criti-cally Reviews

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

Sorkin ignites raw emotions and touches a deep spot within

[9/10 · 11 May 2021]

# My Expectation I had already heard so much about the movie in the news in relation to the Black Lives Matter Protests, on Netflix, in the Academy Awards that by the time I got to watching it, I already knew it was going to be something great. Something worth raving about. What I was afraid of however, was the movie to get too political and a courtroom drama scene about the US Politics, to which I'm mostly an outsider (although I do try to keep my fair share of knowledge). But as Oscar winning movies usually are, serious, dramatic and slow, I was worried this would be similar and I would end up with something too complicated. But it turned out to be the complete opposite, in a good way.

# Themes The main theme of the movie was the 1968 Democratic National Convention Protests and the trial of the Chicago 7 obviously. But besides this I think the movie was also trying to convey a couple of other important things like the Corruption in the US Judicial System, The Failure of Democracy, the Systematic Injustices Induced Upon Black People and the power Of The People. All of these combined in a fast moving film which induce emotions in the audience is what made this movie particularly special.

# Most Striking Details 1. Aaron Sorkin particularly plays with your emotions in the emotions by hitting the trigger points that presently haunt our society. Take the example of Fred Hampton who was shot by the police. The scene with its glimpses of shooting in black and white remind the audience of the injustice we still face in the present day society about Police Brutality Against the Blacks. Or the particularly agitating scene where Bobby Seale is bound and gagged to be presented in front of the court. We can see the tense faces of all the people present in the room and the disgrace or humiliation of a white man sitting there. It angered and humiliated and ignited feelings of revenge from me, a brown guy sitting thousands of miles across in India, so I can't even imagine what the colored people in America felt seeing that scene. It was a brutal reminder that the America they live in isn't really free for everyone.

2. Characters: We saw only a short instance in the characters lives, a particularly small moment that was big at that time. But still a spec in their entire life spectrum. We didn't know anything about their backgrounds, or their personalities, but as the movie developed, in just 120 minutes, the director was able to stand out each of the character individually, and give the audience their motive, their personality and the political values very easily, without using exposition, which was remarkably done.

3. Acting: The acting by the actors is commendable. Sacha Baron Cohen expressed his lack of confidence playing Abbie Hoffman because Hoffman had a strict Massachusetts accent. But at the end the role he portrayed was so relevant and true to his character. There were many British actors who acted out American characters very well, like Eddie Redmayne who played Tom Hayden etc. Bobby seal's role by Yahya Abdul was done impeccably. The rage, the irritation and the disappointment in a system and country designed to favor White Privilege is exhibited clearly though his acting and expressions throughout the movie.

4. Screenplay: The dialogues in the movie never get boring, but instead with Abbie Hoffman's humor actually make it more interesting. You'd expect a lot of political jargon in the movie which a layman couldn't get a grip on, but the Sorkin wrote the script so easy and flowing with breezy characters and funny punchlines that have a deeper meaning to them that make the movie interesting while having it hit the spot inside us too.

5. Soundtrack: The background music by Pemberton was excellent and completely apt to theme. Starting the song, "Hear My Dream" that tugs on your heart strings to the patriotic emotional number "Stand Up(The Chicago 7)", the movie's soundtrack plays a big role in igniting the feelings among the audiences. Without it, the movie is a dish without any spice or flavour...just bland.

# What The Movie Lacked?

Some people may account that the movie isn't accurate to the real events, and after researching online I agree, it isn't. But i don't hold it against the film or the director really. Some things need to be edited out in a commercial film, especially one that is being made for ALL audiences across the world. It is a dramatised movie of the events, NOT a documentary. The director has the right and will need to modify some things to get the message and the emotions across, which i felt was done aptly.

# Verdict Overall, what I thought might be a slow, political watch turned out to be something worth watching again. The movie ignites raw emotions, completely apt with the times we are living in and touches a deep spot. It is very well made, the dialogues and the screenplay is one of the most brilliant pieces. The acting is true to the characters.

The movie is a must watch for everyone as it will trigger our emotions and make us revolt and get angry at the system no matter where we are from and will make us get ideas that might not be appreciated by all.

"William Kunstler: Do you know why you're on trial here?

Abbie Hoffman: We carried certain ideas across state lines. Not machine guns or drugs or little girls. Ideas. When we crossed from New York to New Jersey to Pennsylvania to Ohio to Illinois, we had certain ideas. And for that, we were gassed, beaten, arrested, and put on trial."

The Disciple (2020)

The Rite Of Passage For An Artist - But is it worth it?

[9/10 · 10 May 2021]

"He is mistaken who believes he may pluck a single leaf from the laurel tree of art without paying for it with his life." ~Thomas Mann, from the book Tonio Kröger

# Themes

• The question in an artists life - whether to remain true to their practice, and live the life of an ascetic where you have to work hard with no guarantee you will succeed or to go mainstream where you will get money and fame but won't be living for true art.

• Sharad Tries to work hard and live like an ascetic at the command of Maai. But time frays Sharad's idealism. Asceticism in the hustling and bustling city of Mumbai is a difficult practice.

# Most Striking Details 1. Cinematography:

• Chaitanya Tamhane constructs Sharad's narrative with long takes and wide establishing shots. The camera stays still. The pacing is purposefully slow. This isn't a film about big plot twists or overblown emotion. The story unfolds in a low-key, naturalistic manner. Like Sharad, Chaitanya is pursuing a certain purity of vision. Which requires commitment from the viewer.

• The film is shot like a poetry on celluloid with its studied frames and immersive sound design.

2. Acting:

• Aditya Modak (plays Sharad Nerulkar) gives a melancholic performance. He transforms externally and internally along with the movie. It's astounding to watch and one can't believe that this is his acting debut as Sharad.

• We don't see Maai but we hear her with the same reverence that Sharad does because Maai's pursuit seems mythical.

3. Soundtrack:

• For a film about music, sounds plays a vital role in the movie. But it is expressed not just in the form of the Classical Music that the singers present. Sounds is used as a visual device in the movie.

• Take the instance in Act 2 when Sharad is grown up with a moustache. The Mumbai city is shown by its sound of the car horns and the city life with still imagery.

• The bike ride scenes when Shard is listening to Maai seems mythical of the mythical because of the sitar sounds playing in the background, and as Shard gets sick of, he removes the headphones, and we get to hear the same hustle and bustle of the city again.

# What The Movie Lacked?

• The pacing can get slow sometimes and requires patience from the viewers.

• There are questions that remain...was Sharad just talentless? I've heard that Hardwork can even beat talent where there is no talent. Sharad seemed dedicated to his art and worked hard. Still he wasn't able to succeed. While his fellow students were. What was the reason of Sharad's actual failure? Was it his style of music? Why couldn't he choose some other Form of Classical Music besides the Bandish?

## Verdict My Rating - 9/10 The movie won many awards and rightly so. The topic is touched was new and handled very well. The cinematography was poetic. It was rightly done.

Shoplifters (2018)

An breath-taking display of realism, a lesson in empathy and an exploration of the meaning of family conveyed in 120 minutes.

[9/10 · 8 July 2020]

This was the first movie by the Japanese director Hiorkazu Koreeda that I've seen, and I was blown away. Koreeda, like his earlier works, continues his exploration of the true meaning of family in Shoplifters. This is breathtaking movie evokes so many emotions in the audiences and it does it so well, that its very hard not to connect to the Shibata Family. This is the second international movie this year I have seen about the repressed and the poor trying to live their lives, the first being Parasite. And it goes without saying, if you loved that one, then you'll love this one even more as Shoplifters is definitely more realistic and more powerful as a story.

Shoplifters focusses on marginalized people existing on the fringes of Japanese society who barely eke out a living by engaging in activities that skirt the letter of the law. It is the story of flawed people who have patched together a working "family" of outcasts who believe that the impulse to survive and create a nurturing environment is more important than strict adherence to society's norms and blood relations.

The film opens in a supermarket where Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky), a middle-aged, part-time construction worker, is seen exchanging strange hand signals with a pre-teenage boy, Shota (Jyo Kairi), who seems to regard what is going on as a family outing. It quickly becomes apparent that this is no ordinary family shopping spree but an exercise in shoplifting, as we watch Shota casually throw items from the shelves into his shopping bag when no one is looking. Justifying their flouting of the law, Osamu says that if the goods are in the store, it means that they do not belong to anyone, and tells Shota that they are stealing the items only as a means of helping the family. Much later when questioned about stealing by the authorities, sadly he says that shoplifting was the only skill he had to teach the boy.

Osamu, as it is gradually revealed, is the part of a household consisting of himself and wife Noboyu Shibata (Sakura Ando), wife's teenaged sister (but from a different mother) Aki Shibata (Mayu Matsuoka), Osamu and Noboyu's young son Shota, and grandma Hatsue Shibata (the late Kirin Kiki), all living in a small, cluttered apartment outside of Tokyo, scattered with toys and knick-knacks everywhere, barely providing the family with enough room to eat and sleep.

This warm but abnormal family is slowly revealed to be conjoined in ways we did not expect. The catalyst for this is dad and son bringing home a neglected 5-year-old girl, by the name of Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), they come across abandoned on an apartment balcony on a freezing winter night. The girl comes home with them, and slots into the family, a pattern, we slowly realize, that has been repeated in the past. Granny was 'picked up,' and the son seems to have arrived by similar means. Their warmth and humanity is at odds with the illegality and disregard for social mores. Society judges such people, but by allowing us intimacy with them, Koreeda shows how society is also judged by them - and found wanting.

Shoplifters for its most part is focused on this families daily life and the problems they face emphasizing on their bonds, their empathy and their poverty. The slow revelation of the family's background, the naturalistic interactions, the judicious spacing of shocks and surprises, are all evidence of a master filmmaker in perfect sync with his material. Throughout the entire film, Koreeda does not stand in judgement of his characters but simple observes the trajectory of their life. Even when he moves into darker territory in the film's last section, its main focus remains on the humanity of the characters. When Noboyu disposes of an item that is a painful reminder for Yuri about the family that abused her, she gives her a big hug, explaining that when people love each other, they give them hugs and do not hit them. In an exquisite moment, Yuri places her hand on Noboyu's face who lets it remain there for a few minutes. These are flawed individuals and Koreeda does not avert a critical gaze from their individual responsibility.

While Shoplifters contains elements that are painful to watch, what we take with us is Koreeda's empathy displayed in the beauty of small moments: The joy of trips to the beach and coming of age for Shota and Osamu handling it so humorously, the sharing of cold noodles on a humid summer day and the long repressed sexual intimacy that follows between partners, the expression on the faces of young children aware, perhaps for the first time, that they are loved; and the entire family listening to, but not seeing, a firework display (what a metaphor for this family's peripheral status!).

The real joy comes from the way the whole thing gels and shimmers, and provides steely insight on contemporary Japanese society, and the human condition. This sense of realism and joy in small moments of life of its characters is communicated with simple gestures like the slurping sounds of noodles as the family eats dinner together, the way they follow small cultural beliefs and give the young girl Yuri salt to lick before bed so she doesn't wet the bed in the night, or the way Grandma hits a small metallic cup in honor of her dead husband every morning and Aki introduces Yuri to her new hair and name sitting in front of the mirror. It is through such small scenes that we can see clearly, that poverty is everywhere, but you don't need money or be related by blood to be a family.

The cinematography is extraordinary, with some surprising long shots, close-ups and beautiful shots from tight angles. The editing is speechless, connecting numerous scenes just seamlessly. Not a single minute is wasted, and the film is largely intense and arresting. Together with the brilliant performances from the ensemble cast, the result is a satisfying and deeply affecting drama on lower class in Japan.

The performances are sublime and it's more of a team effort as every character completes another and ultimately form an arc that tells the story in a brilliant way. Franky Lily and Kirin Kiki both are tonally perfect here. Koreeda shows that he has a deft touch with child actors. The maturity in the performance of both the child actors, Jyo Kairi and Miyu Sasaki is stunning. Sakura Ando is outstanding as the mother-figure, made wise by her bitter experiences but also upbeat in her approach to life. Her threat to kill a minor character is chilling. One scene, where she performs straight to camera, answering a question on what her 'children' called her, rips your heart out.

Overall in a breath taking display of realism, Shoplifters tells a touching story that's seemingly simple at first sight but gets nuances to a point but the film sticks to its realism and dismantles the social norms with such grace, offering a new insight to a world unknown to most, where people long for family love and they're desperate to have someone to call family, on account of the raw emotions it conveys. The film explores big questions on living a good life and taking responsibility in an uncaring society. Shoplifters is a rare exercise of social realism and it gets its message across so elegantly making it filmmaking at its finest.

Shoplifters is a simply stunning film and must watch for all.

She (2020– )

A Female Sexual Awakening Tale Ruined By Limp Mansplaining

[6/10 · 3 July 2020]

The premise of She is so promising that nothing less than an absurdly confused narrative with no sense of timing and tone might have messed it up. Enter Imtiaz Ali: creator, co-writer, and storyteller. If Highway dramatized the psychological awakening of a sexual abuse survivor, his streaming debut, She, fetishizes the sexual awakening of a sexual abuse survivor. Captivity is the instrument of liberation in both cases. But whereas Highway's Himalayan-kidnapping sojourn informed its sheltered protagonist's mental gasp, She's device - of a fruitlessly deceptive procedural thriller - literally hijacks the series, leaving the sexual-liberation thread to appear like more of an aggressive Penthouse afterthought.

Sloppily directed and sleazy in tone, She, peaks in its opening credits sequence - a noir-inspired taxi ride through the underbelly of Mumbai that is way too refined for the show that it precedes. What follows is an unevenly told cat-and-mouse thriller that essentially begins with the chase having ended.

