Electric

The Current War - we watched this in the relative intimacy and detail of one of the smaller (Insignia) screens in Imax Inorbit Malad. The small screen brought the brute rivalry of the genius Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the equally determined Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to focus... None gives the other a quarter in looking at lighting up America and eventually the world. It is AC vs DC, pitches and patronage of investors - the eponymous JP Morgan (Matthew Macfayden) - a narrative that resonates to this day more than most, the alliance with the genius Tesla (Nicholas Hoult). The movie begins with the memorable line "It is 1880 and the world is still lit by fire" - highlighting the sheer extent of the change brought about by the rivals. Perhaps it is great competition that brings out both the worst and the best in our nature

16/20

Inimitable

‘Tis the Oscar season and I was wondering why The Imitiation Game, centered around one Alan Turing and his involvement with cracking Enigma – the German cipher – and greatly influencing the course of the Allies’ victory in World War II – has got some 8 nominations. After watching the movie, I ceased to wonder. Benedict Cumberbatch, not short in the sterling performances department, gives the performance of a lifetime. The relationship between Alan and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) is strongly reminiscent of that between Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly in A Beautiful Mind. Here is a genius – narcissistic, lonely, estranged and utterly convinced. And he changes the world completely – ends the greatest war in human history, and basically invents the computer to boot (no pun intended). Stunning character acting. Unmissable by leaps and bounds

16.5/20

Over to the Shire

In 2001 began a journey for me, sitting in IIMB campus, with Frodo Baggins, aided by Aragorn, Legolas, the dwarves, and the one and only Gandalf. The journey ended with The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies. It is thus with a twinge of more than a little nostalgia, then, that I pen this review. Executed with the same standards of excellence that we have come to expect of the franchise, the latest movie is particularly notable for the emotional turns of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) – the lure of gold, and the eventual return to nobility. In this edition, the five armies – dwarves, elves and men, face off against the orcs, and a fifth army joins and eventually tips the balance. Brilliant action scenes and depiction of the sheer ambiguity of alliances and their fall-outs make The Hobbit – The Battle of the Five Armies – quite exceptional. A must watch – but then if you have been with the series, that hardly needs any iteration

16/20

Penguin Mashup

The antics of Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Private (Christopher Knights) and Rico (Conrad Vernon) are strictly for younger humans this time round. While Penguins of Madagascar has enough comic turns to draw laughs periodically, it is too nonsensical – and I mean this in the context of any number of animated children’s movies that are not – to make any coherent sense for perhaps anyone over the age of five. I could barely tolerate it – and the seven-year old lost interest too after a while. Thumbs down.

10/20

Frame by Frame

Not for a moment do I deny the cinematic quality, the excellent casting, the flawless special effects, and the sheer riveting spectacle that is The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug - the fifth installment of the LOTR/ Hobbit series. The issue is that we are perhaps too used to the excellence, and maybe the reader is left wondering just what justifiable reason could be given for stretching (by LOTR standards, a brief) novel to such lengthy proportions. Yes, it is a good watch while it is there. No, beyond a point, it is just pretty monotonous. A monotonous must-watch - a fate that i suspect that this Hollywood trend of milking franchises to the hilt will have to hear a lot more of

14.5/20

Fifth and First

The Fifth Estate profiles the groundbreaking work of Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), whose key contribution to the noble act of whistleblowing was committing to privacy. While exposes on Julius Baer's shady clients, the goings-on of banks in Iceland and dictators in Kenya, were fairly one-sided stories, the possibility of confidential information putting people in harm's way is accentuated in the last episode of release of information of US Government war-room text messages. A good watch, though perhaps not as intense and engaging as it could have been

13/20

Darkness and Light

In Star Trek – Into Darkness, JJ Abrams scripts a taut thriller that is centered around a former starship captain – Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) gone rogue – rather than the hackneyed alien encounters of old. Apart from saving the introductory planet through dazzling special effects, and one minor Klingon encounter, there is no long drawn alien engagement. Rather, it is James Kirk (Chris Pine), and Spock (Zachary Quinto) coming to terms with their personalities, their relationship, a misguided leader in Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), and of course the great Khan threat. The special effects are expectedly mindblowing, including possibly the first instance of the equivalent of base jumping in space. This is a different Star Trek, with more overtones of terrorist threats and dual personalities, than the copybook 20^th century Star Treks and their extra-terrestrials

14.5/20