Minia's Mundane Musings

  Hello, I have been watching a lot of off-beat content lately. Thanks to this secret that I have discovered. If in the search window of Netflix, you type in Hidden Gems, you will get a veritable smorgasbord of delights. I am sharing the ones which refreshed my jaded palate. 1- Whats eating Gilbert Grape? This classic made me unutterably sad and happy all at once. But it is a must watch. Do not let this one go! 2- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - again a movie which will stir you and stay with you for a while. It tells the story of a deaf and dumb individual who just keeps on giving and giving! The actor is Alan Arkin and he is so impressive. 3- A Perfect Day - this has Benicio del Toro and Tim Robbins and tells the story of events occuring over a single day in a post- war Balkans. The performances and the story are both very good. 4- Blue Jay - Sarah Paulson and Mark Duplass star in this beautiful movie shot in black and white and directed by Alex Lehmann...

  Masaba Masaba Neena Gupta in my honest opinion is an institution in herself and the serial she conceptualised and directed - Saans still reverberates inside of me. It has always been a mystery to me why after Siski we did not see a substantial amount of her. Imagine raising the capital to run your own series in those days, just think of what effort it must have taken to create the beauties that she did! Her resurgence has meant that we now get to feast on her talent and this show is just such an example. Her daughter, Masaba Gupta is a star on the fashion scene and like this serial too depicts, her prints are by far the most pirated – indeed I am guilty of this boot-legging too. She is the lady who made Kitsch kool in Indian fashion.   When these women decide to be a part of a mockumentary that shows their insecurities and failures baldly, it is sure to be a riotous affair and indeed it was! The message is superbly interwoven, and knowing that individuals such as the...

This is a simple story of a woman from a village in Himachal Pradesh, who defies the elders of her village and goes looking for her husband who had left home to earn a living in the city, and hasn't been heard from in a while. Any other woman would have been fatalistic but not our fiesty protagonist. She is accompanied by her daughter,(who is played by an adorable Manya Gupta, and made me want to just sit down and listen to her chatter.) and their pet lamb. Along the way they gain the company of an army deserter. The protagonists of this movie are Geetanjali Thapa and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. I stumbled upon this movie quite by chance when I was greedily looking for details about Geetu Mohandas and her work. I have been obsessed with her ever since I had the privilege of watching - Moothon, which deserves a review of its own. The credentials of this movie are tremendous. It was given the National award for its cinematography and also the best actress award for 2013. It also has in its ...

This movie is such a breath of fresh air. I approached it with a lot of trepidation, given the woman centric theme coupled with the patriotic theme. Why trepidation? Because women centric films often devolve into chest thumping feminism which makes me cringe. And filmmakers other than a handful convert patriotism to jingoism. And I can stomach neither psuedo-feminism nor the jingoism. This movie is a simple statement of fact. It tells the story of a female airforce officer who is the first female to win the Shaurya chakra. In fact the ringing endorsement by the lady herself, swayed me into watching this one. The director and writer is Sharan Sharma and he has kept the script beautifully simple. He doesn't manipulate the emotions of the viewer , as do the other so called patriotic movies like Uri. Pankaj Tripathi with his thick vein of humor brings to the role of a father an amazing reality. This is the third time that I am watching Jahnvi Kapoor and I feel she is rapidly ma...

It's mandatory that a biopic narrate a nuanced story with layers. Each aspect of the individual has to be gone into, not just the one which seem obvious. Also the trope of a much idolized icon not being good family has to be full of angst and the redemption arc if there exists one, should be cleverly crafted. Remember the powerful Gandhi My Father? None of this is evident in this movie. It just becomes an occasion to trumpet the bugle of feminism, without exploring the emotions of it.  I am a big Vidya Balan fan and have watched everything that she has been in, including her average outings in Kahaani 2, Bobby Jasoos and Hamari Adhuri Kahaani. And never in any one of those did I find cause to fault her personal performance. The movies were bad sure, but she was always good.  In this one though, she doesn't quite pull it off. Her persona subsumes the character she plays. All you can see is Vidya Balan - I didn't get any sense of who Shakuntala Devi was! It didn't help th...

This movie is directed by Honey Trehan, who is a casting director. And his casting for this movie is very similar to what a gardener would do when making a salad. The gardener knows where the choicest of vegetables are and what will taste the best and those are added to the salad. Each vegetable stands out but compliments the others too. And that is what is going on in this movie too. The ensemble cast is superb and though not allotted huge chunks of screentime, they do have at least one scene each where they are brilliant. Consider this, we have someone of the capability of Shweta Tripathi blending into the background till she erupts in the one scene she is given. So also Ila Arun. She has amazing chemistry with Nawazuddin and you must have seen them together recently in Ghoomketu. Ila Arun is always a mood elevator for me I love to watch her. The genre of this film has been touted as a Closed Room Whodunnit and I could debate this categorisation and it's comparison to Knives O...