 Oh, there he is. Ah, yeah. You ready? Okay. Here we go. Yeah. I don't know why. You're getting great intro. Suck it, Corbin. You're a stupid or X if you need some Corbin. I'm Rick. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter. It's so juicy. Patreon. Oh, some Twitter cameras. Oh, here's Corbin. Bye! Hey! There's no chance. Today, Rick. What do we do? Did you know that rams are horny? Corbin. Mind is always in the gutter. Anyways, today we're doing a movie review. The 19... Oh, it's not 19. 2000. I was going to say, wow. 2018 film. The 1918 film. Montau, the biography slash drama film of the writer, the short story writer, Montau. Montau. He's very famous. I was not aware from outside of seeing the trailer before this, but I know he's a very influential writer, especially around the partition time. Yeah. And everything like that. Directed by and written by Nandita Das. Starring Nassidiki Rasika Durgo. Right? Yeah, Dugo. And then a whole bunch of cameos. Which was... Mirage was like, wow! Wonderful to see. Yeah. So yeah, this will be a hundred and four review. It came out in 2018. We saw it on Netflix. They haven't watched it. Go watch it. Come back. Cause I'm assuming a lot of you know about his story as opposed to us who we kind of went into this blank. It's really sad. The majority of people in America, truly, probably only know Gandhi and Mother Teresa when they think about Indian personalities, which is a shame as we're learning more and more and more. And we'll do everything we can to help educate all of the stupids. So, Rick, your initial thoughts, please. I really liked it. Yeah. I thought... The acting was really shitty, huh? Well, speaking of the acting, I mean, you expect it. And let me say something before, even though we expect great performances from actors, it doesn't mean that every actor is going to give you a great performance. So we would be honest if we saw our, I mean, I'll be the first one to tell you, Daniel V. Lewis doesn't do a good job in nine. He can't do musical theater very well. He gave it the old college try, but it didn't work. Do you have crazy expectations for these actors? You really do. Obviously, Nawaz and Insidiki, who, in my opinion, is arguably the best Indian actor out there, currently acting. And Rasika, I was expecting, I love her. Yeah. And we now know her enough to expect a great performance from her. Correct. I believe we got that. And we not only got it from them, I was impressed with some of the, not even supporting characters, just small featured folks, day player stuff, like the guy at the very end who's calling out and drops in the desert. Hit that short story? Yes. And the couple in the other short story, Cold Meat, I thought, which, there was another cameo right there. So yeah, all in all, I really enjoyed this film. I would watch it again. I would recommend it. Yeah, absolutely. I did as well. And I did actually look up, I read some of the short stories after this. We read up on him after he died at like 41. I think it was, you know, three daughters. But apparently, due to alcoholism, of course. Yeah. And all that stuff. But apparently all the kids remember him very fondly. Yeah, and I noticed something. And it would, my guess it would be, this is the man's story, is that he would be what would be considered a high functioning alcoholic. Yeah. Because he wasn't the really dying of consumption, fumbling, blithering. Their life is just in a total mess. There are a lot of alcoholics who are what they call high functioning, who most people might not even know that they're doing what they're doing to themselves. And when it turns up, what happens is the health problems. I think he died of sclerosis. Sclerosis of the liver. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we can talk about him. He obviously, I believe, even though this is not something I could have picked up on, apparently played him very, very well in terms of impersonating him and being his voice, his mannerisms. Yeah, we wouldn't know that. Which I would expect nothing less from Nawaz and Siddiqi. Of course. That's exactly what I would expect from him. If he didn't do his research and changed the way he moved, changed the way his voice was, I would be very surprised. You know, I'm laughing because every time I watch him now, and I see anybody sharing the screen with him, the thought in my mind is, you lucky bastard. Yeah. 100% Absolutely not. And so he did such, he definitely carries the film. And even though this is, if you're not into slow burns, I don't know how much you'll be into this, but this is really just his story. Yeah, I think it's a slow. It's a slow burn, slow burn. And it is the, it's also really important in terms of the life of an artist. And his struggle and obviously censorship, which is a never ending thing. It definitely touched on the censorship thing, which is obviously still relevant today. Yep, it really is. Which is pretty much throughout history, artists have always been at the cutting edge of society holding the mirror up and society, while they're alive, getting really mad at them. And then later on appreciating that they were an important voice for their time. I also felt that the direction and the writing, first of all, I'm guessing that English subs did justice to the Hindi. Yeah, but those English subs I felt were memorable. When I was talking to somebody about this film, if we should watch it, she said, yeah, it's definitely worth a watch. She said, I'm worried about the subs because the language is so poetic, right? I believe, like I got a lot of that. I got a lot of it. And I'm sure we didn't get exactly what was supposed to be said. Correct, correct. But I felt that the subs were very well done. They were, for me, some of the best in terms of conveying things, where in fact, there was one sequence where he said something, and I thought, man, there's so many lines I can quote from films from Hollywood. I wish I could quote the lines from this film in Hindi because I'm sure there's a lot of memorable lines that if you just said them, people would