Movies - February 2024

Count from August 2023: 119

February 2024 - 20 movies and series

1. Garudan: The 100th movie/series on this list. I wanted to watch this movie on the day it was released but I was not sure about its quality. Later, I heard that the movie got good reviews but the moment had passed and I did not feel like watching it. The movie came up as a suggestion when I watched Antony and I decided to watch it. Unfortunately, I got to know an important point in the plot of the movie while watching it and so the element of suspense was lost. I wonder if I would have guessed it anyway. The details of the twist are interesting and makes the movie watchable. The main element of the plot is similar to a hindi series that I had watched a few months back. So I get the feeling that this would have given a clue too. For some reason though this is a better made movie than Antony, I liked that movie better. Not that I will watch either of these movies again. I found Suresh Gopi annoying. The dialogues in English and his delivery sounds artificial. Biju Menon was good for most of the movie but goes overboard towards the end. Overall, its an ok movie. It only became interesting thirty minutes before the endand that is not a good news for a movie in this genre. I am glad I did not watch it in the theatres. 
2. Tholvi FC: I want to see Kaathal desperately. There is so much noise about the excellentness of the movie that I want to see it undisturbed. But that is difficult at home. Unless I go to the theaters, I watch movies while I am involved in some other activity. There is too much to be done at home and so I get little time to sit to watch a movie. So to pass time till I get the time to watch a movie without distractions, I watched this movie. It is a comedy, it has many people from 'Premam' and it has an IMDB rating of 6.8. So why not! It is yet another feel good malayalam movie. So many things go wrong for the members of the family, who specialize in not winning (or losing, I am not sure which) and yet no one seems sad. The other interesting point is that each member of the family keeps losing money on their different ventures and yet they have enough money to lose and live well. This is not exactly unbelievable. I have been through that situation many times in the past 12 years. The movie in that sense is motivating - Keep spending and losing money as one can be sure that money will reach you from some unexpected source. I liked the movie. It is not really a comedy. A few scenes are funny but at most times, it felt light hearted. The misery of the people on screen did not affect me. As expected things brighten up in the end else the movie can go on for ever or the movie can never end or worse, the movie might be considered an art movie. But the good part is that the happiness at the end does not seem miraclous or terribly cheesy. I kept thinking "Yeah! That could happen. Did it not happen to me? So it could happen to anyone!" Also, I was surprised by how the movie causually inserts a disturbing aspect into it. The incident has a good message surrounding it but was inserted without being preachy. Good movie to watch once with no expectations. One crib: Why has Sharafudeen become such a serious actor? I really miss the 'kozhi' of 'Premam'.
3.  Philips: Yet another movie that I watched as I did not have the totally undistracted time required to watch Kaathal. This movie has Mukesh in the lead, which these days does not guarantee a good movie. But the movie has received good reviews. It is yet another malayalam feel good movie. Also, it is Innocent's last role in the film world. It has an IMDB rating of 7.1. These are reasons enough to watch the movie. I loved it. I loved almost every frame of the movie. The actors are superb. The two girls and the boy, acting as Philip's children, are very good. They look familiar and yet I can't remember seeing them in any movie. So they appear fresh. The movie is taken well, it is touching and yet not melodramatic. Mukesh is good too but I have seen so many of his movies that his expressions are guessable. Innocent is terrific and I felt sad about the actor's passing away as the movie progressed. Its a beautiful movie.
4. Judgement at Nuremberg: I was still not ready to watch Kaathal and went looking out for another movie. I landed with this one. The name is interesting. The events of World war 2 and its aftermath are always interesting to read and observe. Besides the movie had a high IMDB rating. Sure enough, this is an incredible movie. It is like a documentary. Only a few scenes have background music. The actors are so good that it seems like they lived through the experience. There is a lot to learn from the movie, especially in these polarized times. The ending is absolutely brilliant. At the end, there is a good line mentioned by of the characters, "To be logical is not to be right". I am not sure if I would have thought so earlier. Prime Videos is one of the best things that has happened to my life. I have seen movies that I would not even have heard of otherwise. Whoever is reading this, watch this movie.
