rajgopalmuralidharbackup Reviews

The Whale (2022)

Forced me to FINALLY start my DRY FAST!

[10/10 · 8 February 2023]

At the end of this film The Whale I loudly told the audience i am 40 pounds overweight and I am starting a Dry Fast right effing now because I am NEVER going to end up like this EVER! This is one of the most important movies ever made.

Read Sun & Steel by Yukio Mishima the greatest essay of all time free PDF online to discover the exact opposite of what Brendan Fraser's character was doing. Btw Mishima was bisexual and 3 time Nobel Literature nominee so I'm surprised there was no mention of him from this character who truly is a phenomenal English writing teacher btw, a solid direction from Darren Aronofsky and a jaw dropping performance from Brendan Fraser who truly deserves the Best Actor Oscar and a stellar performance from Sadie Sink who plays his daughter.

I would've cried if the ending was different, I wasn't so angry at the nurse for feeding him chicken in the opening scene, and at myself that it took this long and this movie to finally shock me into action. You CAN end up like this.

Btw some truly revolting scenes so be warned I was holding my hand in front of my face and staring away at points verbally exclaiming WTF at points. Most of the audience was sobbing in tears at the end and I could see reflections of parts of my own psyche in this film.

If you have weight to lose or know someone who is obese which is 2/3rds TWO THIRDS of America then go see this and drag them with you.

Ttyl I'm gonna go see Everything Everywhere All At Once to recover from this and enjoy myself 2 days into this dry fast. Btw THAT is a very fun movie truly deserves the Best Picture Oscar the single most creative film I've seen in decades.

M3GAN (2022)

As a Computer Programmer I absolutely LOVE this movie

[10/10 · 7 January 2023]

I love this movie M3GAN it was awesome pure absolute fun and in 3 years it'll be a documentary. Tell your friends to watch it it's really good not a horror much kore of a very near future sci-fi cyberpunk thriller like the 2013 Spike Jonze movie Her or actually much closer to Ex Machina which is a masterpiece.

I sincerely believe that ChatGPT and other tools like it will rapidly make this world unrecognizable mostly for the better within a matter of months and by this time next year it'll be clear that within the next 3-5 years combining it with robotics will bring about something or maybe someone like this doll.

We have to absolutely do our best to create BENEVOLENT AI that helps us become better versions of ourselves. An AI version of Twitter making us fight 24/7/365 would be a dystopian nightmare. While an AI life coach would be able to help us individually become the best versions of ourselves and allow our Logos to emerge.

Heck now even movie reviews like this can be AI written but don't worry this one is real and im being honest. Might be among the last times I do something like this manually though.

I sincerely would love a world where due to massive social dislocation people could buy robot friends and robot pets to help with their loneliness.

It may or may not be an optimal outcome but I sincerely believe the positives will vastly outweighs the negatives especially if the self improvement coaching helps to save people from things like suicide, obesity, bankruptcy, legal problems, business problems, life problems in general. Wouldn't you love to have a friend that was 100% on YOUR side? Especially with the state of the world where it's going? I sure would.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Michelle Yeoh's best masterpiece since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

[10/10 · 24 June 2022]

Unreal and surreal. Like a visual mushroom trip. The singular most original and creative thing I've ever seen on screen. Just trust me on this. GO. SEE. THIS. MOVIE. I could spend 10,000 words describing what an experience it was but just do it. Everything Everywhere All At Once. This is going to change film in the way that the Matrix did.

Three (1998–2000)

One of my fondest childhood memories of the 90's

[10/10 · 8 May 2022]

TIL Julie Bowen was the blonde woman in Three. I remember vaguely 3 criminals being forced together by a shadowy organization to work together and having all sorts of cool gadgets and such. I can only remember flashes of various episodes but I do remember it being an enormous amount of fun to watch. I think this aired on UPN channel 9 in the Northeast USA in the late 1990's. I cannot find a reference to this series anywhere else on the internet would love to see a Blu-ray release surprised it was only 13 episodes.

