4v291o

This film is near perfect if not perfect, and I consider it perfect because Riz Ahmed may be the hottest man alive.

They should invent a Ganji/Vest Test to check how hot a person is. Popular nominees being Hrithik from Dhoom 2 and Riz here.

The way they used perspective here, the way they used sound, some shots, the stillness in the end, everything about this fucking film slaps so fucking much.

This is the first film of 2025 which left me with imperious joy at the end of it. 

Fucking cinema.

P.S. also must add that this film being about obsession/addiction and acceptance is the true thematic debate.
Deafness and sound is just the narrative weave for it.
Going through the worst breakup of my life right now and this resonated with me in so many ways. Love when films do that.

P.P.S. Removed half stars for the (slightly) skewed portrayal against cochlear implants.

Quite boring and draggy.

I’m honestly being very liberal with my rating in some ways — because this film we barely managed to finish watching.

What good is a film if it cannot entertain those watching it?

+ the art is there but it’s so surface level and barely intellectual (but ofc overintellectualised by social media fuckers) that I can’t take it seriously.

Wanted more from Boman Irani, expected better.

Intense. Gripping. Loved it.

Think less exposition and a more economical script/edit towards the second half would’ve helped the film immensely.

Saw the tug of war callback coming but i liked it nonetheless.

Also loved how they used light vs darkness, heat vs cold, the weather, etc.

Really visceral in moments!

Wasn’t actually a fan of /that/ match cut — mainly because I feel like the film should’ve centred more around hope as a central theme by not giving the audience the omniscient perspective and letting us in so early.

Feel like that would’ve helped the delusional as fuck hope theme(which was already being built up so well, especially with the Hassan song).

The exposition hit like a truck this time — but still so cute and lovely and funny and SO QUOTABLE that the star system can go fuck itself tonight.

Rats!!! Meow!!!

Still holds up, always will. Does lose half a star for some slightly problematic chunks and a slight drag in the second act, but Superbad will always be a legendary film, and one so special for me.

I love you McLovin.

A lot of fun and such a cool film.

The best compliment I can give The Watermelon Woman is I wish I had made this.

Also the actor playing Diana was so attractive I could barely root against her. 😔

Not Bong Joon Ho’s best, but still a Bong Joon Ho film. Knew it the moment I saw the button that there’d be more button-esque imagery.

Mickey 17 is cut more from the cloth of Snowpiercer than Parasite, and I much prefer Parasite Bong(it’s not even a comparison).

Pattinson and the performances are wonderful though, but the third act is lacking and the film never reaches its potential. 

This is a film(unlike even the basic Snowpiercer) that had almost absolutely zero impact on me.

Very few “moments” to be lauded, honestly.

Will say this — thoroughly enjoyed watching this with friend and stuffing our mouth with all that PVR Luxury food for free lmao.

Very appealing to me conceptually but left me wanting a lot more.

The hero of this film is very obviously Chika — charming, witty, and full of warmth.

The losers are the music, Shonali’s “performance”, and the confusing gaze/intent of the filmmakers.

This could’ve been something really special but it always felt like the directors were unsure whether they wanted to make us cry or whether they wanted to normalise death.

The film felt so performative at times that it annoyed me. It felt like a really hard attempt to depict melancholic tragedy, but failed nonetheless.

The opening half was a lot stronger than the second half, and the film felt like it could’ve been a LOT shorter.

Mira Nair is the Master.

My favourite part about watching this at IHC was the ridiculous fucking question answer session — the opening question being led by someone i knew during my college days, “how did it feel directing legends such as Irrfan sir and Tabu ma’am?”

…Actors, i tell you. Fucking hell.

Anywho — the movie is brilliant. Evoked laughter and emotion, thematically stayed true throughout. The acting, oh god the acting.

That one shot of the camera pushing into when Ashoke tells Ashima about what happened back home.

My only problems in the film were the fact that there was too much exposition even in the third act, wrt “Ashima means” so and so. Should’ve just trusted the audience a bit there.