Aaditi Pohankar plays Bhumi, a lady constable in the Mumbai Police, who is deputed to go undercover as a sex worker, to gather intelligence about a high-profile drug smuggler. To get to the mysterious man, Bhumi must first aid in the arrest of a low-level goon named Sasya, played by the always excellent Vijay Varma. As Bhumi seduces and reaches a seedy motel with Sasya, she finds herself oddly aroused during the covert mission.

Varma, a phenomenally gifted actor who broke onto the scene with Amit Kumar's noir gem Monsoon Shootout and stole the show in Zoya Akhtar's Gully Boy, is absolutely wasted here as Sasya. His terrific performance is levelled by the strange direction.

As usual, with much deliberation and delay, Mumbai Police finally catches up to rescue their undercover officer and nab the suspect. The entrapped thug, Sasya, in his interrogations agrees to divulge the secrets of a nationwide drug ring - but only to Bhumi, because "there's something about her". He calls it a "scorpion" between her legs, but she knows what he means: She has been frigid all her life, and he views her as the ultimate challenge. Vile men love unresponsive women. Yet, training as a honeytrap requires Bhumi to weaponize her body. To take ownership of it, to feel empowered by it. The more she goes undercover, the harder she finds it to resist the power of her dormant physicality.

The crime branch nerds recruit her, gaslight her, train her as if she were Alia Bhatt in Raazi, and then become inexplicably incompetent at their own surveillance jobs. During her nightly missions as a fake sex worker, Bhumi realizes that her superpowers lie in her sexuality. Routinely undermined by the men who mock her, and, essentially abuse her to serve their own best interests, Bhumi is made aware that she has a certain allure that makes most men go weak in the knees. And then, she begins to enjoy the attention. It's almost as if she gets off on it. So much cognitive bandwidth is wasted trying to make Mumbai look murky-cool that Bhumi's everyday moments of erotic awakening reek of overcompensation. For instance, in one scene, she seduces a waiter who is staring at her - she leads him to an alleyway, letting him squeeze her breasts before she rubs his crotch and walks away. In another, she teases her sister's sleazy boyfriend with her deep cleavage and brazen body language. She grins wickedly through these moments, like an evil dictator finally being handed the nuclear codes.

There is no cohesion to She. It opens with its weakest episode, and wastes approximately a third of episode two on a needless flashback. By the time things begin to get interesting, half the show is over and we haven't really made much progress.

Even the smarter subtexts - for example, equating the stature of sex workers in society (Bhumi, too, is ready to do "anything" to keep her job) to that of female cops in a male-dominated police force - are fetishized by the makers. The narcotics officer (Vishwas Kini) "tests" Bhumi's Red-Sparrow aptitude by taking her to a shady bar and challenging her to pick up a random man. I understand the motivation behind the scene. It wants us to start perceiving the police as that abusive man who gets off on the sight of his girlfriend sleeping with other men - or, as the home that is more morally bankrupt than the criminals she attracts. Naturally, it's only a matter of time before the baddie turns out to be this enigmatic, intellectual lover who looks like he has accidentally stumbled onto the set of Before Sunrise. Her conflict: Soft villains or heartless heroes?

Noir cinema is defined by its stylized visuals, more so than most other genres. The high-contrast lighting symbolizes the central character's ambiguous morality; the expressionistic palette paints the story with a layer of fantasy. The camera in She gives the impression that it has been placed on a rocking chair, jittery like a tweaker on the streets, unable to focus. On other occasions, it seems as if the cinematographer has handed it to one of his operators, and commanded them to film the scene whilst standing on tiptoes. This might sound strange, but when you watch a simple climb up a staircase filmed in five different angles, all clashing with each other, you'll know what I'm talking about.

This stylistic crudeness is also emblematic of Bhumi, as a character. On paper, she is both a 'detective' and a 'femme fatale' -staple characters in film noir - but she never really comes across as a fully formed human being, despite Ali's best efforts, which include giving her a domestic life and a troubled backstory.

But the execution of the narrative - the cheesy cop-planning sessions, her training montage, her sister's desi spunk, the incoherent flashbacks - is too cringey to examine the complexity of Bhumi's transformation. Aaditi Pohankar's performance is brave but uneven; she struggles mostly because she has been directed according to a script rather than her character. You almost wish that her trigger was limited to her first experience with the creepy Sasya.

But that never happens, and I suppose the point of killing the suspense of the chase is the show's way of telling us that it was never about the thriller; it was always about the girl waking up to the concept of thrills. Which is why the abrupt change of perspective accompanying the introduction of Nayak is self-defeating - it only dilutes Bhumi's point of view and distracts viewers from the underlying genre of the seven-episode season. This obsession to construct an elaborate plot around the girl's "coming"-of-age story is her, and She's, ultimate downfall. Not to mention the climax, which has my wholehearted vote for this year's "Bad Sex In Fiction" award. That's when the sheet truly hits the unsuspecting fan.

Paatal Lok (2020– )

A Black-Hearted Yet Brave Show Depicting That Life's Not Always Good Versus Evil

[9/10 · 2 July 2020]

In it's attempt to produce a show catering to the Indian audiences, Amazon Prime might have unknowingly outdone itself. Paatal Lok can be considered as Amazon Prime's answer to Netflix's Sacred Games, although the two are not even comparable. Paatal Lok supersedes its competitor virtually on every level and is perhaps the most confident step in the evolution of Indian streaming since Amazon's own Made in Heaven.

Paatal Lok is dark in its tone and has a tendency to make you want to retch - but the story is giving us a glimpse into the real India, making you wonder what truly goes on in this hell of a country of ours. The show starts of in its uncommonly assured portrayal of New Delhi in its opening couple of episodes, and slowly veers off the beaten track, entering the badlands of Uttar Pradesh. The show is breathtakingly realized and peels like a layered rotting onion.

The show starts with an explanation to its title, introducing us the main protagonist, Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary, and his side kick and newly appointed sub office- Imran Ansari posted at the 'Outer Jamuna Paar' police station. When we first meet him, Hathi Ram is cynical, giving a rookie a rambling lecture on the irredeemable nature of human beings. As per him, the world is divided into three realms, he tells the precocious junior cop - the 'svarg lok' (heaven), where the gods reside; in the middle there is the 'dharti lok', which is where men like Hathi Ram and Imran live; and at the bottom is the 'paatal lok', the hell from which vermin occasionally escape and wreak havoc above. Delhi is used as the story-telling playground where Lutyens Delhi is heaven, area like Vasant Vihar and Noida are the earth while Jamuna Paar in East Delhi is hell. "Waise toh yeh shastron mein likha tha, par maine WhatsApp pe padha," Hathi Ram quips, in one of the most iconic dialogues of this century.

And in just a matter of minutes, with his sing-song Haryanvi accent and his weary body language, Jaideep Ahlawat (plays Hathi Ram) lets everyone know that he's doing something special. This is the performance of a lifetime. Over the course of the next nine episodes, Ahlawat turns Inspector Hathi Ram into one of the most memorable characters ever portrayed in Indian streaming.

He's a fully realized person, from his instantly iconic wardrobe of cheap sneakers and plain T-shirts, to the slump in his posture when he drunkenly eats the plain meal prepared by his wife. It's little touches like this that help flesh out a character beyond what is written on the page, and Paatal Lok finds every department - from costumes to production design - in top form. And its depiction of the Delhi Police and its unique brand of justice isn't sanitized like it was in, Netflix's Delhi Crime. The only sore point is the utter miscasting of Gul Panag in the thankless role of Hathi Ram's wife, but that isn't the actor's fault. But it can't go to say that even with their limited roles, Hathi Ram's wife and son had a major role in developing and defining the character of Hathi Ram.

Hathi Ram's character was so deeply implored and expanded throughout the show, that every emotion he exhibits or feels can actually be felt by us as the audience. From his frustrations at work, to his off relationship with his son which he even took out on him once (and later apologized for it deeply and made it up to him). From the scene where he kept on kicking one of the suspects by the name Mary Lyngdoh or Chini (played by Mairembam Ronaldo Singh) who was first thought to be a female by the police but later turned out to be a transgender, to when he abuses a Muslim suspect later only to realize his friend and sub-officer Mr. Ansari is standing right next to him and later apologizes to him awkwardly, we as audiences are able to fill in the shoes of Hathi Ram and understand his perspective as to where he is coming from.

In a new subversion to the classic crime tv-shows, Paatal Lok starts by taking a twist turn with the primary antagonists (in this case 4 of them) being apprehended by the police in the very first episode. With the criminals caught, we realize their intention was to kill a top journalist and the story starts from the happily-ever-after, showing what the journalist goes through from its aftermath along with the parallel story of the police in trying to uncover details about their freshly caught to-be-murderers.

The case is assigned to Hathi Ram who, as he investigates the case and comes to realize that one of the men he thought was a common hoodlum is, in fact, the infamous serial killer Hathoda Tyagi (played by Abhishek Banerjee), named after his weapon of choice, does our show pick up and starts getting serious. Till now, Hathi Ram considered his posting as a punishment in a career filled with nothing but relegation and regret, but with the presentation of Hathoda Tyagi, Hathi Ram gets the biggest case of his life. Recognizing it as a sign from God, Hathi Ram jumps headfirst into the case.

Abhishek Banerjee had 3-4 lines in the entire series but he goes on to show an actor doesn't need to have dialogues to show exemplary acting. His negative screen presence is extremely gravity defying. Every time he came on my gut went cold in anticipation of something seriously sick or psychopathic coming up and then he doesn't do anything. Every time he was on screen he left with a cliffhanger, as if you want him to do something. This was Abhishek Banerjee's method acting, doing nothing and watching with dead eyes. There was a specific scene where his character kills three boys with a hammer and he was just sitting there as an animal who just hunted and is tired.

What unfolds is a classic noir story, populated by morally reprehensible characters, in a city who's very soul is in need of saving, and corruption runs all the way to the top. The show switches genres between episodes moving from criminal drama to film noir to western seamlessly. Episode three, for example, is a cracking (and deeply disturbing) Wild West story, set in a Punjab Village - an unexpected diversion from the gritty crim that the previous two episodes had teased. The whole series was like a journey in which the character Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary was a co-passenger with the viewers like us. The more Hathi Ram digs into the past of these suspects, the more he felt what was like pity for them, which is unlike any another crime mystery televised.

The best thing about the story is this is not the usual police procedural. Its starts that way, going about killing a high profile journalist (played by Neeraj Kabi) to proving them they are terrorists to getting to conclusion that this was never about the journalist, it was always about the hitman and killing him. And then everything going down the toilet.

I won't say Neeraj Kabi's role as journalist Sanjeev Mehra was his best. There wasn't much room for improvement or improvisation since its known what Neeraj Kabi is capable of. Even with restrictions he played the role of big time egoistic journalist as best as he could. There are only two moments which had an impact on the character he played. First was when he realized his wife Dolly Mehra, portrayed by Swastika Mukherjee, who has an anxiety disorder and was always depending on her husband to calm her down, is no longer needed by her since she adopted a stray dog to fill that void in her life. Second was when Hathi Ram told him that Sanjeev Mehra was a big guy and he was small but in reality he is just as unimportant as Hathi Ram and he just looked big. These two were the ego shattering blow to the character which he played quite well. The show starts with an iconic dialogue from Hathi Ram and ends with one too, the climax of the story is based on the mythological fable of Yudhishthira's dog from the Mahabharata.

Executive producer Anushka Sharma, who has fine taste by the way, hasn't strayed too far from her stable of collaborators. Paatal Lok is created by her NH10 writer Sudip Sharma, co-directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy (Pari), with NH10 director Navdeep Singh credited as 'script consultant'. Singh, in particular, has shown an affinity for film noir and westerns in the past - both are genres that Paatal Lok takes a hungry bite out of.

One of the big advantages of the series is that not a huge production team was involved, comprising of only 4 writers, 2 directors, 2 cinematographers and 1 editor. With small teams a huge amount of focus is always on the execution. A lot of materials were taken from actual events and watching them played out in a drama is just brutal. Social inequalities, sexually abusing children to family disputes to people going to any length to get what they wanted, violence shown in this show especially the one in the school where Tyagi kills 3 students from his school with the hammer, has never been shown in the Indian entertainment before.

It's an ambitious show, both in terms of its narrative and its themes. The corporatization of the media industry is an idea that is explored through a subplot involving the targeted top journalist, while religious bigotry and pent up prejudices against Muslims is delicately addressed through the casual discrimination that Imran routinely faces inside the police force. Chinni's story brings out the issues of child abuse and discrimination against transgenders, while Hathoda Tyagi's background gives insight into the abysmal state of women safety in rural India. The concept of the three realms, meanwhile, serves as a neat metaphor for caste politics and the dehumanization of the lower castes and the rage and angst these have-nots have against the law. Dogs had a philosophical sense to the show, depicting a yearning to belong or to feel important by others.

Well written amazingly executed for a series, this will create a storm on peoples emotions for a lot of reasons and can be even called as one of the best crime thrillers to come out of this country. It come

The Circle (2020– )

Big Brother meets Lockdown

[8/10 · 2 July 2020]

When I first saw the trailer and heard about The Circle, I thought it would be like one of those typical reality TV Shows: annoying, lame and vapid. But after was just one episode, I was hooked, and it changed my impression completely.

The Circle (U.S.) is based on the similar format British version TV Show. The apartment building they used was the same as for the British counterpart, located in Greater Manchester area of the UK.