TURN: Washington's Spies (2014–2017)

God-tier Americana. Ascending to perfection. Had me in tears.

[10/10 · 3 September 2021]

I just finished binged the 40 episodes of TURN: Washington's Spies. Starts out great but then keeps ascending. That final episode I was in tears with a tricorner hat crying and saluting. This was golden 10 out of 10 for. Just stellar. It's on Netflix and of course well worth obtaining a physical or digital copy in case it gets memory holed.

Fantastic Fungi (2019)

My God this was a beautiful impactful movie

[10/10 · 27 August 2021]

Ok yeah sure it gets a little infomercially at points and some of the points don't connect but the overarching message is so beautiful and the delivery so impactful I implore people to discover this on Netflix and share with family and friends. Psychedelic mushrooms have the capacity to bring about world peace and a new technological golden age. We'd be criminally remiss in ignoring their potential. Also the 4K time lapse and CGI was jaw dropping.

Summerland (I) (2020)

Your whole family needed this movie right now trust me

[9/10 · 16 August 2020]

Summerland - 2020 - 9.0/10 - A-minus - This is a tender airy beautiful very light but sweet story like a Hallmark movie and it's exactly what I needed right now. It had the worst possible luck getting released right now but man it's a damn good thing this was made. Very nostalgic and it reminds me of a feeling like a memory or a dream I once had but can't quite remember anymore. Couple of small quibbles with a couple of shot choices like the angle of the only brief kiss in the film was a bit off and some of the story beats maybe I would've done differently but I can't really complain because, aside from hindsight being 20/20 and being an armchair general is easy, this is for the most part a beautifully shot film set in the English countryside during WWII far away from the Blitz in 1940's London and I'm reminded that these people are going through something somewhat similar to what we're going through now in that whatever is happening it's civilization defining and the world will never be the same. There's also a faint sense of your own mortality hanging in the balance and a feeling that you shouldn't be wasting your life and you should be living it. Well done for a 90 minute PG rated family movie I mean wow 😂👌🇺🇸🇬🇧. Gemma Arterton carries almost the entire film and she plays a woman named Alice who's a writer that the whole town thinks is an unfriendly weird witch lady but underneath the prickly exterior she holds back the pain of having lost her one true love in life Vera back in the 1920's played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw who delivers her best performance since the legendary San Junipero episode of Black Mirror. Alice gets drafted and stuck with having to host a boy who is an evacuee from the Blitz named Frank played by Lucas Bond who is pitch perfect for this as is his precocious friend Edie played by Dixie Egerickx. She goes from trying to reject him outright to falling in love with being a mother. I don't want to give away the rest but expect a Hallmark movie vibe and some tear jerking and happy endings. The director is Jessica Swale and this is her first film which is remarkable given the level of quality so bravo to her she definitely has a future doing this. She captures the cliffs of Dover with loving attention to detail using this wide panoramic shots and makes very good use of aerial drone photography when needed but she knows how to frame intimate closeups. This is exactly the kind of movie I really needed right now given the state of the world and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's also a family movie that you can easily watch with your parents and while a lesbian film like Portrait of a Lady on Fire might be a god tier cinematic experience which I absolutely recommend people to watch at least once before they die it might be uncomfortable to watch it with your folks because of the sex scenes. This film won't be I mean it's rated PG so feel free to enjoy it with the whole family.

Uncle Tom (2020)

If you're an American of any color or looking to learn about American history please watch this

[10/10 · 15 July 2020]

One of the best documentaries I've seen in years. I got it on digital and the DVD of course with all this online censorship but I really hope they just release it broadly on YouTube and other streaming sites or on Netflix, Prime, etc. because more people should definitely see this especially Americans

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

I specifically went to see this before Coronavirus turns movie theaters into ghost towns

[10/10 · 13 March 2020]

