Revered Indian actor Shabana Azmi, who plays the pivotal role of Admiral Margaret Parangosky in hugely anticipated mega-budget Paramount Plus series “Halo,” describes her experience on the show as “completely different.”
The series is based on Microsoft’s iconic video game “Halo,” a sprawling science fiction epic that involves multiple warring factions and far-flung alien species. Pablo Schreiber plays the central character Master Chief. Azmi’s Parangosky, second billed in the credits after Schreiber, has frequent interactions with Natascha McElhone’s Dr. Catherine Halsey.
“The interesting thing about Margaret is that she’s conflicted, because she is somebody who plays by the rules of the game. She is somebody who is used to giving orders and having those orders obeyed. And here she’s all but manipulated by the scientists to break the rules, because she keeps [hearing] that this will be good for humanity and she does unscrupulous things,” Azmi told Variety.
The series is based on Microsoft’s iconic video game “Halo,” a sprawling science fiction epic that involves multiple warring factions and far-flung alien species. Pablo Schreiber plays the central character Master Chief. Azmi’s Parangosky, second billed in the credits after Schreiber, has frequent interactions with Natascha McElhone’s Dr. Catherine Halsey.
“The interesting thing about Margaret is that she’s conflicted, because she is somebody who plays by the rules of the game. She is somebody who is used to giving orders and having those orders obeyed. And here she’s all but manipulated by the scientists to break the rules, because she keeps [hearing] that this will be good for humanity and she does unscrupulous things,” Azmi told Variety.
- 3/22/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Shyam Benegal's Ankur (1974) is now showing in the series A Journey into Indian Cinema.I go back to my middle school Biology lessons to find the scientific word for the Hindi word, ankur. Epicotyl: The part of the seed that becomes the leaves and stems of a new plant; the first rebellious sign of life that raises its fist above the earth to proclaim its existence. The title of Shyam Benegal’s 1973 debut film, Ankur, has been officially translated to The Seedling and its story tells of a society raising its first fist of resistance against the ceiling, colliding against it to break across a divide that seems impenetrable.Benegal, born in 1934, grew up near the city of Hyderabad in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He was around 12 when the Telangana Rebellion broke out in 1946. Led by the Communist Party,...
- 4/26/2020
- MUBI
The parallel cinema movement in the country has over the years been nurtured by a number of stalwarts like Satyajit Ray (Pather Panchali, Apur Sansar, Aparajitho) Mrinal Sen (Bhuvan Shome Ek Din Prati Din), Shayam Benegal (Ankur, Manthan), Mani Kaul (Uski Roti, Duvidha), Govind Nihalani (Ardh Satya, Aakrosh), Kumar Shahani (Maya Darpan, Tarang) and Gautam Ghose (Paar Antarjali Yatra).
- 11/25/2017
- by TNM NEWS
- The News Minute
Sonata
Starring Shabana Azmi, Aparna Sen, Lilette Dubey
Directed by Aparna Sen
Except for one of the women landing up with a black eye and another making a shocking announcement at the end of this enchanting chamber piece—a sort of Beethoven for the sexually impaired—nothing really ‘happens’ in the 90-minute celluloid discourse on post-menopausal sexuality and other related topics on how to be a woman past her prime, without guilt and the accompanying crimes.
A lot of the recriminations and remonstrations that are thrown back and forth between Shabana Azmi and Aparna Sen are selfconsciously stagey, like two people, two women, who have been so close to one another for such a long time that they can afford to ‘act’ in front of one another without the risk of being misconstrued or causing permanent damage to their mutual relationship.
The fact that Shabana and Aparna have been friends...
Starring Shabana Azmi, Aparna Sen, Lilette Dubey
Directed by Aparna Sen
Except for one of the women landing up with a black eye and another making a shocking announcement at the end of this enchanting chamber piece—a sort of Beethoven for the sexually impaired—nothing really ‘happens’ in the 90-minute celluloid discourse on post-menopausal sexuality and other related topics on how to be a woman past her prime, without guilt and the accompanying crimes.
A lot of the recriminations and remonstrations that are thrown back and forth between Shabana Azmi and Aparna Sen are selfconsciously stagey, like two people, two women, who have been so close to one another for such a long time that they can afford to ‘act’ in front of one another without the risk of being misconstrued or causing permanent damage to their mutual relationship.
