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'Sara'S' review: Anchored by a powerful script, this simple film breaks the conventions of the feel-good template

Jude Anthany Joseph's third feature, after Ohm Shanti Oshana and Oru Muthassi Gadha, released on Prime Video at midnight today. This seemingly feel-good film, also seemingly made in limited spaces and with a shoestring budget, tackles a concept and issue never tested before in Malayalam cinema  circles. In Sara'S, we follow the life of Sara Vincent (Anna Ben), a young, bubbly, yet unapologetic filmmaker who struggles to make it big in the industry. She continuously assists male directors and is in the scripting works of her dream film. Sara has decided, from her school days, that she would not bear any kids. This is when she meets Jeevan (Sunny Wayne); her relationship with him subsequently brings her ideology and decision into a confrontation with the established norms of society, family and child-rearing.  Anna Ben in Sara'S The best aspect in which Sara'S has excelled, without doubt, is its hard-hitting taut script. Debutant Akshay Hareesh deserves praise for managin...

Black Panther and Spider-Verse: Why Marvel had it's biggest night at the Oscars

Marvel had it's own reasons to celebrate in the 91st Academy Awards, even when favorites like  Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody and Roma ended up achievers of the night. Two exceptional movies from the Marvel comics made it's way to earn the coveted statuettes of the Academy Awards- Black Panther from the multi-billion colossal Marvel Cinematic Universe and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sony Pictures' animation venture (which was not an MCU film). Both movies had earned critical as well as popular acclaim, with many praising them as novel works of sorts. An Academy Award was something that the MCU had lacked ever since it's inception in 2008 with Iron Man. Albeit receiving numerous nominations in the category of Best Visual Effects for it's blockbusters such as Iron Man, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy etc., never had once the franchise grabbed a win in this category. Interestingly the only Marvel film to win a statuette was Sam Raimi's Sp...

91st Academy Awards- Green Book emerges unexpected winner

It was a night of inclusiveness, celebration and most of all, surprises. The wait of moths for cinephiles all over the globe culminated today at the Dolby Theater, California, the venue of the 91st Academy Awards. The ceremony, which was already mired in controversy thanks to Kevin Hart's withdrawal as emcee, witnessed the most prestigious film institution honor the best films, artists, and technicians of 2018. At the end of the announcement of the nominees, it seemed that two brilliant film- Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favorite and Alfonso Cuaron's Roma- would vie for the biggest honor of the night, with a whopping number of 10 nominations, while A Star Is Born and Vice  landed up with 8 nominations each. Speculations aside, the event saw unexpected winners, most interestingly Peter Farrelly's Green Book, which beat the award favorites to bag the Oscar for Best Picture. The event also witnessed films with interesting yet relevant themes being heavily honored, like Gre...