PODCAST THIS YEAR - A-TO-ZED BOLLYWOOD MOVIE REVIEW
- Dhurandhar - 2 (Hate Must Continue)
- O Romeo - pretending to be a Vishal Bhardwaj Movie
- Mardaani & 120 Bahadur - A taut thriller & A respectable war movie
- Border 2 - Is it 2 or 1?
- Do Diwaane / Tu ya Main / Bhoot Bangla / Vadh 2 - Bouquet!
- Chand Mera Dil / Assi / Dhrishyam 3 + 1 - Another multicultural bouquet
- Cocktail 2 - May feel dizzy after the movie
- Welcome to the Jungle - Death of comedy.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2122382
BOLLYWOOD
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE - 1.0 Stars. (G)
Welcome to the jungle - trailer
Directed by - Ahmed Khan
Starring - No need.
Comedy remains a lost art in Indian movies. Welcome is another franchise that subscribes to making faces, talking loud, adults behaving like kids, making stupid jokes, or making some inappropriate jokes as comedy. They collected a bunch of actors who will pay to act in a movie and created a movie, that even they know is bad. Ahmed Khan may have actually been making a movie about his own movie!
The movie is about directors given a task to make a bad movie and waste lot of money for some random reason (maybe to make black money to white or something). Maybe that is the reason this movie was made. That solves a lot of my confusion.
Akshay kumar is the only actor in the movie rest are a bunch of have beens, no real story, no real passion to make a movie. Pleas give a few dollars to college kids and they will write a better funny script or scenes for you. Stop stealing from your own previous Welcome movies! The one that worked was Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar film, and they keep referring to it in this movie. It's like saying - do you remember that funny movie? and that funny scene? right? hahaha... so funny... mmm... okay!
COCKTAIL 2 - 2.5 Stars. (G)
Directed by - Homi Adajania
Starring - Shahid Kapoor, Kriti Sanon, Rashmika Mandanna
Rashmika saves this weird take on love, but only by her acting. Her role is as cocktaily as the movie itself. The Director who clearly is an uncle-ji, can't figure what these young people are about, but like all old people he starts making some assumptions.
I am making a movie about young people falling in love, hmm what should they be like -
- They all are probably confused if they are in love or not
- They all should want to be in swim suit no matter where they go.
- They all must be going to europe whenever confused.
- They must be hating uncle and aunties like me (well that might be true)
- They must be wanting to go to dance clubs and dance all the time.
- They drink everyday all the time and probably smoke too.
CHAND MERA DIL - 3.5 Stars. (G)
Directed by - Vivek Soni
Starring - Ananya Panday, Lakshya
Ananya Pandey unsuspectingly was asked to do Bharatnatyam improvisation, she found out the fury of Bharatnatyam crazies, she was destroyed online for attempting it. She learned her lesson - do not mess with Bharatnatyam gang.
Movie is a sweet, cute love story that you hardly get to see, 2 kids in love, or so do they think as adversities hit them. Life comes at you and you realize you are not that into each other. There is regular confusions, breakups, ego tussle, etc. Well done. Lakshya still needs to emote better but Ananya is this blogger's favorite so we don't judge her harshly, she did good. Looking for a sweet little love story? Go watch it.
ASSI - 4.0 Stars. (R)
Directed by - Anubhav Sinha
Starring - Taapsee Pannu, Kani Kusruti, Revathy, Manoj Pahwa, Kumud Mishra, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub
Cry and get depressed, it is Anubhav 'the great' sinha, my favorite director. I have traversed a journey on favorite directors. Here is my list I went from young to old. Mukul Anand for stylization, Rajkumar santoshi for variety and bigger than life, Anuraag Kashyap for creativeity, and now Anubhav sinha for hard reality social dramas.
There are 80 rape complaints (a small subset of actual number) in india on a daily basis. The story of one such case that finds a mention in the court proceedings. Tapsee does a good job of the helpless lawyer trying to go through the usual proceedings and mustering some excitement in the drab settings of a court. Revathy as a sympathetic judge is pretty good and so is Mohammad Zeeshan as a husband trying to navigate the various things that come with tragedy. A good look with no sugar pill or fake excitement to make you cheer up. Just a hard slap.
