hrudaya chandana

The best part of The Substance is undeniably Demi Moore's performance. She brings to life the insecurities, body dysmorphia, fears of ageing and irrelevance that plague many women, and I suppose, especially female celebrities. The set pieces and sound design are good but not extraordinary. However, it fails at writing a nuanced characterisation. If you were to ask me about Moore's character, all I have to say is that "she hates ageing and not being famous". Moore's character is extremely one-dimensional. She has no friends or family or interests that we know of. She is supposedly great at her work, but we do not see if she is passionate about it other than being on camera. Despite missing these initial character developments, the movie does well in its first half to portray her desperation to stay relevant. When the gore kicks in, the plot is still in its infancy, so it keeps you intrigued and pays off with the caricatured depictions of youth over wisdom and beauty over talent. However, it soon descends into the absurd, using gore for shock factor rather than anything else, hammering the not-so-subtle plot repeatedly without developing it any further. One of the final scenes of Elisabeth struggling with her decision to "terminate" the procedure did shine in the second half, but not enough to make up for the pointlessness of the rest. In the end, it devolves into portraying women it wants to depict as shallow and vain with no other redeemable characteristics. The Substance asks us to sympathise with its protagonist, but all I can do is laugh at her in the end.

The member berries were the only good thing in this movie. The music and cinematography and visuals may have captivated me if only the writing was half as good. When the screenplay took breaks from telling me how amazing the protagonist is, it was busy contriving tornados just at the right time at the right place. The protagonist's guilt makes up pretty much her entire personality. Every other character in the movie keeps singing her praises but she is not even a scientist like Helen hunt in the first movie. She has not even finished her phd. What is her expertise exactly? Her instincts, we are told. They show her in a farm setting to give her personality depth but you never seen her do any farm stuff. Nothing in this movie is explored in depth. Her friend is being funded by a big bad capitalist real estate collector, but why is the research so important for it is never really explained. The cloud seeding and manipulating the tornado is an interesting premise but even that is dealt with such carelessness and again, no depth. I was continuously bored despite the captivating visuals once in a while. Other than the deaths in the first fifteen minutes no one else of importance in the plot dies making it hard for me to feel the danger they desperately want me to feel. Not worth watching in theatres.

One of the most poignant and solid stories to grace the screens, Velocipastor delivers on deeply human themes of love, faith and courage. The acting is subtle but gripping, and the screenplay is nothing short of poetry. The aesthetics of the camerawork cannot be overstated and the direction is simply subliminal. The cherry on the cake is the visual effects that are state-of-the-art and add to the engrossing narrative without overshadowing it.

A bitter divisive movie that doesn't understand the issues of inequality and weaponizes feminism to mock and degrade men. The first half was fun to watch but the second one felt quite hateful. I am confused as to why everyone keeps praising the sets and design, it's good but not fantastic as most are saying it is. Not as expansive as it has been made out to be either. Definitely not comparable to Oppenheimer in any way and I do not understand how they can be mentioned together. The music meh, I just generally don't like musicals so that might be it. I don't think barbie will go down as a popculture phenomenon as many seem to say.

This movie wrecked me in the best way. What a poignant perspective of looking at a love story in the poorer and working-class sections of the society, really brings into perspective how love and grief can be experienced so differently when you do not have the luxury of being rich and comfortable. It doesn't shy away from taking hard choices that resonate deeply with Indian audiences while keeping it intelligently aesthetic. Using colour and music to convey themes and settings, this movie is a masterpiece in storytelling.

A wasted opportunity to portray an extraordinary life. The acting was mediocre, the direction shoddy and screenplay an utter failure. The movie overemphasized NTR's looks over his acting skills (maybe because NBK couldn't replicate it as well) and NTR's contribution to creating Telugu idenity could have been depicted much better without all the pandering. It was evident the movie was less about portraying an engaging picture of NTR and more about NBK. The second half was sleep inducing. Vidya Balan's performance was disappointing, although the direction may have to be blamed for it. Suman's performance was refreshingly grounded if not accurate.