Monthly Review: April 2023
I am writing this blog, the monthly review of April on 1st May 2023. Every month, I made it a point to write and publish this on the last day of the month, but this time, as I was travelling, I couldn’t do it. Treat this as a lame excuse, and let’s start with how I spent my April.
Movies
Manichitrathazhu
My friend Nikhil Gowtham suggested that I watch this movie during our college days. As I have seen its remake version, Chandramukhi, I wasn’t too interested in watching this movie. This month, I started watching the movie and equally liked it.
Manichitrathazhu doesn’t have over-the-top scenes, and it is realistic. The performances, set up, dialogues, everything doesn’t seem filmy. I like this movie as much as I liked Chandramukhi.
Shobhana is beautiful ❤
An Action Hero
This Ayushman Khurana’s movie didn’t do well at the box office. After releasing in Netflix, this movie was trending for some days, and it caught my attention then. I watched it this month, and laughed out loud in some scenes.
This is a dark comedy with a satire on our status quo. The media going gaga over the Film Industry is depicted accurately, and the scenes cracked me up. It has good performances, especially from Ayushman, Jaideep, and Neeraj Madhav. The background score and cinematography are good too!
Although the movie takes unpredictable turns in the beginning, it feels all over the place, and I found it difficult to be engaged towards the end, though I found the entire film pacy and hilarious.
They used silence in crucial scenes, adding up to the intensity of the performances. A good watch.
Romancham
One of my friends, Pruthvi, watched this movie with his friends and suggested that I watch it with friends in the theatres to get the maximum experience of it. Though I didn’t watch it the way he suggested, the experience was the same. I watched it all alone, on my laptop, and was laughing like a kid in the middle of the night.
I wasn’t aware of anything about the movie before watching it and was thoroughly surprised. Even though I wasn’t satisfied with the ending of the movie (they don’t provide closure), the announcement of the sequel is making me wait eagerly for it. This film is one of the highest profitable ventures in the Malayalam industry.
Go for it without reading anything about the movie to get surprised.
Okkadunnadu
I watched this movie several times already. But on days when I want to rewatch it, I won’t hesitate. I opened YouTube on my mobile phone and started watching it all over again. It still feels fresh, engaging, and thrilling. Yeleti sir, please please please…
Documentary
I finished the three-part documentary on Quentin Tarantino on YouTube by Kolo Kino. It’s interesting to know about his formative years, approach to movies, and writing. A good watch.
Web Series
This month, I watched two web series — Khakee: The Bihar Chapter on Netflix and Rocket Boys on Sony Liv.
Khakee: The Bihar Chapter
I watched this series on the weekend and felt good that the portrayal is as realistic as possible without taking much liberty. It didn’t have adrenaline rush moments and was a decent watch. Appreciate Neeraj Pandey’s efforts in bringing the cop stories to OTT in a web series format.
The reason I watched this series now is totally random. I had an opened tab on my mobile Google Chrome and found an unread article about the police officer Amit Lodha, whose book this series is adapted to. In order to read the article, I watched the entire series :)
The series highlights the intervention of politics in the work of police officers and how their work is hampered when the tables turn.
Rocket Boys
This series is loosely based on the stories of two great Indian Scientists, Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai. However, I knew about them but wasn’t aware of their contributions in detail. I liked this series. Will write a separate blog on my thoughts while and after watching this series.
Books
I’ve been reading “Screenplay” by Syd Field this month. This book is worth reading to know specific things’ structure, format, and importance while writing a screenplay. I’ll finish reading the book this month and write about it soon. Hopefully, this book knowledge also helps me while writing stories.
Aside from this, I’ve not read other books. Will read 1–2 Telugu books this month as they are lying on the shelf waiting for me to pick them.
Blogs:
I’ve been writing about my travel experience in Rajasthan and published two blogs: Jaipur and Jaisalmer. Will publish the remaining blogs soon.
Travel
I was travelling during the last 6 days of the month. I went to attend a colleague’s (Shishira) wedding in Sagara, Karnataka. Will write about it separately with the places we covered, things we did, and a lot of conversations we had :)
Interviews
I watched these two conversations with Baradwaj Rangan and found them interesting:
- Interview with Murugadoss
- Interview with Mani Ratnam and AR Rahman
The combination of MR and ARR wasn’t expected, and no person could be better than BR to interview them. I loved how they collaborated and the lesser-known funny nature of ARR.
I’m yet to watch Vidudhalai so that I can watch the interview of BR with Vetri, Gautam, and Rajiv Menon on YouTube titled “Director’s Cut.”
Songs
Last month, I realised I didn’t add the songs I was listening to in my blog. To compensate, I’m adding a playlist that I’ve been listening to for the last two months and an album that I was listening to in April. Here we go:
Oh wait, the entire PS-2 album is beautiful. I loved the songs. I’ve not watched the movie yet, but I will watch it soon.
I’m rushing to publish this blog to continue the ritual. I don’t think this is edited properly.
Anyways, April was too hot to handle. I did a few things to not care much about the rising temperatures and mentioned the list above.
Take care of yourselves amidst the hot summers.
Until next time, with another blog post…
