 My idea. Cool. Cattywampus? Don't get all cattywampus on me now. That's more like wamp ass. I think cattywampus is definitively southern racist, which is why I'm unfamiliar with it, but you tend to be well aware of those kinds of things. There's a lot of racist in my family. Yeah. I'm from South Carolina. Hey, welcome back to our stupid rakes with the Corbin. I'm Rick. It's a fact I'm not proud of. Do you still have that Confederate flag tattoo on your back? Yes, good. I've actually transferred into a partially Hello Kitty slash Confederate. Sexy. Yeah. Look, Corbin, Rick. Yeah. Hi. Instagram, Twitter. How you doing? All the kind of stuff. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Subscribe. How you doing today? Doing great? Good. Today we're doing a movie review. Of one that no one has requested us to do ever. Of one of those smaller, lesser known films. Well technically it would be a smaller film, not by its numbers done. No. But technically a smaller film. I think it was done on a budget of I think around 18 million. Yeah. Or something like that. Which is for a higher actually, I think for Canada. But a lower budget film in general. But anyway, so we're doing a movie review. Yeah. The 2022 film. Cantada. Mystical forest. Is that what that means? Yeah. Nice. And it's directed and written by Rishabh Shetty. And Starring. Yeah, he's also starring. Starring Rishabh Shetty, Kishore Kumar. Not the Kishore Kumar, but a different Kishore Kumar. Right. And a whole slew of other people as well. Obviously it just came out this year. But it came out a while ago and I feel like almost everyone has seen it. So I think we can go ahead and do a full spoiler review. So if you haven't watched it, go on Amazon. You can watch it there. It came out a while. Here's one of the things that's very frustrating about when you select a language, because that's what you'll find on Amazon, at least here in the US. It's written in the language. Yeah, so like the audio language. The audio language will give you four options, but it won't say Canada, Tolugu, Tamil, Hindi. It'll be written in their language. So the way I do it, aside from asking Corbin, which right when you had texted me back, I'd figured it out. I'll click on it. Listen and watch their mouth. And once it matches, I know I've got the original language. So watch it in Canada. Yes, obviously. Or Canada, I know. Not saying that correctly. I saw the first 30 minutes in a Tolugu dubbed. Because that's how it just populated that way. It automatically placed it in a dubbed version. And like the entire time, partially it was fine and then the other parts, I was like, it seems off. It shouldn't, Amazon, get your act together. You shouldn't have to check the original language. It should be the opposite. And then I looked into check, I was like the language, and I was like, okay, there's four here. And so I texted the group. I was like, which one's Canada? And they told me, and it wasn't the one that was selected. And I was like, and I changed it. And I was like, oh, this is so much better. Yeah. In the original language, obviously. So please do that if you haven't watched it already. So there's gonna be 100 minutes more of you if you don't watch it. Please go watch it. Come back, Rick, your initial thoughts of Contata. This'll be a strange comparison, but you'll understand why I'm making it. I'm glad I saw Babylon last night. Oh, nice. Yeah. How was it? It was mixed reviews and also it's done really shitty at the box office. It has. It's, I put this on Instagram. Very opposite of how I did it. When I posted on Instagram about it, I quoted Mia's song toward the end of La La Land where she sings, here's to the ones who dream foolish as they may seem. And I simply wrote hysterical, a fever dream. If you're one of us, you're gonna get it and probably love it. If you're not one of us, you probably won't and that's okay. Yeah. And here's the quandary and the challenge. Before I share my thought, let me share the thoughts of others who I've read, whether they were critics or actors or audience members, because I did a lot of research. So you've been saying this about Cantara. A technical marvel, a visual grandeur, spectacular, ranks among the best of Indian cinema, insanely entertaining, unbelievable. I don't think I will ever recover from this experience. A confluence, the likes of which has never been experienced. Because I don't feel that way, huge numbers of you are going to be disappointed and angry and you name it. I liked the movie a lot. A ton of it, and I think this would be understandable, was beyond me. In the same way that when you see Babylon, if you didn't grow up or live for a long time in LA and in the entertainment industry and have an understanding and a love for the entertainment industry and what happens on set and the history of what's gone on on set and behind the scenes and the party atmosphere and the whole culture of Hollywood, you're not gonna appreciate Babylon the way people who are in it do. I feel the same way about this. So that's where for me, I feel bothered by the fact that I'm gonna say I like the movie, but because I don't consider it one of the grandest spectacles in the history of human experience, I'll be considered an idiotic fool for not loving it. I don't think you will. I don't think you will at all. I think you liked it though, right? Very much. Yeah, I think that's all. There's way more to like about it than not. I think people can understand, because I mean, also, I mean, I don't think it's most of those things either. But I do think there's a lot of, I mean, I think the end itself is worth the price of admission