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Monday, August 18, 2025
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Reel Take

You can’t help falling in love with Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Elvis’ – loud, proud, with sideburns

Austin Butler and Tom Hanks shine as Elvis Presley and his manager Tom Parker. It’s a tribute to his complicated legacy.

Stellar cast, tight plot—Jugg Jugg Jeeyo is the Bollywood comedy India has been waiting for

Comedy is often not a great tool to discuss tense topics, but Anil Kapoor and Neetu Singh's Jugg Jugg Jeeyo passes the test.

Masoom is Boman Irani’s OTT debut, but it would be better as a family drama than crime thriller

Masoom boasts of a stellar cast, but the fault ultimately lies with its weak, loophole-ridden plot.

She Season 2’s edgy vulgarity will keep you watching. But it doesn’t take the series forward

She's dialogues are wonderfully crass but also unimaginative. From the police to gangsters to the prostitutes, stereotypes play out.

Netflix’s Spiderhead could have been the new Black Mirror. But plot, characters let it down

Joseph Kosinski's sci-fi film is no Top Gun—in a hurry to say everything, it says nothing at all. But Miles Teller and Chris Hemsworth shine.

Sabbir Khan’s Nikamma has fresh cast, ‘new’ Shilpa Shetty but promises migraine for the day

Shilpa Shetty sheds her '90s heroine avatar in Nikamma. But the film's Gen Z romance makes it fall flat.

Comic, surreal—‘Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon’ is this year’s Hindi cinematic marvel

Helmed by theatre stalwart Anamika Haksar, ‘Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon’ is a slice-of-life film on Delhi’s Shahjahanabad.

Amazon’s Udan Patolas about 4 Punjabi women in Mumbai isn’t the silly sitcom it wants to be

A new series for Amazon's mobile-exclusive MiniTV, Udan Patolas leans into fish-out-of-water silliness but fails to be funny enough to progress beyond mediocrity.

TRP or ethics? Sonali Bendre’s The Broken News gets Indian media right. With a dash of fantasy

Sonali Bendre's maiden OTT venture on Zee5 sees her playing an ethical journalist who just can’t seem to get the TRPs.

Jurassic World Dominion brings ‘90s nostalgia but it’s the same old dinosaur plot

Top Gun: Maverick too relied on nostalgia but blended new elements to create a laudable experience. The Jurassic Park franchise doesn't even try.

On Camera

History teaching requires revision more than textbooks

The kinds of revisions we’re seeing remove the very skills that make historical thinking meaningful. The result is a citizen who either dismisses history entirely or defends it without support.

Navigating Trump’s tariffs is no child’s play. Indian toymakers are losing out on orders, enquiries

Indian toymakers are now exploring new markets, but they want govt to negotiate a trade deal with US soon, introduce incentives and subsidies to make the industry more competitive.

What is Project Sudarshan Chakra, announced by Modi from ramparts of Red Fort

The project is meant to be a ‘protective shield that will keep expanding’, the PM said. It is on the lines of the ‘Golden Dome’ announced by Trump, it is learnt.

War of IAF, PAF doctrines: As Pakistan obsesses over numbers, India embraces risk, wins

Now that both IAF and PAF have made formal claims of having shot down the other’s aircraft in the 87-hour war in May, we can ask a larger question: do such numbers really matter?