 It's raining here. Yay. Enough snow. No. Raining men. It's raining men. Hey, welcome back to our stupid direction with Corbin. I'm a man. And you can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, if I'm all juicy, content. Thank you to everybody. So it's on Patreon. Follow us on your Twitter account. Subscribe if you haven't. And hit the like button. And hey, you saw the title. Yep. We just saw separately, we're doing a movie review for the much, much anticipated Ponien Selven Part D. If you haven't seen our review of the first film, please go check that out. We saw it obviously where I went and came out. We also did a Skype review because I was also out of town again. And so we're just kind of keeping the tradition open here and doing the review via Skype here. But it's obviously the Money Rottenham Directed, the two-parter, composed by our non-bar Air Ramon starring Vikram Garthy, Aishwarya, a billion trillion other people. It's a massive, massive, massive film. But once again, if you haven't seen our review of the first one, please go check that out. And also this was going to be a lot of non-spoiler just because it's once again, it's new, even though I know it's based off a book, but not everybody has read the book. And so we don't want to give anything away. So when we talk about spoilers, we will tell you beforehand, but the first part of this is going to be a little mostly non-spoiler for all of you who haven't seen it or haven't read the book. So, Rick, your initial thoughts of Ponien Selven Part D. My initial thoughts going in, we've talked about this, about what we expect from Money Rottenham as far as pacing, action, things of that nature. And I will say, first, let me just give you my overall feel of how I thought about the film. Especially the second half. Yes. I loved it. Yes. The first half for me almost, it just felt like this wonderful, slow saturation back into the world that just was this luxuriating and storytelling. After the interval, it just became just this mixture of, totally original, but if I can compare it to anything of what you could expect, I would tell somebody go and expecting the epic feel of a Cecil B DeMille film, but carrying with it some of the best, the same kind of feel you get when you're really into Phantom of the Opera and you're in the climax of that film, and you're getting all of the theatrical feels. So yeah, I liked this more than the PS1. Yeah, I really enjoyed it as well. I can't say if I did enjoy it more than because I think I enjoyed it just as much. Which is still, yeah. As part one, because I just, I really enjoyed part one. Totally not. It just, this is one of the great things about filming something at the exact same time, like two films at the exact same time like Lord of the Rings did with the three films. Because it had the exact feeling of the first one. It just felt like it was supposed to. The second part of this, the second half of this story that they were telling. And so hats off to Monty Rottenham and the entire crew of keeping that same feel of the first one, because I love the feel of the first one. Even though, once again, if you liked the first one, I can almost guarantee you're gonna like this one. If you didn't like the first one, because it was slow, you're still gonna hate this one. It's just, it's the same feel. This one has slightly more action, but do not go into this film for action. Never. You shouldn't have done that in the first place. Nope. If you saw the first one, you should know in the second one that you still shouldn't go in for the action. Even though there is more action in this second part. And we'll talk about some of that. Yeah. But I agree. And there's a lot of stuff I want to talk about. Particularly in this one, let's start off with our actors. I loved Vikram in this. So did I. He was amazing. He was good in the first one, but I think he had more to do in this one. He got to flex his thespianatic muscles a lot more, and he riveted me the entire time. He did me too. We'll talk about this in the spoilers. But that's one of the reasons why I lean a little bit more into the second film. Second half. Not just the second half, but even the second film because it felt like there was a lot more meat for the characters, theatrically, not just for the story, but for us and for them as actors. For him. For Aishwarya. For Karthi. But I agree with you. We had walked away from PS1 really giving the elevated level of magnetism to Aishwarya. This one, there's ensemble level magnetism from all of the leads in this thing where they have moments where I was sitting there thinking, this is very special right now. Yeah, absolutely. Vikram, everything he was doing was so wonderful. It was so real. It was powerful. His eyes were intense. Everything he did, I loved every second he was on screen. Me too. And so that was great. And Aishwarya, once again, just like she was to stand out in the first one for me, even though there was a bunch of great people. Her character, I'm not giving anything away, took the turns that I didn't expect. Again, there was just, I felt for the characters in the storyline, not that it was better. It's just that there was more for us and everyone to kind of sink their teeth into theatrically and dramatically in the story. Yeah, absolutely. So both of them were equally amazing. So Karthi or Karthik? I thought it was Karthi. Yeah. Who plays the, yeah, yeah, Karthi. Just as enjoyable and I thought gave a