Portrait of a Lady on Fire - 10/10 - A-plus - how often do I get to see 2 perfect movies in a day. This has been happening more often in recent years. This is a French film about a woman who has to secretly paint the portrait of another woman who about to be married off to a wealthy gentleman in Milan but she doesn't want to be married off so she's refusing to pose for the portrait. This is a quiet slow burn exquisite film. Chris Stuckmann was right when he described every shot of this film as being lush (he actually said ravishing but either way both words are accurate with this film) because it is and they are. This is a quiet portrayal of what life was like for women in 18th Century France from the day to day stuff to the little interactions to the far deeper emotional things that by law, culture, social convention, technology, etc. severely limited women at the time and it slowly builds up to a forbidden romance. It's also about art, painting, love, music, poetry, just go see this film. It's a different experience and surreal and ethereal to watch a movie that is so quiet but that speaks volumes. Be sure to give it a chance it's well worth the effort to appreciate something this beautiful.

The Portal (2019)

Please get a screening in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area

[10/10 · 1 November 2019]

The trailer absolutely sold me on this movie and I'd love to see it. The website is linked in the IMDB profile so please if you can get a screening in the Dallas/Fort Worth area please do.

Chernobyl (2019)

In the beginning the English accents bothered me. By the end I realized I was watching genius.

[10/10 · 4 June 2019]

By the 2nd or 3rd episode I was too engrossed in the story to care about the English instead of Russian issue. This was haunting not just as a true life depiction of the horrors of what a nuclear disaster looks like but also how terrifying living under Communism really is and how it directly contributed to the disaster. Gorbachev wrote in 2006 that he thought Chernobyl was the event that really caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and after watching this I'm inclined to agree. We got to the edge of apocalypse and sealed it at enormous cost. This series is an incredibly tense harrowing warning to the entire present generation to NOT do what they did and for those who died trying to seal it they were heroes. Go watch this and show it to your friends and family. Communism/Socialism killed 100+ million people in the 20th century and is still killing people today and if Chernobyl had gone as bad as it could've gone then that toll would be at least another 50 million higher.

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019)

A commercial Bollywood movie handling this issue with delicacy and grace

[9/10 · 2 February 2019]

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga - 2019 - 8.5/10 - B-plus - "How I Felt When I Saw That Girl" the meaning of the title which is also a very famous Bollywood song from 1994 from the movie 1942: A Love Story. We've got a commercial Indian film a romantic comedy here that's tackling the issue of a girl falling in love with another girl. When it comes to social issues type Indian movies that're trying to preach tolerance and acceptance, it's always hit or miss and I really didn't know what to expect going in and I was actually pleasantly surprised. As far as sappy lovey dovey Bollywood musicals go, this one handles a rather delicate subject with an unusual amount of tact and grace. I almost cried at a few points and that never happens to me during a commercial Indian film. Normally I'd give a movie like this a 7.5/10 - B-minus but given how groundbreaking this film is and how successfully it navigates walking into new territory, I'm giving it a full point extra bumping it up to an 8.5/10 - B-plus. Well done. Solid. Anil Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Sonam Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, and Regina Cassandra starring with Shelley Chopra Dhar directing in a Vidhu Vinod Chopra production and like many commercial Bollywood films, it's a "family friendly" movie but in this case it works to the film's advantage.

Intimate Strangers (2018)

Hilariously Darkly Comedic and Deeply Personal

[10/10 · 11 November 2018]

Darkly comedic and deeply personal Korean movie about 4 couples where the guys have been best friends since grade school and with their wives they decide to play a game at a dinner party where everyone shares each other's calls and texts for the evening. You can imagine how that spirals out of control. Phenomenal acting and truly well worth the watch. The film finishes off with the saying "People live three lives. A public life, a private life, and a secret life." And I've never seen that so beautifully portrayed.

Her Side of the Bed (2017)

Extremely hilarious dialogue

[10/10 · 9 November 2018]

Her Side of the Bed has extremely hilarious dialogue played by actors that look like they really enjoy what they're doing. When the filmmakers really enjoy what they're doing, you can feel it as an audience member. I think this is going to be one of my guilty pleasures and a cult classic for sure. It's also hauntingly beautifully bittersweet in a way