Nepali Flicks

The Vast of Night: This sci-fi mystery movie is forged meticulously with major details upon its cinematography and single shot scenes with dialogues driving its major plot. Set in the 1950s inside the town of Cayuga, New Mexico, two young spunk teenagers , Radio Jockey Everrett and Switchboard operator Fay explore and investigate the peculiar audio noises on the radio. As the town of Cayuga is getting prepped up for the highschool basketball match at night, two friends Everett and Fay have a conversation about pop cultures while they make their way to Fay's workplace at Telephone exchange. Everett makes his way to his own workplace in the local radio station where he runs a radio show. During the program broadcasting strange audio noises interrupting the show and hence they both embark on a journey to investigate the strange sound themselves. The Vast of Night feels like a dizzy movie from that classic era, also set in a similar timeline director Andrew Patterson chooses to use tha...

Bulbbul: A cold night dripped in bloodshot red where the spirit of “Chudail'' roams freely around the forest, just the kind of story the 5 year old Bulbbul is raised up hearing. Bulbbul is an important women centric movie that needs to be talked and discussed. Bulbbul is shown free playing along the branches of the trees but her freedom abruptly ceases when she at her very tender age is married to a man contrastingly older than her. Set in Bengal during the colonial period around 1881, Bulbul speaks volume about all the regressive practices like patriarchy, child marriage, rape, gender equality, mysogny and the filthy secrets rich family possess. When Bulbbul’s brother in law, Satya returns after his studies an series of murder is taking place in the same time. As Satya puts his detective hat to investigate the murders, the secrets that are revealed will shake him to core.  Bulbbul has lavish set design accompanied by costumes. THe highlight of the movie is indeed the striking ...

Trance (2020) We all have been adhered in some way or other to our own form of conceptualized deity. On devoting our dedication towards our holy gods, the middleman calling themselves proprietary god-men who boasts about inheriting supreme powers to directly contact god and claiming to eradicate any human problems are constantly ripping of devotees off their money and belief. 2020 psychological Malayalam movie Trance is one such movie which blatantly evinces the company some people are running to cash in to the beliefs of gullible and religious people. Fahadh Faasil plays a small town motivational speaker Viju Prasad who dreams of becoming a successful motivational speaker someday. Having a rough childhood along with his delusional brother, Viju finds himself in a situation where he is approached by few white collar people to work for them as the face of the Christian pastor who performs staged miracle hence convincing devotees into the greater scam of buying their holy w...

Onward 2020 Onward is an adventure animation movie which tells us the story of two elf brothers different from each other’s but same from the heart. It had been a while when voiceovers and animation of animated movie had impressed me and this movie certainly makes me happy in both the departments. Ian and Barley Lightfoot are two elf brothers who live in a world driven by technology where magic is long lost and technology has taken over. One day they discover their deceased father’s letter and find out that they could bring him back to life to spend a day with him. But due to some difficulty they could only complete half the spell because their talisman broke so their father appears only from torso till foot, missing the upper body. So in order to complete the spell and to find the missing talisman they both embark on a journey to amend the spell and meet their father. As the journey progresses they both also revisits their roots into magic and find out their long lost power ...

Soorma Movie Review: How do you overcome a setback, a dark one which leaves you physically devastated? Either you sit back cry over what happened or comeback like a king to take what is yours like a warrior. Soorma aka warrior is a tale of determination, setback, commitment and triumphant comeback. Soorma is a biopic based on the life of Indian hockey player Sandeep Singh also known as Flicker Singh. Sandeep played by Diljit Dosanjh is rather timid while his brother Bikramjeet played by Angad Bedi is responsible and hardworking which gets him becomes a good Hockey player. Sandeep keeps on lingering with his friend carefree, until Harpreet (Tapsee Pannu) comes into his life. Mastering a rare hockey technique called “Drag Flick” earns him a position in Indian National team. But in one unfortunate event his life comes tumbling down nearly causing him his life. After several trials and tribulations, Sandeep keeps the warrior spirit alive and fights back snatching his position...

