aimless_fool Reviews

Housekeeping for Beginners (2023)

A simple movie that moves you

[7/10 · 18 May 2024]

• I did not know anything about the director and the movie. Just thought of giving it a try and I was pleasantly surprised

• The mixture of different kind of people coming together with their own flaws and strengths made me deeply moved. It just symbolised to me the whole humanity.

• It made me think and learn more about the Roma people by googling. It subtly teaches you to be empathetic, to be calm with chaos around and basically every human is same. Longs for love, affection at the same time battling with one's ego.

• few nitpicks: music seemed to be lacking. Yes without music movie seems more realistic/documentary-like but it can be used to enhance the emotional depth IMO.

Instant Family (2018)

Movie with an heart

[8/10 · 18 May 2024]

Summary: Emotional, heart tugging and uplifting simple movie.

This is the 2nd time I have watched this movie after some years. It made me cry.

It does not have too much melodrama but still tugs at your heart. It does not mean this is a flawless movie. There are unrealistic things in movie and sometimes acting is poor. Inspite of that, the true-story thrives and gets you involved emotionally with the world of characters.

Worth watching if you want a good cry with simple humour and want to feel uplifted by the end.

These kind of movies are needed to balance the cynicism/pessimism one develops by seeing all the bad/disgusting things that happen in the real world. Gives some hope and positivity.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)

Ministry of stale Ritchie

[5/10 · 18 May 2024]

Summary:

Entertaining to some extent but by the end its just an average movie. If you just want to pass your time and have nothing better to do then can watch it. If you don't watch it you wont miss much.

Details:

• The charm of Guy Ritchie is fading. Most of his recent movies create expectations of being good and show traces of his old charm, style, wit but just fall short of good and this movie falls in the same category.

• For non-history buffs this movie reveals interesting info about world-war period and thats the only positive of this movie.

• The characters trying to look cool rather look tired and stereotypical. The dialogues are meh. And the acting is poor.

• The whole stylistic, badass protagonists getting things done under dire circumstances has become boring without any new spice or new take. It was fresh in the past. But it just tastes bad if you keep eating exactly same dish over and over again.

• Action is pathetic, script is pretty mediocre and humor is non-existent.

• Essentially there is nothing to like about this movie except for the plastic actors.

Gentlemen/Ladies, the movie sucks for Guy Ritchie standards.

The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023)

Last stop of greed

[6/10 · 12 May 2024]

Summary: The movie is entertaining with a theme of western slow burner. But does not go beyond a good one time watch.

Details:

• The western vibe with desert, dust, heat, guns, bad guys, is all spot-on and gets you hooked into the story

• In the beginning the slow-burn is good but soon the movie picks up pace and there are lot of small twists and turns

• But you dont really feel bad for any character or emotionally moved/attached(except maybe for the scenes with baby) or have deep philosophical state of mind at any point in the movie or in the end.

• it has traces of Tarantino style western, coenesque theme of idiocy meeting evil with surprising coincidences/accidents but fails to match up to their level.

• Basically its a movie about greed which keeps you glued when its on but after watching the movie you are underwhelmed and forget this movie quickly.

Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

Kung Fu Panda 4: No soul, No charm

[5/10 · 2 May 2024]

How have the mighty fallen. Where is Kung Fu Panda 1 and where is this faint ghostly, soul-less mimic.

Why do you make audience hate these amazing characters you created by making these spiritless money grabbing versions. Its just sad.

Spend some time on creative juices to make the poignant, humorous dialogues you used to make. But no, wheres time for that. I just need to milk the money-cow to death before I feed it and nurture it.

Rehash the same characters, same themes, similar villains etc. Just like one more boring repetitive level in a stupid video game. I spent all my creative budget on level ONE. Tough luck, you stupid audience.

The panda sucks and the Kung fu is weak. Master Shifu is a clown with no philosophy who represents this sinking noodle of a treasure-ship.