The fact that Shabana and Aparna have been friends...
- 4/21/2017
- by Subhash K Jha
- Bollyspice
Om Puri, the veteran of Indian cinema who died on Friday morning at age 66 of an unexpected heart attack, received two National Film Awards, the highest honor an actor can receive in India. The awards are not without their controversies, as one may suspect from awards that are doled out by the national government of India. They have sometimes been accused of favoring Hindi-language films at the expense of regional cinema. As far as Indian awards bodies go, though, the National Film Awards exhibit remarkably prudent taste more often than not. The first of Puri’s National Awards was for Arohan (The Ascending Scale, 1982), by director Shyam Benegal, while the second came for Govind Nihalani’s Ardh Satya (Half Truth, 1983). In the days since Puri’s death, there has been justified focus on his work in Ardh Satya. It gave Puri one of his most definitive roles, and the film...
- 1/10/2017
- MUBI
Parched
Starring Tannishtha Chatterjee, Radhika Apte , Surveen Chawla, Lehar Khan
Written & Directed by Leena Yadav
Long after Parched played out its poignant plot, I kept thinking about the four women at the forefront of Leena Yadav’s sparkling saga of patriarchal tyranny. The enduring grief and the brief bouts of buoyancy that Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee), Lajjo (Radhika Apte), Bijlee (Surveen Chawla) and Janaki (Lehar Khan) carry with themselves, lingers in our hearts and minds long after the last frame of Leena’s luminous work dies down.
The film is shot with such inescapable beauty by Russell Carpenter (who moves with fluent fecundity from the soggy sappiness of Titanic to the parched desertscape of this walloping work on women’s empowerment) that you fear for the inner lives of the characters. Would their emotional existence be able to withstand the sheer extraneous splendor of the storytelling?
The answer, my friend, is blowing passionately in the winds.
Starring Tannishtha Chatterjee, Radhika Apte , Surveen Chawla, Lehar Khan
Written & Directed by Leena Yadav
Long after Parched played out its poignant plot, I kept thinking about the four women at the forefront of Leena Yadav’s sparkling saga of patriarchal tyranny. The enduring grief and the brief bouts of buoyancy that Rani (Tannishtha Chatterjee), Lajjo (Radhika Apte), Bijlee (Surveen Chawla) and Janaki (Lehar Khan) carry with themselves, lingers in our hearts and minds long after the last frame of Leena’s luminous work dies down.
The film is shot with such inescapable beauty by Russell Carpenter (who moves with fluent fecundity from the soggy sappiness of Titanic to the parched desertscape of this walloping work on women’s empowerment) that you fear for the inner lives of the characters. Would their emotional existence be able to withstand the sheer extraneous splendor of the storytelling?
The answer, my friend, is blowing passionately in the winds.
- 9/23/2016
- by Subhash K Jha
- Bollyspice
The festival returns this month for its sixth edition. Every year Liff aims to bring audiences some of the very best new Indian independent cinema, which includes features, documentaries and short films by both acclaimed and emerging filmmakers. This year’s line up promises to leave you entertained, informed, thought provoking and even in some cases leaving a screen shocked.
We now present the films that will be screened at this prestigious festival
Umrika | Opening Night | UK Premiere | cert 12A
Hindi with English subtitles | 98 min | India 2015 | Dir. Prashant Nair | with: Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Adil Hussain, Smita Tambe, Prateik Babbar.
This year’s Sundance Audience Award winner is an uplifting, rights of passage tale about two brothers from a small village who have dreams of making it big in Umrika (America). Udai (Pratiek Babbar) is the eldest and adored by his hard-working mum. He leaves their hamlet on a bullock...
We now present the films that will be screened at this prestigious festival
Umrika | Opening Night | UK Premiere | cert 12A
Hindi with English subtitles | 98 min | India 2015 | Dir. Prashant Nair | with: Suraj Sharma, Tony Revolori, Adil Hussain, Smita Tambe, Prateik Babbar.
This year’s Sundance Audience Award winner is an uplifting, rights of passage tale about two brothers from a small village who have dreams of making it big in Umrika (America). Udai (Pratiek Babbar) is the eldest and adored by his hard-working mum. He leaves their hamlet on a bullock...
- 7/8/2015
- by Stacey Yount
- Bollyspice
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