 nice pictures you posted on the internet. Instagram's down. No, before it went down. Maybe that's why it went down. It probably, I broke the internet. You broke the internet. Welcome back to our stupid rhapsody. It's I'm Corbin. I am Rick. And whatever you're saying this, I'm sure you know this is when Facebook and basically everything about Twitter is down. Yeah, and of course, did you see my tweet? Yeah. Because actually, thankfully, that's... But do you think it's a coincidence? Facebook probably, huh? I don't think it's a coincidence. It's just hours after the whistleblower. Facebook is a garbage company. Apparently, the employees can't even get into the building right now. Anyways, today we're doing a movie review. Oh my goodness. Welcome back to Spooky Month, everyone. And we are watching... We watched... Bulbul, Bulbul. The Bulbul, 2020 drama horror mystery film directed and written by Adhvitha Dutt. And then it's produced by Anushka Sharma, composed by Arma Travedi, cinematography by Sadarthay Devan, and then starring Tript Dimri and Armashtwari and Rahul Bose. Yes. And then there's a few other people. Obviously, those are the three main ones from this film. But this is going to be 100 Spints for you if you haven't watched it. Go watch it. It's on Netflix. I believe it was their film. Yeah, it was an original. It's a Netflix original. But... Rick, your initial thoughts, please. Right off the bat, the cinematography and lighting was incredibly impressive. On my... Just gorgeous. Really pretty, as was the score. We'll get into all of the details. But on my rating system, I give this kid 91 out of 100, which is a solid A, which for me means I liked it a lot and I'd watch it again. I love this film. I absolutely loved this film. Everything about... And not in the way kind of like I loved... It's different. Like, you know, we loved parched. Whoa. Weird you said that. That's exactly what I was thinking. Well, it's because that is different in terms of like that film is not only important. Right. It's actually hard to differentiate the two. Yeah, they're such different films. Because they're very different. And this one, I think, is artistically brilliant on almost every level. I don't know... I was really impressed with it. When we go to the awards, what's going to beat this for cinematography? I'd have to think about it again, because I haven't thought about the whole list. When we get to the dummies, I'm going to probably have to go back and revisit a couple things. Yeah, absolutely. Because the cinematography on this was enlightening together. It was the same way that Sanjeev Levinsali, he kind of did hyper-realism in everything. This is like gothic hyper-realism. Everything was absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful. And some of the decisions they decided to do with red and the different colors. Beautiful. And all that kind of stuff. It was... There was a lot I really, really enjoyed about this film. But that is... That was the biggest mark for me by far. Absolutely. That was the astonishing, higher-level, elevated artistry where I think anybody who's involved with cinematography and lighting, we look at that and go, dang, dude, that is top notch right there. Everything about it. Because they decided to use red in really interesting and beautiful ways. But that's not the only thing. It was the shadows they used in just the way they... Some of the shots, just the way they used them. And really good use of small visual effects. Even something as simple as... It's not simple. But they never failed in anything they showed us with their backwards feet. It was always spot on. And once again, a very common occurrence in these Indian horror films, the witch, I think the... I think it's the predominant theme of, well, I'd say 8 out of 10 films we've seen that are scary. Sorry, she was the goddess. Not the witch. The witch. And I think in Street, it was backwards feet, too. That's like a very common thing for witches. The hair giving them their power and the backwards feet and them being beautiful. So let's just get into all... I thought there was so much about this film that was really, really good from a bunch of performances that I really, really enjoyed, too. The story overall, which was very interesting because you go into this, you think, oh, this is going to be a scary jump scare kind of witch normal story that we've gotten in a few... And like the Marathi one and all that kind of stuff, even though that changed as well. But you thought you were going to get more of that. This was... It shifted gears. This was more like the horror is for the Viagra Vita or the Patriarchy, right? Yeah. Yeah. Very much. And it was very much a la like, if you know the story of Frankenstein, well, you'll know that it's a monster story, but it's really more about relationships with people and the relationship of the monster to the doctor. And it isn't just a scary story. It's about relationships. And that was something where it took a real shift and it said, yeah, this is going to be a scary movie, but I'm not focusing on the horror aspect of it. I'm focusing on the story of these people and a message about Patriarchy. Yeah. Right up the bat, it starts with a child marriage, right? Right. And so that gets