August 28, 2025
August 27, 2025
I was tempted to go full Monty Brogan on this disaster and fire off a venom laced "fuck you" to every frame, every line, and every editorial decision. But no. This film doesn't deserve that kind of passion and it’s not worth the poetry of rage.
However a big respectful fuck you to Mr. Lee is still in order. For one thing that opening credit. Adapted from “High and Low” by Akira Kurosawa. Written by Hideo Oguni and Ryūzō Kikushima. You had the audacity to flash that for barely a heartbeat then let it fade like an afterthought while every other name, every other title, gets its full moment in the spotlight.
When this stitched together, culturally tone-deaf mess lands on streaming, time the adapted and written by credit. Watch how quickly it disappears compared to the others. It's not subtle. It's not accidental. It's disrespect, plain and simple.
Even if I give the benefit of the doubt and assume it came from an executive note that the billing was too stacked and took up half the screen, a creator at your level could have shut it down without hesitation. You had the power. You chose not to use it.
So yeah... fuck you, Mr. Lee. Fuck you. I hope the white-owned streaming platform, staffed by workers in sweatshop factories with suicide nets cut you a fat enough check to buy another Basquiat to hang in the background, score courtside seats to the Knicks and Yankees, and sit back comfortably while you explain how this "reinterpretation" was all some profound commentary on wealth disparity. All while blaming everything and everyone without looking even an inch inward.
August 20, 2025
Untitled.
August 14, 2025
C300 / 135MM / C-LOG / RGB CURVES / 35MM FINE GRAIN
August 2, 2025
You hauled me through over a thousand clicks of bullshit, bad calls, and aching knees and you didn’t say a word because you’re just shoes. Now you’re falling apart like everything else eventually does. You served your purpose and now you are free.
June 22, 2025
Over the last year, I’ve been developing a personal documentary. Progress has been slow, irregular, with commercial work taking up most of my time. But that work funds this project.
It’s about one woman. A matriarchal figure who crossed oceans to settle, and eventually became a quiet sponsor of an entire generation. The film is part memoir, part genealogical record, made with the future in mind. It took Ken Burns a decade to make The Civil War. I’m hoping I can finish this in less than a quarter of that time.
However, in recent months, it’s become clear that her memory is fading. Rapidly. That realization has pushed me to gather what I can, while I can, and begin weaving the narrative. I’m not certain I’ll finish on time. The audio test is done. I’ve recorded several hours of material. The setup for archival presentation such as an encyclopedia of photos, travel papers and personal records is complete.
The plan was to begin the eye direct interviews in the coming weeks. This week was for lighting and framing tests. She wasn’t in the mood, so I ran them with my wife and sigh... with myself.
Hope isn’t part of this anymore. There’s just the process of the doing and the repetition. I don’t know if I’ll finish. I only know that I’m still working. Because if I stop, then I have to fucking feel it, and I’m not ready for that.
May 31, 2025
Thudarum (2025)
I managed to hold on. Somehow. Even when Mr. Botox started making choices so categorically dumb. Then came the coup de grâce. He drives a vintage car into a fucking hill. Not as metaphor. Not as commentary. Just... because. And I gave up. I couldn't care less after.
I meant to care about what’s in the trunk? The big mystery. The weighty reveal. I’ve got a pretty good idea. Everyone does. And I couldn’t give a shit. The only person worth watching was Shobana. Elegant and understated. She can talk with her eyes, and in a ‘mystery’ narrative, those eyes should have been a weapon. Instead, the director left that weapon holstered and sidelined her in favor of tragic wax sculpture man.
Malayalam cinema usually carries this quiet groundedness. A sense of realness. But this one? With all its star, Botox and glycerine power, it just comes off dull, uninspired, and downright lazy. The film had countless chances to build genuine emotion, but you can feel the indifference oozing through. What is so hard about showing a montage of his actual stunt career on a proper film set? Instead, we get slow-motion, syrupy, overcooked nonsense designed to tug at your heartstrings. Fuck off with that shit!
A quick look at the reaction reveals the audience and critics alike are foaming up cum, though not for Mr. Botox, but over a ‘new villain in town’. And all I could think of was that classic Senthil-Gounder comedy: அந்த Angle-ல பார்த்தா எப்படி தெரியும்? இந்த Angle-ல பாருங்க! Which only proves the audience is in such a dry spell they’ll swallow any garbage served up and slap meaning onto it. Desperation dressed as devotion.
