A typical Indian family drama. A typical Pune family. All four characters play a significant role - father, mother, son, daughter-in-law. Slight humor here and there. Not much of grief and tragedies. No major twists and turns yet not a bore. Clean acting by one and all. Easy-going narration. Low budget, hence not much glamour - either in settings or locations. No songs, dance sequences, etc. Worth a watch.
Rating: Good
Language: Marathi
Based on India's Cricket World Cup victory of 1983, this movie brings back to life what transpired almost 3 decades ago. Very well made indeed, especially re-creating the grounds like how it was back then which is so different from current era. Ranveer has portrayed the character of Kapil very well and even better is Jiiva who has portrayed Kris Srikkanth who had a persona of his own. While watching the movie, one almost feels as if we are living through the 1983 world cup! Reminded me of Dhoni movie as well.
Rating: Good
Language: Hindi
A dark movie (which we usually avoid) but felt like watching due to all the publicity. Its ok. Narration, dialog, settings, locations, screenplay and movie-making is all very professional and no mistakes. Very adult-ish content shown due to the nature of the tale. All the actors have done great justice to their respective roles and acted superbly. Watchable.
Rating: Good
Language: Hindi
The movie started off nice but tapered off in the end. A very typical story of a girl in college I guess who gets followed by a number of guys and how she is torn between handling them all. Very well narrated. And of course, the "naturalistic" acting always draws me to Malayalam movies. Good dialog, good set of characters.
Rating: Good
The lightheartedness continues from the prequel. Nice and clean movie, once again. Quite a few rib-tickling dialog & scenes. Cinematography is amazing and locations are awesome. Also nice to see the same set of characters. Some scenes could easily be predicted, and not much twist and turn either. Watchable.
Rating: Good
Language: Kannada
Well, I realized that one shouldn't always take tips from newspapers to watch movies. Such high adjectives were used for this movie that I thought it will be a must-watch. But alas, this turned out to be barely watchable. Story revolves around Personality Disorder which is now a common theme I guess. First time I heard/read about it in the 90s, I was fascinated but now it doesn't add that glitter any more. Editing could be much better. I still do not know why the judge's family had to be portrayed so much. It has no meaning to the main tale. Also no one asks about Charu Raina's missing body. For this movie, tale is everything, but it has many loop holes. Acting, location, characterization, etc. is all average, and so is direction. And, hence, so is my rating.
Rating: Average
Language: Hindi
Well, I thought this will be a really good movie but it bordered pathetic. Absolutely nothing in it. Very thin humor. Almost humorless humor. Most scenes were in slow-motion, so I could easily fast forward by 10 seconds every other minute and didn't lose much. Too much non-Kannada used, so for elderly Kannadigas who don't know any other language, they cannot follow this much. Seriously expected much better than this from Danish.
Rating: Average
Language: Kannada
From the trailer, I knew this was a triangle love story and not 100% keen to watch but gave company to wifey anyways. However there is a twist. They have made it light-hearted and at times, it is indeed funny. For that, credit does go to the director. Songs and dance sequences were good. Dialog was not very hard-hitting but had weight. There is a spiritual element as well about burning your past to enjoy the present, which wholly makes sense. Acting is ok by Dhanush but Sara has done very well indeed. Tale is relevant I guess since I have heard many such cases in other fiction books. Casting, screenplay, cinematography are all above above average.
Rating: Good
This one's a ROFL. Much more laugh-ier than the prequel. Some really crazy scenes. Reminded me once more of Scary Movie and other weird-and-yucky-yet-laughy movies that I used to watch about 2 decades ago. Nothing great, not boring just plain American way of life at all levels - school, college, middle-age, old-age, etc. portrayed as a comedy although at times it is downright disgusting.
Rating: Good
A light-hearted, feel-good kind of 'Time-pass' movie that you'd want to see. Just five friends from school who spend the long weekend together on lake house along with their families. The usual dirty & lewd American jokes/scenes but it is not overloaded with it. There is a bunch of nice family scenes, kids playing, stuff as well. Nice and simple narration, good location, small-ish tale and good casting/characterizations. Watchable.
Rating: Good
Well. Talk about putting real life into reels at real-time especially at a point in your life when you are at crossroads. Wonder how they did it. But forget the how - the way they have done it is superlative in all aspects. The background score, the animations, the narration style, the simple yet poignant points of view from the parents, etc. Although pitched as a documentary, it might as well be a movie where the main actors are the directors, with no script. Private life made public. (Cuddalore in) India & Germany is both portrayed very well.
