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Tupaki Review

Behind the Movie Tupaki: While AR Murugadoss has a brand value in Andhra Pradesh, it is the presence of Vijay which could keep the hype surrounding this project a bit low. However, it is too late for a review from our side and sorry for that. Let us see, whether this 'Tupaki' has enough ammunition in it to trigger the BO or not?

In the Movie Tupaki: Jagdeesh (Vijay) is an intelligent Indian Army Officer off to Mumbai to enjoy a vacation. Family of Jagdeesh is in hunt for a right bride and they find Nisha (Kajal Agarwal) as an apt match. Although reluctant early, once Jagdeesh understands the real side of Nisha, the love track deepens. In this mean time of romance, accidentally Jagdeesh happens to bump into a sleeper cell terrorist in a local bus. Into action, Jagdeesh teams up with his old batchmates to upset the terrorist plan of 12 serial bomb blasts planned in Mumbai. Frustrated by this, the Master mind and terrorist head behind (Vidyut Jamwal) enters into scene to take it face to face with Jagdeesh. Did Vidyut's plan to lay a trap for Jadgeesh was successful? Was Jagdeesh enough talented to put an end to sleeper cell network forms the rest.

Values of the Movie Tupkai: The one invaluable quality AR Murugadoss blessed with is, his knack of commercializing aky kind of subject. In fact, none could have made this kind of gripping action thriller with a simple sleeper cell terrorist concept which isn't touched in depth by any director in India. The kind of hold Muruga has on screen-play writing was evidential throughout the second half. Our Telugu audience would easily forget that we are watching a Tamil to Telugu dubbed film because of the intensity packed. Meanwhile, the romantic track weaved into the story is actually a weak thread which distrubed the actual soul and feel. Cinematography of Santosh Sivan is just top notch and Sreekar Prasad could have been better in the boring love track. After enjoying extra-ordinary tunes and exhilarating back-ground from Harris Jayaraj, we expect much more than this. Dialogues were just okay. Production values of Gemini FIlm Circuit and SVR Media are worth appreciable.           

Performance wise, Vijay's character has been underplayed for major time and that has become the blessing in disguise. Compared to past flicks like 'Snehithudu,' the way Vijay directed his energies into simple yet stylish action episodes made him a winner. Next in the list comes is Vidyut Jamwal. Utilizing the biggest of opportunity offered, Vidyut's muscular body and handsome looks give a new flavor to villainsm. The less we speak, it would be more better about Kajal who is just portioned for songs and romance. Of the remaining we can only remind, Sathyan and Jairam who were just fit to their comic portions. 

Out of the Movie Tupaki: The best memories which striked my thoughts watching 'Tupaki' were about Venkatesh's 'Gharshana.' Director Muruga has cooked a recipee which is similar to Gautham. Yet, both are different in their own versions. Scripts like 'Tupaki' need more of the hardwork on visualization. When you are presenting the same on screen in the form of mind games between antagonist and protagonist, viewers should feel the goose bumps else your attempts go in vain. When we have some one like Muruga leading from front, even the expression face like Vijay too becomes engaging. Same happened here and Vijay might find some part of his dream to form a market in Tollywood will be fulfilled. 

While first half is a bit entertaining with romantic track, introduction to sleeper cells in Mumbai, narration changes the gear and suddenly we get too much involved into the bloodshed of pre-interval episodes. Then second half is entirely the magic of Murugadoss while the tasteless love episodes and placement of songs pulls down the anxiety. So, overall the graph goes up and down till a much more desired climax.

Commercially, 'Tupaki' might be a profitable project in Tamil because of Vijay factor. When target audience for this kind of action thrillers form a low minortiy core, it is difficult to anticipate on where the Telugu version will land. For regular audience, think before getting in and for hardcore Muruga admirers, don't miss this. He has got ammunition right this time.

Cinejosh Verdict of the Movie Tupaki: Best Action Thriller in recent times. 

                                                                                    Reviewed by Srivaas

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Tupaki Reviews - Telugu Critics give thumbs up

Published date : 16/nov/2012.