The other thing was the usage of non diegetic singing — Tabu singing the songs would’ve been SO MUCH BETTER.

I don’t have any comments…

Special. You don’t find films like this often. What a fucking banger.

Rewatching this with the lads on New Year’s Eve was THE perfect way to bring 2025 in.

What a magnificent cast, fantastic writing, and brilliant moments. Would love to watch this again with zero memory of it.

Watched it “dhang se” and it was still trash hahahaha.

Some jokes were sorta funny(im looking at you, Jawan nod), but overall the writing was horribleeee, the music was really bleh barring Sonu Nigam’s Mere Dholna(ohmygodsowonderful), and the performances were also kinda weird??

The plot twist was horrid… and let’s not even get started on the representation and authenticity.

But the worst thing was wtf was going on with Tripti Dimri’s character in the past timeline?

You do dwarf jokes, fat jokes, and then wanna talk about identity and egalitarianism? Smh.

So much restraint. So many lessons to be learned just by watching this film. Kiarostami is the master for a reason.

I don’t even want to write too much about the film — all I want to say is; going through a dark time, this film gave me a sliver of hope somehow.

At the end of the day, that’s what cinema is for.

A lot I liked about this; from the maturity and humanity in these flawed characters, to the really powerful performances!

It was also mildly predictable and very average in moments — the wedding ring picturisation during certain scenes, the 300$ bet, etc.

Could’ve improved a lot with slightly tighter writing, but very impressive film nonetheless!

Apart from the slightly painfully repetitive feeling, this is a fucking hidden gem. 

Highly recommend to anyone who’s into time and memory-themed films.

Also SO FUCKING INSPIRING to anyone who wants to make films.

Damien definitely disappointed, for the first (and hopefully last) time. 

There are certainly things to enjoy — the classic Chazelle cinematography, the Hurwtiz score, the terrific performances, etcetera…

But the editing feels off throughout. Too many jarring and poor cuts, the music and visuals feel off sync a lot, especially in the ending, and it just begins to feel a bit repetitive and boring at times.

Most importantly, while to each their own and everyone can be as kinky as they’d like, I felt this film was too gratuitous for my liking. 
I kept commenting as a joke, but I did truly find this film to be more Lanthimos than Chazelle(up until the ending).

Also didn’t feel an inch of what I felt during Whiplash/La La Land’s climax and denouement, this felt so bleh. He really tried to make the same ending happen three times; was bound to strike out once.

Fritz Lang’s Pyaasa but make it neo-noir. 

I don’t know why my partner thought I wouldn’t enjoy this.. yes it’s not /extremely/ fun or entertaining(sometimes it’s slightly boring too), but it’s definitely good.

So much fun. 

Leonardo in the 90s was… something else, man. Gorgeous.

Romeo and Juliet may not be something I like a lot, but this really was, in many ways.

The music and some comedic moments are fucking BANGER. 

SRK would’ve been a huge miscast.

So happy to catch this at a screening though! So glad everyone was having so much fun and cheering and hooting to a classic. Ami Je Tomar is such a banger. Vidya Balan GOAT.

The verdict is finally in: it is problematic.

(And also bad, much like Animal)

Fell asleep two thirds into the film and realised Greek Guy Kyriakos Lanthimos isn’t for me…

Also somethings were too disturbing for my naive heart.

Biblical stuff was nice.

‘Go Goa Gone’ was honestly way worse than I thought it’d be.

Was quite excited to catch it given this was one of the formative horror-comedies in India, and the first zombie-comedy, but barring a few really good jokes, most of the film was quite flat and boring. Took me two attempts to finish watching it.

Felt like an indie film.

Which is honestly a huge insult to the scale and intended quality of the film.

Dilli se hoon BC is still perfect though. Lived upto the hype.

We had just arrived in front of Picture Time Hall 1 that the Director and Producer of this film came up to us and asked us to come watch their film.

As an indie filmmaker struggling to make it happen, I couldn’t reject their invite, even though there were other films I wanted to watch during the same slot. 

