Tag: film review

  • So I recently returned from: The Odyssey

    Broke Nolan’s Law by watching it in a Non-IMAX theater. Hoped that I wouldn’t lose my way back home after watching the next movie in theatres. Also, this completes my one year since returning to Jaipur after a 15 year long stay in Bengaluru. This post is a mishmash of the movie watching and the emotion of completing the Odyssey.

    The Odyssey
    The Odyssey

    This might be one of the handful of movies, that I have seen in a theatre all alone. I mean, not that the theatre was empty, just me going alone all by myself. But it was surely not more than 25% occupied. This gave me a focused and dedicated viewing experience. As Nolan intended.

    My main takeaway from the movie was how relatable the story felt to Indians because our epics share so much with Homer’s work. We can go into a rabbit hole of things which are almost identical like the bow scene in the movie with Ramayan. How many characters look and talk the same between 2 cultures! We may be very different now but probably the stories just traveled from one place and just took a small deviation on the way and eventually turned out to be in a different language and creating different cultures. Few things got lost in translation and some stayed the same. (Obviously, the origin must be Indian because I am writing this from India. Jai Hind.)

    Now, when it comes to technicalities, I couldn’t watch it in IMAX because of its unavailability in Jaipur. But there are 2 IMAX theaters opening very soon, which is exciting. With what I had, one must appreciate Nolan for trying to stay as analog as possible. I am not a fanboy but I do understand the effort one has to make extra to make such a movie of such a massive scale. When everything around us is becoming more and more fake, Cinema which is techically all fake, made in a realistic manner, is a big deal I guess.

    I recommend this movie to everyone who wants to enjoy and relive a historical, mythological, and still cinematic take on a cultural defining epic. Don’t go with any emotional takeaway. Like how in Oppenheimer, one had to revise Nuclear Fusion and Fission beforehand, this was relatively straightforward to understand. Of course, I did my homework by remembering a few names. Like how Nolan intended.

    Taking a detour, like how Odysseus had to stay decades away from home, this month marks 1 year of my return back home after spending a decade and a half in Bengaluru. It has been literally a 2nd Home as well which I miss from time to time. Dose here doesn’t feel the same, no matter how Benne you may make it. But mentally, I feel now it is the time and totally fine to not invoke Bengaluru every now and then while talking to people. Jaipur is where I am and hoping to be for time being.

    Back in 2010, when I moved there, I had thought that I would return back after 5 years. Most of my mates did move back or moved abroad. Along with a few, I remained in Bengaluru. It slowly grew on me and I got used to the weather and the traffic, the only thing people bring up when they talk about the city.

    Though, like how Odysseus got sort of trapped with Calypso for years and didn’t know whether this was a confinement or deliberate attempt to stay, for me post Covid, it has been a similar experience. When you continue to work from home and don’t socialize much, there is barely any difference as to where you live. Life shouldn’t have to be that way, but that’s convenient and we seek convenience and compromise over certain things.

    Having said that, one should never say never to anything life hands over to you. If Odysseus hadn’t got the Odyssey, it would have been a boring tale. Wouldn’t it?

    Maybe that is the point of every long journey. Not just to reach home, but to look back at the detours, the years that stretched longer than planned, and feel grateful that they happened at all.

    P.S.: When I get a chance to visit Bengaluru again, I wish this gets completed.

    From the internet

  • So I recently watched ‘Rocket Boys’ & ‘Oppenheimer’

    So I recently watched ‘Rocket Boys’ & ‘Oppenheimer’

    But first, CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE FOR CHANDRAYAAN – 3’S SUCCESS!

    It is just fitting that I finished watching the Sony Liv series ‘Rocket Boys’ based on the lives of Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, along with some bits of Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam just a day after the successful landing of Chandrayaan – 3 on the region near the South Pole of Moon.

    Although the series is a somewhat fictionalized version, it stays true to the overarching events that showed the birth of the Indian Nuclear and Space Programme over a period of 30 years from 1940-1974. It is a slow-burn kind of series but nevertheless, entertaining. I am just glad that somebody had the audacity to adapt the lives of great Indian scientists and tell whether they were flamboyant or serious or both, which one cannot grasp easily as everything of the past looks a tad bit serious somehow. I am currently reading ‘Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman!‘ and it tells details of major events like the building of 1st atomic bomb or the Manhattan Project as if it was just another day in a manner which makes you nothing but chuckle in amusement.

    Talking of the Manhattan Project, I also watched Oppenheimer in IMAX a few days back. And I watched it alone. It is the 2nd movie I have watched alone in a theater, strictly for educational purposes. The first one is, Mohenjodaro, again for educational purposes only. The sheer intensity of the movie makes it an enthralling watch. And it again brings to light the various sides of scientists who are also people after all.