your... Automatically gets your blood boiling. Yeah. It's like... Just gross. What is going on? But also, props to the filmmakers, they did it in such a non-judgey way. They were just like, here's a child marriage. This is all normal in this world. In this world at this time. Yeah. Incredibly normal. Yeah. And so like, it wasn't like, ooh, everybody's like, this is a bad guy. He's marrying a child. Everybody was accepting it. Right. Not only the men, the women. Which... That's something in and of itself, because this takes place in the late 19th and then mid-20th century, right? Yeah. One of the mistakes, I just watched a film called Ophelia. Have you... Do you know about this film? No. It's a film that's a different take on the story of Hamlet. It's Hamlet from Ophelia's point of view, which is a great premise. But they blew it. And they got a stellar cast, and it's beautifully shot. But what they ruined, primarily among other things, was they took 21st century mindsets of women and put them into 16th century people. Got it, sir. You can't do that. You just can't do that. Unless you're going to completely retell the story in the 21st century. But they didn't. They made it a period piece. And that's what I loved about this, is they kept everybody living within the context of this time period. Yeah. I really, really enjoyed that, because, you know, like I said, it started off with a child marriage. And so that automatically just gets you infuriated. Yeah. And then the big... The way I started the beginning was she thought she was marrying this other boy, right? And then the little booze comes in, and he's like, yeah, that's your brother-in-law. Yeah. I'm your husband. Right. And so immediately when that happened, and I think it went to like boo-boo or whatever the credits, I was like, I want all of them to die. Right. It's very much... If you're familiar with the story of Jacob from the Old Testament and his wives Leia and Rachel, it's exactly what happens to Jacob. He falls in love with the daughter, serves for seven years to get her, they get married, on the wedding night, the veil's taken off, and it's the other sister. The dad's like, psych, you got to serve another seven years to get the girl you really want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sucks. But let's talk about all the performances. I... Let's talk about Ruffle Bowes. That's exactly who I want to talk about. Even though there's... Bo-Boo, I thought she did a really good job as well. I agree. We'll talk about them, too. But Ruffle Bowes, who we've seen one other time, right? Yeah. As far as I know... It was in Dill-Dahak-Ndoo. It was Dill-Dahak-Ndoo. But I've heard about him. I know he's known as a thespian, he's known as a performer. This... It showed here. He... I want to see more from him. Yeah. Even though I liked him in Dill-Dahak, but he wasn't like the main thing in Dill-Dahak-Ndoo, that kind of kept you going. Yeah. He was just like a tiny supporting character. This he really got to shine, especially with his two-character performers. His two-character, yeah. And he made them so believable and so different that it was, obviously, an incredibly difficult scene to watch in there, as I'm sure was difficult for him. Yeah, so well done. So well done. The fact that he not only... He still reminds me of an actor who I referred to as Count Adamar. He played Count Adamar in The Night's Tale. But you know him. He's in everything. He looks... He looks so much... Basically, like Emron Hashmi looks like Colin Farrar. This guy looks like that actor. You've seen him. You know him. Yeah. His main character that he comes in and he's just this... He's the villain, but Rahul Bose doesn't play him like that. And that's... Once again, we've said it many times, Mark of a great actor, if you're playing a villain and you don't play them, you just play them like a person. Yeah. The justification for all of your choices are based on the story and the backstory you've created for them. And at this time and place, he did exactly what you would do with this character who lives in these circumstances, who all of his life has had his ego stroked everywhere he goes. So he expects things to be a certain way. It's absolutely horrifically egoistic, chauvinistic, patriarchal bullshit. Yeah. But he doesn't judge the character and makes you not like the guy, but at least what he creates and it showed his thespianatic muscles. He created full characters for both of the characters. Like the character you created for the brother. Yep. We've talked about any time you play somebody with a mental illness, it can come off bad. It's easy to make a bit... It's why the Academy consistently will reward people who play people with some kind of a challenge, whether it's developmental, whether it's physical, because it's extremely difficult to do that and be believable. Yeah, because it could come off as like a stick, it could come off as offensive almost. