Tag: ano malee

The Jeff & Ishan Show #8 Halloween Edition – Virupaksha

We had a blast making our Halloween edition reviewing Indian horror film Virupaksha (Formless Eyes), a 2023 Telugu-language film starring Sai Dharam Tej, Samyuktha and Harsh Roshan, written by Bandreddi Sukumar and directed by Karthik Dandu, streaming now on Netflix. We hope you have as much fun watching it as we had making it. Hello India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the USA!

Surya returns to his ancestral village for a brief visit.   Everything’s going great until somehow a curse on the village is activated and people start dying by suicide.  Surya starts investigating because he wants to save the village by solving who placed the curse, why they did it, and what he can do to stop it before it’s too late . . . I love that Surya’s two main allies in fighting evil are a man of medicine and a sadhu, so he’s got science and spirituality on his side. . . Harsh Roshan might be one of my favorite Indian actors.

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The Jeff & Ishan Show #7 – Maareesan

We’re back in action after summer break! Watch our review of Maareesan (which means Imposter Demon, kind of), a 2025 Tamil-language thriller starring Fahadh Faasil and Vadivelu, written by V. Krishna Moorthy and directed by Sudheesh Sankar, streaming now on Netflix.

It’s very unpredictable. One minute you think this is a heartwarming story about Dhaya and this old man with dementia; you think you’re watching Rain Man, then it turns into Zodiac and you’re soon wondering which of these three men is the real villain . . . I thought it was going to be, old guy who changes the heart of a thief. And then suddenly it takes on a darker tone.

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Screenwriters: There’s No Such Thing as the 3-Act Structure

Who invented this thing called the 3-act structure used in movies around the world? Neither Aristotle, Hollywood studios, Robert McKee nor Syd Field (contrary to New Yorker magazine) had anything to do with it. I thoroughly explain the structure in a way that will be of practical use to new screenwriters while simultaneously debunking its existence.

I was happy to be able to share a little more of my Fulbright India research in exploring this topic. I promise you will learn something new.

Original music by Ano Malee.

The First Talkies: a Global Race

If you lie in bed at night staring at the ceiling wondering about things such as who invented talkies like I do, this video is for you. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t one person but a global evolution.

It gave me a chance to use a small bit of my Fulbright-Nehru research. This was not my primary research topic but a subplot I stumbled upon, so India makes a couple of guest appearances.

I enjoyed creating the opening animation using generative AI to create a thematically relevant image, then generative AI video to animate it. In later a portion, I used two old photos of the 1900 Paris Exposition and an Edison wax cylinder recording to make a brief film sequence using generative AI video and Adobe Premiere Pro to bring to life the moment when the auxeto-gramophone was blasted from atop the Eiffel Tower.

Original music by Ano Malee.