Please don't make anymore sequels. STOP IT. Otherwise I will break the "Urn of whispering warriors".

Cabrini (2024)

A surprisingly good movie

[7/10 · 2 May 2024]

I did not have any high expectations before watching this but the movie was a pleasant surprise.

I am not a religious person but the power of selfless service, love touched me and made me think about the real-life Cabrini.

Lead actor and the supporting actors have really acted well. Loved the portrayal of feministic determination and fight in a male-dominated system/society without any melodrama. Lead actor really played the role with lot of restraint which I really liked. Also the movie dialogues/screenplay were very realistic and powerful without resorting to any cheesiness.

I was a bit surprised that there was not a single scene(AFAIK, in one scene she sits in a church but never seen praying) where the character Mother Cabrini prays to God in despair. IMO it would have added to emotional depth and would have shown her source of strength. But it seems like a conscious decision to underplay the religious side and emphasise the female determination, grit, persistence and motherly side. But was it really the case with Cabrini?(I don't know, I have not done my research apart from a quick wiki check).

Cinematography is really superb. Several of the frames in the movie where fit to be superb paintings. The play of light and darkness is also amazing(maybe an indication of struggle between good vs bad).

Music was also really good.

And recreation of 19th century NewYork also seemed authentic.

I was a bit surprised by the very high quality of movie production by a relatively small productions like Angel Studios(maybe its a big studio but I had only heard of it from "The chosen" series).

Even though I am not religious, I really like these kind of movies with religious realism instead of cliched mindless religious garbage. Hope in future more such thoughtful, spiritual movies are made.

Malaikottai Vaaliban (2024)

Such a dishonest movie

[6/10 · 28 February 2024]

Being a fan of LJP because of movies like R. I. P and Churuli watching this movie hurts even more than usual.

Movie starts with such amazing visuals(some scenes feel like artistic paintings) my hopes were pretty high. Also the folk, drama vibes and desert/dusty environment and the choice of set/clothes gave me a feeling this is going to be a very good movie. I also felt based on the "truth" related dialogue Mohanlal says every time during a mission, this is somehow linked to spirituality.

But mission after mission and song after song my disappointment just grew more and more. All the color, the art and the rustic feel, in the screen cannot make up for the poor story/plot. If there is a clear solid plot/theme then all these other things boost it. Otherwise it just becomes an intellectual exercise. IMO using artistic intelligence to put forth your views without emotions/heart is just superficial/dishonest and somewhat disgusting. No matter how much of subtle tribute/references to Old-western music, desert, theme of duals, BGM you use, they don't work when the core is fragile.

In our culture, all our mythology, folklore and the stories our grandmas told have fantasy, surrealism, magic-realism, supernatural elements; which make us open our mouths in awe and curiosity but also touch our hearts due to the well-conveyed elements of human weaknesses, pain, suffering, greed, redemption etc. I thought this movie had great potential to be one of those but it just succumbed to shallow portrayal of art, without much heart and childish portrayal and appeal to action(reminded me of stupid mass-oriented action movies) and cheesy dialogues and honestly sometimes poor acting by Mohanlal and others.

Character of Danish Sait, instead of being relatable to intricate Shakuni, just turned out to be a crazy clown.

Character of Mohanlal instead of being relatable to a mystic courageous protagonist on a mission turned out just to be a mass-hero on a journey like in a video game. Even the last scene hinting at a sequel with some spiritual future could not make me care any more. It was just too late.

Other characters and side-plots(a story of love and killings at the end and revenge thread) seemed just cooked-up to have some sort of climactic elation and did not move me at all. I was just happy that the movie ended and I did not have to endure this ego trip of intelligence masquerading as art.

This is worst of all the movies of LJP I have watched and it hurts. Hope LJP can recover from this and make more honest movies(or maybe I am wrong and I don't have enough intelligence to appreciate this movie)

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

A failed chain reaction!

