Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Wicked 2024

  ★★★★ Watched 14 Feb 2025

  Ok so I’m very late to the party, but let’s talk about Wicked : Part 1. Finally.
  John M. Chu just won Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards (setting him up as serious contender for the Best Director Oscar in a few weeks) so it would be a great crime if I let this opportunity to talk about it, slip. I’ve had the immense privilege to watch the live Broadway production back in 2010, but I missed my opportunity…

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  A Real Pain 2024

  ★★★★★ Watched 18 Jan 2025

  When I first saw the trailer for this film, I was instantly hooked. Something about the pairing of Keiran Culkin’s quick wit and pained sarcasm (as we’ve come to appreciate especially after Succession) and Jesse Eisenberg’s likeable neuroticism (something we’re also familiar with) seemed like a match made in movie heaven. ‘Why hadn’t they been paired earlier?’, I remember thinking.

  Then when I learned that Jesse had written and directed it as well, I was intrigued. I hadn’t seen his…

Popular reviews

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  Ishq Vishk Rebound 2024

  ★½ Watched 23 Jun 2024 2

  I was 9 when I saw 2003's "Ishq Vishk," starring newcomer Shahid Kapoor. Soon afterwards, adults around me started using the term 'chocolate boy', referring to Kapoor as one, though I wondered to myself why 'chocolate'?

  I had gone to watch the movie at 'Priya Cinema', a beloved pre-multiplex era cinema hall in Kolkata. Accompanying me was my grandmother. Or, rather, I was the one accompanying her. She loved going to watch the latest Bollywood movies, and I would go…

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  Anora 2024

  ★★★★½ Watched 24 Oct 2024

  Mikey Madison gives a star-turning performance as Anora, a 23 year-old Russian-American stripper who, on a whim, marries a young, wealthy son of a Russian oligarch, who is both funny and charming, even if it’s in an oddball way. “Anora” could be called a strip-club rom-com or a modern-day Cinderella story gone wrong. Both would be apt, but this film is much more than any label one could give it.

  Sean Baker, in his trademark tragicomic style, does not set…