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Showing posts from 2019

Yajamana: A Spectacular Language Divide Allegory Ruined By The VIP Treatment

I’ve read several reviews of the latest (?) Darshan starrer Yajamana, but none of them got the point of the movie. I think this is the first movie to have suffered such an ill fate solely based on the collective inability of the reviewers to grasp the crux of the film. It is an intelligent movie. Probably the most intelligent one since A, or Upendra. I guess people just brushed this movie off as a shallow, no brains mass entertainer based on the cast and crew.   It’s as if a small group of people managed to change the perception of a movie among the larger masses with their power of social influence.   It’s like watching a Nolan movie in real time. Yes, on a surface level, the movie ticks all the tropes in an average Darshan movie. Where Darshan rides a Bullet, low angle shots of him make him look like a bull (in a good way, don’t lynch me), there are two heroines- a mod one and a gowramma one. There’s a “special song” with the modern female lead. And the act...

Men can cook: Tomato Palav

Some people call this tomato bath. The same people also call tomato chitranna as tomato bath. Well, which is it? Make up yer goddamn mind! But what are names anyway? Just meaningless sounds associated with meaningful gizantropitals. See, that’s a name I just made up. It means nothing.   But I digress.   Wash and soak a cup of rice in water for about 20 minutes. You can go all fancy and soak basmati rice. Or you can soak whatever is lying around the house as long as it is rice. In a pressure cooker, dribble a table spoon of oil and same quantity of ghee. Fry some whole spices till they are fragrant.  Cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks, peppercorn, fennel, whatever. Add 3-4 split green chilles, two thinly sliced onions, a couple of pods of chopped garlic and a table spoon of ginger garlic paste. This is also a good time to add a handful of mint leaves and coriander. Fry till the onions are translucent/ golden brown/ until you are happy. Then add 3-4 ch...

Shoot ‘Em Up!- a kinda-sorta review

A post Matrix, post Children of Men, and pre John Wick movie that combines the best of all three worlds to give you a heady concoction style, glamour, action, and boobies. Roger Ebert gave this movie 3.5/ 4. “There once was a woman who was quite begat.   She had three babies named Nat, Pat, and Tat.   She said it was fun in the breeding,  but found it was hell in the feeding   when she saw there was no tit for Tat.”   Shoot ‘Em Up is not for the purists- either of cinema or of action. It’s pure madness on celluloid in its truest form. It doesn’t have the emotional anchor of John Wick. It tries to, it really does, but it fails short because we just don’t really give a fuck about the protagonist. Not even when we learn why he turned into a brooding, man of serious demeanour (?)- supposedly supposed to make us care for his sad past. Then there’s the style of the Matrix. It’s been done to death, especially in the time when...