[6/10 · 28 November 2023]

• Disappointed and surprised that a movie from Nolan could be this poor.

• Lot of details crammed in to a movie which lost its focus. These days you can make a series to explore themes, character development etc. If your are making a movie stick to a theme(I know I am nobody compared to a genius like Nolan and thats why it is very surprising that he would make such a terrible movie)

• IMO after watching a serious movie it should stay in your psyche for sometime and it should not be easy to shake it off. This failed that test by a huge margin for me.

• There were really only 2 good scenes which showed the glimmer of Nolan's true talent. First one, where Oppenheimer makes a speech to the scientists/colleagues after the bombing where his dichotomy is shown. Second one is the final scene, the conversation with Einstein.

• Cilian Murphy's acting is really good and Emily Blunt(even though she has very few scenes) is good. The rest of star studded cast(Gary Oldman, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, Florence Pugh) was really un-necessary IMO. It had been better to have had lesser know actors in those roles since they were just 1-dimensional and not meaty enough. Using famous actors just raised my expectations just to be deflated later.

• Depiction of Richard Feynman was a big joke and degrading. Why even show him if you are not even having him part of any anectdote. Just him and his bongos seemed like a cheapshot gimmick.

• The themes as far as I could perceive was the clash of principles, patriotism, values, a supposed hero seen as a villain(shades of Batman), guilt; how being sensitive, intelligent is very complex in extraordinary situations; ultimately the question of clash of science, human curiosity, fun/search of knowledge vs the realities of misuse of the products of science(which currently has manifested as AI related issues). There was so much potential to explore these themes philosophically, emotionally, morally and as an existential question. But the movie got lost in biographical, historical mini details. It tried to grab too much and failed to hang on to any by the end.

• Hope Nolan realises this was a poor movie. He should stop pandering to hollywood superficialities. Go back to his roots of story telling he displayed in movies like memento. All the technical hoo-hah cannot compensate for a good tsory with heart and honesty..

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023)

God! Are you listening? It's a cute little movie.

[6/10 · 8 June 2023]

This is an heart-warming movie. It reflects the innocence of young kids and tries to show their inner world when they are growing up getting them exposed to adult world.

The cast is good. Acting by lead character Abby Rider (Margaret Simon) is good. Rachel McAdams(Barbara Simon) and Kathy Bates(Sylvia Simon) are great as usual. Rest of the cast also do a good job.

The movie made me teary-eyed in couple of scenes(when Barbara meets her parents, when Margaret goes into confession room).

There are also moments in the movie which are situational funny. None of the characters are shown outright evil or outright good which is really good. Its easy to get carried away by portraying black/white pictures of characters rather than as human.

This movie portrays somewhat fairy-tale version of the kids growing up versus much more horrific/gut-wrenching tales. I am ok with it. We need all kinds of stories and we cannot compare one with other because life is such.

I was a bit taken aback a bit with too much sexual obsession of kids at age of 12(6th grade). Maybe its because I am from Asia. Maybe this movie reflects kids in American society more, I am not sure. Or maybe I am just too old-fashioned and need to grow-up a little :-). Anyway, taken in right spirit it enhances the movie's depth for sure.

One major nitpick is: If there were more intense scenes were Margaret really longs for God or her inner confusion/turmoil were portrayed better; maybe the movie would have gained more weight. But maybe it was intentional by director to not go there and that deep. Understandable.

It is not a masterpiece. But it's an warm, cute, heart-tugging, feel-good movie worth watching once.

A Good Person (2023)

I followed the recipe, why doesn't it taste good?

[6/10 · 30 April 2023]

TLDR This movie was underwhelming. It had ticked off all the boxes in terms of picking the right ingredients in terms of good cast; good themes of love, hate, grief, will power, addiction, forgiveness; good acting etc. But somehow the movie did not move me as a whole. It felt lacking and too formulaic.