    It is indeed a good thing that important scientific events and people get a chance to relive through TV shows and movies. With the amount of progress being made in tech, we take things for granted easily. I hope to see more such movies and series where they talk about sciency stuff. Like ‘The Vaccine War’ 😉

    P.S.: What’s more annoying? Brits claiming that India is using its aid to fund the space programme or people calling Chandra-YAAN Chand-Ryan.

    Header Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

  • So I recently watched: Fargo

    So I recently watched: Fargo

    Wide-angle shots. A vast expanse of barren lands covered with snow. The crime just happened or about to happen. Great percussion music in the background building up the scene. Characters who indulge you in hyping up the scene with great acting. Tense situation. A bullet about to go off. And then all of sudden, out of nowhere, something totally unexpected shows up and changes the course of everything.

    Ummm…
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  • So I recently watched: The Trial of the Chicago 7

    As I write this, hundreds and hundreds of Farmers are protesting against some new laws about 200-250 KM away from where I am. They are staying almost in open in the night and the winter season is in full flow right now. Almost none of them have masks on by the way. And there have already had a huge scuffle with the Government via the Police.

    Democracies like ours give us rights to protest. But sometimes the size and motivation of the protests grows larger than what can be handled. Also, there are powers in the authority who believe that such protests are not worth the time and they must be dealt with iron fists. And then there are clashes when both the government and the governed are equally adamant.

    The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a movie by Aaron Sorkin. So you can expect amazing dialogues and conversations when almost all of the movie is a courtroom scene. It deals with the fag end of the Vietnam War when citizens of US were getting tired of the length of the struggle. The war was just being dragged to satisfy the ego of a few but it was resulting in large number of casualties of young Americans. Drafting of youngsters into the army was becoming a big deal. So many voices started to crop up in order to curtail the unnecessary war efforts and pacify the government to backtrack.

    Many organisations called for protests in Chicago. A large number of students, citizens, African American rights groups, and the quintessential 70s junta comprising of the Hippies marched towards Chicago to protest

    However things turned ugly and violence ensued. The movie deals with the trial of 7 leaders who called for the protest.

    I have always been a fan of courtroom dramas and this movie delights me to the fullest. The cast, led mostly by Sacha Baron Cohen and Eddie Redmayne, and supported by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mark Rylance, and Frank Langella, is solid by all means. The movie gives you enough ground to understand the serious perspectives of all sides. But the scenes are mostly stolen by Cohen’s one liners which lighten the mood and makes you wonder, what kind of mentality and movement was there, when the name of the revolution was called ‘Flower Power’.

    I liked The Trial of Chicago 7. It is a compelling courtroom drama and raises the important debate about Protests and Rights in a democracy.

    P.S.: Cohen played Abbie Hoffman who was a hippie rebel. He wrote a book called ‘Steal This Book’. Imagine what happened to the book when people saw it in the bookshops.

  • So I recently watched: Dark

    So I recently watched: Dark

    Sit down first. This might come as a shocker. I know many people who have watched won’t believe. But hear me out. *crescendo builds*

    I understood Dark.

    Dark is Netflix’s first German-language original series. It is not a horror show and the name is totally misleading. It is actually a family show. It is not my place to spoil it for you but I am going to only share my opinion about it below.

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  • So I recently watched: The Big Bang Theory

    So I recently watched: The Big Bang Theory

    That’s my spot!

    You might say, so what’s the big deal in that? But the only deal is that I had stopped watching it after its 5th or 6th season because of forced laughter track and not so funny jokes, and had moved over to grittier shows involving 4 even nerdier and crazier boys (i.e. South Park).

    But I resumed it after a gap of over 5 years and finally finished watching all the remaining seasons of the 12 seasons show.

    I returned to TBBT as it was still the good old sitcom and it revolved around somethings I find interesting as a fellow nerd;

    1. Science (mostly physics because other sciences are boring)
    2. Comics / Superheroes
    3. A little eccentricity or awkwardness which comes out either like arrogance or creepiness, relatable right!
    4. The intrinsic desire to Mansplain things
    5. Creating such lists

    TBBT was the first English TV show I watched which opened a box of so much other consumable content I used to find off-putting. It had many factors which most Engineering graduates would find relatable.

    Despite all the tropes, if you stick with the show, it turns out to be the good old TV comedy which you can go back to.

  • So I recently watched: Tumbbad, Article 15, Hot Fuzz

    So I recently watched: Tumbbad, Article 15, Hot Fuzz

    Of course, it is unfair and lazy to write my reviews of 3 movies in one blog post as a movie reviews writer, but I am not a movie reviews writer and I just want to get past this writer’s block so it is what it is. Also, I am writing all of these together because I am going to discuss Cinematography of all these 3 together.

