Streaming Video News: March 7, 2024

Best Bollywood Movies of 2023

It’s time to bid adieu to 2023 with my Best Bollywood Movies of the year list!

First up is one of a few smaller family dramas that made my 2023 Top 10 Hindi films: Manoj Bajpayee’s Gulmohar. Filmmaker Rahul V. Chittella’s screenplay deftly introduces all of the story’s major points of conflict within the first five minutes, and the story treats LGBTQ issues with sensitivity.

Two big-budget, star-studded romances are next: Shraddha Kapoor & Ranbir Kapoor’s Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar and Alia Bhatt & Ranveer Singh’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. I love a good spectacle with lavish dance numbers, and both films delivered.

Given how many of my negative reviews include variations of the phrase, “This could have been shorter,” it’s no surprise that I enjoyed the anthology Lust Stories 2. Four short stories in 2 hours and 12 minutes? Sold! (Especially when Sujoy Ghosh and Konkona Sen Sharma are directing two of those stories.)

The biopic Tarla is another of the smaller family dramas that made the cut for its thoughtful portrayal of a couple navigating gender roles in 1970s India.

Though it looks like a war movie on the surface, Pippa is a family film of sorts as well. Ishaan Khattar, Mrunal Thakur, and Priyanshu Painyuli portray siblings who all play a role in their nation’s war efforts. The real tanks used in Pippa are very cool, as is the choreography in the song “Main Parwaana.”

I really enjoyed writer-director Arjun Varain Singh’s digital-age romance Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, which featured its own trio of standout young performers: Ananya Panday, Adarsh Gourav, and Siddhant Chaturvedi.

Of all of 2023’s blockbuster action flicks, Shak Rukh Khan’s Jawan was the wildest and most fun.

My favorite of the smaller relationship dramas is Three of Us — a gorgeously-shot gem about fading memories. Shefali Shah is pitch-perfect as a woman with early-onset dementia, and she’s supported with great performances from Swanand Kirkire and Jaideep Ahlawat.

2023 was Jaideep Ahlawat’s year, not just because of his role in Three of Us, but also for his performance in my favorite movie of the year: Jaane Jaan. Sujoy Ghosh directed my very favorite Hindi film, 2012’s Kahaani, so I was predisposed to like Jaane Jaan (and his Lust Stories 2 short “Sex with Ex”). But Jaane Jaan is Ghosh at his best. Like Kahaani, Jaane Jaan is another thriller about a woman with a problem that’s set in an evocative locale. This time, Kareena Kapoor Khan is the woman in trouble in a gloomy hill town, and Ahlawat plays her unlikely helper. The film is tense and exciting, and the performances totally sell it. Jaane Jaan is why I like movies.

Kathy’s Best Bollywood Movies of 2023

Jaane Jaan — stream on Netflix
Three of Us — stream on Netflix
Jawan — stream on Netflix
Kho Gaye Hum Kahan — stream on Netflix
Pippa — stream on Amazon Prime
Tarla — stream on Zee5
Lust Stories 2 — stream on Netflix
Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani — stream on Amazon Prime
Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar — stream on Netflix
Gulmohar — stream on Hulu

Previous Best Movies Lists

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Movie Review: Three of Us (2023)

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4 Stars (out of 4)

A woman diagnosed with early-onset dementia returns to an important place from her youth in the quiet, thoughtful drama Three of Us. It’s a gorgeous film that gives its characters all the time they need.

Shefali Shah plays the woman in question, Shailaja. She’s married to Dipankar (Swanand Kirkire), and their son is away at college. Shailaja’s increasing forgetfulness necessitates an early retirement from her government job processing paperwork for divorcing couples.

She asks Dipankar to take her to visit Vengurla, a small town on the Konkan coast where she attended school from fifth through eighth grade. It’s not a place she’s ever mentioned before, so he’s surprised by the request but obliges with a week-long trip.

Old classmates and teachers recognize Shailaja immediately, even though she’s been gone almost thirty years. Most importantly, her childhood sweetheart Pradeep (Jaideep Ahlawat) is still in town. He’s happy to see her and takes off work to guide the couple around the area.

Elements like Shailaja’s past reluctance to talk about Vengurla or the boy she left behind could easily be the setup for a thriller or romantic drama, but Three of Us isn’t that kind of movie. Pradeep introduces Shailaja and Dipankar to his wife and kids right away. Shailaja has her reasons for not dwelling on her time in Vengurla until it becomes clear that, someday, she won’t be able to remember those days at all.