Details

Movie starts with a narrative on model trains by Daniel(Morgan Freeman). If you want to be philosophical then ask Morgan Freeman to narrate something :-) with his great voice. But this is getting too old and made me chuckle.

Story starts on a happy note which is always a sign of there will be sadness later. Allison(Florence Pugh) and Nathan(Chinazha Uche) are in love and are happy. How do you show happiness? Show a celebration party with friends and their display of pure innocent love in that party. "Happiness conveyed to audience" box checked.

Then there is the accident. Post-accident stuff are quickly fast-forwarded. Now Allison is separated from Nathan and is in grief/guilt and addicted to pills. Nathan is left to take care of his grand-daughter after death of his daughter and son-in-law in the above accident.

Then it is struggle of Allison to get back to normal life and be free from addiction and grief/guilt. And struggle of Nathan to take care of Ryan. And all of these characters are brought together in a silly script-writing way.

Florence Pugh's acting is good but her character does not have any depth. She was a typical girl and now a junkie struggling in her life. Meh. Seen that many times in movies and portrayed much better. Whats different now in this movie? Nothing

Morgan Freeman's acting, as usual, is very natural, but it has become a stereotype and a cliche. Also the sub-plot of his addiction and his cruel-past seemed unnecessary and forced. Should have just concentrated on Pugh's character and added more layers to it instead.

Nathan, Ryan characters are just there in the blurry background. Not convincing and not impactful. Maybe Ryan's character was totally un-necessary again just deviating from Pugh's turmoil.

In my imagination, I felt if screenplay was just a interplay between Pugh's and Freeman's characters on guilt, grief, god, belief, test of virtue, meaning-of-life, will-power, happiness etc, then maybe this could have been a better movie? I don't know.

Daniel speaking in background: Movies are like model-train building. Where you can make things perfect which cannot be so in real life. But few people are good at making movies or building model-trains. And this is a story of average model-model train builders.

:-)

A Man Called Otto (2022)

Not too good, Not too bad, Not too ugly

[6/10 · 19 April 2023]

Its one time watchable. It is cute, sometimes melodramatic, sometimes made me cry but in the end it did not leave much of an impact on me.

Tom hanks with his grumpy old man acting, I dare say, did not convince to me of his grief, loneliness of his loss. Even so many of his suicide attempts could not make me feel sad for him. I was a bit surprised that Hanks acting was not up there which we typically associate him with.

Even though the story is simple, it felt like they were trying to tick-off too many social-awareness, diversity columns: like trans, immigrants, african americans, senior citizens, people who are good at heart but slightly dim, social-media frenzy, irresponsible apathetic youngsters, real estate and degrading america etc. By reading other reviews that this is based on a book and is also a remake. I am not sure all these are also in original. It would have been better if it was a simple story just focussing on love, grief and loneliness than trying to cram up so many things IMO.

They should have showed more of otto and his wife's relation post the tragedy. It would have helped me to empathize and see the vulnerable, hurting side of otto which we never got to peek into. He might be grumpy with others, but when he is alone never got to get into his inner pain. Maybe they did not want to go there, just to keep it light?

If you just want to watch a good old fashioned average drama/comedy then watch it. You wont gain mych and maybe wont lose much.

Hunger (II) (2023)

Hunger for attention

[5/10 · 12 April 2023]

A pretentious movie with no soul.

1. Acting was OK. Maybe below OK.

2. Chef Paul's character was 1-d much like the Tone's acting.

3. What's up with all superficial intensity with BGM?

4. Neither a heart tugging drama, nor a cerebral thriller, just a mimick and mashup of several old and stale themes into a fake homely Ngo noodles which tastes just OK.

5. What's up with new age movies, especially cooking based, trying to shock people(The Menu comes to mind) or trying to be too dark or new age. I would like to see a cooking movie where more focus is on cooking rather than exploring same old human emotions with cooking as just a mere backdrop. Don't waste the theme of cooking with old bland soup of tried and tested emotions.

