The Best of Bollywood and OTT Content in 2020!

 This year has been tough for the movies and everyone associated with cinema. In 2020, a total of 27 notable releases came out in theatres, and approximately 35 movies released on OTT platforms like  Netflix, Prime Video, Hotstar, etc. Considering the dull and gloomy 2020 has been, the Bollywood Elephant has decided to only focus on the positives and the best films and series 2020 has offered!  

                                           

First, we pick the best actors, music, dialogues, singers, story, screenplay, direction, and finally my Top 5 films of the year!

FILMS:

Best Actor (Male): This year it was really tough to pick 1 when one is spoilt for choices. However solely based on this man's phenomenal performance as Aaloo and the entry scene in particular sealed the deal for me to pick him as the performer of the year (male). Rajkummar Rao yet again proved how effortlessly he transforms from Aaloo in Ludo to Montu sir in Chhalaang! I wish he gets his due at the box-office soon!

                                           

Special Mention: As a middle-class man tired of his work who stumbles upon a bag full of cash, Kunal Kemmu's comic timing and perfect antics lifted his movie, Lootcase, a level higher! 

                                                

                                                   

Best Actor (Female): As Amrita, Taapsee Pannu breathes a new life into the hard hitting drama 'Thappad'. Her vulnerability, her angst was pitch-perfect and there is absolutely nothing her performance fell short of. Thinking about her climatic act in the movie still gives me goosebumps.

                                                 

Special Mention: As a mother determined to make a comeback to Kabbadi, Kangana Ranaut was astounding as Jaya in Panga.

Best Supporting Actor (Male): This was a battle of fathers but as a father standing by her daughter who is willing to divorce her husband, Kumud Mishra was phenomenal and effective as Sachin Sandhu in Thappad. What words, what emotions especially when he confronts his son!

                                          

    

Special Mention: Another father who decided to be his daughter's biggest cheerleader, Pankaj Tripathi was endearing as Anup Saxena in Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl.

                                                   

Best Supporting Actor (Female): As a mother reluctant about her daughter's decision to divorce her husband, Ratna Pathak Shah was great, phenomenal, and incredible as Sandhya Sandhu in Thappad. Her confrontation scenes with Kumud Mishra are absolutely a testament as to why we love her!

                                        

      

Special Mention: Picking a single special mention is tough therefore all the ladies in 'Thappad' namely Tanvi Azmi, Geetika Vidya Ohalyan, Dia Mirza, Maya Sarau were spectacular as the supporting cast.

                                                    

       

Best Music: It is a battle between 'Malang' and 'Love Aaj Kal 2' for this one and the Aashiqui 2 trio: Ved Sharma. Mithoon and Ankit Tiwari win this by a whisker! Malang had 2020's best music.

                                                   

  

Best Playback Singers:  

Crooning to Love Aaj Kal's 'Meherma' was absolutely a favorite which was sung by Darshan Raval!       

                                                         

After giving us Ghungroo to grove last year, Shilpa Rao's crooning of Hardum Humdum was another delight. 

                                                       

Best Story and Screenplay: Adding a water-tight screenplay to an already powerful story and add to it towering performances. Anubhav Sinha and Mrunmayee Lagoo make an effective and phenomenal 'Thappad'! 

                                                             

   

Best Director: Thappad was a story that could've fallen flat if not for its director, Anubhav Sinha.

                                                

  

Top 5 Films (in particular order):

5. Panga:

                                                                

4. Maska:

                                                                  

   

3. Ludo:

                                                              

     

2. Raat Akeli Hai:

                                                           

      

1. Thappad:

                                                             

WEB SERIES:

Best Actor (Male): Pratik Gandhi, initially an engineer. I'm glad that he gave up his job because we cannot have anyone else to be Harshad Mehta in Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story.

                                                     

   

Special Mention: Kay Kay Menon as Himmat Singh was phenomenal in Special Ops!

                                                            

  

Best Actor (Female): All Hail! The queen is back! 10 years later, Sushmita Sen graces our screen yet again, for the best in Aarya!

                                               

  

Special Mention: It took time but as Mohini Rathod, Sheeba Chadha ensured that everyone stood and took up notice of her in Bandish Bandits.