Everyone in Three of Us is nice. The story is packed with emotion even though no one yells, deceives, or fights. The conflict is with a force that can’t be fought, as Shailaja’s memories slip away and as she and the people she love ready themselves for the changes that will bring.

Shah plays Shailaja with subtlety. When she loses her place or gets overwhelmed, she clams up and quietly retreats. If we didn’t know about her diagnosis, she might just seem shy. Ahlawat’s Pradeep is a steadying presence, which might have been why Shailaja liked him in the first place. Kirkire is the workmanlike hero of the film, playing Dibankar exactly like a guy who’s hanging around with his wife’s old classmates and feeling a bit like a third wheel should be played.

Throughout all, director Avinash Arun — who also co-wrote and served as director of photography on the film — resists rushing the characters, letting us observe them as they just exist. It’s soothing.

Arun made his name in the industry as a cinematographer, so it’s no surprise that Three of Us is stunning to look at. He knows how to perfectly frame shots, position the characters in space, and follow their movements. The natural scenery around Vengurla is breathtaking, but the built environment of a small town slowly decaying is melancholy and evocative as well.

As if this weren’t enough beauty, Arun includes a scene where Shailaja returns to the dance studio where she learned Bharatnatyam. The school’s current star pupil Manjiri (Payal Jadhav, the film’s choreographer) gives a jaw-droppingly beautiful performance that alone would make Three of Us worth watching. Add that to the sweet story and pitch-perfect performances, and you’ve got yourself a really charming little film.

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Movie Review: Dunki (2023)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani’s Dunki addresses the inhumanity of national borders and immigration policies that disproportionately punish the poor. In typical Hirani fashion, he uses humor to make the problem relatable, but the grim, visceral middle section of the story feels out of place.

Dunki begins with the same framing device Hirani used in 3 Idiots: three long-time pals set out to meet another friend they haven’t seen for many years. This time, the action begins in 2020 in London, as a grey-haired woman named Manu (Taapsee Pannu in old lady makeup) breaks out from the hospital. She holds her IV bag aloft as she navigates public transit in her hospital gown, a sequence that makes for great visual humor. Pannu is the film’s standout comic performer.

Manu meets her buddies Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) and Balli (Anil Grover), who are as eager as she is to return to their Punjabi hometown. But visas are tricky to come by, so they decide to contact the friend who helped them get out of India 25 years ago — Hardy (Shah Rukh Khan).

The action flashes back to 1995, when Buggu, Balli, and Manu hoped to solve their families’ financial problems by working in England. A thriving visa-fraud industry in town promises to help those without skills or money emigrate through dishonest means. Hardy arrives in town to repay a debt to Manu’s recently deceased brother and stays to help her.

The four enroll in an English language class of dubious repute led by Geetu (Boman Irani, who also played an educator in 3 Idiots). Vicky Kaushal has a lengthy cameo as a fellow student named Sukhi. There’s an extended comedy bit as the students think they’ve found a sneaky way to pass their official English exams without really learning much English. Some of it is quite funny, but like many of the bits in Dunki, it’s longer than it needs to be.

When conventional and unconventional methods fail to get them visas, Geetu proposes a third option: the dunki (“donkey”) method. This involves paying brokers to smuggle them over land into Turkey, then via shipping container across the sea to England. It’s illegal, expensive, and dangerous, but it’s their only option. Hardy joins them, hoping the skills he learned as a soldier will help them survive the journey.

This is where the film’s comic tone shifts to something darker. There are some gruesome deaths and an attempted sexual assault that make what had been a family-friendly movie into one requiring parental discretion. It seems like an attempt to do justice to the very real horrors faced by those migrating illegally, but the change is abrupt.

While Hirani deserves credit for shining a light on this global justice issue, his fictional narrative leaves something to be desired. The characters are indistinct and forgettable, and decades of their experience are absent from the story. The audience is only supposed to care about what the characters go through, not who they are, so Hirani doesn’t develop them as individuals.

This is Shah Rukh Khan’s first film with Hirani, who gets a classic performance out of the star. The film’s lone dance number “Lutt Putt Gaya” is enjoyable, although it would’ve been fun if Pannu played more of a part in it. Khan’s other 2023 releases were action thrillers, so this was a nice change of pace. It’s just too bad Dunki‘s screenplay wasn’t up to snuff.

