 I was telling Andrani yesterday that the coldest it ever got when I lived in Omaha, Nebraska for two years and I was doing plays out there. Negative 70 Winchill. She said, what would that be in Celsius? And she looked up, it was like 150 negative and she said, that's can't be real. I said, yes, that's absolutely real. Nebraska gets cold. Nebraska gets freaking meaningful. Another place that nobody lives. Nobody lives in Nebraska. No. I was only there for, I did like six plays in two years. Probably six people saw it. It was great. Yeah, but actually the dinner theater we were at sat like 150 people, so we did really good at that one. It was the only equity house in Omaha, Nebraska. I got to do six shows over two years while the writer strike happened here and it was a great experience, but man, the winters, winters and freaking tornado season. Oh, yeah. No. No thank you. Not good. No. Hey, welcome back to our studio. It's Corbin. I'm Rick. I'm Rick Foster. Instagram. Follow us. Follow us. Follow us. There's good stuff over there, kids. Patron. Yeah. Bells. Icons. Icons, yeah. Yeah. Today we're doing a movie review of boys and girls of all ages. Come one, come all, to the movie review time and take drugs like me so you can stutter when you talk and like, that's why we love Bollywood so much because they do drugs. Yes. And what I love about them. They sell us drugs. And the fact that people wonder why we're boot lickers because there's cocaine on the boots. That's true. And that's the best thing about Bollywood is they don't just do cocaine. They do it with their family. And it's pure. Yeah. This is not a Bollywood film. I know. This is the 1997 Tamil film Eruvar from Mani Ratnam. Which I believe means duo. Yeah. Mani Ratnam directed, written, produced, and composed by our Dost. E.R. Roman. E.R. Roman. Starring Mohanlal, Prakash Raj, Ashwarya Rai Bachchan, her debut. Yes. And Tabu. And his, it's my understanding, it was Mohanlal's, his first Tamil film. Oh, that might be true because obviously he was known for Malayalam. Correct. It's very, it's very possible. Tell me, tell us if that's true or not. I know it was Ashwarya's debut after. Correct. She won in 1994. In 1994. Yeah. And then I think, I don't know if, I think she had done like music videos though before. That wouldn't surprise her. But I don't know. Yeah. Regardless, it came out in 1997. If you haven't watched it, go watch it. Come back. This will be a hundred-fence-fold review. Yep. For our old films. The only ones that we really do non-spoiler show for our new films in case you are new here. So if you haven't watched it, go watch it. Come back. Rick, your initial spoiler shots. Yeah, because we can talk about the whole thing. Yeah. I loved it. Really? Yep. Wow. I have a, if someone- Hold on, hold on. It's Tamil though. You hate, you hate, you hate it. I know, it's true. Like Bombay. Everyone knows I didn't like Bombay. Yeah, you hate, you hate. Yeah, it's true. You just hate All South. All of it. In fact, if it just says South Indian films. You just hate it. All of it. All regions. I really only like Hindi. So that's your actual view, right? Hindi and Bengali. That's it. That's a fake. I always lie. This is going to be a fake. Yeah, everything I do. Okay, I just wanted to clarify for everyone. So, I think I still lean toward Bombay only because the story is so much more gripping for me. However, and this may sound strange, but it's one of the reasons why someone can win like best director but not get best picture. I think this is head and shoulders his best directing. I think it's the best directing. I think it's the most grounded acting. I think it's one of the best cinematographies that you could miss if you're not really aware of how good the cinematography is in this. And I love the story. I love the profound simplicity of the messages in the story. So we have a lot to talk about, but ultimately this would be right up there with Bombay as far as my money. We've seen like seven of his films now. I've seen a lot of his films. And this is by far for me right up there. And I guess depending upon what aspect of it you're referring to, it would out-surpass Bombay for me. So I really, I enjoyed every minute of this movie. Yeah, I love this film too. I thought this was, and what you said was, I've been trying to think, I was like, because I think I like the film of Bombay better. I think I do too. I think it's just an overall. And I think it's the power of the story. Yeah, because a couple of issues I have with this are maybe some of the choppiness of some of like the way it goes, you know, because it spans a lifetime, right? It does. A full lifetime. So some of that I feel is a little choppy as opposed to Bombay, which is just very clear kind of what they're doing. So maybe that's what it is, but I do agree with you. I think this is not only his best directing, but in terms of his partnership with his cinematographer, which I believe the