Variety is the spice of life

Finally managed to finish the series. As mentioned in a previous post, the first 30 odd episodes where direct screen adaptation from Indira soundararajan's book "Ragasiyam parama Ragasiyam" while the rest of the 40 episodes where apparently co-written by the director (Naga) and the author himself. Interestingly, more than the actual book adaptation, the second half of the series titled "Amabala kaala kadigai" is very fast paced and takes the story forward with each episode very tightly written. The story begins with the "Navapaashana lingam" laden wooden box being stolen by the village Vaidhiyar in a tempo and how it keeps changing hands, eventually to land at the house of the very doctor who is searching for it desperately along with the police. There is an odd bit of a petrol tanker lorry, touted as a ghost vehicle, that kills most of the main characters one by one. Wonder how come such a big lorry can just like that appear out of nowhere and kill pe...

 This was one of the episodes from the latest season of Black Mirror. I saw it almost month back but somehow this episode had a lingering effect and wanted to post about it. It begins with one company called Eulogy, reaching out to a guy for colleting photos about his ex-girlfriend who had passed away, to include in the memorial service. Like any guy who has shared a bitter past with his ex, he is very reluctant at first and shares few pictures where the face of his girlfriend is either not clear or where she is looking else where and face not being covered in the picture at all. The company has a feature that allows people to actually visit the photo, meaning they can walk inside the picture mentally and look at the moment when the picture was clicked from a third person perspective. Like a mini time travel, only within that photo. The more pictures he dig up, the more it becomes clear that, he had purposedly struck out her face on all the pictures he had of her out of hatred and ...

Square, triangle and circle had never been so scary outside of the domain of mathematics!! Squid game season three came much quickly and unlike other series like Stranger things, they didn't delay it for years together. One reason could be that even when the previous season was launched, there were sufficient clues that it was intended as a two-season series, but since the content was quite heavy, they had to split it into three. And unlike the first season, which had a well-rounded ending, the second one felt as if it was stopped midway from airing, just to extend it by one more season. And like its illustrious(!!) predecessors this one is super-fast paced as well and like our own masala movies, it has enough sentiment scenes to trigger the eye gland. There are 2 mothers included into this murderous mix at the beginning of season 2 and it was quite evident that at least one of them will not make it to the end. Incidentally, neither of them makes it and both of them sacrifice thems...

When i saw a few episodes from the earlier seasons it was nauseatingly gory and alarming instead of Dystopian. The Black Mirror series, i felt, was meant to scare people on how irresponsible use of technology will destroy the fabric of humanity. The latest season seems to be a much-diluted version when it comes to the disturbing reality of the future and has a lot of human emotion mixed in as the base theme. The very first episode made me wonder at how realistic the possibility of such a scenario happening and, in some cases, how it is already happening!! There is a happy couple, an engineer husband and a schoolteacher wife, who are trying hard to get pregnant and suddenly the wife is diagnosed with a fatal disease, which is albeit uncurable by present day medication. There is an up-and-coming startup who offers an experimental treatment at a limited cost which the husband readily agrees to. Initially, the monthly subscription for the treatment is a bit manageable, but the side effects...

 For those who grew up with Sun TV, Marmadesam would be synonymous with great story telling and riveting weekly thrill ritual. It was one series that played a great part in establishing Sun TV as not just a credible replacement but a very strong opponent to DoorDarshan, which later waned into oblivion with its proud spot as the defacto (being the only option) channel for the masses. While DD was known for identifying gem of talents, Sun TV cashed in on their creativity with unhindered freedom. Indira soundararajan, the author of the books on which the marmadesam series were made, became quite popular after the series. I've seen Vidaathu karuppu, Rudra veenai when i was abroad and was amazed at the production values and the kind of casting alongside brisk story telling , which has made those series as fresh today as the day they were made. Never had a chance to watch Ragasiyam and by luck stumbled on an Youtube channel, who are playing these series. Thanks to them for bringing these...

While watching Jurassic park with junior (for the umpteenth time) there was one guy who looked very familiar. If you've seen the same movie several dozen times, obviously some level of familiarity has to seep in. But this guy in particular, the one who steals the dino DNA/embryo thing from the lab, looked very familiar. It suddenly dawned on me from where and then only i realized he is from Seinfeld, where this guy plays a character called Newman, despite having seen that series several times i had never actually written about it!! Arthritis of the memory may be!! Many of my friends have told me that compared to Friends, they prefer Seinfeld better. While those who vouch for Friends are settled in India not one of the Seinfeld fans are here at the moment. Maybe it comes with the territory. The series is probably the most Americanist of series I've ever seen. It is openly racist in many situations, especially the one involving a Pakistani hotelier who gets deported back to his n...

