Battered but Intact

Bruised showcases Halle Berry in the MMA ring as down and out fighter Jackie Justice in a comeback match. Echoing many such movies, including her very own Million Dollar Baby, its worth a watch for the usual heartwarming effect of regaining performance, uniting a family and seeing off the critics. Worth strictly a casual watch

6/10

Intentionally Blank

Purja - Invincible

 Nirmal Purja is unbelievable. A Gurkha endurance athlete that scaled the world's fourteen highest peaks in less than 7 months. And with a generous dose of humanity (read rescues) and HACE along the way too. A man whose endurance beats the world's greatest athletes. A SBS recruit and sniper survivor, and one who says that the unremembered Gurkhas needed to make their point by doing their own great climb, sans ingrate White climbers. Unmissable and beyond inspiring is 14 Peaks (Documentary - Netflix)

16/20

Tadap (Hindi)

A one sided romance and act of pure deception. A movie that limps along and then suddenly finds its legs in a good read of human emotion. Ishaan (Ahan Shetty) and Ruksana (Tara Sutaria) are literally no match for each other

13.5/20

Dune - Resurrected

 In a huge improvement from David Lynch's version, Denis Villeneuve brings the realpolitik of Dune back to the big screen. Uncluttered and far more nuanced than the likes of Star Wars, with none of the pedantic Star Trek genre nor the incessant intrigue of Game of Thrones, Dune is faithful to the storyline. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) flee from the aftermath of a Harkonnen plus Federation attack, to regroup and reclaim what is owed to him, through an alliance with the Fremen. After a long time, a movie thats definitely a must watch

16/20

WW84 and back to the neighbourhood theatrer

Black Mirror - Brief Review

https://g.co/kgs/cz1emj

Black Mirror (NFLX) is so reminiscent of The Twilight Zone on cable many moons ago.. heard of it often, finally saw 2 episodes today.. this is true cyberpunk inasmuch this is no urban dystopias but the confluence of technology and the darkness of our minds. Highly recommend a sampling. Thought provoking, discrete episodes, not for good cheer

16/20

Heartwarming, Heartrending, Real

Having watched various animal world related programs since early childhood, I am yet to see anything like My Octopus Teacher - where Craig Foster - the protagonist - spent from two decades of corporate life - finds his world blending into the life of a wild common octopus while free diving in a kelp forest off the coast of South Africa - its empathy and play, its extreme and unexpected level of intelligence, its brushes with deadly pyjama sharks and regeneration, and finally its procreation and fulfillment of purpose. There is probably no instance of a human coming so close to the animal world and capturing it so well. This Netflix original documentary completely draws in the viewer, and the latter never loses his empathy. One of the very best - very real and very sad

17.5/20

Perfect QC Imperfect People

Devs is virtually a one woman show - distraught by the inexplicable apparent self immolation of her boyfriend, Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno) reaches Devs - the top secret Quantum Computing (QC)-driven past/ future visualiser.. the brainchild of reclusive billionaire Forest (Nick Offerman) and his tool to resurrect Amaya.. His lost daughter and the name of his company. Lily does not know it yet but only she has the ability to alter the course of the future itself

15/20

Robot Times

Love Death and Robots is an unusual collection of 18 largely high quality stories that involve robots or deep tech in some manner. Some of the storiew are quite outstanding.- Zima Blue (E14) is quite a watch.. Therr are others that involve uploading consciousness to giant fighting robots, lost in space into a simulation, a Gravity-esque return to base while losing a limb, and many more. The quality of stories is high, several are thought provoking, and at a sharp 15 mins each this is undeniably a watch

16.5/20

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

Knife's Edge

Knives Out has celebrity detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) solves (sort of) a whodunit at a remote suburb where a family - largely underserving in spades - looks forward to an inheritance from patriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) - with a cast that includes a wastrel grandson in Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans) and a near invisible domestic help in Marta (Ana de Armas) with ponderables of her own, it is an interesting if not extraordinary feat of deductive reasoning with a touch of the copybook thriller. Worth a watch, but Andhadhun (Hindi) or Badla (Hindi) frankly do a better job...

