To their credit, they gave us an interesting film. One that could’ve easily been the best film out of the 6 I got to watch at DIFF. That’s more to say about the films at DIFF, than this one, honestly.

So many moments in the film stayed with me: the petrol pump, the vessel being thrown at the auto, the bus scenes, the expiry date, etc. 

Props to them for making a film they wanted to. Even more so to them for inviting people to come to watch. It’s a difficult business. 

I don’t think I’d be rating it as highly without the human connect with them. Reminds you that I’m human and capable of empathy too. 

The subtitles were interesting too. They were giving us contextual clues such as “Take her to Das(husband) in the evening.” 
While I dislike the extra context, I find it amusing that people are using subtitles this way. Better use than not use. Then I’ll get to criticising how you use them. :)

Dharamshala International Film Festival

Mid.

I’d have liked to like it more, but I’ve seen better films about migrant life, and I’m developing a better film with Mumbai as the city of dreams/illusions. Didn’t feel like this was all that.

Lobbying works hard for the festival circuit I guess… no wonder no one wants to put money on me or my films. I don’t have the story Payal Kapadia does, even if my film may have a better one. 

Having said that, some visuals are impeccably shot, and the music is OOF. A few sequences in the film are also nice.

But it never really came together for me. Can’t see what others saw. Hope I’m proven wrong some day soon.

Dharamshala International Film Festival

This was a nice and earnest film. Just a bit oversimplistic for me. What I mean by that is —

This should not have transpired within a day. If the timeline had been slightly more pronounced and longer, I could get behind this film quite a bit.

At the end of the day, though some imagery felt quite powerful(dancing scene and glass shot), the overall film felt a bit more basic than I’d have liked. 

This would’ve probably made for a good short. Just felt like it was undercooked as a feature.

Dharamshala International Film Festival

‘The Room Next Door’ is the best worst film I’ve ever watched. 

Walking out of Herman Gmeiner Hall, I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard people praising this film. This was on God, one of the worst films I’ve ever watched.

I quite honestly felt like this film was an intentional sequel to the infamous ‘The Room.’ 

I fucking waited in line 2 hours for this with my friends lmao. 

And it’s not like we realised this film was bad halfway through or towards the end. You can make out the film is bad within the first 3 minutes of the film, I promise you.

Bad shots, worse editing, poor performances(HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET SUCH CELEBRATED ACTORS TO PERFORM SO POORLY), all in all SHIT direction. The dialogue sounded worse than Fardeen Khan’s “narration”.

I was speaking with another friend who caught this at MAMI and he reaffirmed this thesis I’ve had for a long time: most foreign films are quite bad if you actually knew the language. Subtitles save films so much. God knows when people will realise the value to good subtitling, and subtitling in general.
Pedro Almodovar’s ‘The Room Next Door’ cemented that thesis for him, proving me right in the process.

Dharamshala International Film Festival

La Chimera was probably the best film I watched at DIFF.

Unfortunately a combination of sleepy syndrome and frustrated with Girls Will Be Girls disease led me to be a bit dismissive towards this in the first half, and therefore the payoff wasn’t as good for me.

But I can’t deny that there were multiple moments in this film wherein I was slightly taken by everything. Appreciate that a lot.

Would like to revisit the film some time soon to give it another shot.

Dharamshala International Film Festival

Very conflicting film.
I’m being more than gracious with my rating, honestly.

Some way into the film I was texting my friends on our group, telling them I knew what this film was about and the film title is really good and that I believe this is going to be a 3.5/5 film.

BOY WAS I (mildly) WRONG.

See, everything I said then was correct. The only thing is certain scenes(one entire B plot) was so fucking problematic, that it ruined the film for me. Didn’t help that the chutiya audience was chuckling throughout it. Idiots.

But I don’t blame them nearly as much as Shuchi Talati. She and her crew made a film wherein they wanted the audience to laugh at those fuckall moments. It’s clear as day when you watch how the film has been written, performed, and edited.

This is not the fault of the audience’s gaze, as much as it is the director’s.

If that stupid stuff had not existed, this was a film I’d have really enjoyed at DIFF. What a shame.

