Blog | Amodini's Movie Reviews - Part 16Amodini's Movie Reviews | Movie Reviews by Year, Genre and Rating

Series Review : Indian Matchmaking (Season 1)

Posted on July 20, 2020 by amodini

Rating : 4.2/5
Genre : Contemporary
Year : 2020
Episodes : 8
Running time : 35 minutes (per episode)
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Director : Smriti Mundhra
Cast : Sima Taparia
Kid rating : G

The big fat Indian wedding has been immortalized in many, many Bollywood films. A lot of them are love stories which end up with band-baaja-baarat – colorful, vibrant, energetic shaadis with music, dancing and good food; a natural crowd-puller and great for the TRPs. Recently Amazon Prime cashed in on this phenomena with the very successful (and non-reality) “Made In Heaven” – about 2 wedding planners planning expensive weddings for the richie-rich (where is Season 2 btw?). So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we now have Netflix streaming a reality show based on the arranged marriage.

It goes thusly – Sima Taparia is a matchmaker traipsing across India and the US meeting “girls” and “boys” and gathering “biodatas”. After meeting her clients and their mummies and daddies Sima suggests potential matches – girl and boy meet, and if it clicks there is the shehnai etc. If not, no harm done, Sima simply offers more options, and we move on.

Weddings are nice and all, but the real oomph of the show comes from the matrimony-seeking candidates. Director Mundhra does a great job of bringing out personalities, and luckily there are a couple of folks we can root for. It is also interesting to see the reactions and views of all the folks surrounding the candidates – the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc – because in true-blue desi fashion everyone’s involved in choosing the one.

The show is very realistic – this is actually how it is. Every one really does want a tall, fair and slim girl, as Taparia comments wryly. You get a good dose of patriarchal desi mores. There’s independent-minded Ankita who’s having a hard time netting a good one – and is told by the matchmaker that she needs to be “flexible” and ready for “compromise”. And then there’s Akshay who has several women and their families vying for the match even though he says “My mom is literally what I want to be looking at in my wife.”

Twitter is abuzz and there are already memes galore about Indian Matchmaking. It is a hit, as it should be. It is engrossing, slick and well-made, and offers up reality with a dollop of good humor. I loved the HGTV – House Hunters style requirement listings for the desired candidate 🙂 bulleted and everything! I wish that Indian Matchmaking had taken some of the stories to completion instead of just hinting at marital bliss, but possibly we’ll get closure in the future seasons.

Highly recommended.

Posted in 2020, directors, family-friendly, humor, Netflix Recommendations, rating-G, real-life-based, recommended, touchy-feely, WhaTWON, women | Comments Off

What To Watch on Netflix and Prime Video – Edition #37

Posted on July 11, 2020 by amodini

– Bulbbul (Netflix, 1 hour 34 minutes, Tripti Dimri, Rahul Bose)

What’s with Anushka Sharma and the supernatural 🙂 ? After producing and acting in Pari, Sharma returns with Bulbbul, a historical tale featuring a chudail (witch).

Bulbbul is about an hour and a half of well-done, nicely layered drama about Bulbbul, a girl married off as a child-bride into the wealthy home of a zamindar. Her much older husband (Rahul Bose, whom I last remember from Dil Dhadakne Do) loves her but wants the now young, lovely, lissome Bulbul (Tripti Dimri) to focus solely on him. Poor Bulbbul!

– Axone (Netflix, 1 hour 36 minutes, Sayani Gupta, Vinay Pathak)

Upasana (Sayani Gupta, of Article 15 fame) and Chambi want to throw a party for their friend Minam’s wedding, complete with the cooking of the traditional Axone pork stew. The problem is that the stew has an unpleasant smell and will definitely cause problems with the landlady of their New Delhi apartment (played by the marvelous Dolly Ahluwalia).

While Axone has some comedic elements and is touted as a comedy in the teaser below, its strength is in the thoughtful portrayal of life for folks from the north-eastern states. There is the subtle and the overt racism they face, the casually dropped “hindi-chini bhai-bhai”, the constant othering “tum jaise log” and the overt violence. Axone ends on a happy note, ultimately focussing on the unity amid the diversity and the innate goodness of people.

