Variety is the spice of life

The quest for a desi superhero movie has been as old as the mountains. Our reel life matinee idols used to double up as super humans, with their power to punch and smash so much that, apart from spitting web, they mimicked all the super powers exhibited by Marvel/DC characters. There were failed attempts to open a franchise of a desi superhero, but even for Krrish, possibly the only series to make money from this genre, they had to “borrow” heavily from X-Men and other Hollywood films to stay relevant at the BO. Shaktimaan, the tv series, “leveraged” heavily from Superman and Harry Potter, mixing it into religious and cultural aspects, reviving and probably resuscitated Mukesh Khanna’s otherwise forgotten glory of B.R.Chopra’s Bheeshma. In tamil, the writers and directors were very clear. As long as they had MGR, Rajini and the rest of aspiring actors, happening to don their mantle, seeking their place in CM office, there is no need to even experiment this theme. Mugamoodi, was a notab...

I think Indian movie makers are slowly picking the nuances of making content for OTT. All this while, either they were preparing content that had too less of a storyline to be stretched across multiple episodes or too long a story to be crammed into an half hour slot. With Aranyak, I think the wheel has truly turned the corner. Editing for webseries would be a new skill for our folks I guess and this series truly has some good cuts. Every episode bringing in something new and the thrill element maintained, all the while moving the narrative towards the case investigation, despite so many sub plots blooming everywhere. The story revolves around a murder investigation of a teenage girl, crime scene happening to be the hotel of the local MP and modus operandi reflecting handiwork of a serial killer, feared as the “leopard man”. There are several sub plots primary of which being that of the female lead, the lady cop, who is about to take an yearlong sabbatical to spend time with her family...

If 2020 was bad worldwide, 2021 screwed up my personal world royally. Health-wise it was probably the worst ever year we ever had as a family where in every single one of us were having some ailment or other for better part of the year with junior being the latest addition. Hope 2022 is better in this aspect. Professionally as well, it was very stressful and a dissatisfactory one. That apart, it was a dull and boring year on every front that was slightly interesting in 2020. All the charm associated with OTT became commonplace and possibly when the offices and schools open up next year, we may need a definite readjustment to revert back to lifestyle 2 years back. That may include some yearly plans subscribed across these OTT’s. There could be a big churn in movie industry which has slowly started adapting to the OTT way of life vs theaters. Culturally, OTT platform has brought the entire world to the living room of people and artists nationwide are becoming familiar faces which will op...

There are certain books, that paint such a vivid mental image while reading, which makes you wonder when you will see them on screen. Especially those on the thriller genre kind, with fast paced action. Dan Brown is a past master in this game, who had successfully managed to convert the fame of his books into movie scripts. The movie version may not have set the box office on fire but still he has proud claim of his works being represented in multiple medium. Same goes for Chetan Bhagat who has managed to weave the scripts that he sells to his Bollywood producers onto his novels, so that it saves him double work, but gets him double pay!! I’ve often posted about the Agatha christie novels I’ve read in recent past but never once I recollect to have mentioned about them being made into movies. May be subconsciously I found the subject to be a bit slow for today’s movie audience or for its dialogue intensive nature, neither of which will help in setting up a pulsating movie watching exper...

I recently came across a Linkedin profile of a person who was my UG Batchmate. He had tagged himself as an App Guru and others, that sounded borderline pompous but definitely not short on confidence. For a second I had a recollection of who he was during the college days and judged his status message. He was never shy of calling out his achievements even then and it was not a surprise to see him retaining that belief decades after as well. I’ven’t much followed his career and had little clue from his career history as to how it related to his tags. I then realized, I’ve been making prejudiced judgements based on how he was several years back as to who he is at present!!  The realization struck even more severe when i applied how others from my own past will be perceiving me based on what I am now as against how I was then!! Rather than blaming myself for such thoughts, wanted to make it as a generalized thought process and hence the post 😊  I can take cushion from the fact th...

I have been fascinated by this series for several years now, revisiting the experience of reading the previous book – Prelude to Foundation, that I read almost 20 years back. The concept of a mathematician on a quest across galaxies, searching for a sample size for his statistical experiment of predicting the future of the Galactic empire and how he eventually decides the very planet where he resides to be the perfect case study was too much of a fantastic premise. I used to relate India as how Hari Sheldon, the mathematician, relates Trantor as the perfect sample set, for gauging this world. For this country has all the natural wealth, landscapes, resources, almost 14% of world population, civilization stretching across several millennia, cultural richness, you name it, you will find it here. Just like how Hari can predict the fall or future of the Galactic empire, a reasonable statistic for this world can be derived from the performance of this great country.  Foundation refers t...

For the first ever time a trailer gets review post!!! There is an upcoming movie scheduled for Christmas eve release, on 1983 world up win. It has been in making for a while with much hype around who will be playing Kapil’s devils. Now that the trailer is out, it is no wonder that the expectation around the movie has hit the ceiling. It is possibly one of the best made trailers, with the actual events contributing to its content naturally. I belong to that tribe of movie watchers who get goosebumps on just seeing India flag being waved in slow motion, with or without thumping BGM. More so if it is accompanied by a sporting event where India is shown victorious. All the more top of the world stuff if it happens to be on cricket. This one trailer has all these 3 elements along with situations that happened in real. If at all it is even slightly and remotely engaging of a screenplay, this movie would be the biggest blockbuster to come out of India.  All things apart – Kapil Dev. Proba...

Last week happen to see 2 movies based on time loop concept. It is a first for tamil movie world that a concept that is primarily seen only in Hollywood movies is being tried here. And that too 2 movies back to back on same concept. Possibly, I guess, the first one that got released, “Jango”, could’ve been the pioneer who thought of this concept while “Maanaadu” which followed immediately could’ve been an inspired from Jango’s team or maybe the storyline got leaked out. Between the two, Maanadu is hands on winner, both in terms of making, casting, acting, reach, publicity and also on BO collection. The similarity between the 2 movies, doesn’t just end with the theme. In both the movies, the hero tries to save someone from getting killed. While it happens to be the wife character in Jango, it is the state CM in Maanadu. In both movies, the villain encounters same time loop scenario as the hero, stuck on the same day. Whereas the reason for the linkage is explained cleanly on the former,...