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"The Ballad of Wallis Island" can be best described through an event that epitomizes the fictional ‘Wallis Island.’ When Herb McGwyer visits the only grocery store on the island for a bag of rice, to rectify the water damage on his phone, he does not get that. Instead, he leaves the store with a rice pudding. Like the titular island, Tim Key and Tom Basden’s screenplay circumvents instant gratification while diverting expectations in an eclectically rewarding experience. Full of poignant warmth, “The Ballad of Wallis Island” is a melancholic tune that one cannot help but hum during and after the credits roll.

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Malayalam dark comedy thriller “Pravinkoodu Shappu” marks an eye-catching debut for writer-director Sreeraj Sreenivasan. Set in the pastoral landscape of rural Kerala, this whodunit niftily works with Agatha Christie-esque twists with a fair amount of absurd humor. Starting right from the opening scene, the film revels in its ambitiously eccentric setup and crafts a fairly engrossing, if not entirely original, mystery. And it does that with style, with some fantastic action pieces that show the potential of the debuting filmmaker.

Full review on HighOnFilms

"Sinners" shifts gear and changes directions with both the smoothness and recklessness of a podium bound Formula 1 car. What a thrilling ride.

After “Tumbbad” (2018), Indian cine-enthusiasts, especially the genre film fans, have been eagerly awaiting the next offering from the team that gave us the folklore-laced horror gem. While we still await director Rahi Anil Barve’s next, producer and Tumbbad’s lead actor, Sohum Shah, has finally produced his next, where he once again takes the mantle of the lead actor, successfully, if I might add. The oddly named thriller “Crazxy” is the directorial debut for screenwriter Girish Kohli.

Unlike “Tumbbad,” “Crazxy” lacks an innate authenticity. The beat-the-clock thriller is largely Sohum Shah’s Abhimanyu driving around the city as multiple calls derail his life, quite like the Tom Hardy starrer “Locke” (2013). Despite the similarities and the influences, “Crazxy” remains a stylistically shot striking addition to the limited list of fine genre films in India. The film takes certain outrageous leaps and has an exasperatedly cop-out twist, and yet it is undeniably enthralling from start to finish.

Ending Explained and Discussion

In one of the more poignant moments of “,” Zee5’s latest original starring Babil Khan, the protagonist earnestly proclaims that online social media is not a mere distraction for many. It is a world in itself. What “” proceeds to tacitly depict under the garb of a genre film is that the same world is not all sunshine and rainbows, so to speak. It has pitfalls and fate’s cruel hands that act as a twisted leveler. Just like the real, physical world. Directed by Amit Golani and written by Biswapati Sarkar, “” attempts to cram most of the perils of the modern online world. A little too much perhaps; yet it remains an engrossing watch with a commendable leading performance.

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Shudder’s latest scary offering, “825 Forest Road,” feels like a hangover from a heavy cocktail of every haunted house horror movie. Starting from the classics like “The Woman in Black” to modern horror sensibilities involving manifestations of past trauma, director Stephen Cognetti (Hell House LLC franchise) dips into almost every horror trope. The result is a mish-mash of a few genuinely frightening jump-scares (especially the ones involving a creepy mannequin) and a story going nowhere, where repetition of the same event becomes necessary as a stalling technique.

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Congolese filmmaker Jean Luc Herbulot grabbed the Cine-world’s curiosity with the 2021 horror-thriller, “Saloum.” Despite the heavy influences of many genres, the film stood apart due to its innate African essence with the astute amalgamation of genre tropes and African mythology. So it is surprising that his latest, “Zero,” comes across as a tepid rehash of a multitude of the early new Millennium Hollywood films where the American hero has to survive the heat and the dingy alleys of a developing country, all with a yellow tinge.

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Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 9, 2025.

There is an undeniable silliness in Netflix’s latest offering, “Banger” (2025). Starring Vincent Cassel and directed by the multifaceted French artist So-Me, the French crime comedy set in the world of DJs and drugs revels in that silliness. And no one celebrates the intended frivolity more than the film’s lead character, played by Cassel. It is primarily due to the enigmatic French actor’s energetically humorous turn that the film rises above its middlingly trope-laden plot to become something memorable.

