Thiruchitrambalam

Rom-com. Wonderful casting and acting by all actors. Great middle-class setting. Simple tale. Although ending is predictable, the movie weaves through multiple small twists & turns which keeps it interesting & engaging. Catchy dance steps and songs for entertainment. Good dialog.

Rating: Good

Language: Tamil

Sri Jaganatha Dasaru - Part 2

Part 1 was definitely better. This one had less tales but whatever less tales had good potent in it. Lot of songs especially composed by Jaganatha Dasaru, which is good. Good dialog. Simple narration. Nice casting.

Rating: Average

Language: Kannada

The School for Good and Evil

 Movie seen alongside daughter. Fantasy. Not my type but it was ok. The usual stuff about witches, princesses, kiss of true love, balls, blood magic, roses that bite, etc.. Good picturization, characters, graphics, etc. but very much a teen-movie. Nothing stood out.

Rating: Average

Mathu Vadalara 2

Very cleverly intertwined with prequel. And just like part 1, this too has lots of twists and turns, complex plots intertwined with many characters. Despite the intricacies, the director makes it very easy for the audience to follow the tale (without having to rewind multiple times!). Best part is the dialog. Extremely witty and humorous. And, of course, the TV soap which continues from the prequel. In all, a fantastic entertainer!

Rating: Good

Language: Telugu

Roofman

True story of a genuinely nice person Jeffrey Manchester who resorts to thievery to keep his family happy. Gets caught, escapes with ingenuity, and stays in a Toys R Us store for several months hidden from all and does a variety of good samaritan work, but eventually gets caught. Stunning tale, great acting and narration.

Rating: Good

The French Job (also known as Les règles de l'art)

How a simple chance encounter of a petty thief results in the downfall of a genuinely nice person. Simple enough thievery too but it gets easily so complicated. Good narration of this true story of 2010 theft of five masterpieces from a French museum.

Rating: Good

Language: French

Karate Kid: Legends

Simple movie on similar lines of other Karate Kid movie series where Jackie Chan trains kids but in this case it is a combo of Karate and Kung fu - so there is one trainer for each 'branch of the same tree'. The kiddo has acted/actioned well, and it made me remember of early JC's movie stunts. 

Rating: Average

Never Give Up

Back to back true story tennis movies seen! This one's another mindboggling tale about just one match where Brad Minns was two sets down and 0-5 down on 3rd set with 3 championship points to his opponent at 0-40 and came back all the way to win the match..! So, the movie narration goes from his childhood till that game - how he became deaf, how he never gave up, etc. A simple movie, nice casting, nice setting.

Rating: Good

King Richard

OMG! I never knew this true story about the plan that the father of Venus and Serena Williams had created and executed to perfection! It is like how one person says in the movie - 'Giving birth to two Mozarts in the same house'! Absolutely stunning tale. Only flip side is the movie ends with Venus losing a match albeit she has a huge fan gathering which she realizes as a surprise. Very well taken movie indeed. Mr King Richard, take a bow!

Rating: Good

Queen of Katwe

Wow, what a true-story! A chess prodigy born in the slums of Uganda! And to pair that, a coach who refuses the good life and chooses to stay amongst the poor to mentor them and take them to fame. Added pair is his wife who is ok for his choice!! Amazing tale - and for that, definitely worth the watch.

Rating: Good

Language: English

Selfie Mummy Googl Daddy

Ok-dokey. More of a moral ideology pass-thru to the audience (mainly parents & Grandparents) but done in a nice manner. Nothing much to write about. Time-pass for a lazy day.

Rating: Good

Language: Kannada

35 Chinna Katha Kaadu

Such a nice film! Although it starts off with a mishap, overall movie is full of feel-good. The 'mom's character, casting and acting is superlative. In fact, pretty everyone's - the dad, the boy, his younger brother, the 'villain' teacher, the principal, his grand daughter, etc.. Even the setting of Tirupati is well conceived. End of the movie, you are bound to feel nice and good.

Rating: Good

Language: Telugu

Mathu Vadalara 1

Two events inspired this movie - a delivery guy who cheated on camera while counting money and marijuana being grown inside a Hyderabad flat. The story-writer took these two things and charted out a twisted, complicated tale of three bachelors. Narration is witty, humorous, edge-of-seat and with constant twists, it becomes a good movie to watch. The serial episode shown at times is ROFL. At the beginning, it seems dull but picks up pace after about 30 minutes. Acting is mediocre by all but the tale makes up for it.

Rating: Good

Language: Average

Dhurandhar

Very much resembled Gangs of Wasseypur - the greed for power, the backstabbing, etc. While that was set in UP and Jharkhand, this one is completely set in Pakistan. I guess its the first - an Indian movie set in Pakistan. It also has events that led to 26/11 terror attack - maybe fictional, maybe inspired by true events - hard to say. But a very bold movie indeed. Few scenes are very violent due to torture scenes. Well-taken. 

Language: Hindi

Rating: Good

Bhool Chuk Maaf

Very refreshing, unique and entertaining. The whole story of boy falling in love with girl and their family not agreeing and the girl eloping happens within the first few minutes while credits are being shown, and that makes one think what else could be there in the movie. But the actual movie starts from the eloping scene, which is very unique indeed! Every time we think movie is about to end, there is a twist in the tale and it keeps spinning. Not a moment to bore, instead lots of wit, freshness, divinity, honesty and 'do-the-right-thingy'. The dialog and dialog-delivery is good too, from one and all. The movie's very special and deserves a rating higher than Good but not really a Must-see.

Language: Hindi