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Browsing All Posts filed under »Readers Write In«
Readers Write In #542: Annathe, Varisu, and oversimplified relationships
By Thulasidasan Jeewaratinam (Written this when Annaathe came out and my recent viewing of Varisu only confirms this as timely. Posting only now). My recent viewing of Annaatthe confirmed my long-running doubts over the arcs Tamil Cinema was shaping (the extent of which this discussion prevails in other Indian language cinema(s) is excluded from this, […]
Readers Write In #541: Vaalvi succeeds where Kuttey fails
January 16, 2023
By Kartik Iyer Vaalvi is a Marathi movie that was released on the same date as Kuttey did: 13th January. It looks like it is made on a budget that is easily 1\4th of the budget of Kuttey, if not less. Despite the shortcomings of a small budget, independent funding, and a small, little-understood and underfed audience, Vaalvi is a far superior product […]
Readers Write In #540: 20 Years of Okkadu: The making of Mahesh Babu
January 16, 2023
By Aman Basha Watching the birth of the Prince and also, a damn good, nay, great movie Nostalgia is an underrated emotion in our lives. Human memory is often selective in how it chooses to recollect the past. We often forget the bad and remember mostly the good, wishing for “those days” again. We seek […]
Readers Write In #539: ‘Thunivu’ movie review: Screenwriting problems, star power solutions
January 12, 2023
By S Srivatsan, freelance critic Isn’t Ajith Kumar the obvious choice to play Panjurli, the character Rishabh Shetty played in Kantara, if ever Boney Kapoor decides to remake and produce it in Tamil? I was thinking about the roar of Kantara. There is one thing Ajith is really good at: roaring, which he thinks rhymes with good […]
Readers Write In #538: Dreams from the Cityscape
January 7, 2023
By Sudharsanan Sampath This is a film. Not a narrative film. But maybe a documentary? I don’t think it can be called a documentary. It is something. I’ve been living a very nomadic life, moving from town to town, city to city and country to country. I’ve always liked visiting and living in a big […]
Readers Write In #537: My journey with ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, from watcher to reader to writer
January 5, 2023
By Krishnaraj Sambath As a Watcher FDFS (my first ever!) on 30-Sep-2022, 6PM show in Houston, TX. There were 5 of us in total in the theatre, including my wife and 4-yr old son. (Not the ear-deafening paper-showering cinematic FDFS experience I was hoping for) As a Reader Why did I pick up this book? […]
Readers Write In #536: My favourite Hindi films of 2022
December 31, 2022
By Abhirup Mascharak Badhaai Do. Director: Harshvardhan Kulkarni. Hindi cinema has been tackling LGBT stories for a while now, and most of these films have woven their narratives around certain issues pertinent to the queer community: moral policing (Aligarh), coming out (Dear Dad), living at the intersection of queerness and other marginalized identities (Margarita with […]
Readers Write In #535: Love today…Wait, what love?
December 30, 2022
By Madhumithaa S Respectably enough, Pradeep Ranganathan’s Love Today begins with a disclaimer that no animals or birds were harmed in the making of the movie. Errrrrr…did he forget something? What about harming humans with this movie? I am so furious that I’m not sure about where to start, and how to go about. But, […]
Readers Write In #534: Balls of Steel
December 29, 2022
By Anonymous PART 1 – Houston, we have a problem! The period when you are 16-18 years old can be a harrowing phase in your life. There is not only a turmoil that is happening on the inside, but also a battle that is being waged on the outside. A period when every relative of yours is […]
Readers Write In #533: The Boy Who Cried Film
December 26, 2022
By Karthik Amarnath The Greatest Show on Earth, Cecile B. Demille’s lavish 1952 film about a grand traveling circus opens with these lines: We bring you the circus. The pied piper, whose magic tunes lead children of all ages, from 6 to 60, into a tinsel and spun-candy world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter, […]
Readers Write In #532: Ending of ‘Better Call Saul’ Explained
December 21, 2022
By Cholan Raje Jimmy is driven by a need for validation. Because of his life as a conman, the only people who ever loved and respected him were his parents and Marco. The relative scorn he received from everyone else always caused him to, in the back of his mind, have a low image of […]
Readers Write In #531: A few thoughts on ‘Goodbye’
December 15, 2022
By Raghu Narayanan The movie Goodbye starring Amitabh Bachchan, Rashmika Mandanna, Neena Gupta and Ashish Vidyarthi among others was released on 7th October. It bombed at the box office and went without making much noise. I watched it over the weekend on OTT and came off with mixed feelings. Some aspects about the movie impressed […]
Readers Write In #530: Kantara: A Socio-Ethical Perspective
December 12, 2022
By VS Shyam In the field of art, the more local you dive into, the more international your art will be. Kantara has become yet another testament to this assertion. One more similar biggie which made it to the international stage, was Karnan. The idea of stories based on folklore and the strong oppressing the […]
Readers Write In #529: Thoughts on GASLIGHT, RANGOON RADHA
December 8, 2022
By Vijaysree Venkataraman Gaslighting is the word of the year in 2022. According to the Merriam-Wester dictionary,the verb refers to the psychological manipulation of a person. Typically, the manipulation happens over a period of time and causes the victim to question the validity of their own perception of reality or memories.It often leads to “confusion, […]
Readers Write In #528: Thoughts on Love Today (Film)
December 8, 2022
By Don Corleone The film Love Today talks about the superficiality of romantic relationships among youngsters of the day. Point to be noted is that it entirely stays away from any sort of comparison with earlier generations’ relationships, which I feel is a positive. Another positive in the film I feel is its entertainment quotient: it scores […]
Readers Write In #527: Gold – An overlong and indulgent comedy that only shines in parts!
December 2, 2022
By Bharath Vijayakumar Like Naane Varuven earlier this year, we walk into Gold not knowing much about it. At least, Naane Varuven had a teaser, that kind of gave an idea on what to expect. In the case of Gold, even the teaser did not give anything away. But Alphonse had mentioned in his personal […]
Readers Write In #526: A ‘nauseating’ history, a memoir
November 29, 2022
By G Waugh aka Jeeva P This was the first time I was travelling in a bus that ventured into narrow, serpentine roads full of bends that were extremely sharp that the driver seemed to drivelike a Rajnikanth-replica in a 90s Tamil movie climax trying to dodge the villain’s tanker lorry that intentionally wanted to […]
Readers Write In #525: Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey- An obscene class narrative masquerading as gender rights story
November 20, 2022
By Sai Ganga R Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey is the latest entrant into the domestic abuse saga which have come up one too many off late. What differentiates the current crop of these movies from those of similar theme say of the 80’s is an element of black comedy that is peppered- This makes […]
Readers Write In #524: A translation of Jeyamohan’s ‘Sivam’
November 19, 2022
By Macaulay Perapulla Author’s Note: This is my maiden attempt to translate one of my favourite short stories of Jeyamohan. I submitted this short story to Mozhi Prize 2022 competition. Since this blog has a thriving community of Jeyamohan readers, I thought of publishing the story here as well. Any suggestions and feedback that will […]
Readers Write In #523: How fiction and non-fiction complemented each other in building my politics
November 14, 2022
By G Waugh aka Jeeva P Those who introduced me to reading were all people who had no prior experience in non-fiction. As a result, my early reading habit centred around nothing other than fiction. Jeffrey Archer, Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens were my first three authors. By this time (in 2011) when I […]
Baradwaj Rangan 
January 18, 2023
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