manavkum Reviews

Maja Ma (2022)

Brilliant masterpiece!!

[10/10 · 19 October 2022]

Finally, masterpiece by Madhuri dixit has arrived.

What a superb performance by her, Shristi srivastava and Gajaraj Rao. Special mentions on Rajit kapoor , Sheena and Simone singh, Ritwik bhowmik in shades of characters. Almost all characters gives their best in this delicate subject. KUDOS to director Anand Tiwari for solid screenplay, bringing Ahmedabad culture most authentic visual experience. Story concept is brilliant, climax is brethetaking emotional journey...will let you think about everyone you care in life..

About LGBTQ theme, this year 3 major movies released.

Chandigarh kare aashiqui was good...Badhai do was better, but this one is best. Definitely must watch.

Laal Singh Chaddha (2022)

Personal Triumph!! Watch it , skipping crappy boycotts

[10/10 · 17 August 2022]

One of the best hindi movie you'll ever see. Movie's opening song , "hum samundar ka ek katra" is superbly portrayed essence of the movie ..and best part is ..no message is the message in the movie. In lot of sense, it will be class apart from great legacy of Amir khan movies like 3 idiots, DCH, Taare zameen par and Rang de Basanti.

However, it sets its own genre...don't go by hatemongers trashing of the movie..cause it's just that Trash. You can easily tell, they are giving rating 1 without even seeing it.

Movie is adapted from Forrest Gump and it is shown in opening screen. Infact , they bought copy right to capture main central idea of the movie. Rest everything is different. All events shown since 1980s are relatable, including world cup, miss universe contest, safronizing and Anna hazare fake wave.

Many shots will touch your heart and makes you walk your own journey of life. Awesome direction, very well acted ( CAMEO role surprise) and nice meaningful songs. Must see!!

Bhaag Beanie Bhaag (2020– )

Brilliant work by Swara Bhaskar

[10/10 · 9 December 2020]

And the brilliant team!!

It captures the pathos of Indian mindset where girl suppose to marry and settle and doesn't need to chase her dream as standup comedian.

Surprise entry of influencer friend and other characters played well too

Extraction (2020)

Mindless doom game

[4/10 · 27 April 2020]

It just played on and on...like a old doom game.

Director thrown in bangladesh...cause its cool to show in sepia tones...but without strong content, it was predictable and failing. Throw in Gladitor kind of family flashes was lacking originality .. Id rather skip this and watch something better

The Tashkent Files (2019)

Aweful trash..Doesn't qualify even youtube grade self funded movie

[1/10 · 8 May 2019]

I love political docudrama and seen enough great ones to scheme out good ones with bad, and utterly trashy ones. Director is so much onto conspiracy theories into his side, he lost objective position of director himself.

Its like wartime journalist, jumped into warzone and started fighting on behalf of one of the war fighting nations.

It does not qualify as Documentary, as constantly driven by music with thud, more like creating subconscious sensationlization in audience mind....as if trying to prove something by hook or crook...

And it does not qualify as thriller movie, as it lacks serious quality of thriller, cutting edge...even TV thrillers provides. I seen better works by youtubers.

Needless to say, i had to drop this crap movie midway, as I could not stand utter bias with which storytelling was going on.

0 rating if I could.

Ranchi Diaries (2017)

Extremely bad movies..i just felt I'm in hopeless 1980s era of Bollywood

[1/10 · 1 December 2017]

Can't believe such horrible movies are still being made. With pushy marketing, some sellable cast , it seems any movie can be pushed to recover invested money these days.

Portrayal of characters, village and city, story line will make you puke.

Indu Sarkar (2017)

Awful, avoid this one...Not even your typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie

[1/10 · 1 December 2017]

Where do I start.. It's badly made movie, which goes awful in every aspects. From story (It's work of poor fiction)...movie struggles to place in reality based genre, or pathetic adaptation. It leaves viewer struggle skimming facts vs fictions for 75s emergency events.

Script is also poor, with even more poor portrait of main characters. Direction of movie has many flaws including weak storyline and maintaining pace of the movies.

It purely seems Madhur ONLY made this movie to please Bjp or His RSS roots, whichever it is, he was neither passionate nor truthful about the center subject of the movies, which could be wonderful movie otherwise. I'd say, 70s kissa kursi ka was way better on the subject genere.

Two words...Avoid the crap.

Wrong Side Raju (2016)

Brilliant Movie available on Netflix USA that will keep you engaged all through movie.

