Recently Seen Movie #13 - Page 3

Sita Ramam 

Good one time watch, but wish it ended differently,

Mrunal is such a good actress, and salman too! I enjoyed watching them both on screen 👍🏼

Sooryavanshi

A thoroughly mediocre film that had bafflingly great success. 

I know some folks criticized the movie for anti-Muslim propaganda. But the movie makes an in-your-face effort to show and promote bhaichara. Of course, it oversimplifies things - it's not black and white - you can criticize the government and its treatment of certain minorities but still be a productive citizen. There are plenty of cops who engage in unfair targeting and abuse of power. But masala films are not known for nuance - Let's focus on the content and story. 

- Sooryavanshi has this bizarre gag of forgetting names that adds nothing to the plot or the comedy. Ross saying Rachel instead of Emily is tragicomic. Sooryavanshi calling Simba Lamba (or whatever, I can't even remember the gags) is plain dumb. 

- there is a completely unnecessary romantic plot line that could have been eliminated to make the film 40 minutes shorter and more engaging. And why did you write in a woman who is introduced making a valid claim about work-life balance only to be gaslit into becoming a doormat again? That final bomb could have been strapped to any colleague Sooryavanshi cared for. 

- the movie is most fun when Simba and Singham enter because at this point, the movie is focusing only on entertainment value and not trying to be more meaningful by pretending to have some semblance of a plot. 

Seriously, watch the last 30-40 minutes, and it becomes a Sooryavanshi becomes tight, fun, fast-paced potboiler full of quirky interesting characters who discover cars filled with RDX all over Bombay and have to move fast at a mile a minute to save the city. The first 100 odd minutes can be totally skipped. 

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Man, this movie has so many familiar faces. Doug from Friends. Ehlert from the Middle. Leonard from TBBT. Elaine from Seinfeld. The movie is 'aight. Clark Griswold is a jackass, a creep, and a weirdo. No wonder seemingly normal kid sweet kid Rusty grows up to be a dweeb and Audrey to be stuck in a loveless marriage. 

Your Christmas or Mine

A cute Christmas movie with Asa Butterfield (Otis from Sex Education). A fun look into young relationships, family dynamics, and Christmas. 

2010 film Takers. Nice entertainment 

https://youtu.be/Z1JXKCProqA

Doctor G

The harrowing experience so many women, including someone famous like Padma Lakshmi, have in getting diagnosed and treated for endometriosis shows why women prefer female gynecologists. Historically, male doctors have lacked empathy or understanding of reproductive health issues and often are unwilling to listen to patients, especially if it is not a textbook case. 

Doctor G is a sincere and honest attempt to showcase the importance of reproductive health, the challenges in the profession, and why male and female doctors need to come together and take it seriously. 

Unfortunately, the movie tries to address so much that it ends up being messy. The jokes don't land, and Uday's growth seems inorganic and rapid. This concept would have been better off as a TV series - where each episode addresses a different issue about reproductive health, and Uday grows as a person over a longer arc. 

Is that Black enough for you?

I was completely oblivious to the Blaxploitation genre of films for the longest time. It wasn't until I met a black student who shared her love for Pam Grier's Foxy Brown. Despite its negative connotation, Blaxploitation films have great cultural significance in the black community. We talk so much about representation today, but it is mind-boggling how many black-centric films were made in the 70s. These films had black protagonists, black casts, and black filmmakers. Although initially catering to black audiences, they cut across race lines and were commercially successful. Even more baffling is the fall and disappearance of the genre into oblivion. 

This documentary traces the rise and fall of this glorious decade of black cinema. 

Bullet Train

Bullet Train is an adrenaline-pumping action comedy I should have seen in the theatre. While the narrative can get messy and incoherent - the action shots are breathtaking. Each character is quirky and unique and brings so much to the film. The cameos and side characters are particularly delightful. Logan Lerman was unrecognizable as The Son. Haha, and clever to cast Bad Bunny as The Wolf. My favorite was Channing Tatum as the unsuspecting passenger, seemingly eager to do sex stuff. I particularly enjoyed the soundtrack with its Japanese renditions of pop songs. 

On the small screen at home, Bullet Train is a passable entertainer. But on the big screen this would have easily translated into a worthy action caper. 

guys I had seen drishyam 2 movie before a week ago, I like this movie very much. 😊

want to grow gk about bollywood movies got to "aliensbrain.com" in bollywood section

I saw Brahmastra 

It was quite a chore. On Disney plus in USA they only had an English version. So except for the songs all of it was dubbed over in English. It was cheesy & something felt off. That school of mutants really didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand why there was a 11 year Asian kid there. SRK in the beginning was funny. That could’ve been the English tho. Don’t know much about mythology but it seems it was just a set of motivational Rocky type dialogues 😂 Only in the end did I realize that was Dimple. I don’t know if I watch a Hindi version will play better but I’m not really interested in finding out. 

Originally posted by: Maroonporsche

I saw Brahmastra 

It was quite a chore. On Disney plus in USA they only had an English version. So except for the songs all of it was dubbed over in English. It was cheesy & something felt off. That school of mutants really didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand why there was a 11 year Asian kid there. SRK in the beginning was funny. That could’ve been the English tho. Don’t know much about mythology but it seems it was just a set of motivational Rocky type dialogues 😂 Only in the end did I realize that was Dimple. I don’t know if I watch a Hindi version will play better but I’m not really interested in finding out. 

I watched it in Hindi on Disney Plus/Hulu. Sometimes by default they play the English audio in USA. You have to go to settings and pick your preferred audio and sub languages. 

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

I watched it in Hindi on Disney Plus/Hulu. Sometimes by default they play the English audio in USA. You have to go to settings and pick your preferred audio and sub languages. 

Yes I later learned. If I had gone to extras I couldve found a hindi version 😆 alas

Avatar

I had not seen the movie since its first theatrical release in 2009. I hope to catch The Way of Water over the holidays, so I decided to rewatch the first one. 

The highlight of the movie is the breathtaking CGI. I was so taken in by the CGI, and the breathtaking world of Pandora - that I didn't pay close attention to the plot. 

Watching the plot, I realized what a brilliant allegory of colonization the movie is. Humans (Europeans) are on Pandora (in the Americas, Asia, Africa), believing they are the most advanced, powerful, and civilized race. They try to threaten or manipulate the so-called "savage" natives so they can have unfettered access to unobtanium (spice and resources). 

But over time, we discover that the Na'vi (local natives) are not savages. Despite their divides amidst the clans, they live in harmony with the environment and their planet. Their primitive (pagan) ways and rituals are the way they honor and respect the land they live in. 

Avatar and Pandora give us the fantasy of a utopian society had colonization not happened. Its not perfect or conflict-free - but it is more respectful of the whole planet not just their personal whims.