 The guy in front of me at the grocery store was buying some condoms. And the checkout girl said, do you want a bag with that? And he said, no, she's not that ugly. Canceled. Hey, welcome back to our Stupid Directs, it's the Corbin. I'm Rick, follow us on Instagram, Twitter for more juicy content. Thanks, sunpatron. Follow us on Instagram, subscribe if you haven't, and hit that juicy like button to help out the old jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjji algorithm. What? You said it, not me. Sorry, it sucks on the brain. What movie is this? Girls of Komisutra? No. Better answer. No, it's a very small moment in a movie that's out right now. Baphane. She just goes, what is it? Banshees of Anashiron. Oh, okay. Yeah, gotcha. Ah, today we're doing a movie review. And if you're like, oh, I thought Classroom Go To Dunn, Classroom Go To Dunn does. It was, but this is one I needed to get to before Rick was out of town for a week, so we got a little behind, but it's only a few days, so get over it. We got a little behind like babies. Yes. They have little behinds. But today we are doing the Telugu classic, Swathi Mathyam. Sounds right to me. Right, close enough for hand grenades, and it's interesting. Yeah, and RIP, Om Shanti, to the director. Kay, and forgive me if I'm mispronouncing this, but Vishwanath. And we're not doing this because he passed. Just, we were already watching this, and literally right after I was done, I went to Twitter and I saw Kamal Hassan and so many people posting about his death, and I was like, oh, wow, jeez. So yeah, this is not like a plan thing. That's what happened. I'm very sorry for his family. It looks like he lived a long, happy life. Yeah, he was 92, wouldn't he? Really old, and this is not the only film of his we've seen. We've seen, I can't pronounce their names, but the one where Kamal Hassan was a dancer, and then also the one where the guy was a classical singer as well. All very difficult names for this one. Yeah, that's always me too. But this is also composed by Rajasar, and he did the screenplay for the director, did the screenplay for this one as well as well. And then it's starring Kamal Hassan and Radhika. And it says, Alu Arjun, was he the kid? Is that, because he's only listed as actor. It doesn't give him the credit in there, and when they roll credits, it's not in English, so we don't know what, I'm guessing he was the kid. Yeah, I'm guessing he was the kid. 86, be about five years old maybe. How old do you think he is, 37? Alu Arjun? Yeah, late 30s. I put up a 38, 40. Oh, he's 40. So absolutely, my suspicion is that's him. The kid, yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's wild. Anyway, it's obviously, this came out in 1986, so this would be a hundred spent spoiler review, obviously. If you haven't watched it, go watch it, come back. And Rick, your initial thoughts on the film, please. I so badly wish I could tell you, I enjoyed it and liked it, and it was my cup of tea, especially in light of the fact that, number one, we love Kamal Hassan. Number two, this director being legendary and having just passed, but for me, this was not my cup of tea. And for those of you who love the film, I don't wanna pinpoint too many of the things as to why I didn't like it. I will talk about those things, but it just, for me, never engaged me, and there's a lot of things that I had problem with, and I can get into them if we need to, but this was one for me that I didn't like. No, I actually enjoyed this film. There was, I think it got a little long, for sure. Two hours 40 about for this film. I mean, it's a classic, so it's hard to really rip it for that, because I expect most classics to be about three hours. Yep. But it did, I think it had certain parts, did drag, but I did enjoy the story. I thought it was actually very similar, not very different films, but almost a similar concept to like a PK a little bit of a guy, obviously in that one, he's an alien. Right. This one, he's a mentally, I don't know if he has autism or what he has. Yeah, one description said he has autism, another description said he had brain injury when he was a kid and it made him a simpleton, so I don't know what they were going for. I don't know what it was, obviously, and then he tried to come up with different things to help out these persons from different religions and all that kind of stuff, and so that concept was nice and everything, so I did enjoy that, and overall I enjoyed the film. I thought he was very sweet. He seems to like doing characters that have some type of mental disorder. Yeah, this character was a few times. Yeah, this character for me was pretty much no different. It was a bit pulled back in terms of, he wasn't as large with some of the things, but the majority of the affectation and the behavior reminded me of the character from the movie with Sridevi and Rajnikanth that we saw. His character in that? He plays a simpleton who, it just pretty