The sunk cost fallacy pushed me to the end of this fucking rubbish past its halfway point. I’m at a halfway point myself. I only have count-on-one-hand decades ahead of me, and was hence both mad and sad at myself for finishing this awful mess. ChatGPT-3 could’ve produced a more polished version o…
A Rule of Thumb that’s worked for me pretty well so far is: I do not expect the wealthy and powerful to do the right thing. I also do not expect Nathan Fielder to not have a laugh at our expense. An hour after watching this, I put those two together for some semblance of clarity. This is a con. Th…
Found this while trying to figure out what to watch after the most excellent Widow’s Bay. Fantastic premise and the horror parts are done very well by a guy who knows how to do horror. An exploration of how spirituality and religion are perverted and exploited by terrible people. Faith is a signp…
Binged with wife on MDY’s recommendation. Could’ve been a movie. We hadn’t seen David Morrissey or Eve Myles in anything. Fantastic casting, they’re both excellent, Morrissey in particular. We imagined living in the beautiful, sylvan idyll of wherever the story took place. Then realized it would be…
Saw with wife. “Southern Noir”, a “Totally Twisted Deep-Fried Texas Redneck Trailer Park Murder Story” according to its poster. It was as advertized. Sad, unsettling, disturbing, funny, in that order. We griamced a lot but could not look away. Based on a 1993 play which I would now love to see. Ha…
Boring, infuriating, awkward adaptation and a complete waste of talent. And setting: the story is set in Virginia but shooting took place in Louisiana. The shots of the large trees and sunlight streaming through them were just glorious. Colin Farrell’s brilliant as usual. Wife said that she saw th…
Rambling notes. Spoilers, maybe. See my friend GT’s frustrations with Odysseus’ crew. Absolutely commanding piece of filmmaking by Nolan et al. I wonder how many other directors can attempt things at this grand a scale (Villeneuve and Ridley Scott come to mind.) Was surprised to hear “Mom” and “D…
Got excited after I was told it was an alien movie. Great performances by Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, and Eve Hewson (Colin Firth is extra Firthy) and fantastic cinematography but absolute drivel. Fell asleep watching it. Classic John Williams score tho 🥰…
Saw that it was revenge-themed and had to watch it. Now assume that all the fears about immigrants and their seemingly concerted project to pollute and raze Western Civilization are true. Assume that a small, imported minority are indeed responsible for over half of unspeakable crimes. Assume that…
Spoilers! Binged with the wife over Christmas Break. Extremely well-written, with deliberate and meditative sequences, truly breathtaking camerawork, fantastic background scores, and large doses of dark humor. All the stuff we’ve come to expect from Gilligan & Co. who appear to have used every…
Saw with the wife. Three hours long, utterly engrossing, takes its own sweet time, not a moment wasted. Features some big names and incredible performances throughout (Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich… and a young Shatner!). But, and in order, Montgomery Clift and Maximilian Schell ste…
Saw with the wife. Phenomenal cinematography, set and costume design, and suspense-building. Hugh Grant and Chloe East are just excellent. Very promising plot that was underserved by ill-informed, incomplete, and sophomoric arguments against Abrahamic traditions and religion writ large. Made me th…
Pretty average cop infiltrates crime boss’ family story. Like enjoying a Burger King double (with large fries and a coke) instead of a gourmet The Wire. Nice cinematography, great performance by Maria Cordsen as Ashley. There might be a second season. Whoever did the soundtrack deserves a giant ra…
Short film by a young Villeneuve. One of the nicer gifts of The Almighty Algorithm. You can watch it here: Spoilers! I’m glad I saw it on a projector. Not sure if it’s a political statement (e.g. the chandeleir being their elite privilege (a ridiculous…
Spoilers! I sincerely hope that we’re not as abjectly unprepared for some apocalyptic geopolitical event as depicted in the movie, strategically or temperamentally. People just yell at each other, crumble at the smallest setback, and don’t project the kind of professionalism and nerves of steel we…
I saw this with my Dad twenty-nine years ago. He thought it was Hitchcock’s greatest movie. I’d forgotten all about it until Catherine and I were trying to find something to watch and consulted the AFI’s 10 Top 10 list for the best mysteries (of course). I’ve read that people love rewatching it and…
The writing is beyond excellent and the show is perfection. Reminds me of a perfectly built and tuned watch movement. Goes through a lot of hands but each person handling it knows their place in the overall scheme and is world-class at what they do. Consider, for example, how much you learn about t…