 Of all the OTT's Netflix is hell bent on infusing drug culture as the way of life in India i guess. Every other series they come up with, not just glorifies the narcotics and its effects, it makes the police who chase the criminals as bad or even more eviler than the sellers themselves, there by giving more credit to the actual antagonists, painting them as better amongst the two evils!!  This series is so downright blatant in its attempt to make drug peddling common place that, right from first scene, the leading lady or at least one of the quartet, secretly peddles some local drug for curing impotence amongst her customers who orders home made food from her. The famous dabbawalas whom every management firm wanted to study for their greater than six sigma level of performances should actually protest and put a case against the makers of this series for defaming their good name and their very line of business as something so murky!! What starts as a within the apartment activ...

 Ever since i saw "The Intern" i've been smitten by Robert De Niro. Agreed that he had done several magnificent movies prior, but his performance in Intern made not just his character but the entire movie impressive. When i saw his name being mentioned in this drama series, that was the first cue to mark it on the watchlist. The initial few minutes into the series, chaos reign supreme, with America being under attack for yet another time in the web series world, this time with all their cyber systems, from phone to plane, getting hacked simultaneously. With no group claiming responsibility for the attack which lasted just a couple of minutes yet resulted in several train/plane crashes and loss of thousands of lives, entire country is panic stricken, with people on the verge of mass hysteria. If we take a step back and try to imagine the situation, it may not make that much of a sense in a country like India, even though with increased technological dependency we may nearl...

 Kudos to the curative team of Netflix, who rarely let the audience down when it comes to picking engaging story lines. Very rarely we get to see real life stories or book adaptations based on real life situations or events getting due justice on screen in India. Black Warrant ticks that mark in most aspects. It is a series based on few incidents on Tihar jail. Each of those incidents being landmark in their own and if i am not mistaken, it is adapted from the book written by the then jailor of Tihar. To me the surprise package of the list was "Billa and Ranga" - the title made famous by blockbuster movies starring Rajini. Apparently they both were gruesome killers who had killed a teenage boy and girl mercilessly and had been sentenced to death by hanging. The way the jail authorities go about preparing for hanging and how one of them ends up surviving the first attempt only for the action to be completed by force by the jailer team tells not just the human aspect behind tho...

 As registered in this space many times prior, I am a big fan of Keigo Higashino. Galileo is his famous creation in the lines of Sherlock Holmes. Sadly, i wasn't able to land on any of the translated version of this series and to my sweet surprise, ended up with this drama series in Netflix, which are based on those books. The series is in Japanese with original audio but the subtitles are quite efficient and makes up for easy following. Each of the episode starts off with a murder or some mishap that might sound like typical police case only to have an unusual angle which piques the scientific curiosity of the professor, who is often approached by the police for scientific consult. Each of the ten episodes have such unique point of contention which seems perplexing to start with and becomes clear as water once "Galileo" clarifies the scientific explanation for those events. The very first episode in the series is my personal favorite of the whole lot. A group of rouge gu...

When i saw the first season, was appalled at the ease with which killing and gore was depicted and the blatant abuse of children's games as concepts to kill people. That shock effect is majorly subdued in the 3 years since the first season came is the ugly truth. That says so much about the content online and otherwise which has literally numbed the senses and what was seen as shocking couple of years back has become common place. Says so much about our society and fast degrading culture as well. Story wise it is a continuation from where the previous season ended, where despite having won the prize money, the scruple torn hero, goes after the organizers of the game to stop it once and for all. He spends money like no tomorrow and engages several gangs to find out if any such recruitment similar to what he underwent happens in identifying participants for the game. It takes almost 2 3 episodes before he lands up in the island where the games happen. The police officer who almost lo...

 I thought i had mentioned about this series when the first season went live but apparently haven't. This series on Netflix has an interesting premise of a lady stalker who is after her guy and even manages to marry him, only to find herself in a terrible situation at the end of season 1, which was a cliffhanger of sorts leading into the next season. We've seen innumerable number of stories where, typically it is the guy who does all these - chasing behind his childhood crush, despite knowing she has set her heart on someone else, terrorizing the boy friend and his family into submission, with the girl's dad conveniently in the employment of the stalker guy and giving into his adamant demands, his all powerful and otherwise ruthless dad ensures the marriage happens, all this while the lady in pursuit conniving with her boy friend on how to escape the clutches of her maniacal lover, eventually getting married and in some cases, even settling into a domestic arrangement with ...

 If i've to start this post as fast as how this series goes, then the first line would be the closing sentence!! Despite each episode running close to 45 mins, this is one of the fastest series i've binge watched ever!! The after effects of the series is more like aftermath of Deepavali. A day early, you would've had the rush of crackers bursting, fire and sound and lights and smoke and high on energy. The next day is more of a revelation with all those dusts and burnt papers flowing around the streets in waves, making you wonder are these the very things that were fun yesterday!! Like any racy book or movie or any ride in amusement park for that matter, the success of them all lies in not making the audience to think while the performance is on. When asked for the feedback, while still in the adrenaline rush, inevitably, every one will gush good about the same. But when they take a breath and start to recollect, they may wonder, what was all that fuss about!!This series is...

