Author: Rishi Kumar

The cliché of the American high school prom has inspired generations of teenagers on screen: from emotional confessions of love to the coronation of the king and queen, accompanied by the classic shocking revelations that precede one of the biggest milestones in a high schooler’s life. Yet among the meticulously placed spotlights, colorful balloons, and slow dances between sweethearts, one high school prom stands above the rest as a seminal horror classic: Brian De Palma’s iconic sequence in 1976’s Carrie. Forget romance, rites of passage, and shimmering dresses—when Carrie is crowned prom queen, a bucket of pig’s blood dumps over…

Mandaadi, directed by Pugazhendhi Mathimaran and starring Soori and Telugu actor Suhas, brings something a little different to the usual Tamil action-drama mix. The film is set around boat racing in a coastal fishing village, which is not a backdrop we get to see very often, especially in a movie that treats the races as more than just a few action scenes thrown in for the climax. The story itself is built around rivalry, revenge and redemption, so there isn’t much here that feels completely new. But the setting, the performances and especially the sea sequences give Mandaadi enough of…

If you’ve been missing the old Allari Naresh, the one who could turn even a simple situation into a comedy scene, Ramba Oorvasi Menaka feels like a return to familiar territory. After films like Naandhi and Ugram showed him in much more serious and intense roles, it’s nice to see him go back to comedy again. Directed by Chintaada Chandra Mohan and produced by Rajesh Danda and Nimmakayala Prasad under Hasya Movies and Annapurna Studios, the film is a fantasy comedy that runs for around two hours and twenty minutes and carries a UA certificate. It’s not trying to be…