the movies and why you still return to the theatre week after week, wide-eyed and hopeful in spite of the tripe we too often have to endure. If you must fault Bombay Talkies for something, perhaps one could complain that for a 100-year celebration, it isn’t weighty enough, but that’s about all.

…after you have left the theatre, it is not gratification you feel, but the short-lived aftertaste of a music video or a good commercial. It eulogizes Bollywood, sure, but in a Bollywood-crazy nation it is like preaching to the converted. Surely there is more to the desire, madness, ugliness and fantasy in Hindi cinema, and to the millions who work here. If you wait to watch the terrible promotional video at the end of the film, satrring all our stars, you will most likely forget the best of Bombay Talkies.