The triple feature that took place on this year’s Halloween weekend consisted of the following films:
Friday: Baahubali: The Epic (S.S. Rajamouli, 2025)
Saturday: Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater, 2025)
Sunday: The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt, 2025)
Baahubali: The Epic is nearly four hours long and felt very much like 240 minutes (with an intermission). I’d never heard of this film until I saw this reddit post of the trailer and realized that I had to watch it. I am grateful that the suburbs of my city are so ethnically diverse that I knew which movie theatre would be showing it. There were screenings in Hindi as well as in Telegu. I opted for the latter because the film is originally in Telegu. This fantasy epic was the first time I’d watched a movie with a predominantly South Asian audience and was such a fun experience. The guys sitting on my right and somewhere down below would cheer every time Baahubali (Prahbas) appeared on screen (I was more intrigued when the antagonist [Rana Daggubati] was on screen). It wasn’t just any kind of cheer — it wasn’t a “yay” or” woo-hoo.” I don’t even know how to describe the sound they made, but it was awesome. I should watch more Indian films at the theatre.
My desire to see Nouvelle Vague was less intense and borne out of being a Richard Linklater fan and a curiosity of Zoey Deutch‘s portrayal of Jean Seberg during the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s film Breathless (1960). Since this movie exists now, every intro to film class should have a screening of Godard’s film followed by class discussions with clips from Linklater’s film. I adored Zoey Deutch’s performance, but my favorite peformance came from Matthieu Penchinat, who plays cinematographer Raoul Coutard. In fact, I think the true reason that I saw this movie was to see the moment in the trailer when Zoey Deutch says, “Raoul! Moteur!”
I wanted to see The Mastermind when I first read about it a couple months ago because I like Kelly Reichardt’s cinematic tendencies and really wanted to see something with Hope Davis, but this review by Matt Zoller Seitz persuaded me to see it and provided enough tonal details so that I wouldn’t anticipate anything that the movie wouldn’t offer. My assessment aligns nearly perfectly with his. The comedic elements in the film are so subtly presented that it might only come across as a reason to laugh to someone who sees the ridiculousness of a thief having to roll down the trunk’s window when he doesn’t have a moment to spare before even getting into the getaway car.
I did not get to participate in anything Halloween-proper this year, but I don’t mind. I shall reschedule some scary stuff for November. I’m glad I saw these movies.
Pic creds: IMDB, Mubi
Sitting Pugs: Sports Movies 