6. Maybe food is overrated and there is nothing much to explore :-). I don't know 7. These kind of movies always start with such huge expectations and by the end its just pffff...... All chocolate dust and no cake.

Alone (II) (2023)

Pathetic movie

[1/10 · 10 March 2023]

I am shocked that such a pathetic movie is a product of Malayalam industry and it involves one of legendary actors like Mohanlal. It hurts!

I have a lot of respect for Mohanlal but his acting in this movie is horrible. Everything in this movie is horrible. Supposed to be funny jokes are cartoonish, mystery is childish, dialogues are over the top. IMO just like other characters, if mohanlal also disappeared from screen and voices were muted and just a blank screen was shown for 2 hours probably that would have been better movie.

This is just a naive mixture of ideas ripped off from Hollywood movies like shutter island, memento and tried to be served as a cerebral thriller. But ends up sending audience to coma.

Why do you need to copy Hollywood when you can give original movies like Drishyam. I am stunned that when Mammootty these days is delivering amazing movies which are pushing boundaries and making us think, why Mohanlal is acting in these stupid, pathetic movies. Mohanlal sir, please choose better scripts from now on.

Iratta (2023)

Malayalam cinema's take on 'Oldboy' theme

[6/10 · 8 March 2023]

First up kudos to Malayalam industry for keep pushing the boundaries while rest of Indian movies(mostly) are rolling in money covered in overhyped, clichéd, unoriginal crap.

Good things: 1) As usual in Malayalam movies realism and credibility of characters is good.

2) Cinematography and BGM are good.

3) Lazy elegance in acting of Joju George is amazing to watch.

4) Pushing the boundaries of script to explore the emotions, possibilities in taboo areas is a good experiment in our Indian cinema.

Bad things:

1) I am not sure whether this is inspired by the Korean movie 'Oldboy' or is it an original thought by the writer.

2) The acting of minister character, SP character and few others was poor.

3) The rape part was shown as a sleight of hand and pretty quickly pushed into background so that it can come as a shocker in the end. It's good to have that as a shocker but post that, the inner turmoils of both Vinod and Pramod should have been the main focus of the movie and should have spent more time on that. With current ending shocking value supersedes evilness, guilt, grief and other struggles.

4) Showing the dog in an obvious way in the beginning and cricket playing kids somewhat seems forced and did not seem natural. But the idea was good.

5) Most of the characters seemed one dimensional without much depth and development. Maybe because of that the movie seemed lacking. You could not connect to the daughter or to the characters of Malini and they seemed like shadows.

Overall its a brave attempt and thought provoking. But if you have already watched movies like Oldboy or Incendies then you feel a bit underwhelmed.

Mayabazar 2016 (2020)

Below average

[4/10 · 2 March 2023]

This movie tries to be in the genre of crime-comedy with an emotional thread woven into it and fails miserably.

Raj B Shetty and Sadhu Kokila's acting and comedy skills are the only things good in this movie. Everything else is pathetic. When will pur directors and script writers come out of this stereotypical characters and trying to have complete package(drama, emotion, comedy etc).

If you want to do con movie just concentrate on that. If you want do a dark comedy it's just OK to have evil characters with situational comedy. There is no need to cook up a background story to say that they are basically very good but situation forced them to do bad movies. Stop doing this please!

If you really want to make a movie om inner turmoils of a good human driven to evil do a movie on that, don't do a light hearted comedy.

This movie Joins the club of infinitely many movies which are "Jack of all, master of none" and fails miserably even at being "jack of all".

Hope (III) (2022)

How to waste good story with mediocre execution

[5/10 · 2 March 2023]

What could have been a good script is just wasted with mediocrity in all departments in this movie. It's also amazing how the threshold of good has been become so low by looking at the reviews. It's just an indication that how either people don't know/watched many good movies OR there have been so many bad movies in kannada industry, even if there is an attempt to experiment is considered amazing.