                                                         

Best Supporting Actor (Male): As pradhanpati, Raghubir Yadav was simply phenomenal! His effortless comic timing with Jeetendra Kumar was phenomenal!   

                                              

 Special Mention: As the menacing Hathoda Tyagi, Abhishek Banerjee scared the wits out of everyone!

                                                             

Best Supporting Actor (Female): Alongside Pradhanpati, Neena Gupta brought her own flair to Manju Devi and her chemistry with Raghubir Yadav was crackling!

                                            

   

Special Mention: The original master player of Mirzapur, Beena Bhabhi's grey shades were effectively brought to life by Rasika Duggal!

                                                                  

     

Best Original Story: Prosit Roy and Avinash Arun's writing in Paatal Lok was nothing short of phenomenal.

                                                 

        

Best Music: The magical touch of Shankar Ehsaan Loy came back in the classical and fresh 'Bandish Bandits' and this was the best music album by far in 2020 including movie albums and other singles.

                                                   

Best Director: This one was a bit tough but Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy bag this for Paatal Lok.

                                                 

TOP 5 Web Series (in particular order):

5. Panchayat:

                                                      

4. Taish:

3. Paatal Lok:

                                                               

2. Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story:

                                                     

1. Bandish Bandits:

                                                         

So here are my favorite and best of 2020 content! I hope you like it! Please Share your lists as well as how much you agree with my choices!

              

 

          

Ludo Review: An interesting Game which should've gone on longer!

 2 years after the debacle of 'Jagga Jasoos', director Anurag Kashyap is back with his multi starer movie, 'Ludo'. The movie stars Rajkummar Rao, Abhishek Bachchan, Pankaj Tripathi, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Sanya Malhotra, Asha Negi, Pearl Maane, Fatima Sana Sheikh, Shalini Vatsa. It is scripted, directed, and photographed by Basu himself who collabs with his companion, Pritam for music!

                                                 

What's Good: Acting: This time RR walks away with the cake from Tripathiji's hand. He is terrific. Abhishek, Tripathiji, Aditya, Rohit, Pearl, Lata, and everyone else is absolutely PHENOMENAL. Fatima might be a hindrance however can be overlooked! Story: Basuji's writing is absolutely phenomenal. No one could have made an anthology so nicely and connected the dots so beautifully. Music: 'Hardum Humdum', 'Abaad Barbaad', 'Dil Julaha' are absolute gems and Pritam gives us one of the few albums worth remembering after Malang and Love Aaj Kal 2 this year! Technically:  The movie is pitch-perfect technically! Absolutely nails each and every aspect.

                                                  

                                   

What's Bad: Screenplay: Like most of the movies, the back and forth narrative does not work for me personally!         

                                     

Final Word: Ludo is a beautiful, colorful, funny Chaotic Mess and should not be missed by anybody! Bachchan shows us his capability as a fine actor and the fact that he deserves a great director who can justify his talent! The movies absolutely stunning and interesting like the game in real life! 4 stars! One cannot just miss it!

                               

TSIP Review: Sky is the limit!

To begin with, I really had a tough time to gather myself and write a review for this Farhan-Priyanka starrer. Director Shonali Bose presents this real-life story of Aisha Chaudhary with her personal touch ( she has gone through a similar thing with her son) making this movie so balanced, positive, beautiful and deals with the subject that 'death is the ultimate truth' so well that it is hard to encapsulate it in words!

                                           

What's Good: Performances: PC, Zaira, Rohit perform so exponentially well but it is Farhan who makes the maximum impact. The vulnerability, the emotions, the longing couldn't be played any better. The movie is pitch-perfect here. Music: Pritam's music is just like the cherry on the cake. Message: What it takes about is something very relevant about life. Direction, Writing, Dialogues, Editing: The excellent voice-overs by Aisha (played by Zaira), bose's sensitive handling of the subject, Juhi's writing is top-notch. Theme: Something apart from talking about life, TSIP addresses the issue from the parent's side as well (just as they say what to do with Aisha's clothes, books etc and break down in tears) is something new and refreshing to see.