– Choked (Netflix, 1 hour 54 minutes, Saiyami Kher, Amruta Subhash)

Saiyami Kher and Amruta Subhash (of Gully Boy fame) star in Anurag Kashyap’s tense thriller about a young working woman who finds an unexpected income source.

Kher, who debuted in the unfortunate Mirzya opposite Harshvardhan Kapoor, is transformed here as the relatively non-glamorous Sarita Pillai, a middle-class married bank employee with an unemployed husband Sushant (Roshan Matthew). Always strapped for cash and hounded by her husband’s creditors, Sarita takes the money when it appears (literally) before her. After all, who will find out?

Choked has an unpredictable storyline, some very nice acting, but still manages to appear desultory – and that for a Kashyap film. From Kashyap, I’d expected more oomph, drums thrumming, a tight build-up to the explosive climax, but Kashyap underdoes it. So the film is an interesting watch, if a little insipid.

Posted in 2020, All Netflix, Amazon Prime Video Recommendations, bollywood, directors, drama, Hindi movies on Amazon Prime, Hindi movies on Netflix, horror, humor, lists, mini-reviews, mystery, Netflix Recommendations, period film, quirky, social issues, suspense | Comments Off

Movie Preview : Shakuntala Devi (releases July 31st, 2020)

Posted on July 5, 2020 by amodini

Shakuntala Devi will premiere on Amazon Prime on the 31st of July. The film is directed by Anu Menon and stars Vidya Balan, Amit Sadh and Sanya Malhotra (whom we saw in Badhaai Ho).

Director Menon also helmed Waiting (availabale on Netflix currently) starring Naseeruddin Shah and Kalki Koechlin. Honestly, Waiting was no great shakes; hopefully Menon does better with Shakuntala Devi.

Posted in 2020, bollywood, drama, Hindi movies on Amazon Prime, New Bollywood Movies, New Films, Previews, women | Comments Off

Movie Review : Gulabo Sitabo (2020)

Posted on June 13, 2020 by amodini

Rating : 2.8/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2020
Running time : 2 hours 4 minutes
Director : Shoojit Sircar
Cast : Amitabh Bachchan, Ayushmann Khurana, Vijay Raaz, Brijendra Kala, Srishti Srivastav, Farrukh Jaffer
Kid rating : PG

Gulabo Sitabo was highly anticipated given that we are stuck indoors, the movie theaters are closed, and there aren’t any new Hindi films releasing. So the release of this film on Prime was wonderful – or at least that’s what I thought until I’d seen it :). Not that I wish it were any different; I hope many more films start releasing on streaming platforms.

Anyway, Gulabo Sitabo is about 2 hours long and has Amitabh as old, doddering Mirza Chunnan Nawab, landlord of Fatima Mahal, a similarly old, decrepit haveli in Lucknow. There are 5 families renting rooms at the haveli, with Baanke (Ayushman Khurana) and his family paying the lowest rent – a measly Rs 30 per month. Mirza and Baankey are forever at odds with each other – the former wishes to increase rent or evict Baanke and his family, and the latter is just as adamant at not giving an inch. When one of their altercations involves a police complaint, other predators get a whiff of the matter. The haveli does stand on prime land.

Gulabo Sitabo is a quaint tale – almost like a slightly more complicated and contemporized Aesop’s fable. Even though the film mainly features Mirza and Baanke, the most interesting characters were the Begum (Mirza’s wife) played magnificently by Jaffer and the feisty Guddo (Baanke’s younger sister) beautifully portrayed by Shrivastava – we also saw her as Albina in Gully Boy. Amitabh, as Mirza, does well, although he in inconsistent. He has a large, bulbous prosthetic nose, wrinkled skin and a stooped walk. The stoop is sometimes more, sometimes less. Still, his character is the one I feel most sympathy for, alone and almost friendless. Ayushman is fantastic as always as paunchy, uneducated shop-keeper Baanke, trying to keep his household of mother and sisters happy.

