Change Your Image
magnamias
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Soorarai Pottru (2020)
Cliched and exaggerated
I feel we often confuse good entertainment with a good movie. Was this movie a good time pass and entertainment? Yes, it was - mainly because it has played to many formulas - an overly idealistic male protagonist, love that blooms against all hardships, a super brutal villain, blow after blow to good people, and good triumphing over evil. This is the basic hero victory plot that many movies try to follow - but thanks to tight writing, good actors, and other camera elements, it succeeds here.
That said, to follow this formula, the writer has taken huge liberties with logic and realism. I don't expect movies to have complete logic and be totally realistic, but I do expect a good portion of these in a semi-biopic. Also, by following the cliched arc, the director has let go of a more nuanced character development. The protagonists are all oh-so-perfect. The antagonists are laughably over-the-top horrible. The wife is loyalty and encouragement personified. The villagers are all touchingly generous. Please give us a break.
I am okay with people saying they liked the film. I am just concerned that most of them claim they identify with Maran and they are inspired and such bs. Anyone who wants to become an entrepreneur or "change the world" or some trope like that - please take this film with a pinch of salt. Everything is a lot more grey in reality. Also, please don't go around claiming this is the best movie of the decade and such. It sounds too funny.
Ghost Stories (2020)
Fabulous directors find themseves lost in the Horror genre
Imagine giving the task of baking a cake to some art directors and designers. They make a gorgeous looking cake, set it in an 'instagrammable' plate, tempt you with the lighting, but finally you take a bite....and go 'ew!'
Ghost stories is similar. The cinematography is wonderful in all four stories. The first few scenes in each story promise you of an engaging time ahead. The actors are brilliant. The atmosphere seems just right. And yet, one feels cheated at the end of each one.
Horror is a difficult genre, and even seasoned directors in the genre keep giving us duds from time to time even with Hollywood's budget. Achieving the effect of Horror with a short story, IMO, is even more challenging. The directors got lost, and it shows.
1. Zoya Akhtar - That she is a brilliant director is evident in the way she manages the two-actor script set in a single house and keeps us interested almost till the end. Jahnavi's screen presence is fantastic. The biggest flaw is that this story simply doesn't have enough substance. It fell flat with the final scene and I was like, 'huh, that's it?'
2. Anurag Kashyap - The man either has been traumatized by some horror scenes he watched as a kid or binge-watched many horror movies while smoking weed. Because while the mishmash of dark, gory, but mostly bland scenes were intended to signal some evil presence subconsciously, the short film format didn't give it enough time to take root, and hence the whole exercise felt WEIRD.
3. Dibakar Banerjee - The best of the lot, but then, hey, it isn't horror in the first place. It is a metaphorical piece that intends to be political commentary. So....cheating? Lol. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this piece. It felt silly as the plot progressed, but when I finally understood the point he was making, I was all admiration for this one.
4.Karan Johar - Omg Karan, you simply can't get over big, flamboyant houses, wealthy weddings and the super-rich, can you? I think if we ever get another series called BEGGAR STORIES, Karan's will be about a beggar dreaming about being super rich. Anyway, his film isn't as bad as people make it to be. This story would have worked very well in an anthology novel, but on screen, t simply didn't have as much effect. Hence, the culprit is perhaps selection of a wrong story.
Overall, watch this collection without expectations. It is bearable on an otherwise boring day.
Mother! (2017)
What did I just watch?!
Okay, I get it - the movie is based on the origin story from the Bible. So what? Is that supposed to make this slow, boring, gruesome film special? The first half just passes with me waiting to see where everything is going to lead. There are so many blanks to be filled, and it's a guessing game. But I persist. The second half enters more shaky territory with further testing of patience. But then the movie ends and nothing. Just some residual memory of some very violent and traumatic scenes. The movie could rather have been adopted into a musical or theatrical play if the symbolism is all the writer wanted to celebrate.
Suttu Pidikka Utharavu (2019)
Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
Amateurishly shot scenes, average performance, unconvincing logic... all so that the big surprise near the end is revealed to make us go wow. Doesn't work.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Hasn't aged well
I first watched this film nine years before the date of this review. It was an engaging sketch of both a city and a field (high fashion) I generally had little to no knowledge of. Needless to say, I was mighty thrilled by the story of this "normal" New Yorker finding her place and working her way up the rank as the assistant to the indomitable queen of Haute Couture, Miranda.
Subsequent rewatches haven't struck the same chord. The character arcs do not seem convincing, especially that of Andy, played by Anne Hathaway. Who is Andy anyway? There's little we know about her. What makes her so resilient to all the taunts and insults thrown her way? What prompts her sudden switch from mocking fashion to embracing it? How many free goodies is she entitled to anyway as a secretary? Her final seemingly righteous decision to quit seems to have little foundation backing it up. Similarly, why is Miranda such a boss-zilla?
There were also a bunch of wrong or mixed messages thrown in without resolution. Like, is it really wrong for a woman to prioritise her career to a point of obsession that she will always be penalised for it? There were many scenes where Andy's bf was acting like a grown-up attention-demanding baby and yet, they showed the lady in bad light. I guess it is too much to ask a comedy drama to take itself too seriously, but I wish it had.
