Movies I watched in the last 5 months of 2020 or How I sucked as a Filmopheniac! (August 2020 to December 2020)

 

Movies I watched in the last 5 months of 2020:

My movie watching experience has been lessening for the past few months. I used to watch 3 movies in a week at the time I joined IBM. In college, I would’ve seen at least 5 movies in a week. But now-a-days, as I said earlier, it had been declining at a constant rate.

I had watched only 12 movies in the past three months. I thought of sharing my thoughts on nine of those movies.

After I came to my home in July, I was busy watching Fairy Tail. So, my count of movies starts for the next five months. August, September, October, November and December.

August:

I watched four movies on this month. But I am going to share my views on only one movie.

It’s the History of the World – Part 1

It was the time I was reading the Dan Brown Books. I was so addicted to the books. I didn’t even feel like watching anything other then reading those books. The special thing about those books were its fast-paced writing style. Usually chapters in books lasts for at least 5 to 10 pages. (at least from the books that I have read) But some of Dan Brown’s chapters lasts not only a single page but sometimes only half of it. And every chapter ends with a cliff-hanger.

I am not sure that was the ideal way of writing a novel, but it made to read those novels without stopping them. Dan Brown writes mostly on the concepts of his ideology rather than developing a character. May be that’s why some people hate the cinematic feel his books give. I can agree on that but what the hell. If I can hook with the book, and if I can relate and debate on what I am reading, and if that book doesn’t cringe me out, I don’t have any complaint.

So, in the month of August, I watched 3 movies adapted from the works of Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and the Inferno.

I have said enough about how I felt on these movies in my Dan Brown posts. So, I don’t have anything to say about it except; these movies made me to watch History of the World – Part 1.

After reading the Inferno, I planned to watch the Last Temptation of Christ. But I watched the Robert Langdon Trilogy movies. I didn’t get the same feel that I got on reading the books when I watched these movies. Also, I was not in the mood to read Origin at that time.

So, I spent my time listening to podcast and surfing social media and stuff for few days. I became fan of one of those podcasts called the SVK. They would roast the current political scenarios of Tamil Nadu. But I liked the episodes where they would discuss about movies. I am not sure on which I episode I heard it but on one of the episodes of Season 3, Kakashi – The Journalist recommended to one movie.

It was the Mel Brooks directed movie of 1981 – History of the World Part 1

He intrigued me about the climax of that movie. I did it and I downloaded it. Kakashi always recommends books and his buddies in the podcast would troll him for that, but sometimes he would recommend movies too. So, I didn’t question myself and downloaded the movie knowing that it would be good.

Later it came it as a surprise that the movie talks about History of humans and trolled the shit out the major world events. Watching that movie gave me the feels of reading a Dan Brown books. It was a hilarious movie.

It breaks the nose of the Kings and how monarchy was a shitty mode of governance and the movie trolled the Christianity (and the core aspect of all religions) as Dan Brown would do. But it never supported Agnostic views as Dan Brown did. Coming to the politics it spoke, I don’t get what it was supporting. But I didn’t think any of it, I enjoyed the movie so much.

Especially, there was a musical sequence that happened on the middle of the movie about Spanish Revolution of 1936. One of the best comedy musicals I have ever seen. And even the intro of this movie is something special. It’s the cave men music and the orgasm scenes the were so true and hilarious.

The fun fact was that Mel Brooks didn’t direct the second part of the movie on purpose. It was a great movie. I had fun watching it all the way.

September:

I needed to take a break from watching Supernatural and downloaded the newly release movie from tamilrocker.ws. It was my last download from the website before they banned the website.

That movie was Ka. Pe. Ranasingam.

This was time when I was watching a lot of Supernatural. I had to take a break from Supernatural. Also, I haven’t watched any newly released movies since the pandemic. So, when I heard Vijay Sethupathi’s movie was out on Zee5 App, I planned to watch. It was a pay-per view movie. I should pay 200 rupees or something to watch the movie. I heard that pay per view experience of Zee5 was not up to the mark. They were only giving 6 hours to watch the movie and it would expire automatically after that it seems. Normally, people would give at least 24 hours, but I don’t know. I haven’t watched a movie in Pay per view.

But who the hell want to watch a movie like that? I just got fascinated about the news and downloaded the movie from tamilrockers as any person in a good sense would do.

I never knew it would be the last movie I would ever download in tamilrockers.

RIP TAMILROCKERS!

The movie was not so good. Initially, it had all the cringe-ness of village romances and the misogynism of village guys. It took more than an hour to come to the story. And the story was not so good as well. It felt so filmy for such a strong and emotional script.

The climax was predictable. Except the performances of the actors and actresses, I could say this as a shitty movie. A 3 hours of boredom. This movie was wrong in all aspects. Take it politically, cinematically and even practically. All of it felt so wrong and out of place.

Once upon a time, I used to watch all of Vijay Sethupathi’s films in theatre. But after the release of Rekka, I stopped watching his films in theatre. He kind of became a commercial hero who preaches political issues in his movies. It is good to talk about political problems in movies, but Vijay Sethupathi had crossed the limits to the point where it turns into all out PREACHINESS.

That was a bad break. I should’ve watched Supernatural.

October:

Okay! Of all the movies I watched, I liked this one much better. It was a comedy movie, but I felt a slice of life kind of genre too in this movie. And I liked that part. I hated the climax but overall, I liked the movie and its character.

The name of that character and the movie is Borat.

Be it the comedy, be it the performance, I liked it all. This movie is like the History of the world – Part 1. This movie too trolled all the hypocrisies and bad shits of religion. The character of Borat itself is a funny one. He goes to America to learn the good qualities of Americans and in turn, he can help his own country people. This was the clichéd American supremacy concept the movie uses as a plot.