DRISHYAM 3 (Malayalam) - 2.5 Stars. (G)
Directed by - Jeethu Joseph
Starring - Mohanlal, Meena, Ansiba Hassan, Esther Anil, Kalabhavan Shajohn, Siddique, Murali Gopy, Asha Sharath
It's Mohan Lal it's mohan lal, it's mohan lal NOT Mammootty. I called Mohan Lal Mammootty because for me 'big malayalam actor' is Mammootty. I am sorry, it is Mohan Lal the new 'big malayalam actor.' Honestly he was not that impressive, I find others in malayalam cinema way more capable. We went directly to the Dhrishyam original after watching Ajay Devgan do his usual list less face only to find out in the end of the movie that he was actually thinking cleverly. Anyways, we found out that's what was taught to him by Mr Mohan Lal who is as list less as Devgan.
The movie is a disappointment, it has nothing to tell. Just trying to make money off of the franchise. The 'murderer' family is being looked with suspicion as the elder daughter gets ready to get married. Everyone knows they did the murder but no one has the proof. Police is still after them to make one mistake. AND that's the entire movie until the last 10 minutes when a twist happens. So skip to the interval and start from there, if you have to.
SAMBHAVAN ADHYAYAM ONNU (Malayalam)- 4.5 Stars. (PG)
Sambhavan Adhyayam Onnu - trailer
Directed by - Jithu Satheesan Mangalathu
Starring - Askar Ali, Vineeth Kumar, Assim Jamal
Easily one of the best movie I saw this year. This is how you make a time travel sci-fi thriller. I like it better than hollywood style of movie making which takes you through a Physics and astronomy lesson just to tell you a fake 'impossible' story. This one is simple to understand but gripping to watch.
Group of policemen enter a jungle on the look for something and can't get out it. They keep getting out at various different times of their lives. Now the cop has his issue at hand and his daughter's life at stake and also needs to fix the forest's haunted history that might date back to 200 years. Good movie, and a sequel is coming.
DO DIWAANE SEHER MEIN - 2.5 Stars. (G)
Do diwaane seher mein - trailer
Directed by - Ravi Udyawar
Starring - Siddhant Chaturvedi, Mrunal Thakur
Another love story from Sidhhant, others were better and this one is okay. The kids have insecurities and how they overcome those while in love. Only problem is the insecurity of Mrunal does not come across as authentic. She is supposed to be the ugly duckling, not stylish, 'nerdy', not your traditional attractive one but her appearance and getup is the opposite. She wears a huge but still designer glasses because she is not confident under her own skin, that's what is supposed to be shown. But most probably neither Mrunal or the director wanted her to be that, so she is all stylish in her clothing and makeup and still act like no one likes her and all weirded out with her surroundings. Anyways you get the point.
It's not a bad movie, an average cute love story, Sidhhant has a bihari problem of speaking 'ss' instead of 'sh' and hence the name of the movie. So both have some internal demons to kill and the love story can begin.
TU YA MAIN - 2.0 Stars. (PG)
Directed by - Bejoy Nambiar
Starring - Adarsh Gourav, Shanaya Kapoor
2 movies in one. First half is a love story between two influencers. When it is Gen Z movie the protagonists have to be influencers because they don't do anything else I guess. The boy is from nallasopara and the girl is classy and rich from south mumbai. Obviously the attraction begins, since times immemorial from Titanic, to coolie, to Tu Ya Main... till today it is very natural to think a rich classy girl of rich parents will fall for an uncouth lower class foul mouthed man. Though there are hardly any real life examples to be seen. My question is why can't the films show the opposite, because the first premise is not seen in real life it is made up thing of movies as they were made in the west first and then the same concept was borrowed by hindi movies. Why can't someone attempt to show a rich classy boy falling for uncouth foul mouthed laborer girl? Obviously one - there is nothing called a rich classy boy, generally they are rich spoilt stupid boys. But hey! its a movie! a La Pretty Woman, but not with the support system of the older business man type falling for a sex worker. But jus under normal circumstances. Just a thought.
The second half turns into a copy of some foregn movie of a crocodile attack in a swimming pool with no help. Both movies have no link but somehow with interval they join both movies together and make one. Only in bollywood!
