Editor's Reviews
In-depth reviews by our experts 🔮
Runner
"There goes the dilemma around the trolley problem. For a kinetic action movie, Runner demands a lot of suspension of disbelief. Even Jason Statham's movies didn't demand this much. Every Ritchson film at this point starts the same, somebody dies within the first 15 minutes or the trauma associated with someone close to him eating away the giant man and then, it's just open season for him. Reacher had the same thing, recently Ordinary Angels and War Machine took the same exact route. Heck, Runner even sounds like Reacher. When movies like this flash "written by" on the screen, I always wonder what exactly is it that they must have written."
The Plot Against America
"Power moves through the pettiest but shiny gold corridors of the brain... For that friend of mine who proffers always to leave politics out of everything and I often retort show me a thing that's not under the ambit of politics. Philip Roth's alternate history period piece adapted into this faithful adaptation by David Simon and Ed Burns does a pretty fair job of painting a picture of how easy it could be for a sane society to backslide lockstep into an authoritarian nightmare and what an American version of history might have looked like leading up to something along the line of Kristallnacht. Instead of making it leaned into a grand global scheme of things which was pretty apparent in this case or doing a The Man In The High Castle routine, The Plot Against America shows it through the eyes of different members of the same family; and it's especially and effectively more evocative when the storylines unravelled in front of the two little kids, from small all the way to seismic socio-political upheavals. Many may think the political discussions are a little too heavy-handed and shoehorned every chance the creators could get in each of the episodes, yet, I didn't mind that at all. Others may think the viewpoints of the kids in particular are a refreshing idea, the teenage kid as the poster boy of assimilation which is just capitulation from top to bottom in the form of train 'em while they're young and the younger cute one at an impressionable age trying to make sense of their predicaments, soaking it all in. I liked both of those aspects of this show. As a political drama/thriller, The Plot Against America quite pragmatically reflects how unbelievably fragile the long-established national character of one of strongest democracies can be when otherwise good-natured people start participating in faction building and remain oblivious to the brazen attempts of deteriorating rights in increments. P.S.- The ironic funny connection here is this whole thing rings too close to the great Elia Kazan during the Red Scare and the period of McCarthyism. Having said that, Zoe Kazan was excellent in this. Too bad and what a shame that the most persecuted religious community all across the globe throughout time immemorial is currently being accused of the very same things due to some myopic bloodthirsty genocidal maniacs in power."
Cool Hand Luke
"This is the prison drama right up my alley, the right kind of Shawshank Redemption I have been searching for. A mysterious man who has nothing riding for him in life becomes a legend of some sort and Paul Newman was born for this role. Remarkable in its study of the path that he takes, laughing at the big man, both above and front, Newman smiles unassumingly like he's got a death wish without a care in the world. Never-dying hope and backbreaking incorrigible rebel, personified. You see, Andy Dufresne had a plan all along, Luke was there just for the fun of the game. This one has more thematic resemblance with One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest which was yet to come as far as 8 years down the line. But, much more pragmatic about the relationship between the gamblers and the horse and what happens to the horse when the fight in it gradually gets depleted. In this case, it keeps on running. Extraordinarily directed and even more so, in the field of cinematography."
Coyote vs. Acme
"This is gonna sound like something coming from a miserable sore admirer of this movie with backhanded compliments. But, collectively this is our life now. Isn't it? Thoroughly getting entertained by an ensemble of retired IPs about raising their fists against greedy slimy corporations while the illusion of toothless anti-trust laws hang about as deterrents in the backdrop of Ellison family, Murdoch family, X-Man and Bezos acquiring every form of media on this planet. Even books. Will the irony ever lose on this? Gee, I know who is the ever-winning roadrunner and the ever-chump Wile E in that game. But, hey! Camus' interpretation says Sisyphus found purpose and joy in the eternal task. So, Yippee. No winning for us chumps. Yet, that was so much fun. Jonathan Safran Foer and Peter Singer would be really proud. Coyote vs. ACME is The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin but with a fairly optimistic touch."