I had a lot of work to do so decided to watch both episodes back-to-back. Star Trek, unbridled TechBro arrogance, rapid and unchecked technological progress, meditations on ancient questions of consciousness, identity, and dynamics of power, gamer culture, very satisfying comeuppance for the baddi…
Like if you picked some familiar tropes and asked an AI to write a screenplay. Weary master who’s really, really good at something. Master is aloof, introverted, irascible. Nobody’s interesting enough. Enter precocious, young, raw apprentice. They meet by random chance. Cue training montage.…
Six-episode historically fictive miniseries about how nameless and faceless officers with India’s intelligence agency thwarted the development of The Bomb by Pakistan (at least for a little while). I didn’t bother to fact-check the show but I was rather surprised at the relative lack of jingoism a…
Easy-peasy, thoroughly enjoyable Agatha Christie story. Charles Laughton is an unforgettable powerhouse and is perfectly cast for his character. You can’t get your eyes off him. He plays Sir Wilfrid, an upper-class twit version of Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses. Made me wish Christie wro…
Inveterate mystery movie addict so decided to watch this immediately after seeing the word in the description. Nana Patekar’s a phenomenal actor. How bad could it be? Pretty bad. Not issuing a spoiler warning will save you time. The writers might as well have ended this limping and interminable w…
I’d never seen anything like the first season. A supremely well-crafted nailbiter when it was not a meditation on the human condition and gross socioeconomic disparities (and their brazen exploitation). Grim magnificence. Stood very well by itself. Never really understood the protagonist’s motivat…
Based on a real story. Should’ve been a 45-minute episode of a “True Stories of Marital Horror” show than a full 2-hour movie. I last saw Ivana Baquero in Pan’s Labyrinth. Spoilers! # Tristan Ulloa is dismayingly excellent as the vulnerable, love-struck, randy, manipulated, and jilted lover Salva…
Found this after typing a clever “nice short films” into YouTube. I had no idea that The New Yorker released short films and have nineteen Academy Award nominations (here’s a playlist). This one’s the second film to win (“Best Live Action Short”). The setup is pretty funny. I love the director’s s…
Saw with the family. Well-produced and mostly predictable. Nice to see actors who’re at and outside the edge of nepotism for a change. Nani is fantastic and steals the show. Got to listen to music Amit Trivedi might have knocked out over a single trip to the restroom. SPOILERS (SORT OF) # “I don…
Stylish and polished spy caper from Soderbergh and Company. Not a single wasted moment: witty, engaging, lavish, taut, nothing more, nothing less. About as lean and efficient as the spies it features. The soundtrack’s by David Holmes, a longtime collaborator (did the Oceans trilogy with him, for e…
This is yet another $JASON_STATHAM_MOVIE. He’s in construction now and a beloved foreman and leader of people (of course). And they still won’t leave him alone. What’s different this time: There’s this whole John Wick-style Russian criminal brotherhood involved here. I really didn’t give a shit…
The wife and I inhaled this in a day. Pizza, fizzy water, PJs, this show. It is really freaking funny in that snippy, rapidfire Armando Iannuci Veep sort of way. Agatha Christie-type whodunnit. The genius detective, played supremely well by Uzo Aduba, is an avid bird-watcher and issues deductions…
Towards the middle of this movie, I imagined Hitchcock building one of those 1/120 scale models of railroad towns most meticulously, and then taking sheer fiendish delight in terrorizing it with a toy Godzilla or a sandbucket avalanche. Wasn’t too far off (surprisingly). It was his favorite movie…
Watched this with the wife. The first season was an absolute masterpiece. Set design, story, suspense, acting, cinematography, and a favorite thing I look forward to in dystopian/post-apocalyptic sci-fi shows: retro computers and user interfaces 🥰 It makes me very happy to imagine Humanity finally…
Saw with KL, UE, and friends. I’ve never written a screenplay and would be laughably shit at it but I genuinely feel that I could’ve knocked this one out in a few days. There’s a new Captain America who’s trying to find his footing in the MCU following the very dignified and demure exit of Steve R…
Saw with CK. 32-minute, Groundhog Day-style short film that snagged an Oscar in its category in 2021. Symbolisms and motif even a pitbull named Jeter can understand. Lots of violence and many parts were difficult to watch, which I suppose is the point. Look at the futility of attempting reason and…
