maulajatt Reviews

The Great Robbery of Brazil's Central Bank (2022– )

The great bore of a retelling of the great robbery of Brazil's Central Bank

[21 March 2022]

Kudos to the makers of the documentary for turning such an ingenious heist story in the most boring retelling ever. I agree with the other reviewers, the decision to have the English translation layered over the original Brazilian Portuguese is truly baffling, requires extra effort to pay attention to what they are saying.

The documentary content itself isn't much interesting, either. Bunch of police officers introduced with the cringest possible way as these geniuses for solving the case, when 90% of what the documentary details as their method is they just blanket tap everyone's phone even remotely connected to a suspect, and ultimately they are lead to the criminal. Groundbreaking.gif

Another small gripe, one thing i found really funny was how the documentary would dramatise the capture of a suspect, and the actor paid to portray would have a head full of thick hair, and right after they would show footage from actual capture, and the real criminal had barely any hair on their head. Lmao.

Call My Agent Bollywood (2021– )

call my photocopier

[9 February 2022]

There's a scene in the second or third episode where farah khan wants to direct these actors in the movie, and seeing their intensity during the audition, she exclaims something like, we are making something commercial, we only want to scratch the surface of the emotions you are showing. And that's it. That's the entire series. They have commercialised the original series to such an absurd extent that it makes you wonder why did they insist on copying not just the plot lines, but the dialogues, word to word. What works for paris doesn't necessarily have to work for mumbai, which is not a bad thing; better stories could have been written, keeping the same characters in mind. Instead we get a ham-fisted xerox of the original, that really makes you question the point of watching this when the far superior version exists just a click away.

I Am Alone, So Are You... (2019)

hum bhi wailay tum bhi wailay

[4 February 2022]

Right around the middle of the movie, Veer, and Mansi (the male, and female leads, respectively) are having dinner, and Veer delves into a monologue about his ex's understanding of love, 'love is beyond gender... that sometimes where there is love, there is lust, and other times it's just pure love, an intense feeling of affection...' As if platonic love is an unknown concept. Anyway, the entire movie basically runs on this premise; somehow lust being a part of non-platonic love makes it an inferior form of love. Even the ending, Nikki (the girlfriend) finally overcoming the fear of coming out to her parents, and deciding to live her truth, but Mansi dumping her in favour of living a 'lustless' life with basically a vegetable Veer (irony of naming him the Punjabi word for brother is not lost on me).

Honestly, the movie is very insulting in terms of its gay representation. Mansi is a lesbian, so she has the traits of a typical desi man. Veer is a gay guy, so of course he can cook, and is tidy. And beyond the stereotypical characterisation, Mansi, and Veer are constantly shown to be sub-consciously (at least in the beginning) yearning for each other throughout the movie. It's very apparent neither of the writers understands at any level how love or sexuality works. Hope any further experimentation they might wanna unleash on the poor public isn't behind a gay story.

Seinfeld: The Shoes (1993) Season 4, Episode 16

easily the worst episode

[22 October 2021]

Was this episode an ode to jerry seinfeld perving on a teenager irl? To imagine this episode was pitched to a bunch of higher ups, and they all didn't think anything was wrong with this storyline. Just all around bad. Hoping the rest of the season four picks it up, the weakest season so far.