cinematography in this was out of this world. Incredible. Out of this world. And very different. We'll always use, for example, the spectacle of a Sanjay Leela Bansali film and the lights and the capturing of things. Cinematically, that paint of picture because we love that aesthetic and it's really beautiful to see that. Or the symmetry of directors. Like if you want to see symmetry and imagery that is out of this world mathematically, then watch anything by Wes Anderson, but especially the French Dispatch right now, there's there's a difference in this kind of cinematography, which has to do with framing of shots, choosing to do things reflective that you might not even pick up on. Because the acting is so engrossing, it's easy to let something go by because you're so enraptured with the actors and the story they're telling and the script, the poetry and the script. I'm sure we didn't even get the half of it. I'm sure we didn't, but for a subbed film at times, I thought this was subbed by our subbers. It was that good. Well, I thought it was real nice and, you know, you always miss stuff in subbing. So you already, I'm sure the length of this review bodes for those of you who've been around, you know, if it's a longer review, we like to film if it's short because if you don't have anything nice to say, we just, that's a short review. Not always. But yeah, that's not always. It's typically, if it's under 20 minutes sometimes, it's, but anyways. And also the score and the composition of it was off the chart in terms of the songs. Yeah, that too, for me, what they did with it, like some of the moments like when they decided, I thought it was a brilliant moment, not only cinematographer-wise, because when he was doing a speech, they cut off his speech and they did music and then they spun around him, which is beautiful. Okay. So this is where- My favorite shot. I did some studying up on things about the film, right? It won't surprise me if that's one of the moments as well as the moment where his buddy is on the beach talking to Tabu and it goes silent. So like all films, it has to be submitted to the censored board. And there's moments, and I think that's one of them, where they muted the sound. Even if it was, I thought it was actually a brilliant- I was glued. Yeah. I thought it was actually more powerful. Agreed. Because I was like, oh, what's he saying? It actually, I'm glad it wasn't just left on the editing room floor. I'm glad he said, okay, fine, I'm going to at least keep my visual integrity here and I'll silence out what's being said, which is a whole other subject. We won't get into what we've talked about it before. You need a rating system that's an independent body that's not connected to the government, not a censorship board. Please someday. Anyway. Yeah. Let's just get into it. Mohanlal. Let's just start with Mohanlal. It's Mohanlal. Right? I think Mohanlal. But it's pronounced so quickly by most people. It sounds like Mohanlal. So we say Mohanlal, but I think I hear it's Mohanlal. Mohanlal. It's the whole... Which I believe this is our pronunciation thing we don't do. Third? Is it our third? Because obviously, Jurisium II. Right. But wasn't there one more before that that we saw? Or no, did we? Oh, no. It was the green face. It was the green face. Yes. That's why I was just making that face, trying to think of the name of the film where he was the actor with the green face. Which we thought he did great and I thought the film was nice, but we just thought it was above our head. It was way above our head. Cultural understanding of what was going on. But yeah, so I think this is our third one. It's completely different than both of those things that we had seen. Obviously, Jurisium II, which is probably his more recent stuff. This is when he was at the height of Mohanlal. Right. Rising stars. Rising stars. I thought it was a really unique character. I thought he brought a lot of traits to it, which I was like... Because you could go... You could base off of this. I feel like... You could like... Okay, this is like a regular guy. It's like a star. Almost like Ranvir and Gully Boy. Like in terms of just... Very simple. Like a nice guy. Simple. Yep. But I feel like there was a lot of nuances there and also I don't think that's him particularly. Right. And so there was a lot that was... Also, I'm not comparing him to Ranvir. Just for all of you idiots who are about to... Isn't that ridiculous? I know. Shut up. I just know it was coming. I just know it was coming. Of course. So I have to... Hopefully after 83, a lot of these people criticize us for raving about Ranvir. We haven't seen it yet obviously, but I have a feeling he's going to be great and y'all can shut up. Same thing with Alia. The fact that we recognize they're both talented actors. But anyways, I'm not comparing them. I'm comparing what we thought of his performance in... And the character. The specificity of those characters. Right. But