The Other Banana

Vivek Athreya's Ante Sundaraniki released in June to mixed reviews. Telugu cinema is where romantic comedy is thriving and this film was Vivek Athreya's follow up to the immensely popular, hilarious Brochevarevarura. This also had great leads in Nani and Nazriya. While the film failed to click in the box office its Netflix release renewed the debate and the film was received warmly compared to how...

To restore parity after discussing an old Kamal Haasan film we thought we must do a Rajinikanth film. Ok, that's not the reason but we felt this Rajinikanth film must be discussed. This is 1978 and Rajinikanth's early years in Tamil cinema. It's the year he stamped his authority and signaled the coming of a legend of Indian cinema. Mullum Malarum, directed by Mahendran with cinematography by Balu...

Lokesh Kanagaraj's Vikram is just a week away and the expectations are immense for the film starring Kamal Haasan, Vijay Sethupathi and Fahadh Faasil. The furor began in late 2020 when they released a teaser revealing the title accompanied by a sampling of one of the greatest title tracks by Ilaiyaraaja - Vikram from the film of the same name that released in 1986. The 1986 film was a mammoth effo...

A film like Chennai 600028 needs no introduction but here is an attempt anyway - a small gang of first timers and amateurs, however privileged by their industry backgrounds, came together to make a movie on amateur cricket - street cricket to be precise - and male friendship. Venkat Prabhu bandied together Shiva, Premji, Nithin Sathya, Aravind Akash, Sampath, Jai, Vijay Vasanth, Ajay Raj and of co...

The recent big announcement in Tamil cinema is the collaboration of director Nelson (Kolamaavu Kokila, Doctor, yet to release Beast with Vijay) with Rajinikanth. Since the time Rajinikanth collaborated twice with Pa. Ranjith and once with Karthik Subbaraj, there have always been calls for the biggest stars - meaning male actors who guarantee huge weekend openings at box office - to work with young...

After a long break, we return to our Director Series on Mysskin. In this episode we talk about Mysskin's 2014 film Pisaasu starring Naga, Prayaga Martin, Radha Ravi et al. The film broadly falls under the horror genre but with its filmmaking and inherent philosophy subverts the genre in many different ways. Add to this, Mysskin's next film is a sequel to Pisaasu starring Andrea. To talk about the...

As the title suggests, Raj B. Shetty's latest Kannada film Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana contains its share of mythological undertones. But the film is more than just that almost reinventing the gangster drama at an epic scale with very curious passage of character developments. Set in Mangaluru, it tells the story of Hari (Rishab Shetty) and Shiva (Raj B. Shetty), the backstory of how they climb...

Its a full house for the last pod of the year; all 4 of us talk about movies/series of 2021: what we watched, what we liked, what we didn't and what we hope to see more of in the coming year. It is a freewheeling chat covering regional content from South India and a lit bit from around the world.   ...oh and a Happy 2022 from the crew!  Participants: Deepauk Ashoka Aditya Anantha Episode...

This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film, each one thoughtfully hand-picked. From new directors to award-winners. Beautiful, interesting, incredible movies—there is always something new to discover. In this episode, we talk about Vijay Kumar's 2016 film Uriyadi. A debut film as actor, w...

This episode is brought to you by MUBI , a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film, each one thoughtfully hand-picked. From new directors to award-winners. Beautiful, interesting, incredible movies—there is always something new to discover. After 102 episodes on South Indian cinema, The Other Banana Podcast has finally chanced...

This episode is brought to you by MUBI , a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film, each one thoughtfully hand-picked. From new directors to award-winners. Beautiful, interesting, incredible movies—there is always something new to discover. At The Other Banana, we continue our series on Padmarajan with his 1986 film Namukku Pa...

Comedy and romantic comedy is thriving in Telugu cinema. It's not the case with other industries of similar size. This year, cinema theatres briefly opened before the second wave of the pandemic in India and a small film that no one saw coming made a huge splash. It became one of the biggest hits critically and commercially. Maybe it was the timing, maybe it was the nature of the film or the absol...

We made it to 100. Thanks to all our listeners, no matter if you've listened to one episode or stuck with us this long since 2018 for every one of them! We've enjoyed doing this for the last 3 years and wish to continue the rewarding endeavor. To celebrate the century, we thought the film, the filmmaker and the guest must all be special. So we asked filmmaker Balaji Tharaneetharan to talk about a...