5. Thelma and Louise: I started watching the series Superman and Lois. I don't think I like it much but am not able to drop it. It is a family drama that borders on melodrama and yet is not completely boring. But at the end of every two episodes, I feel like taking a break. This and the next few movies, are seen while taking a break from the series. The series has completed three seasons and each season seem to be 15 to 17 episodes long and so this will go on for some time. I have heard about Thelma and Louise for a long time but somehow thought it is an unhappy movie and so avoided it. Recently, I realized (or got reminded) that the movie is directed by Ridley Scott. So I clicked on the 'Watch now' button on Prime. At first I could not get into the movie. I like Susan Sarandon and she holds the movie well. I do not have an opinion on Geena Davis but she lived up to the character's expectation and was annoying. I was ready to write her off as stupid when the second part of the movie transformed her. This is not a long movie and still the director was able to bring about this transformation in her character gradually and convincingly. I think that is the best part of the movie I liked the best. I loved the last 15 minutes of the movie. The close up shots of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis' towards the end were brilliant. I should have watched this movie earlier.
6. Capote: I remeber Capote due to the Academy award that Phillip Seymour Hoffman won. Till I watched the movie, I thought this movie was about the life of a gangster. As stupid as I feel, I have to admit humbly that I had no idea who Truman Capote was. As I watched the movie, I felt annoyed by Phillips Seymour Hoffman but that I think is the intent. I don't think that Capote was a likable character and the actor portrayed it well. I was thrilled to see that one of the characters in the movie is Harper Lee. I love the book 'To kill a mockingbird' and to learn something about the author at the time of its publishing makes the movie interesting. The most impressive aspect of the movie was that it challenged my tendency to identify the good from the bad. There are many movies that deal with the greyness of a character but I don't think any movie deals with this topic as well as this movie. I found it very difficult to segregate any of the three persons at the centre as good or bad. The toughest was Capote. I was never sure if he was a selfish bastard who manipulated the other two and others around him or a person with soft heart. The last few minutes of the movie were beautiful. The movie made me want to order the book the development of which is shown in the movie - 'In cold blood'. But I did not order it.  
7. Me before you: Valentine's day is round the corner and it seems cupid has struck me. I wanted to fall in love. As that is not a possibility in real life, something even better happened. I fell in love with people falling in love with each other and it was beautiful. It started off with this movie. It was a suggestion in Prime for the movie 'Pride and Prejudice', which for me is the greatest love story (both on film and on paper). It is a British rom-com and so I had a lot of hope for it -  Remember 'Notting Hill', another greatest rom-com ever. I started watching this movie at 10:00 pm two days prior to Valentine's day. I thought I will watch 15 minutes of the movie and go to bed. At midnight I got off my chair, wiped a tear drop attempting to flow down my left cheek and switched off the lights. I could only grab four and a half hours of sleep and the next day I walked into the office with a heavy weight weighing my head down. Emilia Clarke plays the lead in the movie. I have only seen one episode of 'Games of thrones' and so have no idea how she is in the series. But I have seen a snip of her interact with Matt Le Blanc in the Graham Norton show and she seemed to be adept at playing roles in which men fall in love with her the moment they see her. Sure enough the hero of the movie falls in love with her the moment he sees her. But his position is such that he cannot express it. So we go through 60 odd minutes of her clawing through his fortress to open up his heart to her. In this movie, Emilia Clarke does what she does well well. Though at times, the muscles on her face contort worryingly. I wondered if it could be CGI but then I remembered the interview and in it too she indulged in similar facial gymnastics. The ending of the movie is brilliant. I felt too lazy to get up and find a napkin or a bucket else I would have cried bucketloads. I might watch this movie again in a few years or maybe not.
8. The map of tiny perfect things: The sweetest and cutest movie that I have seen. I love this movie. Its unbelievably cute and to top it is good to watch too. It has elements of science in it. It is inspired from the movie 'The Groundhog day', the characters in the movie say so openly. The lead pair is fantastic. To top it, it is a love story. What a combination! The lead characters are energetic and take the movie along well. The screenplay moves along well too. The movie brings out the boredom of living the same day over and over again, well. The ending was good too. The reason for the repetition of the day is also tied up well at the end of the movie. On the whole, a movie that I would love to watch sometime in the not too distant future.