Having said that, there are some things I like about the film. Preeti and Kani are brilliant. Kesav wasn’t bad, but his casting was a poor choice imo. Didn’t fit the bill. Wasn’t charming enough.
Kajol looked a bit too old to play Preeti’s friend.

Some shot compositions are terrific. I especially enjoyed the scene wherein Kesav is between Hardik and Preeti in the classroom, ing the exam paper. I also really liked the scene where Hardik comes to propose to Preeti.

But the follies of this film greatly outweigh the positives. Hence. I repeat. What a shame.

P.S. Also didn’t feel like this needed to be in the hills and/or set in a boarding school. Apart from the local guardian angle, this film didn’t utilise either of those things at all. Don’t like that either.

P.S. also that Kani Kusruti dialogue towards the end is so bleh. Bad dialogue, bad writing. Very clearly a modern 21st century film that panders to audience expectations and internet-shareability.

Dharamshala International Film Festival

A much better watch than most/all films I caught at DIFF this year. The bar is so low that I measure art/indie films by the test: Did I catch a wink of sleep while watching this?

Thank fuck — not during this one. 

We had the worst seats in the house, but ‘Afire’, with the most irritable of protagonists, quietly entertained us. 

Did not appreciate the closing image though. Felt the film was good up until then.

My partner and I could’ve easily made a drinking game of catching Nadja wearing the same outfit over and over again. Still think it must be a thematic decision. Just unsure what, yet.

European Union Film Festival | Max Mueller Bhavan

Bad filmz.

Been more than a decade since I last watched this. Not only does it still hold up, ‘Her’ has actually become even more wonderful and more to my tastes.

I love a good sci fi world wherein the conditions feel believable and not very distant. Watching ‘Her’ in 2013 must have felt like a premonition, but watching it today felt like near-reality.

So many elements of the films in this movie are elements from a short I had written(and never shot) a while ago. 

I was thinking while watching the film: Phoenix must be an actor whose body of work so many others envy. Such diverse and wonderful roles. 

‘Her’ is a film with brilliant performances — ScarJo reminded me of one of my exes throughout. In Joaquin I could see myself, in Amy Adams I could see many of my friends.
It is also a film with nuanced writing and a crippling sadness to its flavour.

As I’ve grown, the romance and longing feeling associated with the film has grown more to my liking. Such a wonderful watch.

Navrasa Duende World Movie Festival | Alliance Française de Delhi

Marvel and everyone needs to learn one simple principle of storytelling.

Nothing matters when nothing matters.

Anti matter and whatnot just reduces stakes. Where people’s lives are multiple, and then are multiple universes, it does not matter how much you hype singular versions of those characters, nothing matters when anything happens to them any more, because we know you can go elsewhere and continue.

Stop making nothing matter.

Give your characters stakes.

(But ofc this was super fun for the child in me.)

So the problem is I already knew the film inside out before watching it. Hence, I knew the beats coming and I quite enjoyed it. It wasn’t really a /first time/ watch.

I think if it was, this may have been rated slightly poorer. ‘Get Out’ is, and was, quite predictable.

But it’s definitely a wonderful select few performances. Still prefer ‘NOPE’ though.

Just fun. Don’t go into this expecting anything else. It’s random. It’s non-diegetic trumpets and bhopus. Somethings don’t even make any sense. 

But it’s fun!

(I hate the ending/denouement though, for multiple reasons.)

While this film is sociopolitically… not good?
It definitely has some moments. I could see my Mom tearing up beside me as we watched it together. I felt a lil bit some stuff too. Don’t know why. Maybe it came together a bit.

But yeah very problematic barring that.

Bakchodi hai. Fun hai. But bass yahi hai. 

Problematic bhi hai kahi kahi, of course, as expected. But got some laughs out of me ngl.

Booooooring. Maybe the monkes and Reeves impressed me too much and got my expectations unrealistically high — but this was not it. 

Would’ve been perfectly happy never watching this. I ended up ively watching it cuz I just couldn’t for the life of me WANT to watch what was happening.

