Monthly Review: October 2023
I was looking forward to writing and publishing multiple blog posts in October but thought to experiment with writing everything in one blog post, i.e., this monthly blog post, instead of writing the individual ones.
Let’s get started with movies. I watched a good number of movies, in cinema and on streaming platforms.
Movies
Rocky Aur Rani ki Prem Kahani
I missed watching this movie in the theatres and was waiting for it to be out on Prime Video. This happens to be the first Karan Johar directorial film that I watched. This movie has conscious writing of characters like Ranveer, who plays the energetic Rocky. His flamboyance in the movie perhaps is inspired by his public appearances (leave the latest Koffee with Karan episode aside).
Though the story isn’t novel to us, the Telugu audience, the characters, and the conflict sparked my interest for me. Alia is flawless, although I couldn’t help but compare Rani with Piku (okay, Piku was better).
This movie was fun to watch and I laughed at almost all the jokes. I paused at some dialogues, laughed for some time, replayed them, and then continued watching the film. I’ve been watching these scenes repeatedly due to the performances of Ranveer, Alia, and Abhinav Sharma during their first meeting at Alia’s office and it is too funny. The scene with pop culture references like Rajamouli, President of India is also funny. Ranveer’s pronunciation made me laugh by pausing the scenes multiple times!
There’s grandeur to the film that is a treat to watch. Karan Johar really should write and direct movies often. Those songs blended well within the narrative and had amazing visuals too.
Coming to the lead pair, Alia and Ranveer, both are equally good. I love their pair, be it about an underdog story set in Mumbai or an ultra-rich, flamboyant movie set in Delhi. Their characters, the dialogue delivery, and their chemistry worked out well here and in Gully Boy.
Tora’s Husband
I heard the movie is good on social media and my friends discussed this movie during its theatrical run. There was only one show in Hyderabad, thankfully near my place and we went there to watch the film with a crowd of about 10.
I’ve not watched Rima Das’s previous movie, Village RockstaI rs but somehow thought to give it a try after knowing that she handled most of the crafts of this film — cinematography, editing, and production design apart from writing and directing the film.
Though the film took some time for me to get into, I felt good watching it. I was prepared that this film doesn’t have any commercial elements and felt like watching the life of a man, and his family.
Every character has their world and their problems. We empathize with every character. The kids’ scenes were good too, realistically written and performed. This is a film that needs our attention and patience from start to finish and doesn’t have anything that makes us shout or cheer. The conversations are natural and never felt like they are scripted and the actors read them out.
No Hard Feelings
Not a great movie as such but has a few laughs here and there.
Chinna (Telugu version of Chittha)
From the first look poster to every promotional material, the makers gave us a sneak peek of what the movie is going to be about and I was moved by Siddharth’s speech in Telugu pre-release event where he mentioned that no one came forward to release the film in Telugu.
I was already prepared for an emotional film and the story of the film pleasantly surprised me. It has multiple layers — about child safety, about an innocent getting accused, then taking turns finding the culprit and then revealing twists, how agitated people commit crimes to seek justice and the irony of men. It has a highly tense check-post scene where I was holding my breath all along.
I like this film and so far I think I’d rate this as one of the best films I watched this year.
Month of Madhu
A good soulful film, didn’t see the climax turning out the way it turned out to be. I was happy to have watched this film in the cinema. This movie is out on Aha soon. Keep an eye and I’d recommend watching this film.
Mark Anthony
I watched it only for SJ Surya’s performance. I’ve been a fan of his acting from Spyder and his wide range of characters and script selection amazes me. He played a savage don in this movie and it was a laugh riot throughout.
Vishal was equally good but my eyes were on SJS throughout.
Massive respect for portraying this wide range of characters — from a deadly psycho in Spyder to an innocent conformist in Monster to an eccentric lustful husband in Nenjam Marappathillai to a savage gangster in Mark Anthony — his eyes and body language add a layer to every character.
Leo
I watched Leo with utmost expectations on Lokesh. I became a fan of Loki after Vikram and still rate Vikram as one of my favorite films ever. Watching his interviews made me a fan of him because of his knowledge of craft, his humility, and his nature of completely accepting mistakes.
