Word: shekhar
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Elizabeth: Elizabeth was a bad, shallowmovie posing as a good, smart one. Neophytedirector Shekhar Kapur made a perfect mess of thealready-thin plot by attempting to cover up itsgaping holes with purple velvet and big, shinyswords. Want to toss historical accuracy out thewindow? Fine. Want to direct a period piece likean Aerosmith video? Okay. But must you givetalented lead Cate Blanchett such an atrociousscreenplay to work from? Must you so steadfastlyrefuse to permit your title character theslightest bit of development until the last reel?Kapur's film may have conned enough dopey Academymembers to secure it a nomination, but inevitablecomparisons...
ELIZABETH Starring Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush Directed by Shekhar Kapur Polygram Pictures...
...aura of the Kennedy Camelot myth and the endless tabloid intrigues of the British royals. From Shakespeare to Lewinsky, Napoleon to The Godfather, few things are as enthralling as the machinations of power: trying to seize it, trying to keep it, losing yourself in it. In its best moments, Shekhar Kapur's new biopic Elizabeth fascinates with the gleam and glamour of the very, very powerful. Though its Elizabethan Godfather pulp style strains the limits of historical revisionism, the spectacle of young Elizabeth's entrance into imperial power has its undeniable pleasures...
Bandit Queen, written by Mala Sen and directed by Shekhar Kapur, is a vibrant, instructive document with a fierce star performance by Seema Biswas. The film has an Indian heart but a Hollywood pulse; it moves with the fevered outrage of an Oliver Stone melodram--Natural Born Killers meets Heaven and Earth. Most Indian movies are either humid musical fables or languid art films in the Satyajit Ray mold. Bandit Queen is neither. It is an assaultive experience, blistering with ripe obscenities, the frontal nudity of its star and three stark scenes in which Phoolan is raped--enough to have...
...ripe obscenities, the frontal nudity of its star and three stark scenes in which Phoolan is raped --- enough to have the film banned 10 times over in a country where a bare shoulder can send the censors frothing." "Bandit Queen" was indeed banned in India, but for what director Shekhar Kapur says are political reasons: the upper-class guardians of public morality who once defamed this low-caste rebel are now ensuring that "Bandit Queen" remains an untouchable.Photographs:Markey: Terry Ashe for TIMESerbs: Petar Kujundzic/REUTERSTokyo: Masaharu Hatano/REUTERSHiroshima: U.S. Army Signal CorpsU.N.: Mark Cardwell/Reuters