13/20

A Few Quick Ones

Bohemian Rhapsody: Admittedly stepped into the hall with more than a little skepticism, but was bowled over by the sheer talent of one Freddie Mercury and how the Pakkie found his voice all the way from a highly skeptical Parsi family in London all the way to Live Aid. 15.5/20

Ralph Breaks the Internet: To get to EBay to find a steering wheel and save Candy Race in the Arcade, Ralph and Vannelope undertake a coming of age journey that while cementing their friendship truly shows up the different people that they are. 15/20

The Girl in the Spider's Web: Lisbeth Sallander finds her way through the Russian mafia and an irate NSA to a Bourne style thriller to recover some truly world-saving information. Claire Foy needs to use her full complement of hacking skills as well as physicality. Includes some brutal sibling face-offs too. 14/20

Thuggery

Thugs of Hindostan robs both your wallet and sanity in equal measure. I cannot rate this movie as I left in the interval. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what truly and irredemably dooms the movie - the terrible script, weak cinematography, utterly underdeveloped characters and relationships, a background score that is among the worst one has ever heard. With the dominance of IPTV the bar in terms of quality has irrevocably risen, and this sort of execution will inevitably and swiftly get consigned to the dustbin of history

1/20

Some movies of note

Badhaai ho hindi 15.5/20
Stree hindi 14.5/20
Tumbaad hindi 15/20
First man ... Neil armstrong.. 15.5/20
Bazaar hindi 15/20
Aandhadhun hindi 12.5/20

Winning Stree - k

Stree (Hindi) is a horror comedy with just about everything done right. When its not frightening you, its leaving you in splits. And somewhere it manages to leave a social message as well, without turning into a meaningless mishmash. Well done

15.5/20

Papi

The wonderfully executed true to the novel movie sees Henri Charierre being pushed out from the life of a charmer in Paris straight to the wilderness and horrors of French Guyana. In a ceaseless sequence of horrors, the resilience of one man is tested to the limit and beyond, and eventually one insight far in the future allows for a gateway to final freedom. Maybe Papillon is about never giving up. Maybe its just a story where the protagonist could have simply died of he treated life with some insouciance. A midt watch

15.5/20

Every Woman is a Wonder Woman

As has been said many times before, it took 75 years to give Wonder Woman her own franchise. Not a great one for diversity and inclusion. The story is simple, the execution flawless. Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) heads into Europe to destroy Ares, the god of war and the perpetrator of WWII. Worth more than just a watch

16/20

Nutan is Newton

Nutan aka Newton Kumar conducts an election in Naxalite infested Chhatisgarh. Calling into question who lives off the land, how democracy truly works, and begs the question as to how we should make sense of it all. A black comedy par excellence, haunting in more than one way..

14/20

The War For Independence

The ghazi attack is about an war between India and Pakistan because east pakistan wants to seprate from Pakistan so this story starts when the Pakistan navy sends a submarine named ghazi and when the Indian navy comes to know they send a submarine named s21 then the s21 goes for some distance until they come to know that the submarine ghazi sent a torpedo on a Indian ship in which two refugees survived and then Pakistan creats a land mine which made the Indian ship crash ash but they manage to float then the other side sends six torpedoes and they miss them and India sends another torpedo which made ghazi crash

- Vinayak Gupta

12/20

The Lost Children

Lion is about two boys who got lost at a railway station and the younger boy  boards a train which is empty and goes to callcuta and then he starts shouting and is not able to find then after some time a orphanage takes him and then a man and woman from Australia take him there and he lives there with another boy for the next twenty years and he uses google earth to find his biological parents and then he comes to India and he finds his real parents and he realised that his older brother has died but he still has the love for his Australian parents

15/20

The Idea that clicked

Persistence wins. Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) a man of many outlandish ideas out in the Midwest, finds his way forward through monetizing the idea of Mac (John Carroll Lynch) and Dick McDonald (Nick Offerman) - to make burgers fries and cola in a quik service format for the family - and the end of the drive-in culture. The Founder is a detailed biography of Ray and is as much about his ambition as his persistence and luck. To quote:  https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/calvincool414555.html

Maximum Burn

Deepwater Horizon is the true story of the blowout of a BP-led oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, largely on account of BP officials glossing over safety procedures. Mike (Mark Wahlberg) and chief safely officer James (Kurt Russell) are the central characters herein - voices of courage under duress, and of resistance of laissez faire corporate practices exemplified by the likes of BP liaison Donald (John Malkovitch). Superbly executed and clinical in its explanation of the sequence and the science behind it all, with characters that connect even as they play succint roles

15.5/20

Dsney's Polynesia Romp

Moana of Motunui (Aulii Cravalho) needs to capture the eccentric demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) and restore the heart of Te Fiti. For that she must step out of her comfort zone and face many dangers as she for the first time in decades ventures far beyond her reef. Moana is one of the better animated movies in a while, with the Polynesian pseudo-mythology adding a noveau dimension throughout

