The Beauty of Blemishes
The true hallmark of a master is in using such blemishes to create magic.
Vikram Vedha: playing carrom without a board
Some filmmakers are happy performing superficial gimmicks and manage to fool a section of the audience that there’s some depth to their work. Karthik Subbaraj demonstrated this in Iraivi. Now it’s Pushkar-Gayathri’s turn in Vikram Vedha.
5 Filmmaking Tropes of Mahendran
The first thing that strikes you about Mahendran's films is his precision with words and images.
Stray Dog, 8 Thottakkal and a problem
There’s a whole bunch of young filmmakers who’re making their entry into films, but lacking a certain maturity and perspective of life. I felt comparing 8 Thottakkal (8 Bullets) to Stray Dog, the film it was inspired from, would be a good case study of this problem.
Bala’s Netherworld – 5 Filmmaking Tropes of Bala
"He eats one person every other day, collects a small piece of bone from each carcass, shaves it patiently into the shape of a skull and keeps it with him. Once he collected 108 such pieces, each from a different person, he strung it into a chain and gifted it to me.”
Films I admired in 2016
These were some of the films I watched in 2016 that made me pause, reflect and learn.
The Namesake
You can’t really point out and say that this film is about the father, the mother or the son. It’s peppered with lots of little but memorable characters.
Chennai 28 II Innings — the post-Pa.Ranjith Venkat Prabhu
You cannot simply ignore the sequel of a film that was so close to you that you knew each dialogue by heart. You do not simply shun the sequel of a film that depicted an essential part of your childhood on-screen.
