Fast Cuts – The Beekeeper, The Equalizer 3

Official Trailer: The Beekeeper Official Trailer: The Equalizer 3 I am game for vigilante movies if they are well made and don’t get into right or wrong conflict. They give us an escapist avenue, a fantasy, where bad guys get their due punishment. We know in real world vigilante justice is incorrect, need to follow the law and only courts can decide on the guilt and quantum of punishment. Thanks

 

Fast Cuts – Vettaiyan – Misses the target

Official Trailer: You sit through perfunctory opening of hero intro fight, intro song, mixed with random video footages of boys from government schools misbehaving with teachers. These scenes move so quickly with no depth. I guess even the director wants to get through these mandatory superstar fan service fast. Our hero Athiyan, played by Rajinikanth, is an encounter specialist who believes in dispensing justice taking the law into his own

 

Fast Cuts – Kishkindha Kaandam – a satisfying mystery thriller

Official Trailer: Similar to Koozhangal, director Dinjith Ayyathan puts us in the middle of action. A couple is in registrar office to get their marriage registered. There is no introduction about the couples or the guy who stands outside the registrar office. Then the husband Ajay, played by Asif Ali, gets a call. It is election time and licensed holders have to surrender their guns. His father Appupillai, played by

 

Life of Ram – Song from movie 96

While we keep getting catchy tunes and interesting compositions, not all songs have appreciative lyrics. We like the songs for combination of things – music, orchestration, melody, singer’s voice, emotion, and lyrics. Rarely all these come together in a song. One such song, which I keep going back to, is Life of Ram from 96. Music, lyrics, emotion come together. For me it is the lyrics that stand out. They

 

Maharaja – A skillfully constructed revenge thriller

Official Trailer: [SPOILERS AHEAD…] The story is a simple, a father takes revenge on the guys who assaulted his daughter. What sets this movie apart is how the movie is built. It comes across as a picture puzzle where you have to put together the pieces to view the full picture. In Maharaja we get precision engineered segments like Lego blocks. They are given to us in a non-linear fashion.

 

A narrow escape and a sliver of hope

2024 election outcome gave a mixed feeling. Happy because the alternate outcome of brutal majority would be worse.  Happiness with disappointment because we need to survive these two, Modi and Shah for another 5 years. I was debating the caption for this writeup, It could have been worse, All is not lost….yet, A reprieve for democracy, A sliver of home amidst disappointment, Blessing in disguise for the functioning democracy. Couldn’t

 

ஏழாம் உலகம் (7th World) – Book by B.Jeyamohan

As per Indian subcontinent mythology, there are seven worlds below our feet – அதலம், விதலம், தலம், கபஸ்திமல், மகாதலம், சுதலம், பாதாளம். We get our food and water from there. We can’t see them. Similar to those seven worlds below us, are there worlds within our society we are not aware of? We see different classes of people daily but never stopped to ask how their life would look like. We may

 

Uma Ramanan

When I heard the news about Uma Ramanan, the first song that popped out of my memory is Aananda Raagam from the movie Panneer Pushpangal. Then the other songs flooded out. Songs make us remember events from our life. Songs from late 70s and 80s always take me to my hostel days at Guindy engineering college and bus rides between Madurai – Virudhunagar and Madurai – Chinnamanur. Our mess eating

 

Clickbait and misleading headlines

After the news came out that Israel deployed Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to pick their targets, we were bombarded with so many articles with blaring headlines with AI in it. Fighting for eyeballs media makes the headlines catchy and sensational. Many a times the headlines end up giving misleading information. If the reader is not savvy enough, they will walk away with wrong and problematic conclusions. Samples below:    

 

Brahmayugam – A solid psychological folklore horror

Official Trailer: Director Rahul Sadasivan in his debut movie Bhoothakalam made us sit up and take notice of him. Bhoothakalam is a well-made horror genre movie that kept us guessing whether the protagonists are hallucinating because of their state of mind or encountering supernatural powers. Rahul Sadavisan scores another ace with his second outing Brahmayugam. I would say he is one of the handful of directors from Kollywood and Mollywood