The haveli is old and grimy but still looks gorgeous – the cinematography and the saturated hues are spectacular. The film does the milieu thing well – the characters, locales and language seems realistic. It is humorous in places, flat in others. It is also very, very slow-paced – its biggest downfall. Its got sympathetic characters but their plight and/or anguish is not portrayed well. We feel for them, but not that much. As a result the film is just about alright, and never rises above that. Gulabo Sitabo does have a great cast – Khurana, Vijay Raaz, Brijendra Kala and Srishti Srivastava and much of the credit for the film’s even middling rating goes to them.

Gulabo Sitabo is about average. Shoojit Sircar cannot make this film light up with the spark of say, a Piku.

Kidwise: Clean. Sexual situations are implied, not shown on-screen.

Posted in 2020, bollywood, directors, drama, family-friendly, Hindi movies on Amazon Prime, rating-PG, watchable | Comments Off

Movie Review : Mulk (2018)

Posted on June 6, 2020 by amodini

Rating : 4/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2018
Running time : 2 hours 20 minutes
Director : Anubhav Sinha
Cast : Rishi Kapoor, Manoj Pahwa, Neena Gupta, Rajat Kapoor, Prateik Babbar, Kumud Mishra, Prachi Desai
Kid rating : PG-13

Retired lawyer Murad Ali Muhammed (Kapoor) lives in a joint household with his and his brother’s families. He is well-liked and respected in his Varanasi neighborhood but all that changes when his nephew Shahid (Babbar) is accused of terrorism and the entire family is suspected of aiding and abetting him.

Mulk quickly transforms into a courtroom battle where Murad comes out of retirement to defend his brother Bilal who is the main accused. However when the public prosecutor names Murad as accused too, his Hindu daughter-in-law Aarti (Pannu) must take on the onerous task of proving his innocence.

Mulk is a moving tale and raise important questions. It questions religious prejudice, and the “Us vs Them” mentality. When the public prosecutor frames his argument to blame the entire Muslim community in lieu of tangible evidence, Murad and Aarti must come up with ways to counteract his assertions and prove Murad’s love for his Hindu-majority country.

Rishi Kapoor portrays real anguish in some of his scenes as he underscores Murad’s right to live in his secular country and practice his religion as a peace-loving citizen. Pannu shoulders the bulk of the film’s seconds-half as the lone Hindu family member, aghast to see her peace-loving family accused of heinous intentions. Manoj Pahwa, often relegated to comedy in films is very good in his serious role as Murad’s younger brother Bilaal, and like always it is a treat to watch Neena Gupta on screen. Kumud Mishra, even his his small, understated role as Judge Harish Madhok, shines delivering wry remarks and witticisms.

Director Sinha tackles hard subjects in his films (Article 15, Thappad) and Mulk is no different, although it is not his finest work by any measure. It is a little disappointing to see the ham-handedness of the courtroom scenes, where Ashutosh Rana, an accomplished actor, plays a perpetually smirking zealot who trots out over-the-top theatrics with his (dumb) arguments. Still Mulk is an important film, and a must-watch.

Kidwise: Some depictions of violence.

Posted in 2018, bollywood, directors, drama, rating-PG13, recommended | Comments Off

What To Watch On Netflix and Prime Video – Edition #36

Posted on May 30, 2020 by amodini

– Safe (Netflix, Series)

A British TV series created by author Harlan Coben, Safe is about widower Dr. Tom Delaney who’s 16 year old daughter Jenny suddenly goes missing. While searching for her Tom uncovers many surprising secrets of so-called friends. Caught up in a web of lives, he isn’t quite sure whom to trust.

This 8 episode series (approx 45 minutes each) is fast paced, suspenseful and keeps you hooked.