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like he didn't do that at all. Not in the least. He made so many different subtle differences between that character and the other character that sometimes you couldn't tell. That moment when he was raping, he was about to rape her, right? And then he kind of switched. Yeah. I didn't know what to make of that. I didn't know if like... So this character knows what he's doing. Right. I don't know. Would you make like that moment? Well, because before that, I was like, okay, this guy clearly is a mental illness. Yeah. And he's doing it. But then he kind of had to switch. Yeah. I didn't know what that was. I didn't know what it was either, and I loved it. Yeah. Because you can tell when he's initially messing around with her, he's just playing. Like when he's hitting the things and it's hurting her feet, he thinks it's funny. He doesn't realize she's in pain. And then he just wants her attention. So he crawls up on top of her and then there's something. I don't know if it's the first time he's felt her seen her as a seps out. I don't know if it's the first time he's felt that in his life. But he's like any man at that age who's going to have primal things stirred up inside of him. And you saw that without it again. I don't think he premeditated that. I think he just went into that and applauded the director for the way that the scene was shot. Because what you do see is just that click. Why it clicks, we don't know. But you see him transition from playing to I'm horny. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously after that moment, she either died or she was something obviously happened to her. Like Moe I've said, she's basically she lost her innocence. And so at that moment, she could kind of and he thought she died. Right. I think he did. And I don't know if she did or if it was just a like vegetable like state or something like that just because and then basically because her basically innocence had been stolen at that moment. The goddess now came in and took over to basically and I thought her transformation from that little girl to this old because I at first I was like, they don't even seem like the same person. Agreed. I don't make sense now because they're basically not basically not. And that's why he says at one point he says you've changed so much. And she's like you you don't even realize like I love when she said you guys you are all the same. Yeah. No clue what's going on. So yeah, I think he is the the the the peg upon which this door swings that without without his two role portrayal as strong as it is. A role. Yeah. It really changes it. And then she obviously in the title role, trip, trippity, trippity dimry, trippity dimry. Great job. Yeah. I thought she did a really really good job. Great job. And then transforming from the younger character into the then I guess possessed and lightened whatever you want to call it because it's a lot more complex than that. And the complexity lens that we will always make this comparison. When you make an empathetic monster of any kind, it's going to go back to us looking at it Guillermo because it's I love that and I love that twist in this. Yeah. The fact that it became basically like a Sherlock Holmes story. Yeah. And we're trying to figure out who who did it. And it was essentially like this big folklore story that basically was true and it was kind of similar to the Marathi one we just watched in terms of this goddess possessed her to take revenge on all these awful, awful men. Yeah. I mean, one of the key lines in it, he gets the flashback after everything's burning and he's realizing all of the hints that he'd been given that he missed. And one of them is her line when he's talking about the man who did all this and she says what is it have to be a man? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's a critical, wonderful. Now I wasn't surprised by the fact that it was her and from the beginning I'm like it's probably her the whole time. I think everybody kind of the twist was it being a goddess and not a demon and that I loved that. It was the goddess. Yeah. The goddess is women, all women. And again, another wonderful coincidentally, you know, it's Durga Pooja time in Calcutta. I find it so wonderful that this and this takes place in an around Calcutta, really, really cool. And I believe if I'm not mistaken, this is based on a Bengali story. Is it? I believe it is. I'm not exactly 100% certain, but I think I heard from a stupid baby and it may have been a long time ago that Bulbul is based on a Bengali tale. But correct me if I'm wrong, it would make sense since Calcutta is so close. But yeah, the big twist, not I guess twist, but the reveal of what she actually did. She, you know, all these people that died were about to do horrific things to the little girl, the guy in the bathtub, which I cheered for. Yeah, it was glorious. He was like, he said something like, something stupid, basically something idiotic that basically he was about to rape her, right? And then she came in, chopped his neck, ripped his neck off his mouth, and it was wonderful. And it was a, I actually got scared at the end because they went a year later, right? And I was like, great, right? I know you hate that, but when it was interesting because I thought it was going one way. It was basically, he came back into the house and I was like, it's just perpetuating. It's just going to keep continuing. He just, he only left her a little while. You didn't kill it off. And then she came in at the end and finished him off, which was fantastic. Agreed. So