9. What if: This one's not the Marvel animation movie. This is the one with Daniel Radcliffe. A predictable but cute love story. The lead pair is good and so the movie is a good watch. The movie reminded me of 'Notthing Hill'. An impossible love story becomes possible as the lead pair find it impossible to not be with each other. The movie seems to be another attempt at proving that men and women can never be friends. Maybe I worder that too strongly. I should have said, men and women can never be best friends. So any one out there having a best friend belonging to the opposite sex should watch out. One slip and the pair of lips might end up meeting each other. I watched this on Feb 14 and this valentines day ended up being more romantic than any other. I had to watch the last 20 minutes of the movie at office as I could not stand the suspense of how the movie would end though it was clear to me how it will end the minute I started watching the movie. I am not sure if I will watch this movie again. Its cute but is still generic. Daniel Radcliffe, like Emilia Clarke, can suddenly display a plethora of expressions on his face.  
10. Manchester by the sea: Valentine's day has come and gone. It is time to get romance off my life. Frankly, I tried watching a couple of rom-coms but they started off so badly that I could not watch beyond the 15th minute of the movies. I was also worried that I will have to go back to Superman and Lois. I was not ready for the series yet. I had to find another movie. I found this movie under the category of award winners in Prime Video. It has an over 7 IMDB rating. It is an amazing movie. It's like a poetry on reel. A very sad movie that deals with the death of a loved one in detail. But it is not just about that death but a few other deaths that occurred in the past. Death lingers throughout the movie. The screenplay is superb. The placement of the flashbacks is unbelievable. In one sequence the director effectively shows a person remembering his past as he tries to deal with a conversation that he is having. In those scenes, I could almost feel what that character felt. I think that is the best thing about this movie. I could live through it. It shows boredom, sadness and guilt beautifully. I don't think I remember watching any other movie that brought out these feelings so effectively. Casey Affleck is superb and quite deservedly, he won the oscar for this performance. The use of classical music in the background adds a beautiful touch to the movie. I am glad I watched this movie.
11. Gone baby gone: Two reasons for choosing this movie - It also has an academy award nomination and it has Casey Affleck in the lead. The movie is directed by Ben Affleck, whose movie Argo was good. This is the first movie he directed. It is a crime thriller but not in the usual sense. The intent of the movie is not to determine how or why the crime was committed nor is it about solving the case. This was obvious from the beginning of the movie but it becomes clear in the last 15 minutes. These 15 minutes takes the movie to another level. I was reminded of the experience I had while watching Capote. In that movie, the question that ran through my head was "Who is good and Who is bad?" Here, it was "What is the right thing to do and what would definitely be a mistake?" As in the case of the former, here too there were no answers for the question. At the end of the movie, the story, the crime or the thriller was not important. I was left with an uneasy feeling. It should have been an happy ending but it seemed like anything but a happy ending. A thoughful movie.
12. True grit: This one came as a suggestion from another movie, I think. It was also an Academy award winner. It is a western and I was not really in a mood to watch it. But then I did not want to go back to Superman and Lois. So I started watching it. At the end of the titles, the movie announced that the directors of the movie as Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. All the doubts I had about watching the movie disappeared. My first Coen brothers movie was 'Blood Simple'. I watched it at Subham Theatre a few decades back. I am not sure why, but I liked the movie. Since then I have watched many of their movies. They are all good with some like 'No country for old men' being spectacular. This one is not spectacular but it is a good movie. It was able to hold my attention well. All the lead actors play their characters well. There's intrigue in the movie as it is not clear for a major part of the movie who the villain is. But ultimately the villain is not important. The journey that takes place while tracking the villain is interesting. As is the case with many of the movies that I watched recently, the ending is interesting and that helped me in ending the movie on a happy note. Incidentally, this is the highest grossing movie made by the Coen brothers.
13. Air:  I started watching this movie for three reasons - Its directed by Ben Affeck, it has Matt Damon in the cast and it is about Air Jordan. As a bonus, I got Chris Tucker too. As I watched the movie, I found it amazing that a movie based on a business deal could be made this interesting. It is like a thriller. I think it is a good movie to show to younger people too for it bring out the aspect related to perseverance, doing one's homework and thinking out of the box well. This and the other movies directed by Ben Affleck make me wonder why I did not like him earlier. He is not a bad actor but I don't think he is good actor either. Maybe that is the problem. The humour in the movie is good too. I laughed out loud when I heard the exchange between Chris Tucker and Matt Damon as they talked about Nike's slogan. "That damn slogan came from a convict about to get executed in front of a firing squad and they asked him 'what's your last words?'" "Just do it?" "Yes". 