much reminded me of that character. In that film, he's a bit bigger with the behaviors, but I saw the same behaviors just in small scale. I didn't make that connection. Maybe I just don't remember that film as well. I remember liking that film. Yeah, I liked that film a lot, but I enjoyed his performance. I also really enjoyed, and it was a pretty big part because it kind of came in just all the time, was the music of this, which is by obviously Rajasar. And it was, I don't know what instrument he was playing, but it was basically a violin that he obviously came through and all that kind of stuff. And I thought that the, and there weren't any really big numbers in it. It was a lot of just smaller and once again, it's really unfortunate. It happens all the time with classics. The songs were not subbed. Yeah. It happens. And I look all over and I try to find them and it's just that the only ones that are available are the ones without, why? I just, I've said always confound those. It doesn't make any sense to me. You subbed the film, why didn't you sub the song? Especially since the songs are easier to sub because it's going so much slower than the spoken word. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. But no, I enjoyed that part of the film. And so, just talk about the performances here. Did you, we already talked about Kamal a little bit. Did you like her performance? I liked her. I didn't, there was nothing about her performance for me that was, there was a lot of points for everybody, not Kamal. The only thing about Kamal was that the character reminded me of other characters. And I wasn't sure if we were going autism, if we were going mental inefficiency, if we were going brain injury. But for her, as well as a lot of the other cast, she didn't do it as much, but there were moments, especially in her dying sequence where I just didn't believe what I was seeing. So she's very lovely on screen. However, there were just moments throughout where I couldn't stay connected because I saw an actor acting. I didn't see a human being experiencing. Even for the time that it was? Even for the time that it was, because I can think of other classics that we saw back then that may have had moments where I was disjointed, but at least I felt connected and caring and believed some moments. There wasn't anything, well, the dying sequence was hard, but the rest of it for me, and there were some other characters that we could talk about in a little bit. She seems very lovely and she's very pretty on screen. There was just nothing about the performance for me that jumped out at me. I will tell you, one thing that jumped out at me was the sex song. I really enjoyed that, holy shit. I don't know if it's come all, obviously this is not his film, but he seems to be at the forefront a lot of times of those. Yeah, almost every film we see. But literally the first thing she does, and it caught me and my wife both, he had a cut and she just went. I was like, oh shit. And then I literally went right into hardcore sex song. Song. I was not expecting that. Well, that's actually a subplot. She basically went, oh, wow. There was a subplot from there on afterwards that most people don't know, she's a vampire. Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't know if you knew that. No, I really enjoyed that whole scene. It was great. I loved that scene. I was not expecting it. Because I didn't even know if they were gonna consummate their marriage ever if it was just almost like a mutual relationship. So people didn't treat her bad or stuff like that. And so I never knew if they would actually end up doing it doggy style, but they did. And well, I don't know, they didn't show that unfortunately. I would have liked to have seen that. And that's come all being doggy. That was something for me that was missing as well. I didn't have sparks or fireworks or chemistry that for me equated a rooting for or even an expectation of them to be romantically linked. I saw them caring about each other, but I didn't see anything. Well, I think that was that moment that ignited. But I didn't see anything preceding that. For me, that indicated to me that they were both sexually attracted to each other. Other than her saying his face was like the moon early on. Well, I think like earlier, I don't think they, I mean, it's hard to tell with him obviously since he has some type of mental disorder. Yeah. So it's more difficult to there. But I don't think she was at first attracted to him. I think she was more wanting obviously help from, she saw that he was a nice person and everybody, her situation was terrible. Right. And I think she grew to love him. And I think at that moment, she got the spark that she was with everything that he was doing for her. The closest cinematic approximate, I think it could be comparable to would be say, Jenny and Forrest. But that's as far as seeing people who consummate a relationship, spoiler alert. But even