it was a great, I really, really enjoyed it. This one is a very easy watch. Very easy watch. It's an enjoyable, beautiful watch. All the performances are good. It's a beautiful film and you can just watch it just as a visuals. It's just true. Literally sit there. Oh, and let's give a big shout out. I thought Amitrivedi's score was hauntingly pretty. Yes. Gorgeous, gorgeous score. And there were times where I'm like, okay, let's see what happens. And they did exactly what you need to do because we've talked about films being overscored. Yeah. This was not overscored. The use of sound that almost sounds, there were many times where the score was blended in with the natural sounds of wind and howling wolves or an owl or something like that. And I just felt like it was exactly what needed to be done. And then when the final credits roll, we get that haunting violin melody, which thankfully didn't remind me of any other melody I've ever heard. Everything sounded very original. So really wonderful score too. Amitrivedi. Yeah. I get everything for me in my grading scale, everything in my grading scale. Continuity, editing, sound, everything got an A. There wasn't anything lower than an A below a 90 on any of my scores for this. Yeah. It was, it's probably one of my favorite films of the year so far. Yeah, I agree. Just in terms of just everything was good. Everything. From the supporting, we didn't talk about the guy that she was in love with as a kid. Yep. That was a really interesting character of basically, we thought he was going to be like her companion, the good one. Right. And he basically turned into his... The one who ends? Yeah. He basically started perpetuating the patriarchy again. Yeah. And then he basically realized that in the end, and he was like, I'm leaving. I can't continue to be like you. Yeah. I don't want to be like you anymore. And then there was other characters like the one that Rahul Bose was having the, basically the affair with. Yeah. Who was in love with her other brother. Correct. Such an interesting dynamic. Interesting dynamic. Yeah. And his character, the trajectory he takes as a really interesting character study in the script and the screenwriting, because it shows you the susceptibility that everybody has where you could be the kindest person, no sign whatsoever of being patriarchal or being prejudicial or egoistic. But over time you can be conditioned and circumstances can happen and hurts can occur to you that change who you are fundamentally. Yeah. And you start to do things that you then turn around and realize what have I, not just what have I done, but what have I become? Yeah. I think his characters are really, it's just the script is really well written. And then the doctor as well. Yeah. I think. Another good character. I think. I like that Anushka Sharma likes to produce things with a little bit of horror in them. You could definitely tell that she's into that genre. She produced Potolok. She produced any of the, she likes to produce stuff that's a little more gritty. So this, this definitely pleasantly surprised me most especially the cinematography and the lighting. I just, there were constant times that was like, I don't, I have to go back and obviously we have three more months left in the month. But I have to go back and see what else, but this is definitely going to be in the attention. Yeah. I can tell you that right now. It's a very high probability it's going to win. But I need to go back and look at all the 70s on other films that we've watched this year. So I just don't remember. There's one last thing. This entire thing, have you ever seen the 80s dating video? Is these guys trying to promote themselves in a dating video service? I don't think so. This guy talking about what he wants and he wants, he wants the goddess. I haven't seen that. I'm going to show everybody. It'll be the end of the review. Okay. By the way, did you recognize that character from, not the guy you're talking about, there's a character in this film. He was great. From Kahani. No. Yeah. I played the detective that's helping find everything for her. Anyway, we'll go down a bunny trail. Never mind. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Okay. So an 80s video. This is a legit thing from the 80s. When I told you never to call me here. A rose. Okay. My name is David. And obviously I'm a bit weird. And that's for a good cause. I am not going to talk about myself. I'm going to talk about you. And if I talk about you, I think I want to talk about me. I am looking for the goddess. Are you the goddess? Who is the goddess? The goddess is the woman. Is a woman. Is any woman. Is all women. That have found themselves. But they're left and they're right. They're good. They're bad. They're male. They're female. So the drawings character. On the application for this. There's a question that said age. I said query. Query is an attitude. Doesn't it? Got any fun out here? So we're enjoying the save. Did you smoke something before we started this thing? I'll show it to you later. There's a whole compilation of these bad 80s. What does that have to do with the movie? Because these are talking about the goddess? Talking about the goddess. In that it's a woman, the woman, a woman, all women. And it's true.