The shows format is very simple. Participants are in their own apartments, by themselves, and socializing with other participants using a new voice interactive social media called The Circle which is present on their TV Screens. There are cameras in their apartments recording the participant's moves, their strategy and whatever they are thinking (if they think out loud that is) as they navigate this new social media platform. The circle participants are required to rate their fellows based on their conversations every day, based on which two top rated people are selected as influencers, who then decide amongst themselves to eliminate one person from The Circle. The person they choose is blocked and removed, but before they go, they do share a video revealing whether they were a catfish or being true to themselves. The goal is to try to identify and get rid of any catfish, or people who are not who they say they are. Besides the ratings, the circle additionally makes the participants play games or complete some tasks to help them bond and make the show fun. Besides the circle induced activities, the participants also can choose to engage in private chats or group chats with other participants to form alliances and bonds which help them in their ratings. That's not all, even more interesting things happen, as new participants are introduced as some get blocked and towards the end even the blocking criteria changes, keeping the show very interesting and non-repetitive.

The Circle can be thought of as Big Brother meets Catfish meets the lockdown (in these times of corona virus), because it essentially entails the participants living in an apartment building in separate units, talking and socializing and doing tasks as guided by the circle, a social media platform. They don't meet eat other physically, they don't know if the other person is actually real or not, and they are just using their online conversations and the person's online profile as their primary source of judgement.

When a reality show has a deeper meaning than just fun or time waste, it increases the interests of the audience and The Circle has potential. While the main theme running through the show is social media and whether its good or bad, there are also underlying themes about body shaming and acceptance, about being yourself, about being accepted by the society, about judging a book by its cover and even to some extent about family and its importance.

Watching the show, you can't help but think that social media is such a deep rabbit hole and a necessary evil. Life today without it isn't possible and you can't avoid it no matter how much you try, but it has its negative effects too especially for the people who don't conform to the beauty standards of the world. The Circle reminds us of all this and make us think too, making it more than a just a reality-TV show - a show that actually gives us a glimpse on the effects and side-effects of social media, which makes it very interesting to watch. We have all kinds of personalities in terms of contestants working their own strategies and forming their own opinions about social media and using that to navigate the game. The Circle and its system rating of other players gives us a dystopian look at social media which reminded me a lot of the Black Mirror episode "Nosedive".

While the show shares format with the likes of Big Brother, I feel it is much cleaner, as they tend to get really abusive, with melodrama and fights at times. The Circle has all the characteristics to be just as trashy, but turned out to be actually clean, hilarious and heart winning. It can take 1 episode to fully get into the show, and believe me, I was fully of judgmental-hate for the show at the beginning, but all it took was just one episode for me to get into it and fully absorbed.

The host Michell Buteau actually does a good job with her snarky and funny comments about the shows characters, sometimes even saying out loud what us viewers are actually thinking. Compared to its counterpart reality-TV shows, The Circle is a sweet, somewhat intelligent and completely hilarious and awesome show.

If it can draw someone like me, who's not much into reality shows, there is something definitely different about this show. I am curious to see if the tone changes in following seasons but it definitely came out swinging. Hopefully the recipe isn't dependent on Chris, Joey, Sammie, 'Rebecca', or Shooby to bring the specialness.

Motherhacker (2019 Podcast Series)

What If You Became a Phone Scammer - And Thrived?

[9/10 · 2 July 2020]

Motherhacker was my first foray into fictional audio drama podcasts and boy, was it an experience! I was so addicted that I immediately created my own playlist of other fictional dramas and am hearing one every night before sleep and loving 'em.

Motherhacker explores "the dark side of the web," and it marks an attempt by Gimlet and Spotify to popularize fiction podcasts. Scripted fiction podcasts - essentially, old-timey radio dramas - have been gaining ground over the past year and its an immersive ,non-visual way of storytelling which with the modern technologies can be enhanced even more. It's like watching a TV series without any visuals, and such an immersive audio that the visuals are conjured automatically within your minds.

The series starts off on a great note, setting the premise of the story immediately. Imagine, a woman calls your phone with a siren in the background, claiming your estranged husband, the father of your children, has been hurt in a terrible accident. The only way to save him is to wire $12,000 - your entire bank account, which you'd hoped would cover the overdue mortgage payments - to the treatment facility where he's going through rehab. Without thinking, you immediately do it. But then when you call the facility, he's fine: No one there called you. It was all a scam.

Starring the unbelievably talented Carrie Coon (Fargo, The Leftovers) as Bridget, a smooth-talking high school assistant principal and a mom who finds herself in such a position, the podcast explores what happens when an otherwise good person is put in such a compromising situation. As her life savings are stolen with one convincing phone call, Bridget needs that money to support her two kids - not to mention her ex-husband who's still in rehab - so she goes after the identity thieves herself, sliding into the dangerous world of the dark web to try to rescue her family. Bridget isn't given much of a choice - it's either join the team or face financial ruin. But what does it mean if she thrives? The plot follows Bridget's journey as she starts phone phishing as part of the identity theft ring.

While the first season focuses on Bridget's journey into the phone hacking world, it ends with (Spoiler Alert) her being caught and investigated by the FBI. It would be interesting to see her in a redemption arc in the next series and I look really forward to it.

Besides Carrie Coon, Motherhacker features other big names, including Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones), Lucas Hedges (Manchester By The Sea), Tavi Gevinson (Rookie Magazine founder) and more. It also has an original score by the indie-rock band Warpaint. The series is written by Sandi Farkas and executive produced and directed by Amanda Lipitz.

Each episode is around 8 to 15 minutes long, and the story is a gripping and wild ride from start to finish. You'll find yourself literally immersed in Bridget's world as her life begins to spiral, because the sound design team put a painstaking amount of detail into the show to make it feel as realistic as possible. Although its ads can get a little annoying, and its short length episodes do make you crave and want more, its still a great series especially if you're just starting out with fictional-drama audio podcasts. Also I find such short series to serve as good palette cleanser between longer shows.

Bridget as a main character does seem annoying especially at the beginning, but she shows right away that she is very crafty and has a skill which she starts utilizing to her advantage. As the series progresses, it doesn't take long for the listener to sympathize and connect with her especially when her moral code ("only rich straight white men") is revealed, making her seem more likeable and connectable.

Coon utilizes an incredible range of vocal abilities throughout the course of the show while Pedro Pascal conveys a beautiful depth of emotions in his scenes. As Coon explains, "Motherhacker" presents creative demands from its voice actors both technical and emotional, from using cell phones, megaphones, and even her own Apple Watch inside the booth, to making her solo dialogue sessions sound as natural as when she had scene partners with her in the room.

"They were doing some very interesting technical things," Coon said. "It's kind of an exploration of technology and how it's impacting our lives and creating threats where there never used to be threats, and also distance, but also perhaps connection."

Coon said the recording process followed those themes, too, choosing to use props whenever possible instead of after-effects or filters. She used her Apple Watch to record a scene where Bridget speaks into her own watch. She used a megaphone in-studio for another scene, and for most of the scenes where characters are talking on the phone, she was doing the same.

It's a very addictive, immersive and visual story and the plot is very new and creative. If you do listen to Motherhacker, make sure you have at least an hour and a half to kill, because you won't want to stop listening until the very end.

Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936)

Even after 85 years, a dazzling and entertaining piece of animation that makes Popeye an instant classic.

[10/10 · 23 June 2020]

Adapted to the screens by Fleischer Studios, Popeye was able to surpass Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse at the 1930s box office and still remains an ingenious animated series. Fleischer Studios (who created the characters like Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Bimbo, and was the first to adapt Superman as an animation film) was founded in 1921 by brothers Max Fleischer and David Fleischer until it was acquired by Paramount Pictures in 1942.

Unlike other studios of the time, especially Disney, who's characters were anthropomorphic animals, Fleischer's character were relatively more human, and much different from Disney's in concept and execution. They focused more on the surrealism, dark humor, adult psychological elements, and sexuality. The environments they used were more urban and gritty and were a reflection of the great depression. This made their characters more relatable even for the adults, who enjoyed them equally as the kids, thus giving these cartoons their popularity and mass appeal.

This particular episode I'm reviewing was the first Popeye cartoon ever made in Technicolor. Part of the "Popeye Color Specials", a trilogy of technicolor features consisting of 'Popeye The Sailor Meets Sindbad The Sailor' (the name Sindbad uncharacteristically spelled with a 'd' in the middle) , 'Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves', and 'Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp'. Each feature being over 16 minutes (3 times longer than the regular Popeye cartoon of those times, and thus considered a big-budget adaptation), they were often billed in cinemas alongside/above the main feature.

This was the only episode in the series and the only Popeye cartoon that was nominated for an Academy Award in 1936 for the Best Short Subject: Cartoons category (it lost to Walt Disney's Silly Symphony: The Country Cousin)

This feature starts off with Sindbad the Sailor (played by Bluto) who steps out from his island home, singing of his greatness:

"I'm Sindbad the Sailor, so hearty and hale I live on an island on the back of a whale It's a whale of an island - that's not a bad joke Its lord and its master is this handsome bloke! Who's the most remarkable extra-ordinary fellow? Sindbad The Sailor!"

From the first moment, the scene is set that Sindbad who may be a great sailor at one point, now has an hypertrophic ego and wants everyone to praise him. He has captured all kinds of exotic creatures and animals from his different conquests and adventures as trophies and makes them constantly sing praises for himself. His trophies include the giant vulture like bird Rokh, the two headed cycloptic giant Boola, and plenty of lions and snakes amongst others.

This is until the day Sindbad hears an uncanny tune of Popeye the Sailor, sailing on a ship near his island. Popeye is steering his ship, happily singing his song,

"I'm Popeye the Sailor Man, Popeye the Sailor Man I'm strong to the finich, cause I eats me spinach I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!"

along with J. Wellington Wimpy, who's making one hamburger after another and inhaling them with each breath and Olive Oyl, who's sitting on the ship's deck and enjoying the wonderful ocean breeze.

Sindbad notices the beautiful Olive Oyl on the ship and like his other trophies, he wants her too, setting his evil intentions. So he sends his giant bird, Rokh, to capture Olive and capsize Popeye's Boat. After capturing her, he forces Olive Oyl to dance for him by firing buckshot at her feet with a pea-shooter. Popeye sees this through his telescope and comes to the rescue of his beloved girlfriend with Wimpy following behind albeit unwillingly.

As the two great sailors meet, there a clear tension between the two with both trying to prove who is mightier. Popeye just wants Olive back, but Sindbad doesn't and so he challenges Popeye to a string of challenges including battling with Rokh and Boola, as Popeye emerges victorious from them all. Now the final battles ensues between Sindbad and Popeye, where relying on his spinach, Popeye finally defeats Sindbad and rescues his girl in a clear victory of the good over evil.

Overall the story is amusing, inventive, interesting, formulaic (as with all Popeye cartoons) and beautifully paced with there never being a dull moment and not a single second is wasted. The humor, verbal wit and the sight gags (like wimpy spotting a duck and wanting to grind it for meat for his hamburger) makes this short even more entertaining. The best parts are wild and hilarious with clever twists such as that of Popeye taking care of Sindbad giant bird Rokh.

The music is especially great, with lots of merry energy and lush orchestration and makes the impact even better without being too cartoonish. The songs in the feature including Sindbad's and Popeye's theme as well as the song sung by the two headed giant, cradling Popeye, fits beautifully in the film and is infectious on its own.

One of the best parts of this short I'd say is it's animation. Even after more than 80 years the animation is still magnificent and beautifully drawn with a good amount of visual detailing to not make it appear cluttered or saturated and is given lively and smooth movements. The most adventurous feat in the animation considering the time this was made is the depth effect. The scenes of the movie were shot on tabletop, where there is combination of 2D and 3D animation. Miniature sets were built on a stage and then the characters were animated and superimposed over this background, so that various object could pass in front/behind them. This creates an impression of depth and quality to viewer which gives the effect of moving backgrounds with a 3D effect and rich colors. The marvelous panning of the opening scenes displaying Sindbad's island and Popeye making an entrance to the island through its underground Mario Bava-esque eerie caves are clear and beautiful examples highlighting the stunning pseudo 3D depth effect of the animation. The studios must be very proud of their depth effect because they do show it off at every opportunity and it works!

It's no wonder that in 1994 this film short was ranked at #17 on the '50 Greatest Cartoons Of All Times' and since has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library Of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

An interesting fact I learnt during my research for this review, is about the spinach-eating trope used for Popeye.

In the original Popeye comic strip, Popeye gained his powers by rubbing the head of a feathery chicken character (Bernice the Whiffle Hen). It was later attributed to Popeye eating spinach by Fleischer in the animated series.

There is a frequently circulated story about Fleischer's choice of Spinach, of all the available vegetables, to give Popeye his strength. This was based on a faulty calculation of the iron content in spinach. As per the story, a scientist misplaced a decimal point in an 1870 measurement of spinach's iron content, leading to an iron value ten times higher than it should have been. (In actuality it was not a slipped decimal point but and actual measurement error). Although, this faulty measurement was corrected in the 1930s, the myth of extraordinarily high iron content in spinach persisted on, which prompted Fleischer to use Spinach as the main source of Popeye's strength.

Such was the popularity of Popeye at a time, that it boosted spinach sales across the country! Mothers started using Popeye as a role model for healthy eating for their children, and even a 2010 study revealed that children increased their vegetable consumption after watching Popeye cartoons. Such was the positive effects of Popeye on the spinach industry, that the spinach growing community of Crystal City (Texas) even erected a statue of the character in recognition its effects!

It's a shame Fleischer studios didn't have the same fate as that of Disney, because it's arguably one of the most progressive and best studios from the Golden Age of Animation. Anyone's time is much better spent watching this than the bad cartoons they air on tv these days. Comparing this 16-minute animation with those 30-45min animations is like comparing healthy food (spinach) with junk food.

Popeye The Sailor Meets Sindbad The Sailor is a short, must watch for everyone, even if its just to rekindle our childhood memories.

Bacurau (2019)

Bacurau - The power of a community and its people

[8/10 · 11 June 2020]

What is a film? For some it is entertainment, for some it is window to escape their lives and an exploration of lives other than theirs, and for some it is a source for thinking points and deeper self examination. Bacurau, is one of those movies that checks all three categories with double ticks.

