News & Movie Review

The Telugu movie C/o Kancharapalem written and directed by Venkatesh Maha and produced by Praveena Paruchuri struck me as nothing less than a wonder for me. Set in the backdrop of Kancharapalem, an old suburb of Vishakhapatnam, Venkatesh Maha speaks about the universal theme of love exclusively through the characters of Kancharapalam. Through its raw and gritty depiction, he successfully pulls out a plethora of emotions from the viewer, and ultimately a part of Kancharapalem stays inside us once the film ends. More than a cinematic experience, C/o Kancharapalem is indeed a great romantic experience that proves the centuries-old wisdom, Love is Eternal! But something that struck me the most was the female characters of this movie and that is what motivated me to write this analysis. While Indian cinema is on the path of a transition with more and more movies coming out to break out from the clichéd male-centric narrative, patriarchal glorification, and conventional social norms, c/o Kan...

   Crime Procedurals are a dime a dozen nowadays. The genre, which has become a staple for channels like CBS, with its 20 or 22 year run shows of Law and Order - SVU, NCIS, Criminal Minds, has a high possibility of becoming stale or running its course. And after 2020, police procedurals and even comedies related to cops (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) started to feel decidely unsavory and valorizing towards a profession historically involved with societal ills, both for its cure as well as for its increasing effect. Among the glut of these police procedurals, very few stand out, evolve and become something almost multi-generational in impact. Be it The Wire or Homicide - Life on the Streets, shows like those evolve past the constraints of the police procedurals because of the change in its key foci. Most police procedurals would be very plot heavy each episode, with the plot resolving itself by the end of the episode. The beauty of shows like The Wire, or Homicide, and currently Bosch is...

   Leave it to Amit Masurkar to direct a movie which could only be characterized as an environmental thriller. Like his previous film Newton, Masurkar takes a very unconventional story material - here the story of a forest ranger's effort to catch a man-eating tiger, and the rural politics which transform into a circus.   There are a couple of nuances and instances which make Sherni into a compelling watch. Firstly the acting. Vidya Balan plays the role of a steely determined Forest Ranger dedicated to the duty transposed on her, and frustrated by her superiors' and other extenuating circumstances causing the focus of the mission to zig zag. Her only allies is Mr. Noorani, a nerdy Biology Professor played by Vijay Raaz, and Noorani's young followers called Forest Friends, environmentalists dedicated to protection of the jungle and the balance between environment and development. The second instance is the slow burn. The majority of the first hour is intended for developme...

      Yunaka Kanzaki, the world renowned wine critic has passed awak. Shinzuku Kanzaki, a salesman at a Beer company learns of this news, and  is Summoned to the family home, a splendid European style mansion, to hear the reading of his father's will. There he learns that, in order to take ownership of his legacy, he must correctly identify, and describe in the manner of his late father, thirteen wines, the first twelve known as the "Twelve Apostles" and the thirteenth known as the "Drops of God", that his father has described in his will. He also learns that he has a competitor in this, a renowned young wine critic called Toomine Issei, who his father has apparently recently adopted as his other son.  The key to any good story is in knowing how to tell it, acknowledging all of the tropes of said storytelling, which also delving completely into the specificity.  If you read the first 2 pages above, and see the description of the wine, the procedure ...

Vince Gilligan’s neo-western crime drama Breaking Bad will always have a place in the history of Television series. It is nothing less than a classic piece of art that excels in all departments be it acting, direction, screenplay editing. Breaking Bad is not something where some simple adjectives would suffix to establish its brilliance. This analysis is an attempt to show why Breaking Bad is a piece of art that deserves a classic title among many other epic TV series. The complete analysis can be consolidated into four reasons which can be used to explain the class of this series.  1. Making style and treatment  A popular opinion among many who have started watching the show would be that they are finding it hard to finish even the first season. What might be the reason behind this opinion? Let us introspect that. The main reason is that the makers haven’t compromised a bit to appease the viewers. If you analyze each season separately, we can see that they all follow a unif...

      Name - The Family Man (Season 2) Creator - Raj & DK No. of Episodes - 9 Runtime - 33 - 60 mins each Platform - Amazon Prime Video   The abject lesson in crafting a cliffhanger ending to one season, especially a cliffhanger ending as exciting as Family Man Season 1, is that the new season would immediately continue from the first season. What it shouldn't do is just jump a couple of months into the future, and showcase the characters moving off from the events , and then by storytelling structuring reveal what actually happened, which could easily have been used to end Season 1.   This is not an opinion of a show, this is a view of a storytelling structuring which doesn't work in the current landscape.   Thankfully though Family Man Season 2 is the prime example of one of those shows which proves that even if censorship can dull the teeth off your show, it won't completely damage the impact your show would have if the story actually is good. And...

  I wish to keep sending Lupin for adventures worldwide                                                                            -  Monkey Punch, 2017   Lupin III continues to be a classic franchise staying close to its roots of origin. And for its first 3DCG film, it was everything the fans expected it to be(unlike the piss poor live-action adaptation)- the grand escapades, the toony goofiness, the gorgeous location/setting designs, an adventurous treasure hunt, the characters teaming up, Jigen and Goemon being badass while Lupin sparking with charisma. Art and Animation- This is literally the most beautiful-looking Lupin film ever. Yes, even more than the retelling of the franchise starting with 'Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna'. Bold claim? Nope, it is ...

  Name - Mare of Easttown No. of Episodes - 7 Runtime - 55 mins each Creator - Brad Ingelsby Director - Craig Zobel Platform - HBO Max, Disney + Hotstar There are very few shows which perfectly encapsulate the feeling of living in a small town, knowing each and every member of the said locality, and the subsequent feeling of both a closeness as well as claustrophobia and exasperation. Mare of Easttown follows Mare Sheehan, a detective investigating the murder of a local teen, which causes old secrets of the inhabitants of the small Philadelphia town to spill over.  Mare is a character with a lot of baggage, which slowly gets revealed as the series progresses. She also is a person haunted by a similar case she had been unable to solve for over a year leading to people in the community doubting her detective skills. Her personal troubles include a divorce, her son lost to suicide, an ex-heroin addict daughter-in-law fighting for the custody of her grandson. All of the above issu...

  That film (The Cyclist) is a part of me….   -Hossain Sabzian (Close-up)     The Cyclist, a minor work that deals with major topics, is the fifth movie by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, one of the great filmmakers of the New Wave Moment of Iranian Cinema. He is known for his unpredictable substantial films on various subjects.     Nasim, a poor Afghan refugee, a well digger, and a roaming worker, tries many ways to earn ample money so he could pay hospital bills for the surgery of his seriously ill wife. The hospital continually threatens to stop her treatment if he fails to pay them. In one attempt, he tries to fake his suicide under the wheels of a truck. Finally, with the help of his friend, he finds a businessman hustler agent who offers him seven days and night bicycle marathon circus. It starts on one of the city’s squares, where he rides the cycle in a circle like an endless journey to nowhere. But with it, a vicious circle starts around him, of his expl...