know, oh, that's Manto. And we don't know him in his language. And he wrote, obviously, this was in Hindi, but it's my understanding that his primary language was Urdu when he wrote. He was, he wasn't Pakistani, but he was Muslim, right? And so I think, I could be wrong. Maybe he was from Pakistan because obviously he was at that time. I think he was from India, but then obviously he transitioned here. Well, I guess he was from India because he was born in India. And then it became Pakistan and he went to Pakistan. Yeah. That was such a, it was, sorry, we'll get to the directing here in a second. I want to talk about Rasika as well. Rasika, I thought, did a very, very good job. Great job. So different. She has the ability, and it's very strange because not a lot of actors have this ability, to, one, play different ages and different, like, how she holds herself. Like, this is very innocent, very motherly, as opposed to what we see in Mezapur. And then as opposed to what we see in Delhi times, she was a very young cop. Yes. And here's the thing about that, aspiring actors and actors who are. The great thing about her work is that while she does that, like any great actor, the physicality is all there and the wardrobe and the costume convey a lot of that as well. But nothing she ever does is a tool or a cliche or an external prop to try and make you believe something. I feel like everything that she does and her transformations is completely organic, only done for reasons of this is me being this person and putting myself into this character. And I'm betting she also did her research into this real-life person. Yeah. I'm pretty sure the laugh was probably how that person laughed. That was a very distinct laugh how that it was like a, like a, and I was like, I'm pretty sure that's exactly probably how that person laughed in real life. Yeah. I don't know for sure, but that would just be my assumption. So she did, I thought, a fantastic job. And then there was a joy to watch working together as was, I'm really impressed. This is one of those reviews where I want to give a shout out to both Mendita and the casting director because the totality of the casting, everybody, the smallest of roles, whether it was the judge, the man I referenced earlier, some of the smaller people, even just in the room. The three cameos we have. Yeah, the three cameos obviously. Those are fantastic. Or actually, there are four, technically. Okay, so who, I may have missed one. Tell me who you think you saw. Well, I only remembered those two that I just mentioned, Niraj. Yeah. And then Cold Me that we saw on the Manage and, show me his, where is he? The girl in Cold Me. Oh, the guy in Cold Me. The guy. Well, from the war movie we saw with Manage and... Oh, yeah, no, that's not who I was talking about. Oh, okay. So who did I miss? Tilla Tama. Are you kidding me? She was the prostitute in one of the first ones where she killed the guy. It was her. It was her. Toward the beginning and she kills the guy. Yeah. And then... You just keep impressing me, Tilla Tama. She was so good. Wow! She popped up and I was like, oh, Tilla Tama did everything. I absolutely... Yeah. I think I may have recognized it and forgot. Yeah. Anyway, Rishi Kapoor. You played the producer. Oh, that's right. Yes, absolutely. And then B.J. Farma. Yes, and I knew that as well. B.J. Farma. Yes, yes, yes. It was wonderful seeing all these people just pop up and obviously Niraj, who obviously killed his scene. He did. He always does. He's such a gifted actor. But that's one of the things I want to talk to you. I do agree. The casting was impeccable. It was great. It was very Western. I don't know this director. If she... Well, she's mostly an actress. She doesn't have a lot of films or resumes as a director. It was very... Almost Western the way it was done. I absolutely agree. So if you could give this to a person that's just familiar with Hollywood, I think they could at least... It would be very familiar to them. This is definitely on the list of films that we would recommend to people in America who aren't familiar with Indian films. That would break the stereotype of Bollywood for them. The cinematography was gorgeous. And the lighting. Yeah. So many shots. So many shadow shots. Done with the lighting and also big shout out to the sound team. So many things were done. Just technically and everything. It was really kind of textbook movie making in terms of this is how you do this well. This is how you do this the right way. And no points where suspension of disbelief was destroyed. I thought there was really creative moments. Those moments when he just would look straight to camera. I thought we're really cool and dangerous to do. I thought it was so interesting how in the director, the Nadeeta Das. I don't know if we've seen her or anything. You guys can let us know if she's more of an actress. But super well done how she weaved in the short stories. Oh, I love that. That's probably the favorite part of the film. At certain points, the beginning or wherever, you're like, is this part of the story? What's really happening? And then you would come out and you're like, okay, this is one of his story. But they were all so seamless and well done that you think they're part of the story, but they're just, somebody's reading a story or something's going on. That's how they're getting his short stories woven into the film. And I thought that was extremely brilliant. I did too. I liked that a lot. And I think the message, obviously, not knowing what we know about him, but now this teaching us and as well as just, I did the two, I did a little research. The, it just seems like it's a never ending battle between artists and censorship. And what's funny is, and I say funny tongue and cheek, I don't mean it in a comedic way, but when he pointed out from the stand, why can't I write about real life? Why do you want to censor real life? That's one of my problems I've had about films that are made that are telling stories from the Bible because they become whitewashed and sanitized in PG. When