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Despite its eclectically enigmatic lead as the titular sleuth, “Bhoothaddam Bhaskar Narayana” suffers from an ostensibly unserious approach to depicting its inherently grim story. Directed by Purushotham Raaj, the film’s steady commitment to tonal shifts undermines its macabre serial killer setting. The comedy is too sporadic and out-of-sync to off as a dark comedy. Having said that, the innate appeal of the occult mystery and a fine turn by lead actor Shiva Kandukuri rescue “Bhoothaddam Bhaskar Narayana” from being utterly unappealing.

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On what timeline is Hilsa fish 60-70 rupees per kg, but library security deposit is 100 rupees?

That aside, the film is actually one of the best recent Satyajit Ray adaptation. Sadly, it is not a Bengali director who somewhat gets it.

Tamil comedy-drama film “Dragon” (2025), currently streaming on Netflix, is an odd one. At its core, the film has a story that tries to undercut the hardcore appeal of a mainstream hero (Read “Mass Hero”). Yet, director Ashwath Marimuthu could not help but resort to the same deifying cliches at every turn of events. The result is a film that runs a story of subversion through the mill of rigid conformity. The film’s titular protagonist should have been a fine anti-hero with all his frailties. Alas, in “Dragon,” those flaws come across as quirks of a mass hero.

Full review on HighOnFilms

“Mother Father Sister Brother Frank” is as zany and absurd as its title. The Caden Douglas feature is a thoroughly engrossing dark comedy where you would be laughing tense laughs till the end.

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Watched on Wednesday March 19, 2025.

In his third feature, Aditya Vikram Sengupta has shed the lyrical poetry of his debut "Asha Jaowar Majhe." Instead, Mayanagar (or Once Upon a Time in Kolkata) is nuanced and measured portrayal of the chaotic mess of a city caught in between. A city denying both past and present. A magnificent painting of misplaced souls of a city in a limbo.

“The Parenting” (2025), HBO Max’s latest, is a heavy-handed genre-bending attempt that vacillates between campy merriment and vexing ineptness. Directed by Craig Johnson and written by Kent Sublette, the film survives to work, largely due to momentary flashes of comedic brilliance by its veteran actors. In addition, it has some usual horror jump-scares that blend seamlessly with outrageously hilarious moments, making the film enjoyable in patches, particularly if you are in for some B-movie cheer

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Directed by Jofin T. Chacko, “Rekhachithram” (2025) is a neat thriller with scrupulous attention to detail, fitting a remarkable police procedural. With a significant focus on the “hows” and “whys” of the mystery rather than the “whos,” the Malayalam film craftily peels the layers of the riddle to reveal the ugly truth — all signs of a great mystery thriller. As the main incident is set around the fictional shooting events of a very real Malayalam film, “Kathodu Kathoram,” featuring the legendary Mammootty, “Rekhechithram” will be of particular interest to cinephiles harboring a fondness for Malayalam cinema.

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Every now and then comes a film that baffles you and makes you wonder about the intention of the same. Torsten Ruether’s English-language remake of his own 2021 film “Leberhaken”, rebranded as “Uppercut” (2025) for the American audience, is a listless and aimless sports drama that is a simple derivative of hundreds of films of the same genre. As a result, you are left not just watching paint dry but also watching a badly shot footage of paint, of the color you find most jarringly dry.

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Based on Tine Høeg’s novel, Netflix’s “A Copenhagen Love Story” (Sult) is a nuanced exploration of an unstoppable romance meeting an immovable parenthood challenge. Written and directed by Ditte Hansen and Louise Mieritz, the film starts with the pithy sensuality and raw energy of a rom-com before the proverbial rugs get pulled out from under the feet of our loving protagonists. It becomes a visceral study of how life can be the cruel, barren desert that love needs to overcome to survive.

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“The Rule of Jenny Pen,” buoyed by a fantastic double act from Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow, works like a charm as a psychopath on the loose horror film while posing questions about the crude horror that is in store for all of us, the natural process of aging.

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Accidentally became important at the job and it is killing me. Literally.

Equipped with a painfully dull story and a hopelessly meandering message, “Aftermath” is a generic action-thriller, salvaged only by its well-choreographed action set pieces.

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With a plot similar to that of “The Babadook,” and a monster looking like the ‘Baron’ from “What We Do in the Shadows” (the TV show), “Little Bites” entangles itself in rough-hewn metaphors and uneven messaging. But, when it concentrates on being a slow-burn gore-fest, with the right amount of dread and horror, the Spider One feature does succeed. With taut atmospheric cinematography and a fine performance from Krsy Fox, “Little Bites” is not a totally disappointing fare. In fact, for pure horror aficionados, it should be compellingly entertaining.