    Article 15

    Article 15
    https://www.ewanmulligan.com/#/article-15/

    I once wrote off Ayushmann Khurrana as a Roadie. I am not going to take it back yet but I am impressed. Not only by the movie he chooses but also his drastic shift of tone in the recently released movie ‘Article 15’.

    The movie is based on caste-provoked-hate-crimes (remember Budaun?) and how an honest new police officer deals with it when everyone else wants to ignore the heinous crime just because trying to solve it might upset the balance and status quo of the society. There have been several Hindi movies on similar narratives but this one stands out. It deals with the biases we all have, but we ignore them like nothing, head-on. It not only tries to shake that upper caste nonchalance and ignorance that we have now progressed and we view everything from an urbanite spectacle, but it also is a fine example of filmmaking. I was sincerely impressed by the fact that the screenplay kept on becoming more interesting the more I watched it. And to top it all, the cinematography was both beautiful and yet scary. It was also philosophical obviously that in order to clean the menace, one has to do the dirty work.

    Although, it reminded me of the first season of True Detective but it is a movie to which I was hooked from start till it finished. It was an experience which made me think of my own place in the society and the privilege we take granted for. Well done!

    Tumbbad

    tumbbad
    Via Prime Video / Eros Now

    Tumbbad is like nothing you have ever seen in a Hindi movie. I can certainly vouch for that. I had watched this movie last year and I liked it so much that I haven’t rewatched it again, what an irony! It is probably because it is amazingly scary and beautifully weird.

    The story shows a range of time from 1918s to 1940s. It is about man’s greed and the lengths one can go to in order to fulfill it. Except for the glaring CGI work at the very climax of the movie, it is an achievement to make such a movie, I felt. The production design, the haunting music, the scale and grandeur, and the performances are all top-notch.

    I could have written more about it but it has been more than 6 months since I watched it but I can still not forget the wonderful imagery this movie portrayed. Each shot has been meticulously designed and planned. It is a pity that not many have watched this yet.

    Hot Fuzz

    Llyod Stas Poster for Hot Fuzz
    http://collider.com/edgar-wright-posters-lloyd-stas/

    You must have also come across a movie which you enjoy like anything and want to discuss that with some friends who have same taste as you in the movies but then you don’t discuss it with anyone and just feel sad because your friends don’t have the same taste as yours and also they don’t get it the way you do. Sigh, me too!

    I watched ‘Scott Pilgrim vs the World’ a few days back and was happily surprised that something like this can exist. Then I read about its director Edgar Wright and thought of watching some more movies of his.

    So I recently watched ‘Hot Fuzz’ and what a fun ride it was. Without going into the details of the story, I would just comment about the editing of this movie. Brilliant! The distinctive cuts, the music, the parody, and the overall visual comedy had me in splits. I am going to watch the rest of the movies of Edgar Wright soon, is all.

    A word about Cinematography

    Since I am a man of not so simple tastes, ahem, I think I am not impressed by a few things which others might do. Same way, they might not get impressed with things which I find very interesting. One of the things like that is movie cinematography. Movies mean different to everyone, we all know that. So, for me, Cinematography: the camera placement, the editing, the subtext matters a lot.

    In all of the movie I wrote about in the paras before, Cinematography is a thing which carved its own niche into my mind. Article 15 shows the same grim, dark and scary wide shots of a rustic Village scene multiple times in which the protagonist has to immerse himself into in the movie to cleanse it otherwise his own surroundings keep getting dirtier, representing our myopic view of thinking about our own lives and only dealing with things when we are affected by it. Tumbbad shows grunge from a close-up which shows how greed can turn anyone into a devil. Totally contrasting to the previous two, the editing of Hot Fuzz shows how to make a serious matter funny while adding music to it to transform into something else.

    There are so many movies around. Only a few of them make you think about that particular scene and the intention of the director behind them. I like those ones.

  • So I recently watched ‘Mission Mangal’

    So I recently watched ‘Mission Mangal’

    I distinctly remember this. I was in a bus travelling towards my office and while it took a U-Turn in front of ISRO office on Outer Ring Road towards Marathahalli, Bengaluru, somewhere far away Mangalyaan was getting inserted into the Mars orbit. I was following the news on Twitter and the event just happened. The Bus completed the U-turn and the ISRO HQ remained as calm as it has always been, as if nothing happened. No fanfare, no bursting of crackers like Diwali or post-elections scene outside political parties offices, not even a single soul but the guards visible from outside. That’s ISRO for you. I looked around me, and nobody was bothered to share my happiness as they were busy in their phones or were dozing off. I sighed and continued with reading more about the news.

    That was 2014. ISRO has done a lot since then. They do use Social Media now but still only those who are interested follow. But for the first time, someone has brought them on to a medium which nobody in India can ignore. Yeah, the movies.

