Top TV: 2023
Class
Based on the Spanish series Elite and a supremely dark twist to The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act, director Ashim Ahluwalia (with co-directors Gul Dharmani and Kabir Mehta), using terrific mood and lighting, split-frames the lives of students from the slums and those born with snooty-feeders in South Delhi. Dark, rippling with sexualâŚ
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âGuns and Gulaabsâ: nostalgia and opium meet to create a heady show
I wonder what nostalgia will mean for Generation Alpha. Will it be a fond chuckle of how their favorite movie or TV show buffered while streaming a critical scene? Or how some rando photobombed their lit party pics? Are these even things that theyâll do or care about? Or will nostalgia be another folder in the cloud, accessible via a monthly plan, no longer a sepia-tinged sigh of wistfulness? HowâŚ
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'Por Thozhil': lessons in mentorship in the face of chilling murders
Some have it, some donât. Some are energized by the perficient future it offers; others see the drudgery of a pontificating tunnel thatâs a time suck. Some see it as expanding their mishpocha; others view it as an intrusion into their solitude and focused work pattern. Which is why some are mentors, others tormentors.
In the splendid Por Thozhil (The Art of War), cop Loganathan (Sarath Kumar)âŚ
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'Pranaya Vilasam': the flush of first love and when life flushes it down
Whatâs first love if not a fleeting aural bird that wings into a destination unknown, unfettered by lifeâs crushing weights of circumstances that, in the name of known stability, are anchors that stick deep and steady on the bed of relationships that sustain but not necessarily breathe? While that bird circles in an unseen stratosphere, we wait for a glimpse, caged by our obligations, if only toâŚ
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Mission Impossible â Dead Reckoning Part One: AI meets Cruise, canât outrun him
In a tense, terse scene, Ethan Hunt (who else but Tom Cruise) informs his rag-tag team that nothing outside their current, daunted conversation can be construed as the truth. That line, in essence, is the crux of the latest IMF (not the one handing out doles and country ratings who need the former and give a damn about the latter) caper, which now welcomes its latest villain, an omnipresent butâŚ
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âBholaaâ: a bone-crunching messÂ
If nothing else, director-actor Ajay Devgnâs chaotic universe in his latest outingâwhere he performs the arduous task of spearheading both rolesâis a bone-crunching lesson in the human anatomy. If Bholaa had a punchline, itâd be A study in human body joints and 201 ways to break them. If it had put in as many words on its screenplay sheets as it does the extras onscreen who come rushing in likeâŚ
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'Farzi': works best when it gives its template a rest
You know right at the beginning of Farzi (Fake) that the first season will not end swimmingly well for most of its characters. Thereâs the fed-up with the socio-economic-inequity duo Sunny (Shahid Kapoor) and Firoz (Bhuvan Arora, superb), who begin to realize the actual value of the formerâs delicate artistic flourishes that seem to belong not in canvases that house recreations of masterpiecesâŚ
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'Ponniyin Selvan: Part One': dame of thrones
Director Mani Ratnam, also cowriting with B. Jeyamohan and Elango Kumaravel, creates a complex zodiac of the magnum opus that is Kalki Krishnamurthyâs dynasty-riven drama, where the cast of characters are laid out in a tree structure that unfolds via breathtakingly created action sequences and vistas of a land thatâs both magical and simmering with the tectonic chess-sequences of politics andâŚ
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'Qala', 'The Banshees of Inshirin' reviews
Swastika Mukherjee, Tripti Dimri: mirror of voices.
If writer-director Anvita Duttâs debut Bulbbul bled gothic tears of red to mourn the passage of woman-to-witch passage, their Qala (Art) is a demi-tragic stunning canvas that weaves visual poetry via  Siddharth Diwanâs cinematography and Ramesh Yadavâs art direction. Tracking the success of playback singer Qala Manjushree, the movie followsâŚ
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'Malayankunju': a harrowing struggle of nature, within and without
âMalayankunjuâ: a harrowing struggle of nature, within and without
You spend a good twenty minutes in horror in Malayankunju (Rebirth and Retribution) watching Fahadh Faasil in close up, as his Anikkuttan, trapped underneath a combination of landslide sludge, pieces of concrete and rods, and everyday household itemsâall now deadly weapons of swift mortal extinguishersâstruggles to find a way out, to stay alive and see the light of the day. Whatâs led AnikkuttanâŚ
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'Severance': the dystopia of work-life balance
âSeveranceâ: the dystopia of work-life balance
What if Ben Stiller, the actor, the unanointed head of the Frat (some would say interchanging the âaâ and the ârâ would be mot juste) Pack figured out a way to cleave his brain toâin a life lived in parallelâgo behind the camera to fill a directorial canvas of stunning, cerebral output? (Escape at Dannemora, anyone?) Oh wait, that sounds like something Stiller, the director, offers in one ofâŚ
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âDelhi Crime 2â: societal climateâs change for the worse
âDelhi Crime 2â: societal climateâs change for the worse
Floods. Drought. Unseasonal weather occurrences. Mass-scale misery. An apocalyptic climate has descended upon us in a swift advancement of Natureâs plans. But thereâs another rumbling of tectonic plates that weâd do well to pay heed to. One that the gritty as Delhiâs dust Titliwarned us back in 2015. That disaffected, dissonant theme is back to haunt DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) and herâŚ
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When Inner Voice Crashes into External Violence
When Inner Voice Crashes into External Violence
â19 (1) (a)â is a ruminating, pensive beauty.
There comes a time when the words that tumble inside your head percolate to your heart, and then when you sit down to pen them, what comes out via the flames of experiences, hindsight, and forethought is the sparkling, distilled truth, the residue a purge of what youâve been forced to believe or has been thrust as truth. These words, these feelings,âŚ
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'Pada', 'Paka' reviews
âPadaâ, âPakaâ reviews
Pada
Joju George. Dileesh Pothan, Kunchako Boban, Vinayakan, Gopalan Adat: tense strides
Based on an actual incident in 1996, this tightly wound hostage drama has its nervous tics and politics in the right place. Writer-director Kamal K.M. sets up a divergent team of five men who criss-cross into Palakkad city, displacing their familial coordinates (wives of two of them, played by UnnimayaâŚ
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âDarlingsâ: a scintillating wallop of a societal welt
âDarlingsâ: a scintillating wallop of a societal welt
By all accounts, writer-director Jasmeet K. Reenâs directorial debut is one of Hindi cinemaâs rare grace for 2022. Co-writing with Parveez Sheikh, the director packs in a scintillating wallop as they explore the crack and tissue-injuring reality of domestic violence within the seemingly carceral walls of a chawl. As it usually does, the marital vows are preceded by wooing and persistent strewingâŚ
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'Anek': complex, confounding, important
âAnekâ: complex, confounding, important
Old injuries resurface in the form of pain during inclement weather. And as you get older, those injuries come back to haunt you in the form of chronic stabs. The anatomy of India, as she writhed and heaved in upheaval, led not just to her being an independent republic but also a physical boundary that left some permanent scars and some dormant wounds. In the north-east, as the demand forâŚ
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'Thar', 'The Underground Railroad' reviews
âTharâ, âThe Underground Railroadâ reviews
Thar
Anil Kapoor: Tharâs highlight.
Or Thar she blows. Ostensibly director Raj Singh Chaudharyâs neo-noir western cauldron, the movie begins promisingly enough with a mysterious antique dealer (Harshvardhan Kapoor, very effective and restrained a la The Man with No Name in Sergio Leoneâs Dollarâs Trilogy) passing through a remote village in Rajasthan looking for specific helping hands for hisâŚ
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