I won’t promise that this will be my last review. I already posted my no spoilers review. And it’s possible that over the next few weeks, as I re-watch it, I end up posting one of those scene by scene things that takes me forever to write. But right now, I want to get up a SPOILER post, if nothing else so we all have a safe place to talk about the movie without worrying about ruining it for other people.
Just got home, haven’t really replayed it over in my head yet, still trying to shake out everything I saw and how it all fit together. But I think I can at least give you some things to think about while you are watching it for the first time.
I can’t resist joining in, even though I can’t actually watch the film (stupid job!). So I am going to put up a post at the exact second that Baahubali 2 starts running all over the world, from the Chicago suburbs to the Bombay movie palaces.
Baahubali!!!!! Instead of my regular Malayalam post yesterday, I put up the first half of this Baahubali review, because it was dubbed in Malayalam and a big hit there too. And now the second half is today’s Telugu/Tamil post, because obviously it was also a big hit in Telugu and Tamil versions. And also, I am putting so much work into going through the film scene by scene, I don’t have time to do any additional post yesterday or today.
BAAHUBALI!!!!! I saw it 7 times in 10 days in the theater (Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday again, and another Tuesday), and then pre-ordered the DVD and watched it 4 more times with the few friends who had missed it in theaters. But that was a couple months before I started the blog, so I’ve never actually written a review of it. But now that Baahubali 2 is about to come out (FINALLY!), it’s time. And since this is a looooooooooooooong one, I am splitting it in two days, Monday and Tuesday. Hey, it was released in both Malayalam and Telugu/Tamil, right?
Sorry, yesterday kind of got away from me, so only one post. I’m so ashamed! But at least I woke up super early and I am knocking out the review I missed posting yesterday. It’s a fun movie to talk about, a lovely way to start the day!
What a fun movie! Just a fun light movie. And kind of more clever than I would expect from a Telugu movie. I may need to track down the other film by this director. Oh, and also Nani was very fun. I thought I just liked him in Eega because Eega is the greatest film of all time, but now I think he is kind of great even in non-Greatest Film of All Time films.
Good morning! I posted my no-spoilers review late last night after I got home, but now I have had a good night’s sleep and is time for my SPOILERS review. Which gives the full plot and really really digs into all the meanings of it. And there is a lot to dig into in this film!
Well, that was a Ratnam movie all right! In that, while watching it, I thought “this is kind of okay, sort of interesting, very pretty”. And then I’ve spent two hours thinking about it and I haven’t even gotten close to unpacking all the themes and metaphors and so on and it just gets deeper and deeper the further I go.
Happy Tuesday! Another Nagarjuna movie this week. I think I might have some strange attraction to old men? People keep trying to sell me on Mahesh and Allu Arjun and even Naga Chaitanya, and yet I find myself drawn to old man Nagarjuna. He’s just so much more cool and confident than those younger boys! Although at least this movie is 15 years old, so back when he was only 42, which is almost kind of age appropriate for me! If you squint a bit and assume a husband should be a lot older than a wife.
This is one of those movies where I am watching it thinking “is the message I am seeing on purpose or an accident? Or an purposeful accident? Is it just where the characters ended up or was this the goal all along? Or did the writer start thinking of it as a statement on film relationships and not realize it was a statement on real ones too?” I think it is probably the last, because I started thinking about it in terms of film too, and then realized that it works just as well for real life. And, in fact, hits exactly my issues with the way culture treats female safety.
This was before Indra, right? So the similarities aren’t a coincidence? Or else they are both picking up on an older traditional I don’t know about. There are some Mahabharata touches to it, but the jealous overlooked woman and the vengeance in the second generation, that is oddly specific.
This is one of my Netflix movies, and I have no memory of why I added it to my list. I’m sure I had a good reason. Possibly that it was an Allu Arjun movie with Prakash Raj, maybe one of you recommended it, or maybe I knew at one point that it was his first film. If I ever knew, I’d forgotten by the time I watched it. And now I can’t believe it! He was so good!
Well, this was depressing! And shockingly coincidental. I am beginning to suspect that the K. Balachander fictional universe only contains about 200 people, which would explain why so many characters end up having surprising connections to other characters previously introduced.
Another Allu Arjun film! Am I remembering right that his hair changes frequently? Unlike most male stars, where the hair and the whole look is kind of part of their brand? If so, I think he should keep changing, because this look is not the best.
Am I correct that this is not the best movie? I am never sure with my Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam films, if I am missing something really subtle that makes it into a brilliant classic. I only picked this one because it had Prithviraj and was available through Netflix. While a good movie and one I enjoyed watching, it didn’t quite have that “BRILLIANT!” feeling. Although the songs were great. And the plot is delightfully complex
Did you know Nagarjuna was in Khuda Gawah? I didn’t! And I’ve seen that movie way more times than anyone should see Khuda Gawah. How did I not notice him back then? Because now, I love him!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What an interesting masala of movies (that tracks, right? I was going to use “melange”, but that’s just French for “mix”, so why not “masala” instead?)! My Netflix envelope claimed it was a remake of some American movie called Assassins. But that’s just one of many many films that went into creating this one.
dontcallitbollywood 