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The building where yellow fever experiments were conducted to prove that it is not transmitted using infected clothing (fomites). Camp Lazear. |
Thursday, 12 September 2024
I need informed consent!
Tuesday, 23 July 2024
A twister!
Director: Nithilan Swaminathan
Just when you think you know how the story will go, it takes a tangent and yet another. And it goes on and on until it ends with a final twister.
Maharaja, a mild-mannered barber, leads a simple life with his wife and a little daughter. Right in front of his eyes, he sees a lorry, with its driver obviously off its rails, crashing into his house, killing his wife instantaneously. His ‘daughter’ is miraculously saved by a metal dustbin.
Maharajah continues life as a widower and a doting father. One day, his house is broken into, and the metal dustbin that saved his ‘daughter’ goes missing. Maharaja makes a police report.
What happened afterwards is a series of flashbacks, parallel storytelling, police brutality, and police power abuse that all lead to good old storytelling and a satisfying end to a twisted comedic thriller, if there is such a genre.
On a sobering note, we can see how creative some netizens can be. The main character in Maharaja, Vijay Sethupathi, in his 50th film appearance, is spotted with a bandaged left ear. As if like a fortunate stroke of serendipity (for the internet trolls, at least), on a platter, the news of Trump being shot in the ear became viral. Leave it to the ingenuity of the human mind, and the world has a picture of Vijay Sethupathi and Trump on the same poster as if promoting the film!
In case viewers are wondering about the role of the snake in this movie. Fret no more. Snakes are notoriously known for not recognising their offspring and eating their own eggs. Helpful to understand the ending. In a world that sees mothers rushing helplessly into burning buildings, we also have mothers who feed their cubs to the wolves!
Thursday, 23 May 2024
The new wave whodunnit
Silence 1: Can You Hear It?
Silence 2: The Night Owl Bar Shootout
Written & Directed: Aban Bharucha Deohans
It is not easy to catch many whodunnit mystery dramas in Indian cinema. Most stories are too convoluted to follow or too outlandish to believe. Sometimes, the investigative officers are given superhuman capabilities and have to single-handedly swashbuckler or chase the villains to the conclusion. That is history.
With more exposure to police procedural TV shows and Hollywood offerings, audiences can no longer be fooled by this dated production. They are demanding more. With the advent of OTT platforms, it seems that newer, bolder, and more realistic scripts, sticking to real investigative police work, are on the menu these days. Many real-life crime dramas are shown as docuseries and movies. These two films with the same cast are fine examples.
In Silence #1, a young lady is found dead with a gaping wound on her head by hikers at a popular hiking site. Novice sleuths or even crime drama addicts can sniff out the perpetrator at the word go. The storytellers decided to go somewhat meandering to trap this suspect. Of course, when this lead turned out to be a red herring, we knew it must be and turned out to be the second on the list anyway. Manoj Bajpai, who assumes the role of a disillusioned police investigator, keeps the plot together. There is a backstory to his frustration, which adds glitz to the whole affair.As the first outing in Silence #2, Bajpai’s service in the particular unit, Special Crime Unit (SCU), is requested explicitly by VVIP. An important political figure is gunned down in a bar, and Bajpai is told to get to the bottom of it. Slowly, investigations take a tangent. It spins into a yarn of child prostitution and call-girl racket. The ending, however, turns out to be a whimper as the wrongdoer, after an elaborate execution of her whole crime, just admits to her heinous crimes so readily.
Still, it is an engaging one or two.
Friday, 3 November 2023
Brutally funny?
Written and Directed by: Abimanyu
Thursday, 27 April 2023
The press feeds the public what they want, scoops!
Writer & Director: Andrew Louis

Saturday, 20 August 2022
A wounded mother
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Gene Tierney |
Ms Marple, in 1953, is residing in a small village in the English countryside. A film crew comes to the village to do some shooting. In midst of all the excitement, the villagers also witness a couple of murders. Ms Marple, with the help of her 'favourite' nephew from Scotland Yard, gets to the bottom of it all.
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