    So, I recently watched Mission Mangal and felt happy. Neither the movie was mind blowing, nor it was a bore, neither it was 100% scientifically accurate, nor it was completely filmy. It was just a feel good movie with an appropriate amount of stuff which could make your heart fill with joy when you realise that ISRO was able to do this near impossible feat so nonchalantly. Of course, this is just a fictional tale of how the mission came to be. But it surely reignited the feeling of pride that we live among such geniuses of humans who are so good at their job that one can only wish them more successes.

    I had brushed it off when they had announced that such a movie is being even made. But I got interested in it lately when the reviews came in and it paid off. I won’t go into the details of the movie as that’s irrelevant. I am rather happy that such a movie was made. There’s a scene in the movie which showed the reminiscences of actors’ childhood times of becoming scientists. That did me. And I believe that’s what have been the intention of making such a movie. Apart from earning money and all.

    If even one out of 100 can get inspired from such movies which show human’s scientific prowess while they deal with life’s daily chores, the job is done.

    Hoping to see more such initiatives which can rekindle the childhood dream in you.

  • So I recently watched: Avengers Endgame

    So I recently watched: Avengers Endgame

    Goosebumps!

    Rarely it happens that I am this excited to watch a movie. But the hype was spilling over the brim and the wait had become way too much longer. I watched the movie on Tuesday after it had already earned billions of dollars at the BO. And then when you hear, the once dreaded and termed forgettable, Avengers Theme Music… BOOM!

    I have in fact watched only 16 of 22 movies (73%) of all the MCU movies. But I have followed them with much more excitement since last 2-3 years. That is also due to the utter disappointment caused by DCEU even if Wonder Woman and Shazam were good. But MCU movies have made a place of their own in terms of sheer entertainment value they have provided. The cameos by Stan the man Lee to top them all.

    There have been several very popular videos on how Avengers (or MCU movies) are not much memorable, their video doesn’t have any definite color grading which makes them like a TV movie, or not much emotional connect, or not having much depth and so on. But nobody would have anticipated as to what 22 MCU movies over a period of 12 years would culminate to. Amazing!

    This sort of fest-like-hype has not really happened for any movie I know of. When probably the only ‘Universe’ kind of movie franchise, Star Wars had its Episode 1 getting released in the late 90s, the Internet hadn’t flourished that much. So the younger generation (worldwide) had not experienced the hype which generates nowadays due to the bombardment of information from all directions.

    I am not going to review the movie because my excitement will overrule my judgement. But I liked it very much. It has everything one could ask for, and more. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of Endgame. I might watch it again in IMAX.

  • So I recently watched: Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

    So I recently watched: Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

    bandersnatch
    bandersnatch

    So I recently watched: Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

    Bandersnatch is probably a first of its kind Interactive Movie, like a computer game, in which the viewer can choose the actions of the protagonist and some other characters by choosing from 2 options. That choice changes the outcome of the scene and it could lead to a different movie ending if you had chosen something else. It has been made in such a way that based on your choices, it can go from a sad morbid ending, to totally whacky scenes, and to a slightly different sad morbid ending, to something which might not make sense at all.

    Although the premise of the movie is not as interesting as other Black Mirror episodes, it is certainly a movie from the future. The mere concept of allowing viewers to choose the actions, couldn’t have been possible with traditional TV or Movie experience. Netflix and other streaming services allow it to work and full credits to Netflix for bringing this up. It might set a trend of more such movies, I hope.

    Black Mirror, in general, has always come up with something which makes us rethink the way technology has been moving ahead and how much dependence we have got over it. Bandersnatch uses this concept in a novel way and it even indulges us in making the viewers think about their own choices. As I said, the story of this particular movie isn’t very intriguing but I wonder how much of an effort they must have put behind it. I finished one ending and before I could click to go to credits, it gave me another choice and like a rabbit hole, I kept on going on and on for another 30 minutes. This movie was originally supposed to be 1 hour 30 minutes but you can surely keep it going for some more time. I am sure, others would experience the same curiosity. You may keep exploring more endings on Reddit and you might never give up. If you have time, of course.

    Well, the minimal poster I made above represents the choices flowchart.

    I wonder if there are actually any books which make the readers do the same. As in, say at page 50, one character has a choice. The author would have written there if the character makes choice A, directly jump to page 78 or if the choice is B, ignore the pages 51 to 81 and start reading 82 onwards. Now, that would be really mind-boggling.

    Moral of the story remains the same, in life too, we make choices and most of the times, the outcomes end up being different. Since we cannot change the past, we have to live with it. But there are still some choices, we can go back to. Again, that depends on what you choose at that point in time.

    Happy decision making!