I saw this mystery when I was no more than seven years old and a line from it “my wife is a rash driver” just stuck in my head for decades since. It came back a few months ago and I put it down on my list of things to look into for nostalgia purposes. This was a very difficult search since I’d tot…
Saw with LD at the theater (on the last day it was playing!) and am really glad I did. I saw the 1922 version in college and have been mesmerized with it since. People are pretty surprised, like I was, to hear that the story is an unlicensed Dracula knockoff. This is a really immersive movie. It’s…
This is $JASON_STATHAM_MOVIE and I absolutely love it. It’s familiar, there’s no pretense, you’re a 13-year old, and it feels really nice spending your evening watching some evil-looking people get their (highly improbable) comeuppance from a single and very determined operator. It’s like huddling…
All the usual suspects (for a movie like this at least): What is memory? Does the past exist? Where and what am I, what the heck is this, and how do I know that it is real? And so on. No worries there, standard fare so far (for a movie like this that is). What’s truly amazing is how succinctly Chr…
Saw with LD. A (really dark) teenage space adventure that made me feel like I was 14 and was watching “Alien” for the first time on our family TV (a 21" Belson). They tugged at every dormant heartstring from our childhood. Graininess, floppy drives, joysticks, lots of CRT displays, and clunky…
I’m re-watching Columbo after around ten years and this is my maiden episode. Read that Rolling Stone recently rated it the 52nd Greatest TV Episode of all time. There are no other Columbo episodes on that list and I’m not sure that I’d pick this one. The sleuthing is underwhelming compared to, say…
I will (a) watch the original and this prequel again soon and (b) name a lot of things “Furiosa” (starting with the tillandsia I’m going to get this weekend). A mad ride like the first one and I’m amazed again by how they managed to arrest my attention for 2.5 hours. Watched on the big screen with…
Tidy, as usual, when it comes to his movies, but total rubbish. I imagine that I would get this shit if I guided ChatGPT to generate a parody of his most indulgent excesses. Meat for the most hardcore of his fans and a (meticulous) waste of the sheer amount of talent involved. How this has a 75% on…
Decent background-watch. Whoever did the ‘visions’ knocked it out of the park. A waste of Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell, who play clairvoyants whose powers wax and wane in service of the utterly predictable plot. Like Next but slightly better. Which is a fantastic fucking movie if you love Mr.…
Saw with LD. Stylish, great cinematography, good dose of Russell Crowe’s gravitas, and plenty of wealth-porn (and gratuitous art history lessons). Huge build-up of suspense (a la “Clue” or “Orient Express”) with a lame resolution towards the end. Oh and RZA’s in this movie. I continue to be deligh…
Saw with LD. Very heavy subject matter loosely inspired by harrowing real-life cases and I skipped watching a few scenes. Sai Pallavi was intense and excellent, of course, but we were very impressed with the raw vulnerability and menace Saravanan brought to his character (also called “Saravanan”, l…
Disturbing fictionalization of a real-life tragedy (cached). Based on a book by Jon Krakauer. Andrew Garfield is simply excellent as a devout Mormon, dogged detective, and patriarch (“priesthood holder”) of his family. Features some quick lessons in the History of the LDS which was not very flatte…
A giant, disjointed fucking mess. Tried to pay attention but I zoned out twice watching it. I couldn’t even tell you what this movie is about.…
Saw with LD. Revenge flick set in Scandinavia in 895 AD. LD thought that the ultraviolence was a bit gratuitous and didn’t serve the plot very well. I don’t know what one would expect from a story about a beefy Viking beserker hell-bent on revenge. Lush, beautiful, amazing visuals from Eggers and c…
Excellent cinematography and art direction. Bouncy background score by Thaman. Rana Daggubati stole the show, is magnetic in every scene he’s in, and we were all amazed by the ease with which he plays arrogant douchenozzles 💯 Could’ve been at least an hour shorter. Lovely poetry.…
Tedious “I can make longass movies like Marty too!” stuff from Ridley Scott. Fascinating and tragic story in real life though. Adam Driver is reserved. Lady Gaga is outstanding. Jared Leto is a fucking clown and is either trying too hard or doesn’t give a shit anymore. Al Pacino is in this movie a…
Adrien Brody is a great actor and I love watching him act. I absolutely love good, easy revenge flicks. So this was an easy pick. Mr. Brody channels his inner Travis Bickle (for the most part.) This was Taxi Driver meets Taken meets John Wick, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Brody produced, wr…