VADH 2 - 4.5 Stars.
Directed by - Jaspal Singh Sandhu
Starring - Sanjay Mishra, Neena Gupta
Vadh one was a classic. Don't hold this one to those standards, just like Dhrishyam the second one loses a little bit of novelty. But this one smoothly runs it's coarse on 2 strong actors in Sanjay Mishra and Neena Gupta. The sequel is not a continuation but a new story about older couple. Technically they are not a couple in this movie as one is in Jail and the other is the Jailor-cop. But they have a relationship and they want to save a girl. The slow brooding pace of the movie fits very well with the realistic Joal depictions and builds into a crescendo at the end. Go watch it.
BHOOT BANGLA - 1.5 Stars. (G)
Another garbage from Akshay Kumar. He gets up goes to the movie sets does the same thing and comes back, he has no clue which movie and what plot. It does not matter, he is going to his paan shop making a few paans and coming back. All garbage old actors doing the same thing they have been doing for few decades.
MASTII 4 - 1.0 Stars. (PG)
Directed by - Milap Zaveri
Starring - Riteish Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor
If you are a fan of this franchise. please go get yourself checked. I don't know why it is at Masti 4. the entire premise is grown up adults are running after girls with literally their tongues out. All the actors are now well into their middle ages and looking horribly bad. Not that they ever were handsome. None of them know how to act or have any other movies lined up. The make faces and have zero self awareness or care to think If you are faced with a choice to make few more bucks that you don't need Vs your self respect. Please choose your self respect.
TOASTER - 20. Stars. (PG)
Directed by - Vivek Daschaudary
Starring - Rajkummar Rao, Sanya Malhotra, Archana Puran Singh, Upendra Limaye, Farah Khan, Abhishek Banerjee, Jitendra Joshi
The great Rajkummar Rao has now become a caricature of himself, doing repeatedly his dumb guy act in uninspiring movies. Sanya also has done enough of these Wife roles. The movie has a lot going but nothing sticks, the entire movie is about a super cheap guy who tries to save money everywhere and when he has to part with an expensive Toaster as a gift, he wants to retrieve it back because the gift was needed as the marriage that he gifted the toaster at was broken. Archana Puran singh has weirdest role of all times being this old Aunty who is obsessed with young guys, but the way she plays it is so authentic that it makes you puke... almost.
WEB SERIES
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EVERYBODY LOVES SOHRAB HANDA - 4.0 Stars. (G)
Directed by - Rajat Kapoor
Starring - Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, Waluscha De Sousa, Saurabh Shukla, Koel Purie, Sadia Siddiqui, Chandrachoor Rai
SYSTEM - 2.5 Stars. (G)
Directed by - Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring - Sonakshi Sinha, Jyothika, Ashutosh Gowariker
Sonakshi Sinha was never known for her looks, so I don't why she is stuck in this 'looks syndrome' of Madhuri. She has done all sorts of things on her face, she looks plastic and fake. When your role does not demand glamor it grates on my nerves.
Sonakshi looks this insecure plastic doll trying to play a real character. All others surrounding her look very real people like Jyothika who has a great role of Judge's steno who knows legal system better than most lawyers and helps the new lawyer in Sonakshi who wants to prove she belongs to the system and hence prove to her stubborn egotistical Dad.
MAA BEHEN - 2.5 Stars. (PG)
Directed by - Suresh Triveni
Starring - Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri, Dharna Durga, Ravi Kishan, Paresh Rawal
Madhuri has done Maa behen of her comeback career.... sorry for that uncharacteristic line but the show is kinda that.. pretentious and not sincere in it's intentions. Madhuri or maybe the directors can't get over the fact that she was a superstar and advertised as the most beautiful of her times etc. She can't shake off that tag. All things she does it's only about how sexy and beautiful she is! Stop it. Live your age, and work on your role with sincerity. Look I have a bald spot... do I try to hide it? ummm.. yes... okay that went bad. FINE... but do you want to follow me? Come on Madhuri you can do better.
