Variety is the spice of life

Title a thappa padichitu Mallu series pola nu was thinking. Couldn't blame me for Malluwood is giving Hollywood a tough run for their genre jumping trend and churning blockbusters - be it our own home grown super hero Minnal Murali or our own Van helsing (helsingi rather) in Lokah and so on. But apparently Noir is much different in concept and theme than Nair which becamse evident the moment Nicholas cage popped on screen. And interestingly the series was shot in black and white. And considering Cage, probably it was a hat tip to his age!!! I've seen a fair bit of spidey's courtesy Junior, but never in my life i thought Cage would play one!!! He was old in National treasure series and that movie came two decades back!! May be due to the actor or may be by design, there is not much the usual swing and jump that one usually associates with Spidey movies. In fact, there are hardly couple of occasions where he even shoots web. The entire series is dialogue heavy and witty like ...

Despite this coming up on the "Next to watch" timeline, i kept skipping it for no reason. When i felt really bored last week, started watching it and after a slight binge watch, i am into season 4 in no time!!! Not that it is that interesting or racy for that matter. But there is something earthy and grounded about the whole premise which keeps you entertained!! The story is about a real time oldie who joins the LAPD as a Rookie cop, having only a decade or so for his retirement. How he comes up in grade and his team's exploits form the storyline so far. The way they've set the storyline, it makes Los Angeles seems to be the bed rock of criminals and illegal activity!! Every episode has at least one gun fight or a drug bust or a kidnapping or murder!! Of course, with the premise being based on police activities, you can't show anything else. It is like having a drama series on doctors and complaining that all episodes deals with diseases and death!! I agree! But c...

What makes a drama series tick, in OTT, that too in Tamil? The question should've been pretty straight forward and not as difficult as it is for making a successful movie, for drama series are dime a dozen across scores of TV channels and none of them are found wanting for audience. The more the cry the merrier the TRP. In that context, the only challenge that OTT platforms might've had while streaming tamil series must've been to choose the path - either the well trodden and worn out cryathons aligning with Satellite channels or try for something genre specific like how they do across English and other foreign languages. This is where Heartbeat series in Hotstar finds the fine balance between being a soap oppaari (no pun intended) in tv and carving a niche OTT audience.  While the setup might've been familiar one for Hindi audience with so many series happening on hospital based storyline, i guess this is a first for tamil. The first season was more on establishing the...

When i saw the trailer of this series, i was so curious and was eagerly awaiting the launch for the very concept of a series involving Sherlock being awesome, the one tracing his origins or young self would surely have been a fantastic premise to explore. True to the expectation, the series began with a bang, involving a jailed Sherlock being rescued by Mycroft and the first episode runs away to a finish like a 1000 wala cracker with several characters mushrooming at every turn and most of the main players already getting established, including Moriarty(!) and a Chinese lady. Pretty soon the crime gets established and Sherlock, for a change, is on the run as a suspect/fugitive from law for a murder he didn't commit. The story goes steadily and speedily downwards from then onwards and the climax resembling 1970's Bollywood movies, involving the hero and his dad and their sacrifice!! It could've been a hat tip to the very similar setup involving Sherlock/Moriarty at the Reich...

Certain stories stay with us for a while after they are over. At times because of the ending. Sometimes due to the theme or the content. Quite a number of times because of the characters. This particular series stands out mainly because of the performances of every character involved, not just the leads. Even the minor one like the first wife of the villain or should I say the main character, who comes for just one episode though being mentioned throughout, leaves such a strong impression that, her presence via the conversations seems justified. The FBI guy who triggers the whole sequence in the leading lady which ends up in not just the arrest of the villain, has a minor role but like every other smaller characters has a powerful presence that elevates the entire setup.  What more can one say about the main guy, who played Nile Jarvis!! I have never seen an actor who shows up different in different lighting! He was so amazing in the closeup shots where only half his face had light...

 Having already posted about this series last year, was wondering if it really require a season by season post. But considering the presentation thought it was worth a quick mention. The leading lady, Keri Russell, who is also the executive producer, is the central character and the titular one. But in this series, it seems they ran out of plotline as densely packed as previous seasons and after the initial shock of her husband getting the post of Vice president, most of the series is dedicated to her affairs and love life. The series picks up towards the end and the last couple of episodes more than make up for the time lost. Instead of a 8 part series, story wise it would've hardly been a 4 part one. There were several jumps on other characters as to the sudden loss of interest and secret marriage of the defense secretary, introduction of a spy character, who even though hogs the second most timeshare, leaves as fast as he got introduced. The reason why Keri decides to leave her ...

The title is kept as such to to kelari vittufy the curiosity in Thalai..hehehe. OMITB is Only Murders in the building, a famous drama series which is into its 5th season, currently playing in Jio Hotstar and TMC is Thursday murder club a movie in Netflix. Renduthukum enna common? Well, both deal with elderly lead characters trying to solve murders. Selena Gomez elderly listla sertha paavam. But that crew involves Steve Martin and Chris short who are not exactly teenagers. The reason for this post being, i happened to see Thursday Murder club the movie on Netflix and couldn't help but wonder how such a stellar cast had been put to waste as compared to sterling attempt by the drama series crew!! The other reason why i was drawn to the movie being, it was a novel by Richard Osman, which came in a book recommendation list. I tried reading the novel and gave up midway as it was neither too thrilling for a murder mystery nor was it funny. But when i saw the movie cast involving the best ...

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...