May 18, 2025
The Order (2024)
I disengaged around 40 min, during the second bar scene. The dialogue became painfully anachronistic, undermining the film’s historical grounding that I couldn't sit straight for another second.
And to throw salt in the wound... the dialogues.
The film’s central issue is its failure to convincingly capture the 1970s. It’s not so much the performances, but the body language that never aligns with the period. Oddly, the narrative might have felt more authentic if it were set in the present.
Speaking of body language, after watching Zodiac countless times, one gesture stands out. Robert Downey Jr., after leaving Graysmith’s desk and being called to the editor’s office, delivers the line 'Yes, Tempelton. Very well' — and that walk? Straight out of the ’70s. Unmistakable.
May 17, 2025
I should’ve kept the original title. There was a precision to it. Before the second-guessing that bled the life out of it. I didn’t protect my instinct. I tweaked it. Polished it. Killed it. Fuck.
May 14, 2025
Seven people asked me to talk about this.
Statistically, that's insignificant. Emotionally, it's confusing. But here we are. The numbers suggests roughly 83 people watched it. Or one person watched it 85 times. Neither option is comforting.
Now, I'm assuming half were bots. That’s not paranoia. That’s just understanding the internet in 2025. The “dead internet theory.” Half the web is ghosts, code talking to code.
That drops us to 40.
Of those, maybe 20 were human, but not present. Eyes glazed over. One hand on the dick, the other swiping endlessly, with multiple tabs of the Hub open—looking for the perfectly curated moment where the snooty cat and the courageous dog finally meet on reel three. Passive, ambient viewers. Emotionally bankrupt. Spiritually offline. I’m not judging you. Just... concerned.
That leaves 20.
Cut that in half again for people who aren’t AI, or just ambient noise while someone grabs their morning matcha from Planet Starbucks.
We are at 10. And that’s 3 more than asked for this in the first place.
So... thank you! Not for watching. That’s passive.
Thank you for choosing to stay.
That matters to me.
May 12, 2025
Hollywood isn’t just selling spectacle anymore — it’s selling definitions. Swapping precision for persuasion. I've written my thoughts on it, sparked by the latest IMAX bait-and-switch.
May 11, 2025
Just a test.
Meta Data
Title: trains
Genre: bored/experimental
TRT: 0:00:01:57
File: 20250511_TRAINS.mov
Frames: 3518
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
May 1, 2025
re: Ash on the guestbook
Hi Ash,
For something to really pull me in and make me dive deep, that "thing" has to simmer in my mind constantly and disrupt my disciplines. Whether I’m on the train, out for a run, in the shower, or even when it disturbs my sleep, that’s when I know it’s serious. That “thing” is basically begging to be materialized.
The spark for Vaazhai came from the fact that I had already read மறக்கவே நினைக்கிறேன் long before. So while I was watching—or rather, skipping through to get to the end—I began noticing narrative inconsistencies. It was the exaggerations, rather than the omissions, that stood out to me and made the film feel like it lacked a certain genuineness.
If you haven’t read it, it’s basically a series of “memories”—but not the deep, traumatic kind. Tragic, for sure. Traumatic? That’s debatable. I don’t mean to downplay it by putting “memories” in quotes, but it’s more about anecdotal moments from everyday life. Depending on where you are in life, they might feel exaggerated or just normal.
In the book, things are more grounded, while in the film they’re dialed up and dramatized. Take the missing cow incident—in the movie, it’s this whole emotional episode. But in the book, it’s treated more like a joke and not taken seriously because it was caused by Mari Selvaraj’s drunken uncle who is regarded as the family's bafoon. Also, in real life, both his parents are alive and well. His mother actually runs the house and is a strong, respected woman in the village—completely different from how she’s portrayed in the film.
The banana-stealing scene did happen, and the plantation owner did hit him. But in the book, Mari Selvaraj offers to pay for it when he gets home. The owner responds by saying he doesn’t care about the banana or the money—what matters is the tree was broken, and who’s going to pay for that? Which honestly is a fair point. But, of course that portion was omitted from the film to rake sympathy. So yeah, all these omissions made me go back and rewatch the film, and I ended up playing this game of connecting causes and effects between the book and the movie.