it's R and NC17 in some spots. If you do it the way it's written, it's fricking rated R. Life is rated R. Now granted, you may want to have this story be fashioned in such a way that you want it to be for a broader audience, which is another credit, I think, that men need to have because on the one hand I was thinking, I wonder if this should be a bit more gritty, but I didn't want it to go there because I felt like more people need to see the film. So this is one of those instances where I don't think it was her censoring the creative output as much as it was shaping the creative output for the film. That was actually probably my one gripe with this, but it could have been longer for me. Oh yeah, it could have been a longer film. I actually thought they could have delved more into the husband, a wife relationship. Obviously they're telling his entire life and so you gotta squeeze a bunch into a small amount of time. And I thought she did a brilliant job of it. So I'm not knocking her. It's just the only way I can, because I don't really have a gripe with this film. I think everything was done almost really brilliantly. Outside of, it could have honestly been a little longer. Two and a half, I think they could have delved into some relationship more. I agree. So that's a great gripe to have, I think. It absolutely is. I felt that way about Malraini's Black Bottom as well. For sure. It was like over before it started. I was like, wow, really this is done? Now I do have a gripe on the IMDB page here. I don't know if I was hallucinating because it shows me composers here, right? I could have sworn I saw some music was done by Zakir Hussain. At the beginning it did say that. So where is he on the IMDB credit? I don't know. So you guys can, my wife saw that right at the beginning. She was like, oh, Zakir Hussain. And the score was great. But we don't know if it's that Zakir Hussain or if it's a different, there are multiple people named Zakir Hussain that we've mistaken before they be acting on a film. Whoever it is, they're not credited here on IMDB. Well, you know they do too. And we know that's the way it is, but terrible way to be in films. That as well, I thought was the score was really, really nice. Just really well done. Across the board, this is just a really good movie. Yeah, it's not, you can't knock it for a lot. Because obviously the acting's great. The directing's really good. The cinematography was fantastic. The way they wove in it, for people who know nothing about his life, I feel like we got a lot of information. It definitely gave me that information and it definitely made me wanna know more about him, which that would for me, if I'm making a film about somebody from history that's important, that's what I'd want to think. Wow, my audience learned something about the character and now wants to learn more about him. Job done. Yeah, absolutely. And I think Nawaz actually said something about this performance in our interview with him. I think it might have been, you guys can let me know, because I can't remember, it might have been like his, in his being his best performance. Hmm, I might remember that. I need to go back and watch the interview. It was over a year ago. But I think that's what he's, because it was one we hadn't seen yet. Yeah. And I think it was this one, because he might've been, obviously it was a very recent one for him at the time of being released. And he probably worked on it a lot, if he's portraying a real-life person. Probably, and that reminded me, as he said that, when I'm thinking about him playing the character, another thing I liked about the film was that it gave you the constant underlying tensions that are there between Hindu and Muslim, since partition, and even before, without needing to give you some violent drama thing that you look back to and go, man, isn't this awful? We never got a, you know what our, isn't this awful was? The one sentence from his buddy who said, I'd kill you. Yeah. And that right there is the heart of all of that division. Yeah. That simple sentence of, even with the closest to friend, when he said, I'm so sorry I said that to you, and Nawaz, Manto, he's like, in other words, I know you feel bad about it, but the truth is it revealed what you really think. Yeah. You may love me, but when push comes to shove, if it comes down to it, you said what you would do. Yeah. And that was tough. He's just, we're gonna watch everything Nawaz has done. Everything he's ever done. Before it's all over, because he's just so brilliant. Yeah. He's so good in everything he does. It's quite frustrating that either he doesn't want to be in Hollywood, or Hollywood hasn't recognized him yet, because he would be so good in, like they just, I want more people to know about him. Yeah. Just the same way I, you know, people know about Tom Hardy, or Gary Oldman, or they need to know about Nawaz. Yeah. When we, by the way, for those of you, especially if you're new to the channel, whenever we say something like that, it's not because we think that that is the step up for them for their career. Oh. That's not what we mean. No. What we mean is, we feel like America's being robbed of something that would enrich their life and enrich the art form by watching the artistry of these people, like Nawaz and Siddiqi. We feel like Hollywood is missing out on a gem of an actor who would reshape what people are watching in the realm of this art form. So that's our motivation. So let us know what the next Nawaz and Siddiqi film is. Yes, and Nandita Das, especially, and I obviously, the more I watch of Rasika, the more I... And Tillotama. Love her. Let me tell you something. She is, Tillotama, as well as Rasika, but Tillotama and Rasika both are becoming quickly, like they're entering the echelons of Radhika Apte for me. They really are. Like, see how long it took us to realize some of these people? Two years in? Who knows if we're gonna discover in a month? Yeah, we always discover more things, like certain foods or something. Let us know what the next film we should watch is down below.