madhukar30

For all its hype and relentless online marketing, Navarasa definitely scores high for its technical brilliance and production design. In fact almost all of its nine stories, put together has a runtime of 5 hours, and has a very few parallels on the technical side that can match Navarasa head to head, in Kollywood. But the screenplay and writing has more misses than hits, only 3 stories intrigued the viewers minds, while another 3 offers nothing new and 3 more are just boring and a makes a painful watch.

Episode 1: Edhiri, Very Good but not brilliant, Actor Vijay Sethupathi's talents goes under utilised here.

Episode 2: Summer of 1992, Has a few laughs but Director Priyadarshan offers nothing new.

Episode 3: Project Agni, Brilliant concept but director Karthik Naren rushes to tell and do too many things in a very short time.

Episode 4: Payasam, An Authentic 1960s tale, aided by some brilliant production design and costumes. Prakash Raj would have been an better choice than Delhi Ganesh here.

Episode 5: Peace, I never new LTTE spoke with such funny accents and wore makeup, before operations.

Episode 6: Roudram, Brilliant tale that intrigues the viewer minds for its entire run time. Arvind swami stuns us with his caliber as a director.

Episode 7: Inmai, Parvathy shines in this rather insipid folklore, that tries hard.

Episode 8: Thunintha Pin, An outright dud from the screenplay pages of Ravaan or Ravaanan (2007), that didn't make the final cut. Really? Mani sir?

Episode 9: Guitar Kambi Mele Nindru, A Typical Gautham Menon, blah blah blah that I have been watching for 20 years now. Frankly Mr. GVM, don't you have any other ideas? A Brilliant Song by Karthik in a dud within.

Overall, Watch Navarasa for its technical brilliance and a wonderful Toorigha song, when you have absolutely nothing to do, sans higher expectations. 6 out of 10 stars for a promising anthology which goes flat eventually.

Phew, What a take on life and What a movie, Director Tamara Jenkins has delivered to us? Absolutely Fantastic, Private Life uses a couple's emotional bumpy journey, almost making it, a kind of mature dramedy on infertility. The movie is very emotional on several occasions but the scenes are rarely dramatized and appear picture perfect authentic, frame by frame. At its heart, Private Life has some genuine laughs, emotional tension, and loads of drama to keep the viewer glued to the screen, and completely engaged. The movie has a strong and a wonderful cast, delivering some of the finest acting performances, that I have seen in a very long time.

Cinematography is decent, well one doesn't expect too much out of it, in a movie like this one. Screenplay is wonderfully written, crafted with great care actually. The writers have done some serious heavy lifting on this one, in my opinion. Editing keeps up the pace and the movie doesn't lag much in its 124 minute runtime. Music lightens the mood, when things get serious. Production design, costumes and makeup are very good. Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn deliver some very memorable performances on screen, nothing like their usual small supporting characters, that they normally play. These are some of the best acting performances of their life time possibly. They are ably supported by Kayli Carter and a host of other actors.

Overall, A mature storyline, explicit sexual content and an appealing young co-star may attract teen interest, but Private Life is not made for them, because the movie's main focus is on the struggles of a couple in their 40s who are trying to keep their relationship together while they're on an emotionally and physically exhausting journey to parenthood. As a matter of fact a lot of couples undergo the same gruelling spectre that Rachel and Richard go through in this movie, my prayers are with them.

When young we take a lot of things for granted, it is only when we don't have them down the line, we understand to value things, Private Life is a lesson for all of us to understand the perils and hardships, infertile couples go through. The movie gives us a chance to understand, redeem our outlook and be supportive in our approach towards them. Highly recommended for mature audiences, who like drama. 8.6 stars out of 10 for a dramedy like no other in the recent times.

Though this movie may or may not be based on true incidents or real life characters, it is indeed a dark tale, not just dark but pitch black. The titular character Maza or Akkio, played to perfection by Masami Nagasawa left my head spinning and reeling for hours, from the fatal blow I received while watching maza. A deadly and disturbing combination of utter Waywardness, irresponsibility, selfishness, laziness, lies and deceit all rolled into one, sums up the character Akkio. Masa can definitely be a case study for social workers across the world, who work for the betterment of the civil society. Director Tatsushi Ohmori's painstakingly put together tale, definitely makes a bold and rather disturbing impression.

Cinematography is perfect, the ground level camera shots, the steady cam shots and the scenes shot in small and confined spaces, just shows the mettle of the cinematographer. Screenplay is terrific on many levels, it intrigues with the viewer's minds while keeping things interesting. Editing is good and keeps up the necessary pace for the movie lasting 125 minutes. Production design, costumes and makeup are good. Music is sublime and soft. On the acting front Masami Nagasawa steals the show outright, and is ably supported by by a host of decent performances around her.

Overall, I am sure that the judges at Cannes film festival and other top film festivals will be mighty impressed with Masa. But for the average joe like me, I would recommend this movie for viewers who like dark tales or for viewers who would like to try something bizarre and different for the day, instead of regular mundane stuff on tv. Not recommended for family audiences and young impressionable minds. 6.9 stars out of 10 for a dark tale that borders horror, on many occasions, without involving ghosts or vampires. Actually they are in fact nothing in comparison to Akkio.