tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83415871342034409232024-03-14T18:49:08.307+05:30Un-kvlt SiteA repository of my reviews and opinions, short flights of fancy and other loose ends. Decidedly un-kvlt.Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.comBlogger435125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-8424605832039081212024-03-10T11:31:00.004+05:302024-03-10T13:36:26.492+05:30Manjummel Boys [dir. Chidambaram]Two years back, there was a Malayalam survival adventure called Malayan Kunju (MK). I had a very divided experience with that film: while the survival aspect - a guy buried under a landslide must claw back to the surface - was well executed, the preceding drama that shows him to be a self-centered casteist prig was a stodgy affair. Manjummel Boys (MB) is in some ways reminiscent of MK. Here Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-36309758111992326062024-03-04T01:16:00.008+05:302024-03-04T21:39:45.132+05:30Lord Curzon ki Haveli + Shorts [Wench Film Festival]I didn't actually plan for the Wench Film Festival, attending only one of the 4 days, which is why this is very fragmented coverage. For the record, this is a fest devoted to fantastic genre cinema primarily directed by 'Women and Non-Binary Filmmakers'. It is engineered by Sapna Bhavnani, an enthusiastic maverick who has worked in fashion and film. The screenings were conducted in a little Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-65715334879240653322024-02-27T01:54:00.001+05:302024-02-27T15:09:44.907+05:30The Bullfighter and the Lady [dir. Budd Boetticher]I first came to experience the work of Budd Boetticher through the wonderful Ranown Westerns set Indicator put out some years ago. With that series of movies, Boetticher did for Westerns what Val Lewton did for horror - use the genre to tell thoughtful stories with layered characterization, and avoid being just cliched B-budget matinee fodder. So of course, when I heard that Boetticher Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-24816102012023998432024-02-25T18:49:00.006+05:302024-02-25T19:25:17.909+05:30Bramayugam aka Age of Madness [dir. Rahul Sadasivan]The trailer I saw of Bramayugam gave me a different impression of what it would be - the remote setting, distancing grayscale imagery, atonal score elements, oblique dialog, staccato editing rhythm, these suggested an existential nightmare, something in the vein of Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse or that amazing Marathi horror film Kaul - The Calling.The actual film is a different beast. In Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-75461719180208492502024-01-30T12:26:00.004+05:302024-01-30T18:00:44.104+05:30Yavanika aka Curtain [dir. KG George]On a trusted friend's recommendation, I recently checked out Yavanika, a celebrated mystery drama by KG George.Yavanika is centered around a musical drama troupe, whose main tabla player Ayyappan (Bharat Gopi) suddenly goes missing. As he is a habitual drunkard, it takes a while for the other members to regard his disappearance in a serious light. When they finally do, an investigation is Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-52852968763113086262024-01-21T19:01:00.004+05:302024-01-21T19:15:32.587+05:30Kaathal - The Core [dir. Jeo Baby]In my take on Rajkumar Hirani's PK (read HERE), I described it as "...a slipshod, almost insufferable movie that by the theme it tackles and the willingness therein of the people behind it to attach their clout becomes ironically a courageous, even important film." Kaathal - The Core, its clumsy caption notwithstanding, does not require that level of allowance. It is a quiet, measured Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-68970315026916545442024-01-14T18:06:00.007+05:302024-01-14T18:18:37.163+05:30Croupier [dir. Mike Hodges]In Mike Hodges' Croupier, a young Clive Owen plays Jack Manfred, a struggling author with some history as a croupier (that's a casino dealer). While initially reluctant, he is persuaded by his fast-talking shady entrepreneur father into taking up a croupier post at a local casino. As an employee Jack has to follow the house rules - no relationships with customers or fellow croupiers, and if Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-47835554796582959812024-01-12T15:01:00.005+05:302024-01-12T15:05:17.613+05:30Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash [dir. Edwin]Vengeance is Mine... is in many ways an unexpected movie. Based on a novel by Eka Kurniawan, which I haven't read, the title makes it sound like one of countless spaghetti westerns pumped out in the 60's and 70's. But it's actually an Indonesian drama set in the 1980's, in the late phase of the autocratic Suharto regime. It starts off like a martial arts action movie with a cocky