really good performance in this one, just like he did in the first part. And he brings a lot of the heart, a lot of the humor into this film. And everybody in this, even though the guy didn't enjoy so much in the first one, he had a much smaller role in this part. Karthi's friend, basically. I even enjoyed him in this one because he's a little less, a little over the top in this than he was in the first one. But there's so much to talk about without giving anything away, though. One of the things that was really enjoyable in this part was, because it started off and it was actually very similar to the first one where it took me about 30 minutes to get my bearings again. Exactly. And be like, okay, okay, that's him, that's her. And okay, that's what happened in the first part. I get that. I remember that. And then, okay, now we're off. And they brought in a couple different elements that weren't there before. But right when there was a lot of really cool moments and there was a lot of great action in this. Once again, don't go for the action. But the interval section, I thought was fantastic. So did I. And it kept you invested for a two-hour, 45 film, even though the first half was more of the establishing still. I felt like the pacing of it was really nice, too. Yeah, I agree. I thought, is the right pronunciation. Is it Jayam Ravi? For... Tony and Solvon. The writer of it? No, no, no. The actor. Oh, gotcha. Yes, Jayam. It's Jayam Ravi, right? Yes, yes. Jayam, if that's mispronounced, forgive us. But, you know, must give. Especially there's stuff I will talk about in the spoilers in terms of equally all of the leads and all of the supporting cast members were at the top of their game believable as the characters, which is really incredible. I'm really interested to know how many people who've read the books and love the books are just as happy with the incarnation. This film, though, it's thematically in genre. It's so different. I was reminded of a lot of the pacing and the way people appreciated how the Lord of the Rings came into being and how well it was received as a literary translation onto film that Peter Jackson did an admirable job of taking a very, very thick text and making all of the characters that people thought to themselves, yeah, that's what I envisioned when I read the book. Having not read the book, I don't know what you think. For me, I can't imagine this isn't who I would be envisioning while I'm reading the book. They just seem to be perfect for the roles. Oh, I agree. Yeah, everybody in this is amazing. And there's only one character that... No, I would love to... No, I'm going to say one character that I'd love to know more about. One character I just felt at least in the film just didn't feel as fleshed out to me as... And we'll get to that in spoilers. In spoilers, okay. I think I know who that character might be. And I just wanted to know more. I just wanted to know more. I think I know who that character is. And so, that's one of my gripes. And it's a small gripe. I'd like to know more about all of them and that's why this would be a great series. It would be a 10-part, 10-hour series. Frickin' ghost seven seasons, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And hire all these actors again because I wanted to know about all of them. And the music was... It was really interesting. It would start off almost a little spoiler. There's like three songs, like boom, boom, boom. Right off the bat. A little spoiler, sorry. But then you don't get someone for a while, but then the background score... And I don't know if that was AR or if that was somebody else. Well, he's the one credited on IMDb. All composition is AR Rehman. Yeah. I enjoyed the entire background score of this because it helped me emotionally invested. It was also just beautiful. Every song that we saw, obviously, was great. I still would have loved them to be even longer. And there were moments with the score where other composers could be guilty of falling prey to the proverbial soap opera melodramatic usage of instrumentation. And it's a credit to both... What a surprise, AR Rehman and Money Rottenham. That the exact opposite was what took place. Every single nuance of the score felt so perfectly complimentary, so accentuating of what was going on. I didn't feel manipulated. I felt accentuated. And on the technical side of things, guys, like most Money Rottenham films, if you go into this with the expectation of Money Rottenham and you're not going for and looking for, say, Padma Vata, Bhaji Ramasthani, Sanjay Vila Bansali visuals, the cinematography and the lighting, the cinematography by Ravi Varman, for giving him his pronunciation, they're especially in the second half in this one climactic kind of moment that's very important to the film. There were so many lovely shots that I just... At some point in my life, now you're just showing off. Now you're just showing off at how good you are at doing it. Oh, yeah. The cinematography, just like in the first one, was absolutely incredible. It was so beautiful. Yeah. So hats off to that part of it. Because once again, the production design and... Yeah, notice the running. With the VFX was obviously the world-building-wise. I thought it was great. There were some elements of action that you could see VFX was not top-notch. Kind of like in the first one. It happened in the first one as well. But once again, this isn't an action film at all. You get some action. And some of it's actually very good. There's some great stuff work in terms of like when people are running through certain things. Absolutely. That's when the action and close to hand-to-hand combat, that is a lot of really good. It's when you get some of the more extravagant stuff that you can see a lot of the VFX. But it's forgivable just like in the first one because I wasn't expecting VFX in this film. I was expecting an intimate story. Yeah. And none of those things where you can tell it's CGI. That's all. It's not like you see it and go, oh, that's brutally bad. It's gotten so good now that when you can tell it's CGI, it's not good CGI. