tonymontana’s viewings (Updated)

Indoo ki Jawani:

A cute Kiaran Advani in a muddled film that could’ve been better had they focused on her sexual exploits alone. Instead it packs in more than they can handle: Indo-Pak tensions, terrorism, patriotism. A few funny moments but that’s about it.

Naveen’s note on Drishyam 2

Finished watching Drishyam 2 (D2) on Prime.

Knowing that it is the continuation, i watched the Mohanlal’s classic part 1 once again.

The characters, setting and mood of Drishyam 2 is same. So watching Drishyam 1 (D1) immediately before its resumption was a good decision at the end. Mohanlal’s Drishyam 1 (dubbed in Hindi) is available on Youtube for free.

Drishyam’s resumption is about George Kitty’s family’s quest for survival despite suffering from severe anxiety. The best thing about Drishyam is that it is relatable. I mean if there are very few situations when one can take law in her/his hand is, then one of those was the reason for the murder in D1. Vaastav is the last movie which comes to my mind where one felt one needed to take law into his hands.

But D2 is not about redemption. D2 is about cinematic strategy and survival instinct of a man Vs masterful strategy, power and might of the police force.

An Jo on the real Master – Lokesh Kanagaraj

 

 

(Spoilers ahead)
One of the striking shots and, if you will see in ‘Master’ is that Vijay Setupathi’s ‘Bhavani’ has scars at the same place just above his left-chin compared to Vijay’s ‘JD’ where he sticks two small band-aids. And then there’s a scene that’s inter-cut when Bhavani kills the last opponent in his quest to become the president of the lorry drivers’ association: That scene is finely executed where the director while laying out the commonalities, spreads out the differences more beautifully and intelligently. Bhavani kills the opponent brutally – it is raw – while at the same time, JD takes out his 6-7 opponents who come to a jail cell to kill him. The skill that Lokesh possesses lies in understanding that he is working with two radically different actors/stars and that with the budget/money at stake, he cannot afford to go wrong. He does equal justice to both the actors and that’s truly the preliminary joy of this film. This is one hell of a marriage between so called ‘mass’ and ‘class’, albeit, not completely solemnized thanks to issues like length and excessive concentration on catering to Vijay’s Tamil Nadu fan-base.

An Jo On ‘Talaash’…of ‘The Vanished’

my piece on Rangan’s blog….

On ‘Talaash’…of ‘The Vanished’

(Spoilers on ‘The Vanished’ and ‘Talaash’)

Very recently, I watched ‘The Vanished’ on Netflix and was struck by the similarities of the so-called other’s presence and importance in our lives: On how the process of ‘comprehending’ an event and wiggling out of it is so difficult for some people. There is a world of difference and a perennial conflict between the way the brain comprehends, and the heart comprehends a devastating event. The heart struggles more and leaves the brain even more…helpless.

2020… the year of watching films.

And so it comes to an end. This wretched miserable year. All the plans we made for 2020 at exactly this time one year ago were rudely shoved aside by something so small and nevertheless unimaginably, incredibly bigger than our worst fears. And yet, despite the scary realization that we don’t seemed to have bothered learning much from it at all… we remain hopeful, perhaps foolishly and perhaps arrogantly, that things will turn around. They must… “Picture abhi baaki hai”, and all that. And so anyone, especially someone that loves and breathes cinema, must hold on to that crassly commercial and yet most emotionally optimistic of catchphrases. Because, one would be lying if one didn’t also acknowledge that in the darkness that was 2020, an opportunity was presented by the lockdown and isolation to view as many films as you could… Not as the communal experience that movies definitely should be (which ironically also take place in total dark), but as your own year-long private film-festival. No excuses for not having seen that film that you always meant to see for the first time or revisit, or that release from last year which you missed during its theatrical run- good or bad. This here then is a list of all the films that this year was also kind enough to give me the space and time to see… even if that did feel like Tony Stark floating away in space all by himself with audio-visuals from times past being beamed at him.