I realized while watching the movie, that what I had set as the expectation for this film was not even close to what this film actually is. It is a genre blurring drama which plays like a western, flirts with dystopian sci-fi with a sprinkle of pure pulp mixed with some unclassifiable genre which someone has aptly termed as "Psychedelic Realism". The movie is laden with so symbolism and metaphors and there's no clever detective to put together the pieces for you; you have to that yourself. There's no oblivious narrative blueprint to follow and no precious little exposition to uncover. Instead there are beauties, mysteries and multiple characters with their own backstories from the community of Bacurau. This is one of those movies giving whom a second or a third watch will reward with the hidden images and clues to decipher its actual meaning.

Like 'Parasite', 'Bacurau' is the second marvelous non-English film this year picking up similar issues of 'social-inequality'. However, while Parasite focused more on the capitalist and income inequality aspects, Bacurau does this in the form of politics, colonialism and corruption. Both movies having a different style, narrative and themes but bringing up such powerful references about the different inequalities that exist in our world through metaphors.

Overall, Bacurau's narrative can be said to be divided into 3 main parts, all with a different genre and theme. But the transition between these parts is so smooth that you don't really notice that you've crossed them, making the film a seamless Psychedelic experience.

The movie has an enigmatic opener, a variant on those puzzles that begin with a body sprawled on the floor. Teresa (Bárbara Colen) is returning back to her village, Bacurau, for the funeral of her grandmother and the town's matriarch, the 94 year old Carmelita. As she participates in the funeral procession with her father and almost the entire town, we are immediately shown introduced to the main character of the film. It's not any one person. It's all of them. It's the community of Bacurau, and they are the people who's home is this quaint little town in the middle of Brazil's North-East region. From the song they sing at the funeral to the waving of their handkerchiefs, the main character is introduced rather pompously with music and life and death and energy. People live here, people face their challenges, and people die, but they do it all peacefully. As is communicated clearly in the beginning by the sign board welcoming visitors to the town, 'Bacurau - If you go, go in peace'.

Never have I seen such a peaceful demonstration of death and funeral captured on film the way it is done in the beginning of this movie. There is a death, but there's neither sadness nor mourning; only peaceful acceptance. Evident from the fact that the next day when Teressa meets and suggests of sleeping together to her romantic partner Pacote (Thomas Aquino) who might have been a reformed insurgent, Pacote makes sure by asking her, "Aren't you in mourning?", to which she replies, "I'm not religious". Teresa doesn't really need to mourn, because she is at home, amongst her people. Even with her grandmother gone, there is still peace.

Bacurau, as suggested by the name, is the main character in this movie. Based on some of Brazil's back country regions called sertao and more specifically, a quilombo, one of the may settlements originally founded by escaped enslaved people. The directors created a new version of this settlement, which we can call a 'remixed quilombo' - a black community in historical place of resistance with white, trans, indigenous and other inhabitants. The first part of the movie is just that, introducing this community to the audience and building its character through stunning, short visuals of the daily life of its people.

Right from the beginning, the film picks you up from the comfort of your homes and makes you travel through the arid green landscapes of North-East Brazil, and drops you in the middle of the town of Bacurau without any evident story. It then, starts nosing around its streets and secrets, jumping from one character to another, giving us some background about the entire community and the town. The directors show the town filtered with faces that have life in them. Even though they don't speak much, but even a distant voyeuristic journey into their lives gives us a deep character study of the town and their community that deepens the realism of the story. Right from the beginning it makes us feel at home, like we're a part of this community of Bacurau and helps us relate with them.

One of my favorite scenes conveying this is the water scene where a (presumed to be) pimp brings a lorry full of water, connects it to their house's plumbing, and three people use the water together, one for bathing, one washing clothes, and one cleaning dishes, as a more affluent lady observes them. Not a single word is said. This is a routine that shouldn't be a routine for anyone, making you instantly feel the shortage of water. The movie sets some facts straight in the beginning forts half, that this movie is about the town, and that there is a water shortage in the town due to a dam being built by the government, which has cut off this town's regular water supply and that the town is set in a dystopian futuristic world that looks a lot like our own present one.

The second part is where things start taking a mysterious, psychedelic, sci-fi turn. It feels like the first pill Teresa was shown taking when she entered the village, as fed to her by one of the older people from the town, has finally hit us, and now trippy weird things are beginning to show up as its effects. The town is no longer visible on the satellite maps, there are horses running through the town, a flying saucer is spotted following some people, mysterious deaths happening and many more weird things. Something has started to meddle with the town, and its troubling the people, the community. They can't interconnect these small things without realizing something big is coming.

We are also introduced to some kind of group of foreigners that get pleasure out of hunting people. For them it's a game, constituting of white Americans and Europeans who are there to get the highest score, a point for each kill, led by a "German living in America since the last 40 years" named Michael (Udo Kier). He seems harsh and ruthless and more of a crazy psychotic killer. I saw this as a reference to how America affects the world, and even a commentary on colonialism. Colonialism isn't a strong enough word to describe what the Europeans did to Latin America, and even rest of the world. I also saw it as a metaphor to how big American companies are entering Brazil and use the help of the local city dwelling, more Americanized and fairer-skinned Brazilians, only to trick them and kill them off, ultimately affecting the life of the peaceful rural communities of Brazil.

Such is the dystopian sci-fi-ness in this part that we are even introduced to a character named Lunga (Silvero Pereira), who dresses in Mad Max style clothes with a leopard-print cut-sleeves and a mullet, who helps uniting the town to fight against its oppressors. This is where the rage among the community of Bacurau begins to grow and show. We see the rage that was already there, from the lack of water and proper living qualities and from the corruption and oppression by the government. This rage is now increasing a thousand fold as it turns into madness. Mad from loss, mad at the failed government, mad at the brutality brought by the well-healed outsiders. This rage and madness in them can only be quenched by blood and revenge.

In one of the most thrilling, heart chilling scenes, we see the a group of children playing together and one of them shot by one of the heart. It is a heart wrenching, depressive scene, shot so well with such mystery and suspense, that its easy for anyone to lose in humanity. Human beings are savage, depraved animals who enjoy killing and inflicting pain and suffering upon one another. This powerful scene, in a way expresses how we as humans, know of all the injustices happening to fellow people around us, know of their sufferings but still choose to put a blind eye to them, just so we can live our happy lives. There are places around the world where we know young kids are being killed or tortured and dragged to wars, and even though we hear about it and sympathize for them, there nothing we or anyone else can do but to ignore it and live our own lives. This scene particularly shows this brutality and the suffering visually, making us re-think the entire existence of humanity and our purpose. The people of Bacurau are deeply disturbed and they will take their revenge, but not everyone is able to, and that it is the hardest part to digest.

And this is where the final part of the films comes where the narrative makes another sharp turn and becomes pure pulp. The action sequences are something a Tarantino living in Brazil would shoot. Not wanting to give out too many spoilers, but one of the main scenes of the movie involving a naked old black man in a greenhouse and two white hunters coming to kill him reminded me so much of a Quentin Tarantino movie. There is a slow build up, a suspense, an brutal and surprise attack and revenge for blood with all the blood, gore and nudity...

The Truman Show (1998)

This is not a movie, it is a idea that gets implanted in your mind, and changes the way you think and look at life.

[9/10 · 3 June 2020]

The Truman Show is not a film. It is an idea. It's this small idea that is injected into the mind of the audiences through a mixture of lights and celluloid. This is one those ideas, which can make a man lose sleep, and his mind churning for weeks. Its one of those ideas that can inspire even more ideas or destroy existing ones. It can manifest itself into a reality, or make us realize it was there all along and we just never saw it. It brings up front what we think is normal, and makes us question why is it normal. It is an idea that gets implanted in your mind, and you can never get it out. Once you watch this movie, a part of it will always stay with you.

"You accept the world you're given", the filmmakers suggest; more thoughtful viewers will get the buried message, which is that we accept almost everything in our lives without examining it very closely. When was the last time you reflected on how really odd a tree looks? Are we doing what we actually want to do, or are we just performing what system dictates, or what everyone else is doing? Do we ever get to break free from this cycle of pleasing everyone to be able to actually work on pleasing just one person, that is our-self? Like I said, many ideas and question can grow out from this one little seed of an idea planted in this movie.

The movie is about a common ordinary, upbeat man, Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey). However, unbeknown to him, he is the star of the most popular show in the history of television. For 10,909 days, it has been on the air, using 5000 cameras to show every moment in every day of the life of one man. The public loves it -- there are Truman addicts who go to sleep with the TV on and who have sets installed in the bathroom so they don't miss anything when they're taking a bath. Every individual in "The Truman Show" is an actor with one important exception: the lead character himself. For, while everyone around Truman is playing a part, he is cheerfully ignorant about the truth. He thinks this is all real, and his obliviousness to the situation gives the program its core appeal -- that there's nothing counterfeit about Truman.

Truman works as a sales executive at an insurance company, is happily married to Meryl (Laura Linney), and doesn't find it suspicious that she describes household products in the language of TV commercials. He is happy, in a way, but an uneasiness gnaws away at him. Something is missing, and he thinks perhaps he might find it in Fiji, where Lauren (Natascha McElhone), the only woman he really loved, allegedly has moved with her family.

Truman's world is controlled by a TV producer named Christof (Ed Harris), whose control room is high in the artificial dome that provides the sky and horizon of Seahaven. He discusses his programming on talk shows, and dismisses the protests of those (including Sylvia) who believe Truman is the victim of a cruel deception.

The movie's story follows Truman's journey in finally discovering and realizing his life is an elaborately constructed ruse and escaping it.

The story is unique, thrilling, well presented and very close to reality. It's like watching an episode of Black Mirror. In fact, I see the episode White Bear from the Season 1 of Black Mirror drawing references from The Truman Show directly. In The Truman Show, Ed Harris is playing this pivotal role of Christoff the director of the show, who rules over Seaside with a sinister, God-Like-Authority, that amounts to the film's most satirical aspect, since it so easily links divinity with hip, media-savvy grandiosity. He created the character Truman for everyone, and through him he controls his audience. He manipulates his audience into buying the products he choses, he has them emotionally vested into this characters lives, and he can induce in them thoughts and judgement of other people. White Bear was like a modernized version of The Truman Show, replacing Truman with an animated character. It picks up on the theme presented in The Truman Show and expands it further. What if Truman kept on growing and didn't realize where he was trapped? Wouldn't Christof be able to manipulate people's thoughts on the political front? Would one day it won't be Christof running this but actual government agencies, knowing how powerful the character and the show has become? And that is just what White Bear does! It expands the idea originally presented in The Truman Show.

Black Mirror isn't the only show to have expanded on the Truman idea. If we look at it, even The Matrix Trilogy is also based on the similar theme of, "What if the world we are living in, is not real, but a simulated one." If The Matrix was stripped of it's technicalities about breaking the system, fast action sequences, neo-noir look and hi-tech sci-fi and replace it with media, colors, comedy, drama and an ordinary man and his ordinary life, you'll get the inspiration source of The Matrix, which is The Truman Show.

As the story unfolds, however, we're not simply expected to follow it: We're invited to think about the implications. About a world in which modern communications make celebrity possible, and inhuman.

One of the ideas presented is that the media in some way or the other does control your life, and one doesn't really have the free will that they think they do because everything is influenced! It so resonated with me, that tragic nature of it.

Remember this movie was released in 1998, and at the time, reality was negligible or none actually. It was a year after this show that Big Brother started to air. Reality TV, I feel, was one of those ideated predictions made by this movie that actually came true. By Reality TV I simply mean what is meant by the word, "Real lives of people or unscripted actions and dialogues displayed on TV, and following their lives or a quest". Truman simply lives, and the show's popularity is its straightforward voyeurism. And, like Big Brother, Survivor, and every other reality show on the air, none of his environment is actually real. While I feel the current reality TV is still more acting and just a part of the lives of its characters, it can eventually maybe change to something of the Truman sorts, in a horrifying Black Mirror kind of experiment. The Truman Show is all the more noteworthy for its remarkably prescient vision of runaway celebrity culture and a nation with an insatiable thirst for the private details of ordinary lives.

But there is a part of me, that also believes that the story while it introduces the concept of reality TV, it also signifies the falseness of the Reality TV that currently exits. When you know there is a camera, there is no reality. In that respect, Truman Burbank "is the only genuine reality star." But on another level, I also feel that as an audience, we just blew past The Truman Show's cautionary subtext even more; we've elected a reality star as our president!

Going above the reality TV aspect, I personally feel Truman show is actually about the Power of Media and its control on us. Truman's life inspires audiences around the world, meaning their lives are controlled by his. In the end, the power of the media is affirmed rather than challenged. These films and television programs co-opt our enchantment (and disenchantment) with the media and sell it back to us.

Our world and its people want new things that connect us to reality using our technology more and more. With the advent of social media, this is proof enough of how the power of media over us has evolved even 100 times more. Those of us without official series are essentially starring in and producing our own reality shows, via constant Twitter updates, Instagram Stories, Snapchats, Facebook videos, and YouTube videos. When I sit in a car or in a van or a room, and I see 90 percent of the people with their faces glowing and their eyes in the palm of their hand, I go, 'This is Orwellian.' Their consciousness has been reduced to what other people think, period.

In addition to forecasting the power of media, the film also predicts the scope of modern product placement (as presented by Linney's impeccably named character, Meryl Burbank, who plays the role of Truman's wife on the show), privacy invasion, and the existential quandary of whether to live for yourself or an audience-be it television or social media. Truman must ultimately decide between accepting the artificial world he knows, or venturing into the unknown in pursuit of truth.