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so I really enjoyed it. We can get into some spoils here. Like I said, I don't really have a lot of gripes because I really enjoyed the whole ride. And there's just, maybe I'd like to know a little more about certain characters or the, I even, I enjoyed the ending. There was a lot of stuff that caught me off guard in this film in terms of like, I didn't, maybe obviously you've read the books, you knew where it was going, but I had zero clue of what was going to happen, who was going to happen, who was going to die, who was not going to die. I didn't know any of it. Right. And so I was enjoying the ride and I was emotionally invested the entire time. I sure was too. And so, yeah, we can get into the spoilers. So if you haven't watched it, please go watch it. It's obviously in theaters now, so go check that out. Go away. You're coming with spoils. Spoils now. Spoiler time. The character I wanted to know was Old Asharia. Yep, me too. Right? Yeah, I was so, I was so up for her. Yeah, because like in the first one, it was such a mystery of like who this was. And I felt like we got like two scenes. And I know she was a mute, obviously. But it just felt like we didn't, I felt like there could have been more there. And I bet there is in the book. I bet they go much more deep into it. But I wanted a little more in the movie. I did too. And maybe that was intentional as well. They left some mystery behind her. They left it with some mystery. And I also really appreciate it. I felt like they did a very good and believable job of making her look the age she was without making Asharia look aged. That's a hard thing to do. If her hair and makeup weren't as good as it was, it would have really pulled. But the fact that it was as good as it was left the believability factor and the suspension of disbelief intact. Absolutely. So that was probably one of my biggest. Yeah, me too. I guess. I just wanted to know more. There were so many scenes in this that I adored. Once again, we're on spoilers. The whole scene before Asharia kills Vikram. It was amazing by both of them. But especially Vikram was fucking killing that scene. That scene is just from start to finish when they're in the tunnels going in. All of the build up for it and the culmination of it and then the aftermath, that entire 25 minute chunk I would watch that again. Yeah, absolutely. It was just captivating. I was emotionally invested in them. I was assuming that they were bad for each other and blah, blah, blah. Obviously there's a lot that went on in the relationship that we found out. But I was like, oh, what are they going to do? Are they going to run off together? Oh, she said she didn't love him. What? What? Is she going to kill him? Yeah. Is she actually? What? She's not going to kill him? Yeah. Did she mean that? She couldn't have meant that. No. And it was absolutely incredible. I loved that whole. And every scene Vikram was in was incredible. Asharia as well. She's just like in the first one. She was very different in this one in terms of you got a lot more backstory about her in this one. Yeah. So you figured out what was going on behind the eyes. Yeah. And so, you know, and she has amazing eyes. So she did absolutely incredible. Loved her. The other scene that was really good. It was a smaller scene. It was with Parthi and the princess. I love that scene where he was blindfolded. Oh, yeah. I love that scene. I did too. I thought it was very well done. I did too. It was very intimate. Yeah. And I enjoyed the heck out of it. I thought both of those actions were really good. I did too. And getting back to that scene with Vikram, a couple things. And Asharia, there's a moment where he turns and he screams lies a couple of times. And a lesser actor would have made that a real groner for you because you would have known they didn't connect to anything. And it was just this empty indicating lies. And it just added to the depth of the anguish. Anguish he was going through and then just come on. That spinning shot. Yeah. When they're embracing and you, you, the reason you know it happened is because of the looks on their faces. And they're doing the spin and he is slowly slumping. But at the beginning of the stab, he has a smile and she's in anguish. And then when they pull her from his body, they framed it with the flames behind her. And then he comes running into his prints with the flames. It was just cinematic poetry that scene. Yeah, absolutely. It was absolutely wonderful. There, Pony and Selvin, the actor who did him. I enjoyed his character a lot as well. Oh, a lot. Yeah. I thought he brought a lot of empathy to that role. I thought that the end kind of, it was kind of funny to say for two and a half, two hour 45. I thought it kind of ended fast. It, it did. It kind of felt