Saw with LD. This was our first Asghar Farhadi movie and it won’t be our last. Everything was magnificent: story, acting, screenplay, all of it. I remarked to LD that he managed to punch us in at least ten emotional centers in our hearts. So masterfully paced we didn’t feel two hours flow by. Here…
Full-length movie based on a Finnish TV series. Very formulaic Nordic noir serial killer mystery. Tröpe-äfter-Tröpe-äfter-Tröpe-äfter-Tröpe but I loved it and will see the TV show. Ville Virtanen and Anu Sinisalo are just excellent.…
REALLY 📢 LOUD 📢 NOISES 📢. It’s really, really loud. This is Boyapati Srinu’s third movie with Balakrishna after Simha (loud) and Legend (louder.) Akhanda is the loudest and shittiest collaboration yet. The story is a complete afterthought and, very loosely, holds together punch dialogues, fight…
Saw with LD on Christmas Eve. I thought it was well-done millennial nostalgia porn. Nothing wrong with that. I loved the humor and digs at techbro culture and co-option of “red-pill” by the far-right (which led to my favorite set of Tweets.) Thought it could be a deconstruction of the original Matr…
Watched with LD. Decent attempt at Desi Noir in picturesque Himachal Pradesh. Raveena Tandon is intense, vulnerable, and puts in good work as Kasturi Dogra. Great stuff by Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Zakir Hussain, and Meghna Malik. If Jeff Goldblum had a younger brother from an Indian mother, he wou…
Saw with LD. Saw it listed some place as a must-watch Korean thriller. As action-packed and entertaining as it is forgettable. Chock-full of clichés, excellent chemistry between the two main characters. Don Lee is a force of Nature. Can’t wait for an Indian remake starring S. J. Suryah (and Vijay,…
Absolute shit that was thrice as long as it needed to be. A total waste of my time and Amruta Subhash’s talent. When I was done, I wished I’d spent my evening watching every available video on the Island Boys on YouTube.…
"Robert Pattinson said to me before agreeing to this, ‘I don’t want to make a movie about a magical lighthouse. I want to make a movie about a fucking crazy person.’” Jess Joho, “What the hell did ‘The Lighthouse’ even mean?”, Mashable Saw with LD. Noir, Jung, myth and mythology, Proteus…
Three-part true crime documentary that’s two episodes longer than it needed to be. The psychological evaluations were of interest, particularly from a “clinical hypnotherapist with training in crystal healing and past life therapy”. You know… the life that you had before this one? That.…
Saw with LD. An absolute delight. Maeve Higgins is just wonderful. Will Forte does Will Forte things with aplomb. I thought it was Edgar Wright meets Stranger Things (kinda.)…
Saw with NN. At least twice as long as it needs to be. Didn’t care about the score. It’s three hours of Vijay doing Vijay things with gusto. Spoiler: I understand that mass Indian entertainers, particularly the South Indian ones, have a tenuous relationship with reality. But we are to be OK with tw…
Saw with BE and NN. Eh. Clear messages about creatives’ struggles and temptations, and the importance of continuing to tell past and present stories of horrific pain and suffering. I suppose I just lazily wanted to watch a well-made scary movie without actively engaging with it, without searching…
Academy Award-winning Helen Hunt is a pharma-stunned alien who doesn’t enjoy any screentime in a disjointed plot that prioritizes misdirection over coherence. Great cinematography. I loved the background score by William Arcane.…
A God descends into Hell to slay its demons on a whim. Squint hard enough and you might even find some compassion in his caprice and ruthlessness. Just a beautiful movie.…
I can die, they can do my picture. I have 84 years, but I am still creating. All my life I create, and is more and more and more. The mind is like a universe. It’s constantly expanding. Like the universe, exactly like the universe, open the mind. The opening of the mind is every day, is open. Tha…
Couldn’t finish it. Like if Luther were written by and for 12-year olds. Makes sense, for SM me told that the books were very popular with French teenagers.…
Watched with LD. Kate Winslet is an amazing actor and this miniseries is her best work yet. It is excellent everything: story, score, cinematography, dialogue, casting, acting. About economic depression, blue-collar America, forgotten America, the opioid epidemic caused by unchecked Capitalist gree…
Watched with LD. Nuclear apocalypse via submarines. At least as exciting as “The Hunt for Red October”. Watch on the largest screen you have and with a good sound system. The premise and last half hour were (I hope) pure flights of fancy. Excellent stuff by Francois Civil, Reda Kateb, and Mathieu K…
