Imthiaz Muhassin - MovieMind Blog

Malayankunju review: Fahadh Faasil perfects the act in gripping survival character drama

Mahesh Narayanan and director Sajimon, uses this character study as a basis of what transforms into a survival drama, and makes us ask, "Do we have to root for an unlikeable guy?". The answer weirdly is a resounding yes...

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Dear Friend review: A poignant, realistic tale of urban friendships

Dear Friend tackles these questions with a breezy, urban setting in Bangalore where five friends find out whatever happened to one of their closest friend who has absconded and what truth lies ahead of them.

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Moon Knight review: Chaotic, trippy yet loads of fun

So, being a relatively new character added into this universe, Moon Knight decides to take the biggest risk an MCU franchise has rarely done since Phase 1: be its own story.

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Bheeshma Parvam review: This Big B reunion is worth the wait

Bheeshma Parvam marks 15 years since Amal Neerad reunited with Mammootty as the lead ever since his debut Big B. Now hailed as one of the game-changing Malayalam cinema has to offer, while it wasn't a huge box office hit it still attained cult classic status ever since its release.

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The Beatles: Get Back: The fascinating last days of the band

The Beatles: Get Back directed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy helmer Peter Jackson, is the latest entry of an otherwise long list of documentaries based on the best selling music act of all time. This one here chronicles behind-the-scenes footage of the now-infamous documentary, Let It Be

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The Batman review: Pattinson's take is brilliant yet genre-defying

Now, after watching it and sitting down with some time to think, The Batman may not be as good as The Dark Knight (it's awfully close though) but as a beginning of a new iteration, it's pretty damn great.

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The Legend Of Vox Machina review: A great time to be an RPG fan

Now adapted in animated form, within the first few minutes into the pilot episode, the tone is set when you see a lot of swearing, bloody violence, and an overdose of pitch-black humor.

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Kimi review: Modern-day take of Rear Window with a twist

Kimi directed by Steven Soderbergh, tells the story of Angela Childs (played by Zoë Kravitz), who works from home monitoring current data streams received from an Alexa-type device called Kimi.

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Mahaan review: Vikram, Subbaraj mostly redeem themselves

Not only Mahaan is Karthik Subbaraj's return to form (in a minor way though) but it brought Vikram the actor in the forefront, not the star that he is.

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The Book Of Boba Fett Review [Spoilers ahead]

Disney+ just premiered its season finale of The Book of Boba Fett and the reaction is quite strange, to say the least. It started off slow with the flashbacks of Boba and how he survived from the Sarlacc Pit, which dominated the narrative of the first 4 episodes.

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Reacher review: Meet the brawn with brains

Reacher is based on the debut novel of acclaimed writer Lee Child's Killing Floor which introduced the world of Jack Reacher, the protagonist described as a 6 foot 5" 250-pound ex-military policeman.

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Rocket Boys review: Another superb web series from SonyLIV

2020 saw Indian viewers at home flock to their TVs to watch Scam 1992 on SonyLIV, and it changed the game for the OTT platform race. SonyLIV has tried to replicate the magic that the web series created which still is ongoing even to this day, and now they might have found it once again.

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Bhoothakaalam... an atmospheric psychological horror drama that plays mind games on both the characters and viewers

This movie lets the audiences involve themselves in the characters' shoes and see how the events surrounding them feel like some sort of psychological gaslighting. It's a clever slow-burn of a thriller with hypnotically haunting performances from our leads.

TV Shows

Maya and The Three... an ambitious, colorful, and often at times poignantly epic animated miniseries

Maya and The Three created and directed by Jorge R. Gutiérrez is another addition to Netflix's surprisingly great catalog of original animated properties, where this one has elements of his previous works, El Tigre and The Book of Life.

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Eternals... The MCU epic deconstructs the superhero genre with mixed yet frustrating results

Considered to be the lowest-rated MCU movie in Rotten Tomatoes, I was actually excited as there could potentially have a strong discourse. My feeling about the discourse it got was validated, however, it's also deserving of its polarizing reception.

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Best of 2021 Year-End List...

Regardless of what I watched in 2021, the new year promises us upcoming projects which make us excited along the way. But with COVID-19 playing the spoilsport as always, last year in the movies is a slight improvement over the previous year 2020, which was basically a wasteland of nothing.

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Pushpa: The Rise... some great elements almost get undone by an unnecessary romance arc and some drawn out musical numbers

You could say the hype around Pushpa: The Rise has been undeniably at an all-time high ever since the first look came out. This project marks the third time, Allu Arjun and director Sukumar reunited with their previous works, Arya and Arya-2 were cult classics in their own rights

TV Shows

Cobra Kai (Season 4)... New year, new season, new allies, and still the same old badass characters we love

There's redemption, betrayal, change of alliance, and of course the 80's soundtrack this show cleverly integrates and is well known for. Time will tell if this is the best season now that Season 5 and 6 have been renewed, but for now, this will do.

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Encanto... this charming magical musical animated family drama subverts all tropes with its cultural pride

Encanto in a way, actually makes it so unique and great that with rewatches you realize some aspects of what the movie is trying to tell are a lot more subtle through its esoteric means of storytelling. And how do they do that successfully? Well, make it a musical of course!

TV Shows

The Book of Boba Fett - Chapter 1: Stranger in a strange land review & summary

At the post-credit sequence of last year's season 2 of The Mandalorian, we were teased with the adventures of Boba Fett and Fennec Shard, as they overthrow and kill Bib Fortuna at Jabba's palace in Tatooine. Now that it is here, The Book Of Boba Fett as it is called debuts on Disney+ today.

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Ron's Gone Wrong... an unexpectedly hilarious if not timely tale about friendship and social media behaviour

It's a shame that Disney never tried to sell this movie unlike their other animated properties from different productions (Pixar, Walt Disney Animation) because not only is this movie surprisingly great but it also has this genuine feel-good aspect, Disney movies have been sorely missing these days.

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Kadaseela Biriyani on Netflix... A revenge masala flick disguised as an indie film

It's a weird but intriguing take on a commercial trope overused in Tamil cinema (sons avenging their father's death here) and decides to subvert it with a dose of dark humor, indie-style filmmaking, and unpredictability within this narrative

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Minnal Murali... a solid small-town superhero origin story that could become a potential franchisee

With high expectations and a great marketing campaign (The makers made good use of that Netflix money), the only thing the movie needs to clear is whether or not it delivers big time as far as the content is concerned. Well, the answer is a resounding yes

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The Matrix Resurrections... despite a few glitches within, this is a clever yet meta sequel

The most important question is, is it any better than the previous sequels, or even as good as the first one? Well... it's complicated...

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Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea... an undeserving National Award Best Feature Film winning epic

It's a bafflingly mediocre movie and the key reason as to why it got such a brutal reaction is that it got the most prestigious award in the country for Best Feature Film of the year. To put it metaphorically, the award is the dead albatross hanging on the film's neck