Tag Archives: Film Reviews

Jomonte Suvisheshangal Review: My 4th Malayalam Film in Theaters! And 3rd Dulquer Film in Theaters! (SPOILERS)

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I missed Monday Malayalam, because I was completely impractical and not time effective, and I went to see Dulquer’s new movie in theaters at the 8 o’clock show on a work night.  Because it’s Dulquer!  And it’s cold and grey and depressing, and Kerala is so pretty. And I was hoping to write the review when I got home, but it was midnight and my brain finger typing thoughts not coming.

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Tamil Tuesday: Aval Oru Thodharkadai Shows Why a Woman Turns Cold

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Second week that I am managing a Tamil Tuesday!  And an actual good film this time, another R. Balachander.  If I were still watching movies in a wild and unplanned manner, I would be zipping through all his films on youtube and probably getting super confused as to what happened in which.  But with my new alliterative schedule theory, I have to hold off.  Or else zip through and then schedule all my posts out for the next several Tuesdays.  We’ll see what I end up doing.

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Monday Malayalam: Oru Muthassi Gadha, Wait The Heroine is YOUNGER THAN MY MOTHER?????

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Second week for this, going okay so far!  Having a schedule to stick to is really driving me to watch movies.  That was the initial purpose of the To-Do List, but then it just got so big I couldn’t deal with it.  But needing to have a new Malayalam film watched and reviewed every Monday is good for me.  Oh, and this movie in particular I have been wanting to watch since last Onam (at my local theater, we got Oozham instead).

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Raees SPOILER Review: Is This How it Was Supposed to End?

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So, I saw Raees for the second time last night!  Some things were better on this watch, and some things were worse.  But, knowing how it ends, I was able to pay more attention to various hints and clues that were dropped along the way, and I think I have a better sense of how the whole thing was built piece by piece.  So I can do my “real” spoiler review, instead of just a mini one.

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Raees Mini-SPOILER Review: A Place For Us All to Debate Guyliner

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I’m tired, it’s late, but I also really want to start talking about Raees with you guys!  And I want to do it in a place where we won’t spoil it for those poor people who haven’t been able to see it yet.  And thus, a mini-review!  I still get to write and put up a better review sometime tomorrow, but this is just something to hold you over until then.

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Tuesday Tamil: Thai Veedu, Another Rajnikanth Masala Picture! But With Real Emotion that Shows Up in the Last Half Hour

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Again, I am going to try to have some kind of posting schedule so my readers can know what to look for when, and I can keep on a regular varied diet of films.  And so for Tuesday, a Tamil film (or Telugu, they are both alliterative)!  As I continue to go through the oldest Rajnikanth films available from Netflix!  This one apparently was an all time hit, and I can see way, because it is fun!  Just big silly fun!  Until right at the end when real emotion suddenly rears its head.

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Happy Raees Week! Deewar, the Ultimate Smuggler and Criminal and Anti-Hero and Let’s Just Say Film-Film

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I’m just going to say it, Deewar is the best written film in the history of Hindi cinema.  It deserves an epic detailed perfect discussion.  That is not this post.  This post is a very superficial and not detailed discussion as it relates to the upcoming release of Raees.

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Monday Malayalam: Annmariya Kalippilannu, Kerala Does Dangal Better

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Okay, I’m going to try something.  Before, I would get a big DVD order or have a slow week at work, and post a ton of blog posts from Kerala or Tamil Nadu or whatever all at once.  And then hit a point of being busy at work and running out of DVDs or whatever and post no reviews at all for a while.  But that’s not good, this start and stop.  So, now that the big Hindi release season is about to end, I am going to try to stick to a schedule, Monday Malayalam, Tuesday Tamil or Telugu.  And then Hindi or whatever other random thing I am watching (Zindagi Gulzar Hai?) the rest of the week.   Continue reading →

Happy Raees Week! Tezaab Had Gangsters and Garba Before Raees!

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I’m I the only one who has seen Streets of Fire?  If so, you must ALL WATCH IT IMMEDIATELY!!!!  Anyway, Streets of Fire was remade in India as Tezaab, with Anil in a tapoori-type role and Madhuri in her break out performance, and lots and lots of 80s style action.

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Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi: My Least Favorite Puri Jagannadh Movie (So Far)

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I’m pretty sure this is my first Ravi Teja movie, so I can’t make any judgement there.  But it’s my fourth or fifth Puri Jagannadh movie, and I can tell you, in terms of direction, it is not as good as it could be.  I’m missing the clever little touches and sense of humor about the plot.  And I am really really missing the lighter touch with the male-female romance.