[10/10 · 17 October 2017]

First, Kudos to Team of the production house for making this movie. Loved every bit and was pleasantly surprised too. Why I wont? Gujarati movie came really long way up, I had faded memories of watching some gujarati movies in 70s or 80s..mostly they were very poorly made , with pathetic actings by some status quos. Thankfully all that changed..

This movie has it all..very solid storyline and direction that keeps you from start till end. Brilliantly acted by characters, Raju, Tanmay shah, Police inspector and Amitabh, and shelly. Every character did perfect acting.

Background Music score was impactful and songs as well were refreshing. Cinematography and editing was very crisp throughout, special mention was the scene during song "kathputle" where they used circular shots.. I must say shot was inspired by similar shot in "sairat" but full marks as used in perfect timing of the movie ...at very right place.

What else I can say..don't want to give out any bits of story with spoilers..even let you think which genre it belongs to..Watch it in very unassuming mode, and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain (2014)

Must watch by every human.

[10/10 · 25 July 2017]

Movie depicts the tale of real life industrial accident - humanity crisis tragedy in 1985 Bhopal, India that killed more than 15000 civilians almost overnight and affected more than half million suffering with dangerous diseases like cancer , asthma and so.

Movie captures major events that unfolded, also shows CEO Anderson's visit before accident, carelessness of Union carbide corporation to place such a dangerous industry in middle of fully populated city, and greed or hunger by local governmental body to pass this project to commission.

It will inspire viewer to drill down Wikipedia to explore what happened and how affected people got compensated, and who were ever punished or not. It will also make you think about mindless expansion of dangerous industries, third world helplessness and greed and shams by the first world corporations.

Ekaant (2014– )

One of the most brilliant Documentary serial from India..

[10/10 · 18 October 2016]

I feel fortunate to catch up on this on Netflix. Awesome choice of locations, stories, coverage, direction of the episodes, and Akul Tripathi, the way he carries the show..Don't miss this brilliant and interesting serial you'll ever see. Very few serials are made like this, and documentary, even more difficult. Subject genre is architecture, history, ancient folklore passed through generations, and unknown deserted locations in India. I wish team success and courage to take more ventures like this in future.

Akul Tripathi did his job very well. Direction is slick. Photography is beyond par excellence. I congratulate the whole staff for being part of such a proud worthy project. I wish there was more than 10 stars in rating system in IMDb.

Katti Batti (2015)

Best work by Nikhil advani so far..Imran, kangana Rocks..

[3/10 · 17 June 2016]

Better than Kal ho na ho..very well directed, hits the mark right. May be inspired by few movies, but its treatment of movie it counts. Khnh compare is apple to orange...it was glorified, over the top, dramatized, no budget barrier movie...so it worked well with shahrukh and songs. .this one is more real, nicely acted, directed movie. Just don't miss it, ignore bad reviews by dummies. They couldn't handle slowness of movie, which was introduced on purpose to show state of minds confusion, and mystery. Watch it, and you'll know what it will reveal. Imrans best work after gori tere pyar me..and kangana is awesome as usual. She has lesser role here if you compare queen or gangster, but she has decent role. Music is average, editing is crisp. Watch with family, and all.

Humshakals (2014)

Four words for this movie...Puke, Trash, Sajid khan, dumb wit

[1/10 · 29 October 2015]

All four words are synonyms. Don't fall for this scam..Even if you have other options like "choose a pyramid scam scheme" or "vote for silliest president" , execute those choice instead of watching this crap. I feel like this Sajid khan thing should be officially banished from wherever he is due to crime he is consistently doing. Making crappiest movies on earth. First he must have fantasized with dancing "Jitendra" in "himmatwala" so much, that not only he remade that crappy movie, but also chose the same title.. Second he continued his shameless journey making this piece of sheet. It is so bad, he renamed movie on IMDb with its English title. so that people wont be able to find it on IMDb and degrade and rate it. I hope he was born in plague era in Europe and died then never to reborn. I repent living this worst and wasted 3 hours of my life, which i could not escape due to hopeful colleagues waited something to happen.

David (I) (2013)

Brilliant Storytelling and direction..Watch this..

[10/10 · 15 December 2013]

Cutting edge direction, nice storyline. You'll love this if you like anthology. one of the best one ever made in bollywood. and yes..it has common meeting point too, which is too brilliant.

I think state of Indian cinema is improving, too bad audience is only catching it up slowly. Movie didn't make it too well at box office, but sadly it has now become huge marketing gimmick (like krish and all) and matter of first three days of opening.

Ignore following para now.. Besides, I so much love this IMDb feature of "mandating" 10 lines/1000 words to submit for review. Sometime, even one word is enough to describe the movie..like "Zhakaas" or "awesome" and "rivetting".. Anyhow..