Watched because I’m a sucker for any movie that calls itself a ‘thriller’. Good God. Vijay Yelakanti considers Lakshmi as one of the best female actors of this generation. While he was directing her for a commercial, she had apparently given him 10 different expressions. Y Sunita Chowdhary, Th…
One of the best black comedies I’ve seen. Amazing attention to detail. Watched with LD. Reese Witherspoon was just perfect. Indeed, it was a breakthrough role for which she won a bunch of awards. Learned that Jessica Campbell who was also perfect as the angsty Tammy Metzler sadly passed away in Jan…
The OG “roaring rampage of revenge.” Watched with LD. Endlessly creative and I imagine way ahead of its time. “Oh so that’s what Tarantino was paying homage to.” 🙏…
Wonderful, wonderful stuff with the TV Eras. So creative! Slightly disappointing in how an intriguing and promising Twilight Zone-like plot was resolved via a good old Marvel laser shootout. Can’t wait to read an analysis of how it was a ‘triumphant exploration of Grief’ (which it really was.) Or…
A Russian mobster, a Cuban spy and a smooth operator from Miami scheme to sell a Soviet submarine to a Colombian drug cartel for $35 million. Everything leading up to this sale is crazier than the tagline above. What a ride.…
Saw with LD. Eight-episode miniseries, with Season 2 in the works. Could’ve been at least two episodes shorter. Trippy, wonderful cinematography, just unbelievable production quality, and backed by (yet another) amazing score by Max Richter. Especially great if you, like me, are a fan of Tom Hardy…
Everything you need to know about this waste of time without watching it, courtesy of SNL: Vulture has a more charitable take and lists the “best bits”. And this is genuinely very funny:…
Excellent stuff. Maybe two episodes longer than it should’ve been. The drug and alcohol abuse parts were heartbreaking.…
Shit. Stallone wrote it. Background-watched because it looked revenge-y and Netflix listed it as a Top 10 movie in the US. Jason Statham is B+ as Jason Statham. This time, he growl-mumbles through this shit movie as an undercover DEA agent (with Special Forces training of course) who speaks with an…
Saw with CK. Didn’t expect to like the movie as much as I did. Tilda Swinton and Ben Wishaw were brilliant. “Pure Christian pleasure.”…
Absolute garbage. Another self-indulgent snooze-fest. A total waste of Sienna Miller and Alec Baldwin’s talents. Makes you mad at yourself for finishing it.…
Absolute rubbish but I enjoyed the heck out of it.…
Awesome. … How fun is it to dick around in the Star Wars universe without some sad kid and their daddy issues killing the vibe man? Honest Trailers…
Watched with CK. The plot doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. But very, very entertaining. Anyone who claims to understand what’s going on after the first 32 viewings is a damned liar. A perfect one-line review: So suit up […] for what may not be Nolan at his best, but is definitely Nolan at his…
Entertaining. Thought the alternate ending would’ve been more likely (the highly-trained armchair psychoanalyst that I am 😆)…
Watched because Denzel and Revenge. Not sure why I bothered finishing it. Absolutely awful. The cinematographer appears to have borrowed the ghastly verdigris-like palette from this terribly photoshopped poster, and keeps twitching the camera with the giddiness of a raver who’s taken two of them Mi…
Watched with LD. Reminded me of “Hereditary” (it’s a slow burn) but with The Evil being this chimera of financial insolvency, really bad trust issues, childhood trauma, and severe affluenza. Jude Law was perfect, but Carrie Coon was so fucking good as the beleagured yet passively complicit partner…
Tedious, uneven, rushed, and a colossal waste of an interesting premise and the talents of several amazing actors (Ron Perlman, Dana Delany, Andre Royo, Alona Tal, and a brilliant Garret Dillahunt.) You can skip the latter half of the episodes in the first season (here’s a recap) and skip-watch all…
A bit sloppy compared to the first season but still quite the entertainer (or maybe I just love the surfeit of bad language, of which there is plenty ♥️) Excellent stuff from the main cast, especially Sheeba Chaddha and Rasika Dugal. But Pankaj Tripathi could read the backs of shampoo bottles in…
A beautiful story about my favorite alien told with phenomenally good camera work. Left me a bit misty-eyed. Lovely stuff. Felt like kicking myself for reading a few comments about it on Hacker News later. Not sure why I did this but promised myself I’d stick to the topics that site is good for (e…
Michael Keaton and Christopher Lloyd were excellent. But Peter Boyle steals the show as “Jack McDermott. Christ fixation. Megalomania.” BILLY Hey, Doc, isn’t it true that if even one of those tiles were to come loose, millions and millions of gallons of water would come pouring down on us and squ…
