Tag Archives: Movie reviews

So I recently watched: Disney-Pixar Soul

If you have been through a lot in 2020, like everyone else, you aren’t alone. But if you want to end the year on a positive note, I suggest that you watch the new Disney Pixar movie ‘Soul’. It makes a great Christmas/New Year movie which can be watched with your family. It is available on Hotstar in India. Here’s my review:

I don’t have to comment on the sheer genius of animators of Pixar as we all are fully aware of that fact. But I just wonder how could someone think of and write such deep philosophical ideas. Then convert that into an animation movie with a range of visual imagery. Then still make it highly entertaining by keeping you hooked for an hour and a half.

Synopsis

Soul is about a School Teacher who wants to become a professional Jazz musician. However, he has to be content with just being a Teacher. Then something happens with his life which takes him places. The journey teaches him some lessons. That’s all I can convey without spoiling anything. I especially liked the fact that the majority of the characters you see in the movie are African Americans which fits the Jazz and Music part of the movie. Not that it is critical, but it just enhances the beauty of the soul of the movie.

If you have already finished watching, we can talk further.

My Take

I also recently re-watched ‘Anand’ which is one of my most favorite movies of all time. The movies are highly different but the underlying message is the same. We tend to live either in past or wait for the future to happen. That doesn’t really allow one to live in the present. For the regrets of the past, and the expectations from the future, the now gets lost. There are several small joys just everywhere. But we want to take all the burden possible and just get buried under that. I guess we need constant reminders that Now is more important than anything else. Soul is such a light yet deep movie that makes you think about such stuff. The end goal is lucrative, but who knows our state of mind when we reach there. Past is gone so what’s the point of sweating over it.

To keep the soul happy, just live on.

My other recent movie and shows reviews.

So I recently watched: Mukkabaaz and Hidden Figures

If someone asks, although no one would ask, that why am I writing reviews of these 2 movies together, then the answer would be: I am doing so because:

  1. I watched them back to back.
  2. Both tell exactly the same story of underdogs defeating the system and excelling. Although, both movies are kind of filmy. I will explain this below.

Since the movies were both released in 2017 and a lot of time has passed since l will try to summarize their stories below.

In Mukkabaaz, a bright talent, Shravan Singh played by Vineet Kumar Singh, in boxing is at the center stage. He is fighting the system, the federation, the society, his own family and a ‘red-eyed’ District Federation Chief Bhagwan Das Mishra Jimmy Shergill. Shravan messes with the boss of the federation that leads to an all-out war of egos that follows Shravan with his slow but steady rise in the boxing career. Although, it still is a love story at its heart amidst a political-social-sports drama.

In Hidden Figures, the story revolves around 3 genius ladies working at NASA in the early 1960s. Although the movie is based on real people, they fictionalize their stories to an extent to make it more feel-good underdogs story. The underdogs here are brilliant minded American African women who are trying to break many society and stereotypical shackles and helping NASA put men into space before the Soviets do it.

Basically, both the movies feature underdogs who overcome the environment around them and succeed. The hardships they face are pretty realistic like getting into caste debate overlooking the talent when it comes to Mukkabaaz or segregation from coffee mugs to toilets for African American and to top that women African Americans. Despite all the bad happening around the lives of the protagonists, eventually, they succeed, sometimes by fate and sometimes by their sheer hard work and relentlessness in getting what they want.

Although I liked both of these movies, in the end, I was left slightly underwhelmed by their filmy treatment. I mean, they tend to end happily and some things feel contrived. For example, Jimmy Shergill’s character has got nothing else to do but just to satisfy his ego he keeps on pestering Shravan Singh. In Hidden Figures, there are times when some of the white men and women still appear the good guys / and girls just bound by the society. But they still make you entertained and ponder for a while about the times there were and the times there still are. Human society has always been champions of classifying people based on some criteria or the other, all the time. South Park once captured it brilliantly when they said when all religion systems are done and dusted in future, people will still be fighting over the names of their atheistic organizations.

Will there be a time when we will move beyond a person’s background, ethnicity, color, gender and just see everyone on their merit? Well, I am pretty sure it won’t happen in my lifetime. Till then you will have to keep punching the system until you can fly your rockets.

Featured Pic Credits:

  1. Photo by Ryan Tang on Unsplash
  2. Photo by Bill Jelen on Unsplash