14/20

Lively battle

Surfer Nancy (Blake Lively) finds herself on an offbeat beach in Mexico. Whats starts off as an innocuous surfing session becomes a game of cat and mouse with a great white shark, shifting from whale carcasses to rocky outcrops to buoys, somehow surviving the shark and the high tide. The Shallows is a one-person movie and quite well executed at that

15.5/20

Checkmating Circumstance

With all the milk of human goodness as only Disney can serve up, but not missing out on much by the way of realism, Queen of Katwe traces the path of Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga) and her mother Nakku (Lupita Nyongo) as the former finds through the game of chess a way out of poverty and self-discovery. An intense movie with much ups and downs that mercifully avoids unrealistic victories

15/20

The Linguist

Here is the rarest of rare opportunities for linguist Louise (Amy Adams) to show her consummate skills in interpreting cephalopod alien language. With some assistance from Ian (Jeremmy Renner), army physicist, Louise gets going on the path to preventing global catastrophe, finding love, and perhaps seeing the future. Somewhere down the line Arrival loses the script in terms of delivering a true emotional connect, Perhaps it is a lot less overwhelming than critics are currently making of it. In a genre that is increasingly taking off, this is no The Martian nor Interstellar

13.5/20

Whos the Zombie?

It is difficult to make a zombie movie (Train to Busan) that helps us understand ourselves and our inner zombie. Perhaps the detached father Seok Woo (Yoo Gong), the doting daughter Soo an (Soo an Kim), a pregnant woman, a baseball team and young love therein - a great foundation for emotional overtones perhaps - but near flawlessly executed even as the pace of the movie remains relentless. This is the missing Asian zombie movie - intertwined with family values and societal goodness and liberal doses of black and white. Remarkably well executed

16/20

Game over

A MOOC called Nerve shows V (Emma Roberts) the quintessential millenial all about love, breaking free, new money, the beginning and the end of catfights, and a healthy dose of idealism. Fast paced enough to overlook some patchy storyline, the story would resonate with younger folk and those that seek the meaning behind the deeper interconnection of people and their phones and the dark web and hackers and of thrill seeking behavior. Rush stuff

13.5/20

Forests, Friends and Foes

In this faithful-to-Kipling adaptation, The Jungle Book shows the true color (in the anthropomorphic animals) of the denizens of the forest. The friendly and collaborative bears and panthers, need to face up to the manipulative monkeys and the power-hungry tiger. Highest grossing movie (and that includes Hindi movies) for the year till date

16/20

Edge of Learning

The greatest of mathematical talents – S Ramanujan (Dev Patel) – needs the greatest of mentors – Hardy (Jeremy Irons) to have his supreme mathematical talent showcased to an extraordinarily talented and skeptical Cambridge fraternity. The genius and intuitive nature of Ramanujan’s approach coupled with the insistence of mathematical rigor by Hardy leads to much lasting and formal success. The Man who Knew Infinity is an unmissable movie and left me emotionally involved

17/20

We the Children

We the children continue to enjoy the great Kung Fu Panda series and give Kung Fu Panda 3 a resounding thumbs up. From saving multifarious species, Po’s attention this time around is dedicated to saving his own kith and kin. A great entertainer

15.5/20

DC has answered

You need to be called Martha for all of Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) to save the world from Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) and Kryptonian forces far beyond the capability of Earthly powers to fight. Batman vs Superman – Dawn of Justice begins with the dark overtones that we love in the Batman franchise, but degenerates into the relentless sfx and fighting sequences that typify the franchise. Incoherent entertainment

13.5/20

Eye on Horror

In war, as Eye in the Sky quotes at the outset, truth is the first casualty. In order to stop an Al Shabab suicide bomber, a little girl may have to lose her life – symbolic of all collateral damage in the course of war. Focusing in on the morality play and bureaucracy around a single drone strike, Eye in the Sky breaks it down into an easily understandable situation – do we go for the greatest good for the greatest number even when we perpetrate an act of terror ourselves? Reasonably thought-provoking

13.5/20

Hopping victory

It is a time when all animals – predator and prey – have learnt to live in perfect harmony. Or have they? Rabbit Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) passes up a carrot farming future for her true calling – being in the Zootopia police force. What begins as a less-than-promising career punching parking tickets soon takes an interesting turn as Judy Hopps’ relentless burrowing unearths more than what Zootopia has bargained for. Even if animals find peace among themselves, I guess they are not discarding human nature anytime soon