alone. Yeah, absolutely. I think like that. The final 15 to 20 minutes. The final 15 to 20 minutes is by far worth the entire price of admission. Yeah, and when you consider the budget he had to work with, that is spectacular. Yeah, and there's a lot of things that I do think are spectacular in this, like, and we'll get into a lot of it. But yeah, and I don't think people will be upset that you don't like think it's the greatest Indian film of all time. Or I know people are making comparisons to it and RRR. And I don't even think you can compare those. I wouldn't, I don't think it's fair to either film. But one of the things like nowhere near like each other. There was an Indian reviewer whose name I forgot I wanted to reference it, but wrote down some of the reasons why it's such a big hit. And here are the things that it listed as some of the reasons why it's such a big hit. Deeply rooted in our cultural milieu. Yeah, for sure. Which we barely understand India, let alone regionals. A brilliant blend of action dance as well as tradition. There's another aspect. Cast politics. Yeah. And a strong mythical element. Particularly Bota Kola performances being authentic. There would be no way for us to comprehend how authentic or not it was. Outside of it was fucking awesome. Yeah. It was really cool. It was amazing to watch. And I felt like I was learning so much and I loved being exposed to these things. I love the mythical element. Oh yeah. That's probably one of my favorite parts. I really enjoyed this film. I think there's aspects of it that I think could have, at least for a Westerner, maybe been tweaked a little bit. I think the middle got a little long. And I think you probably could have cut it down to maybe right under two hours and close it about two. Yeah. Being a little nitpicky there. But people say the same thing for Babylon, which is over three hours. But for me, Andrani and I, we saw it with Ashley Lexis and all of us loved it, but all of us are artists. Stone buffs, yeah. Loving Hollywood. But overall, I really enjoyed it. I was actually scared of this film for a while just because of how the supervaluators for it. Right. If like, okay, if I go in this and I, if like, not that I wouldn't love it, if I don't like this film, we've seen how that goes before. That's right. Especially with the film industry of KGF2, which obviously, you know. I think this is where Ben's shoulders above KGF2. It's not even like in the same stratosphere. This is a quality film that I do not consider a quality film. Correct. Sorry for the lovers of KGF2, but if you've seen our review, but that scared me because I was like, okay, this is like, this is getting massive. And I don't wanna just, I'm gonna tell people what I think, but also I don't wanna like just fucking offend people. Exactly, but we're always gonna be honest. But anyway, so let's just get into it. What did you like about, is there anything you like most about it? The end was absolutely incredible. Yeah, I love the end. Whoa, right? Yeah, it made me want to do a thumbnail of that, or a, yeah. But I also felt like- My wife had been saying that literally since I moved in. I don't want that to be misconstrued in any way, because it's so deeply connected culturally and spiritually. It's an actual thing that's involved with the- Right, it's not just like the head nod that's a universal Indian endearment. This has a very- It would be like watching The Passion of the Christ and doing an opening where you go. It could totally misconstrued. Yeah, no, no. I loved the ending a lot. And his perfor- His perforam transformation into that little demigod moment was like, I can't rave, like I said, I can't rave enough about that end sequence. I thought it was worth the price of admission. I would watch the film just to watch to the end again, because I think it was that good. It was really entertaining. It was really the visuals of this film as well. It is one of those things that I will agree with. Like it would, I think one of the reasons probably it got such good stuff in theaters is this would have been a really good one to see in theaters. And it wasn't, the reason we didn't get to actually see in theaters, it was here for like a week. It wasn't here for very long. Didn't last long at all. But like in terms of like visual beauty of natural, kind of like almost a jolly taco- Exactly. How beautiful it was. I really enjoyed that element. I enjoyed when they really got into the mystical element. Me too. That's my favorite part. I don't know if the mystical is the correct word or the folklore or the whatever it is. That entire element when he kept slipping in and out of his ancestors, trying to like either contact them or him just being really connected and all that, I really enjoyed that all those elements because I think they helped carry the story along. I thought there was a lot of funny, corky little moments in this film, off little, it's not a comedy movie but every once in a while, they're like a really stupid, funny line. Like, I really enjoyed your crotch. I laughed out loud at them. I was like, okay, this is one tile of film and then like they throw in a couple of jokes every once in a while and I appreciated it. Right. And so those elements like the visual elements and all those, and the mystical elements and the end were my favorite. And I thought he gave a really great performance. He did, I felt his, I felt when he becomes embodied by the spirit after that. That was cool. I could see in him how much this project means to him. Yeah. That to me encapsulated the ferocious passion I'm sure he had in the creation of this thing that means a lot to him. And that's probably