At The Other Banana Podcast, we felt that the writing and editing of Pa. Ranjith's latest feature Sarpatta Parambarai (streaming on Amazon Prime) were two of its strongest suits. While every department of the film has worked in wondrous ways in this once in a generation film, we thought it will be fun to get Tamil Prabha (we discussed his novel Pettai in an earlier episode), who collaborated with...

We return to our Mysskin series with his 2013 film - Onaayum Aattukkuttiyum or The Wolf and the Lamb starring Sri, Mysskin, Shaji Chen, Adithya, Baby Chaitanya, Angel Glady et al. The film is a truckload of Mysskin goodies, the Madras after dark shining through as the entire film is events over the course of a single night. It throws up and answers a lot of questions - what is right and what is wr...

At The Other Banana Podcast, we begin another series on Director Mysskin. Unlike the earlier director series we'll be delving into a handful of what we consider important or landmark films of the director, not all of them. The series starts with Mysskin's 2011 thriller Yuddham Sei starring Cheran, Dipa Shah, Jayaprakash, YG Mahendran, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan et al. It has music and score by K, who ha...

Back in January Adithya and Deepauk discussed The Family Man with series writer Suman and actress extraordinaire Devadarshini about season 1 and the impending release of season 2.  Topics Covered: - Writing for the longer form and influences - Choices made to create a truly pan-Indian show and how the politics play out - Casting for season 2 and how the South Indian supporting cast was pulled...

In this second episode of the Balaji Tharaneetharan series we discuss the recent direct to OTT release Oru Pakka Kathai. @gradwolf & @anantha are joined by special guests @equanimus & @milified to discuss: - The fantastical nature of the topic and how it presents its social commentary - What is the film trying to say about science, religion, and how both interact? - What is the portrait it...

For the first series of episodes we take a look at Balaji Tharaneetharan's first 2 films (in release order) - the iconic Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom and the polarizing Seethakkaathi. @gradwolf & @anantha are joined by our recurring guest @equanimus to discuss: - Why Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom's humor was such a draw - Where Balaji draws his stylings from and the influence of Balu Mahe...

Episode Trigger Warning: Suicide After a long break, we are back with our Director Series on Malayalam  auteur Padmarajan. This one is on his 1986 film Deshadanakkili  Karayarilla starring Shari, Karthika, Urvashi and Mohanlal.  Deshadanakkili  Karayarilla might be one of the popular mainstream films in the context  of any language, with big stars, but it is also one of the earliest  Indian films...

Once again, an early contender for one of the best films of the year comes from Malayalam cinema. The Great Indian Kitchen, written and directed by Jeo Baby, filmed by Salu K Thomas and edited by Francies Louis hit the exclusive Malayalam OTT platform Neestream last month. Starring Nimisha Sajayan and Suraj Venjaramoodu, a film rich in visual flourish, edited with finesse that uses pure imagery to...

Long before JD and Bhavani of Lokesh Kanagaraj's Master, there were Shiva and Bhavani (and a JD on the sidelines) in a college setting in Ram Gopal Varma's directorial debut Shiva. Combining student politics along with a ruthless gangster played memorably by Raghuvaran, Shiva set new standards for filmmaking and South Indian mass cinema. It was the arrival of Ram Gopal Varma as a reckoning and cul...

Hello and we are back with our final part in the Michael Madana Kama Rajan series. In this episode, we talk about form and technique, the filmmaking that has gone behind the making of this brilliant, everlasting film and how a lot of the methods used are so inconspicuous that they rarely come to the fore when discussing the film. In this episode we have a new but familiar guest. Dagalti joins us t...

And we are back with the part two of the series on Singeetam Srinivasa Rao's Michael Madana Kama Rajan.  In this episode we take a deep dive into the characters of MMKR beginning with the four Kamal Haasans - Michael, Madan, Kameshwaran and Raju followed by the other characters who are all equally memorable but then we are never objective in our likes and dislikes, are we? Listen on to find o...

One never tires of watching or talking about this landmark film in Tamil Cinema starring four Kamal Haasans, Nagesh, Khushboo, Urvashi, Nassar, Roopini, SN Lakshmi, Delhi Ganesh, Manorama et al. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao directed film of a Kamal Haasan screenplay with dialogues by Crazy Mohan, a truly collaborative mammoth effort - Michael Madana Kama Rajan - came into being in 1990 and has been etc...