Yet another Hotstar miracle! I film I had been curious about because of Rosshan Andrews, the director, and which was impossible to find. Until suddenly it popped up! Right there, at my fingertips! The wonder of Hotstar.
Okay, let’s do this! Tuesday Tamil! Actually on Tuesday! My box office post is still going to be late this week, but at least everything else will be back on track. Plus, I am excited to talk about plot details for this movie. (no spoiler review went up earlier today)
Sorry! Padmavati took all my time yesterday, so we missed Monday Malayalam. And now I am doubling up on Tuesday, a no spoilers and a spoilers review, both, for Solo. Because it came out in Malayalam and Tamil, so I have decided it works for both.
I watched Kireedam months and months and months ago and now, FINALLY, I know how that story really ends.
Oh young Mohanlal! Why are you so wonderful? One of my first Malayalam films was Aalkkoottathil Thaniye which is mostly a Mammootty film, but in his two scenes, Mohanlal stole the show for me. And now with them as equal actors, I am even more convinced that Mohanlal is the one for me. At least, in the 1980s. Haven’t made a decision yet for the other eras.
What a cute movie! Which charmed me so much that I had to put up a post yesterday describing the whole thing so that people could see how perfectly it could be remade as an SRKajol movie. Or really, in any industry with any star couple. There are so many talented mature actors, and so few scripts for them!
Earlier today, Claudia in the comments of my Silly Sunday post requested a mature Shahrukh-Kajol love story. And then I sat down to watch my weekly Malayalam film, Bhaskar the Rascal, and BOOM! That’s the romance!!! It’s PERFECT!!! And so I am about to spoil an entire film, just so you can see how right I am.
Accessbollywood.net does the real work of keeping this list updated, you should definitely absolutely subscribe to them for your day to day updates. Accessbollywood also includes more things than my list, I limit it to mainstream releases, no TV films or super art films. Plus, my update is only when I feel like it and have time. Extra time, since I’m not just listing, I’m also describing and giving suggestions on what to watch.
Well, that was okay. Definitely an okay movie, not a great movie, or even a terribly interesting one. But it was available to rent on googleplay, and it had Nivin and Nazriya, so a fair enough timepass. But I would still have enjoyed re-watching Ohm Shanti Oshaana for the thousandth time more.
Okay, Asmita in the comments suggested this, but I am a little nervous about it. Because I really really don’t know as much as I should about the non-Hindi industries. And I know SO MUCH about Hindi that I am going to have a hard time limiting myself. But we will see how it goes. Oh, and after you watch all of these, you can just put something in the comments if you want more recommendations based on your favorites, I would LOVE to do that. But this is just the start, I have so much more knowledge to give.
Welp, I did it, I finally watched Narasimham. And it was pretty much as expected. Not exactly what I look for in my Malayalam films, but Mohanlal was there, and so was Mammootty for a bit, and now I have seen Most Successful Movie of All Time, or whatever the accurate superlative is.
Kind of odd watching a movie which hits so many familiar beats, even in the same time period, but it is about Malayalis fighting the British instead of Americans. But then, that’s the point, the British are the British wherever they are, and there is only one particular form of warfare that is effective against them. Well, at least in the 1700s.
I watched this whole movie and I am still not sure who did it and why and all of that. But it was certainly entertaining! Although not as entertaining as the last CBI movie I watched, Jagratha CBI, where the twists were just BONKERS.
Accessbollywood.net does the real work of keeping this list updated, if you want a day by day update, subscribe to them. My update is only like once a month or so when I feel like it. But it does give some tips on what to watch and what not to watch, so that’s helpful! I hope.
Well, I’m back to the classics! Because Bharatham starts with a “B” and therefore was next on my DVD shelf after ABCD. And also because I was in the mood for something thought provoking and good, and I knew this one would be.
Well that was an interesting movie! Took me a really really long time to figure it out. And then in the middle of the night I suddenly sat up and went “Of course! It’s all about the 3 chains!”
New Podcast! Been a while, because Dina’s been sick. But now she is better! So we got to go to a movie last night, and talk about it all the way home, just like usual.
I am continuing my “well, it’s the DVD on top” decision making process for films as I unpack. After two good Malayalam choices and one so-so Telugu, I have landed on a really quite bad Malayalam film. It looks like it was a big of a box office hit, but most critics agree with me that it is generally no good.
I just cycled through a whole bunch of variations on that title, “unexpected”, “juxtapositions”, “breaking boundaries”, but really it’s just shock. That kind of “I can’t believe they went there!” shock. Which is why it is really too bad that I saw this film after having already seen a whole bunch of other movies that went to the same kind of shocking place. Since all the others were just imitating this one, it should have had the privilege of shocking me first.
I fell behind this weekend, and now I have to write my Monday post seconds after finishing the movie. Which is really too bad, because this is a film that really needs you to sit with it for a while before you are ready to talk about it.
Isn’t this amazing, that there is a whole Indian genre of “women escaping relationships that aren’t terrible, but aren’t what they deserve”? I watched this movie and could compare it with Queen, English/Vinglish, How Old Are You?, and plenty of others. But this film has a twist, this film ends with the “unthinkable” actually happening.
This was a kind of interesting film. Not a great film, maybe not even a good film? But an interesting one. Well, interesting in the last twenty minutes. The set-up for that was a bit of a drag. But most important (for me), this was a FREE film! It suddenly popped up at my library, while I was in the middle of the move (DVDs finally unpacked as of this morning, but books still in boxes), and I had to watch library DVDs. So it was perfect for me.
I don’t want to say that Raabta is better than Magadheera, or even as good. But it is a very clever reimagining which takes the same story but replace the from the southern industry (comedy scenes, action scenes, stalking romance) with the strengths of the Hindi industry (clever dialogue, cutting edge international setting, slightly more complicated characters). So, what other southern films could we do that with? Not that we SHOULD do it, but that we could.
Well, this was a bit of an interesting downer! A movie about sex that was not at all sexy. Appropriately so, sex work is not sexy for the sex workers, it is just a job that they do from necessity. And it’s not necessarily sexy for their clients either, it is also something from desperation and misery. So, woo! An accurate depiction of life for a sex worker! Which means, depressing and grinding and tiring and dangerous and yet dull at the same time.
Well, I finally saw Oppam. Only 6 months late. Oh well, this is what happens when the theaters only give one screen to Malayalam films, and there are 4 (or 5?) major releases for Onam weekend. I saw Oozham, which was in a similar genre but not quite as good as this. Because Prithviraj is not quite as good as Mohanlal and Jeethu Joseph isn’t quite as good as Priyadarshan.