Tupaki (Telugu) Reviews - Critics give thumbs up

Telugu Industry has always been very welcoming to our Tamil heroes, including Rajini, Kamal, Suriya, Karthi, Vikram, Jiiva and Vishal all having a market and solid hits to their credit. Among the leading heroes in Tamil, Vijay, Ajith and Simbu have not be able to give a Rs.10 Crore+ grosser in Telugu so far. Tupaki  (Telugu dubbed version of Thuppakki)  may finally be able to give Vijay the much awaited lucky break in Telugu. Thanks to good reviews and lack of competition (since much-hyped Anushka and Nagarjun starrer  Damarukam expected to release on Diwali was delayed for the third time due to financial reasons ), Tupaki  has taken the spot light and expected to bring in good collections in Andhra Pradesh . 

Let's look at the excerpts from media reviews and see what Telugu critics are saying about Tupaki and Vijay's performance,

• Post Noon gave thumbs up for Tupaki and rated it 3.5/5. The review concluded it’s won’t blow your brains away, but it’s definitely worth watching. Reviewer Hemant called Vijay as the backbone of the film and thought he was fabulous as an army officer. 
• 123Telugu rated it 3.5 out of 5 and called the movie hits the bulls eye. The final verdict was "A stylish Vijay, some exceptional thrilling moments and  edge  of the seat action makes this film surely worth a watch. Finally, one can say that yet another Tamil hero has successfully managed to capture the hearts of Telugu audience."
• Tupaki hits the target called GreatAndhra with a rating of 3/5. It went on to say the film stands as a platform for Vijay's career in Tollywood. This is not a Diwali Thupaki but a real one with ample bullets in it. 
• Jeevi of Idlebrain rated it 3.25/5/ and said AR Murugadoss who disappointed with 7th Sense strikes back with Tupaki. This popular reviewer also appreciated Vijay for being suave and sophisticated in the role that need brains. 
• Gulte.com complimented Vijay for doing a neat job as the lead man and went on to say "despite having no image in Andhra Pradesh, people would love to see him as the lead. His sweet yet powerful performance is the reason for it. Vijay is yet to score a hit in Telugu and this time he has every chance to register his first success." 

Based on the unanimous positive reviews from public and media, Tupaki in all probability should give Vijay a strong entry into Telugu market. 

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Harris jayaraj, kusuma jagadish, local language, uttar pradesh, vidyut jamwal, thupaki movie review: story, thupaki movie review : star performances, thuppakki review : direction, music & technical aspects, thuppakki review : analysis, thuppakki review : conclusion.

• Murugadoss [Story], Murugadoss [Screenplay], Murugadoss [Direction]
• Hero Characterization
• Villain Characterization
• Miscast of Vijay & Kajal Agarwal
• Unimpressive love track between Lead Pairs

Thuppakki Review : Cast & Crew

• Banner: Gemini Film Circuit
• Directors : A. R. Murugadoss
• Producer : CJ Shoba
• Cinematography : Santosh Sivan
• Editing : A. Sreekar Prasad
• Music: Harris Jayaraj
• Cast : Vijay Kajal Aggarwal Jayaram Vidyut Jamwal Sathyan

Find out more:

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15/11/2012 12:21 am.

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Release date : October 25, 2019

123telugu.com Rating : 2/5

Starring : Bithiri Sathi and Priya

Director : T Prabhakar

Producers : Rasamayi Balakishan

Music Director : T Prabhakar

Comedian, Bittiri Sathi has turned hero for the first time with a film called Tupaki Ramudu which has hit the screens today. Let’s see how it is.

Tupaki Ramudu(Satthi) is an orphan who always helps his villagers irrespective of him facing insults. Seeing his good nature, the villagers fix his wedding. But sadly, the girl puts a condition that she will only marry Ramudi if he gets educated in life. Left with no choice, Ramudu approaches Anita(Priya) to help him in his studies. In this process, they fall in love with each other. What will Satthi do now? What will happen to his other marriage proposal? Whom will Satthi marry? That forms the rest of the story.