Happy 2021 (Updated)

The very best to one and all…

Movie and Series recommendations 2021

2020 Thread

Interview with Mumtaz

Link
Mumtaz is unarguably one of the most beautiful and attractive heroines who lit up Indian cinema. But it’s not easy to have a long conversation with her as she’s travelling across countries with her ever-busy hubby Mayur Madhvani. But this time we got lucky as she’s in Mumbai and importantly we reached out to her ahead of others. We were surprised when the senior actress said, “Go ahead. Shoot your questions. I am all at ease today.”

Read rest from here

An Jo on Parinda

Linky
‘Parinda’ released in 1989, was one hell of a crimemovie from the Bombay film industry on Bombay and one that shook and held its audiences by the throat and screamed—albeitcoveredin its veneer of ‘subtlety—a violence so unleashed, that one could feel iteven more after-the fact.
The way Nana’s Anna is introduced, more importantly, the under-belly of Bombay is introduced, is awe-inspiring to-date. Right from the topographical view of Bombay during the initial credits—with a terrific usage of ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ piece— in its neon-light nights to graduallycutting down onto Nana’s ‘Anna Seth’ office and Rama Reddy (Kamal Kapoor) and Shiva Subramanyam’s ‘Francis’ wiping a knife decorated with blood after killing a non-decrepit man [Vidhu]; director Vidhu Vinod Chopra sets a broody, grimy, and a grisly atmosphere of the metropolis.

Read rest here

References:
https://www.rediff.com/movies/special/twenty-five–poetic-frames-of-parinda/20200525.htm

An Jo on Bhavesh Joshi

On Bhavesh Joshi, a fine experiment by Vikramaditya Motwane…

This movie I think was released in 2017 or 2018; I don’t remember. I totally ignored it thanks to some horrific reviews the movie got. Overall, it was in the negative space. I left it at that thinking Motwane had some experiment up his sleeve that had massively mis-fired. On top of that, you have a bad actor like Harshvardhan Kapoor; not just ‘relatively’ incompetent as Arjun Kapoor but, terribly bad actors surviving thanks to their, well, ‘insider-trading.’

I was genuinely surprised how good a movie this is, and what in God’s mind were the reviewers/critics thinking by dismissing it altogether? This is not a perfect film; it is highly flawed. But Motwane turns it on us and plays a cunning game: Those flaws, are what make the film questionable, are highly and equally enjoyable!

Naveen on Tenet

Views on Tenet:

I managed to watch another movie within a week. Maybe celebrating my theatre viewing which is now a privilege.

Ans what a movie TENET is !!! The perfect Spy thriller to begin your weekend with.

I was surprised to see Dimple Kapadia in a very relevant role. She is a delight to watch and so is Mumbai, one of the 7-8 cities where this movie is shot.

Storyline:
In a twilight world of international espionage, an unnamed CIA operative, known as The Protagonist, is recruited by a mysterious organization called Tenet to participate in a global assignment that unfolds beyond real time. The mission: prevent Andrei Sator, a renegade Russian oligarch with precognition abilities, from starting World War III. The Protagonist will soon master the art of “time inversion” as a way of countering the threat that is to come.

An Jo on SRK

In response to SRK discussion in this thread; An Jo’s comment:

SRK was/is one of those actors who can hardly be called super-talented. But he is that star-actor who can be so impactful in certain roles, that he can make even his most ardent-haters realize that he is irreplaceable in a certain kind of role.

Naveen’s note on Laxmii

In the genre of horror comedy the best i have seen still remains Bhool Bhulaiya and most recently Stree.

I had also liked the tamil movie Kanchana which was a low budget good entertainer (timepass) despite shoddy screenplay.
Thats because Kanchana never had anytjing serious about itself. The characters, issues etc were all cartoonish so overall it worked.
To overcome those gaps in screenplay, significant and serious changes have been made in Laxmii. However the changes needed to be goofy in nature and not serious. This is where the movie goes wrong.

An jo on Ludo

LUDO: A film that doesn’t know what it’s talking about...

LUDO is such a deceiving and a bad movie at the same time that it is improbable to believe that it’s an Anurag Basu film: A person/artiste who has gone through the physical and emotional pain of enduring cancer would have greater sensitivity and insights into the human emotional-core. If one is bereft of religion, of philosophies that have been stamped on our brain, what would we be? How would we judge people and their actions? And that’s what I thought would be the premise of the film when it talked of ‘karma’ and ‘Ludo.’ Alas, it turned out to be one of the most pretentious, and pseudo-philosophical film of its times, with political innuendo like salt added to a dish.

