 I was debating on having a slice of pizza with me. Yeah. Hey, welcome back to our Stupider Ecstasy. It's up Corbin. I'm Rick. And you can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Don't forget to click the link in the description below. We're doing a movie review. In case you didn't read the thumbnail, which would be weird because you clicked on the video. You did. Or maybe you clicked on another thumbnail, thinking you were on that thumbnail, and you accidentally clicked on that. So welcome to this one. But we are doing a movie review of the Canada. Sorry, not Canada. Tomo film, caca, which is weird, because in English, well, in Spanish. And Spanish. In Spanish, caca means poop. Yeah. That's little kids can see. Oh, it's caca. In the East Coast, that was a big thing for little kids. It's caca. But it's called caca, mutai. Mutai, I guess. Yeah, caca-mutai. Did you figure out what that actually means? No. I guess we should. We should. I don't know that. But yes, it's 2014. It means it was caca-mutai senior and caca-mutai junior. Yeah. 2014, it says comedy, drama. Sorry, I'm just looking at that. That works. I would call it a dramedy. Crozeg. Crozeg. That makes sense. That makes sense. So it was Crozeg senior and Crozeg junior. Yes. Directed by, say his name for it, please. Directed by M. Manacandan. And produced by Danush. Yes. And amongst others, written by Anand Anamale. And then also written by the director as well. Starring who are the, let's see, those are the kids. Yeah, Ramesh and J. Bignesh. And then, is that the mom? Vashwarya Rajesh. Yes, that's mama. And a few other people. The only one we knew previously, I believe, was Yogi Babu, who we've seen in a couple things as well. So if you haven't watched it, go watch it. Come back, because it's going to be 100 minutes before the reviews. Just how we like to do things came out in 2014. We got to see it on Hot Star. So if you'd like to go watch it, go watch it and come back. Rick, your initial thoughts, please. My initial thoughts are, aside from some of the acting challenges that I have, as far as just some things with indicating, not from the leads. I felt like the leads were very, very good with the kids and the mom. My only complaint is that aspect of it. Story, off the charts. I love the story. So that ultimately, my takeaway from this is I really liked this movie. In many respects, I was watching this and thinking to myself, this should have gotten more attention than Slumdog Millionaire. Yeah, absolutely. Just came out the same year? No, this came out. That came out, wouldn't it? 2000s, early 2000s. That came out in early 2000s. Early 2000s, yeah. But obviously, I wouldn't have been able to be in the same conversation. But if someone were saying to me, they were going to watch Slumdog Millionaire, I'd say that's fine. But if you really want to see a more realistic depiction with a better message, you should watch this. Yeah, I actually really, really enjoy this. Probably one of my favorite Tamil films there is, one of the big issue I have is probably, towards the end, when I think they focused a little bit too much on the business, people. And I didn't care about them. I understand why they're there, of course. And I think that could have been in the story. I just think you focus the entire time on this kid, these two kids, and the mom. And that's who I care about. And then you try to introduce these other people. Obviously, they have this dilemma of, they slapped a kid and- Right, and you need that in the story. Yeah, and you need that in the story. I just don't think they needed to focus as much because I don't think one, those actors were strong. And I didn't care about that part of the story. I agree, that could have been a good change. So I think they could have at least maybe cut that part and made it a little tighter. Because other than that, I really, really enjoyed the film. I thought our two leads were phenomenal. And they were great. I thought their mom was fantastic. I even loved the grandma. I was gonna say she was perfect because there weren't any flaws in anything she did at all. And the grandma was good, except there were only, there was a couple of times where there's indicating, by the way, as a terminology, many of you would know this, many of you don't. But indicating is something and acting that you're supposed to not do because it doesn't come from a place of genuine expressiveness. You're doing something just to do it versus doing it because it's generated from something internally with a Y attached to it of deeper meaning. So when somebody's gonna cry, this is the most stereotypical indicator of somebody who's not trained, is they'll go to wipe a tear that isn't there. That's a lie. If there's no tear to wipe, don't wipe a tear because what you're doing is you're creating a behavior to make us think you're crying. We don't need to think you're crying. We need to believe you're crying. And those are just little minutiae that caused the acting. Because I've been breaking down these aspects for my rating of films. And so acting is obviously for us way high up there. That's pretty much it for me. I agree with the story change. I think they could have focused more and stayed with them. Mostly acting that I had a problem with was in that part of the film, when it was the business people trying not to get sued. Even though there was some funny moments in there, obviously with how much money they're paying him and the funny moments and like that. But I think that could have been chopped into a much finer that didn't take up that much time. Still obviously you needed it for the story because let's get onto the story. I really enjoyed the story for lots of reasons. Obviously these two kids who played these roles brilliantly, they were just kids. They had no idea that their world was any different from another kid. Very Florida project. Yeah. So they were like, they saw this other kid who, yeah, he has more money. But he's a kid. He's a kid. We're having fun. We're having friendships together and they just, they don't understand why somebody would look at them and not let them in a store because of the way they looked. They don't understand why they, like all this stuff is just over their head because they're just kids. Kids don't notice that stuff. Right. Even if it's like a drastic, these are kids from a really poor part of town slums, right? And you think that obviously the parents will know, but like kids, they just, they're oblivious. Yeah. