Tag: Movies

Mookuthi Amman – Movie starts well and then falls in to easy villain and PSA traps

Official Movie Trailer: Mookthi Amman from RJ Balaji starts well, first 30-40mts of the movie worked effectively to setup the premise. We get introduced to Engels Ramasamy (get the drift?) and his family, mother, 3 sisters, and grandfather. Family struggles to make their ends meet and life hasn’t been good to them. Sample these: father has run away, gap between Engels and his last sister is 16 years, education stopped

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Short Takes – By Years – Nov 2020

25 years of Kuruthipunal: A taut police thriller from Kamal, Arjun, and P.C. Sriram. Those who went in expecting a typical police thriller were in for a rude shock. Kuruthipunal, when it came out, was completely different from a usual police story movie from Kollywood heroes including Kamal and Arjun. With its hard to swallow realistic portrayal Kuruthipunal stands apart from movies that came before or after that where the

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Rashomon and Rashomon Effect

“Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.”   — Akira Kurosawa Official Trailer: In the words of Richard Feynman: “From a long view of the history of mankind – seen from, say, ten thousand years from now – there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the nineteenth century will be judged as Maxwell’s discovery of the

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First Man

Official Trailer: First five minutes set the tone for the movie, Neil Armstrong piloting a rocket powered aircraft in the stratosphere and after reaching 140000 feet he can’t get control of the aircraft to descend. It goes in to upward drift, what NASA calls “Ballooning”. With not enough atmosphere for flight controls to bite into, he couldn’t turn. After few dreadful minutes, he regains the control and lands to safety.

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COVID, WFH, and OTT Picks

With a mix of continuous and on/off lockdowns, WFH (Work From Home) one worthy thing happened is more time for family, work, books, movies, and friends (video chats), not necessarily in that order. Yes, there is frustration and gloomy feeling that hits observing the happenings near and around us, lack of state capacity, and leaders continuing with their politics and optics even in these times when millions of people are

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Ennio Morricone (1928 – 2020)

If you are from 70s & 80s movie goers, you would remember few single screen big theatres had the ritual of raising the screen curtain when the movie is about to start. Usually red curtain that will raise to the theme music of For a Few Dollars More (FFDM). Of course, I didn’t know nothing about FFDM or Ennio Morricone that time. Saw The Mission movie in Chennai 85/86, liked

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Ponmagal Vandhal – A could have been movie

Official trailer: Imagine this. You have a storyline that looks interesting and good. Core conflict is gripping. You are given a bunch of good actors, well established names in the field, Parthiban, Bhagyaraj, Prathap Pothan, Thiagarajan, and Pandiarajan. Plus, Jyotika who gives the star value and pull factor. You have seen Few good Men, impressed by its court scenes and key plot points, want to use it in the movie

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Lost Girls – Disturbing True Crime Drama with no closure

Official Trailer: Lost Girls follows Mari Gilbert (excellent performance by Amy Ryan), a mother of 3 daughters, who works multiple jobs to take care of two younger daughters who live with her. Her elder daughter, Shannan, goes missing one night. Mari realizes something bad may have happened to Shannan when calls to her go to voicemail. There was a 911 call from Shannan on that night from a gated community

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COVID-19, WFH and Tamil Thriller Movies – Part 3

Link to Part 2: COVID-19, WFH, and Virus Attack Movies COVID-19, doesn’t seem to be slowing down yet. India has extended the lockdown for 2 more weeks till May 3, 2020. If you are WFH, make sure you stick to fixed time. With commute time saved, great opportunity to spend time with the family, and do things you have been postponing to later time (assuming they don’t need you to

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Sethum Aayiram Pon – Death is in air with grace

Official Trailer: Sethum Aayiram Pon I hit upon this movie in Netflix two days back, I was little bit wary of watching this considering the title, a reference to death, and COVID-19 crisis we are going through. Synopsys sounded interesting so dived in. I expected a tear jerker. But I was in for a pleasant surprise. Director Anand Ravichandran ventures in to a subject Kollywood avoids. Most of the characters’

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