The underlying ideas made the movie more than just entertainment. It brings into focus the new values that technology is forcing on humanity. By and large the film is extremely witty in its ways of blowing the television show's cover. Early on, Truman is puzzled by a piece of lighting equipment that falls from the sky. Later, he is sprinkled by his own little rainstorm. And when Truman moves, the stage rainstorm moves, too.

Andrew Niccol came up with the idea of writing this script from an episode of The Twilight Hour. But the original version he wrote was very dark, set in New-York and was a more serious and sci-fi. It didn't resonate with Peter Weir, the director. It was Peter Weir who loved the script when he read it, but questioned, "Why would the audience of the show be glued to it, watching it 24X7, if the show was that dark?". This kind of makes sense as we are shown in the movie that some audiences are falling asleep right in front their TV sets, or even watching in the bathtub. Why would someone want to watch this series if it was so depressing? So with this thought and Peter's guidance, Niccol changed the script, making it more lighter, colorful and more easy to connect to the audience. For this, he did have to re-write it 12 times!

Peter Weir thought a lot about the back story, as he believed if he isn't convinced by the idea, how will the movies audience be convinced? He even created a look book, with cut outs of images from a 1940s sears catalogue to get an idea of how

Room (I) (2015)

Room is timeless. It will live forever, and in its immortality, it will continue to inspire generations after we are all gone.

[9/10 · 26 May 2020]

There is an old saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover." I feel in terms of movies, it would translate to something like, "Don't judge a movie by its trailer." After watching Lenny Abrahamson's Room, I believe even more in the validity of this statement.

If there is a way to experience a film like Room, then it is only one, and that is to jump into it with a childlike curiosity. Not a single word needs to be read beforehand, nor a frame of the trailer watched. With this statement, I feel its absolutely worthless for you to read this review and for me to type this.

There is nothing special in the story, yet everything is so special. Even though it wasn't based on any specific incident, we all know of the countless similar cases of women enslaved by warped men and their tales of survival. Room is about another similar story of a young mom, Joy, better known as "Ma" who got kidnapped when she was 17 and has been held captive for almost 7 years now in a locked shed by her captor, who uses her as a "sex slave". Jack, is a five year old boy born to "Ma" who turns into her ray of light, her hope, and her survival in the end.

I'm not going to talk about the plot here, as it's quite obvious from the trailer. If it isn't, better yet, go watch the movie directly and skip the trailer all together. The trailer was something holding me back from watching this movie for the longest time, and when I did finally saw it, I realized why the director chose to reveal almost the entirety of the plot in the trailer. Because this movie is not about its story, but about the way it is presented. Its about the emotions and the feelings of the characters and the way they drag you into their world, their pain becomes your pain, their small moments of joy become your moments of happiness.

Room is a harrowing thriller, but not in the traditional sense of the word. It deals with a dark subject matter and the first half of the film can be quite disturbing. Yet director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank) has adapted the best-selling novel with grace and grandeur. Here is a film so artistically unique and deviant, chock full of genuine emotion thanks to its two outstanding performances, that isn't afraid to take risks and surprise at every turn.

It is not an easy film to watch. It has the rare ability to actually make you grip the sides of your chair at particular moments. I believe any high tension scenes involving kids are sometimes deliberately put to manipulate the emotions of the audience. But Lenny actually managed to pull this off very well in this movie. The tension in the scene when Jack tries and finally manages to escape from "Old Nick" is so high that it get almost impossible to bear. It is perhaps a cruel coincidence that the music that places over this scene is by the great instrumental band This Will Destroy You.

The film opens and ends in a 10 by 10 room (which I believe is the main character in the film, more on this later), that has no windows, a locked door, and no light other than that provided by an overhead skylight. The tone with which the movie opens, actually makes you feel like it's a Christmas movie at first! Jack running around saying good morning, to the objects which is all his world consists of; the lamp, the sinks, the plant, the refrigerator. Every inanimate object is like a dear friend to Jack. For him, they are all real. Together, they survive incomprehensibly difficult lives. With as much joy as the film opens to, it drops its tone immediately as we slowly learn the bleak and grim reality of the room. It is but just a prison of torture for his Ma.

By incredible ingenuity, motivated by love, Ma has kept Jack from realizing the horrors of their situation. It's hard to believe that anyone could be so motivated and capable, allowing the boy to believe that his situation is normal, but it works in the film and you accept it.

Director Lenny Abrahamson has created one of the greatest fairy tales ever put on the screen. To try and make whatever sense she can of their harrowing situation and provide for Jack a 'normal' childhood, Ma creates a world of imagination. The TV Old Nick has stationed in a corner is their only window into another world. The skylight on the roof has become more like a painting.

The second half of the film focuses more on Jack and Ma's awkward adjustment to life outside of their room which was their entire world for the past six years. There is a strong supporting cast including performances such as Joan Allen's role as Jack's loving Grandma and the ever convincing all-star William H Macy as a resistant Grandpa who is having difficulty accepting that his daughter is raising her rapist's son.

There are some scenes that are so heart-warming that it will be difficult not to find yourself becoming emotionally involved. In one particular very touching and loving scene, Jack asks his Grandma to cut his long hair so that the strength that he thinks that his shoulder length hair possesses can be transferred over to his sick Ma so she can return home from the hospital. Jack who understandably is initially withdrawn from anyone other than his Ma simply tells his Grandma after she washes and cuts his hair that he loves her. This loving scene between Jack and his Grandma will stay with me forever.

The best actors are the ones able to transport you into their characters' own universes, no matter how isolated from society they happen to be. Larson, Tremblay, and Joan Allen all have a tremendous range of emotional ability and are able to sell you on their story not just for two hours, but for an entire lifetime. With Room, Abrahamson goes the extra mile with his direction, and director of photography Danny Cohen keeps all eyes on Jack. The film asks us to examine how we view the world and how this viewpoint is shaped by our nurtured upbringing. The result is a breath-taking experience brought to life, one you won't soon forget.

The cinematography in the room itself was surprising. I think most films would have tried for a more claustrophobic look. Instead, the dimensions in this are simply defined and unjudged. The abrupt camera pans while Jack is running from wall to wall brilliantly reflects the mindset of these trapped characters. This place is simultaneously small and their entire world; traversing the room is trivial, but also the greatest possible distance. Victory and closure is achieved by the closing scene is the brief moment perfect perspective when the room is seen from the outside.

Director Lenny Abrahamson is no stranger to the strange, and with Room he's made a masterpiece of filmmaking. The entire idea of 'room,' the abstract concept of space, is ever-present in the production. In their bubble of room, Ma and Jack are restricted, as evident by Abrahamson's close angles and tight shots. The small space allows for high concept filmmaking, and when they get out of room, it only gets better, with a new color palette and experimental camera angles through Jack's eyes. The entire film is seen through the eyes of this child, and it's genius. What I loved about the book was its focus on Jack and how he adjusts to seeing this new world for the first time, and the movie never loses sight of that.

The director & the writing team made sure there was not one dull moment. The addition of "insignificant" characters and plot twists are later realized to be so significant and influential in keeping the film alive throughout its duration. It was the little things that made this story one of the best I've seen in a long time. I experienced an entire palette of emotions all at once and was left in a deep level of curiosity and reflection. Very few films have the power to continue to influence its audience after the credits. Room is endless in the most beautiful way.

Room is wise. It is a movie of extremes. In it's own magical way, the film makes staggering observations about life. What is real, what is not? What is our place in this endless universe? For Jack, Room is his entire world. Everything he knows and loves is right there. He looks up and sees the sky out of the skylight. Sometimes a dead leaf tumbles down. He questions it. Just like we do when we stare at the night sky glittering with shining stars. What lies beyond our microscopic corner of the universe? Will we ever be able to comprehend it? Can we ever be as brave as Jack?

It is a bleak film, yet so full of hope. We live meaningless lives on a little blue dot. But that's not how we look at it. To us, we are the center of the universe. We are Jack. The world is our room.

In one of the best child performances I can think of, young Jacob Tremblay essentially carries the movie on his tiny shoulders, especially in the second half. He gives it his strong. Together, they are heart-breaking, unforgettable, resilient and joyous.

Room is timeless. It will live forever, and in its immortality, it will continue to inspire generations after we are all gone. It is one of the best films of the new millennium and after its two transcendent hours, you emerge a changed person, one who has a new appreciation for the tiny miracles of life that are usually ignored. Room is an ephemeral moment in time and I will always remember it with fondness.

The Favourite (2018)

Funny, smart, dark, irreverent, cruel and immoral - this movie is everything but still none of them. {criti-cally reviews}

[8/10 · 3 April 2020]

The favorite is director Yorgos Lanthimos seventh film, and a good one too. It's one of those masterpieces that people either love or hate, there's no in-between, and looking at the reviews on IMDB, you can clearly this movie for it is. A Masterpiece.

This is a merciless satire about a love triangle set in British Monarchy times, with everything else (class, gender, love, lust, duty, loyalty, partisan politics, patriarchal hegemony, and women behaving appallingly just like men) just the background noise against which that triangle plays out. It is the story of the largely forgotten British monarch Queen Anne (played by Olivia Colman in an Oscar-winning performance), who unfortunately is most remembered today for her frail health and the little interest she had in governing. She would spend most of her time in organizing odd games and playing with her pet rabbits. The country is effectively ruled by Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (played by Rachel Weisz), who through unrelenting scheming has cemented herself as Queen Anne's advisor and, in moments of need, her lover. When Sarah's distant cousin Abigail Hill (played by Emma Stone), washes up on the shores of the grand palace she lives in with the Queen, her crippling insecurity convinces her to take Abigail down, lest her position be threatened. Abigail, who belongs to a lower class than Sarah, is initially forced to work as a scullery maid, but soon begins to make inroads into the Queen's inner circle. She begins by showing the Queen kindness, because that is what Anne seems to be yearning for the most. But later, she sacrifices her body in her pursuit of power. The ending, while an ambiguous one, symbolizes the Queen's loneliness and struggle for control, as that final shot of Abigail rubbing her leg fades into rabbits. The first half is very, very funny, and the end is very, very dark, with the last shot one of the most haunting images one can see.

The film's most salient theme, is the dynamic of gender politics. For starters, It's headlined by three actresses (something which is still rare enough as to be notable), whilst the men are portrayed as petty, vainglorious idiots. It truly doesn't think much of its men and it allows the guys to make a fool of themselves - which is something you can always count on. Men, in general, are background players, existing only to be mocked, exploited, and duped - with their ridiculous wigs and heavy makeup, they exist only to support the women.

Its central female characters do not bear any resemblance to the submissive pushovers that men are more likely to pursue and consequentially, less likely to feel threatened by. The Favourite is in many ways an exploration of this power, and more particularly power in relation to women. While men are more likely to fuel their egos in similar situations, the film seems to suggest that with women, it has more to do with survival. However, what's especially interesting about the film's depiction of gender is that the world of women is anything but a utopia. Yes, it's relatively free of toxic masculinity and the male gaze, but in most other aspects, there's no real difference between the matriarchy and the patriarchy. Sure, the women are much smarter than the men who surround them, but they are no less greedy or cruel. At the film's post-première press conference at the Venice Film Festival, Lanthimos explained, "what we tried to do is portray women as human beings. Because of the prevalent male gaze in cinema, women are portrayed as housewives, girlfriends...Our small contribution is we're just trying to show them as complex and wonderful and horrific as they are, like other human beings." Similarly, when asked by the Hollywood Reporter if a film about females treating each other badly might be considered a setback in a post #MeToo era, Colman explained, "How can it set women back to prove that women fart and vomit and hate and love and do all the things men do? All human beings are the same. We're all multifaceted, many-layered, disgusting and gorgeous and powerful and weak and filthy and brilliant. That's what's nice. It doesn't make women an old-fashioned thing of delicacy."

The script is phenomenal and treats the characters very consistently but never one-dimensionally, by clearly showing their motivations but also portraying them realistically as humans. The humor and the satire really works, from the absurdist touches like the duck races to the funny and witty dialogues, like when Sarah tells the Queen she looks like a badger and the Queen agrees. The comradery and rivalry between Emma Stone's character and Rachel Weisz's character-both who, gave the most dexterous performances of this entire year-was just too much fun to take in. The atmospherical tone of this movie also something that can easily win one over. It reputed like an old-fashioned, 1-on-1, battle of the minds movie, just with touches of Lanthimos's typical synthetic stylizations. It's the cherry on the top of this shrewd satire.

In terms of acting, there really are no words to describe just how good Colman is. Utterly inhabiting the character, she is able to elicit empathy mere moments after behaving thoroughly shamefully, communicating a sense of both tragic inevitability and a childlike refusal to accept reality. The character could easily have been a grotesque villain or a pitiful broken shell, but Colman finds a nobler middle ground, straddling both interpretations without fully committing to either, moving from one to the other seamlessly throughout the film. Yes, she can be a horrible person with appalling manners and questionable hygiene, but she is also deeply lonely, a survivor who has lost 17 children in childbirth, a woman whose health has made her old before her time, a tragic figure too naïve to see how badly she is being manipulated by Sarah and Abigail. Rather than trying to downplay the contradictory facets of the character, Colman leans into them, illuminating Anne's humanity amongst her least appealing characteristics, and finding both wit and pathos in a character whose mercurial nature and excessive neediness could easily have rendered her the film's antagonist. It truly is one of the finest on-screen performances in a long time.