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Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like an armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.” This profound line by Tyrion Lannister (from “Game of Thrones,” for the uninitiated) appears to have become the mantra for all Bollywood Nepo-babies. When Khushi Kapoor’s Pia brands herself as the ‘poster princess of privilege and entitlement,’ it is in line with the same confessional spirit that Ananya Pandey and Sarah Ali Khan channeled in “Call Me Bae” and “Murder Mubarak,” respectively. But absolution cannot come if you do it half-heartedly. To follow Tyrion’s advice, you would need to embrace all of your fallacies. Privileged and entitled? Sure. But there is one other fallacy that seems to have escaped them. The fact that they cannot act to save their lives.

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Luca Guadagnino's "Queer," starring a mesmerizing Daniel Craig, is a poignant fable of yearning. The third chapter is wildly imaginative and beautiful. Guadagnino should adapt a full on magic realism work, like "One Hundred Years of Solitude" or "Pedro Paramo."

g under the name ‘Zucheros,’ the husband-wife duo of Andy and Sam Zuchero explores what it means to ‘have a life’ in their widely inventive feature debut, “Love Me.” Starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, the cosmic love story between two machines mulls over the origin of identity, and thus humanity. The fertile imagination of the duo, who wrote and directed the film, with some formidably beautiful space cinematography, makes “Love Me” an intriguingly zany watch. Amidst the growing concern over AI replacing the human touch in art, it is radical from the Zucheros to find that touch through a never-decaying romance between two machines.

analysis here

Despite being a little rough around the edges, “One Night in Tokyo” marks a delightfully heartwarming feature debut for writer-director Joshua Woodcock. The indie film circumvents the usual trepidations of a low-budget affair, overcoming them through a fairly smooth narration of a familiar yet captivating tale of life’s many possibilities. The film’s defining quality rests in the fleeting moments it manages to illustrate. These moments, containing heartbreak, acceptance, and new-found joy, celebrate the experience that is life. All of this happens on a vivid night in Tokyo.

Full review at HighOnFilms

The writer-director duo of Akhil Paul-Anas Khan’s second feature, ‘Identity” (2025), is an untidy convoluted mess. The Tovino Thomas and Trisha Krishnan starrer thriller squanders the initial intrigue of its premise and tries to jumble many genres, eventually dropping the metaphorical ball on every single one of them. At one point, “Identity” would make you feel like you are watching three movies simultaneously.

Analysis of the film's ending.

On the surface, Girish AD’s “I Am Kathalan” (2024) is every jilted incel STEM bro’s wet dream. A computer engineer taking revenge on his ex-girlfriend by hacking into her father’s company’s server? Dream so good that it could be the premise of a biopic of Elon Musk. Not that the world needs one. Girish AD, to his credit, does not allow “I Am Kathalan” to be too ‘enamored’ by such dreams. The film, under the guise of a techno-thriller, is more about human frailties, with the fallacies of the youth and the ignorance of the old taking centerstage.

Ending Explained Here

Watched on Saturday January 18, 2025.

Watched on Saturday January 18, 2025.

Maddest funny since "The Big Lebowski."

Netflix’s generic Christmas fare “Our Little Sister” fails to capture the spirit of the holidays with its hackneyed approach that does not get the best out of its leading cast.

Full Review on HighOnFilms

This is so "Modern-Family-Javier-Episode" coded.

Watched on Tuesday December 3, 2024.

4 stars when you are watching in December

A cheesy run-of-the-mill Christmas movie with plenty of Sitcom characters and Lacey Chabert making "Mean Girls" references? It works because it is that time of the year.

Loved the music. That's just about it.

There may be no greater joy than realizing a long-harbored, seemingly impossible dream. A dream that is kept alive by the slimmest of hope. “Joy” (2024) starring Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie, and James Norton is a conventionally crafted, gently stirring search for that joy regarding motherhood. The Netflix drama, directed by Ben Taylor and scripted by Jack Thorne, sifts through the historical events that precede the birth of the world’s first ‘test-tube baby,’ Louise Joy Brown. The formulaic yet nuanced approach works well for the film as it manages to tug the right kind of heartstrings.

