Just another cinephile

  There is a feeling that washes over a person once the credits roll on Iruvar. The viewer finds that for almost the past three hours, the film has held their attention to an extent where nothing else has mattered. It is one of the most accurate descriptions of being 'mesmerized'—mesmerized like how Anandan was when he first saw Pushpavalli, mesmerized like those in the cinema halls when they first saw Anandan on their big screens, mesmerized in a way that only cinema can achieve. Mani Ratnam brings his decades’ worth of experience to tell this star-studded tale about the birth of a state and its political superpowers, intertwined with its most beloved artform. He takes this story, which has been inspired by an epic real-life tale, and puts the best filmmaking talent behind it to achieve a stunning display of what sight and sound can accomplish. Every moment that is etched in the history of Tamil Nadu has been presented here, and the heft isn’t lost on any one of them. Santosh ...

There is an opinion amongst the general public that comic book cinema has seen its glory days and is now tumbling down to an unfortunate end. It is a sentiment that finds its origin amongst the myriad of dull and uninspiring films that have recently seen the light of day claiming themselves to be based on popular comic books. These are the films that are structured similarly to and tell the same story as a countless amount of other films. It has become a corner of cinema that merely exists because it is usually a safe bet to rake in box office numbers. However, I believe that it is reductive to claim that superhero or comic book storytelling has reached saturation. There are various distinct and incredible stories that exist between the pages of comic books. Comic books are a visually exaggerated medium of storytelling, and insinuating that the medium is the cause of error is an objectively wrong statement to make. Written by James Gunn, a man who has excelled in this format of cinema,...