Sir (2018) Movie Review Ratna, a house maid confronts her master (Sir) who often remains quiet and depressed due to a past event telling him to not to lose hope and that life does not stop. Keeping a beautiful smile on her face she doesn't flinch once when she unwraps her ill fated past in front of him. Sir is a subtle yet beautiful take on an unorthodox relationship between a maid and her master. The class structure engraved in our society makes the duo drift apart even though understanding each other just with silence.     Ratna is a dreamer, fighter and an achiever who is also independent and performs her responsibilities duly.  She wants to learn tailoring not just to get her hand on the trade but to be a fashion designer. A dream- miniscule of people coming from a lower class of society hardly ever dreamt, Ratna’s dreams and aspirations seem substantial but she is stoic and complacent.   Ashwin is a soft-spoken person who retalia...

Parasite Movie Review Before reviewing the movie I want to take a moment to acknowledge the writer and director Bong Joon-ho’s directorial vision in filmmaking and his execution of the craft. Bong Joon-ho has delivered a movie with all the elements of humor, comedy, suspense, thriller and drama. He has not compromised a single bit in any aspects making the movie close to perfect. Parasite can be stated as an allegory which bluntly showcases the socio-economic class differences prevalent in the society. The movie takes us on a roller-coaster ride keeping us on the edge of the seat every time as the movie veer off from comedy to drama to suspense and thriller. The background music equally complements the scenes of the movie.  The movie starts with the introduction of the Kim family where four people live in a poorly lit semi-basement house, Kim along with his wife Chung-sook, son Ki-woo, and daughter Ki-jeong. By the few minutes into the movie we can clearly see their c...

Contagion (2011) With the ongoing global epidemic of the novel COVID-19, the world is under panic situation. Contagion was a 2011 movie which had an interesting plot matching the exact situation happening right now due to corona virus or COVID-19. The movie then had a plot of encounter with a virus MEV-1 which was deemed incurable and spreading rapidly via touch. Similar to COVID-19, this virus was zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. An unknown virus outbreak has spread globally and has a death toll of millions of people all around the world. Scientists all over the world are working tirelessly to contain this virus and in pursuit of an antidote. The movie moves from various subjects from medical drama to political and conspiracy theory.   Filled with all-star cast of Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne and Marion Cotillard, Contagion delivers a decent medical thriller. All stars delivering their best to...

Sonic The Hedgehog Movie Review: Sonic is the living proof of that studios actually listen to their fans to achieve something better. After the huge outcry from the fans all around the world Paramount Pictures actually stepped back, revamped the blue creature made it more adorable and released to the public and this version of Sonic looks way more cute and adorable than the previous more of a creepy like. Sonic is action, adventure movie which is based on a famous retro game of same name by SEGA. The blue hedgehog, as he calls himself is the glowing blue alien creature who has supersonic speeds. He runs at supersonic speeds, reads Flash comics and spills many pop culture references from Star wars to Fast and Furious to Amazon to The Rock. The movie starts on an alien planet where Sonic lives with his mentor and he is forced to move into earth to save himself. He finally resides in earth and tries to make friends in earth. Evil diabolical Dr. Robotnick played by Jim Carry is...

Phobia generally means fear from certain things but this phobia is different from your generic ones. This phobia called “Homophobia” is the absolute abhor or prejudice towards homosexual people. So the question arises, what does it take to tackle and alleviate homophobia. Subh Mangal Zyada Savdhan is a bold answer in conveying a message on mitigating this issue  and normalizing it to the standards of society where the society will accept homosexual people with open arms.   SMZS starts in a lighter tone where Ayushman (Kartik) and Jitendra (Aman) are in a homoxexual relationship and are shown helping their friend in eloping. On their way to Aman’s sister Goggle’s marriage, this tone shifts to madness and chaos when Aman’s father Gajraj Rao(Shankar Tripathi) sees them kissing on a train. What follows is the back and forth between the two guys vs the Tripathi family, both trying to justify their views and points regarding the relationship through punch lines and ...

