Author: Rad

Athena – Impressive and Edgy Visual sequences make-up for lack of depth

Official Trailer: Athena is all about how the lives of three French siblings of Algerian descent plunge into chaos when their younger brother gets killed by the police under unclear circumstances. Friends and families want to know the identity of the police officers who killed the boy. Police claim the boy is killed by far-right members masquerading as cops. The pain of the loss along with underlying racism, police brutality,

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Fast Cuts – Appan, Wonder Women

Wonder Women: Highly restrained and packed with emotions Official Trailer: Anjali Menon has pulled off a casting coup in Wonder Women. What else one can say about Nadia Moidu, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Nithya Menen, Padmapriya, Sayanora Philip, Archana Padmini, and Amruta Subhash in the same movie? All we need is a simple plot to watch these talented actors on screen. We get more than that in Wonder Women, a feel-good film

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Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1

Official Trailer: The good news is you don’t have to have read the book to enjoy the movie. I haven’t read the book (yes, one of those few from TN who haven’t read the magnum opus…a traitor 😀) but I am able to follow Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1 (PS1) even with its many characters. In the case of Godfather, I felt the movie was better than the book (book is

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Natchathiram Nagargirathu – a finely crafted cinema

Official Trailer: To quote Sujatha from his novel Pirivom Santhipom, Love is nature’s way of ensuring pregnancy. Call it love or lust (people don’t fall in love at first sight they fall in lust), since it is driven by nature one may think it must be easy to get attracted to someone opposite to you. Opposite here doesn’t mean opposite gender but the person in front of you, could be

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Gargi – It is not what you know, but what you can prove

Official Trailer: Gargi and Jana Gana Mana has similar threads, searching for truth in a pile of different viewpoints, and mobs vying for blood. While I found both movies to be engaging with their narration and screenplay, Gargi has an edge over Jana Gana Mana, comes out ahead with its realistic portrayal, avoids melodrama, and a better cinema with an engaging and gripping screenplay. Our perspectives are driven by emotion

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Victim: Who is next? – One hit, another close to target, and two disappoint

Official Trailer: Other than Paava Kathaigal I am yet to see a Tamil anthology series where the different stories from different directors come together with some connection to the title theme. In Victim: Who is next, anthology series on Netflix, we have four episodes narrated by directors Pa.Ranjith, Chimbudevan, M.Rajesh, and Venkat Prabhu. Victim also ends up in the bucket of missed opportunities. Dhammam by Ranjith has a simple plot

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Old – Ageing isn’t fun!!

Official Trailer: We all are familiar with Time Travel paradox where one of the twins travels to a distance star at the speed of light and when he returns his twin brother has aged more than him. Time and ageing are an interesting premise to play around with and the writers are limited only by their imagination. In the hands of good directors, what is on paper gets staged beautifully

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Jana Gana Mana – powerful content keeps us engaged

Official Trailer: When we open the newspaper do we stop and ask who decides which news get to be the headline, which ones make it to the front page or end up as a small item in inner page? What we get to read? Or who controls the topics in 24×7 news channels? What we get to see and hear? Two similar incidents, one gets to be on the front

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Vikram – An entertaining Thriller-Action and yes, hide the forks from the dining table

Official Trailer:   First, I got to admit that I didn’t notice, never felt, the movie is nearly 3 hours long. No slowing down or drag in the pacing of the narration. While there are many things that made the movie work, my pick would be the director and the writer Lokesh Kanagaraj. Specifically, the writing is the key ingredient which pulled in rest of the compounds seamlessly into the

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Fast Cuts – Beast, Etharkum Thunindhavan

Beast: Forget Roar, this beast doesn’t make a woof!! Official Trailer: Beast has more misses than hits. For the starters, for the beast to roar, the villains need to be equally strong with character. Just saying the bad guys are Muslim terrorists is not going to cut it. This trope has been beaten to death and is getting to a point of causing nausea. For the money they spent to

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