– Unorthodox (Netflix, Series)

Esther Shapiro, a young woman of the orthodox Hasidic Jewish community, in New York, flees to Berlin, hoping to leave her past behind. The Hasidic community is distraught and appalled at Esther’s willful disappearance, and dispatches Yanky, her husband of 1 year, and his street-smart cousin Moishe to find and bring her back. Esther, though, has other ideas.

This poignant, 4 episode series is based on author Deborah Feldman’s book about leaving the Hasidic sect.

– Ladies Up (Netflix, Comedy Special)

This hour long special features 4 female comics: Prashasti Singh (whom you might remember from Comicstan), Kaneez Surka (who was a judge on Comicstaan), Nivedita Prakasam and Supriya Joshi. All bring their unique perspectives on comedy from the female point of view. I like Prashasti’s set the most (thought she was pretty promising even on Comicstaan), then Nivedita’s, Kaneez and Supriya.

We should have more of these!

Posted in 2020, All Netflix, drama, english, humor, mini-reviews, Netflix Recommendations, recommended, suspense, WhaTWON, women | Comments Off

Series Review : Paatal Lok (Season 1)

Posted on May 24, 2020 by amodini

Rating : 4.2/5
Genre : Mystery/Suspense
Year : 2020
Episodes : 9
Running time : 45 minutes (per episode)
Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime
Directors : Prosit Roy, Avinash Arun
Cast : Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Gul Panag, Neeraj Kabi, Abhishek Banerjee, Niharika Lyra Dutt, Swastika Mukherjee, Rajesh Sharma, Anup Jalota
Kid rating : R, A

Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary (Ahlawat) lands a big case – a rare thing for him, since his career has stagnated at the Outer Jamuna Par police station, forever mired in the petty crimes of what he calls “Paatal Lok” (Hell/The Underworld), while his sycophantic juniors rise to higher positions. You feel for the poor sod.

Determined to make this the case that will garner him the promotions, Hathi Ram leaves no stone unturned in the investigation. Even as he is making headway, the case is yanked from him and handed over to the CBI, and he is suspended over a minor incident. It all looks pretty suspicious and Hathi Ram, inspite of dire warnings and threats, can’t let go.

Paatal Lok is a first-class mystery, red-herrings everywhere. It’s well-made, features an underdog as the hero, a great cast and some fantastic story-telling. Although there are many characters and many different threads which come together to make this story, kudos to the directors for keeping everything clear and coherent. Paatal Lok is very well-layered, new facts come to light as the layers unravel. I especially liked how various bits and pieces fit together in an almost flashback like fashion – we might see a fragment of a scene before and it seems innocuous then, but the narrative winds back to it later giving it a whole new significance. The series is beautifully paced; the suspense is constant and keeps you hooked.

Paatal Lok has it’s milieu down pat – it feels realistic and authentic. Via Hathi Ram’s investigations and his deep dives into criminal pasts, it weaves into its story the various ills of Indian society – the caste system, religious violence and bias, classism, corruption, sexism and the poor treatment of women. It doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable depictions either – there is gory violence (think hammers), rape, and paedophilia; the portrayal is brutal and often, very sudden.

The series is what it is because of it’s two main characters – Chaudhry and Ansari – very different people, but both striving to rise above their upbringing and social environment to do the right thing. Jaideep Ahlawat is fabulous as Chaudhry. It is wonderful to see actors like Ahlawat finally get prime-time roles – and we probably have the advent of Netflix and Amazon Prime to thank for that. I remember Ahlawat ‘s good work in Gangs of Wasseypur and Raazi but he truly comes into his own as the harried, put-upon, under-appreciated cop who won’t give up. Ishwak Singh is another find. As Imran Ansari,the well-educated English-speaking junior Inspector he is the perfect foil to Ahlawat’s gruff-mannered Haryanvi Chaudhry.

The husband and I breezed through the addictive first season of Paatal Lok in one sitting, breaking only for food and the bathroom. A very well-spent Saturday. May there be many more!

Kidwise: Depictions of bloody violence, rape, sexual situations and nudity.