Movies based on reality have to walk the tight rope of not being a documentary. This movie fails at being a good movie but neither close to a realistic documentary.

The acting is mediocre, dialogues are ordinary, Screenplay is mediocre and movie is just dragged on unnecessarily. When will directors learn that just putting some facts together, adding some 1-dimensional moralistic tones, making shallow characters devoid of reality will never make a movie good I spite of picking a real message oriented story. Just holding a flag of "I am telling a story of injustice" does not equate to a good movie or any other art form for that matter.

I just "hope" directors and audience watch good movies beyond their language and country(for that matter, should follow art beyond movies) to upgrade their sensibilities. I would rather watch a no Brainerd entertainer than watch a message oriented movie just for the sake of it. Everyone intellectually knows about corruption and bad things which happen in our society and still go on except for few great souls. I don't believe movies should try to preach and I don't think can change society. But I believe they can make people atleast think and feel about stuff. So make a movie with heart, then your message will be a by product automatically. Start with a message then movie will not have neither heart and mind, just a clichéd kindergarten play minus cuteness of little kids and hence unbearable.

I wonder how many rhetoric, below par movies would have been avoided if directors were objective about their own talent and their output. Alas, that's not the world we live in.

Ondu Shikariya Kathe (2020)

Had a potential to be better movie

[5/10 · 28 February 2023]

This movie could have been so much better if only acting and direction was much better. The plot was interesting and cinematography was good. So much scope for exploration of inner turmoils of the characters of novelist, Harsha, Uma, Mohana, Uma's father, Akku etc is wasted. The exploration became superficial and characters became very cardboardish and 1 dimensional. Even though the story has emotional possibilities one could not empathize with any characters. Again it's because of poor acting and direction and not so proper portrayal of inner world of the characters.

There are also so many realistic/logical problems with parts of movie. How could not Harsha escape from the house; it's not a house made of unbreakable metal or its not a panic room. He could have cut the wooden roof or carved walls(he had years of time). Akku character seems so cartoonish; there are no strong reasons for her not to disclose to outsiders what was really going on. Whether she loved her brother so that he should not come to any harm or she was terrified of him? Neither things came across in the movie. I think Akku character was totally unnecessary.

Several things seem forced in the movie rather than being natural. Like Gulabi committing suicide, Uma not agreeing to marry in the climax, spirituality of novelist, Son of novelist visiting the lonely house on pretext of some localite friend of his in bangalore wanted him to sell it; this seemed cooked up just to show the drawings on the wall for audience; this suggests weak screenplay and they should have thought of a more natural or realistic/better way showing that house if that was really needed. Also showing the stealing nature of Mohana in the beginning, just to establish his evil nature was such an obviously amateurish directorial move. His evilness could have been portrayed in a more subtle way instead of showing some stealing scenes(again an example of creativity/subtleness in screenplay missing)

The editing could have been better and BGM could have also been better to add to the mood/tone of the scenes.

Atleast kudos to the team for trying something different than the same old BS kannada movie industry produces. Even though it seems like I am bad mouthing the movie, but its not the case. I was dissapointed good plot wasted due to bad execution. With better actors, Screenplay, dialogues, BGM, and more nuanced direction this movie could have been much better. So IMO better than an average kannada movie. Hope the team improves and comes up with much better movies in future.

The Menu (2022)

Self parody or heartless satire?

[6/10 · 12 January 2023]

Movie starts by stirring a lot of interest but gradually falls from strange/unknown to very familiar typical story zone just embellished with salty caramel coating. I think the movie script lacked an hearty cheeseburger. It only had sophisticated and smart food too dry for my palate. I could not root for any character and probably Anna/Erin's character came close but not good enough. It makes me wonder whether just choosing shocking way of presentation and using intellectual/satirical way of dissecting elitism or any societal observation is just not honest art(too many hollywood movies seem to follow this) or maybe I am not smart enough to understand all its layers. I would not watch this a second time. It's an interesting but failed experiment in my opinion.