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for it. I'm not saying that. I'm saying in terms of like their situation, if they're happy, that's all they care. How many stories have you heard of adults that has said that as a kid I grew up with, I didn't realize that when I was a kid, we were really poor. But as a kid, I didn't think we were poor because we were happy and we had what we had and we were happy with what we had. The other thing about the child aspect of it is, how many times kids experience things that adults take for granted and don't realize how much it impacts a kid. Something as simple as this, when they saw the tree go down and they saw their playground getting changed, that's something you carry with you all your life. That's a story that when you're 35 years old, you're saying, I don't know why it hit me so much, but when I was nine years old, they took our tree down where we used to go get the crow eggs with my brother and that was the first time in my life I learned about loss. You know, it can be a big, big deal. And that was one of my things I loved the most about this was, first of all, it was a reminder of how blessed we are when you realize this is a reality. There are so many millions of people, especially little kids, their dream is to just be able to taste what pizza tastes like. You and I can just go buy a pizza, whatever the hell we wanna buy a pizza. A good pizza, I can tell immediately that was shitty. We could tell it was bad pizza and it's not a surprise because I've tasted pizza in India and it's India-fied. It's not really good, but that was, I love that. I thought it was great at the end. I was like, because I was like, they're gonna hate it. They're gonna hate it. They're not used to this style of food and one, it looked terrible. It looked like garbage pizza. And I love that the message was, the grass isn't always greener. I love that he said, grandma's dose that tasted better than this. And that's another aspect that I really love about the story that I really enjoyed. The fact that all this was happening, the kids are oblivious to them trying to right the wrong, pay somebody. Basically all these other people, these other two guys from the slums that are trying to take advantage of that situation and give money off it, these adults from the restaurant that are trying not to get in trouble, then the politicians come along, try to make it about them. And all that the kids care about it is pizza. All the mom cares about. She didn't even know it. She didn't even know what was going on. And she was like, I just want my fucking kids. Exactly. And it wasn't a piss-off that she didn't go into the restaurant. And I thought that was a lovely moment for her and well-directed when she finally does see the clip of her son getting slapped. And here's a great opposite of indicating. She's watching the scene and the tear rolls. Mom Rage took over. Mom was very, and I loved when they were running and she called them and they're like, that's mom. Hey, mom! It was just so innocent and how wonderful it is to be that innocent and not like, because all these other people were worried about getting paid about not having a publicity done. Another great moment was the news was covering their story. These two kids who this story was about got pushed to the side and told to go around when it's literally about them. No one actually cared. They just wanted their part of it because they were trying to take advantage of the eyeballs on it. Obviously the restaurant was trying not to get sued or shut down. Politicians were doing what politicians do and taking advantage of it. And even the connection with the endorsement by the superstar. That aspect too, I thought was smart. From a story which the number one criteria for a film is gonna be story because film is storytelling and I just felt like this was as good as story can get. Very believable, moral to it. Our two kids, great job. You see a lot of great kid acting in India. I'm so shocked. Yeah, we do. Because we don't get a lot of it here. That's rare. Which is, I don't know why. I don't know either. Maybe it's because they're not performing. It could be that it's not in their head as much. I think kids here in America, it's in their head. And they're thinking about all the opportunities. They know what the industry is. They know the industry, the opportunities that are ahead for them. If their parents are probably for sure. If they've got stage parents, whereas in India, for them, they're probably doing it the way these kids are doing every moment. It's just, yeah, this would be fun to do and we'll just do this and then when we're done, can I go play? They literally look like kids you could have picked up on the street and did a great job. Kind of like in other films. Keela and other films that are kid-centered. It seemed just like that. They were just very natural. Yeah, yeah. I don't understand why we don't get a lot of it here. I mean, there's some. It is rare. That's why we talked so much about like the last time it happened was a few years ago. Haven't seen anything like it since Florida Project in a Western film. Outside of in Game of Thrones when what's her face? Of course, but that, I'm talking like in a motion picture that is carried by the kids where the kids are the main story. Spy kids. Yes, spy kids. So yeah, they were great. They did great. The mom. Mom was great. I thought mom killed this role. I 100% believed her in everything she was doing. It was also really interesting going into the story. The fact that we never knew why the dad was in jail. I love that. And they didn't touch on it in the end. There was no resolution to that, none. And I was like, that is super