badass heroSuresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-23396716889657109312023-12-31T19:54:00.005+05:302024-01-04T17:34:43.157+05:30A Look Back on 2023 in MoviesUnlike most of the folks preparing for their NYE parties, my day job does not give me an off for the next day, so here I am sitting by my lonesome, filing the time by keying in my annual retrospective of watch experiences. If I have generated enough of a guilt feeling to dampen your spirits a little, that's mission accomplished. No? Oh well, we move on.Compared to the last couple of years 2023 Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-45499268132416399572023-12-25T15:37:00.005+05:302023-12-25T16:18:14.074+05:30Animal [dir. Sandeep Reddy Vanga]With its 80's Bollywood meets graphic novel / videogame sensibilities, Animal reminded me a good deal of Kill Bill. It bears that same element of homage / masturbatory pastiche Quentin Tarantino legitimized as its own art form.The first inspiration is of course The Godfather. Reddy's film borrows swathes of narrative from that classic (As Baradwaj Rangan's review puts it, "...the trashySuresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-20550799785445566592023-12-02T23:18:00.006+05:302023-12-02T23:30:38.431+05:30Leo [dir. Lokesh Kanagaraj]Lokesh Kanagaraj's 'Thalapathy' Vijay-starrer Leo is basically A History of Violence (AHoV)...for Dummies.In David Cronenberg's 2005 movie, Viggo Mortensen played amiable small-town restauranter and family man Tom Stall, who suddenly displays a ruthless streak taking down murderous thugs that invade his diner. Hailed as a local hero for his bravery, mild-mannered Tom's Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-45996606489453787142023-11-26T14:15:00.004+05:302023-11-26T14:40:14.325+05:30Hermana Muerte aka Sister Death [dir. Paco Plaza]I confess, if it had not been for my trusted fantasy/horror movie reviewer Richard Scheib's positive opinion, Hermana Muerte aka Sister Death would have passed me by as one of those generic Netflix algorithm offerings, conceived as a low-budget knockoff of The Nun franchise. What also intrigued me was that it was made by Paco Plaza, who with Jaume Balaguero created [REC], a ferocious zombie Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-31657182578345318252023-11-18T17:52:00.007+05:302023-11-19T17:26:24.142+05:30Falbalas [dir. Jacques Becker]Prior to watching Falbalas, I'd only seen Jacques Becker's Le Trou aka The Hole, his jailbreak drama which engrossed me thoroughly (reviewed HERE). I have also heard a lot of good word about his crime drama Touchez pas au grisbi. What I liked about Becker was that his work seemed to cover a variety of genres.Falbalas (translated as Paris Frills) is a drama set in the Parisian fashion Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-37774612201277218802023-11-13T23:01:00.006+05:302023-11-17T21:02:30.200+05:3012th Fail [dir. Vidhu Vinod Chopra]Despite the glowing review from my go-to movie critic Baradwaj Rangan, I had reservations about 12th Fail. Based (at least loosely) on IPS officer Manoj Sharma's life, the film details the story of how he went from being a 12th class fail to successfully clearing the hyper-competitive Public Service Commission entrance hurdles. From that outline, it threatened to be like the numerous clichedSuresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-33734823799677075672023-11-07T01:27:00.000+05:302023-11-07T01:27:36.759+05:30Thiruchitrambalam [dir. Mithran Jawahar]I'm probably shooting myself in the foot by saying this, but Baradwaj Rangan's review of Thiruchitrambalam gives a rather good analysis of what works and what doesn't in this 2022 Dhanush vehicle. With a piece that comes more than a year after the film's theatrical release (and a couple of months after it started streaming on Prime), I suppose I am rather late to the party. But then the film Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-76899095688408591112023-10-08T16:10:00.010+05:302023-10-08T16:33:05.880+05:30Khufiya aka Secret [dir. Vishal Bhardwaj]The Khufiya (Secret) in the title of Vishal Bhardwaj's new film (produced with Netflix) covers both the professional and personal life of its protagonist. Krishna Mehra aka KM (Tabu) works in covert intelligence, a spy 'handler' executing missions for the country that will never be highlighted in newspapers nor discussed at dinner parties. Krishna regards herself a professional and personal Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-81540652188431673122023-10-04T14:24:00.012+05:302023-10-05T13:21:22.686+05:30Goodbye, Dragon Inn [dir. Tsai Ming-liang]In Goodbye, Dragon Inn, two characters stand silent for a long spell in the cramped disused corridor of a movie-hall building, while outside the rain steadily pours. Finally, one says