Plus Points:

Bittiri Satthi makes a confident debut as an actor. He dances, fights, and does well in all the emotional scenes. He also mouths the Telangana slang with ease and carries the film on his shoulders.

Yet another highlight of the film is heroine Priya who did a good job in her role. She has good screen presence and did well in her key character. The actors who did the role of Satthi’s friends also did an impressive job. The message showcased in the film is also good.

Minus Points:

The basic point of the film is also quite silly. There is no seriousness in the plot and the first half is filled with scenes that have no seriousness at all. Upon this, forced comedy irritates the audience.

Certain scenes created to showcase Satthi in a comic role are bad and have been written in a disappointing manner. There was a good scope to elevate the content with the heroine’s role but he failed to do it. There are many unnecessary scenes that kill the mood of the viewers and make things tedious.

Technical Aspects:

The production values of the film are good. Editing is bad and does not have any seriousness. Lyrics are decent and so was the whole production design. The camerawork was decent and the music was just about okay. Coming to the director Prabhakar, he has done a pathetic job with the film. His narration lack seriousness as he makes a mess of the storyline.

On the whole. Bittiri Satthi’s debut as a solo hero is quite disappointing. Even though Satthi tries hard to entertain, the other factors in the film are boring and have been narrated in a silly and routine manner making this film a below-par flick this weekend. Ignore it happily.

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

Click Here For Telugu Review

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Hollywood is full of the movies, many made in the 1940s and ’50s, of major musical stars who go through personal trauma their fans don’t see as they eventually emerge triumphantly performing again on stage. Susan Hayward practically made a career of playing them in films like I’ll Cry Tomorrow and With a Song in My Heart. So did Doris Day in Love Me or Leave Me. In a way, watching I Am: Celine Dion I thought of those films about great female stars who overcame the odds and persevered to return to glory in their extraordinary musical careers — a story made for a Hollywood ending. The difference here is in using the documentary format, allowing unfettered access, and in showing life as it happens in unexpected moments, Dion’s story is still being written, her “triumphant” Hollywood comeback still a work in progress at best as she invites us into her struggles, her hopes, her optimism, and her heartbreaks with no artifice in sight.

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Make no mistake, the vintage Dion is on display here with generous use of past concert footage. The archival material is also well-used throughout, including her marriage to the love of her life and career-long manager Rene Angelil. There is footage shown of his funeral as well. The sacrifices of her mother and father for their family of 13 children is documented too. Her home life with her sons, and beloved dog Bear, is all on view. In many ways this is a gift, something she can still give to her fans.

But this film is ultimately about resiliency in the face of one of life’s cruelest tricks, taking away the engine that drives Dion’s existence. “My voice was always the conductor of my whole life,” she says, and suddenly it was in crisis. She talks of the need for pills to get through a performance, first one, then two, then five. Over the course of the year of filming Dion ventured out from her Las Vegas mansion only three times. We see them all as she comforts herself in a visit to her past in the incredible 12,000-foot warehouse that contains every item, gowns, shoes (so many shoes ) , childhood ballerina outfit, you name it. The camera is also there when Dion goes to a sound studio to fulfil a commitment to finish a movie, her first, she did before the pandemic. She now must dub the French version of that film, a romantic comedy called Love Again, as circumstances have changed in her life since filming it.

And then there is the stunning sequence that captures Dion back in the recording studio for the first time in three years, attempting to sing a new song and going through all the pain, second guessing, perfectionism, frustration and finally satisfaction that managed to get to a special result. Then it all goes dark when shortly after, cameras still rolling, she feels a muscle spasm in her foot, her body stiffens up, and her sports physical therapists go to work laying her down on the table face-down in unimaginable pain and body breakdown. Warning: this scene, as raw as it gets, is excruciating to watch, especially knowing that no one there, including the filmmaker, would know how it would turn out. Was Dion going to die with the cameras close on her face and still rolling? It feels invasive, but this is a person who for a year put her hair back in a bun, wore little or no makeup, and insisted the cameras show her as she is — now versus then.