interesting. Normally like if it's a big thing you always thought that they were eventually gonna get the dad out. They were, my wife thought it was like, she thought at the end they were gonna get the politician to get the dad out of the jail. But then it just ended. And I was like, that is super interesting. One that doesn't normally happen. People like closure and they like to know this thing. But I thought it was a testament to how the film was. It was like a slice of life. Not all the things were answered. This was a story about the kids wanting pizza. A super simple story. Since that is so great. Yeah, that's one of those things where if you do a log line and you're pitching this thing and if all you said was- Two kids want pizza. It's a story about two kids in poverty who just want to get a piece of pizza. It's intriguing. That is very intriguing. Because it's so simple. And the story is very simple. Similar to, what do you, what's the story? What am I thinking of? I just lost it. I just lost it. I don't know. Kid movie? Kid story? Not Florida Project. No. Oh, fuck. Recent? Yeah, it was an Indian one. I forget what it was. Okay. But in terms of just how it's a completely simple story. It's just two kids who want pizza and things unfold. Yep. That's it. That's it. And sometimes you don't need more than that. No. And I think it's wonderful that they just let it kind of breathe like that. Hats off to Dhanush. I think this is the first unless one of his films he produced. But this is the first solely produced Dhanush film I believe that we've seen. And we've been told that he likes to produce things that are very artistic. It's wonderful. In terms of like getting stuff that wouldn't normally get out there. Yeah. Him attaching is obviously finances and his name to it will help it get out there even more. Yeah. I think it's wonderful. I love it. It reminds me and I think he probably approached it this way. There's a really great video clip of Christopher Reeve who was the original Superman in motion pictures, not on TV, but Christopher Reeve who I love. And he's talking about film in the 1980s. And that was at the time when the movie Bonfire of the Vanities was out. And that came from literature. And there was this trend that was happening that he said when the film industry started in America, the people who wanted to make films were very well versed, well educated in the arts. And they wanted to create these pieces of art. And then business people started to take over the industry. They didn't really have much care about art and literature as much as they did profits. And what happened is people were starting to make decisions about films, not based on story, but based on who can bring in the biggest box office. And for him, it was a warning and felt the audiences really would, they just want a good story. And if their stars happen to be in it, it's secondary. And that's what I loved about this. This didn't have any names, had a great story. I much prefer something like this than to some formulaic thing with stars in it. This is what movie making is supposed to be about. And I'm gonna shout out to G.V. Prakash. Yeah, Prakash Kumar. I thought the score was fantastic. Agreed, beautiful score. Very subtle, but also very unique at times. I thought it complimented the film and its simplicity very, very well. So did the cinematography. This is one of those things in cinematography where nobody's probably gonna talk about it because there aren't a lot of bells and whistles that draw your eye to it, technically. But it too was really intimate. The spaces they filmed in were incredibly confined. And sound-wise, this wasn't done on sound stages. They were, this was in a neighborhood. So the technical aspects of this to make it feel believable and real almost like someone was there documenting it, documentary-style, and everything. When I think about the film, I just see everybody's face like this. Everything was so intimate and so close. It's just really well done. I'm looking at the list of Tamil films and there's a lot that I really, really enjoyed. So it's hard to actually say, because obviously 96 was fantastic. The boxing one that I can't pronounce is fantastic. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. Bombay, Tharapasi, Roja, Heyram, and then Padambu as well. A bunch of ones that I really, really enjoyed. This is probably one of the ones that is one of the easiest watches. Cause it's one, it's a nice watch. Right. It's not, there's not a lot of like really stuff that's going to either enrage you or in terms of like, like, you know, how, I don't know, Mimi, you know, enraged you. Yes. And it's like- Stuff justice. This is like more of like a, these kids want pizza, right? This is really, really cute. I mean, it makes you sad at times, obviously. With very big, it's really interesting. For a film that doesn't have those kinds of cathartic, angering, triggering things, it does have really big mortal lessons to it. And that's another, it's such a watchable film that it really is for me, the film that if somebody's getting introduced to Indian cinema and they say to me, should I watch Slumdog Millionaire? I would say you probably should for the history of it. I'd wait until you know some of the people in it first. And if you're really wanting to get realistic depiction of what it's like for kids who live in poor areas of India, you should much, much watch this instead. Yeah, 100%. Really, really enjoyed this film. Also, this was the Patreon regional film of the month. Thank you Patreon. Thank you Patreon. If you'd like to join Patreon every month, they get to pick everyone on Patreon, gets to pick one regional and one Hindi film every single month. It's based on polls and recommended only on Patreon. So that's one of the perks you get on the, even like the smallest, the smallest here. No, whatever it is, the base. The first one, the word I'm trying to say. But yes, so thank you so much to Patreon for recommending us. Let us know what you thought of the film, Dambulal and what should be the next Tamil film that we should watch. Dambulal. Dambulal.