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Streaming Video News: February 15, 2024

Movie Review: 12th Fail (2023)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Watch 12th Fail on Hulu

Even though 12th Fail is based on the life of a real person, the film feels abstracted from its main character. The story contains a number of obstacles that can trip up viewers unfamiliar with the hiring processes of the Indian civil service.

Vikrant Massey plays Manoj Kumar Sharma, who grew up in a poor, rural village but studied and sacrificed to become a member of the Indian Police Service (IPS). Obviously, the movie doesn’t need to explain what the IPS is to Indian viewers, but it’s not made clear to outsiders how, say, an IPS officer differs from a DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police). The film uses a lot of abbreviations that blur together for those not steeped in the shorthand.

The story begins in 1997 when Manoj is a teenager in Chambal. The area is known for its bandits, and the mayor runs the village on bribes and corruption. Newly transferred DSP Dushyant Singh (Priyanshu Chatterjee) arrests the school principal for encouraging students to cheat on their exams. Manoj is so inspired by the righteous DSP that he vows to study and become an IPS officer.

Even Manoj is surprised at just how labyrinthine the process to become an Indian civil servant is — and just how small the odds of success are. After passing high school, there are multiple exams: some multiple choice, some essay, including some in English. Students get four total attempts to pass the exams, and that’s it. If they pass their exams, they still have to clear a brutal final interview.

The process can take years to complete, which makes it hard for anyone who has to work while studying. Everyone who takes the tests pays for exam coaching, further weeding out many poor and working class applicants.

Manoj heads to the city of Gwailor to pursue coaching, only to be robbed before finding the coaching center shut down. He gets lucky when he meets Pritam Pandey (Anant V Joshi), another prospective student. Pritam’s family has money, so he takes Manoj with him to Delhi. The two stay friends even as Manoj works a series of low-wage jobs, studying into the wee hours of the night.

Writer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra makes Pritam the narrator of Manoj’s story, which creates a distance between the audience and the main character. As the narrative proceeds, it becomes clear that the character Manoj portrays in the film is mostly a generic symbol of underprivileged test takers–and not an interesting character, himself. As Manoj’s lower caste friend Gauri (Anshumann Pushkar) says, “Even if one of us wins, the whole herd wins.” But if we don’t care about the one, it’s that much more difficult to be invested in the herd.

Despite featuring Manoj’s friends and eventual girlfriend Shraddha (Medha Shankar), it doesn’t feel like we get much insight into Manoj. He’s determination personified, but that’s about it. Massey’s performance in the lead role is solid.

In addition to the movie’s characterization issues, the studying and test-taking processes are shown in greater detail than is necessary, bogging down the pace.

The real Manoj’s accomplishments are inspirational, but 12th Fail itself is a bit dull.

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Streaming Video News: February 9, 2024

Movie Review: Bhakshak (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Bhakshak on Netflix

A reporter gets a lead on a scandal involving child abuse at a state-funded orphanage, only to be met with government officials unwilling to take action. Fans of movies about investigative journalism will enjoy Bhakshak.

Bhumi Pednekar plays Vaishali, a reporter who runs an independent news channel in Bihar with her cameraman sidekick Bhaskar (Sanjay Mishra). The channel has struggled for a couple of years to find an audience, and Vaishali’s husband Arvind (Surya Sharma) wonders if it’s time for her to try a new job or start a family.

Vaishali gets a break when her informer Guptaji (Durgesh Kumar) hands her a government-commissioned report on abuse at state-run orphanages for girls. An institution in Munawwarpur is flagged for further investigation, with girls reporting physical and sexual abuse and forced prostitution.

What’s perplexing is that the report is already two-months old, yet the government has made no public comment about it, nor has it started an investigation.

Vaishali and Bhaskar can’t get inside the Munawwarpur home for girls, which is run by newspaper magnate and aspiring politician Bansi Sahu (Aditya Srivastava). The bureaucrat who runs the state’s department for child welfare assures Vaishali that the system is working properly.

Bhakshak does a good job laying out how easily protocols and procedures meant to safeguard institutions and taxpayer funds can be exploited by nefarious actors. Since Vaishali doesn’t have the platform of a major news channel to exert public pressure, she must learn how to use those same rules and procedures against those who are stonewalling her.