An Jo’s viewings (Updated)

The Occupant
This is a remarkable but strange film; odious in its plot and quite strong in its philosophy. What happens to a man when he turns middle-aged, and has, supposedly, not climbed the ladder of success to pigeon-hole himself into a position commensurate with age — as deemed by society & professionals of course — and finds himself cornered? Answerable to his wife, to his kid [who claims that he’s being made fun of in school but doesn’t tell his father why?

The incomparable Amitabh – My diary of a passionate engagement over two decades (Utkal) – Updated

The year 1971. I am in the final year of school, right in the center of the Hindi heartland, in Raipur, eating, drinking and dreaming Hindi films. After a spate of super hits, the then heartthrob of Indian film lovers, Rajesh Khanna, has delivered some okey-dokey films. And then came Anand. We were all zapped. What a film! What a performance! And who won’t be touched by ‘ Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaaye’ or ‘ Zindagi kaise Yeh Paheli Hai’ ? The superstar had redeemed himself. But amidst all this, we also talked of the character called ‘ Babu Moshai’ and an actor called Amitabh Bachchan. His performance too was praiseworthy, we all agreed. Looking back, Little did anyone realize that like the slayer of Kamsa being born in the prison cell of the Mathura king, the man who would dethrone the superstar, had got his definitive break in the triumphant comeback film of the superstar himself. Come to think of it, the Angry Young Man was born in Anand itself. ” Bolte kuyn nahin ho? Pichhle ten mahinese bak bak karte mere sar kha gaye ho. Ab chup kyuon ho? ‘ The way Amitabh delivered those lines, the intensity, the total concentration, it was never done before in Indian films. But we quickly forgot him and looked at actors like Navin Nischal ( Sawan Bhadon, Prawana) and Anil Dhawan ( Chetna, Piya Ka ghar) as the big stars of the next generation. ( Dharmendra was already a big star rivalling Rajesh Khanna with hits like Mera Gaon Mera Desh and Seeta Aur Geeta. ) .

Random Songs !

I am sure certain songs have had a huge or not so huge effect on all of us at some point of time in our life.  The idea for this post came to me while commenting on Rangan’s SPB tribute post.

I am listing some songs (in no particular order) which affected me, encouraged me, and helped me cope with life:

1.Zindagi Key Safar mein Guzar Jaatey Hain ( Aap ki Kasam)

2. Ruk Jaan Naheen, tu kaheen haar key (Imtihan)

3.Sach mere Yaar hai , bas yahee pyar hai (Saagar)

4.Naa Umr kee seema ho, naa janam ka ho bandhan (Prem Geet)

5. Bharat ka rehney wala hoon, Bharat kee baat sunata hoon (Poorab aur Paschim)

6.Main Na bhooloonga (sad version) (RKAM)

7.Aur nahee bas aur nahee, gham key pyaley aur naheen (RKAM)

8.Gila Maut sey nahee hai- humen Zindagai ney maara (Alag Alag)

An Jo’s Random Note on KBC 9 (Updated)

KBC12 Promo

#6 World Cup – Hrithik Roshan World Cup (FINAL KNPH beats Lakshya 8-3)

6 GROUPS OF RANDOMLY CHOSEN FILM THAT STAR HRITHIK ROSHAN – 4 FILMS IN EACH GROUP. The method is simple, groups created based on chronology of release date from Wikipedia.

GROUP STAGE pick 2/3* favourite films from Group of 4 – votes equal points.
BLOGGERS TO VOTE ON WHICH FILM WINS – only need the winning film and if you like a reason for victory. No essays! In The event of a tie score at the end of group stages – the head to head match will be used to determine the winner. In the event of a tie head to head my vote will determine the victor.

*To make up 16 films to participate in knock-out, Group 1, 3, 5 & 6 denoted with * will have 3 films advancing through whereas Group 2 and 4 only 2 teams.