Movies - July 2024

Count from August 2023: 189 

July 2024 -  movies and series

1. Lion: This movie appears in many lists of Academy Awards worthy movies in Prime. I have consistently ignored it due to its name. It reminds me of the 80's malayalam movie song where the hero realizes that the work LION when seen upside down is NO17, whic seems to be a major clue in the movie. Everytime I am reminded of the scene, I am both amazed and appalled. Also, I am not ready to watch a Dev Patel movie. I did not like Slumdog Millionaire and this dislike somehow landed on Dev Patel. Recently I read something good about the movie and decided to watch it. It was a good choice. A beautifully made movie. The initial scenes though sad and disturbing are shot beautifully. The fact that it is based on a true story made it fascinating and touching. By the end of the movie, I had to fight my tears.  
2. Makal: I only watched this movie for Nasleen. He brings out humour well and his timing is impeccable. One scene from the movie appears in many reels. Nasleen lived upto the expectation. In general the movie is a super light movie, its so light that it seems pointless. It has a serious theme but Sathyan Anthikad flies through each situation so lightly that none of it leaves an impact. In the end, it is good break from all those heavy award worthy movie. As a post script, I am not sure why Jayaram acts in these roles. This is a typical Jayaram role and I think I have watched him do such roles many times.
3. Priyan Ottathilane: I only watched this movie for Sharafudeen and for the good rating that this movie has. The movie is not taken well. I got the feeling that I was watching a serial on Asianet. But the screenplay was good and so the movie keeps the viewer occupied. At two hours and twenty minutes, the movie is too long for the story but as I said the screenplay kept me occupied. The actors are good and situations are interesting. Good for a watch.
4. Civil War: I had seen the trailer of this movie on the big screen. I did not like the trailer, it reminded me of one of the zombie attack movies.  But even the bad trailer was good enough for me to realize that this is a movie not to be missed. Yet, I missed watching this movie in the theatre. I really wanted to go for the movie but I couldn't. During the first week of July, I saw that the movie was released in Amazon Prime. Almost immediately, I started watching the movie and finished it in one sitting (nearly). Its a beautiful movie. It has a poetic feeling to it. As I watched the movie I shouted to myself "You should have seen this movie in the theatre man." I really should have watched it in the theatre. Though I have seen many great movies during the past few weeks, this one captured my attention totally. Its scary and beautiful. The background score is one of the reasons for this - the change from music to the sounds of the scene and a song suddenly bursting into the scenes make the movie a complete pleasure to watch. I love this movie.
5. Gaganachari: Once again it was time to watch a movie in the theatre with family. I did not want to watch Kalki. I don't want to pay money for a hyped up pan-India nonsense. Besides, I don't want to watch a movie with Prabhas in the lead at the theatre. I have done that mistake twice - Bahubali 1 and Bahubali 2. Also, a harcore Telugu movie fan had responded Amitabh was good when asked what he thought about the movie. This does not augar well for the movie. So I gave the movie a skip. I am not even sure if I will watch it in OTT (As I review this writing I am attempting to watch Brahmastra on OTT, so I think I will end up watching Kalki on OTT). Instead a movie called Gaganachari captured my attention. The reviews for movie were good. It's a Malayalam sci-fi mockumentary that was not mocked by any reviewer. Instead everyone appreciated the movie. So I booked the tickets for this movie. This is one of the funniest and wierdest movie that I have seen. I am not sure I will recommend it to anyone as I think they will only observe the wierdness of the movie. But the movie has a lot more than just wierdness. It shows how storytelling can make the most impossible of scenarios plausible. At a less than modest budget, this movie depicts a convincing post disaster earth, focussing only on a small section of Kerala. That said, what made the movie click for me was the humour. I laughed.
6. Half Love, Half Arranged (Season 1): I had seen bits and pieces of this series as reels and had found them amusing. So when I found that the series was available in Amazon miniTV, I decided to watch it. The series is a short one with just six episodes, each about twenty minutes long. But miniTV being a TV has a number advertisements added to it. This made the experience a bit painful. The series itself is funny. Most of the characters are fun to watch. But I did not like the end of the series. It left it at a place that forces one to wait for the next season but somehow I felt I did not care about it. I seemed to have lost interest in the series during the last few minutes. Anyway, I will see the next season too if and when it releases. If I am unable to do so, I really don't care.