Forty minutes later the episode was over, and she gets up. Her therapist cues one of her favorite songs (“Who I Am” by Wyn Starks) and Dion sings along, ever the performer even in a moment like this one. It is the new reality of her life, and one still waiting for the happy ending we see in those showbiz stories where there is always a comeback. “I always have a plan B,” she says. “I still see myself dance and sing. If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl. But I won’t stop. I won’t stop.” Hopefully there will be a sequel for Celine Dion.

Producers are Stacy Lorts, Tom Mackay, Julie Begey Seureau, and Taylor.

Title: I Am: Celine Dion Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios Release Date: June 25, 2024 (Prime Video) Director: Irene Taylor With: Celine Dion Rating: PG Running time: 1 hr 42 min

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Movie Review: In ‘The Bikeriders,’ the birth of a subculture on two wheels

This image released by Focus Features shows Jodie Comer, left, and Austin Butler in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Austin Butler, left, and Jodie Comer in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Austin Butler, left, and Tom Hardy in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Damon Herriman, left, and Tom Hardy in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Jodie Comer in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Austin Butler in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Emory Cohen, from left, Jodie Comer and Austin Butler in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Tom Hardy in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

This image released by Focus Features shows Michael Shannon in a scene from “The Bikeriders.” (Focus Features via AP)

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Still images have been a source of wonder and mythology in the films of Jeff Nichols.

“Mud,” Nichols’ Twain-soaked Mississippi fable, seemed derived from the magical sight of a boat held aloft by a tree. “Loving,” about a ‘60s interracial marriage, took inspiration from tender Life magazine photographs taken of the real-life couple. Nichols’ latest, “The Bikeriders,” is based on photographer Danny Lyon’s 1968 book of the same name, for which he spent four years with a Chicago motorcycle club.

It’s not hard to see what Nichols saw in Lyon’s black-and-white stills. There’s the stylish raw materials — the chrome bikes, the slicked back hair, the black leather jackets. But there’s also a just emerging antiauthoritarian, easy-riding spirit and camaraderie. Like the central figures of “Loving,” they are classically drawn outsiders who encapsulate something glorious and uneasy about freedom in America.

In the exhilarating first half of “The Bikeriders,” which opens in theaters Friday, Nichols is less compelled to build a narrative around his bike gang, the Vandals (based on the Outlaws) than summoning an intoxicating atmosphere reminiscent of those old photographs. “The Bikeriders” eventually becomes saddled with heavier plot mechanics — you can almost sense his riders growing weary from having to strap narrative devices onto their bikes. The movie wants to ride, but it’s not sure how much story to pack for the trip. But this is a vivid dramatization of the birth of an American subculture.

The framing device Nichols settles on is Lyon, himself, played by Mike Faist, who’s conducting interviews for his book. His conversations with a woman named Kathy ( Jodie Comer ) bookend and sporadically narrate the movie.

Kathy, also based on a real person, seems at first an unlikely spokesperson for the gang. She speaks with a thick Illinois accent (an actorly distraction throughout) and has no affection for motorcycle riders. But one night at a bar, she sees Benny ( Austin Butler ) across the smokey room and, even if she doesn’t admit it at that moment, falls for him. Again, it’s not hard to see why. Butler is by now well removed from Elvis Presley but the suppleness with which he can sink into mid-century America is no less apparent. Benny drives Kathy home, parks his bike outside the place and patiently waits for her boyfriend to skip town.

Nichols, a devotee of films like “Hud” and “Cool Hand Luke,” is a filmmaker who works very consciously within classic American idioms. In Butler he has his James Dean, making Tom Hardy his Marlon Brando. Hardy plays Johnny, Benny’s best pal and the one who starts up and presides over the Vandals. (The “whaddya got” clip of Brando from “The Wild One” is even briefly seen on a small TV in “The Bikeriders.”)

The Vandals, as a club, start about as simply as kids might call a tree house to order. They’re a bunch of guys who like riding motorcycles and like talking about them. Simple as that. But men come like moths to a flame, attracted by the tough lifestyle, the cool jackets with patches and a way out of mainstream America. Among them are Cal (Boyd Holbrook), Cockroach (Emory Cohen), Funny Sonny (Norman Reedus) and Zipco (Michael Shannon).

