So you want to be a Sicario?

Alejandro (Benecio Del Toro) and Matt (Josh Brolin) work at getting Isabel Reyes (Isabela Merced) out of the ganglands and into witness protection in America. A different cast and script but the grittiness is intact. Welcome to the amoral world of human trafficking now complementing drug peddling, coupled with the pound for pound CIA, in Sicario 2 - Day of the Soldado

16/20

Arakkis Redux

Paul Aetrides is no saint. Dune is amoral. There are no god people. The Harkonnen and the Bene Gesserit and the Aetrides are all related. The Fremen are the ones that are fair game for all colonizers. Dune Part Two is s much of realpolitik and unlike the first edition - where there is some cause for empathy with Paul and his mother as refugees - the cynicism of Frank Herbert is in full flow herein. Visceral and real. And great action sequences in IMax

15.5/20

Ferocity (Hindi)

Animal (Hindi) blew my mind, not because of the level of violence (given Manga and Tarantino we have seen worse) but the attempt at opening up a raw genre of Punjabi gangster-Industrialist movie that shows raw use and abuse of power. Rannvijay (Ranbir Kapoor) channels his inner animal into gratuitous violence - the raison d etre being an unfulfilled "daddy issue" - trying to win his father's affection - but who knows...? Estrangement, an ambiguous moral code, an easy descent into violence, even against one's wife (Geetanjali) and manipulation (Zoya). An unusually unique attempt by Sandeep Reddy Vanga to bring out the best and the worst in a man - you will relate to Rannvijay, occasionally gasp at his behavior, maybe even want to reach out and help... he is an unstoppable force and the only thing that ties him down however frugally are his father and his children

16/20

Memories.. Brilliance

Seldom has a movie left me so emotional. I expected inspiration but not a string of setbacks. Suspended father, mother and sister in menial labour, penniless in Gwalior and Delhi, estranged by friends, 15h menial labour a day, heartbreak. And a few friends that salute his grit. Salute to all the 12th Fail and to all the real life Manoj Kumar Pandeys. I would like to make this movie required viewing for a life of (or at least starting off on a life of) principles. 

This brought back so many memories and I just thought - where did the struggle stop? Why did I stop in the 20s. What about forties and fifties. Find motivation and

inspiration.. keep going

18/20

Cyrus in the bag

For your weekend steppe Mongol (actually Saka) barbarian fix. This is an actual Kazakh movie. Much war and intrigue and the central character (Tomiris) is a female warrior queen who actually bagged Cyrus the Great - ie stopped the Persian advance into the Steppes circa 500 BC by decapitating him and putting his head in a bag (this is historically accurate). This is Game of Thrones pre-Ghengniz edition. On Amazon Prime 

16.5/20

All is Fair

It begins as a clandestine romance between Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehlenreich), analyst colleagues at hedge fund One Crest Capital. But while Emily is destined for greater things - a promotion just post engagement - Luke gets no such breakthrough, and what was a passionate relationship becomes a cesspool of toxicity - suspicion, playing the game, incessant screaming - culminating in some memorable scenes at office and at an engagement party. Fair Play is the intensity of the TV Series Industry with some great emoting by Emily.. and will leave you shredded and torn 

16.5/20

Creating a Better World

It is a year post an apocalypse - Nomad led by the US fights the Nirmata of the AI led New Asia. In fight sequences that are reminiscent of US overreach in Vietnam the American soldier Joshua (John David Washington) finds himself with his loyalties entirely subsumed by simulant wife Maya (Gemma Chan) and Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). In a movie that takes on the best of Dust, Chappie, District 9 and the likes of Terminator, The Creator is bit of an unsung hero among post apocalyptic thrillers. While I'll desist from calling it a must watch, if you have spent time on Oppenheimer this year this is a better use of your time

 

15.5/20

Hunger isn't about Food

Hunger means drive, and it also describes a relentless chef - Chef Paul - and his protege - Aoy . It is the drive to succeed, to change life's circumstance itself. It is least of all about the hunger for food - only the poor eat to satiate their hunger, the rest aspire, and that's really the hunger. This is the politics of the den of a master chef and the battles of Aoi to work out of her own circumstance

15/20

Destroyer of Worlds

Maybe at some level Oppenheimer was a psychopath. And that is why he was chosen to lead the Manhattan Project. And that is why there is high drama with Strauss, and the differences with Teller. And the split personality that cannot resist the adulation and attribution of having won America the War, but on the other hand has to live with the horrors of the outcome. The sins of Oppenheimer are the failing of mankind itself - in spite of the sheer destructiveness of its creations we tread the very same paths time after time. Nolan departs from the storytelling of Interstellar and Inception, and delivers a drama with sensitivity and a poignant sense of history

15/20

Heights of Endurance

You will not expect this from a cathartic climb of a 2000 ft tower. The heat could kill you if the fall... Or the vultures.. doesnt. Mobile signals will cease, your drone will die on you, your best friend will, well, die fighting, and it is with the last vestiges of your effort that you will eventually live.. maybe. Becky and Shiloh give it all it takes in Fall

15/20

The Impossible Odds of Sports (Sponsorship)

Air Jordans. Created out of a relentlessly persistent talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), a mom who did right when it came to the crunch and created essentially revenue sharing in sports (Viola Davis), and a founder promoter who came through when it counted - Phil Knight (Ben Affleck). And some great design work. Matt Damon creates the greatest deal in the history of sports, through bagging the greatest athlete in the history of sports. Even in the most feelgood of genres Air is unmissable

17.5/20

Breaking down, Getting it Together

Breaking Surface is about the perils of diving - cousin sisters Ida and Tuva go for a dive in the fjords and Tuva is trapped under a rock post an undersea earthquake - and that takes a death-defying rescue to save Tuva... And some serendipity and innovation too

15.5/20

Time Trap

Hidden gem of a sci fi movie. Teens look for their missing professor, get trapped in a cave where time stands still, get propelled forward in time. The movie gets better with, well, time. Worth watching

15.5/20

Sayen

A Mapuche woman sees off illegal cobalt miners in Southern Chile

Trained as a warrior and one of the forest.. echoes of First Blood as well as Apocalypto. Return the jungle to its own

15/20

More Rings of Power - S1 E5

 Hear this and be transported

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=dmzumEBB1EE

This song singularly catapulted this series from ho hum slow and steady OTT rendition to "Far over the Misty Mountains Cold" class. 

Plus the character development is becoming apparent in its execution - Elrond and his father, Galadriel, Nori, Durin.. forming a quartet of sorts of elves men dwarves and hobbits.. in various measures honour, reserve, courage, tact, the forging of uneasy alliances ... all coming together well. On to Middle Earth and the Southlands

Epic

Its time again for the series that will rule them all. With storylines in infancy, it is a bit early in the season (literally) to review The Rings of Power (TV Series). However a few elements do stand out already:

Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) has begun a delicate balancing act of pivoting from millenia of war and rage to wisdom and the forging of alliances, the feisty Harfoot (Hobbit) Nori (Markella Kavenagh) is truly the black sheep among the hobbits for harboring what must surely be a wizard, and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) goes about his ways and is on the verge of, well, the forging of the rings. It seems at this point that the Orcs are far away and Sauron is but a distant memory. Slow burn and of course unmissable for the legions of fans including yours truly

13.5/20

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