15.5/20

Racing spirit

Great innuendo on the title “Race”. Great execution by Disney – the studio, like Jesse Owens (Stephan James), cuts no corners on its way to four gold medals. Simplistic to a fault, because the underlying story itself is so shockingly compelling/ inspiring. Kudos all round

15.5/20

Joy to watch

Another JLaw stunner. Could have been called Determination. Theatrics do not detract from magnitude of core achievement of the one and only Joy (Jennifer Lawrence), succeeding against all odds with bringing the most basic of inventions to market, against all the retrograde forces of doubting family and marketeers, and ruthless competition in the course of business. A must-watch

16/20

Asterix the Mansions of the Gods

14/20. Bookmarked for review later

The Finest Hours

With overtones of barely believable dramatics, and depictions of natural disaster that would put an alien planet to shame, The Finest Hours, it must me remembered, comes from the Disney stable. And Disney shows – as always – how the impossible is achieved with true panache. Bernie (Chris Pine) seeks to resurrect his rather patchy coast guarding history with heroics beyond all belief, that we are told closely approximate true events.

13/20

Half past Dead

Deadpool has a decibel of trash talk that most Indian viewers will not empathize with. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is the average Joe, falls in love with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) and very soon after the idyllic existence is shattered – he has terminal cancer and must undergo a transmogrification to superhero to justify his existence. And that leads to a face-off with the evil scientist Francis aka Ajax (Ed Skrein) – entertaining, and the hackneyed action interspersed with the dark humor is definitely a shade badass, but not quite a stuff-of-legends-franchise-creator for me

13.5/20

Shootout

Its pretty simple. Private security and ex-Marine Jake Carter (Mike The Miz Mizanin) needs to protect whistleblower Olivia Liv Tanis (Melissa Roxburgh) against the relentless attacks of one Simon Vogel (Josh Blacker), and perhaps one or more insiders from the Department of Justice. Marine 4: Moving Target is popcorn stuff, the sound of gunfire is one unrelenting rat-tat-rat through the length of the movie

12/20

As Harsh as it gets

The Revenant will kindle (or rekindle) your interest in the frontiersman, the American a couple of centuries ago living off the land and working at the frontier between the familiar and the utter wilderness. Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) gets mauled by a bear and gets abandoned by his furrier mates. He finds his way through utter desolation, battling man and nature, to make it back to habitation and sanity. One is left to ponder which is edgier – the relationship between man and nature, or between men – Indians, Frenchmen and Americans – at war with one another

16.5/20

Contrarian Rules

Dr Michael Burry PhD (Christian Bale) holds his own in his conviction about the fragility of the US economy at a time when the US housing market was seeing only go-go days. An uncertain partnership between Deutsche trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) and the incendiary Morgan Stanley-affiliated trader Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) also look to short the housing market in a deeply contrarian bet. Perhaps the coolest bet of all - Bloomfield Capital, a $ 30 mln fund from Boulder, Colorado, looks to working with retired banker and survivalist Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to go as deep as shorting AAs, in line with their strategy of picking up deep out of the money options. With inserts from an unlikely ensemble of characters that includes pop stars and celebrity chefs, The Big Short is one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time

16/20

Beyond Fear Lies Victory

Purest of pure adrenalin rushes. Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey) of the FBI is to trace down a gang that is looking to complete the Ozaki 8 – a series of near-impossible extreme sports feats. Expect brute surfing, snowboarding, rock climbing, base jumping, and throw in some raw fighting and diving for good measure. Somewhat bereft of a storyline, and suffering on account of lack of a star cast, Point Break has all the ingredients to give you an adrenalin high

15/20

Winning the War on drugs

Fresh from the lead action role in Edge of Tomorrow, Emily Blunt as FBI agent Kate Macer takes a back seat to the CIA, who is trying to address the drug problem infiltrating Arizona, Texas and the entire US southern border in their own unique way. The way of the Sicario – which as the movie clearly emphasizes at the beginning, means assassin. This is a must watch. I thought this would be about gunfights and drug mules, but the coldblooded realpolitik will get to you

15.5/20

Think slowly

What stands out in Pawn Sacrifice is the intensity and the idiosyncracy of Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire), as he takes on the formidable Boris Spassky (Liev Schrieber). Did not think that watching chess in a movie could be such an exciting endeavor. The hard work of one Fischer leads to American brownie points at the height of the Cold War