I had good expectations of Leo and watched the First Day show with friends. I was honestly disappointed. It’s not because of LCU/non-LCU. I always believed Lokesh’s strength is his plot and screenplay. With this movie, he has a wafer-thin storyline that’s not new to us. We have been seeing such stories for a long time.
And the not-so-interesting scenes in the second half also made my experience bad. I was satisfied with the first half and was expecting the second half to be even better.
The Coffee Shop fight scene with Mysskin’s gang was amazing and I was holding my breath while watching that scene. After that scene, the movie went downhill for me. I rate this as the weakest work of Lokesh so far. I sincerely hope he comes back with a solid film next.
“Doesn’t matter what happens to my career, Lokesh should do good!”
Killers of the Flower Moon
This happens to be my first ever Martin Scorsese movie to be watched in theaters. I loved the film. An 80-year-old man, with utmost passion, makes a more than 3-hour film about Native Americans and the way they were exploited should be admired. I’m compiling my thoughts on this movie and perhaps will share a detailed version of it soon.
Books
The Outsider
Last year I read a Telugu Novel called “Antharmukham” and was moved by it. I was surprised to know that the book was based on a novel called The Outsider by Albert Camus (originally in French).
I read the book, The Outsider this month. Reading this book felt like reading a memoir. The book reflects how people try to extrapolate the behavior of a person in one incident to his past and connect them even when the incidents are not related, and talks about the way we judge a person soon enough.
There’s a constant reference to the Sun and the heat in this book, and I felt the references were because of the way people perceive the same thing differently. In the morning, the sun’s rays are pleasant, and then they are harsh, and again, in the evening, it’s beautiful. The protagonist in the story has this kind of relationship with the Sun, and he commits a murder not because of a grudge against that person but because of how the Sun changes his mood and makes him kill the Arab.
Okay, there are scenes in the book that reminded me of Sapta Saagaraache Ello. I’m not sure if Hemanth M Rao (director of SSE) ever read this book and was inspired by this in parts.
Directors Diaries
Soon after finishing The Outsider, I looked on the bookshelf and found an interesting book “Directors Diaries” by Rakesh Anand Bakshi. Unknowingly I laid hands on the Directors Diaries Part 2, and besides that, the first part was there. I checked the list of directors who were interviewed for this book and found Santosh Sivan there.
I’ve been a fan of his cinematography. Although I know that he directed a few films, I’ve not watched any of them. I started reading his conversation with the author.
After Santosh Sivan, I started reading about Vishal Bhardwaj. The conversation is good. Vishal talks about how he collaborates with cinematographers, production designers, and editors while working on films why he works with different cinematographers, and about Sreekar Prasad bringing in a new perspective during a film edit without knowing anything about the film.
He also mentions that he wants the audience to question the film, the society, and the filmmaker while watching a film.
I read the conversations with these filmmakers — Santosh Sivan, Vishal Bhardwaj, Zoya Akthar, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Imtiaz Ali, and others. I named these filmmakers because I read about them so far. I’ll compile my learnings and share them.
Other things
Coming to an activity I’m happy about myself — practicing Yoga regularly. I enrolled in Cult Fit and have been attending Yoga classes. It has been great so far and I look forward to continuing this journey for more days to come. As I have been working from home for the last 3 years, I decided I should be focusing on my body and treat it respectfully.
I’ve been either visiting the cult center or whenever the time doesn’t allow me owing to office meetings or anything, I’m doing Yoga from my home using Cult Home. This has been great for me and I’m trying to show up 5 days a week.
Yesterday, I watched a play called “Tit for Tat” written by Jhansi at Rangabhoomi, Hyderabad. It was great, and the auditorium was housefull. I was laughing, reflecting, feeling emotional, and agitated in that 1 hour.
I’ve also met good people this month and had deep and lengthy conversations with them. Amulya, Srividya, Kartikeya, Yogi Anna, Eshwar, Vinod, Charan, and Sruthi — it feels good making new friends and getting to know many things.
Coming to the songs, I’ve been listening to a song called “Ranjish Hi Sahi” these days, thanks to Srividya. There are a few versions of the song performed/sung by different singers but I’ve been listening to Hariharan’s version here:
And this song from Leo:
October was good, and I hope November turns out well too! Hopefully, I write more blog posts in November 🙂