like Monty Rotten was saying, Hey y'all, I'm not making any more movies. This is just how we're, we're done. Like battle ended. Coronation. Right, right, right, right. Or whatever it is, obviously. And I thought, I enjoyed like that. Cause I didn't obviously, I didn't know that was going to happen, that he was going to give the throne to his uncle and everything like that. So I enjoyed all that. It just, it felt like battle over ending the movie. So there's like those, that and old Ashwari, I would like it a little more. Those are probably my biggest cracks with the entire film. I was like, it just, and you know, he can't make a four hour film. That's why it would be good as a series. Right. It would. There's so much meat on the, on the bones of this story. Yeah. Other stuff. Some acts like the interval action scene, I thought was fantastic. A lot of parkour kind of stuff going on there. I thought great action there. Really good action in the, in the final fight scene for, you know, they couldn't do like Helms Deep or anything like that. Cause obviously they have the budget, but I thought for, they put a lot, I felt they put a lot of their budget into that final battle. I did too. And I thought they did an excellent job. It felt like, and maybe it was historically accurate as it needed to be. It really felt like the, the battle sequence in Braveheart. Yeah. Where it's just giving you the feeling of what it's like to be on the ground with everybody fighting, not necessarily observing it from as many different angles as possible. It went far more for that, that sense of, I felt like I was standing on the ground watching it happen. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I had a question. Maybe you picked it up. Cause when part, Karthi was tied up and Ashwario talked to him. Yeah. Didn't she say untie him? But then the next scene he was tied up and his friend. Do you remember that at all? I don't know. I just, maybe I misheard and it was like, keep him tied up. I don't know. I thought like, after that scene was over and she left. Yeah. I thought, I thought she said untie him. But then the next scene was his friend in the disguise coming to break him out. Right. And so I was a little, maybe you guys can clear my confusion. Yeah, me too. Cause I agree with you. I'm not remembering it clearly. I think, maybe I just read the subtitles wrong or maybe it said like keep him tied. I don't, I can't remember. I thought she said untie him. And then the next scene he was still tied up and his friend came out. Right. Yeah, I don't know. Empty. Please let me know if you've seen it and obviously let me know if I'm misremembering what that was. Cause I was confused as to why he was still tied up if she said untie him. Not that that really matters. I thought Karthi's final scene like when he came in and he was all bloody and, which was a great shot actually the blood when he was coming in and walking. The production design on this was fucking amazing. I love the production design on this film. So hats off to everybody there. But his final scene there. I thought he did really well. All the songs. I loved the song that was over the battle sequence. I thought that was really, really beautiful. Yeah. Well, and they didn't have nearly as large of a participation in this as they did in the first one. Our other two ladies did as good a job as they did in the other ones. Yeah. They, I mean. We talked to Trisha. Trisha. Yeah. Or is it a short, or Sorbita? Sorbita wasn't in it very much this one. No, not exactly. They weren't, they both weren't in it as much as they were in the first one. Yeah. The two other ladies, but again, did an ample, wonderful job with what they were given. Yeah. I really enjoyed it for almost three hour film. And I, I enjoy these kind of films that are actor and story driven and with obviously, I think this had actually a good amount of action compared to what it could have had. And I would have been happy if it didn't really have the action that it did. Yeah. Because that's not why I went into this film, but the, what Asharia and what Vikram were serving and what Karthi all did. And with obviously what Mani Rotnam gave them from this story. I really, really enjoyed it. I'm very happy with the entire overall collection of this film, the part one and part two. It lived up to it for me. Maybe not for people that once again expected Bahubali, but I think once again you're weird if you expected that. I agree. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Don't go, don't go expecting SS Rajamuli when you're going into a Mani Rotnam film. Exactly. It's like, it's like expecting Christopher Nolan when you're watching Steven Spielberg. Yeah. You're not going to get totally different directors. Weirdos. But anything else you wanted to talk about, Vorina? No. I just, I'm, I'm so happy that it lived up to what, in fact that sequence from, from his death to the end, it, it from that point it exceeded my expectations. I was enjoying every minute of it and it was really living up to it. But then it hit the afterburners for me at that scene. And I just, it made it be so incredible. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. So let us know what you thought about this movie. Did you like it? Did you not like it? What didn't you like? What did you like? Obviously any information that you think we needed to know, please let us know and On to the next episode. On to the next episode. On to the next episode.