As one would expect from Lanthimos, the film is aesthetically flawless, with many of the compositions having the appearance of a fête galante painting, so meticulously integrated are Sandy Powell's costume design, Fiona Crombie's production design, and Robbie Ryan's cinematography. Powell's costumes are historically inaccurate, but thematically revealing, with the situation of the characters at any given moment directly influencing the design, especially in relation to Abigail as she climbs the social ladder. While Abigail's transformation from maid to confidante has an element of nouveau riche tackiness, Sarah is dressed mostly in dark, masculine hues; almost like combat gear, which makes sense for a character that always seems to think she's on a battleground. Anne, meanwhile, is like an overgrown child whose clothes are still picked out by her parents. The black-and-white color scheme of much of the wardrobe contrasts magnificently with Crombie's predominantly brown production design, with the actors effortlessly standing out from the backgrounds.

Of Ryan's photography, perhaps the most impressive feat is that, despite the many scenes tracking characters through rooms, up stairs, and out doorways, there's not a single Steadicam shot anywhere in the film. He also makes copious use of 6mm fish-eye lenses, which distort the spaces the characters occupy whilst also showing much more of the environment than a normal lens, creating the sense of characters lost within an overload of background visual detail. As with most of Lanthimos' work, the film also uses natural light, which makes for some stunning candle-lit night-time compositions, partially recalling some renaissance paintings.

A savage morality play, a camp comedy of manners, a Baroque tragedy, an allegorical study of the corruptive nature of power - it's all of these and yet none of them. And that is exactly why one should watch it.

I Lost My Body (2019)

Poetry On Celluloid about Fate and Destiny {criti-cally reviews}

[9/10 · 3 April 2020]

If you've ever imagined The Thing from The Addams Family to star in his own emotional romantic drama, I Lost My Body is your film. It's a gorgeously animated curio: part love story, part five-fingered chase film, flitting between three timelines.

The fact that it is called I Lost My Body and not I Lost My Hand is perhaps the most telling indication of the unique perspective that director Jeremy Clapin brings to his debut feature, about a severed hand's epic quest across '90s Paris to reunite with the body from which it has been violently separated. The foundational obstacle for both the boy and hand is to overcome a past tragedy of separation: the death of the boy's parents and, in the other case, the loss of the hand's body.

The movie starts showing a fly buzzing around a pool of blood. A young man lies on the floor next to it. Also lying on the floor are his glasses and his possibly severed hand. These opening images of the animated film perfectly establish the mood and mystery of the story to come. We have three timelines going on, one in the present, the adventures of the hand, one in the near past, about what happened that led to the hand losing its body, and the third is Naoufel, the young man's past.

We see flashbacks of the hand's owner, Naoufel's (Hakim Faris) backstory. Black-and-white images take us back to Naoufel as a kid living happily with his parents - his owlish father and cellist mother. He's a dreamer and aspires to be a pianist and astronaut. But fate, that cruel mistress, has different plans. After his parents die in a car accident, he is forced to move to Paris with his uncaring uncle and unpleasant cousin. Working a thankless job and unable to take control of his future, he has pretty much given up on life. Clapin stylizes the flashbacks in black-and-white - a fairly routine approach - but he paints the visuals with a rustic brush of memories, almost as if the scenes have been hand-drawn in pencil. The present-day sequences, on the other hand (no pun intended), are dripping with atmosphere. Suddenly, the colors become an important storytelling tool. Often, it seems like natural spotlights are isolating Naoufel in Paris' imposing concrete jungle; the film's painterly frames are brilliantly detailed, in stark contrast to the emptiness of Naoufel's life.

This is morbid territory, and Clapin struggles to balance the tone as he cuts between the macabre present and the hopeful past. At times, it is a guilty relief to re-enter flashbacks, because Clapin trades the feverish intimacy of the hand's adventures for the calmer scenes of Naoufel, who is seen in comparably serene long shots. The stark contrast between these two views of Naoufel - the relaxed and the visceral - creates a dizzying seesaw that diminishes any deeper consideration of embodiment. You're too busy gasping to wonder at what desires our bodies might have if their parts, like the hand, could move independent of conscious thought.

For an animated film, the film features a pretty naturalistic color scheme but there's a stunning depth of 2D detail in the background. The animation offers a study in contrasts as it wraps the fantastical elements of the story in the real, the past with the present, and the frenzy of city life with the quiet urban isolation. With the parallel timelines and the mixed cut editing, Clapin is able to easily distract the audience from the fact that this is an animated movie and not an actual feature film. Dan Levy's music adds to the film's melancholy without ever over asserting itself.

One rainy night while out on a pizza delivery, he meets Gabrielle (Victoire Du Bois). Though she is initially angry over her delayed dinner, she begins to empathize with his circumstances. This whole meet-cute happens over the intercom and after their little heart-to-heart, Naoufel begins to hope and love again. "Can you hear the rain?" Naoufel asks, betraying his poetic soul. Gabrielle can't. At that height, all one can hear is the wind. But she can see it. A tender conversation unfolds; two strangers are united for one brief moment, their alienation magically wafted away. For the first time in my life have I seen a love story unfold and develop with just the sound. From the rain tapping outside, to the sound of the wave, to forming a conch with your hands to hear the ocean wave. Clapin has really used sound as a big key here to develop the budding connection between the two and it was beautifully displayed.

Parallelly, we the story of the severed hand trying to reach its body. Clapin expertly stages the tense moments in the film. We know the fate that befalls Naoufel's hand but our heart still races every time it goes near any sharp object. When it tries to reach its destination by crossing over a motorway with an umbrella, our heart skips a beat every time it hits oncoming traffic. The animation beautifully captures the perspective of the hand as it is thrown into a tizzy with the light from traffic, street lamps, and floodlit structures creating a kinetic mosaic of colors. The director, plunges the audience into the hand's perspective. He shoots the hand as if it could see, frequently animating it scuttling on the ground to emphasize its smallness and its vulnerability in a hostile world. The hand takes on pigeons, rats and cars in its journey back to Naoufel's body, and the breakneck pace of these scenes contributes to the sensory overload in which every new image presents a fresh reason to recoil.

Along with this, the entire movie also features several shots that really makes us appreciate our sense of touch: a stream of sand sliding out of fingers, and the heavenly music that comes out of fingers hitting certain keys on a piano.

"I lost my body" is all about losses in life that many of us go through, and the unequivocal reason we continue to live is hope to find that part of us that's missing, such as love. Like his owner, the hand suffered from the rejections of this cold world as well. Took it great effort to finally got back to him.. but the owner, sadly, didn't want the reunion.

This story doesn't really have an ending. Did the boy and girl got back together? What happens to his loose hand? What happens to him after? There is really no answers given. I guess no matter what happens, it doesn't really matter. Because life is just like that. There is no ending, only the story that matters. Now that I'm thinking about it. The beautiful sunset with which this animation ended with, probably is the reason why existing here, at this very moment, is such a beautiful thing. We get to experience all this fine views presented so delicately in front of our eyes, and all the other wonders stimulating our five senses every delightful moment. We can just take it. This nature that breeds all things, is so free of costs, arrangements, and efforts, and so regular, present, and stunning. Perhaps it's not an open ending, perhaps we are supposed to realize we all are living the moment. The ending of it is just the start of something else.. It is an ongoing, nonstop process. C'est la vie.

Ultimately, I Lost My Body offers an important lesson. We tend to think our path to life is a straight line from where we are now to where we want to be. We set off on that straight line without understanding there are twists and turns, and unexpected challenges but also unexpected rewards. So, we must be prepared to follow the path to wherever it leads. Ultimately, as Naoufel says, "You run blindly and keep your fingers crossed."

I lost my body is delicately animated and deftly written, essentially, about modern day loneliness, about yearning and loss, and about seeking connections in a disassociated world. It has the elegance of a mood piece and the occasional maniacal meltdowns. These aren't two genres or styles you'd normally associate with one another, but Clapin doesn't hold back in moments of gory horror, and he positively doubles down on the dreaminess in the film's more tender moments, when Naoufel is recalling his tragic past.

A simple animation and yet so poetic and melancholic. It's slow and cozy to watch, and a must see for everyone, but please for the love of God, don't watch it on your phones.

Marriage Story (2019)

A Love Story About Falling Out Of Love {criti-cally reviews}

[10/10 · 2 April 2020]

The biggest problem with great movies like Marriage is writing a review about it. The movie is about a couple who due to some differences want to go through a divorce. The movie is a close examination of the process of divorce and how messy it can get, changing people along the way until things get back to normal.

Marriage Story movies through multiple genres. It starts of a light, romantic comedy movie. We get to know the intricate details and a personality overview in the first 5 minutes of the film as both characters introduce each other. While we flash through important and daily situations, we hear Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) explain what she loves about her husband Charlie (Adam Driver). Charlie loves being a dad, and how it's almost annoying how much he loves it. He cries easily in movies. He's very competitive, undaunted and is very clear about what he wants. These are only a few things Nicole loves about him. After that, it's Charlie's turn to tell us what he loves about his wife Nicole. She's a great dancer - infectious. She's a mother who plays, really plays. She gives great presents. While we hear this couple recite what they've written down, we get to meet them post-break-up in a marriage mediator's office. This was part of an assignment, to fully understand why they got married in the first place. As we progress the movie knocks you out with a single blow as it switches genres, very smoothly in to a distressing drama.

Nicole, a former teen film star, wants to move back to Los Angeles with the couple's eight-year-old son, but Charlie, an up-and-coming theatre director wants to remain in New York. What follows then is an emotionally raw journey into growing up, while trying to figure out how to survive on your own. It wouldn't be a Baumbach movie without a man-child at the center of it. The filmmaker has spent his entire career profiling gifted men who are reluctant to grow up. In Marriage story, Driver plays the same - slightly immature, considerably self-involved, but also capable of decency and warmth. Baumbach's choice of letting Driver express himself fully as the lead role in the movie was a great decision. He is definitely the strongest of them all and delivers an Oscar worthy performance that is transformative, unseen and heartbreaking. It seems all the other actors are feeding off his energy and bringing their A-game to the movie. Scarlett. Johansen has never looked and acted better. From a caring mother, to a becoming a woman who won't let anything come in between her dreams now, Nicole's transformation couldn't have been portrayed better than anyone else. If Driver adds emotions to the movie with his heartbreaking performance, Johansen makes it move forward with her role as a women who still loves her husband, but wants different things for herself.

As the movie progresses, we can clearly see a change in Charlie and Nicole's relationship and personality, having to deal with the divorce. Where there once was an intimate and almost wordless understanding of each other, there is now bitterness and resentment, egged on by an almost clinical legal process. The film's most heartbreaking scenes are the ones in which Nicole inadvertently calls Charlie 'honey' in the middle of the most vicious arguments; or when she decides his food order for him during a tense meeting with their lawyers. "I will never stop loving him," she says in that opening voiceover. Which is true. Nicole had become into a woman who knows what she wants and isn't holding back anymore. The only thing she's holding back in front of Charlie - are tears. As if she doesn't want him to see how vulnerable and damaged she is by everything that's changing. "Love doesn't make sense", and no truer words have ever been spoken. Charlie on the other hand, who's always been confident and career driven, is now crumbling down, defeated and uncertain of the future.

On of the special features of the film is that it manages to get it right that both Charlie and Nicole had their faults and they also had been disrespected in different ways and so the movie conveys the idea that in these situations usually (not every time) the blame is on both, maybe not equally but everyone had his faults. While Nicole turns very sour in the process of the divorce such as going against their joint agreement to not involve lawyers and hiring the most ruthless person in the business, Nora Fanshaw (played by Laura Dern in a scene-stealing performance, giving some specular and hard-hitting truths about gender inequality). Meanwhile, Charlie is not only forced to pay a portion of Nora's fees, but is made to settle for the kindly Bert (Alan Alda), the only person who seems to have an idea of the human toll separations can take on couples. There are moments when you do feel sorry for Charlie and feel Nicole is being too ruthless. But then, when you look from Nicole's perspective, Charlie did have a relation once outside of their marriage which he clarifies with a remarkable line, "You shouldn't be upset that I ****** her, You should be upset that I had a laugh with her!". The fault lies in both, some more than the other, which is which is hard to tell.

The most important thing the script gets right is the theme of divorce. The movie very closely examines and critics on the entire system and process of divorce, its impact on kids, on how it makes the couples waste a lot of money but most importantly on the hate it creates. Indeed the protagonists starts the process with all the good intentions to split up peacefully but when the lawyers kicks in they found themselves in a fight they don't even want.

Baumbach emerges as true master of writing and directing in this movie. The script is very special and the little moments in the story develop the characters and reveal more about their nature. In a particular scene, Nicole commands her mother, who has an independent equation with Charlie, to not interact with him anymore. When he visits them in one scene, he knows exactly where the paper towels are, and which drawer the cutlery is in. Little moments such as this convey reams of information about the characters, whereas lesser filmmakers would've had to rely on pages of dialogue. In a particular scene of a courtroom battle With Charlie's new lawyer representing him after he fired Bert with Nora Fanshaw, we see both the characters just sitting quietly. It's like they weren't even mentioned in the script. It's the lawyers talking, delivering their dialogues and fighting it to, while both the characters are just quiet. But in the scene right before, they were fighting, and for the first time openly venting their anger out to each other. It was such a metaphorical moment that the protagonists, even though they seem calm and composed in the courtroom, have their inner turmoil's and anger and resentment towards each together which they are battling to and want to express.

Baumbach shoots pivotal moments in the film in long, unbroken takes, allowing life to just... unfold. There are no flashy cinematic techniques on display here, save for perhaps a couple of pointed visual metaphors like three bedroom doors closing on Charlie all at once. The actors are allowed to roam free; not at the mercy of traditional set-ups but with palpable confidence. They are fluid and the acting seems very natural. The characters seem very human, like someone you would know and real, feeling real emotions, which make you feel with them. The approach is almost like theatre. The set is a playground that Driver and Johansson can explore, as we watch, transfixed at the truth they are able to tap into, again and again and again. The camera doesn't confine them to tight spaces, but offers silent support as they amble in and out of rooms; as they walk through frames and stare directly into its depths. Baumbach makes all of it seem effortless, with unprecedented results. The way he gets his cast to deliver minutes of dialogue, while his Director of Photography, Robbie Ryan, zooms in and out, follows and swirls around them, to then play with shifting between different actor's facial expressions in silent moments, is utterly enchanting. The cherry on top is Randy Newman composing a score that is completely apt and masterful!

