Smorgasbord Fantasia

An expertly crafted satire that works wonders, Nna Than Case Kodu (loosely translated to ' Then, you sue! ') is Ratheesh Balakrishna Pothuval's third outing as a director and he hits the bull's eye with this one. His fantastic writing lends itself to absurd situational laugh-out-loud comedy in almost every other scene of the movie, and no it doesn't get flat out boring or repetitive. Much of this credit goes to Kunchako Bobban as the endearable Rajeevan, a reformed thief, down and out on his luck who is falsely accused of theft from an MLA's house. It leads to hard times for Rajeevan, as that stamp of a 'thief' means that he doesn't get any useful job and even his lover, spurns him and asks him to get out of her house.  The said 'attempt at burglary' happens when Rajeevan is coming back from a late night temple festival but when all we actually get to see, is him jumping over the wall and then being brutally attacked by two house pets of the ...

Tovino Thomas is one of the most charming popular 'heroes' in the Malayalam film industry having played many a winning-roles in blockbuster movies (That reminds me, can't wait for his superhero movie, "Minnal-Murali" to be released). But keeping in with the modern times and the amazing revival that this movie industry is going through, he has also turned experimental . To the extent of putting his skin in the game, by backing and producing this new movie called Kala - that released in theaters a couple of months back and is now on Prime Video .  Kala is a reference to the weeds, the unwanted plants in our gardens. It also means "to remove or weed out the unwanted" While I am still puzzling out the significance of the title with respect to the movie, but it possibly could be referring to the intriguing message about weeding out negativities like ego, toxic masculinity, vanity etc.  Let me get this out of the way first. Kala is an audio-visual spectacle. ...

Trance , produced and directed by Anwar Rasheed , the by-word for 'cool' in Malayalam cinema, had a lot riding on it. Anwar was directing after eight long years. (Ustad Hotel was his last outing in 2012, a landmark movie that won a National Award) and this was also touted to be Fahadh Faasil 's greatest movie of his entire career. In a career studded with magnum-opus roles, this was indeed a tall claim and so we waited, with bated breath to see how Trance was going to turn out. Trance, as the word perhaps denotes, is a visual psychedelic rollercoaster that fucks with your mind and poses uncomfortable questions to our society, done up in signature uber-cool slick stylish frames. But one that ultimately fails to impress, falling prey to a convoluted messy second half, fraught with inconsistencies, overstaying its fabulous set-up and premise carefully stitched up in the taut, brilliant first half of the movie. Trance is about drugs. Covertly about the psychotropic on...

So I know we are all in for the long haul, biting our nails, scratching our heads, wondering how to kill so much of extra time we have on our hands, now that we are "working" from home. Well, if you love movies/ series or are enthralled by the Malayalam movie industry (as you should be!), then here are a few current "trending" ones, definitely worth your time across various OTT platforms. Ayyapannum Koshiyum (2020, Language - Malayalam, Genre: Drama/Thriller, Platform - Prime) Why watch : Powerhouse performances by both the lead actors, Prithviraj (his role selections have been a hit and miss usually, but this time!) and veteran Biju Menon. Taut little story about how a minor mishap snowballs into a vengeance drama fuelled by inflated male egos between a senior SI and a retired havildar. Ebbs and flows till it finally hits the flashpoint. Set in the backlands of remote villages on the border of Kerala/Tamilnadu, the folk songs and the rustic setting add a d...

Malayalam film industry is a touch above the rest of Indian cinema when it comes to making original stories of the soil, come alive in myriad colors. It's a bold statement but when watching movies like Kumbalangi Nights by Fahadh & Friends , this claim clearly doesn't seem outlandish and I am convinced this is the right direction, we should be moving in. This movie is a fascinating portrayal of the cracks and fissures spider-webbing through the thin patina of a sleepy backwater tourist haven. Kumbalangi Nights rips through the concepts of dysfunctional families and even the toxic masculinity that has been the focus on many a malayalam movies for long. Aided by a fabulous, perceptive script[ written by Shyam Pushkaran ] debutant director Madhu C Narayanan brings to life, the lesser aspects of the idyllic life on a fishing hamlet, going beyond the happy facade presented to the tourist. Delving deep into the uninspired and almost wasted lives of a family of brothers. S...

It was in 2013 that the movie, Annayum Rasoolum released. A decisively dark take on the Shakespearean tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, set in the busy alley-ways of Fort Kochi, it was a doomed love-story between this Muslim taxi-driver who falls hard, for a Christian girl working as a retail staff for a saree shop. The movie itself. while not really a big commercial hit, was one of those early signs of the greatness that Fahadh Fazil, the method actor in Kerala, was poised to break out for. A lot of you would probably have noticed this lanky youth prone to violence and angst who plays the younger brother to Andrea Jeremiah's character of Anna in that movie. An overprotective, irascible younger brother who lights the fuse for the explosion later on in the movie. That youngster - Shane Nigam , disarmingly handsome with his dimpled smile and those twinkling dark eyes that can turn at will into liquid pools of expression of pain or despair, went on to be launched as a hero, by the ...