Monthly Review: June 2023
Bright sun and unexpected rains made me feel how unpredictable June is. I thought about writing this blog post’s introduction for some time but couldn’t. Let’s get into the blog post directly.
Movies
Vikram
I wanted to revisit these films: Eega, Rangasthalam, 1 Nenokkadine, and Vikram for a couple of months now, and I watched Vikram one Friday night. I thought to watch it until the interval that night and continue the film the following day as this isn’t the first time I’m watching it.
Once I started the movie, I was totally into it, and by no chance I stopped. I watched the whole movie and loved it more this time.
The film’s structure, the dialogues, and the scenes are filmed so brilliantly that I started admiring Lokesh Kanagaraj more. How can one be so confident that he brings the protagonist at the interval and runs the show without his screen presence until then? Amar (Fahadh) is us, the audience, trying to understand Vikram’s character and discover the truth behind his (fake) death.
Soon after re-watching the movie, I messaged a couple of friends with my renewed high after watching such a great film.
Every aspect of the film is just brilliant. During my first time watching, I had to watch it in Telugu on a not-so-good screen, and the impact wasn’t great. Good sound quality and watching films in their original language really matter :)
Kathal
I knew that a movie named Kathal was streaming on Netflix but didn’t watch it until Yitzhak mentioned it was good. The same night I watched the movie, it gave me good laughter.
One of the movies this year that took me by surprise. I want to write more about it but would like people to watch it amidst Boycott Bollywood calls. Interesting way of subtly dealing with gender bias, caste discrimination, and the stereotypical mindset of people.
Amavasya Chandrudu (Raja Paarvai)
Kamal’s 100th film as an actor, first as a producer, and one of the films for which he wrote the story. This is a good film and one of his best collaborations with Singeetham. I shared my thoughts on the movie here. Highly recommend watching this film.
Virupaksha
I watched Virupaksha on Netflix. I wish I had watched it in theaters, but anyway, I watched it on my laptop with good earphones on a Friday late at night. Although the screen was relatively smaller, the impact was huge. The makers made no mistake in taking us into the world. It’s organic, and the twists hit us at the right times, taking us right into the village where the story unfolds. Except for the climax, I liked this movie as a whole, and it is as honest as possible. Wish we get more movies as honest and rooted as this in Telugu cinema.
Love Today
After a long delay, I watched Love Today this week. Fun movie with good screenplay and editing. I watched Pradeep’s debut Comali at the time of its release and was looking forward to his second film. He touched on multiple topics today’s youth, especially girls, have to go through on social media because of creepy messages from people. I liked this movie from start to finish.
I sincerely wish he continues making movies with bigger stars with the same intent and effort.
Web Series
Scoop
I watched Hansal Mehta’s interviews and learned about his web series, Scoop, inspired by the life of Jigna Vora, an adaptation of her book Behind Bars in Byculla. Although they have adapted the book, there are a lot of scenes that are fictionalized, making the series interesting.
Hansal Mehta collaborated with Mrunmayee Lagoo to co-write this series, and he mentioned the collaboration was good, which is evident from the series. I liked this yet-again honest work of Hansal, without digressing from the core topic of highlighting the media trials on a person working in the media. All actors were good in their roles, cinematography, and music tried to make it as realistic as possible.
Books
Team Fyle came up with a Fitness challenge again, this time with a goal of completing 3,50,000 steps in 35 days, averaging 10,000 steps per day. And your boy finished it on time *pats on back*
Atomic Habits (Audiobook)
I listened to songs for some days, after which I realized I hadn’t read Atomic Habits for a long time, and it had been lying there on my bookshelf. I found the audiobook on Spotify and started listening to it while updating my colleague, Abhishek, about what I learned from the book every day.
Before even reading the chapter about Accountability partners, I had one — Abhishek was the one for the habit of writing anything every day and updating what I’ve read or listened to from Atomic Habits.
I’d recommend everyone to read this book, listen to this audiobook, or, worst case, read at least the book summary. A very profound book that shouldn’t be missed.
Nalagonda Kathalu (Audio Book)
I listened to the Nalagonda Kathalu audiobook on the Chaduvu app. Another good book that’s felt good when listened to instead of reading. The author of the book, Mallikarjun himself, narrated the book. It never felt like listening to an audiobook but speaking to a friend who’s narrating his life stories. I really felt happy after listening to his stories.
Akira Kurosawa’s autobiography
Now I’m reading Kurosawa’s Autobiography, and it’s very interesting. It’s fascinating to learn about their childhood in a Japanese Samurai family, his days as a student, and how he learned filmmaking while working at PCL. Completed half of the book so far, and looking forward to learning more about him and the scenario of Japan and films of his time.
Other stuff
I haven’t been traveling for a long time now, and it’s time to do it the right way…! I’m in Bengaluru, and we are heading to Goa! Let’s see how it goes :)
I’ve watched a couple of YouTube videos, and recommend you watch these two:
- John Wick director Chad breaking down the action sequences from John Wick Chapter 4
- Hansal Mehta’s conversation with Humans of Bombay
There are a couple of newsletters from Finshots that are interesting this month. It has been a good month with more than enough temperature and not enough rain yet!
I had good time meeting friends and family this month and we enjoyed a lot, had fun, and cherished memories.
I can’t even fathom that June has just passed by. Six months of 2023 are completed. Time to relook at the goals that we set for this year, maybe?
Until next time…