Saw this after about 18 years. Some assorted notes: Thought I heard “Boléro”. Every frame is a fucking painting. Just so wonderful: sunshine through the leaves and at the interrogation, characters walking into and out of the audience, the gate’s history and state of decay, and of course Tajomaru’s…
Stars David Lynch, his spouse Emily Stofle, a monkey, and a chicken. The oddest and most hypnotic thing I’ve seen this year (and twice.) A mere 17 minutes in length and like if film-school students used GPT-3 to generate a script an hour before the assignment was due. Toototabon 🐓…
Saw with CK. Excited because Charlie Kaufman. Mostly self-indulgent tripe. The conversations in the car were interminably tedious and missing PBR hats and gauloises. The weirdness in the first third-to-a-half of the movie was excellent. Top-notch performances and camerawork. No, this is neither cl…
About as predictable as it gets. Chadwick Boseman is excellent.…
Am a sucker for a good revenge story. This one was very slow and kinda haphazard. But I didn’t think it was bad enough to deserve this: The film received negative reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, having the worst wide opening weekend of all-time, the biggest drop in theaters, and i…
Jason Bateman directed the first few episodes of this show and appears to be on a roll (saw this right after the third season of Ozark.) It was a 10-episode miniseries that was 5 episodes too long. Everything about the antagonist was either laughable or inconsistent. Cynthia Erivo was magnificent a…
An entertaining, unsettling, dissatisfying Lovecraftian allegory for suburban life and child-rearing (esp the teenage years.) Dragged on for a bit: I imagine it would’ve worked great as a Black Mirror episode. Jonathan Aris and Senan Jennings were supremely creepy and magnificent and perfectly cast…
Another jingoistic saffron shitshow a la “Padmaavat”. Quite the visual spectacle: like walking through a racist and revisionist Amar Chitra Katha. Saif Ali Khan’s Uday Bhan is the only interesting character. Of noble Rajput blood, he succumbs to eating crocodile meat, sexual assault (of chaste Hind…
“Hey Sonu, we’re gonna need you to do some PCP before you show up to the set. Certainly before the dubbing. Go for that Nandi bro.” Sayaji Shinde as Anwar was the MVP. Ode to The Exorcist and The Ring.…
Ireland. Liam. Mick. Belfast. Mary. IRA. Patrick. Belfast. Liam Hennessy. Sean. Sinn Féin. “You should try a real whiskey. Two Jamesons, Single Malt.” Belfast. Belfast. Also Jackie Chan. But watch for Orla Brady 🇮🇪…
Saw with PLG. Plan on doing things around the house to the soundtrack. When they hand him his second Oscar, DiCaprio should just stare at the glitterati, play the trailer scene, and walk away 💯 🙏 🙌…
Finally saw this with PLG. Daniel Day-Lewis’ best performance IMO. Astounding, really. Mr. Day-Lewis’s outsize performance, with its footnote references to Huston and strange, contorted Kabuki-like grimaces, occasionally breaks the skin of the film’s surface like a dangerous undertow. The actor…
Slow start but gets pretty exciting towards the end. I couldn’t wait for Lynn to rid herself of her parasitic friends (especially the cloying Grace, played to perfection by Eisaya Hosuwan.) Cheating on standardized tests is big business in India and China. The Atlantic has a relatively recent artic…
The last 15 minutes are the best depiction of old age, loneliness, and isolation I’ve ever seen committed to film. Two masters at their very best. I love all the memes about its length but (a) the pacing was brilliant and (b) I am someone who grew up watching 200-minute family-values extravaganzas…
Moody and plenty gruesome. Got tired of the commune’s many ‘rituals’. Florence Pugh is 💯, as is the creepy-ass soundtrack. Learned about senicide. First half is a bit of a slow burn like “Hereditary”.…
Entertaining, very nicely done, two-hour long desi “Black Mirror” episode. Taapsee Pannu was 💯. You will want to hug Vinodhini Vaidynathan’s character. Saw with Deepu and we wondered what makes Tamil directors so good at this genre. “Presented” by Anurag Kashyap. Not sure what that means.↩︎…
A wafer-thin afterthought of a plot undergirds an important and harrowing commentary on the history, pervasiveness, and evil of the caste system in India. Excellent cinematography and performances by Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra as Jatav, and Sushil Pandey as Nihal Singh.…
Jaspreet Singh on the awful abandonment fantasy beloved by desi parents (starts around 1:10.) Here’s the entire shitshow of a movie. Yakeen maan-na, Baghban dekhne se pehle mujhe idea bhi nahin aaya tha ki maa-baap ko nikaala bhi jaa sakta hai.…
Watched with Paaji. Third Anurag Kashyap and Amit Trivedi film. Superb. Maybe a little too drawn out at times (gotta fit in all 14 tracks of that sweet Trivedi score) and was dismayingly Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam-predictable towards the end. “Gray Waala Shade” (with the accompanying opening scenes) i…
