asubbu Reviews

Leader (2010)

Epic! Political drama.

[9/10 · 10 March 2024]

Epic! A wonderful, great political drama film. The movie was set at the onset of real life circumstances when honorable CM of Andhra Pradesh YSR was killed. The screenplay is tight, the dialogues clever, apt and brilliant background music added, the movie is worth watching many times. The director places moral integrity on higher platform.

The moment of epiphany is when the protoganist realises that his mother achieved much more and is disappointed at him. The climax of the film gives Goosebumps everytime. It gives hope to the present politics. It shows the ugly politics real close. The chess game of politics is interesting.

One of the fine movies which can be watched multiple times.

Aiyaary (2018)

Cliched Movie, Important Story

[6/10 · 22 February 2024]

Cliched music, cliched action, cliched dialogue, cliched shots, unconvincing and boring love track, no humour, no emotional punch, cliched dog rescue, cliched graphics of hologram style blue displays and the list goes on.

It looks like a wannabe TV serial direecting inspired purely by cliched Hollywood espionage movies. What is the use of imitating Hollywood style direction if there is no on par action? Headache!

The movie is a disaster BUT this is a must watch because 1. Sheds light on Adarsh society scam and how a highly classified covert unit (TDS) got burned. From recent interviews it was revealed that all great army personnel of that team are now doing sub-par jobs in the army and lot of assets were permanently lost due to this.

2. The character arc of main lead Sidharth Malhotra is fresh and realistic.

Alien Worlds (2020)

Decent documentary, could have been better

[7/10 · 21 February 2024]

The only saving grace of the documentary is the graphics of the alien world's. Of the 30 min of an episode the graphics are less than 10 min. The rest is correlation between here on earth and the alien world's. More graphical content of the same quality would have been more entertaining as well as informative.

However it was refreshing to see that life on alien world's need not be similar to earth but would be adaptive & evolved to its own nature.

I learnt new things about symbiosis of honey, insects that procreate only on summer solstice etc.

However I was disappointed to see how they showed that an advanced civilization would choose to exist as only as consciousness or brain matter, what is life without 'experience' with the help of organs?

The ratio between (moon) satellite and the earth is similar to that of the earth and the sun. This should be taken as a base principal, although not scientifically proven yet. There awas no mention of this in the documentary as satellite would be a prerequisite for life on a planet.

Appatlo Okadundevadu (2016)

Good, but could be lot better

[7/10 · 20 February 2024]

Pros: The story & the writing has packed a lot. The director has shown his maturity and knowledge in scenes like, local lingo of cricket, forensics of fake encounter, whether playing cricket is extension of the British imperialism or not, the dark side of police as well as communist rebels, real estate business,1991 economic reforms, Aman ki fouz etc.

The movie didn't focus more on cricket nor gangster but on the hero, which made the audience root for him.

The references to Shiva cycle scene and PV Narasimha Rao's cartoon are fun too.

Cons: The story telling lagged! I was scrolling during songs and fights. With more budget the songs could have better and the action more slick and impactful. Could be edited lagging bits so that more story could be fit in.

The acting of the main lead could be better.

The bgm or soundtrack is not original.

Conclusion: It's definitely a one time worth watching movie.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

What is meant to 'rebel'?

[9/10 · 19 February 2024]

Loved this Znack Snyder vission of Star Wars. What I loved is the movie begins with tilling and farming. Every sci-fi movie even the novels forget farming, the reason of sustenance. Yong authors and creators (from US) have moved far from nature and farming. There are only urban authors who are raised in concrete jungles.

The quintessential reason to 'rebel' from times immemorial is how armies plundered the self-sustaining villages in the name of king for their wars.

The premise of the movie goes to very beginning of taxation and independence of self ruled villages. Village Swaraj or independent villages are the epitome of freedom and communal living. It reminds us the first villages and towns inhabited by immigrants from Europe to America and set up villages by farming and animal husbandry. The American ingenuity.

The village head deaftly bargained downplaying the fertile fields.

This reminded me how the British Raj plundered the fertile yield and the people from India for the war efforts.

Also loved a tidbit about how to honour the yeild and gods - by (progeny) making children.

The magic of the princess has us waiting for the sequel.

Waqt (1965)

Stylish!

[9/10 · 31 January 2020]

Absolutely stylish. Raaj with his 'half jacket' and badass attitude is worth the watch. Wide shots and excellent production value. Beautiful locations. A fantastic car race action sequence with 2 Bentley cars. Bonus:songs.