14. Kaathal - The core: At long last, I watched Kaathal. I kept away from it for a long time. Everyone praised the movie to the sky and yet I did not watch it. It stayed in my watchlist for long, like the character played by Jyothika in the movie. The theme of the movie, is not a happy one and that played a part in keeping me away from it. The director's previous movie 'The Great Indian Kitchen' was a tough movie to watch. So I thought that this would be a tough movie to watch too. Ironically at the end of the movie I was disappointed that the movie was not really tough. The incidents in the movie seemed uncomfortable but were not tough to sit through. The ending was a big disappointment - it made the movie a feel good movie. This made the movie seem unrealistic. I am not sure if real life is as forgiving as it is shown in the movie. Mamooty is great but Jyothika is Jyothika. She thinks her lack of expression is acting. Unfortunately, it means she is not acting. It is fortunate that she has forsaken the South Indian movies for Bollywood. She should stay there. I don't think this is a movie worth waiting for. 
15. The founder: This came as a suggestion at the end of the movie 'Air'. I started watching it due to the presence of Michael Keaton. I am not sure I have seen many movies of his but I liked him in every movie I watched. I have always felt comfortable when I watched him on screem. But not in this movie. I did not have any idea on the inception of Mac. But the movie surprised me with the diabolical manner in which Mac became this big. As in the case of many interesting movies, it erases the line between good and bad and success and failure. Michael Keaton is so good that he is annoying as hell. Like Air, this is yet another business movie that is interesting to watch but unlike Air, this is a not feel good movie, if anything, this is a feel bad movie.
16. Bramayugam: I had decided to watch the movie the minute I saw the first posters of the movie. Mamooty's look and the black and white feel in the poster made it seem interesting. I did not see the teasers or the trailers of the movie. I booked the tickets for the movie soon after it was released. Watching the first half of the movie is simply one of the best cinematic experiences I have had in my life. I felt trapped in that old house like Thevan. It was spooky and uncomfortable. The scare that I felt was a lot more oppressing than I had felt in any horror movie. Incidentally, I don't like the horror genre at all. I hate jumping out of my seat due to a scream or an ugly face popping out of nowhere. But in this case, there were only one or two such instance . The second half was not as good. It was not bad but the hold that the movie had in the first half was lost. Maybe, this movie should be watched without an interval. The ending, though, was brilliant. Though the movie has layers as many have analysed, I loved it at as a straight forward movie watching experience. I went for the movie a second time, as the other two in the family had not seen it. That was on Sivarathri night. I was stuck at a spot close to the theatre for nearly 30 minutes. Finally, I had to ask the two of them to walk to the theatre and I went in later. I also had a call 30 minutes into the movie. So I missed most of the first half of the movie.   
17. 11.22.63: Someone mentioned about this book written by Stephen King and a week later I found that there is a series by the same name. I started watching it. James Franco plays the lead in the series and I find it comfortable to watch him on screen. The story is interesting (obviously, it is written by Stephen King). Sarah Gadon, plays her character beautifully. I found the chemistry between Franco and her incredible. As a result, this series is as much a romance as it is a thriller. I liked that time itself plays the role of a villain role in this series. The ending I thought was predictable but not disappointing. A good watch.
18. Nna thaan case kodu: This is one of the funniest movies that I have seen in recent times. It is a satire and it is a court drama. The actors are brilliant, especially P.P.Kunhikrishnan. His dialogues and expression are funny. Wierdly, I can't remember much of the movie though it has only been a few weeks since I have watched the movie. That probably is a good thing. I can watch the movie again.
19. Boy and the world: I picked this one randomly. It is an animation movie from Brazil and it has message about capitalism, environment and all. It also tries to drive in the point as it speaks through the eye of a child. I am getting a little tired of the movies with such messages as they don't seem to change much in us humans. I have become (or always was) cynical and I think so have many people around the world. That said, the movie is good on the eyes. Its imaginative and colourful. The animation is interesting too. I will not watch this movie again but am glad I did.
20. Falimy: Another true entertainer from the Malayalam film world. This is not funny from the beginning to end. The story is not a happy one but the premise is amusing and some of the incidents are really amusing too. Basil's timing is perfect. Of course, Manju Pillai and Jagadesh are legendary. A good watch. I think I will probably revisit it some time in the future. Ehh... Maybe not. Too many movie to watch can't afford to rewatch movies unless there is a strong familial reason to do so.

PS: I have given up on Superman and Lois. I will not go back to that series.