Best of 2024: Movies, Music & Reading

Here are some movies, music and books that caught my eye/ears in 2024.

Movies: Most of the movies in the list are from Malayalam. Malayalam movies have seen a remarkable resurgence in the last decade. In contrast  Bollywood or Hindi movies appears to be in a state of creative stagnation, trying to lift themes and stories from the Telugu industry (Tollywood) and miserably failing. 

I found myself struggling to recollect any Hindi movies I had watched in the past year, let alone any that left a lasting impression. This is a far cry from the vibrant era spanning the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, when Bollywood flourished with an array of memorable works.

Some of the movies in my list below were not released in 2024, I happened to watch them this year. But most of them are.

Bhoothakalam (Malayalam, 2022): One of the best paranormal movies in Malayalam that I've ever watched. Here is my review.

Premulu (Malayalam, 2024) : A chick-flick, a light-entertainer, third in a series - you decide. My review is here.

Civil War (English USA, 2024) :  I have been burrowing deep into the annals of American civil war, abolitionists and Abraham Lincoln this year. Coincidentally I watched this movie, which is unrelated to 150+ year old original version of civil war, months before I started down the rabbit hole of the 1860s civil war. Same land, different time, similar divides. My review.

Kishkindha Kaandam (Malayalam, 2024): Probably one of the best films that Malayalam produced this year. 

Bramayugam (Malayalam, 2024): Shot in the same location as Kishkindha Kaandam, but set centuries apart and brilliantly shot in black-n-white. Mammootty lords over a mad dark mansion and the movie, my review is here.

Bougainvillea (Malayalam, 2024): A stylish movie from Amal Neerad with his wife and actor Jyothirmayi rocking grey hair and her character and Kunchako Boban presenting new dimensions to his actor persona. Both actors have given great performances in an unconventional story which fails to hold together towards the end. But I loved the slick, urbane presentation. Maybe the allure of Jyothirmayi's silver strands will urge older folks, esp. Malayali men with sagging jaws and creased cheeks to abandon the harshness of jet black hair-dyes and embrace the timeless sophistication of grey hair. Sthuthi!

Barbie (English USA, 2023) : Barbie is a visually captivating and cleverly subversive film, blending playful nostalgia with sharp commentary on identity and societal expectations. It’s a whimsical yet thought-provoking exploration that transcends its toy-doll origins, offering a refreshing take on modern femininity

Society of the Snow (Spanish, Netflix, 2023): Alive by Piers Paul Reed was one of the books that I read in my teens that left a deep impression in my mind. It was about a team of Uruguayan rugby players whose plane crashed in the remote Andes and narrated their resilience in the face of unimaginable odds. Hollywood made a version of this real life survival story in the 90s starring Ethan Hawke. But Netflix's take on this incident, Society of the Snow, is the best and gripping version of this raw survival tale till now.

Sector 36 (2024): This is the only Hindi movie in my list, a Netflix production starring Deepak Dobriyal and Vikrant Massey. 

Music:  One of my favorite bands from the past released a new album this year, after long. Linkin Park's From Zero has head bangers like Emptiness Machine and Heavy is the Crown, along with many other great tracks, which makes it an almost no-skip album.

Shaboozey is my discovery of the year. It is like he found a place in music we didn't know existed and made himself at home there, at the confluence of hip-hop, country and pop. My favorite song of Shaboozey is Let it Burn.

Books : I hardly read any books this year and I am yet to finish the last two, but do plan to finish them 

1. And There was Light  - Jon Meacham
2. Circe - Madeline Miller
3. The Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese
4. How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr

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Thadakam (The Lake, 1982)

Before Pavanai, there was Jabbar Khan. Captain Raju makes his appreance as Jabbar Khan in an almost comical but imposing getup of a Pathan in Thadakam (The Lake), an I.V.Sasi film set in Kashmir. I.V.Sasi is true to the locations and the culture, unlike the Punjabi Houses produced twenty years hence. Thadakam is extensively shot in Kashmir, some local characters are portrayed by local actors speaking Hindi (not Kashmiri though) and there are even Hindi songs sung by Kashmirir characters in this Malayalam movie. 

Thadakam (1982) must have been I.V.Sasi's second outing set in Kashmir, after Thusharam (1981) having caught the Kashmir bug. Script and screen play are never the strong suite of I.V. Sasi movies, there are also unnecessarily sleazy situations as was required for early eighties Indian movies. Seema, Mammootty, Sumalatha, Ratheesh, Captain Raju and Balan K.Nair play some of the main characters in a movie that deals with a reincarnation episode in the life of its leading lady. There must have been a spate of reincarnation movies after the blockbuster success of Karz (1980), this must have been one of Malayalam's contributions during that cinematic season of rebirths. 

It is a low effort movie from the director after Thusharam, with a lot of B-grade sound and camera effects. It almost makes me wonder whether they did back to back shoots of both the movies at around the same time with the effort and the money put more towards the earlier movie.

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