Why? This travesty should make it very clear that Guillermo del Toro loves and paints his monsters better than anyone else in the business.…
Completely predictable plot and twists, ridiculous ending, cookiecutter songs (features the laziest, dullest, ‘You composed it the day before it was due didn’t you?’ qawwali I’ve ever heard.) Fantastic cinematography. Sikander Kher is great. Got a lot of digital errands done whilst watching it, so…
On Post-Truth What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with sto…
My new favorite show. Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer are 💯💯💯. The best soundtrack to a TV show I’ve heard in years (Hannibal being my absolute favorite.) Via KC.…
Excellent stuff again from Jordan Peele. Thought the first half was about slavery and lost identity. Wisecrack has a great video on the movie’s various interpretations.…
Watched because “Sherlock Holmes.” An awful, unnecessary, ghastly shitshow.…
The first two-thirds are brilliant. As for Olivia Wilde and her riveting performance: [. . .] it’s still good to see a cunning and capable actress rise above her usual projects, such as stupid fodder like Tron or Cowboys and Aliens, or labels like “Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity of 2010.” After E…
Captured the city’s many contrasts quite well. Felt like I was watching Mirzapur again. The excellent Pankaj Tripathi plays the same wealthy, powerful, morally bankrupt, declining patriarch as in the show. Pretty much the same deal if they’d cast a mannequin instead of Akshay Oberoi.…
Everything I expected from an Anurag Kashyap movie. Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vicky Kaushal were 💯 The real Raman Raghav story is quite crazy.…
Remake of the Telugu Temper. Saviour Porn. Read this article on “procedures established by law” and mind-boggling backlogs in the Indian Legal System.…
Not much of a story but loved the cinematography and pre-Independence setting. Easily the best Indian horror movie I’ve seen after Manichithrathazhu.…
Saw with LD. Long, slow, visceral, beautiful, gory. Kept me guessing. Excellent stuff. There’s a pervasive hush and sense of stillness that lingers over the region of Gokseong, and scenes of brazen, crazed madness are often preceded by shots of tranquil mountain vistas whose lush, thickly forest…
Watched with D and M. Good thriller. Dharmendra was great. Was made aware of Neil Nitin Mukesh jokes.…
“No really, why do you do this to yourself?” - KS Features, in my estimation, the greatest solo special ops scene ever committed to film. No expert, but the knee-pillow fire might be related to why Seal Team Six attempted to destroy one of their damaged choppers.…
I don’t understand the ratings and the hullabaloo over what was affluence porn with a tired Bollywood plot (Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham came to mind but I’m sure there’s something else that aligns better with CRA.) Might be a satirical, over-the-top take on new and old money in Singapore, though I won…
A slasher version of A Quiet Place except The Monster gets you when you open your eyes (but only at key moments that further the plot.) Snoozefest after the first half. Had no idea that the lanky, highly tattooed extra is a famous rapper. A few plotholes that bugged me: What exactly constitutes a…
A masterpiece. Powerful and harrowing. Glad I stayed till the end of the credits. Still, the film doesn’t hold back in its depiction of the brutality of trench combat, and how most British soldiers started seeing the war as a pointless effort the longer it dragged on. “The strongest opinion they…
Recommended by Uber driver. Watched since I love a good revenge flick. Terrible. Had a good nap, though.…
Binged this. Narcos (kinda) + Gangs of Wasseypur. Violent, stylish, predictable. Pankaj Tripathi is excellent. The 41-year-old actor had nine releases last year, of which he bagged a special mention at the National Film Awards for his performance in ‘Newton’. “With the films I am offered today, I…
As wonderful as the first one. Could not fucking stand Sarah Silverman’s cloying Vanellope von Schweetz, which I suppose was the intended effect.…
Venom goes from evil alien mastermind who wants to take over the planet to Toothless in “How to Train Your Dragon” in about five minutes. His new motivations make no sense whatsoever. But in the case of Venom, the action follows nothing. There’s no reason for Venom to risk his life because he…
Watched with LD. Clever, clever! Loved all but the last 15 minutes.…
Excellent stuff. Tabu is a National Treasure 🙌 Second Sriram Raghavan movie, first being Ek Hasina Thi.…