“Obscenity and motorcycles travel hand in hand,” someone says, with pride.

The early days of the group are, it would seem, a lot of fun. Barroom brawls and riding carefree through corn fields. Most of these guys don’t have much, but they have each other. And their loyalty is total.

Kathy isn’t so sure sure. She watches the growing gang — a completely male bunch — with skepticism and fear for Benny. (In a scene teased in the film’s opening, he’s beaten badly enough to be hospitalized.) Sometimes, they throw down purely for fun. They are the original Fight Cub.

But soon, Kathy isn’t the only one with doubts at what they’ve created. As their gang grows, what the Vandals embody is less clear, even to Johnny and Benny. Some of the new entrants are coming straight back from Vietnam. Their old hijinks give way to more serious crimes. In one chastening scene, Kathy finds herself very nearly assaulted by its members. The gang — and all its posturing of toughness — begins to feel more like a trap for even its leader. Benny is drawn into a choice between the Vandals and Kathy. The homoerotic subtext is understated but not ignored; when Benny and Johnny discuss their future together, they do it gently and intimately, in the dark, like a secret confession.

As the Vandals’ original ideals disintegrate, it can feel like “The Bikeriders” gets locked into a familiar “Goodfellas”-like structure, but with a telling shift in narrator for a drama that’s ultimately about masculinity. This is a movie that’s juggling a lot of contradictory ambitions. It wants to be authentic but it wants to tell a grand America saga. It wants mythology but also naturalism. It’s those instincts that have made Nichols one of the most essential filmmakers of his generation, even if the results have sometimes been underwhelming by a hair. Even his best, most firmly rooted films (“Take Shelter,” “Mud”) strive for a balancing act that can be elusive.

But I think it’s those dual impulses — and, again, all the cool jackets — that makes “The Bikeriders” work. The movie is unabashedly romantic about the Vandals but it’s equally dubious about the rugged masculinity they embody, too. “The Bikeriders” has its hands firmly on the throttle just it does the brakes.

“The Bikeriders,” a Focus Features release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language throughout, violence, some drug use and brief sexuality. Running time: 116 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle at: http://x.com/jakecoyleAP

‘The Exorcism’ Review: Russell Crowe Plays a Fallen Movie Star Playing a Priest in an Exorcist Movie. Is This the Sign of a Career Gone to Hell?

Crowe stars in his second exorcist film in a year. His acting isn't bad, but by the end the message seems to be: The power of residuals compels you.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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While we’re on the subject of art-and-life parallels, this is the second exorcist film that Russell Crowe has made in a little over a year (the first, “The Pope’s Exorcist,” was released in April 2023), and that might well be the sign of a once-hot movie star’s fall from grace. But Crowe remains too good an actor to phone in what he’s doing, and his performance as Tony has an undercurrent of shaggy despair unusual for the genre.

Early on, Tony’s 16-year-old daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), returns to his funky New York loft apartment after she gets kicked out of Catholic boarding school. For a while, we’re invested in whether Tony can mend fences with her, and whether he can turn his broken life around by portraying the priest in a movie whose director, played with amusing Machiavellian ruthlessness by Adam Goldberg, will do whatever it takes to wring a good performance out of his leading man, even it means abusing the hell out of him. (In this case that’s no metaphor.) “You still devout?” asks Goldberg’s Peter, saying it like it’s a dirty word. Tony is a former altar boy, so I guess that’s supposed to hit him hard.

On set, Lee bonds with Tony’s pop-musician costar, Blake (Chloe Bailey), the lead singer of Vampire Sorority. And Tony is coached by an on-set priest, Father Conor, a kind of intimacy-with-the-almighty coordinator played with amiable cynicism by David Hyde Pierce. There are omens, like Tony’s bloody nose on the first day of shooting. The bottom line is that Tony is not giving a good performance, and what’s standing in his way is his guilt for his sins, as well as the “mysterious” trauma that brought on his bad behavior. This is a movie that plays connect-the-dots with exorcist/Catholic/addict themes.