that, that makes way more sense chemistry-wise and relationship-wise for me than this did. And that's just me. I may be the only one on earth who feels that way. But I just, I didn't catch any romantic inclinations other than just genuine caring for each other. So. No, I caught it. And so you're dumb. But the one other thing that I wanted to talk about, did you like the whole, did you see the PK kind of, not saying it's like PK, very different film. Nothing really like it outside of, it's a person trying to find certain things through religion and the different kinds of religion. Which is something I did really enjoy about the story of him kind of being almost naive and trying to do whatever he could. People say this helps. Right. And so I'm gonna do it for you. Yes. I enjoyed that part of the story. What did you think about that? I can see that comparison as well as I think it's a lot more subtle than in PK. Oh yeah, yeah. And I- It's very at the forefront of the PK. The moment, the moment, really the, if I point to a moment that actually mattered to me and I felt a connection to it's when he keeps running across the hot coals. That desire of, well if walking across the coals is gonna help make a God answer this then I'm just gonna run over them over and over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah, I liked that. Yeah. And then her whole, I was nervous there at the end because I thought the father-in-law was just gonna come in and get a redemption arc, kind of like they do in Indian films a lot. Right. That they just, they give people redemption arcs that I don't think deserve them. They didn't, they were about to for a second. But I was nervous there at the end because I was like, he abandoned you. Right. Do not give him a redemption arc. And then they tried to get him to go away and all that kind of stuff. And that's when they did it hard doggy style. I really enjoyed that scene quite a bit. I do really wanna find out if that is a Lou Arjun. So please obviously let us know down below. But, oh wow, that's interesting. I have Shiva, it looks like we're here in the poster. Shiva going down and putting the bendy on her head. That's interesting. I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense, right? Yeah. But I liked his and the boy's relationship. I mean, I understand, like it was a little long in parts, but yeah, I have a different opinion of this film than you do. And it's progression as a story, not just for time. I just think as a story, it's progression was extremely slow to unfold. And I didn't sense any particular, I didn't have much connection to or believability toward the majority of the challenges that they face. And a lot of that had to do with things that pulled me out of it. For example, I don't know the character's name, but the first half of the film, he's in it quite a bit. The man who gets mad at him for wasting the oil and it's on the ground and he puts the oil on his head, he, it was, I had a difficult time with that actors portraying that character. I just, I didn't believe him for one moment. I saw an actor doing stuff. And that was for the majority of the time, even for the things where I've watched, there were moments I didn't know, like when his character, when Kamal's character is older, I saw him playing, the beginning of film, I see him playing an older man. And I always give grace to make up and hair of the period. But I didn't see him when he was the elder character. I didn't see the same behaviors with him as far as the mental constraint that he has that he did when he was younger. It was almost as if the mental constraint seemed to not be there anymore. He just seemed to be an old guy. Oh, I don't agree. I saw that. I think he was just older. And so he was, I didn't see it. I think as young, he was able to move around a lot faster and saw it a little more. Not the speed with which he moved. I mean the affectations that convey the mental incapacity. I just didn't, or even in the verbiage or certain behaviors, certain inclinations that he had with his facial expressions that I saw earlier that also reminded me of that character he played in the Shredevi film. Even though I know he's gonna be older and he's gonna be slower and he's going to convey those things, which he did, there was, I didn't catch the totality through line of him being the same person in terms of his mental incapacities when he was the older character. That's why when I saw him early on, he starts off the film older and then it goes back to who he was as a younger man, I was thrown as to the fact that the character has something wrong with him mentally because I didn't see that one as the older character. I just saw an old guy. I saw that he still had mental stuff as an old man. I think he was just an old man. So he was, I mean, even at the end, ripped up the basil thing to take it with him because that's what his wife wanted him to do. And I think he was just an older man. So people