14.5/20

Cute Monster

Huo (Baihe Bai) and Boran (Song Tianyin) are suddenly entrusted with the duty of taking care of Huba the baby monster and monster king-elect against the forces of both the human and the monster world. Some cringeworthy Indian accented dubbing aside, Monster Hunt (Chinese) is quite the watch for children, and one I am sure given the language will pass virtually unnoticed

14.5/20

We' re back

The universe is about to be taken over by the First Order. Led by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the First Order looks like it will overwhelm the Resistance, and then some. The experience of Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and General Leia (Carrie Fisher) come to bear, but it will require all the energy, resourcefulness and courage of Rey (Daisy Ridley), scavenger on the planet Jakku, Finn (John Boyega), the reformed stormtrooper, and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) to save the day and find the way to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The seventh edition - and this time a sequel - Star Wars - The Force Awakens - is a perfect blend of familiar Star Wars elements while doing enough to keep the storyline fresh and what increasingly looks like timeless. And yes, no review of this movie would be complete without a mention of the resourceful droid BB8, that takes the droid quotient of the series to an all new level

15/20

Truly Exceptional

Marty (Woody Harrelson) and the ultra-talented Rust (Matthew McConnaughey) totally nail it in True Detective Season 1. The pair seek out a serial killer in the Louisiana deep south, with its surfeit of temperance and Americana. Stirringly authentic, enough to bring me back to sitcoms after perhaps years of avoidance. True Detective Season 1 is a must-watch – the performances are solid, the story is gripping, the central character is relentless

16.5/20

Maratha Gallantry

Bajirao Mastani (Hindi) is the love story of Peshwa Baji Rao I and his second wife the Rajput princess Mastani (Deepika Padukone). First wife Kashibai (Priyanka Chopra) also plays a significant role. The film is set against the backdrop of the Peshwas going headlong against the Mughal empire

14/20

Time never stands still

Project Almanac is a brilliant little movie that has gone unnoticed, but deserves much more attention than it has garnered. David Raskin (Jonny Weston) is admitted to MIT, but cannot afford the tuition. Rather than sell the house, David rummages through his father's belongings, and chances upon a time machine. Goals start becoming blurred when David starts zoning in on scenarios that optimize his relationship with Jessie (Sofia Black D'Elia), at possibly huge collateral damage. A must-watch for sci-fi fans

15.5/20

To Prison, to Prison

James King (Will Ferrell) is living the Americal Dream. Leading the charge for a successful hedge fund, engaged to the boss' daughter and gold digger Alissa (Alison Brie). James' life turns upside down when he is framed (?) on charges of embezzlement, and is sentenced to 10 years in the much-dreaded San Quentin prison. Seeking some much needed toughening up, James turns to his car washer Darnell (Kevin Hard), who is entrusted with taking James through the rigor of prison bootcamp. Get Hard is an entertaining watch if laden with many stereotypes. A movie that you will not see in Indian movie halls anytime soon - I guess maybe 10% of the footage would have survived our enthusiastic censors

14.5/20

Fear the Water

In the Heart of the Sea had all the ingredients for an epic spectacle. Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) is listening to a first person account of the sinking of the Essex in 1820 (itself an adaptation from Nathaniel Philbrick's 1920 novel). Owen Chase (Chris Helmsworth), First Mate, has many ruboffs against Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) of the great Pollard seafaring family, but none can doubt the former's seafaring talent and navigational skills, in leading the crew of the Essex. Driven further and further into the Pacific in search of whaling grounds, the Essex finally meets in match in a feared sea-dweller - the legendary Moby Dick. So what doesnt work in all of this? The heroism does not click. The fearsomeness of the whale does not click. It seems that the sum total of the cinematography of Hollywood is no match for the evocative prose of Melville. Or maybe the cruel killing of whales just draws a different kind of empathy in our time

13/20

Strictly for Fans

The Peanuts Movie works through the many adventures of Charlie Brown, trying to catch the attention of The Little Red Haired Girl. In a parallel stroyline, Snoopy writes a novel about his battles for Fifi vs. The Red Baron. Strictly children's fare and for Charlie Brown fans, at that

12/20

The Journey is Everything

Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms), the eponymous family man who does not quite feel the love back from his family, takes wife Debbie (Christina Applegate) and two sons on a long drive to amusement park Walley World. Along the way, evidence of Debbie's wild college ways, old crushes - notably Stone Crandall (Chris Helmsworth), disastrous swims and rafting expeditions, midnight liaisons that turn into exercises in hilarity - make for an entertaining time. Will the family bond together in spite of all the rough encounters, and finally discover who they really are? Vacation is an interesting watch that is quite hilarious in parts

13.5/20