                                              

What's Bad: Duration: In its 135 minutes of runtime, the movie keeps one invested but patience varies from person to person. Messy Timelines: The movie jumps back and forth a lot in the 30 years which might be hard to follow!

                                                  

                                        The real-life inspiration for TSIP: The Chaudharys

Final Word: The Sky is Pink is an unforgettable saga of the celebration of life until death attempted in a never before style. The movie does not want you to Cry but will surely end up making u teary-eyed or even weep. It's a highly polarizing movie like October from the previous year so either you will absolutely hate it or you will love it and since I belong to the latter, I am going with a solid 4 stars! Though, viewers discretion is highly advised!

                                           

P.S. Instead of spending money on War, watch this!

TGIE Review: Worth an escape to the cinema!

'The Great Indian Escape' is a movie directed by Taranjiet Singh Namdhari and stars Asheesh Kapur, Raj Singh Arora and Raghav Rishi in the lead roles. It is a true story based on the aftermath of the 1971 Indo-Pak war and an escape made by 3 Indian Air Force officers after they were held as Prisoners of War. it is a story of motivation, bravery, courage, valour and love for our motherland.

                                               

What's Good: Story: Needless to say, the story is one of the strongest points of the TGIE. Performances: The performances by Asheesh Kapur and Raj Singh are absolutely amazing which are ably supported by the rest of the cast. Direction and Editing: Director and Editor Taranjiet Nambi masterfully edits and directs the movie. Dialogues: The dialogues are well-written and do not go to the 'hyper-nationalism' way. Art Direction and Set Design: The art direction and set design are absolutely spot on. They seem to be in sync with the times the story is set in. Chemistry: The chemistry among the leads is absolutely amazing and delightful.

                                            

What's Bad: Raghav Rishi's Debut: The narrator of the entire incident Dilip Parulkar aka Raghav Rishi is a bit unconvincing in his debut. His dialogue delivery is outright flat which hampers the impact the well-written dialogues could have had. The VFX and Superimposed imagery: Another aspect that refrained the movie from having an amazing impact was the superimposed imagery and the VFX which was done in such a way that it was obvious that it is superimposed.

                                             

All in all, The Great Indian Escape deserves your time because it talks about a true story that should have graced the silver screen earlier but could not. Moreover, the movie leaves you with immense motivates you, makes you realise and feel proud of those who are at the border protecting us. I am going with 3.5 stars for 'The Great Indian Escape'. It is a 1 Time Must Watch.

                                     

Crowdfunded Cinema.

There have been various kinds of movies that have to be told but face problems when they have to do not find any producers willing to invest money. Such stories with a desire to be a feature film turn to crowdfund for raising capital for production.

                                        

As evident from its name, crowdfunding is a practice adopted by a lot of indie filmmakers to gather fund for their films. Not only provide funds, but crowdfunding also permits the public to be familiar with the film and its cast (one of the biggest positives when the box office is concerned). Not only that, as per an investor, "Many independent film producers view crowdfunding as an excellent way to raise funds to cover production costs. Film producers are able to start to accumulate an interesting audience for their movie while raising money to make it."  

A few examples of crowd-funded movies is Rajat Kapoor's national award-winning movie 'Raghu Romeo', which won critical acclaim but failed to generate much of the numbers at the box office.

This led to a crisis for him to find investors for his next movie, "Mixed Doubles". It shall not be wrong to say that crowdfunding a successful method of raising capital for content and meaningful cinema around the world which has failed to gather momentum in India simply due to the risks of loss associated with it. 

                                                        

With another crowdfunded movie, "The Great Indian Escape" up for release this 24th of June, deals with real life incidence of a prison break of 3 officers of the Indian Air Force, one of the most outrageous prison breaks ever to happen in the history of defence services. An interesting and honest tale that deserves our attention. A real-life story which otherwise shall have not made it to the big screen if not for crowdfunding. 

                                                     

Therefore, to know the real life incidence of the real heroes of the country, it is our turn as the audience to support this movie and also inspire filmmakers to go the crowdfunding route if they have a story like "The Great Indian Escape" to be told.