obviously, as they age, your dad, who has mental issues, doesn't act the same as he did when he was 20, even though he's had mental issues when he was 20, I'm assuming, right? He had mental issues when he was 20, right? Obviously I didn't know when he was 20. Yeah, I'm not talking about specifically. Yeah, I'm not talking about mobility or level of energy. I'm talking about affectation in state of mind, which also then translates into mannerism and not the speed of mannerism or the health of mannerism or the flexibility of joints, just when it flashed back to him as a young person, I thought, oh, I didn't realize this character has, and that's when I looked up the character and saw it said that he had either a brain injury or autism, depending on which place I read, because I didn't see it in the character at the, when he was an old man. I disagree with, and also depending on what, this is a mentally slow man, and so. Yeah. Who knows exactly what it was. I don't know what it means. Which to me conveys also the fact that there's, that's the third, it doesn't. It's signed to be though, so who knows? Yeah, I just, why isn't there clarity on what his challenge was? I mean, I think it was more of subtle challenge than even one of the kid in Stars on Earth, who they said had dyslexia, but it was definitely autism. Yeah. I don't know, I'm still confused by that. Maybe it was just bad subtitles in that film. But when they, because they kept saying he had dyslexia. I know. Yeah. I was like that's it. Then he was clearly on the spectrum. I mean, obviously he might also have dyslexia, but that is not his issue is right here. No. And so obviously that, I think had a more severe case. I think he probably was just somewhere on the spectrum, maybe on the lower end of the spectrum. And so, and also, or if it was a brain injury, I don't, I couldn't tell you. But yeah, I saw the same man as an older man and a younger man. So I don't really know what you saw there. Maybe you are blind. How about that? I just know when I've seen other performances when people are playing any kind of a physical or mental affectation, if it goes, I can point to it. Like rock. Exactly. To do tooth failure. No, I can point to examples where the character, irrespective of their age, is behaving in a way that's exactly the same as the character throughout. And I just, when he was old, I didn't see it. Make sure I got everything here. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about in the film, so if you liked it. No, cause, yeah, no, cause I don't like to talk about what I didn't like. I know, but I just wanna make sure we got to all the points of the film. Yeah. Performances directing, writing, music. Yeah. Cause people often get upset if we don't talk about a certain element of the film. Yeah. And so I, at the end I always try to do my checklist in my head to make sure I've talked about it. No, you mentioned the music and I liked the music. I know there's. What was your favorite part of it? Millions who love the music. For me, it wasn't a love thing. I thought the music was good. But again, there wasn't anything in the film that drew me, made me inclined or connected me emotionally or entertained in a way that other films have done. So my favorite part, the part where I had some kind of a connection which made me think, okay, good, I'm connected now. I can keep moving forward and hopefully this will deepen was when he ran across the coals. That was a moment for me that I felt a level of empathy and care and felt, ah, it's sparked. Now we can build this up and it'll go through, but that was really, it just was that moment. His feet would be way more charred as well. I didn't even think about that. When I saw his feet, I'm like, hmm, but. Also, what do you think they, I was trying to figure out. I was looking that out. I was trying to figure out how they filmed it. Did he really do that? No, he did not. I think they, it was just, because I was trying to figure out what they did there. I think it's just, it was like maybe a darkened saying and under the. Lit from under. Lit from under is what I was thinking. I don't know. He definitely didn't do it. Because once again, his feet would have been extremely. I would hurt. Well, but there are people who can do that. Well, yeah, but I mean, come on, can do a lot of things. He can. Who knows? Maybe he did it. He did not actually run across the coals 10 times. Anyways, let us know what you thought about the film. What should be our next Telugu film from this director or others? And what should be our next Kamal Hassan film that we should watch? Please let us know. And once again, Om Shanti to say his name for me. To V, and again, I know I'm mispronouncing it. To K Vishawad. Vishawad. I can't pronounce it correctly. I haven't heard it pronounced enough times. Legendary director. Yeah, forgive me. Somebody a lot of people love, so Om Shanti to you and thinking about your family. Goodbye. Goodbye.