TL;DW? Denzel Washington is Liam Neeson from Taken (with a lot of that movie’s tropes.) Over on Reddit, an essential discussion of who would win a fight. Features my favorite hipster-henchman, Tait Fletcher whom I last saw in The Accountant. Loved the first half of this song:…
Dan Fogler is as awesome in this one as he was in the first. A role he was born to play: Did you feel like you had an advantage while auditioning because you’re actually from New York? I think I brought some real authenticity to it. I grew up in Brooklyn. When I read the part, I thought, “Oh, ma…
Decent thriller. Cannot get over the fact that the antagonist’s makeup was awful and kept reminding me of the coconut and turmeric Varalakshmi Puja heads from my childhood . Which looks like this in a cheap wig Source Which, in turn, remind me of Jivaro shrunken heads.↩︎…
Because I saw Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher in the cast. And they were excellent. The climax is an absolute knock-out with an accolade-winning speech by Naseer who becomes a flag-bearer for all those nameless, ordinary people battling with this modern-day scourge, the world over. The highpoint…
Title made me think it was a sequel. Not bad as far as remakes go.…
Terrible. Expected this, so not sure why I did this to myself. Thought it was a weird mashup of Varsham and Dredd. Features this ‘Grandmaster Shifuji’ who attempts to act like a Kung Fu/Kalari master in the movie and a combat veteran and “special forces trainer” in real life. Watching what they di…
Based on “–All You Zombies–” by Robert A. Heinlein. Sarah Snook is phenomenal. But “John Doe” is an extended, uncredited cameo by Leonardo Di Caprio and I won’t be convinced otherwise.…
Like if Rashomon and The Usual Suspects had a child. The ending got me.…
Deeply upsetting. One of the best horror movies I’ve ever seen. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker on what gives it its potency Should you want to measure the psychological disturbance at work here, try comparing “Hereditary” with “A Quiet Place.” That recent hit, for all its masterly shocks, is at b…
😴. Watch for Tom Cruise being a stuntmaking beast (esp in the helicopter chase scene.)…
Watched with Catherine. Dark, tense, predictable. Uashamed to admit that I thought Logan Marshall-Green was Tom Hardy for the duration of the movie (even after watching “Upgrade” … must’ve been the hair.) Excellent stuff by Lindsey Burdge.…
Eh. Some amazing camera work and a great soundtrack.…
Watched with JS and LT. A solid 2.5 hours of Telugu Sampradayam-porn for the 50+ members of your family. Culture and Tradition are static and immutable constructs that are absolutely not subject to examination and revision, especially when it comes to gender roles. Features cameos by yesteryear su…
As brutal, breathless, and excellent as the first season. Julia Garner, Lisa Emery, and Janet McTeer FTW 🙌 Garner on her portrayal of Ruth Langmore She’s in a much more vulnerable place. She’s really struggling and having an identity crisis because of her dad. With Season 2, I think you have a…
Michael Cavna at The Washington Post with a roundup of the cultural appropriation controversy around the movie. Steve Rose at The Guardian: Some critics are barking “appropriation!” on Twitter and online, but where Ghost in the Shell and Doctor Strange (and there are many more) took a Japanese st…
Too much Ryan Reynolding but hey, with a ~900% ROI, whatever works 🤷♂️…
One and two. Excellent production and performances. Sunita Chowdhary at The Hindu with a few vignettes from Savitri’s life.…
I’ll watch any Ravi Teja movie but this one was dismaying. Here’s a screen capture that should explain why.…
Jesse Plemons steals the show even though he has very little screen time. In my book, he is no longer Todd from Breaking Bad, and is never to be referred to as “Meth Damon” or “Discount Matt Damon”…
Based the novella by Jonathan Ames. Saw the trailer via RT (this is the amazing song in the second half.) First Lynne Ramsay movie. Looking forward to listening to the soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood.…
Saw this with SC. Doesn’t let go for 90 minutes. Jim from The Office is killing it these days. MS: “This is what happens once you get away from a toxic workplace.” 😂…
He’s absolutely right about Indian people and mangoes. Good ones are hard to come by in Iowa, so I enjoy these refreshing beauties instead.…
A “state-of-the-nation” Netflix mini-series. Excellent performances by Jeany Spark, Carey Mulligan, and John Simm. Plenty of commentary (pontification?) on the refugee crisis.…
Unbelievable.…
Entertaining Rashomon-esque whodunnit. Great performance by Akshaye Khanna.…
Longer than it should’ve been and unevenly paced. Predictable ending. Still very enjoyable, since I’m a sucker for a good vengeance flick. Lee Byung-hun was absolutely fantastic (first saw him in “I Saw The Devil”.) Found myself hating this guy’s character with the same bile as Imelda Staunton’s Do…