“The Exorcism” was directed by Joshua John Miller, who’s the son of Jason Miller, the late costar of “The Exorcist,” which creates, I guess, a kind of Satanic synergy. As the movie goes on, Tony starts slugging whiskey again, which on the story’s terms is a sign that the devil has appeared. The trouble is that a good exorcist movie requires a confrontation with the devil. Crowe is playing an actor playing an exorcist, and the way “The Exorcism” is structured what he needs to be is the therapeutic Father Merrin of his own soul. But the darker the movie gets, the less there is at stake, and the more that Crowe seems to be going through the motions of trying to save not his soul but his career. The power of residuals compels you.

Reviewed at Digital Arts, New York, June 13, 2024. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 93 MIN.

• Production: A Vertical Entertainment release of a Miramax, Outerbanks Entertainment production. Producers: Kevin Williamson, Ben Fast, Bill Block. Executive producers: Padraic McKinley, Scott Putman, Andrew Golov, Thomas Zadra.
• Crew: Director: Joshua John Miller. Screenplay: M.A. Fortin, Joshua John Miller. Camera: Simon Duggan. Editor: Matthew Woolley. Music: Daniel Bensi, Saunder Jurriaans.
• With: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpjkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, David Hyde Pierce.

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‘Kinds of Kindness’ Review: Everybody’s Looking for Something

Yorgos Lanthimos returns with a twisted fable triptych about dominating and being dominated.

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By Alissa Wilkinson

You could endlessly pick apart “Kinds of Kindness,” but I don’t recommend it. The closest to a précis you’ll get for the film comes at the start, when the strains of the Eurythmics’ banger “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” ring out over the opening titles. The lyrics repeat the discomfiting notion that:

Some of them want to use you. Some of them want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused. Well, who am I to disagree?

“Kinds of Kindness” is a return to a certain form of form, if you will, for the director Yorgos Lanthimos, fresh off his warmer, cuddlier films “The Favourite” and “Poor Things.” His earlier movies, “Dogtooth,” “Alps,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Lobster” — all four written with Efthimis Filippou, who was his collaborator on “Kinds” — are less accessible, more deranged, less logical, more disturbing. Which is of course why they’re so polarizing. And so beloved.

I expect “Kinds of Kindness” to take its place among that latter group, with its vibrantly, defiantly off-putting stance and sidesplittingly sick sense of humor. It’s a triptych that at first seems slight, then gains meaning the longer you hold its three seemingly disconnected short films in juxtaposition and peer through the overlaps. All three share a cast that includes some returning Lanthimos players, like Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone, who won her second Oscar earlier this year for “Poor Things.” There are newcomers, too: Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie and especially Jesse Plemons, who won the best actor prize at Cannes for his performance.

Plemons is the main character for most of the film. In the first segment, he plays a man whose every move is dictated by his boss (Dafoe), until it isn’t. In the second, Plemons is a cop whose researcher wife (Stone) goes missing on a desert island; when she returns, he’s convinced she’s not actually his wife. And in the third, Plemons and Stone play members of a strange cult (led by Dafoe and Chau) who are desperately seeking a young woman who will become its spiritual leader.

It’s all presented with the eerie air of a very dark comedy, the sort where sudden savagery can come crashing through the wall at any second. Violence and cruelty are the drivers of “Kinds of Kindness,” often presented not as the opposite of that kindness but as kindness itself. This strange world calls for delicious off-kilter performances, and the cast — particularly Stone, who’s proven her mettle in this regard, and Plemons — deliver. If you think you know what’s happening in a scene, just wait.

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‘The Bikeriders’ Is Hell — and a Community of Throwback Male Misfits — on Wheels

• By David Fear

They were the original One-Percenters — not the richest of the richest, the elite within the elite, but “the one percent who don’t fit and don’t care… We’ve punched our way out of a hundred rumbles, stayed alive with our boots and our fists.” That first-hand quotes opens Hunter S. Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, the definitive account of the motorcycle gang that was both the emblem of pure, uncut postwar freedom and a nightmare for “respectable” society. They’re coming to your town, they’re gonna party it down, they’re an American band of greasy, filthy, beer-swilling gearheads who don’t give a fuck. These were misfits who found liberation on two wheels and lived by their own violent, self-governing codes. The book begins with them recognizing the Gonzo King as a kindred spirit. It ends with them stomping him en masse.

