Recent Posts

• Readers Write In #412: Kaalathai thindra gadigaram
• Readers Write In #411: The six-sense monster
• Arisil Moorthy’s scattered ‘Raame Aandalum Raavane Aandalum’ (Mithun Manickam, Ramya Pandian, Vani Bhojan) equates good intentions with good filmmaking
• BR blog-reader Zoom meet
• My interview on Scribble Arts Studio
• Ranjith Sankar’s ‘Sunny’ (Jayasurya) is a gently moving drama that equates COVID-related solitude with a man’s isolation from his own life
• Interview: Sekhar Kammula (‘Dollar Dreams’ to ‘Love Story’)
• Readers Write In #410: Pillaiyar Suzhi
• Interview: Naga Chaitanya (‘Love Story’)
• Readers Write In #409: Yuvan-ai Pol Oruvan
• Readers Write In #408: A story of a 90’s kid
• Deepak Sundarrajan’s ‘Annabelle Sethupathi’ (Vijay Sethupathi, Taapsee Pannu) is a ghost-comedy that’s truly ghastly
• Ananda Krishnan’s ‘Kodiyil Oruvan’ (Vijay Antony, Aathmika) has a promising story that’s let down by a disastrous screenplay
• Manu Ashokan’s ‘Kaanekkane’ (Suraj Venjaramoodu, Tovino Thomas, Aishwarya Lekshmi) is a lovely examination of human frailty in the guise of a detective thriller
• Nithin Lukose’s powerful ‘Paka’, world-premiering at Toronto Intl. Film Festival, pushes Romeo and Juliet to the background and brings the violence to the fore
• Interview: Vijay Antony (‘Kodiyil Oruvan’)
• Readers Write In #407: Emma Raducanu the ultimate fairytale tennis story
• Interview: Vijay (A spoilery deep dive into the art of dramatising JJ’s life)
• Readers Write In #406: Why Nehru was a horrible “founding father”
• Shiva Nirvana’s ‘Tuck Jagadish’, with Nani and Ritu Varma, is an underwhelming count-the-clichés exercise
• Karthik Yogi’s ‘Dikkiloona’, with Santhanam, is a time-travel comedy/drama that really tests your patience
• Delhi Prasad Deenadayal’s okayish ‘Tughlaq Durbar’, with Vijay Sethupathi and Parthiban, has a great premise that needed an equally great screenplay to exploit its potential
• SP Jananathan’s ‘Laabam’, with Vijay Sethupathi and Shruti Haasan, is a disappointing series of lectures disguised as a movie
• Tanglish Talks: Darkness
• In ‘Thalaivii’, writer KV Vijayendra Prasad and Vijay refashion the Jayalalithaa story into a solid mythical melodrama, starring Kangana Ranaut and Arvind Swami
• Interview: Vijay Sethupathi (‘Laabam’,’Annabelle Sethupathi’,’Tughlaq Durbar’)
• Interview: Kangana Ranaut (‘Thalaivi’, plus her acting process)
• My interview on Usha Rajeswari Thiagarajan’s series Reel & Real Characters (unsurprisingly, I picked ‘Nayakan’)
• Readers Write In #405: A note on KBC 13
• Interview: Pa Ranjith (FRONT ROW, with Anupama Chopra, plus audience Q and A)
• Readers Write In #404: Kaakha Kaakha – The lesser known struggles of a cop
• Interview: Arvind Swamy (Project Agni, Raudram, Thalaivi)
• Readers Write In #403: How the govt of Namboodirpad was toppled by Nehru and Indira and the Cong ecosystem
• Readers Write In #402: Kamal Haasan’s inconsistencies
• Interview: Noel Kirthiraj, co-founder and CEO of MAAJJA (on the Arivu, Rolling Stone controversies)
• Chimbu Deven’s ‘Kasada Thapara’, on SonyLiv, is a hyperlink movie with clever little concepts that needed stronger writing
• Readers Write In #401: What Reading means to me
• Tanglish Talks: The cleanse
• Readers Write In #400: Lessons from a Grandmother to her Grandchildren
• In Don Palathara’s superb ‘Everything Is Cinema’, on MUBI, we see how much of life and cinema can be explored in a mere 70 minutes.
• Interview: Ravi K Chandran (Masterclass on Cinematography)
• Rathindran R Prasad’s ‘Boomika’, on Netflix, with Aishwarya Rajesh, is beautifully thought-out and mounted, but hampered by very ordinary writing
• Readers Write In #399: The Good vs Good fight in Vince Gilligan’s works
• Readers Write In #398: A Rooftop Conversation
• Readers Write In #397: Bell Bottom is one heck of a ride
• Rojin Thomas’s ‘#Home’, on Amazon Prime, with Indrans and Sreenath Bhasi, has its moments but not enough to justify its contrivances and bloated running time
• #AskBR – Missing theatres? Or used to OTT?
• Readers Write In #396: Streaming my Consciousness
• Interview: Pawan Kumar (‘Lucia’, ‘Kudi Yedamaithe’)
• Milind Rau’s ‘Netrikann’, on Disney Hotstar, is a solid genre thriller with Nayanthara’s most committed performance in ages