All said, this was my "Frozen" back in the late 2000s. And I shall remember it fondly for that.
Who (2018)
A Bad Dream
The movie is very ambitious - it wants to tackle topics as bizarre as dream telepathy, time travel, out-of-body experiences and UFOs; topics that even experienced directors might find challenging to convincingly pull off in an engaging manner. And yet, for all its ambition, it fails in even the most basic departments like a solid screenplay or acting.
I have no clue what happened in the movie. There, I said it. And what makes this all the more frustrating is I can't even read up online to make sense of this film - because no one else knows either.
The premise is interesting - a death occurs every year on Christmas Eve. And all the deaths are connected by one common thread. But this is it - you better write your own story to satiate your appetite for this mystery because you won't find it in the film. You know that feeling when you walk out of some films astounded by the complexity of what you just watched. Then, you begin to devour furiously all the theories online, rewatch the film, and are wowed by all the details you missed. Rewatching this film will not help though because the details are absent. They apparently are making a second film to explain this one. But why! This is no TV show. Every film should give some closure on its own.
The acting is painful. When some of the characters speak in English and mutter what is supposed to be deeply profound, the net effect is downright laugh out loud. The effect is akin to watching Avengers or Jurassic Park in a regional language. Except Pearle Maney, who did her best to breathe life into her character, the actors were just average at best at their performance.
Uyare (2019)
Low on impact but worth a watch
I will let the fan girl get the better of me first by adding that I will watch pretty much any film of Parvathy Thiruvothu. The woman is class and where better to show this than one that stars her as a pilot? It was a pleasure to watch the lady in uniform.
As for this drama that deals with the acid attack theme, the treatment of the subject is both the good news and bad. The film doesn't get too melodramatic at any point. Even in the aftermath of the attack, we aren't subject to overly dramatic music, a sob fest, or a desperate call for sympathy. Parvathy is shown as a determined and stoic women from the beginning (except for her vulnerability to her psycho bf, which seemed unrealistic to me). In a way, it was refreshing to be able to observe the proceedings without a massive emotional trap. Yes, we do see the aftermath, but everything seems to be taken in a spirit of fight and optimism. By the end of the movie, though, the emotional impact seemed low given the theme. She seemed to have pretty much breezed through the turmoil.
In any case, it's definitely worth a watch....because..Parvathy!
Kabir Singh (2019)
A flawed man. A flawed message.
5 stars for giving us one of the most eccentric, interesting characters written for an Indian movie. 5 stars less for portraying this weird, arrogant, alpha male as cool, hip, desirable, successful, and brilliant.
Aadai (2019)
A mishmash of conflicting ideas
I had high hopes for this film. In a state where many colleges still ban women from wearing leggings, the trailer and word around this movie seemed like a big slap in the face of unquestioned conventions. I was hoping it would explore issues around body autonomy, shame and what dignity really means. However, the movie grossly under utilises these opportunities and seems like the work of a confused teenager who recently crammed too many ideologies into his head.
The film's protagonist, Amala Paul, has some interesting traits. She doesn't give two hoots about how a woman is expected to behave typically, is bold, forthright, daring and independent. However, what the character lacks is responsibility or sensibility; she is rude, doesn't care about consequences, unethical and impulsive. This, unfortunately, creates this messy bundle of traits. We don't quite feel she is a "good person"; BUT the director needs to make her sensible WITHOUT compromising on her core qualities of courage and strength. Here, he fails miserably and how! Add to this the multi-faceted theme of nudity, and everything becomes one big mess.
She gets into a trap and wakes up nude due to her own folly. But the nudity serves no purpose to the story, in my opinion. She might have as well learnt a lesson in some other way. I's almost as if the nudity shocks her into becoming a good person. But why? That sends a wrong message.
Terrible. Disappointing.
Aruvi (2016)
Offers hope in a turbulent world
The entire film was like good poetry to me. It made me cry. It made me smile. It made me fume, cringe and choke with emotion - and all these, I rarely do when I see a film. Maybe as a woman, I could relate to so much it said not just blatantly but also between the lines. But more importantly, I felt it was a movie on not just feminism. That would be an understatement. It was superb commentary on many things preventing us from reaching a world where people can be happy regardless of wealth, status, power, or gender. The film celebrates individuality and contrary of what many say, I don't think it is preachy. The strongest message to me was that, individuals are not black or white, and amidst all the crime and negativity, there's still hope to connect to the fundamental benevolence in people.
Monster (2019)
One that adults and children can enjoy
Tamil movies don't have a great track record of being child-friendly in recent times. We make good movies - but far too many on caste violence, gang tussles, crazy killers and even crazier ghosts; which is why Monster impressed me. A god-fearing, moral, disciplined simpleton who has vowed to never harm animals is being tortured by.....a house rat! Wow. Can we please applaud the producer who decided to go ahead funding this film? Why can't we have more of these?
It was a danger, of course. A film on a theme as bizarre and simple as this need a good screenplay, solid animation and decent music. Yes, yes, and yes. Monster delivers. Just sit back and enjoy the lighter side of life over some ice cream and this film.