Overall, Marriage Story is a great movie, with excellent acting, a touching screenplay, an immersive direction and a delicate score. This is one of those movies that will get discussed in film school, years from now. It has everything to become an all time classic and will proudly get called one of the best films of the decade. It is so authentic that watching it occasionally feels like eavesdropping on a couple in their most vulnerable moments. A melancholic, heavy-hearted yet joyously bittersweet story about marriage and its unfortunate path to severance in order to find happiness. It is a love story about falling out of love which guarantees that no cheeks will be left dry.

Versailles (2015–2018)

Lost Interest {criti-cally reviews}

[5/10 · 31 March 2020]

Not too great of a TV shows. Don't know if I'll be able to watch the second season even. But an ok tv show, nonetheless. The show focuses on the King Louis XIV of France who shifted his capital to Versailles. Since I have visited Versailles, the shows captured my attention to it's background. The kind of France is shown a little crazy and not that loving of a King who can make dumb decisions. But his team is good and supportive. Although the story presented is quite clear, it has faults, and fails to captivate the attention and also mocks the French King a little. But those times, the life then captured, the costumes and sets, the soundtrack, is all very captivating, that makes one keep on wanting to watch the show. I would recommend watching it once, if you have nothing else to watch and bored. Even if you skip it though, you won't miss out on something great!

Stories by Rabindranath Tagore (2015)

Indian culture done right {criti-cally reviews}

[10/10 · 31 March 2020]

So as the show started, I saw the name directed by Anurag Basu. Hmmm, no where did I hear this name before? Oh yeah, he directed Barfi! Recently and before that made Life in...a metro, Murder and has some good films and my personal favourites under his collar such as Kites, Gangster and Saaya. So expectation from the show soared all of a sudden. The star cast of the first story starring Radhika Apte ain't bad either. So expectations are running high by now. Overall verdict? A beautiful show. Anytime watch, and never thought an Indian show could get to me so much and make me so engrossed. Absolutely loved it. So overall, the series is composed of many of Rabindranath Tagore's stories and Basu narrates them using his own style, with his own beautiful interpretations in the series, linking them in a catchy style. The stories (though not intended to be linked by Tagore), are linked to almost seem it's all a one blend of a story from India, particular Bengal in the 20s/30s Colonised India. While shot very arsthicaly and artfully, with very realistic acting by the talented actors, the amazing photography and the beautiful scenery, it's the emotions and the culture that this show exudes which make it unique. The show seems to carry a soul of its own. The show has a certain charm and character of its own, which seems to be generating from the culture it reflects. The complexities of arranged marriage, the feeling of being in love and being stuck, the family situations in those times all make sense and very new and original to watch. The show stresses on gender equality and presents females taking a strong role in the society. It is very impressive to see Tagore, in those days, would write about such taboo topics, some of which are still considered Taboo in the current Indian society. One of the most talked about feature, and well worth the praise, is the music and the songs of the T. V. Series. The songs are better than many of the current Bollywood song lyrics, with these songs representing the actual emotions as expressed by the characters, sung beautifully by some A-List singers and with a catchy and beautiful music to it. The background score of the entire show is especially catchy and keeps the audience craving for more and more. The acting by the many talented actors is beautiful. The kids in Atithi and how well they have converted their emotions is truly amazing to witness. One can easily get lost in the stories, believing them to happening in real while watching the show. The locations and scenery Basu has chosen covers almost the entirety of Bengal, making it look so much more beautiful and mesmerising than it actually might be. And the show not just limits itself to the Zamindars or the Calcutta scenery, but extends on to Bengal Hill-stations up north, small mud houses, march villages. Some of my remembered and favourite stories from this show will be (in no order of preference) Chokher Bail, Atithi, Maan Bhajan Girbala, Kabuliwala (beautifully portrayed), Punishment, Sampati, Chhooti, Mrinal Ki Chitthi. Although every story presented is unique on its own way touching upon the many shades of grey that life is in their own way. The diversity of the shows shines through it's episodes, covering the different moods, from light to tender, from rich to poor, from the happy to the miserable. Overall a great show and definitely a must watch for all.

Black Sails (2014–2017)

Hidden Gem {criti-cally reviews}

[9/10 · 31 March 2020]

Goddamn, this was a hidden gem! Albeit a little slow to start and the characters do take a little time to grow on you. By episode six of season 1, I was very slow and bored by the show as such. I didn't understand too much of it and the characters and casting seemed a little stereotypical, as did the storyline. I was determined to give it 3 stars. But then episode six happened, and there's been no turning back since. I agree that this show can be a little slow sometimes, but its good. It shows the real world pirates and how they managed everything. Storyline is great with many twists and turns. Can get a little hindi cinema type (like Charles Vane waking up after being buried) but albeit, overall it's a fun and interesting show to watch

Utopia (I) (2013–2014)

Must Watch! {criti-cally reviews}

[10/10 · 31 March 2020]

MIND BLOWING! From the realness of the show, to a simply amazing storyline, to the actors natural acting, to the character development, to the way the whole thing was pictured and edited. MIND = BLOWN! SO AMAZING. Don't even have words to explain. So the plot is all about a secret group called The Network who has the main agenda of sterilizing humans for the betterment of earth and humanity by implementing a gene mutation called Janus. The molecular formula for which, has unfortunately been been hidden in the part 2 of a comic called "Utopia" (yup that's where the show gets its name!). A very basic storyline to say, but the trippyness, the gore and the way with which the show is presented is simply amazing. Definitely is on my list of favorite TV shows of all time.

Afsos (2020– )

Good Attempt At Black Comedy, Could Have Been Better. {criti-cally reviews}

[6/10 · 31 March 2020]

Afsos is a well executed Indian Black comedy TV show. Something that one wouldn't expect. Written by some of the well known comedians, Anirban Dasgupta, Sourav Ghosh and Dibya Chatterjee. They have managed to come up with some really hilarious moments during the first season, moments where you laugh but later think back and think, should I have laughed that? It was so evil. And that my friends is a well executed dark comedy right there.

The director of the series, Anubhuti Kashyap (I thought she might be related to Anurag Kashyap, and turns out she is his sister) has done a good job handling the music, intro, direction and acting. Kudos on the background score of the show and the intro title. The graphics were every professional and catchy and you don't want to skip it.

But that's where I feel the show's creators focused more on the intro and the music, but lost their tight grip on the story and the screenplay. The story had everything going on, but nothing making sense at one point. It was all over the place and the writers didn't have a main theme. Was it suicide? Was it urban male privilege? Was it big city loneliness? Or was it about Karma and destiny? One can't really tell. The story was illogical, and I am ok with it when watching Indian shows, because its there a lot of the times, but this had such strong moments of losing logic and with the scattered story and the loose character development, that there were moments where you want to leave the show mid-way also.

Talking of character development, the characters were looser than an old pair of pajamas. What was the reason for Upadhya to drive her to kill was never understood clearly. Upadhya was a major character and its like her character background for the show was just 1 line. A serial killer who just has to kill. I feel there were so many characters, all scattered all over the place. What was the purpose of that therapist? Why was shloka trying to avoid Nakul towards the end of the episode? Why did she always lie? There are so many questions that still remain, which it feels like the show never aimed to answer and leave it to the users imagination.

The narrative of the show had its pick up moments but overall it was a little slow and lacking the luster it deserved. Being a thriller about suicide, serial killer, and immortality potion, they could have done a wonderful job. But they just did an ok job and le the show air.

The actors were good in acting but due to the poor narrative and character development, their talents goes lost and the loose narrative makes it feel like they are doing theatre and not taking this show seriously.

Overall, with such a bold topic of suicides in hand, a good storyline based on the Bengali novel, "Golper Goru Chaande", good directors, writers and actors, the show could have gone to become India's Fargo (as the show shows the word a couple of times initially) or even more. But it failed to even come close and leave its at home audience who doesn't know of Fargo also unsatisfied. I wish they had brought it closer to Andhadhun even a little bit, but they failed to do that too. Now, while writing this, I understand why their named the show Afsos. Because after watching the show you say, it could be such a better show, such as afsos!

It was a good attempt, and I hope this show encourages others to try at some black comedy, but as far as Afsos goes, watch it for the first attempt, its story line than connects with history and watch it for some of its dark but good moments. Mainly, watch it to encourage more of such shows to come up and to encourage the makers to experiment more. It's not a treat, but its worth a watch.

American Factory (2019)

This is NOT a movie. This is an amalgam of two cultures with different corporate philosophies captured beautifully on camera. {criti-cally reviews}

[8/10 · 27 March 2020]

In December 2008, General Motors shut down their plant in Dayton Ohio, and around 2000 employees and workers working there were all laid off. Six years later, Chinese company Fuyao Glass took over the plant to make automotive glass. In this process the company hired back around 1000 of the same workforce fired by GM and who hadn't gotten a stable job in all these 6 years.

When Fuyao Glass America was established, initially it was all well and games. The American's welcomed the Chinese (although they had their doubts and it can be scene on screen) with good intentions. But as time progress the difference in the Eastern and Western cultures start showing up. I feel the director's did a commendable job in capturing this 'corporate cultural difference' on screen. Companies and startups and business all over the world keep on talking about the company culture and improving it and making it better, some say some things are too small to be in the company culture, some say some things are too big, but this is the first movie that has captured this company culture of 2 countries the US and China, very very accurately. From the strict regiment and disciplined routine the workers follow in China to the lax and casual approach to things in America, from working fast and efficient in China to slower and lower quality in America, it can all be scene and even more. Sometimes these moments are blink and miss, but have captured the reality in a way.

As things progress, slowly there are culture problems and disagreements between the Chinese and American workers. The Chinese want faster productions, higher quality and a leaner manufacturing, but Americans are in no way able to match the efficiency of the Chinese workers. The company is not making money now due to slower productions and thus makes the workers word hard with longer shifts and decreased pay. They are upset and want to form a union. But the Chairman of the Fuyao Glass America is willing to shut the plant before he lets a union form and there is battle now ensuing between the Poor American workers and the Rich Chinese Businessmen to break the union. They way the filmmakers have captured this battle and the eventual victory defeat is something very new to the world of industrial movies. There aren't that many of them, and this is one of the top best ones I'd say.

Eventually, the movie shows the real problem wasn't either of the two sides but atomization. And a company is forced to go towards atomization when the workers create a problem for it. Fuyao didn't implement atomization in its China plant, because the workers obey, don't form unions and work for lesser wages. So atomization isn't a practical solution there. But in American it's the opposite and automation makes more sense and it can be seen why. And this is the major threat.

The co-directors Steven Bognar and Julie Reichert have done an amazing job in this documentary first to gather such an impressive access to such a unique situation. The shooting, the angles are fabulous and they had a very deep access, from completely Chinese classroom where they are teaching the workers they are superior to the Americans or the US Senator coming to an event of the company and announcing something unplanned, the footage gathered is very real and very deep, and gives a very immersive action into what is happening.

Second, the directors have done a fantastic job to tell the both sides of the story. There are the good parts about the Chinese, the good parts about the Americans, the sad parts in both's lives, and the intermingling/ connections of both. While the Chinese and American workers have had their differences, they don't shy away from bonding together too. While the American workers tell their sad tale of how they weren't able to get a job after GM, they show the Chinese workers tale of how he misses his family and wont get to see them for years. From the workers problems to the Businessman's concerns, they present it all as truthfully as they could, giving both sides of the picture and not taking any sides in their narrative (which is a very big deal btw). And this is the universal truth. The Chinese didn't do anything wrong, being a business owner I understand that. Even if it was an American manufacturer, he would fact the same concerns that's why so many American manufacturing has already moved to China. But at the same time, one understands the plight of the workers too and their condition. It's a lose-lose story which is very hard to depict. Anyone can make one ide look like the good guys and the other the bad guys, that's easy. Making both sides look both good and bad? That's difficult! But kudos to the directors for accomplishing this.

Although a long movie, and on a topic that not everyone can find interesting, the directors fid an excellent job mixing in the small funny bits to the emotional moments in a uniquely blended Burger and Rice shake that ends up tasting quite delicious. An informative documentary that makes you think, tells you something new and is interesting and can keep people engrossed? Am I hearing correct? Yes, that's An American Factory for you.

Some of the cinematography is this film is so industrial and beautiful that it feels like art. Look at the intro sequence specially. The way the movie loads and the close ups of industrial and manufacturing process are very poetic and artsy in nature. This film has an extraordinarily compelling musical score by Chad Cannon that propels and highlights the narrative and is amazingly effective on its own terms.

Overall, an Oscar winning documentary that is a must watch for everyone out there especially people in manufacturing to know the real challenges of production.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

'Felina' was the icing to the cake called "Breaking Bad", and 'El Camino' was the cherry on top. {criti-cally reviews}

[9/10 · 24 March 2020]

This movie was a farewell to Jesse Pinkman. Something he deserved but wasn't given in Breaking bad.

Jess had faced the worst luck of life. If Walter White was the Face of Breaking Bad, Jesse was its soul. He added the emotions to the series, the essence of life with its ups and downs, major losses and happiness in small things.

The last few episodes of Breaking Bad were focused more on Walt than on Jesse. And seeing Jess as a slave in those episodes broke my heart. The guy who had helped Walt and been at his side through it all, was alone and a slave. Walt did his part in the last episode of the TV Show called 'Felina'. It was a tribute to Walt, showing his human side. And we saw Jesse free, finally, what he deserved!

