Joker is a masterpiece in (almost) every sense
You would think that Joker has no earthly reason to exist as anything other than a gimmick aimed at making profits off a highly marketable property. However, Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix have...
View ArticleEl Camino is nothing more than an extended Breaking Bad episode
In the days leading up to the release of El Camino, the Breaking Bad fandom eagerly dissected every single frame of the film’s trailer, making it glaringly obvious that there were high expectations...
View ArticleZahid Mayo: Breaking the canvas
When Zahid Mayo was studying at one of the most notable art colleges in the country, the National College of Arts (NCA) Lahore, he was a square peg in a round hole. Mayo had dreamed of studying there...
View ArticleIs Durj worth the controversy?
Pakistani cinema is slowly (read at a snail's pace) evolving to encompass a wider range of issues rather than just plots centred around the typical boy meets girl and disaster ensues. Durj is one such...
View ArticleHas contemporary Urdu poetry lost its essence?
In Urdu literature, traditionally two concepts have remained dominant with regards to where creativity emanates from. The first is amad (spontaneity) and second is awrad (contrived). For a long time,...
View ArticleIs Pakistan’s N-CPEC+ vision finally beginning to take shape?
Pakistan’s unique geostrategic location at the crossroads of East, South, West, and Central Asia enables it to function as the “Zipper of Eurasia”, as I wrote over half a decade ago in September 2015...
View ArticleWhat would Haseena Moin’s Tanhaiyan look like today?
Ever since playwright Haseena Moin’s sudden demise, I have been thinking about everything that our nation gained through the world that she created for us on television. Her dramas taught us lifelong...
View ArticleMy mother Pino!
Imagine waking up one fine morning to discover that the couple you always thought to be your birth parents, are in-fact, your adoptive parents. This is how I came to know about my origins it was indeed...
View ArticleThe plight of the noble Aseel
Pakistan is a diverse country; our languages, cultures, histories are all different, and nothing unites us except religion and, maybe to some extent living in the same country. However, one thing is...
View ArticleFighting climate change through the courtroom
Climate change is a ‘hot’ button issue in Pakistan. Both literally and figuratively. Summer 2022’s disastrous floods submerged almost a third of the country under water, affecting 33 million people,...
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