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Ethir Neechal: Dickensian!

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Did I say before that Rajshri has a TON of Balachander movies for free on their youtube channel?  They do!  I don’t know why, but who questions a miracle?  So now I have seen another incredibly early and, I assume, classic Balachander movie.  Really early actually, this film is from 1968 whereas Moodru Mudichu was 1976.

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Happy Friday the 13th! To Celebrate This Ominous Day, The Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen

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Really, this isn’t fair, it’s a tie between this movie and The Fog With Irfaan Khan.  But I don’t remember The Fog With Irfaan Khan as well, so you have to be contented with just Bal Brahmachari.

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Indra: So, This is a Chiranjeevi Movie?

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Is this my first Chiranjeevi movie?  That can’t be right!  And yet a search of my archives for “Chiranjeevi” comes up empty!  Oh! Magadheera!  He had a little cameo in that, right?  Okay, so I’ve seen him in one movie.

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Things Are Finally Hunky-dory: Humsafar Part III, Episodes 15-23 Review/Summary

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I finished it!  Thanks to my disastrous start to the new year (landlord says maybe I can move back in on Tuesday), I spent the weekend huddled in my parents’ guest room, with nothing to do but watch Pakistani soap opera’s on Netflix (yes, I did start Zindagi Gulzar Hai also).  And so I finished 23 episodes on 24 hours.  Which doesn’t sound that impressive until you remember to subtract sleep time.  Well, not that much sleep time.  Like 5 hours.

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Happy Hrithik’s Birthday! Let’s Talk About the Movie with His Greatest Performance, AGNEEPATH!

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I can never say that title without the big yelling-it-out-into-the-world defiance, AG-NEE-PATH!!!!  Anyhoo, I think it’s Hrithik’s greatest performance, and the greatest movie he has been in (well, except for Bang Bang, my heart’s choice).  And what makes it really impressive is that he (and the filmmakers) were actually able to improve on an Amitabh movie, one of the Amitabhiest of them.

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Things Are Still Not Hunky-Dory: Humsafar Review/Summary Episodes 8-14

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In preparation for Raees, I am zipping through Humsafar, the show that made Mahira Khan famous.  It was a bit of a slog at first, but now I am addicted and am rapidly making my way to the end.  Along the way, I wanted to pause and give some summary and discussion of the episodes.  I already did 1-8 here, now it’s time to move on to 8-14.

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Things Are Not Hunky-Dory: Humsafar Review/Summary Part 1, Episodes 1-8

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As I am sure many of you know, the two big hit Pakistani soap operas, Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzar Hai, were just added to Netflix.  They’ve been available through other less-good sources (ErosNow, youtube) for a while, plus of course their original broadcast, so there is a good chance some of you are ahead of me in watching them.  Anyway, since enough people are seeing them now, and especially because Mahira Khan starred in Humsafar and is about to star in Raees, I am putting out a review/summary of the episodes in 3 parts, starting with the first 8.  There will be a little bit of non-spoiler to start if you want to decide if the show is for you before reading on.

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Aashiqui 2: A Star is Born With the Brilliance of Judy Garland Onscreen Replaced With the Brilliance of Mahesh Bhatt Offscreen

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This is NOT a good movie.  But it is an amusing movie!  It wasn’t like the “wait for death” viewing experience of Azhar, or the “I am so angry I can’t function” experience of Ki & Ka.  It was a fun watch and if I had been about 20 years younger, I may have loved it.

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Moondru Mudichu: Rajnikanth and Sridevi’s First Lead roles!

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Is that right?  That’s what Wikipedia says, that they had both acted before (in child roles for Sridevi, and in smaller parts for Rajnikanth), but this was the first movie for both in which they were lead characters.  Which is UNBELIEVABLE!!!  Not just because they are so good, but because they are already so uniquely themselves, the personalities and personas familiar to me now, 40 years later.

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Kshana Kshanam: Maybe RGV isn’t Tarentino, Maybe He is More Hitchcock?

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Thanks to badgering (in a nice way) from the comments section, I finally got around to watching this, my first Ram Gopal Verma Telugu film, and my first RGV Sridevi film.  And it was a revelation!  Not that different from his later Hindi stuff, but different enough that it made me look at his whole career in a new way.

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