I thought, one, the way they did the entire scope of it, of going from him before he was a star, coming up into stardom and then transferring into politics. I thought it was really good as opposed to like a Mani Ratnam film with Kamal Hassan, which we thought we didn't like as much as everybody else. Like that film. And I thought this did the span of a life a lot better. I agree. And one of the things I like about this is that neither one of our main characters goes so far afield from who they originally were that it's the stereotypical transformation from there used to be a nice guy, but now that you've got the power you're now this awful, terrible person. I really liked that the changes were really gradual and not that definitive. I think that lent a great deal. The script and the development of the characters and the way the story progressed, lent a great deal to why that was so good. And he's, I can, this is as grounded as believable. Every moment I believed every frame of film he was this human being going through these things. I found that he was particularly sensitive and delightful. And I felt like as far removed as it may be from him personally what most actors do is that you're sharing of yourself. It wouldn't surprise me if while the character is different from him the work was very, very personal for him. I think he's an actor that uses his most personal places, which is what great actors do. We know his reputation, obviously. He's known as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Malyalam actor of all time. I'm sure for most people in the conversation for just Indian actors of all time. Yeah, Indian actors of all time. And I thought he definitely showed it and I'm excited to see a lot more of his work I thought he had great chemistry with everybody, not only Ashwarya, who we'll get to, but I thought his friend. Yeah, I loved them together. No, I'm sorry, I'm on Mohanlal's indivision. His page, rather than Mohanlal. Prakash Raj, who played Tamar, I thought he was great. Yeah, I thought was a great performer himself. Absolutely, Mohanlal. I loved them together. Their chemistry together I thought was really great. I loved that moment and I loved how the film at the end goes back to it when Mohanlal was down on the floor and he was up there and he was reciting his poetry down to him and telling him to come and join the party. That scene, the way it was shot and the way it was written and the way it was acted was just... I didn't want the scene to end. It was almost Shakespeare in a lot of what happened in this in terms of the dialogue and how poetic it was. So much poetry. I thought Prakash Raj did so, so well. Yeah, I really enjoyed his performance. I did too. I thought he brought a lot, like almost a yin yang of their performances of Mohanlal who's this happy, kind of cheery person and then this other kind of a pessimist almost a beautiful poet. I thought it was really interesting how they actually did. Whenever he spoke poetry, it went into like this different audio or different kind of world thing when he was speaking it to taboo or when he was speaking it to whoever. It was a really unique, and then also the way it ended. I thought it was a great ending for the entire thing. I thought this story... So I'll get back to the actors here in just a second. This story surprised me a lot. It did me too. Well, I was waiting for us. We'll get to the story after we get to the actors directly on everything. Do the story again. I mean, I know you've seen her in quite a bit. This might be one of my favorite performances of hers. Also, double roles. They must be so prevalent in Indian cinema. I feel like they love doing double roles. I was actually real sad at the beginning. I know. No! She's gone. She's gone already? She just came. What are you doing? Yeah. Then she came back, obviously, in a different role. But I thought it was really well done. I thought her chemistry on both characters was real good. It was also nuances in both characters. For her debut performance, I think it's one of her strongest. I agree. Having watched her in a lot of things now through the span of her career and even her later most recent stuff to go back and look, she hasn't changed much. And I'm not talking about her looks, although she has aged wonderfully. I'm talking about the fact that she came on the scene a star. Oh, 100%. She's the same Aswari Arai that we see 20 years later. And what that tells you is how good she is and meant to be doing what she was doing. Because if I had just been introduced to... This is probably what I would have talked about the most at that time, which I think a lot of people were. This was a great movie. The direction was great. Mohamal was great. Who is she? I mean, everybody knew who she was in this role. But as far as like, she must have felt really good. Everyone else around her in terms of you've made your debut and everybody knows you've got what it takes. Because