to the other, "They say this theater is haunted." Coming somewhere around the halfway mark, it is the first instance of an original spoken line in this 82-min film. This is not to say that the proceedings thus far Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-51215757173185937972023-08-27T23:29:00.003+05:302023-09-01T11:59:07.229+05:30Dahaad aka Roar [dir. Reema Kagti]I'll say one thing for Reema Kagti and her frequent collaborator Zoya Akhtar: With an output that includes material as diverse as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD), Talaash, Dil Dhadkne Do (DDD) and Gully Boy, they are certainly versatile. Of course, there is the question of whether this versatility is backed by sufficient substance. ZNMD and DDD are fluffy crowd-pleasers providing an Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-76529098221601538102023-08-15T08:51:00.015+05:302023-08-15T12:11:52.330+05:30Gadar - Ek Prem Katha [dir. Anil Sharma]In preparation for the sequel now showing in the cinemas, I watched 2001's Gadar - Ek Prem Katha (The Revolt - A Love Story). Confession, this is the first time I have seen the whole film, as opposed to bits and pieces, mostly from its crazy climax. At the time of Gadar's theatrical release I was more a Lagaan fanboy, and this was the 'rival' film. I have to say, flaws notwithstanding Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-86748415641431977632023-08-02T00:28:00.009+05:302023-08-04T12:53:32.318+05:30Maamannan [dir. Mari Selvaraj]Caste identity and discrimination has been the backbone of most of Mari Selvaraj's filmography thus far - those that haven't seen them, I heartily commend Baradwaj Rangan's reviews of Pariyerum Perumal (2018) and Karnan (2021). Pariyerum... told the non-fluffy story of a romance that transgressed caste norms and the fallout that occurred in its wake. Karnan, in which Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-72570869254790559412023-07-31T14:06:00.020+05:302023-07-31T23:03:48.228+05:30The Black Marble [dir. Harold Becker]Harold Becker's The Black Marble - adapted by author and former LAPD detective Joseph Wambaugh from his own novel - is an odd movie experience in terms of tonal consistency. Sometimes it wants to be a screwball comedy, and at other times it steps into significantly bleaker territory. That said, the film has charms that keep you engaged even through its issues.Robert Foxworth is AA Valnikov, a Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-4683736427571117982023-07-18T01:23:00.010+05:302023-07-18T17:13:13.893+05:30The Pope's Exorcist [dir. Julius Avery]After I saw the trailer for The Pope's Exorcist (TPE), I was expecting a campy knockoff of William Friedkin's influential possession shocker The Exorcist - In short, I wasn't in for the scares, I was in for the laughs. This turned out true in most aspects. Star Russel Crowe complements his stocky frame with a heavy Italian accent to play the titular clergyman Gabriele Amorth. The character Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-21911288794681885252023-06-13T01:52:00.003+05:302023-06-13T20:35:48.812+05:30Arnold [dir. Lesley Chilcott]You don't actually need the 3-episode Netflix documentary mini-series to understand the psyche of Arnold Schwarzenegger. This less-than-5min interview clip taken from the time he was filming Conan the Barbarian (1982) will suffice:Remember here, this is before Conan had been released and made his name as a major league Hollywood star that could crush box-office records across the world. Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-9440025329710978622023-05-30T21:10:00.001+05:302023-05-30T21:12:45.274+05:30Children of Men [dir. Alfonso Cuaron]I realize I'm rather late to the appreciation party for Children of Men (CoM), the Alfonso Cuaron film that was released and generated a fair buzz in 2006. There were two reasons for this: I'd read and loved PD James' source novel. When I read that the shy middle-aged academic protagonist of the story had been transformed into some kind of action hero played by Clive Owen, I was dismayed. Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341587134203440923.post-31806176877726235632023-05-21T16:45:00.001+05:302023-05-21T17:00:10.377+05:30Kuttavum Shikshayum [dir. Rajeev Ravi] - Theeran Adhigaram Ondru [dir. H. Vinoth]"There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before", says Sherlock Holmes in his debut adventure A Study in Scarlet, when recommending his Scotland Yard colleagues to brush up on their knowledge of crime history. A similar sense of déjà vu struck me when I heard about Rajeev Ravi's 2022 Malayalam film Kuttavum Shikshayum (KS) aka Crime and Punishment. In the story a task force Suresh Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595367957072096546noreply@blogger.com0