When i saw the ad for this series, Trisha was the primary reason that hooked us onto this. She looked very old despite the best effort from her make up team and i started watching the series with literally no hope after getting to know that she was playing a police inspector. The first episode ended in an intriguing note and the series literally took off from the next episode onwards. For starters more than the individuals, it is the work that has gone behind the story board in making the investigation process interesting, has lent more teeth to the storyline. The way each of the murders are linked and how it keeps on getting extrapolating makes interesting viewing for sure. What starts as a serial killer case, becomes a major case of mass murderer and the reasoning behind all those killings is quite novel to be honest. The director does a tight rope walk on a knife's edge in many cases where religion is involved and makes sure that he is not branded as favoring any one in particul...

 Resident alien is a new drama series launched in Netflix. It begins as yet another sci-fi series where aliens crash land on earth and except for that part, they have tried to go against every other situation that are previously seen in any series or stories involving extra terrestrials. This alien, takes the shape/structure/body of a human whom it kills by accident. The mission of that alien is to destroy all human kind on earth and when i crash landed on earth, it looses track of its ship and also the killer device. While searching for that device, it tries to adapt itself to the town where it crash landed, as the town's doctor. What follows is several quirky situations that it somehow manages to escape. Even though it has taken human form, there is a kid whose mutative power makes him see the alien in its true form. Initially, the kid and the alien are at loggerheads with the alien trying to "eliminate" the kid in several inventive ways. Eventually they form an allianc...

 This is probably the earliest i am posting about a series, having just watched 3 episodes. Mighty impressed with the content and presentation of "3 body problem" drama series on Netflix. The production values rivals that of Marvel and other high budget production houses. With each episode running for nearly an hour and with majority of the running space requiring Special effects, the cost of making a single episode must be as high as a full time movie!!  The interesting part about this series being, the take on aliens and future of human civilization. A bit like Star Trek, but on a more relatable level, the series talks about the SETI program and its impact on human civilization, base assumption being, upon receiving a response from the other side. The series is almost as Chinese as it is in English, for i understand, the base premise has been taken from a book written in Chinese. The concept as it is, is quite novel and the timing of the response when received from the othe...

When Neflix launched this mini series last month, thought it would be yet another pseudo comedy series based on hindi heartland that i neither funny nor too serious. But how wrong i was got proved in the very first episode.  "Maamla legal hai", as the name suggests, is based on legal system of India and on lawyers from a fictional town Patparganj, of course set in hindi heartland. With Ravi Kishan being the sitting president  of the lawyer association, ably supported by his "chamcha" duo named as "law" and "order", with sane guidance from Munshiji, the only normal character in this otherwise wacko unit, the kind of cases and issues that crop up in their court, all of them being real life situations inspired, the 8 episode series, leaves you wanting for more. Nidhi Bisht as the unscrupulous yet vulnerable lawyer, whose sole ambition is to get a chamber of her own and how she goes about "buttering" her seniors and superiors, is a hoot. I ...

Yet another horror/thriller/ghost/psychological genre presentation from Vikram Kumar, whose previous creations include 13B (Yaavarum Nalam in Tamil and probably one of the best ghost thriller movie), 24 (the triple action Surya movie), Manam (a wonderful movie spanning 3 generations which was originally played by 3 generation star from Akkineni household) and couple of other movies as well. Kudos to the director for not meddling with what he was trying to tell and how, sticking to his strengths and having the ending as how it is.  The series start off with Naga Chaitanya, a corrupt reporter, trying to reach his wife and while searching for a charger he finds a box load of newspaper clippings. The clippings play a pivotal role throughout the series across all episodes and literally move the story forward. Of the 2 female leads, Priya bavani who plays his wife has a slightly bigger role than Prachi who plays his assistant. There is a surprise element which is maintained throughout th...

Whenever I saw a decent web series in English, I often wondered why such concepts are not made in India. With story telling being in our genes, we should be much better than the crap that get churned out in the name of originals and specials that cost a bomb to those OTT channels that produce them. To answer this anguish comes Kala paani or as I would like to say, the best series ever produced, written and made in India. It is the perfect script, perfect storyline with perfect casting, perfect setting and pulsating finale that sets the series up for next season, on the lines of other famous series across the world. The dialogues are sharp and noticeable which add weight to the characters, the sequences are well thought through and connected to make them complete and above all the location – Andaman!! When was the last time an India movie, leave alone language specific industry ever came out with a story based on Andaman!!! The only instance I remember is Andaman Kaadhali, a Sivaji movi...

First up, about the title. A curiosity inducing one and when the meaning turned out to be forehead of an elephant, it did make one wonder how it related to the story line. With just 6 episodes, having average run time a touch under 40 mins, the series came with an added incentive of a short span as well. Above all with Manikandan, the present toast of Tamil cinema, who is breathing life into every character he plays, something that Vijay Sethupathi and Vikram used to do in their prime, playing the role of villain, being one of the many other reasons that made me watch this series.  The very first episode tests your patience with Atharva, the hero, hogging most of the screen time with his wooden expression, be it while conversing with his wife or with his sub-ordinate police officer or with his superiors. Wonder how he manages to retain the same reaction for every situation thrown in!!! The flake that kickstarts what ends up in a snowstorm of events happens within the first half hou...