The series is about a Mom, who is so beautiful that everyone falls for her and half the times they keep trying to do some AI BS on her to show her young. Honestly director seems to be a creep uncle. Tripti and Dharna are her daughters who come home to see their single mom in a murderous thriller. All 3 try to navigate the situation making it a comedy / thriller / drama / NOTHING. Tripti overacts and tries to match Madhuri in trying to pry her 'worst actor award' for the show. Both accomplished actors bring the series down massively. Easily the worst job in Madhuri's career. Dharna is the only one who is comfortable in her skin and excels in a few scenes she is given liberty to shine.
PRITAM PEDRO - 3.0 Stars. (G)
Created by - Rajkumar Hirani
Directed by - Avinash Arun
Starring - Vir Hirani, Arshad Warsi, Vikrant Massey, Boman Irani, Mona Singh, Rajesh Sharma, Satyadeep Mishra, Shruti Marathe
The web series has all the stamps of Hirani everywhere. A very Rajkumar Hirani production, a little bit cute and sweet with a few jokes and a soft little thriller aspect to it. But still it disappoints, we do not have a brilliance of Aamir to pull it to another level. Vir Hirani, and by his name sounds like someone of our director Hirani, he still has miles to go before he acts. As if the want none of the south mumbai kids (and I am assuming he is) know how to speak hindi. They have a very accented hindi, they might be okay to play a NRI kid or something. Arshad Warsi has never been an actor who can make you cry, and this one exposes the limitations of Arshad, though he did a decent job. Mona singh who has shown in recent years he is an A+ actor is wasted. Vikrant Massey does not fit the character at all, he can't pull off his villianish coder role. More than anything this series shows limitations of everyone involved.
Show is about Pedro the cop and Pritam the tech whizkid getting to the bottom of a kidnapping orchestrated by various criminals that they have to sift through to get to the real villain.
RAAKH - 3.0 Stars. (PG)
Genre - Crime thriller
Starring - Ali Fazal, Sonali Bendre, Aamir Bashir, Rakesh Bedi
Another crime thriller of a web series. They are suffocating us now, for last few years there is sglut od such stuff and we need a break. This is from makers of the great Paatal Lok, but Ali Fazal is not Jaideep ahlawat. This one again lays bare the limitations of ALi Fazal as an actor, the role is too heavy and pwerful for him. Add to the fact that each of the other unnamed role players are just out of this world! I can't believe how good these actors are!! The random villagers and the road side people are just ridiculously great actors. Are they from a film school? I was just blown away. Just for those actors you need to watch this. Sonali Bendre is unrecognizable and does a great job, another one who could act but never got a chance to in her younger days. She is also an example of how to grow old without worrying about looking sexy and beautiful old woman.
The series is inspired by incidences from 1980s when the criminals called Ranga and Billa murdered some high profile person's kids. There was a big hue and cry and nation was stunned, such cute days for India. Now well that kind of murder may not even look horrific or news worthy.
MATKA KING - 2.5 Stars. (G)
Genre - Drama
Directed by - Nagraj Popatrao Manjule
Starring - Vijay Varma, Sai Tamhankar, Bhupendra Jadawat, Kritika Kamra, Gulshan Grover, Siddharth Jadhav
A period drama from 60s and 70s when some random dude ran a underworld gambling syndicate that all working class people started following and hence disrupted the rich people's monopoly over gambling. A very regular 70s drama which they try to give a spin of reality. For no reason they also tried to make the protagonist a hero, when he could have more villainish traits than what they show. Vijay Varma tries all he could to get into the skin and play the character and succeeds to a level. He is a serious actor and tries his best. Someone the direction lacked grip and hence the drama fizzles out.
ASPIRANTS - 3.0 Stars. (G)
Genre - Coming-of-age Drama
Directed by - Apoorv Singh Karki (Season 1 & 2), Deepesh Sumitra Jagdish (Season 3)
Starring - Naveen Kasturia, Shivankit Singh Parihar, Abhilash Thapliyal, Sunny Hinduja, Namita Dubey
This is series that has been going on for sometime. TVF generally does their own set of genre and are a great company. They can never do anything bad. They do things from good to very good, so it is a safe bet to see anything with their logo.
Story of 3 friends who are aspirants like millions who keep trying to crack UPSC exams to become top officials in government. They all are pretty good actors and the drama is pretty gripping too. nothing out of this world but still a good watch. The friendship gets tested over the years as one of them becomes the Mayor of his town and other move on. Basically a male friendship drama without them being saas bahu.
