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.”
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
This book by Douglas Adams is as crazy as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The only difference is that while Hitchhiker’s is completely crazy, Dirk Gently is crazy with a more organised plot.
How will you measure your life? – Clayton Christensen
These self-help books operate with a very simple strategy. They tell you stuff that’s quite obvious. So obvious that you can’t deny them. You’d be a fool if you deny them. And then, they pile up loads of anecdotes, examples and case studies to further elucidate those basic points.
Inspector Singh – Singapore School of Villainy
Based on the cover design, I thought this will turn out to be a quirky and fun mystery novel. Something along the lines of Nury Vittachi’s Feng Shui detective. But, I was wrong.
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.