Posted in 2020, Amazon Prime Video Recommendations, crime, directors, drama, outstanding, rating-A, rating-R, recommended, social issues, suspense, thriller, underdog angle | Comments Off

Rishi Kapoor: Films to remember him by

Posted on May 10, 2020 by amodini

Two great film actors are no more. One was Irrfan Khan, whom I talked about in my last blog post, and the second was Rishi Kapoor. Even though Rishi had acted as a child artiste in some films, he debuted as a hero with Dimple Kapadia in “Bobby”. He was 21, she was 16. Bobby was iconic, I still remember that scene where a really, really young Dimple (she pays the titular character Bobby Braganza) opens the door to Raja (Rishi’s character) hand innocently going to push back hair from her face, smearing it with food.

Rishi was 67, had a career spanning 50 years in which he acted in more than 150 films. Here a few of my favorite Rishi Kapoor films:

– Kabhie Kabhie (1976)

Even though Rishi acted with most of the actresses of his heyday, his most successful pairing was with the peppy Neetu Singh who later became his wife. The two played romantic couples in Kabhie Kabhie, Khel Khel Main, Doosara Aadmi, Rafoo Chakkar and many others. Most of their films featured outstanding, evergreen music.

– Prem Rog (1982)

Prem Rog starred Rishi Kapoor and Padmini Kolhapure (who was then 17). Rishi played a poor man who falls in love with the rich Thakur’s daughter. She gets married off to another man but soon become a widow and suffers much ill-treatment because of the traditional stigma attached to widowhood.

– Chandni (1989)

Chandni stars Sridevi, Rishi and Vinod Khanna in a love triangle that only Bollywood can cook up and do so well. There was angsty love (class differences), twists and turns and this being a Yash Raj production – Switzerland, gorgeous locales and fields of flowers.

– Kapoor & Sons (2016)

In Kapoor & Sons, Rishi played an aging patriarch who wants to see his fractured family come together before he dies. Rishi transformed into a wrinkly old man with some makeup magic, and played the feisty, young-at-heart geriatric with panache. This feel-good film also starred Alia Bhatt, Siddharth Malhotra and Fawad Khan.

– Mulk (2018)

Directed by Anubhav Sinha (of Article 15 fame), Mulk featured Rishi Kapoor as Murad Ali Mohammed a Varanasi-based lawyer. When Murad’s nephew Shahid (Prateik Babbar) gets involved with terrorists, the police come knocking at the joint family’s door. As the police attempt to implicate Murad and his family for Shahid’s doing, Murad must prove his love for his mulk (country).

Posted in 2020, bollywood, lists, RIP | Comments Off

Irrfan Khan: 5 Great Films

Posted on May 3, 2020 by amodini

Irrfan Khan passed away this week at the young age of 53. There are few actors who grace the screen quite as he did. It is an immense loss. He starred in a number of movies both Indian and international, but here are a few of my favorite Irrfan Khan films:

The Lunchbox

Ritesh Batra’s Lunchbox is in a class by itself. The film has very few main characters and they are ordinary people busy in their humdrum lives, but convey so much with their understated actions, the sighs and the glances, the thinking before the doing. Little tragedies sprung upon when doing the mundane work of one’s life, the washing of laundry, the cooking of food.

The story made the heart-strings twang, and the film conveyed the emotions so beautifully. Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur played the unlikely friends in this hopeful, engrossing, immersive tale.

Maqbool

This is of the time long long ago when we actually looked forward to director Vishal Bharadwaj’s movies, confident in our knowledge that his brilliant storytelling would blow us away. For this particular retelling of Macbeth, Bharadwaj chose Irrfan Khan to play the titular role of Maqbool.

Pankaj Kapoor played crime boss Abbaji (Lord Duncan), and Tabu played his mistress, Nimmi. Nimmi and Maqbool are secretly in love, and Nimmi convinces Maqbool to follow her diabolical plan to make her his. Bloodshed and mayhem follow.

Dday

DDay featured Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor, both of whom passed away this past week – Kapoor as notorious criminal Iqbal Seth aka Goldman and Khan as undercover RAW agent Wali Khan trying to nab him.

