There’s been a deluge of OTT shows and films dropping in the last few months. Critics have had their work cut out – it’s busy even when cinema halls aren’t involved. But I have this habit, especially during my meals, of revisiting older films to see how they – and I – have aged over the years. I now spot things I wasn’t even intellectually capable of two years ago. I also watch them without having to scratch the itch of writing about them.

August alone has been quite a prolific month, and we’re only midway through. Here are some of the films I’ve revisited:

Ocean’s Eleven
Ocean’s Twelve
Ocean’s Thirteen

Notes: One of my favourite Hollywood trilogies. Still holds up. So smart, so wry, such a blast to watch even today. The mother of all heist comedies. 12 isn’t as fun as the other two, but hey, I finished the three in two days. Also, Turk and Virgil fighting like babies is priceless.

Moneyball

Notes: A lot of Brad Pitt this month, and why not. One of the finest films ever made. It never grows old. Because. He. Gets. On. Base.

Duplicate

Notes: OK, I chose to write about it as a “guilty pleasure” comedy, but it was a pleasure to revisit 1998, an innocent and nicer time in my life.

Deewana Mastana

Notes: Baby steps. Baby steps. I don’t care if you think Steve Martin and Michael Caine are funnier in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I live for the way Anil Kapoor says “Gafoor”.

The Manchurian Candidate 

Notes: Classic case of “I was too young to understand how good this film was in 2004,” which is why rewatching this was like watching a new film – with a new lens, with a full brain, and with the ability to appreciate how freaking good and underrated Liev Schreiber is.

Catch Me If You Can
The Terminal

Notes: Why not? Spielberg having fun is the world smiling. Hanks is cool as ever, Tucci is the best funny-serious actor ever, DiCaprio is like a chameleon and Amy Adams in braces is the clincher.

First Man

Notes: A film so close to my heart that I didn’t have the guts to rewatch it for two years since I reviewed it. But I just did, and gosh, how isn’t Damien Chazelle regularly mentioned in the greatest contemporary American director debates?

Collateral 

Notes: Making the eternally young Tom Cruise look grey – both physically and spiritually – is a feat, and one that’s seared into my college memories even though the film is pacy popcorn fun.

Jobs

Notes: I know, I know. It’s not even the second-best Steve Jobs movie (it’s the worst), but watching Ashton Kutcher parody the late visionary without even knowing it is one of my greatest guilty pleasures of this terrible year.

Killing Eve Season 1 

I just do it because I love Jodie Comer play a psychopath with such glee. I also feel like I might have been a psychopath in a previous life. Also, I wanted to build up to Season 3.

The Dawn Wall

Because I’m fit enough to climb a mountain today. (Maybe not a vertical rock though).

Baby Driver

I still don’t think this movie is as cool as people think it is. Sue me.