Oththa Seruppu Size 7 (2019)
Takes the medium of Cinema to new places
By now, you probably know what's the buzz around the film - yes, you see only one actor through the entire film. Just one person on screen for two hours! He does speak to others, but we don't see them. And it's set in a single location - an interrogation room of a police station in Chennai.
There's suspense in the story, yes. It's a murder investigation, after all. But in an age where even 10-minute Youtube videos get boring if we just see one person on screen, this movie manages to innovate and explore possibilities with this limitation in a surprisingly fantastic manner. The other actors in this movie are actually lighting, cinematography, acting, music and script. These actors have performed exceedingly well, taking on the gaps left by the lack of their full-bodied counterparts.
After the movie, I wondered how this murder mystery would have fared had it been taken in the usual manner. Because the story is decent and will lend itself well even to a conventional detective-chase-investigate movie. Would that have been more or less difficult than this film? Perhaps the challenges are different. In a way, Parthiban has more control here - he needs to work with an exceptional technical team and the script - although needing a few tweaks to never let boredom slip - is simpler than one where multiple actors and locations and timelines need to be shown. Nevertheless, kudos to the actor for this experimentation and succeeding in it. It has definitely made Tamil cinema richer.
Maharshi (2019)
Longest three hours of my life in recent times
I don't know how I sat through this movie, but it sure felt like eternity. At the end of it, I was numb - physically and mentally. What stopped me from switching it off (watched it on OTT) midway? I don't know - perhaps the gravitational pull of bad cinema. To be honest, I watched it for some good laughs, but the joke was on me at the end.
The three-line story of the movie in itself not bad. But the near-complete lack of logic or any semblance to realism is an insult to audience.
Ee.Ma.Yau. (2018)
Death is a Messy Affair
How often do we think about death? Our brushes with mortality are often when misfortune strikes loved ones or through books and movies. But while there have been great movies centred around grief and dying, one aspect that is sidelined to very simplistic projections is the funeral. Usually, in South Indian movies, you see a gathering where women are wailing and men standing sober faced around a body covered with a white sheet. This scene is often just a few minutes of the movie itself.
Ee. Ma. Yau is different. The entire movie is about the funeral - the messy affair of saying a final goodbye. A poor fisherman's son wants to bid goodbye to his late father with some dignity. But when death strikes suddenly, time is against you and you are poor, this is no easy ask, especially in a society where the distinction between private and public blurs - where rituals, religion, neighbours, corruption, bureaucracy, everything converge to hassle you before you can take even five minutes off to grieve. This is not your usual film that follows an arc - the one where problem strikes, hero suffers, he fights and then overcomes it all. This is more like a documentary on the sociology of death that pays attention to the details - how women grieve differently in front of different people, how a village with little to look forward to creates its own entertainment around death and the dynamics of power that is asserted by religion in times of crisis.
The movie in itself is a little boring - there, I said it. Because, as I mentioned, there is little plot; the genius is in the realism and attention to subtle, societal details. You need patience to sit through the first half, at least. But it does push one to think of the complexities around mortality. Towards the end, all at once, strong emotion hit me. And I did dream a thing or two about death for a few days.
Cheers to the most elaborate funeral in Indian Cinema!
Little Things (2016)
A multi-episode advertisement for the Little app.
I didn't know there was an app called Little before watching this series. So I guess their motive worked. The entire season seems like they found ways to plug in their app in scenes and THEN, made a story to connect these scenes. For example, they wanted to show the male lead order a biryani on the app availing an offer, hence they threw in a fight so that the guy can send biryani to his lady love.
The female lead is cute and acts well. Since she comes in almost every scene, I guess that is a little incentive to watch a few episodes. I don't know what's the point of this series, really. It's breezy, casual entertainment to pass time, sure. But how long can one keep seeing petty fights and later patch-up scenes? It's more like some fly-on-the-way reality TV where you want to satiate your curiosity about how couples live-in together. Relationship drama over a popcorn. It's entertaining, sure, but after awhile, you know you have been up to no good watching this for 3 seasons.
Jallikattu (2019)
Didn't work as expected
A wild buffalo escapes a butcher's shop and runs amok, disrupting the routine and dynamics of a bunch of quirky villagers.
Now, this storyline in itself is unconventional and at the hands of a brilliant director, becomes the stuff of festival premieres. However, it seems to me that it worked better in the writer's imagination than it finally did on screen. For starters, none of the actors' characters is established well enough. Even though the entire village is running amok, one feels the need to identify and want to follow at least a bunch of people, but there's no one to anchor our curiosity in this film. Even the bull doesn't seem that fierce tbh.
Second, there are passing references to various themes like naxalism, women's rights, social hierarchy, etc. but they fail to strike a chord and deliver any impact. Mostly because they are inaptly placed in superficial dialogues or are devoted just a few seconds without any context. Further, the acting is average at best. True, everyone has tried to act natural, but somehow it comes across forced and unconvincing.
Overall, it just seems like they tried to force fit an entire screenplay just based on a single promising premise and that shows.