The film was beautifully wrought, and stunningly paced. The music was fabulous. But then it was the acting – there was Huma Qureshi, Arjun Rampal, Aakash Dahiya and above all Irrfan Khan – which made the film what it is.

Haasil

Boy meets girl but then there’s the villain who will have none of it – he wants the girl all to himself. Irrfan Khan played the bad guy Rannvijay Singh with such understated malevolence, that you were afraid for the hero. Tigmanshu Dhulia directed Haasil and Jimmy Shergill and Hrishita Bhatt featured in it. Khan starred.

Piku

This is another tale of unlikely romance. There’s Bhashkor (the father), Piku (the daughter) and Rana (the local taxi-driver/business owner).

The father is cantankerous, the daughter sharp with words and the golden-hearted taxi-driver the patient voice of reason. Irrfan Khan is magnificent here – dealing with this hard-to-handle father-daughter pair in his wry, winsome way. Pike was lovely, and Khan was lovelier.

Posted in 2020, Amazon Prime Video Recommendations, Best hindi movies, bollywood, drama, Hindi movies on Amazon Prime, lists, mini-reviews, recommended, RIP, road movie, romance, suspense, thriller | Comments Off

Movie Review : Bangalore Days

Posted on April 25, 2020 by amodini

Rating : 3.9/5
Genre : All-In-One
Year : 2014
Running time : 2 hour 52 minutes
Director : Anjali Menon
Cast : Dulquer Salman, Nazriya Nazim, Nivin Pauly, Fahadh, Faazil, Isha Talwar, Nithya Menon, Parvathy
Kid rating : G

Honestly, I decided to see this Malayalam movie because of a familiar face : Dulquer Salman – who starred in Karwaan. The trailer looked promising and Bangalore Days was so highly rated on IMDB that it couldn’t be too bad now, could it? It wasn’t 🙂 . It was good. A few problems here and there but it was very enjoyable.

In the genre category this falls somewhere on the Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Dil Chahta Hai scale, and kinda in the same vein as the lovely French film “Little White Lies” – so basically about a gaggle of friends and their lives and the challenges in those lives. And not to get your hopes up too high, if I rated all these films together, Bangalore Days would rate at the bottom, but as films go it is a pretty good film, even if not as well done as ZNMD. But then ZNMD is the bomb. And a high bar.

Bangalore Days is about Divya (Nazim), Arjun (Salman) and Kuttan (Pauly), three friends who are also cousins. They all get a chance to be together as adults when all three happen to be in Bangalore – Divya because she is newly married and settling into her husband Das’s (Faazil) apartment, cerebral engineer Kuttan because his job brings him there, and fancy-free and footloose Aju because he just wants to be with his friends. Divya’s new marriage has problems right off the bat, Kuttan misses his hometown too much and Aju has past demons to conquer.

Bangalore Days is a little slow to get going, and initially came across as a little too hammy. It improved though and the characters got better delineated, and more sympathetic. Each of the cousins had their own interesting story to tell and you get pretty invested in each one since they are such a likeable lot. The film offers up moments of humor, romance, anger and strife – and depicts them well, so it feels realistic and you feel for each of the characters as they struggle through their specific predicaments.

Problems with Bangalore Days – I had issues with the rosy lens through which Divya’s marital situation was depicted, but won’t give too much away. And then, there one or two plot-points which went off the deep end, and seemed so off and uncharacteristically flashy/pandering to the masses, that it detracted from this serene, self-sufficient film.

I thought the casting was pretty darn perfect, and the actors did very well. For those of you seeking more familiar figures in this film : Isha Talwar (she played Aditi in Article 15) has a minor role here, Nithya Menon (of Mission Mangal fame) is on-screen fleetingly, and Parvathy (starred in Qarib Qarib Single) has a decent sized role as RJ Sarah.

Bangalore Days is a lovely coming-of-age/finding-yourself-and-the-love-of-your-life kind of film and does a sweet job of it. Recommended.

Kidwise: Clean and family-friendly.