7. Bramaram: Many years back, I saw a small part of this movie and I liked it. But it is a Blessy movie. I had watched two of his movies and did not like it much. For that reason I have not watched Aadu Jeevitham yet. Also, other than Drishyams I have not liked any of the recent Mohan Lal movies either. So I never got around to watching this movie. Recently one of my friends mentioned this movie and said that Mohan Lal was terrific in this movie. So I decided to watch it. Sure enough, Mohan Lal is terrific in this movie. He brings out the disturbed and yet decent character out well. But the movie making is terrible. It seems like an Asianet serial at many places. Other than Mohan Lal almost all other characters are loud. This makes the situations seem extremely staged. All this seems to have convined me that I would not like to go through this movie again. But I think I would like to see Mohan Lal's acting in this movie again and so might watch a fast forwarded version of this movie some time in the future. 
8. Malayalee from India: It has been sometime since I had seen a fun Nivin Pauly movie. The teasers seemed funny but even there the jokes did not seem funny. The acting seemed forced too but I still hoped it will be a good movie. It wasn't. The story seemed like a combination of many movies. In that sense the movie is a paisa vasool - you get five movies at the cost of one. But that is not the issue with the movie. It does not flow well and worse the acting is forced. Nivin’s interactions with the Pakisthani character are good and is funny in some situation but other than that even Nivin has not acted well in the movie. For a disappointing movie, the ending is even more disappointing. It is cringe worthy. Ultimately, it is not a movie worth watching even on OTT.
9. Dune:I had heard that the David Lynch made this movie is the 80’s and that it did not get good reviews. Yet, when Prime threw this movie at me, I could not resist the temptation to watch it. I think the movie deserved all the terrible reviews that it received. The movie is terrible in most, if not all, departments. The only thing interesting about the movie is watching Sting make a fool of himself in a few scenes. It is interesting to note that the negative characters in the movie displayed too much energy and all the positive characters seem spaced out. It seems they were all high when they acted in the movie. Their eyes stared into infinity as they whispered nonsense, AT some points I had to rewind to hear their words. Still, I don’t regret watching this movie. It was an experience that one must have at least… No, not at least. Its once and only once in one's life.
10. Manaadu: This movie was a rage when it was released in the theatres. Its was STR’s come back movie. It is directed by Venkat Prabhu. S J Suryah’s acting was the talk of the town. Yet, I did not want to watch the movie in the theatres. In general, I don’t watch Tamil movies in the theatres, not because I dislike the movies. But most Tamil movies have something that is terribly disappointing in it. I am usually annoyed just watching many of them on OTT. So, I gave this one a miss. Also, the movie is based on ‘Source Code’, which is a movie I love, and I was pretty sure Venkat Prabhu, will not be able to do justice to that movie. I was right and wrong. The first half of the movie is not great. But the second half is good. STR’s dialogue delivery continues to be annoying. It is so annoying that I am unable to remember how he acted. The explanation for the recurring events that occur in the Hollywood movie was explained using science but we being Indians brought in gods and mythology into it. The explanation is not unbearable. It is cheesy to hear the actors mouth it with a serious expression on their faces. I might have lived with it if I had not watched ‘Source code’. On the whole, like most Venkat Prabhu movies, this one is a decent entertainer – timepass.
11. Thoramukham: I was very unhappy to see Nivin Pauly in ‘Malayalee from India” and so wanted to see another movie of his. I found this one. It also has Joju George and Arjun Ashokan in it. The movie was directed by Rajeev Ravi. Its rating was not too high, but it seemed interesting, and Rajeev Ravi is a good director. So, I picked it. It is a terrific movie. The direction, screenplay, cinematography and editing are great. The background music is superb. Poornima Indrajit is absolutely fantastic in the movie. She brings out the aging of a person well, though her makeup is not great.The movie tells a sad story and yet it seemed like a poetry. I was reminded of the first few scenes of the movie ‘Lion’ but in Thuramukham it is consistent and the whole movie maintains the flow. The climax is great and got me pumped up. I think this would have been a good theatre experience movie. 