she is fantastic. She knocked it out of the park. I agree. And I was sad both times when she died. I know. And it was like this thing that just happened. Yeah. And it was so interesting. It happened a lot, obviously, even with his death at the end. They didn't like hype it up. No. It was like this thing. Very believable. He died. He just died. She died. That was very believable. And I wasn't like this big over dramatic thing. And I also liked another part of the subtle power of this thing. And we'll get into the story. But I loved the relationships and how these guys had two women each in their lives. And how they both just gave into that, but also kind of fought with it. Especially him. When he first sees her and he doesn't want her to be in films. Because, oh my goodness, that's her. And the wife is the one who said she needs to be in your film. And by the way, we know what Pushpa means now. Her name is Flower. So it's like, oh. Fire. Yeah. Fire. Fire. Fire. It means hot flower. I loved the moment where he sees she has written the mole on her arm. And that was an unforgiving close up. And on big screen, you can't have a false moment in that moment together. And for Aishwarya to be holding her own with this legend, it's just as good as it gets. Yeah. I loved him. So I thought very strongly. And Taboo, even though I wish she was in it more. I know. I was so like, okay, is she going to be like when she was like watching him on the train? I was like, well, second half is going to be a lot of Taboo. And she's in a little bit. So there's been many times I have talked about how much I detest fake crime. Okay. So if you want to see the exact antithesis, if you want to see what it is that I believe an actor should give you when they're genuine and their tear is coming from a real place. It's the moment on the stairs. She literally just made it. She just. And what I also loved is Money Rottenham didn't cut. And I bet he's the kind of director who just lets it go and you just stay in until he stops and he may not stop like in one floor of the cuckoo's nest. There's this moment where Jack Nicholson's character has let everybody into the floor for a party. Yeah. And there's a shot where he's just sitting by the window and he's watching everybody and it goes on for a weirdly long time. And Nicholson is just standing character. And that's what you have to do as an actor with a great director. He may sit there for five minutes or she and you've just got to stay in it. Taboo on the staircase in this film. It shows you the brilliance of that actress early in her career. Very early. Early. It was wonderful to see her again. Yeah. She was really prevalent at the beginning. I loved Taboo. And I honestly, she might be the greatest actress we've seen in Indian cinema so far. She is for me. I mean her and Irfan are the actors that we knew in America before. At least I for sure did. I had seen Taboo appear in different things. And so like it was the name I knew from Indian cinema before anybody. It was just those two. And Irfan I didn't even know by name. I just knew his face. And yeah, if someone were to say to me who is the Meryl Streep, the goat, which I don't know if you've heard there's a Jennifer Lawrence story about Meryl being called the goat on set recently. And at one point Meryl said, yeah, just tell the old goat what to do. And Jennifer was like, wait Meryl, you know what we're calling you that. And she said, yeah, because I'm the old goat. And she said, no. You know what? It stands for something. It means greatest of all time. She had no idea that's why they were calling her the goat. But anyway, I consider Taboo to be, she in my mind is the Meryl of Indian cinema. The Kangana. Yeah. I didn't say it. Directing. We just said at the outset. Yeah. Taboo is amazing. I can't wait to see more of her. But yeah, she was in this, I wish she was in this more. Me too. Because I thought her and Prakash had great chemistry with her. And so, but yeah, she was in it very little, sadly. But yes, the directing, I thought this might be, I think this is his best directing. It's his best directing. I think his best overall film is still Bombay. Me too. I think that is like, just everything comes together so nicely. But it's true. It's one of those things where you can see in a film, director should go to this person, but overall film may not go to the film that director directed. Yeah. Even though this film, I think you're right. I think you're right. This is probably right behind. Even though I did enjoy Roja, obviously a lot more than you did. A lot more than me. But I think overall film in terms of acting, performance, everything. This I think is probably second to Bombay. Absolutely. First in some aspects. Yeah. And it is for me because Bombay is on this list as well as far as my favorite Indian films, period. These Bombay and this are in that conversation for me. And his script just, one of my favorite scripts. And I know