All posts tagged: Middling

Gullak Season 5 review: Smiles come laced with impatience as show leaves middling impact | Web-series News

Gullak Season 5 review: Smiles come laced with impatience as show leaves middling impact | Web-series News

Published by Parlour News

4 min readJun 5, 2026 11:20 AM IST Gullak Season 5 review: Ghar ki lipaai-putaai se ghar naya jaisa dikhta hai, par hota toh wahi hai na. When Gullak 5 opens, everything feels the same. Well, almost. In that gap nestles both the charm and challenge of this latest edition of the much-loved long-running TVF series, which has jostled, mostly successfully, with how to add a fresh lick of paint to a familiar edifice without changing too much. The House of Mishras, the goings-on in which have been our constant companions since 2019, is undergoing a literal paint-job. Papering over the cracks is not as easy as it appears to be, however: it’s not only Padosan No 1 Bittu Ki Mummy (Sunita Rajwar) who tosses out snarky remarks at the quality of the painting, it feels like every visitor, including an unctuous Mamaji, has the right to take a jibe at it. But the biggest change in this fifth season, a number the team has been excitedly telling us is the first time for an …

Despite flashes of promise, Gukesh endures another middling campaign | Chess News

Despite flashes of promise, Gukesh endures another middling campaign | Chess News

Published by Webster

The life of a world champion is hardly straightforward. Having achieved the ultimate glory once, there is a perennial need to match that standard, with the world’s eyes watching every move and noting every mistake. The 18-year-old D Gukesh, the youngest world chess champion, knows this feeling all too well. Nearly 17 months into his World Championship triumph over China’s Ding Liren, he is still searching for his first tournament win since that high of Singapore. Not that it directly defines his calibre, but Saturday marked the end of another event where a chance slipped by, as Gukesh delivered yet another middling performance to finish in the middle of the pack. The first event of the Grand Chess Tour 2026, Super Rapid & Blitz Poland, saw Gukesh end his campaign in sixth place with 17 combined points from nine rounds of rapid and 18 gruelling blitz rounds. While shorter time controls have never been his strong suit, the performance in Warsaw certainly signals Gukesh’s desire to shed that tag and evolve into a more well-rounded …

Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 Review: Kartik Aaryan, Triptii Dimri, Vidya Balan and Madhuri Dixit led horror-comedy runs on gags and ends up being a middling affair

Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 Review: Kartik Aaryan, Triptii Dimri, Vidya Balan and Madhuri Dixit led horror-comedy runs on gags and ends up being a middling affair

Published by Parlour News

Name: Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 Director: Anees Bazmee Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Triptii Dimri, Vidya Balan, Madhuri Dixit Rating: 2.5/5 Plot: Rooh Baba (Kartik Aaryan) a fraud ghost exorcist is taken to Rakt Ghat haveli by Meera (Triptii Dimri) and her uncle (Rajesh Sharma) for an important task for which he is promised to be paid Rs 1 crore. The haveli has a bloody history and Rooh Baba seemingly has a connection to it. Meera and her uncle don’t believe in the story and want to bust the myth so that the haveli could be sold. However things start getting hilariously eery as they reach the place ahead of Durga Ashtmi. What works for Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3  What works for Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 are the few dialogues and scenarios that make you laugh out loud. The first half of the movie flows well with the supporting characters really elevating the mediocrity of the script with the strong throw of their dialogues. Kartik Aaryan and Arun Kushwah share a great camaraderie and it is a joy to see them …

Virat Kohli should be in India’s T20 World Cup squad, even if he has a middling IPL season | Ipl News

Published by Webster

Ever since Virat Kohli returned to India, even the minutest detail about the 35-year-old has found its way to social media. That he spotted a salt-and-pepper beard when he arrived at the Bangalore Airport; that he wore baggy black t-shirts, or he lunged to his left and then sprung to his right during a fielding drill. Suddenly, the narrative that Kohli needs a profitable IPL to guarantee his spot in the T20 World Cup, which begins a week after the league, has vanished. Such a thought was ludicrously to begin with. True that Kohli is not a super-modern batsman in this format and that a posse of incredibly talented youngsters has staked their claims. But the simple reality is that he remains undroppable in any version of the game. It’s not because of his stature, or the grand past, or the commercial pull of his face splashed on New York skyscrapers. But because he still matters when he has a bat in hand. There could be more enterprising batsmen. He is not an improvisational genius …

‘Bramayugam’ movie review: Mammootty’s performance elevates this middling film on the evils of unrestricted power

Published by Parlour News

Mammootty in ‘Bramayugam’ Half an hour into Bramayugam, the idea of a black hole crops up in one’s mind. The eerie, old ‘mana’ that Kodumon Potty presides over, seems to be welcoming of everyone who passes through that region, but no one who has ever gone in has emerged out… much like in a black hole. Even Potty says he has not seen the outside world in quite a long time; it is doubtful whether he ever has, considering the story that reveals his true identity. Time almost comes to a standstill here, much like near a black hole, with the occupants losing all sense of the days or years that they have spent inside. Even in the game of dice that the Potty (Mammootty) challenges the latest entrant (Arjun Ashokan) to, it is time that he is forced to gamble with. Losing the game would mean the person would spend his entire lifetime in the ‘mana’. It is into this timeless world that Rahul Sadasivan transports us to, almost making us believe that we …

Farrey Review: Debutante Alizeh Is Brightest Spot In Middling Exercise

Published by Webster

A still from Farrey. (courtesy: YouTube) A bunch of super rich students hung up on grades that are beyond their capabilities pull a poor little topper-girl into a cheating racket that spirals out of control in Farrey, a teen drama that oscillates between the whippy and the wobbly. Co-produced by Salman Khan Films and directed by Soumendra Padhi (Budhia Singh: Born to Run), the frenetic but frequently frivolous Farrey struggles to keep monotony at bay despite the infectious verve that a cast of enthusiastic young actors brings to the game. The film skims the surface of the issues it tackles – inequities of the higher secondary education, iniquities at the heart of tutorial practices, the hypocrisies of school administrators and the yawning gap between the moneyed and the marginalized. Farrey (which means chits, the kind that exam candidates use to help each other cheat) does not, however, flunk the test. It blends elements of a thriller with the conventions of a campus drama with a fair bit of flair. It does well not to shoehorn …

Vidyut Jammwal’s Middling Spy Drama Is Not Without Its Moments

Published by Webster

Vidyut Jammwal shared this image. (courtesy: mevidyutjammwal) Cast: Anupam Kher, Vidyut Jammwal, Dev, Dalip Tahil Director: Sankalp Reddy Rating: Two and a half (out of 5) A war film that is more an espionage thriller than a battlefield drama, IB71, directed and co-written by Sankalp Reddy (who made The Ghazi Attack six years ago), presents an account of “true events” masterminded by an Indian intelligence agent to scuttle a planned Pakistani operation against India on the eastern front during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war. Fronted by Vidyut Jammwal, who is also one of the producers of the film, IB71 is sparing in its dependence on action sequences, preferring a relatively sedate approach to the exploits of an intrepid IB operative, Dev, who hatches a daring hijack plot in order to land in Pakistan with a band of Indian secret agents. The Ghazi Attack was an underwater action film that revolved around a submarine that mysteriously sank in the Bay of Bengal during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Parts of IB71 play out on a decommissioned airplane that is …