But the character of Borat was sketched as an innocent guy who does wrong things and doesn’t able to comprehend that the things, he was doing were wrong. He even trolled American Supremacy in one of the scenes. It was genuine and hilarious. The best part about this movie (which I felt) was that it didn’t take any sides.

Also, this film didn’t preach only about the political status of people in America and the other country but also, it deals with Borat’s mental state and the struggles he faces in a foreign country.

After a fight with his companion (I never laughed like that in a long time after watching that fight), they both take their own way. Borat loses all the money and seeks help from Jesus. These scenes were well made to understand the character of Borat. That’s why I think I liked the movie.

It’s always the characters.

The only problem I found in this movie was when Borat got helped by Christian machineries, he converts the people in his state into Christians in the climax. That must be debatable. It’s one thing that he chooses to be a Christian but converting his people to another religion seems like a thing that people, who like Monarchy, would do.

Yet! I liked this movie because besides all the political shit, Borat finds his true love in America and the character of Borat was so relatable and likable. I heard that the second part got released this year after a long gap. I had downloaded the movie.

November:

November was a busy month for me. Be it in the working part, be it in the reading part; I kept myself busy in the month of November. As my Reunion Vacation got over (nearly a week of Vacation), my work got piled up. Night shifts became day and night shifts. Also, Diwali came. My mother’s work got lessened and she too took vacation on her work for nearly 3 weeks. Then there were books. I completed the Author Trio of mine in this month. (Stephen King, Sidney Sheldon and Mario Puzo)

That being aside, I watched more movies too in this month. I watched 4 movies. (2 English films and 2 Tamil Films) 4 movies in a month is a very small number but comparing to my previous month of movie watching, IT’S A DEVELOPMENT!

If those 2 Tamil movies were not newly released ones, I would’ve not even watched 4 movies. It would be only 2 movies. 2 movies were released in OTT platforms – Soorarai Potru on Amazon Prime and Mookuthi Amman on Hotstar. 

Its been 10 years since Suriya had acted decently in a decent movie. Even though I didn’t like this movie, I liked Suriya’s acting. The one thing that offed my interest in this movie was the way this movie got commercialised. I was promised that this movie won’t have the usual cringe-ness of a Suriya movie, but that promise was not fulfilled. Though it had some intense movie, when I think about it, some intense scenes were cringe-y. The last scene of this movie is an example where the villain would make call the hero to admit his defeat in the most clichéd and cringed way possible.

The problem was mixing inspiration with commercial elements. Since it had a mass hero like Suriya, I know it was inevitable to add mass and commercial elements to the movie but that doesn’t mean that the creators of this movie should make commercialised inspirational scenes. One of them would be the scene they show our former president Abdul Kalam. There were a lot of scenes, but I don’t want to rant about it.

Finally, inspirational movies like Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, MS Dhoni – The Untold Story and even Sudha Kongara’s (Director of Soorarai Potru) previous film – Irudhi Sutru are all inspirational films that strictly stick with its content. No overpowering and larger than life screenplays were needed to convey the concept of those films which I think, Soorari Potru failed to achieve.

The next movie I watched on this Diwali was probably the worst movie I have watched in this year. It was R J Balaji and Nayathara’s Mutta Koodhi Amman.

I don’t even want to rant about this film. I liked R J Balaji’s comedy before. I knew they were a cringe fest, but I liked that kind of cringe. (Ah! I am using the word cringe a lot these days) I liked his previous venture – LKG, but this movie was beyond any cringe I have ever witnessed. R J Balaji thinks that if he shouts like crazy, the film would become success. Let me stop writing my view on this movie right hear.

Because I don’t want to spoil my mood by thinking about it. After I watched this movie, I didn’t watch any movie for next two weeks. In the end of November, to chill myself, I watched two American Adult comedies of Seth Rogen and James Franco. Why Him? And Pineapple Express

It brought my sanity back to myself. With that, November ended peacefully.

December:

December was in total contrast to November. I worked a lot on November and my workload got lessened. In addition to that, December is a month of vacation in the MNC it seems. In 4 weeks of December, most of our managers took vacation for the last 2 weeks of the month, especially the RCA team.

I was in a Root Cause Analysis Team. In that team, there’s a tyrant called Vanisri – who always shouts at me even though I deliver what she asks on time. For the first two weeks of December, I was busy with the RCA team. I didn’t even read any books at that time. Then she took vacation and I was free once again.

December 12, 2020

It was when I went to watch Tenet with my college buddies – NSK, lovely Saravana – The Playboy and Gundu Mani. (Not so Gundu now!)

Tenet was playing on Fun Cinemas in Coimbatore. That’s my go to mall in Coimbatore and out of 3 malls in Coimbatore, I used to go to Fun Cinemas most of time. I reached it before 10 AM in the morning and waited for my buddies to show up. But they missed the 11:45 AM show and we watched the 2:45 PM show instead.

I had watched Tenet 2 times now and on my first watch, it didn’t feel like a Christopher Nolan film. Nolan’s films usually have an emotional touch to it and explores more on subjective part of the film. It was those parts that stand out in the film. For example, the father and daughter dynamic in Interstellar, Batman and Joker’s Yin and Yang theme in Batman – The Dark Knight and much more.

In my first viewing, I thought it lacked the above-mentioned themes. But upon my second viewing, I totally liked the film because, I can able to understand the film more and its characters.

After this movie, I got busy on finishing the Chetan Bhagat bibliography and other non-fiction books. So, at the end of December 2020, I have watched three films – Paava Kadhaigal, Middle Class Melodies and Oru Pakka Kadhai.