If I had to summarize the review of Sentivirus in one word I would say “RUSHED”. It feels movie was made by Dhurmus Suntali just for the sake of raising enough funds for making Gautam Buddha Rangashala. The movie is based basically on the socio-political drama. Let’s get in to the plot. Dhurvaram played by Sitaram Kattel is a politically involved young man who is firm with his ideologies and loyalty towards his party. A firm supporter and an active and strong party member of a party called Jana Utthan party, Dhurvaram is the party’s life. Conflict arises when his father in law Rajaram Poudel also stands in the election happening in the same area. His conflict with his ideology, his internal tension with his wife and its rushed resolution is what movie is comprised of. The screenplay feels rushed, the poor writing for a big feature from the mini comedy sketches series writer duo Kumar Kattel and Deepak Acharya can be clearly seen. Ram Babu Gurung has done a decent job, h...

1917 is a war drama where two british soldiers Lance Cpl. Schofield and Lance Cpl. Blake is assigned an almost impossible task of mapping colossal distance beyond enemy lines to deliver a most crucial message to save their platoon from falling into a trap, hence saving many lives. The movie showcased it as a one shot but it is not. You will not see any visual cuts in the entire movie, but a true cinephile would notice those cuts. Like the ones of Birdman:The unexpected virtue of ignorance or Silent House the movie has hidden cuts in movies often layered inside dark corridors, behind the back shots and also sometimes CGI. If you are not familiar with this type of technique in filmmaking, the filmmakers often utilize this technique of long shots or continuous shots without a cut for longer periods of time to create tension in the scene. The cuts often change perspective, angle of a scene and if there's no cut in a scene then there's a continuous flow of scenes and the story...

Uncut Gems might be the greatest performance of all time for Adam Sandler. He is what you called at the pinnacle of his game. I didn’t expect something this serious and notable performance from him looking back into his filmography of comedy movies. The Safdie brothers create an engaging, nerve wrecking and gripping tale of betrayal and greed. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The movie starts off with an in depth zoom of an big opal found on a Ethopian mines which further zooms out into the colonoscop y of Howard Ratner, a New York based diamond dealer played by Sandler, who is working his way to land himself a million dollar deal by auctioning the same black opal. The story progresses as Howard tries to balance his diamond business, dealing with loan sharks and his marriage. Does he succeed in making it big in the end? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The movie keeps you on edge of your seat with gripping plot twists in each corner.  It is...

After previous anthology movies like “Bombay Talkies” and “Lust Stories” our fab four turns their head into the genre of horror with the latest Netflix release “Ghost Stories”. Like the previous ones this movie also consists of four stories directed by Zoya Akthar, Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banarjee and Karan Johar. Let’s discuss and review the four stories. Zoya Akthar- The major premise for Zoya’s story revolves inside a house where a nurse Sameera played by Janhvi Kapoor is on her duty to take care of an old lady Mrs Malik played by Surekha Sikri. Surekha Sikri’s errie look and appearance certainly brings the spookiness to the story. We feel invested in the story and Janhvi Kapoor with her dialects and decent acting shows some improvement from her previous works.   Anurag Kashyap- Anurag’s story is the most mind bending one among the all with many visual symbolisms and metaphors. Anurag chooses the de-saturated theme with hard to detect colors present in the s...

Quinten Tarantino gives us that art of suspense from the first scene of the movie. In this scene a German Nazi Jew Hunter “Hans Landa” is interrogating Monsieur “LaPadite”, a farmer. We can clearly see that Landa is a fluent in multiple languages, polite and well-mannered but all that are just a superficial traits to show others while deep inside he is a cruel and sadistic person. All these information by just showing us a simple conversation, what Tarantino often delivers well “Show, Don’ tell”. Here Landa, clearly exposes his purpose of visit that is here to search and hunt for Jewish family. During the initial conversation we are not certain of the interrogation and do not get fully immersed as it is rather uncertain from the body language and mannerism of LaPadite that he may or may not be giving refuge to any Jewish family. Now when the camera slowly pans to the underground shot of the hiding family, we now begin to experience the real tension. If you can hear properly befo...