Full Review on HighOnFilms

There is a fine line that separates the familiar cheers from the absolute trites. Netflix’s “The Merry Gentlemen," unfortunately, is too hackneyed to be taken seriously. Even with the leniency reserved for films that have more than three Christmas songs, and the leniency that the Holiday season demands of us, Peter Sullivan’s film is just not it. It is not the fact that the film strictly follows the formula that makes “The Merry Gentlemen” unpalatable, but it is the other fact that it fumbles at following the same formula.

Full Review on HighOnFilms

Watched on Tuesday November 19, 2024.

“Things Will Be Different,” (2024) the debut feature of writer-director Michael Felker, is an appetizer of many flavors. A neo-Western heist drama, along the lines of “Hell or High Water,” evading the Sci-Fi structural conformity of the time-travel genre while addressing the eternal challenge of defying fate. It is not an easy blend. The tightrope Felker walks on often has him flailing for balance. However, with a fine turn by the two lead actors, “Things Will Be Different” just about manages to avoid the fall.

Ending Explained Here

“Pedro Paramo,” based on the landmark novel of the same name, is an audaciously ambitious attempt, betrayed by its relatively safer execution.

Full Review on HighOnFilms

Watched on Saturday November 9, 2024.

Great filmmaking

It does not take much time to see what director David Moreau intends to do with his maddeningly zesty zombie thriller “MadS.” The film, released on Shudder, provides a detailed exploration of a viral outbreak, from the eyes of the patient zero. It is relentless when it comes to escalating the situation, and quite cool when it comes to depicting it. Moreau’s one-take experiment in the film elevates the nauseating tension as the camera only leaves one despicable situation for a more deteriorating one.

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Based on the real-life board game “Werewolves of Millers Hollow,” created by Philippe des Pallieres and Herve Marly, the French film “Family Pack” has both the seriousness and the joy of one good round of a thoroughly engaging game. The silliness permeates the sense of adventure that the film sets its heart on. There is a cozy self-awareness in Uzan’s direction that makes the movie light-hearted without crossing the border of triteness.

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“Outside,” (2024) the latest Filipino offering on Netflix, is a dense psychological drama set in the quickfire world of the zombie apocalypse. It traverses the familiar grim reality of an apocalypse with a moderate dose of zombie-related dread and wanton violence. What writer-director Carlo Ledesma explores more in his film is the horror of childhood trauma, the festering of which creates a cycle of violence that is more terrible than any of the undead’s actions. The price for such an attempt is the wrath of the fans of zombie films. “Outside” is bereft of pulsating zombie-killing actions that one is accustomed to in such films. Instead, it examines the frailties of human emotions and the ugliness of the very much alive.

Full Review on HighOnFilms

Writer-Director Greg Jardin takes the familiar thrills of body swap movies and runs riot in his maddeningly exhilarating debut, “It’s What’s Inside.” Released on Netflix, the film’s abundant number of successful attempts at threading the needle of executing genre tropes culminate in a stylishly smart outing. With slick camerawork, smoothly sharp cuts, and a young cast embracing the opportunity to go bonkers, Jardin has all his cylinders firing simultaneously and seamlessly. The result is a wild ride, a psychological thriller here to swoon the horror aficionados (and others) this Halloween season.

Full Review on HighOnFilms

• An American Werewolf in London
• Brotherhood of the Wolf
• Wolfen
• The Wolf Man
• The Howling
• Howl
• Late Phases
• Silver Bullet
• Bad Moon
• Dog Soldiers

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. John Wick: Chapter 4
2. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum
3. John Wick: Chapter 2
4. John Wick

1. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2. Laurence Anyways
3. Loro
4. The Square
5. The Lobster
6. Labour of Love
7. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
8. Gamak Ghar
9. Parasite
10. Pity

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Stalker
• 8½
• The Seventh Seal
• Laurence Anyways
• The Great Dictator
• Charulata
• PlayTime
• Jules and Jim
• Close-Up
• Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

• The Beach House
• Castle Freak
• Re-Animator
• From Beyond
• Color Out of Space
• The Resurrected
• Necronomicon
• The Unnamable
• The Shuttered Room
• Dagon

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
• The Lobster
• Nostalgia for the Light
• Before Midnight
• The Wailing
• Scarred Hearts
• The Square
• Our Little Sister
• Loveless
• The Grand Budapest Hotel

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. It Must Be Heaven
2. Sorry We Missed You
3. Who Killed Lady Winsley?
4. Aren't You Happy?
5. The Orphanage
6. The Truth
7. Les Misérables
8. Guerilla
9. The Whistlers
10. Joan of Arc

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.