Rating: Good
Language: German/English/Tamil
The same scenes tend to get boring but the underlying emotions starting to come to surface are portrayed by those repetitive scenes. Hence, in a way, the direction is to be applauded albeit the risk of audience tending to get bored. Superlative acting, dialog & characterization and great portrayal of the female downtrodden-ness in the orthodox Indian families. Only one major song with amazing dance sequence. Mixing the tale with the Sabarimala politics is a simple yet nice garnishing. Rated as U but definitely not in my opinion.
Rating: Good
Language: Malayalam
This one's downright crazy movie made by someone who has nice (and weird) sense of humor & who does whatever one wants to do and publish it publicly. Check out the scene about 'Tell me about it' with the bar-tender - the director takes the audience for a ride there, and one wonders if the movie is even real! The tale itself is simple but it is the narration that makes the movie enchanting. I guess there are a lot of spoofs but I don't have much idea about the originals, hence could not relate them. Very akin to Scary Movie and Airplane! genre, and hence watch it with that mindset.
Rating: Good
Not a great movie to start a new year. Genre being Comedy, there was hardly any unless one goes ROFL seeing grandparents becoming intimate. Tale is insanely focused on the sexual part of marriage and sounds ridiculous for folks from Eastern part of the world who are more into renunciation stage at that age but the Western folks still want to live like 16 at 60. But the crux of the tale apart, movie-making is excellent: direction, casting, acting, dialog, setting, etc. is all top class.
Rating: Average
Time pass movie, and doesn't have too much of hilarity as was evident in the prequel. Dialogs are flimsy, not much to write home about the acting, editing is thin, music is so-so, casting is ok but location & settings good. Simple enough tale of mix-ups and lies to push the tale around. Some desperate attempt for ROFL but does not really fly high.
Rating: Average
Well, this one is like a direct compliment of Dumb and Dumber, the female version though. And it is just as good. Dialogs are absolutely so girly and yet so ROFLy. Characterization is as sloppy. Casting and presentation is equally jovial. Although it starts off like a Bond movie and one wonders if this is even the movie one signed up to see, until Barb and Star come on-screen and take all the limelight. Pockets of scenes are absolutely hilarious. Music, song and dance make it that much more livelier, and the lyrics is comical.
Rating: Must-see
Side-note: Maybe for the first time ever I watched a movie in a theater (see below) as well as one at home!
Well, I don't remember when I last went to a Morning Show movie in a theater! Perhaps never. And I definitely never went to a theater to see a God/Saint-related movie. Mainly because such movies were hardly made in the era that I live in. Have seen many Dr Raj Kumar's movies based on the lives of Raghavendra Swamy, Kumbhara, Prahallada, etc. and I think there was a time when movies were only based on the divine entities.
Madhusudhan Havaldar has done an excellent job as a director starting from conception to completion to bring back the era of Hari-dasa to the current era. It was heartening to see the theatre halls sold out for a movie of this genre which does not boast of mainstream actors, no fighting, no violence of whatever kind, no stupid dancing and singing. It was nice to see a movie made by the Brahmin community, about a Brahmin community but not just for the Brahmins, and yet the hall was mostly Brahmins. In fact, some of them were so old and had not been to theaters in many decades for lack of such kind of movies, and some made their way to the multiplexes for the first time in their lives - my father included!
The movie itself is very well-made: clean, neat, some great casting and superlative acting. The roles performed by Vijaya Dasaru and Gopal Dasaru are perfect. The songs in the form of devotional poems are just right in number and well-spaced out. The tale itself moves quite fluidly and one doesn't get too bored. Nor is the whole tale crunched into one movie - it is good that there will be a sequel.
Pastime. Dialogs very flimsy. Songs, background, location, casting all good. Acting by most is ok-dokey but the doctor has performed his role to perfection & with right emotions. A simple & an unwanted lie makes the crux of the movie. If truth was spoken, then I guess there was no tale at all!
Rating: Average
On imdb, it says "Foto Is A Super Hit Award Winning Bollywood Kids Comedy Movie" but in my hmdb, this is one very average documentary about films. Gets very boring at times because there is just knowledge about movies being shown as a narration in every scene. Definitely give this a miss and its not regrettable. Only the location setting is good. And also if you are interested to know how movies are made.
Rating: Average
Language: Hindi
I was forewarned that it was a dark movie. And indeed it is. Set amidst lush greenery, the urge for freedom - financially and in life - stands out as very poignant. Dialog, narration, acting, direction, location, casting - everything is good. But somewhere that punch seems to be missing. Watchable once but nothing great about it.
Rating: Average
Language: Malayalam