The series’ descent began here, coinciding with the Apes’ journey on some level. 

While this film has its interesting bits, including the ending which is (unfortunately) the most riveting part of the entire film, it doesn’t hold up as much as its predecessors.

Ape monkey civilisation may be the only thing missing from Civ IV. Caesar versus Nuclear Gandhi would’ve been fun. 

I loved this though. While these films are obviously not the most nuanced or anything, there are certain moments and some symbols and imagery which they’ve used really well.

Out of all 4, this is by far the closest to GOAT though.

Apes together strong.

It took until Caesar’s journey to finally understand why the internet was obsessed with monke for a while there.

The way they use subtitles and language here is quite interesting too. Still feel like I need to watch the older films too.

I Mean, Girls, maybe you shouldn’t have remade this… and that too as a mediocre musical.

Cinema, baby!

The performances are fantastic. The screenplay is unique(you must check how they’ve formatted it). You know dramas are great when they can be riveting and put you on the edge.

Took me until the end to even understand what it’s all about, and that’s the best thing about it. 

Takes the best parts of Marriage Story, Kramer vs Kramer, etc, and makes for a wonderful watch.

Maybe I should drink a coffee before going to watch the supposed classics…

Boring. Felt half baked. The direction especially, felt all over the place.

I think in the hands of a better director(and by extension writer-editor) this had the potential to be MUCH better.

The poor performances by both male leads do not help. 

The most I felt underwhelmed by is their usage of “Bin Tere Sanam”. Ffs. I was supposed to use that in one of my films lmao.

As a theatre boy, this was extremely funny. 

As a normal audience, I’m sure it was still fun, if not as.

There are lots of lovely moments, but I think the last year has opened my eyes to how feature films are not great for telling ensemble stories. There are really way too few ensemble stories that can be told in the length of an hour and a half or thereabout.

Which is probably why Indian features go upto 2-3 hours in duration.

The kind of storytelling they’ve attempted to here; I genuinely feel would’ve felt a lot less “reaching” and steep, if this had been longer in duration or episodic content.

Honestly nothing much wrong with it — just boring and charmless. Expected better cuz of Linklater and the hype, but Glen Powell ensured that I had a dreary watch(I think he’s abysmal, but was fun-ish in this film).

Adria Arjona on the other hand???

She can murder me any day. Yowza.

Look how they massacred my boy… oh, Wes, dear.

The film’s theme makes sense and everything comes together in the end well, but man was this film a drag. It should be illegal; how boring this film was despite the cast associated with it.

I think the Wes I loved is gone forever.

I hope I’m wrong.

Honestly — quite bad. Boring. But my Mum enjoyed it, the music is good, and the football sequences are probably the best I’ve ever seen in modern cinema.

But the writing… dear God, the writing. 

Manufactured conflict, fabrication of reality and distortion of facts in a biopic, horrid exposition, piss poor dialogue and uninteresting characters…

I’m only rating this film that high because of the technical departments and the football sequence.

The writers can go and get a new job elsewhere sheesh…

Varun Grover really tried to show he can direct…

I mean.

I don’t have anything good to say.

It’s boring, the thematic question is all over the place, perspective is a problem, I’ve watched this same story/elements of this story countless times(and liked it better in those films or shows), and I really feel like I’ve wasted my time watching this.

The only good thing I can say for All India Rank is that I’m so happy I only spent an hour and a half on it lmao.

Grover messes up with the 180 degree. And not intentionally. Sigh.

The narration is weird throughout. The animation… I’m really not sure why…

I would’ve much preferred just seeing the father’s story, even though the ending was weird AF and not earned at all(how does he get to “enjoy singing, dancing etc man ugh).

Also Bodhisattva Sharma just annoys the crap outta me. I don’t know what it is, but yeah.

While this was unnecessarily long and a little boring, Miyakazi has a magical world that really draws you in for a wonderful journey.

I liked the Corridor of Time reference.

I found the film to be slightly predictable though. And the film didn’t work for my two friends who really wanted to watch it, so that was weird lmao.