This may sound dry, but Vaishali’s frustrations are relatable. The stakes are high, so the story is never boring even when the subject matter is mostly bureaucratic. However, the film is probably fifteen minutes longer than it needs to be.

Bhakshak opens with an on-screen warning that the film contains depictions of violence against women, and that warning should be taken seriously. The first scene shows the results of a disturbing act of violence against one of the girls at the Munawwarpur home. Later scenes elaborate on what goes on within the walls of the orphanage, and they are also tough to watch.

All of the actors treat the material with the gravity it deserves. Tanisha Mehta deserves particular praise for the way she plays Sudha, a young woman who briefly worked at the Munawwarpur home and was emotionally scarred by the experience. Pednekar and Mishra have a nice rapport.

The biggest complaint about Bhakshak is that it ends with Vaishali giving a speech that belabors the thematic point the movie is built around. I just spent two hours having that message reinforced. I don’t need the CliffsNotes version after the fact.

Nevertheless, Bhakshak has its heart in the right place. It does all the things a movie about investigative journalism is supposed to do. As long as the violent content isn’t a deterrent, it’s a worthwhile watch.

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Movie Review: Animal (2023)

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0.5 Star (out of 4)

Watch Animal on Netflix

Animal is so unintentionally funny that it almost veers into So Bad It’s Good territory. Almost. An excess of pointless, gory violence and an unrelenting mean streak overshadow the film’s wackier elements, making it simply So Bad.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Vijay, a man obsessed with his emotionally distant father Balbir (Anil Kapoor). Since childhood, Vijay has assumed that he knows what’s best for everyone. His eagerness to use violence to prove that gets him sent away from the family more than once, further straining the relationship between father and son.

After college, mullet-sporting Vijay woos his childhood sweetheart Geetanjali (Rashmika Mandanna) by extolling the virtue of alpha males and telling her, “You have a big pelvis. You can accommodate healthy babies.” That Geetanjali is impressed by this red pill nonsense is one of the funniest parts of the movie.

Years later, Vijay, Geetanjali, and their kids return from America after Balbir is shot in a failed assassination attempt. Vijay replaces his dad’s security team with relatives from the family’s ancestral village. In truth, Vijay has enlisted his cousins to help him take revenge on the people who attacked Balbir.

Though Animal ostensibly takes place in the real world, the story is sheer fantasy. We know this because the structures that shape our society are absent. There are no police in Animal, and barely any mention of politics or government. Vijay kills hundreds of people in a single, publicly accessible place, and there is no reaction to it, let alone consequences. As much as I loathe cinematic storytelling that relies on news footage, the fact that no one seems to notice all the dead people feels odd. Balbir’s steel factory generates unlimited funds for Vijay’s vengeance, unmanaged and almost entirely off camera.

I say almost entirely because Vijay gives a televised speech at the factory promising to slit the throats of those who hurt his dad. If only CNBC was really that interesting.

See, Animal can’t be the realized dream of alpha male culture in a world with laws. The leading man must be able to exercise his will freely. He writes the rules, and everyone needs to fall in line or die. There are plenty of Hindi films where the male lead is the arbiter of reality, though few present such a bloody version of manly id unleashed. Usually it’s just a few extrajudicial killings by a divinely sanctioned cop (a la Singham), not gory mass slaughter and terrorism.

To be fair to Vijay, a lot of his killing is done in self-defense. The sequence in which Vijay chops through dozens of assailants with an axe while his cousins sing about how a Jatt is kicking ass is pretty cool. The rest of the fight scenes are less compelling, apart from the almost orgasmic reactions some men have to hand-to-hand combat. To call it homoerotic undersells it.

None of the women in the movie have any agency. All of them are threatened or humiliated by men. Geetanjali’s marriage makes her utterly miserable.

The actors truly commit to their parts in this goofy movie. Vijay likes to talk about urination and underwear, and Ranbir Kapoor delivers the lines with a straight face. Bobby Deol shows up late in the film to chew scenery, which he does with gusto. Somehow, Shakti Kapoor of Gunda fame plays the movie’s voice of reason as one of Balbir’s long-time friends.

The thing about a So Bad It’s Good classic like Gunda is that it’s fun. The violence is broken up with lighter moments, like when Mithun Chakraborthy tosses an infant to a monkey. Animal is weird, but not fun. Everyone is unhappy, including the anti-hero main character, and there’s no sense that things will be better when the violence stops.