we get the lost in translation in a big, big way. And there's probably a lot of films we've seen that the subtitles destroyed the brilliance of the script. Thankfully, I think these subtitles, at least it felt like it. It felt like they did their best to convey the original intention of the language. And you had mentioned score. Yeah. I agree. The score was fantastic. There was a lot of songs in terms of the song aspects. There was a lot. And I think it helped with the flow of the film. Agreed. I thought the song kind of fit. It did not fit. It's two and a half hours long. No. When I looked up and saw I had 25 minutes left, I went, really? Push Bob was only 28 minutes longer than this film. And felt like five hours. It shows you the length of film only matters if it's not cut well together. Correct. But yeah. So this is, I think all the songs are dosed, of course, did impeccably. But I thought the incorporation of them was actually really neat. Because obviously some of them started, and you're like, oh, this is part of the song. But it was actually a song from the film that they were filming. Yeah. From the film. Which, I mean, you're going to go always any time. And it's this way. You see it at the academy. Anybody who's, you know, actors, anybody in the industry, when you make a movie about movies, or a movie about plays, there's always a level of joy you're going to get if you love film and you love the industry. I thought the incorporation would, but then also just the score in general. Like I said, I actually love them. Even if it was censorship, I thought it was a brilliant way to work around the censorship. Because not only was the cinematography, but it was just going around him like this, which also is hard to set up. Hard to set up. You know what else was crazy? His shot where he's laying down, where Raj is laying down with Tabu, and he's doing the spin around above them. And he's dropping down as he's reciting poetry to Tabu. That was a gorgeous cinematic shot. Absolutely. Wonderful. Yeah. So the score they've involved with the film, I thought was really well done. Some of the songs we had actually reacted, I don't know if they ever made it to the channel. Yeah. It was great song. Yeah. I don't know if it ever made it to the channel. But yeah, I thought it was super, super well done in all aspects. This might be, even though Bombay might be his most enjoyable film for me, I think this is probably his most complete film. I agree. There's aspects like I said. It's weird to say that. It depends on what you're talking about to determine what a... Artistically. Artistically. I mean, but artistically Bombay's brilliant too though. And one of the things about this, like if someone said they think this is a better film, I wouldn't argue with them about it. The power of Bombay is very full frontal in your face. Yeah. It's definitively profound in the context of really cataclysmic circumstances, right? So the profundity is palpable. It's right there. This has no less profundity. It's just much more subtle. And for a lot of people they may say, I appreciate that because it's harder to do. Like if you look at this overall film of big, you know, like what's the problem to the story or message is the, you know, the power of power. Yeah. And not just the corrupt ability of it, but just basically what is power? Why do you want that power? What will you do with that power? Because you see both of these men make good and bad choices with their power. Yeah. So isn't this just power is bad? It's what do you do with the power? And why do you do what you do? And I find it also very interesting the relationship because it's not just in Indian cinema. It's in American cinema. And I think it's in any country that has big cinema. The interweaving of people from both the world of politics and the world of film because both people, if they're doing it for the right reasons are doing it because they have a deep compassion for the human experience and want to see social justice and human rights and change. It's why, I mean, it's why Reagan became president is because that was just what was in him and why so many actors are also activists. And I appreciated this non-judgmental, non-stereotypical portrayal of what I believed were two real human beings who were buddies and one just gravitated. They both loved art. They both loved politics and for different reasons. Yeah. And that relationship, how it grew and how it split apart. Yeah. Really, really well done for the film. So, yeah, it's a really good film. And I know you all know that. I've heard about this film for a long, long time. Thank you for the recommendation. This was a good one. Thank you for waiting for us to get to it. Yeah. So, for all of them, not only Mani Ratnam, Mohanlal Ashwarya, Pakash Raj, I enjoyed him a lot and of course, taboo. Let us know what of their films we should watch next, which will be the next Tamil film that we watch. Let us know. Taboo.