This idea that men don't have drama need to be rested with this TV series, they have their male bonding drama as much as any human, it's just they are programmed to have that drama within the confines of money and politics.
THE PYRAMID SCHEME - 3.5 Stars. (G)
Directed by - Ashish R. Shukla, Shreyansh Pandey
Starring - Shekhar Suman, Ranvir Shorey, Aanjjan Srivastav, Smita Bansal
Just watch this for the great Ranvir Shorey, just watch him at least in first few episodes, he is hilarious, sweet, bechara, cute, kamina... all in one. Show is set in Haridwar and tracks the days when Amway used to threaten everyone on earth. Remember the days when these Pyramid scheme companies ran wild and your friends started pushing you to get into the cult of making people join their group of pyramid? Oh.. those memories, when we would not have eye contact with any desi people and not talk in hindi in isles of a grocery store in feat of people who would pounce on us as a future client for them to devour. The indian culture of insecurity and dream of making it big one day exploited by these schemes.
it is pretty good attempt on those days. beautifully done. If you remember those days and know what am talking about watch it, just for those days and for Ranvir Shorey.
BROWN - 2.0 Stars. (PG)
Genre - Crime thriller, Psychological thriller, Neo-noir
Directed by - Abhinay Deo
Starring - Karisma Kapoor, Surya Sharma, Jisshu Sengupta, Soni Razdan, Meghna Malik, Ajinkya Deo
ANOTHER crime thriller with ANOTHER yesteryear actor wanting to play that role. This time it is Karisma Kapoor, she is okay actor but can't carry entire web series to a different planet. She has all the crutches to make us feel sorry for her. Very typical bollywood, a character cannot be a cop, they have to be depressed with a bad past, which basically is premise for everything made in the world but this one adds the cop having a drinking and smoking problem. Trying to add as many things so that Karisma doesn't need to act.
I don't understand why cant a cop do their job even if they are happy and fit? I guess this copying other TV series will stop soon. I have only seen british cop dramas that have no such crutches of past problems haunting the cop, otherwise all use these things.
GLORY - 2.5 Stars. (PG)
Genre - Sports Thriller
Starring - Divyenndu, Pulkit Samrat, Kashmira Pardeshi, Suvinder Vicky, Ashutosh Rana, Sayani Gupta, Sikandar Kher
A very male testosterone driven web series about 2 brothers trying to look for criminals to avenge their sister. That line itself is more testosterone than anything that can be made in Indian context. Divyendu does divyendo things, he gets a pretty good auuthor backed role. Pulkit shows what he can or cannot do, but tries to hide behind her abs ridden body. Suvinder Vicky the great actor he showed himself to be in Kohra, is limited due to production and directorial limitations of this show. Every scene is trying too hard to be male loud muscle popping brute force growl and subtleties are lost.
MAAMLA LEGAL HAI - SEASON 2 - 3.5 Stars. (G)
Genre - Legal drama, Comedy
Directed by - Rahul Pandey
Starring - Ravi Kishan, Nidhi Bisht, Yashpal Sharma, Tanvi Azmi, Naila Grrewal, Anant V Joshi, Gautam Rode
This sweet, cute drama comes back for a second showing. All characters are intact but the show is Ravi Kishan's. The legal system comedy with trivial, cute legal battles being fought for the common man. The show probably was a little bit down from it's first installment as the freshness is gone and the love angle between two lawyers was unnecessary and confusing. But the last episode does enough twists that it becomes a thriller of sorts. anyways, a great show considering the others I have reviewed this cycle.
MAA KA SUM - 1.5 Stars. (G)
Genre - Drama
Directed by - Nicholas Kharkongor
Starring - Mona Singh, Mihir Ahuja, Angira Dhar
Mona Singh is wasted as they try to prop up Mihir Ahuja who is probably someone of someone. A mom son drama about the "MODERN" world where mom wants to remarry and son wants to make an algorithm to find a perfect match for his mom. Somehow it grates on you seeing a very mature sensible son and a teenager type behaving mom, though it is possible these characters exist but I could not find my interest to follow their story and their problems.