12. Garudan: This movie fits the description I had said some time back about Tamil movies. This movie was a hit and has good reviews. Yet, it is a terrible movie. It seems like a rehash of all the Sashi Kumar movies. I did not like the movie at all. Soori is ok. Unni Mukundhan is not much of a bad guy. I have no opinion about Sashi Kumar. On the whole, this was a waste of my time. 
13. Jai Ganesh: I was so disappointed by Unni Mukundhan in Garudan that I had to watch a movie where he is not a bad guy. But the character he is playing in this movie is too complex for him to portray and he ends up hamming through the role. Since he is stuck to the wheelchair through the movie, he does not get a chance to beat up people. So, he has to act but that is not his forte. The theme of the movie is reasonably good. But as usual the scientific concepts thrown through the movie sound quite iffy (Chlorine gas becomes poisonous when a child is exposed to it for 12 hours not 11 hours and 58 minutes but exactly 12 hours). I think it is not a movie worth spending one’s time on though it is not really a bad movie, like ‘Garudan’ or ‘Malayalee…’.
14. Journey of Love 18+: The theme of this movie is outright terrible. It justifies everything from (nearly) underage  marriage to women having pills to keep their period away. I found it inappropriate on many occasions. The movie uses a caste based issue as a justification for all the nonsense. Yet, when looked at as a medium for entertainment, it is funny and moves along very well. The story appalled me and yet I laughed at the comedy. It is a great case for how story telling forms the crux of a movie. I should not have watched this movie or should have at least stopped watching it half way but I did not.
15. Tamilikku en onnai azhuthavum: This movie was well received by critics. It has Dinesh and Nakul on the poster and I did not really care for either of them. But for variety of content I decided to watch it. It is an interesting movie, which is inspired by many non-linear narrations that came earlier. It is not well made though. The attempt to mix in humour with serious siutation makes it annoying to watch. It had to be an edge of the seat thriller and the humour had to be subtle. But most of the humour is on the face and plain stupid. This made the movie tiresome in the second half. The ending was absolutely terrible and unintentionally laughable. I don't think it was worth a watch.
16. A Haunting in Venice: I wanted to watch a movie of the thriller genre and so I picked this. I had watched Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express, a few years back and liked it.  I also remember fondly, the series Poirot that I had watched many decades back in Doordarshan. So I gave this one a shot. I enjoyed it. It was spooky and went smoothly. The person responsible for the crimes did not come as a surprise but the flow of the movie is interesting and more than the revelation the reason becomes more important by the end of the movie. I liked the fact that in the end, I was not clear if the supernatural element had a part to play in the movie or not. 
17. Death on the Nile: 'A Haunting in Venice' had some reference to this movie. This movie also had some identifiable people in the star cast like Gal Gadot and Ali Zafar. This movie was well received too. It is a good watch. Once again the ultimate villain and scheme did not surprise me. But the build up to the revelation is good. As a plus, the movie is set in Egypt, which is always a pleasure to watch. A good thriller. I am running out of movies in Prime, XStream and HotStar. I think I have to start on NetFlix.
18. Bose - Dead/Alive (Series): Damn it! I got conned into watching this. I thought this is a movie but it is a series from Ekta Kapur factory. It's not bad. It has Rajkumar Rao, who is convincing as Bose. The series is watchable. I really liked the background score. It covers a lot of ground, from Bose's early life to his presumed death and his presumed life after his presumed death. So it rushes through the scenes and ultimately leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction. The English and German characters speak in Hindi with an English accent, which should have been terribly cheesy but surprisingly I did not find it so. It also ends abruptly. The last part of the series covers a lot of ground with words written on the screen and a background narrator explaining it. The series had to be atleast twice as long for it to do justice to the material.