But what next? Of course we all know he would make a dash for it, get a new identity, move to a different city or country. It's what any of us would have done. And so did Jesse. And that's what the movie is about if it picked off from where the TV Show left off, which it did. So there's nothing new I expected from the storyline. But still the writer's did a great job of conveying this small timeline and including Jesse's mates and how they help him, his PTSD and flashbacks, how he gets the money or losses it and gets it again, and finally gets what he wanted.

Everything is this movie is purely Breaking Bad. The scenes, the locations, the characters, the acting. It's a complete nostalgia and in fact more like 2 episodes of Breaking Bad rather a movie.

Special Credit goes to the cinematography and the locations used on the movie. The beautiful deserts with their small hills during the flashback scene where Todd takes Jesse to bury the body of his maid or the Scene of Jesse searching through Todd's apartment as he bangs the walls, and the top view showing multiple Jesse's rummaging through the entire apartment or the scene where Todd is driving Jesse to the desert and singing along the radio and waving his hand in the side view mirror as he cruises along, all were very beautifully and creatively shot scenes and which gives this movie its own flavor away from Breaking Bad too. Something that is just this movie and you'd crave it for those scenes and moments.

This movie, besides showing the onward journey of Jesse, also shows some more glimpses of Todd. Honestly, I had even forgotten who Todd was when this movie came out since it had been so long since I finished Breaking Bad, and his role in the series was a little muffled. There were so many more overpowering characters in the show that his role can be easily forgotten. So seeing his character more, learning more about him and his dealing with Jesse, made up for the lack of focus on Jesse that Breaking Bad had down towards its season finale as well as brought Todd more in the highlight.

Jesse's PTSD was depicted very real, and at every moment, I was able to connect with him. Even at the point when he gave up his gun to the pretend cops in Todd's apartment, I felt for Jesse, as they showed his flashback scene where he returned the gun to Todd in the desert. The guy had accepted his fate. It also showed that Jesse was good at heart, he always was.

The show's name, Breaking Bad comes from the fact that Walt, what the society would call a 'Good' Person, goes on the path to becoming what according to the society calls 'Bad' Person. But what the show truly explores is a person's own judgement for when he considers himself that he has actually become 'bad'. Because everyone has their own self justification, it takes a while before we realize that we are wrong or doing something bad. For Walt, he realized this in the last episode when he went to save Jesse. That he had finally broken Bad. He was the worst of 'em all now and he was trying to fix it for Jesse. While Jesse was the opposite. Jesse was introduced as a Bad guy. He was already cooking meth, caught by cops, dealing with some drug dealers, etc. etc. And he reformed over the course of the show to become good. What this movie finally explores and shows is Breaking Good. Jesse finally free, can take all the revenge he needs to, but still he does things by the rules, he forgives and lets things go and he trusts people and has belief in humanity. When he finally does get his freedom, and he is driving off imagining Jane by his side, you are cheerful, you feel for him, you know he deserves it, and you say to yourself, "Jesse Pinkman, you're a good man."

How It Impacted Me

If Jesse Pinkman, who truly deserves it, doesn't go for revenge and forgives people, and can let things go, so can you. Jesse surrender to the universe in this show. In every form and way. And he won. That is the one true and great message of this movie. Surrender to the universe. Ironically, they even show that in the scene where Jane and Jesse are talking and Jesse believes in going where the universe takes you while Jane debunks it. But Jesse still has his faith in this even after all that he went through, and that is the lesson of this show. To not lose your faith in the universe's plan for you even in the hard times.

Out of Love (2019– )

Watch This for 2 Reasons: Beautiful Sceneries of Coonor and Rasika Duggal's Acting {criti-cally reviews}

[6/10 · 14 March 2020]

So this show is based on the BBC (UK) show 'Doctor Foster', and if you watch it you'll be like this is an exact copy, frame by frame. I don't know how they both compare as I haven't seen the British original version of this show but while the Indian Version was critically acclaimed, it didn't fair too well with the Indian audiences. Personally, I thought it was a good show, it captured your interest, was thrilling and exciting and had its suspenseful moments, and is worth a watch (given it has only 5 episodes, its nothing, kind of like watching the Irishman lol).

Rasika Duggal's acting was good and she shows potential. It'll be worth keeping an eye out for her. Purab Kohli and Meenakshi Chaudhary were average and I would say they still do have potential for improvement.

The writing is good and makes you feel the dialogues as well as connect with them, however they do fail to leave an impact. Overall, I don't remember even a single dialogue worth writing here in my quotes to remember section. So that's a part this show is definitely lacking and could have picked it up.

The Lush Green Hills of Connor, the beautiful locations, spiraling roads, homely cottages are one of the biggest attraction of this series. I'd say if nothing else, watch it just for the beautiful scenery because after watching you'll wasn't to visit Connor and its areas definitely. The cinematographer and the director have done a great job in capturing the atmosphere and scenes of Connor, making it pop out of the screen and making you experience the small quaint scenic town from your screens itself.

With the good there is always some bad, and for this series, I'd say the bad is that the storyline diverts from reality and becomes too fictional. At some moments I actually thought that the lead actress is going to go crazy or have a mental attach or something, where clearly she was just trying to express the emotions and the turbulence she was feeling. It didn't have to do much with Rasika's acting, but the nature of her character. Which brings me to the second flaw in this show. The Character developments. Very superficial. It looked as if the characters were just skimmed upon from the top, and their depth wasn't explored but still the makers were trying to extract out of their characters and it came out as something fake. The character development was truly lacking. There were so many useless characters in the show who had no purpose at all and could have easily been scraped. For example Dr. Pradhan, Meera's Doctor Colleagues, Alia's Mother, Meera's Relative in Goa etc.

The background score was just the theme title of the show repeating and can start hurting your ears after some time. I'm not saying it doesn't go well with the show, it does, but it gets too repetitive in these 5 episodes.

In conclusions, I'd just say that the show is worth a watch, has a new and fresh way to handle a cheating story and is definitely better than the crap we see in Bollywood movies. Watch it for something short, something fresh, some beautiful sceneries and Rasika's acting.

The Two Popes (2019)

A Religious Movie That Is Not Religious And Leaves You a Changed Person {criti-cally reviews}

[10/10 · 14 March 2020]

This is the a religious movie with more conversation between the two lead characters. Although focusing on the head of Christianity, the Pope, and that two 2 of them, this movie is not at all religious but focusses on humanity. I didn't understand how a movie with 2 people just talking could have me so engrossed and make me enjoy it so much. But once you see it, you realize, this movie is not just two people talking about Religion or Christianity, but it is much, much more. It is a re-evaluation of humanity, of the beginning, growth and loss of faith, of the small things in life that matter, and the big things that don't. This move is a masterpiece and a grounding exercise for us.

Anthony McCarten, the writer of this movie, you deserve all the respect. The writer of this complex but layered conversational movie (which was a play earlier). It is only a man who deeply understands and connects with his characters, can make a movie about two men conversing, and make it loved and enjoyed by everyone. It is the kind of dialogue great men wish they had spoken.

Moving on to the acting, both Hopkins and Price are absolutely convincing as the German and Argentinian cardinals who want to become the popes. It crazy how both the actors are Welsh, but enact their roles and immerse themselves into their characters so deep, that they are easily able to convince the audience that this how exactly how the two popes would be in real life. Each actor is so fresh and alive within the personality of his "character" that I was easily persuaded they may be truer to the souls of these men than the living originals.

Fernando Mireles, the director has done a beautiful job in making this movie, capturing shots from beautiful angles, and managing the pace of the movie so that it doesn't get boring even for single second. He is the man who brings all the elements together the writing, the acting the beautiful cinematography and magically blends them together in this beautiful Oscar Winner, Life-Altering movie. In this he shows his ability to maintain both visual interest and intellectual fascination through two hours of what amounts to an intense, extended talk. That the movie never felt "talky" is a tribute to all great artists involved in this film.

The locations were beautifully shot in Argentina and Vatican. The past of the Pope Benedict shown in Black and White adds the interest and the vintage looks it needed, without making it look ridiculous.

Overall, a beautiful shot movie, with powerful dialogues which hit you hard, that involves 2 old men talking but never gets boring or too "talky" for even a dingle second, and has a nice jovial and light humor associated with it. A must watch and a true Oscar Deserver.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Over-Hyped Same Old Drama presented in a new way {criti-cally reviews}

[5/10 · 14 March 2020]

Very stereotypical for Asians. Shows Indians in a bad light. Very predictable Cinderella + Gold Digger story. Inaccurate Romance. So what stands out in this movie?

Craziness Ultra Luxury Rich Lifestyle Comedy Cinematography Screenplay

Just these 5 things made a poor script and generic story one of the highest grossing movies. There is lots of crazy antics by these rich Asian snobs like all you can shop bachelorettes, or bachelors on a huge transport ship, or ultra rich weddings. All these craziness adds to the humor and charm of the movie.

Of course, there is the Ultra Rich Lifestyle of the Asians shown, like them buying a hotel in London, or huge mansions and rituals. All these make it an interesting watch as I'm sure we all have dreamt of something similar at some point in life. So seeing that, and helps us relive those dreams.

Comedy is hilarious. Lots of funny moments and very funny dialogues, even if stereotypical or old. Just the way the comedy plays out on the screen is actually very funny. Kudos to the actors here for doing a great job.

Cinematography. Lots of amazing views and shots of the beautiful Singapore. We were going there anyways, so it was even more fun.

Screenplay. The timing of the comedy was good. There was drama, good comedy, slight action and partying. All parallel stories connected well and the story flowed without a pause. Overall it was a very well written script.

The House Bunny (2008)

Funny, Cute and Girly {criti-cally reviews}

[8/10 · 14 March 2020]

The movie was well above my expectation! I watched it through the end, and actually enjoyed watching it! The movie is funny, goofy, pretty and makes you ponder at some point too. Really! The story is about Shelly, a girly, who's only mission in life is to be pretty and be featured on the centrefold of the November Playboy issue. As she explains her background story, Shelly wasn't really nerdy and an orphan with no one wanting to adopt her up until the age of 14, until she got puberty and became hot and "Magically" transformed into the dumbo she is. She was adopted by Hugh Hefner and got to live this new wonderful house, the Playboy mansion! But one day she receives a note that she's too old (27 years, which is like 59 in bunny years, duh) and she'll have to leave the house now. So, out of the house, and with nothing to know except be pretty and be a dumbo she finds herself on a university campus and taking over the most nerdy sorority as their house mother. Then comes the phase of how she helps the nerdy girls become a dumbo and teaches them to be pretty and be beautiful. The story then becomes a little more complex and you see that Shelly herself is having a hard time just being pretty in the real world and has to be smart too, buttt that isn't her! The movie kind of says that looks and beauty is important on one side and on the other also shows not too important, and especially not to dumb yourself down. It plays on the both sides of the fence and you can actually see the grey area, the balance that is required in the real world. The sorority ZETA is worst one the campus before Shelly comes up. So bad that they have no pledges, no one wanting to join this year, and thus, their house is at stake and the future of their Sorority. Its pretty clear that they might not have any other chapters, and the death of this house would mean the end of their sorority.The girls, who are members of this sorority are nerdy, pregnant, short, shy, braced, tomboyish, etc. None of them are good looking, not even Emma Stone, initially. Then comes in Shelly! The lost and confused dumbo who takes over their house and teaches the girls to be pretty. Anna Faris is a fine woman, with a hot body and she flaunts in the movie abundantly. She teaches the girls how to be pretty! She teaches them all the "so called" wrong things, but true things which the society teaches girls, to put on make up, does pretty, dumb yourself down to boys, act weak in front of them etc and it works! The girls and the sorority is hottest thing on the campus! But this is where the movie takes a turn into the other side of the fence. Shelly starts liking a local boy who works at the local old age home. She takes the girls over who entertain those guys. Shelly uses her sexiness to win people. But she isn't able to win love. She fails miserably on her first date with Oliver. She tries everything in the book! From being dumb, to talking pretty, to flirting, but nothing seems to work! Shelly realises that being pretty is not the only thing out there, and there are boys who do like girls who are smart. Thus, the movie shows that pretty and dumbo isn't the only right thing, and for real world you need to be smart, thus reclaiming over the opposite territory. So now the girls help Shelly learn new things, talk about smart issues and arrange a second for her with Oliver. Only now, Shelly plays the role of smart, nerdy girl too much. She divulges too much on the other side, which is completely new to her, and at the last minute. Of course it was going to go haywire (keeping it realistic!) The movie touches very real tones here, showing Shelly, trying to be something she's not, and thus failing at it. That's when the ZETA girls are also at home, going through their pledge applicants and rejecting them all based on their looks, when they realise what they've become! They've become just what they hated! Shelly comes back, devoted and humiliated and sad from her bad date, and the girls suddenly start shaming her that it's because of Shelly that they've become like this and thus, the already broken Shelly leaves the house as she gets a call from Hugh that it was all a mistake and she was the next Miss November! The movie here touches the grey area, the actual fence, between beauty and brains. Shelly goes back to the house, but now, being a little experienced about the real world, about being smart, she didn't enjoy her dumbo playboy life anymore! The girls on the other hand, not having Shelly with them, were unable tackle and were losing anyway. They did realise however, that beauty and brains both work. Emma stone clearly loves being beautiful but also loves being smart in front of her guy. So it does end up teaching the girls that it is actually this grey area, this balance required for proper sustenance in life. One step more to the other side and it is bad bad bad! Overall, in the end, Shelly gives a big speech and is able to save the house and it's a nice big ol' happy ending! A good watch nonetheless, and definitely not something you'd expect out of such a movie! I mean from no expectations to writing so much about the movie! Definitely a good uplifting and feel good movie with good funny humour and goofy dialogues and scenes!