As for how long it took? Four months. From that first unsettling spark to the moment I finally hit "publish." Four months of thoughts, revisions, and relentless pursuit of clarity.
It took me a couple of weeks to research everything properly. I re-read the book, watched all the interviews related to Vaazhai, and went through every speech by Mari Selvaraj outside of Cinema to understand his thought process as much as possible.
I did as much research as possible on the bus accident as well, and I had a whole chapter dedicated to it, focusing on how inconsistently Mari Selvaraj handles it. Specifically, the date of the accident. The disclaimer card at the end in the film states one date (which aligns with the PRINTED date of the article), but my research revealed that the actual accident occurred a couple of days earlier. This makes sense because, I can only assume, back in the day, it must have taken at least a day or two for the news to break. That’s when I realized that the incident likely wasn’t relevant to the story—or to Mari Selvaraj. But then again, I wasn’t writing an exposé, so I decided to leave that chapter out.
Then, a solid month was spent just laser focusing on the writing. Gathering all my notes and dumping them into a word processor. It was all about the writing in that month. Dumping ideas, organizing notes, analyzing shot choices, figuring out chapter divisions and titles, and hunting for the right words (lots of thesaurus time).
Concurrently, once I had a rough edit, I sent it to some of my friends in Chennai who are part of the industry—people who are more than just casual cinema watchers, with a unique viewpoint, focusing more on the writing than anything else—to get their lived perspectives. Their opinions matter to me.
After that, I took another month to edit everything into a cohesive piece. That included my interpretation editing choices, cleaning up screenshots (removing logos, aligning horizons), gathering images that matched the themes of each chapter, and just generally polishing the whole thing editorially to flow.
It’s worth pointing out that my initial idea was to create a video essay. But as I kept writing, connecting one thought to another and backing each claim with cross-referenced material from Mari Selvaraj’s interviews, it started to shape into more of an "exposé" by nature—something I wanted to avoid. I still want to do it, but I realized that whenever you have this kind of material and upload it in a video format, it tends to take on a "drama" genre, which would dilute my original thesis — Is Mari Selvaraj fishing for sympathy through his films, using it as a shortcut instead of transcending it?
What was interesting to me wasn’t really the film—I honestly couldn’t care less if it existed or not—but Mari Selvaraj himself. In an industry of factory made films with aging actors desperately trying to maintain relevance, Mari Selvaraj’s attempts are truly commendable. As I pointed out in the essay, I just wish he was completely transparent.
I appreciate the kind words, and more importantly, the time you've taken to read. It’s not something I take for granted.
Love,
V.
March 16, 2025
I’ve recorded an audio commentary on my Footnotes—2023 montage, as requested. I’m hoping it clears up the questions for those who were asking. Thanks.
March 15, 2025
My essay on Vaazhai is up. Thanks.
March 7, 2025
My dear pans,
I’m searching for an illustrator to give my essays some sort of… visual identity, you know?
Like, I want the words to have a face.
First off, this will an ongoing commissioned project. I will never ask for your money, and I will never pay you in exposure. Fuck that shit, piss, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits of a transaction.
You will get paid, period. No games. No gimmicks.
I need an illustrator who gets it. Someone who can feel the pulse of an essay and see the idea. This isn’t about pretty pictures. It’s about adapting the heart of the piece and making an image that commands attention.
The image needs to hit before the words do. It should speak for the essay—it’s the edge, the tension, the contrast, the contradiction. It’s already on the same wavelength—a few steps ahead of the game.
When that cover lands, it should be unmistakable. The reader should know what’s coming before they read a damn word. No explanation needed. It has to make people feel—instantly.
Hand-drawn, digital, mixed media, Art Deco, minimalism, pointillism, cubism—whatever. Just make sure it's fully conceptualized in your head.
Now, I know there are only 26 of you (this post was sent as an email blast... and now you know how many people actually signed up for my list... great.), and I’m pretty sure none of you are living like hermits in a hovel. So, in case this message isn't quite in your wheelhouse, I kindly ask that you share this with your friends—anyone who’s got the perception to get it.
I’ll go over the details with those who gets in touch.
You can reach me at vinothvaratharajan@proton.me
Thank you kindly,
V.