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Movie Review: Alienoid (2022) & Alienoid 2 – The Return to the Future (2024)

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4 Stars (out of 4)

Rent/buy Alienoid on Amazon
Watch Alienoid 2 on Amazon Prime
Watch Alienoid on Hulu
Watch Alienoid 2 on Hulu

I’m venturing out of Bollywood for this review because I love the Alienoid movies so much. I’m combining Alienoid and Alienoid 2 in to a single review, because they tell one complete story and were filmed together–kind of like Gangs of Wasseypur 1 & 2.

Writer-director Choi Dong-hoon’s duology Alienoid and Alienoid 2: The Return to the Future defies genre, because the films contain elements of nearly every genre. Calling them historical-action-fantasy-thriller-sci-fi-martial-arts-comedy-time-travel-family-dramas comes pretty close. Choi pulls off his audacious project with incredible finesse.

In the version of reality that Choi presents in the films, Earth serves as a jail for prisoners from an alien civilization. The aliens implant their prisoners into the brains of humans who live their lives unaware of their cranial stowaways. When the humans die, so do the prisoners, who can’t survive more than five minutes in Earth’s atmosphere.

Occasional breakouts happen — resulting in the violent alien controlling its human and rampaging outside its human cage (in five-minute bursts) — so a Guard (Kim Woo-bin) stays on Earth to recapture escapees and minimize casualties and witnesses. Prisoners are sequestered in different time periods, so Guard uses his shape-changing computer/vehicle/doppelgänger sidekick Thunder (also Kim, trust me, it makes sense) to travel wherever and whenever he’s needed.

The story begins in a Korean village in 1380. Guard and Thunder battle and capture an escaped prisoner whose human host dies in the melee, leaving behind an infant daughter. They bring the baby with them to the present — Seoul, 2012 — and raise her, naming her Lee Ahn.

Ten years later — Seoul, 2022 — and perceptive 10-year-old Lee Ahn (Choi Yoo-ri) suspects that her “Dad,” Guard, isn’t human and that his car might be sentient. Her curiosity puts her in danger when the deadly alien prisoner The Controller is brought to Earth, and his lackeys attempt to free him. After a devastating attack on the city, Guard and Thunder grab Lee Ahn and travel back to 1391 to trap The Controller in the past. But things don’t go as planned.

The story cuts between scenes in contemporary Seoul and a Korean town circa 1400, where the main character is a magician named Mureuk (Ryu Jun-yeol). There’s a big bounty for something called The Divine Knife, and Mureuk wants to find it and cash in. But men far more dangerous than Mureuk are also looking for the knife, as is a beautiful thief (played by Kim Tae-ri). Soon enough, Mureuk is in over his head.

With all the aliens, robots, and spaceships, you’d think director Choi would content himself to stay in the realm of science fiction. But magic is very real in the world of Alienoid, and the characters who wield it are some of the best, funniest characters in the movies. Mureuk himself is hilarious thanks to Ryu’s deft physical comedy. Mureuk’s two sidekicks — Left Paw (Lee Si-hoon) and Right Paw (Shin Jung-geun) — are a pair of cats who live in his magical fan and can turn into humans (trust me, it makes sense).

Then there are the Sorcerers of the Twin Peaks, Heug-sol (Yum Jung-ah) and Cheong-woon (Jo Woo-jin), the film’s most reliable comic relief. Like Mureuk, their laughs typically come from the unintended consequences of their own spells. While they are great in the first movie, they’re complete scene-stealers in the second.

Lee Hanee also deserves praise for playing the flirtatious single aunt of one of Ean’s school friends.

The first film does the heavy lifting from a plot standpoint, which makes sense with a story this dense. The second movie provides some different viewpoints on events from the first and introduces an important new character: a blind swordsman played by Jin Seon-kyu, who also wants the Divine Blade.

Both films successfully blend comedy, character growth, and action to maintain story momentum. There isn’t a dull moment in either Alienoid movie. Action sequences range from comical hand-to-hand combat to large-scale scenes of destruction that feel more tangible and impactful than much of the city-wide carnage in recent Hollywood superhero films.

Alienoid 1 & 2 are totally immersive, but they’re also something to marvel at from a meta perspective. As giddy as I was while watching, it was hard not to wonder at how Choi manages to make all the disparate elements of the story work together so seamlessly. But the mechanics of how he does it ultimately don’t matter, when the movies are so darn much fun.

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Streaming Video News: March 7, 2024

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