my favorite thing about the film is it's, no one could or should argue the reality of the fact that this is a passion project and Rishabh Shetty put everything of what matters to him personally, artistically into the film. And very much the same way I just referenced like the passion of the Christ. That's as personal a film as Mel Gibson could have ever made. And I feel the same way about this. And that gives it great kudos from the Canada that's speaking culture. Because if they grew up with this story and they'd never seen it portrayed, which I've heard a lot of people say. Correct. I mean, we've heard that a lot in India. Even this year with a film that we saw and we liked learning, but we didn't really enjoy the film aspect of it was the files, the cashmere files. Oh yeah, the cashmere files. Whatever that film was called, a lot of people I think enjoyed that film more just because the telling got told. Yeah, that the story was finally told. It was finally told outside of just even if they could overlook a bunch of the film making aspects that we couldn't, right? As I think we did in our review. Yes. Grateful that the story's being told and all that kind of stuff. But similar with this of just seeing your culture up there for the first time. Sure. And you've never seen it. And also done well. Extremely well. It's not just like, I think it's bad comparison to what I just said because I don't think that film was done well. No, that's where the comparison ends. Yeah, that's where the comparison ends for these two films. But the fact that it was just told on screen and this one done really, really well with really good cinematography, really cool score behind. Oh, what a great score. And obviously we know there's a bunch of controversy behind at least a certain song, but it's a cool score. I thought the rock element of it, I thought fit the demigod feel of the film. I loved the final moment when we brought the song back because we had reacted to the song before the movie came out. And I can't imagine. My suspicion is it would be comparable, for example, to someone, again, using the Passion of the Christ as an example. That was a visceral, deeply personal movie for me and anybody else that falls under the understanding and life within the realm of Christendom, right? Saw that movie 11 times in theaters and was so thankful to see a portrayal of it that was rooted and grounded in reality where Jesus was in blonde hair and blue eyed and the crucifixion was as real as it could go. And I would imagine that folks that are familiar with or who have lived within this region of India have got to be gushing with pride and joy over the telling of this story in the way that it was told. And it seems to be the consensus of everything I've read. And I think it was the outside of like the middle part where I think maybe like the tree falling element might have been where it like fell off a little bit for me. Pun intended. Right? Because I was like, I just didn't feel like that narrative was needed almost that whole aspect. So I think you could have cut a little bit of this film. And I know why they put that part in. I just don't really think it was all that needed. I think it could have been a little crisper of a cut to get to the more interesting elements of everything. But a lot of the, like I liked the forest officer, his performance and his kind of arc of being kind of the villain, but then almost, they came to almost an understanding. They were just at two different sides. Right. And they kind of, I liked. They both wanted to preserve the forest but for completely different reasons. Completely different reasons. So I liked his performance. I think the love interest probably could have been fleshed out a little more. I would have preferred more fleshing out in time with that than the sequence that you referred to as well. Cause that whole, and I know I looked up after that they had a history like him and the girl, like when they were kids and they had crushes but like it wasn't totally obvious at the beginning. And so it kind of was almost creepy of him just like pinching a girl and pulling her hair. But apparently like it was shown but you know, since we have to read subtitles you don't see everything that happened on screen. And so I think I missed that part at the beginning. I picked up on the pinch. What I missed was a build up justifying that moment that made it fully immersive for me and believable. I too had a slight disconnect in the middle of it. Because I liked her. Me too. I liked her performance and when it got going I liked their relationship. But it seems like it was just almost thrown away after a certain little bit. And like at the end she like threw a spear and then just, that was kind of it until she was pregnant again. Like I was like hoping for like a little more. I did like, we had a slight agentina moment in the fighting. I loved the women kicking ass. That was fun. That was a lot of fun. Yes. And I thought a lot of the battle sequences, especially the end, obviously. Yeah, the final, they hut sequence and the climax was great. They saved their budget I feel like. I also, I appreciated as well, the mud fight. Those are some of the harder things. In the beginning? Yeah. When you don't have a lot going on. And it's very pretty again. It was very pretty. And there were no mistakes visually in that fight. I felt like we were watching a real mud fight and that's difficult stunt work to choreograph, execute and film without you having blunders where someone misses a kick or it didn't look like it worked. So the stunt work in this I thought was extremely good. I agree. And you could tell that they