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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Leonard Cohen: Songs and Films

Twenty years ago in 2004 was my first summer with Leonard Cohen. I discovered him for the first time during those days of midnight sun in Alaska. He played while I was on the road in my red Chevy S10, and his baritone ‘golden’ voice sang about sixties girls like Marianne and Suzanne while I was at home.

a young Leonard Cohen, writing poems in his bathtub

While romance was/is not exactly my cuppa, there was some kind of philosophical gravitas and mysticism to this poet/writer turned-poet-singer, who climbed a whole mountain side, to wash his eyelids in the rain (ref. So long, Marianne), while he was singing about his lady loves.

Over the years in addition to dipping into the deep well of Cohen’s soulful lyrics delivered in his slow drag voice, I have had the opportunity to watch some Leonard Cohen documentaries too. The first one “Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen: An Intimate Look into a Poet's Life (1965)” showcasing Cohen as a young poet is (IMHO) better than Netflix’s 1922 documentary “Hallelujah:Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song” taking its title from Cohen’s famous song of the same name. To me, Cohen is more that Hallelujah which has been done to dust, with so many covers.

Fata Morgana(1971), Werner Hertzog’s art-house psychedelic film features Cohen songs like Suzanne, Avalanche against the stark sands of Sahara desert.

I leave you with one of his best lyrics, from his poem/song Anthem - “Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in”

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Lowkey aka Kareem Dennis - Hear him out, folks

Living in an idiocracy. Freedom fails democracy.
The emperor has no clothes, but the lone kid is comatose
The idiot rules the idiot box, his country is a tinderbox
Hey Mr. Ninety nine percent, welcome to your genocide,
Right, you’re on the wrong side, of the infamous great divide


Spoken word poetry must have had it roots in chants and stories, accompanied by rudimentary percussion, sung around primordial camp-fires. Long before we had written code or hieroglyphics to record our histories and songs down, the first rappers and story tellers were rapping their tales off, generation down generation.


I have a major case of tin ear. Because of this affliction it is usually not quartets or sonatas performed by a grand orchestra or any wailing violin that draws me in but the dance of poetry through the beats and the words. Give me a street rapper busting his soul with rhythm, rhyme and beat, that is the music that can tear through my tinpanum and bring out tears from my soul.


I met the bard of our century in a Youtube video. I was several years too late to come across this unflinchingly brutal young rapper. If you don’t know him already, please welcome, Lowkey aka Kareem Dennis, one of the most meaningful artists of our times. Born and raised in Britain, half English half Iraqi, this spoken word artist, rapper, activist and a well-deserved bearer of human conscience, Lowkey is not known much in the US. It feels criminal and a big loss to the people on this side of the Atlantic that such a great poet, artist will never be mainstream here. American media won’t play him or take him to the top of the charts, for he is not signed on by labels or brands. In his own words, “You can never top my fire in the booth, I don’t need a label I’m signed to the truth” 


Here is a rapper and a genuine human being whom I can show my kids to introduce them to rap. A messenger of our true reality, who does not cuss. What?!?!!! Is he for real? How can Lowkey be a rapper without employing the essential fifth element of rap – cussing? How can he be a true rapper without demeaning women in every line and without throwing in guns, gangsters, bling and booties in every stanza for good measure?


Here are some of Lowkey’s memorable tracks with a bit of the lyrics from each. There is more from where this came from – YouTube

AHMED

Toddler lying lifeless on the beach with his back bent
Arms spread, reaching the direction that his dad went
If he made it here, would have been bullied for his accent
He was captured by the ocean, paralysed and frozen
While these parasites sat and typed, analysing clothing
Now for resources we all compete beyond the talk of war and peace
And talk of porous border there is corpses on the shore of Greece
They found a teddy next to where his body was found
The sea swallowed him, politics has swallowed him now


OBAMA NATION

Kill a man from the military, youre a weirdo
But kill a wog from the Middle East youre a hero
Your country is causing screams that are never reaching ear holes
America inflicted a million ground zeros
Follow the dollar and swallow your humanity
Soldiers committing savagery you never even have to see
Those mad at me, writing in emails angrily
Im not anti-America, America is anti-me
Is it Obamas nation or an abomination?
Is it Obamas nation or an abomination?
Is it Obamas nation or an abomination?
Doesn't make any difference when they bomb your nation


CHILDREN OF DIASPORA
Since the middle passage either sink or you swim
Bleach the pigment of skin and pray its privilege trickling in
Are we missing the link?
Diasporas the reason MJ did to his nose what they did to the sphinx
And why Marley made the most classic of art
The reason Gabby Douglas didn't put her hand on her heart
The reason Malcolm Little changed his name to X
The reason the President's melanin remain a threat
Ahmed made a clock, they arrested him and mangled his name
But the root of the word is to thank and to praise
Racism manifests in many cancerous ways
We must rally for change in these most tragic of days
Cos Emmett Till didn't have a weapon, but they still got him
Tamir Rice never had a weapon but they still shot him
Alton Sterling never had a weapon but they still shot him
They call them first world diaspora problems 

Respect.

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10 Most Inspirational Songs : My List

This is the tin-eared music lover's list of the ten most inspirational songs ever. If music was a parking lot, I'd be using the handicapped parking spot, because my genetic makeup lacks enough music genes for genuine appreciation of the subject. As a result, I am prone to go for the lyrics(I ❤words.) Some of it might be cheesy or country, loud or mushy, but this post is my bookmark - a personal list tied to events, people and places in my life, a mix-tape for the long journey home, whenever I need to come home.



10. John Mayer: Waiting on the world to change
Music man with his fingers on the pulse of change, reflecting on our times.



9. Eminem: Lose Yourself
This songs pops up like my guardian angel, quite unexpectedly in the darkest of the hours.



8. Sabrina Setlur and Xavier Naidoo: Alles
I do not know German, but I used a translator because this song was so soothingly like-able, esp. Xavier Naidoo's part.




7. Metallica: Nothing Else Matters
Life is ours, we live it our way... All these words, I don't just say... And nothing else matters

6. Blake Shelton: Some Beach Somewhere
 A simple American pleasure, go to Hawaii or the Caribbean when you need sunny skies.




5.  Tom Petty: The Last DJ
Get-back-at-the-system-that-got-you-down song.




4. Tim McGraw: Live Like You Were Dying
Carpe Diem. 'nuff said.



3. UB40: Higher Ground 
Reggae effortlessly lifts you to a higher ground. There were poems in the rain, MTV and the abstract blue album cover of Promises and Lies as the backdrop of my teenage trials.



2. Vangelis: Chariots of Fire 
Only instrumental in the whole list. Even without words it soars the spirit. Wonderful movie too.
 

1. Baz Luhrmann/Mary Schmich : Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
The ultimate advice column ever, in a good away. Mary Schmich, I like you better than your mistaken identity of Kurt Vonnegut.

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