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Yet Nichols’ take on the material is really to present things less a trad narrative than as a series of vignettes, all of which are boiled down to artfully aged, grime-dusted visuals and an experiential vibe. It’s a moving-picturebook, drifting from hazy barrooms to muddy-track brawls to working-class homes and haunts, and with an eye on the cumulative effect of so much vintage cool on display. Remember that chestnut about a retro ’50s diner being a wax museum with a pulse ? This is a gallery exhibit with a Harley Panhead engine, restored and customized for maximum nostalgic vroom.

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The Bikeriders doesn’t necessarily come to praise these road warriors, nor does it want to bury the memory of them entirely. Nichols has said he was trying to capture the bygone sense of rebellion and radical disruption these gangs represented, as well as the vintage-hip vibe he felt when he flipped through Lyons’ book. Thanks to his holy trinity of leads — not to mention a clutch rogue’s gallery that includes Michael Shannon ‘s brutish loose cannon, Damon Herriman’s right-hand man, and Beau Knapp and Karl Glusman’s Mutt & Jeff double act — you walk away feeling like he hit the greasysexycool bullseye. The filmmaker also knows that, to quote a wise man, to live outside the law you must be honest, and once a younger generation start bumrushing their way into the Vandals’ freedom’s-just-another-word-for-nuthin’-left-to-lose shindig, you can see the necessary notion of honor among thieves slowly riding into the sunset. Those original pics captured a fleeting, flipped bird to the world in amber. The movie knows that nihilistic gesture may feel slightly stilted now. But it still wants to pay tribute to the memory of yesteryear’s gloriously extended middle fingers.

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Google is making your movie and TV reviews visible under a new profile page

Google is making reviews of all your movies, TV shows, books, albums and games visible under one profile page starting June 24, according to an email sent to users last month. These profiles are also searchable through Google searches, which can lead to users’ being profiled based on their likes and dislikes.

The company launched the ability to post reviews of movies for India-based users in 2017 . Over the years, this functionality has expanded globally. Last year, the company told TechCrunch that they made review profiles public and searchable in some regions, starting with the U.S. and India. Now, they are making all profiles public globally.

Essentially, you can click on any user profile and look at all the reviews they have posted. Google told TechCrunch that the company provides a toggle to make their profile private. But that toggle wasn’t available until earlier this week, as observed by SEO consultant Gagan Ghotra and TechCrunch.

“Profiles make it easier for people to see and manage their reviews of things like movies and TV shows in one place and make reviews more helpful for others. These reviews were already public, and we provide people with control to make their profile private or delete it altogether, along with options to privately edit or delete their reviews,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch.

Google also makes all profiles public by default. That means if you don’t know about having a profile page of your reviews or haven’t paid attention to emails from Google (which may have ended up in your spam or updates folder on Gmail), your profile will be viewable for all.

The company told TechCrunch that it sent notifications of the hiding profile control to users through the Google Profile interface. Plus, it notified users of the new Google Profile via a pop-up on their existing reviews. However, if users don’t know a new profile exists, they are unlikely to visit the page. And there is a slim chance that you would be going back to read your own review of a show or a movie frequently. Google needs to do better to notify the user of an entirely new page related to their account.

Ghotra told TechCrunch over direct messages that searchable profiles could also be used by potential employers to know the opinions of their future employees, impacting their chances of hiring. Plus, it is an easy target for advertisers to scrap this data and serve targeted ads to users.

How to hide your profile

Here is how you can make your preview profile private:

• Go to profile.google.com
• Click/tap on the three-dot menu next to your profile name
• Select the “Profile Options” item
• Turn on the Profile Privacy toggle

Even if you hide your profile, your individual reviews will still be visible under a movie or a TV show title, but it won’t link back to a page with all of your reviews. Notably, your reviews on Google Maps are not part of this rollout.

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