Category Archives: Monday Malayalam

Watched Chocolate, My Last Malayalam Random Film! Finally Ready to Move on to Actual Purposefully Selected Movies!

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I’m done!  With the dozen films I randomly checked out from the library just because they had Malayalam in the description.  I regret nothing!  Some of them were good, some were bad, but I ended up with a fairly broad idea of Malayalam film and culture, instead of the narrow perspective I would have gotten by just watching the very newest, very highest quality, films.  And for the grande finale, I got to watch a film that was actually pretty close to what I would have chosen on purpose!

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I Finally Got to Watch a Modern Malayalam Film! It was not as good as it could have been (Slight Spoilers for Oru Indian Pranayakadha)

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My randomly organized stack of all the Malayalam movies owned by my library has finally turned up something from the past 10 years!  And it even stars a guy I have seen before,  Fahadh Faasil from Bangelore Days (and apparently in real life he is married to Nazriya Nazim?  Who I love forever because of Ohm Shanti Oshaana).  It was good, and definitely similar to the other modern movies I had seen, but just not quite as spectacularly good as they were.  And that’s actually what I wanted, to experience something not spectacularly good.

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I Finally Understand the Appeal of Mohan Lal! Thank you, Aalkkoottathil Thaniye! (Vague spoilers follow)

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So, last night I took the next Malayalam DVD off my library stack, and there were no subtitles!  Even though the box promised them!  So, yay!  That was easy, and I’m down to only 4 left.

And then I took the next-next DVD off the stack, and it was an artsy looking 80s movie called  Aalkkoottathil Thaniye.  I wasn’t looking forward to it, but the point of requesting every single Malayalam film from the library and then watching them in a random order is to make me watch a wide variety of films, even if I don’t think I will like them.  So I watched it, and turns out, it was great!  I finally “get” Mohan Lal!

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Vanaprastham: A Classy Malayalam Movie That Made Me Think Deep Thoughts About Less Classy Movies

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I was going to skip this one, but then people in the comments said it was not to be missed, so I gave it a shot!  I’m glad I did.  It isn’t my favorite-favorite, or one that exactly hit the sweet spot of what I like, but it was definitely interesting and different.  And it got me thinking about the Mahabharata and how Indian film acting builds on a classical tradition, which is always a good time!

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I watched Another Malayalam Movie! ‘My Big Father’ is Very Odd

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I shouldn’t say “odd”, because I don’t have enough data to really make that judgement.  Apparently, the star (picture above) is actually a big name actor who has been in a bunch of stuff.  Which isn’t surprising, because he was really really good.  But he is also a little person and at times that is handled in a way that felt super progressive, and at other times, not so much.

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Punyalan Agarbatthies: Good Malayalam Film (I think?), that went completely over my head

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Back 10 years ago when I first started watching Hindi movies, there was all this stuff that went completely over my head.  If I enjoyed a film, it was just in the most superficial way, because the hero was cute or the love story was sweet.  And then I learned more and more, and all of a sudden all these plot things started making sense, and I got that the reason this character says this thing here is because it is related to some huge political movement or religious metaphor or something.

And now I am trying to get into the regional films, and I feel like I am back to square one and I am missing all sorts of things!  It is very frustrating, but I know the only way to get through it is just to keep going.

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Weekend in Kerala!

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So, I did something wee bit foolish.  After learning a little more about Malayalam films, and watching Ohm Shanti Oshaana, I went into my library system and requested every DVD they have with the word “Malayalam” somewhere in the description.  Which is 12 DVDs, and they all arrived at once, and now I have to watch 36 hours of Malayalam films in 7 days.  Which may turn out to not be humanly possible and I will end up returning some unwatched.  And they are definitely not all getting full reviews!

Over the weekend, I was able to finish 2, start and reject 1, and reject 2 others just based on the box (yes, I judged a DVD by its cover).  So only 7 left!

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I Watched Another Malayalam Film! That Makes 3! Oh, and I LOVED it! (Spoilers for Ohm Shanti Oshana follow)

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I have now seen 3 Malayalam films!  Tied with my 3 Telegu, but beating my 2 Tamil.  But if re-watching counts, Malayalam is going to double pretty soon.  Because I loooooooved this movie, and I will be watching it over and over and over again.

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