had a low budget at times with some of the action. Like there's ways, if you know film and I'm sure a lot of you know this, you can see if they didn't have the budget to do a full fight or get a real choreographed person because they do kind of like cheats, essentially camera work cheats. Right. To compensate for the lack of budget or whatever that they had to do. And you could see that at times. But totally forgivable when you consider their budget. And what they were able to accomplish. Yes, absolutely. And I think they saved a lot of their budget for the final, the part that really, really matters. Like Minimal Nari did. Yeah. And it was like a lot of like the end, I just can't rave enough about it because like a lot of the elements, like I don't even understand. I was just like, oh cool. Right. Why is he running back into the forest? Right. That's gotta mean something. What are they doing in the circle? What is the circle mean? And they nodding to each other and there's gotta be something really deeply amazing about the father and son and all that kind of stuff. I know there's more to it that I just can't know. That's my favorite thing about the movie is, and I bet if I knew more, I'd be even more blown away, is the line between spirituality and superstition and the connectivity between the invisible realm and the physical realm and the stewardship of a place versus people trying to take over it and the boundaries that are written by men that are not drawn. They change generation to generation and the connectivity and the frequencies and vibrations of the animal kingdom and its connectivity to the spiritual realm, all of that, I wanted much more of that but got enough of it to find it to be a really intriguing and for the most part, most of the time I was involved and captivated. Yeah, I agree. And the, Shit. Watched your train of thought. I watched your train of thought. God, I was gonna say something. Oh, I don't remember. Rishabh Shetty, the character, the wife, mysticism, superstition and spirituality. Something like that. Oh no, at the end, I really, and like when he did the switch and it was great, but then I really, like the entire village knew exactly what was going on immediately. Immediately. And like all was just like, we're witnessing what we've known. We've known and heard and been waiting for. Yes. Especially from him. Yes. Especially from him because he was always reluctant because he was freaked by the fact that his dad was that person who disappeared in the forest. So he finally stepped into the position they'd been believing for. And it was also very affirming about the fact that they were fighting on the right side of the forest for them. And that was so interesting, the fact that he left as well in the end. And now he has a son. Right. And obviously his wife or love interest now. And so it kind of, the cycle carries on. And I'm assuming is part of the folklore. Right, me too. That's what I assumed in the end. Well, the whole story was that way because it begins so many years before with the king and the very first we get of the demigod saying this is what you get to do or not. And then it just goes on from generation to generation. What was nice about that moment is it didn't feel contrived to set up a sequel. It felt rooted in the history. Yeah, I did hear that they might do a sequel. They could. Which would be weird to me to see some films like, I mean, maybe they have a great story and there's another part of the folklore that is obviously a high no clue, right? Whoever is in the womb is the next one to tell that story. This seems like a one off that like it's good to be alone. It's a real good standalone film. Right. What do I know? There might be a lot more story that needs to be told and then that I just have no clue about. There's probably people who know all of this so well that they're already thinking about what other things could be addressed in a sequel. I'll tell you what. That we have no clue about. The Rambe films has a lot of money capital to work with. To work with when you consider budget and surplus. Yes. Yes. The fact that they've now had KGF and this. I can imagine. Like they're just like, what do we do with all this money? I can know. Bollywood's like, can we have some? Yeah, I'm imagining everybody at Disney who handles money is looking at this film and calling up Cameron and going, really, really, you needed to spend that much money on your film. Probably. It's quite impressive what they've made. Yeah. Especially this year, just alone. Obviously KGF 2 making the most money I think ever. I think it's now, I could be wrong but I think it's like of an Indian film. I think it's like the highest grossing now or something like that. Yeah. It's a lot of money. Anyways, fantastic, I really enjoyed the film. I really liked it too. So, and I know a bunch of you really, really enjoyed this film. And I hope that's enough that we liked it. Oh yeah. That there isn't the expectation that we walk away with it from the same aspects of the quotes I gave earlier. No. I think some of those quotes are, I can test to some parts of this film. And I think it's a really good film. I think it's probably one of the better films, Indian films of the year. Agreed. Absolutely. It definitely should be in that conversation. And obviously I think if you're in the culture, it probably could be your number one film. Absolutely could be. The fact that this means a lot to you and you understand a lot more than we did. Yep. So anyways, let us know what you thought about this film, which will be the next Canada film that we should watch. And any other thing that you need to know? Down below.