Baby Do Die Do
"Well. It'd be prudent to stick to the adage of not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but there isn't too much of a baby rather too much bathwater here. Baby Do Die Do desperately wants to be Monica O, My Darling, an underappreciated thriller comedy which incidentally enough also starred Huma Qureshi and Sikandar Kher, and as usual Sikandar plays his part as expected like the way he has been killing it lately. Qureshi, on the other hand, tries to overdo it a little against what she is known for, by doing nothing and wearing it cool, a little too cool which is funny. But, what sticks out is the performance of Chunky Pandey in this. Peppy songs and a string of upbeat scores along with good acting and the comedy bits fit, sure, but with what! The plot is khichdi and the Saleem Siblings Production wants to wash it down with champagne. It doesn't go with the whole message, the tone and the theme of the movie which rotates around a crime thriller. Like I said it fails to pick one lane amongst this many variables and moving pieces. The industry has to get off its long standing obsession with white pigeons, doppelgangers and shoehorning romance into everything. Hence, the khichdi. The screenplay is contrived, heavy-handed, hamfisted and clunky. All over the place. Brazen and preposterous. But, the editing is surprisingly good and the soundtrack is off the beaten path, at least way better than what's been churned out of the Bollywood machinery of late. The most outstanding part of this Bollywood thriller comedy is how it turns the entire industry's forced customary saturated trait of the usage of item songs on its own head. Loved it. Contrarians and progressives will love it, conservatives and the so-called puritans for all their hypocrisy grinding their teeth won't look for another item song and dance routine for quite a while after that. Bravo."
Presumed Innocent
"Airtight intelligent legal thriller holds its card to its chest till the finish line right when you realize it is actually a whodunit all along. Simple yet cleverly designed, Presumed Innocent keeps its suspect net not too wide and sheds the routine formula of red herrings and side plots, sudden changes to thicken it or flashbacks to throw the audience off of its scent. It stays classy, full-on conspiracy-ridden and comments about the rotten system where sophisticated suits take aim at each other and the resolution turns out to be way too practical for a movie. That's the best part."
Caveat
"This movie doesn't need to be so scarce of lighting. I guess they made it dim and dark to compensate for the lack of darkness in the theme and plot. Simple and straightforward."
Speed Racer
"The Princess Bride of the car racing genre. It's for all the early days of video game era nerds. F-Zero, CTR, Wipeout. Deliberately and proudly fun, campy, corny and cartoonish but in a cool beans badass Scott Pilgrim vs. The World sort of way with sick ass character names. The Wachowskis did a phenomenal job casting Susan Sarandon and John Goodman as the parents and most importantly Commander Lewis as the slimy villain granted a lesser degree to what he was two years ago. A family establishment stands its ground against an evil cancerous corporation. No Walmart no Amazon goes home with a smile in this one. What's there not to like!"
Life After Life
"How wondrous is it that an entire web of many worlds get birthed around this one girl as the lynchpin who embarks on her journey through life and the chronicle is about the choices she makes. For all the maudlin varieties of devastating tragedies one after another that could befall on one girl, this four-episode show is surprisingly full of life thanks to the plaintive narration of Lesley Manville who brought a voice of equanimity to the massive ups and downs navigated by a wonderful Thomasin McKenzie. The repeated do-overs become more heart-tugging with the contemplative score, the gorgeous settings and the repetitive patterns of driveways with beautiful shrubbery on both sides, this adaptation by John Crowley of Kate Atkinson's seminal novel finds commensurable balance between unfortunate circumstances and the power of endurance. In all its chaotic mishaps, it is astonishingly serene and stable, as if the protagonist is an outside observer looking into the multiple versions of what could have been and what really is. A concept that has since been fairly done and dusted, Life After Alife finds new meaning from the cyclical rebirths with the help of Buddhist ethos. And as you watch McKenzie going through the ordeals, big and small, you can't help but feel, what can only be described in a short and simple manner; Everything. It's amazing how with this little materials and that too with just four episodes, a show could find such immense grace, melancholy through tiny imperceptible arrangements and rearrangements. I think it's because unlike other endeavors comprising this very theme, Life After Life doesn't do for the usual low hanging fruit of course correction even though very initially it tries that as a consequential mechanism rather it goes for the experiences as they come. Joy or otherwise. Atkinson's remarkable take on how she had to go through all that so that other people's existence around her could be made sure of, is outstanding and John Crowley breathed life into that idea quite phenomenally. It does not put the whole ouroboros theme into a rigid mold of curse or gift, not The Butterfly Effect nor About Time rather as a natural order of everything that eventually decays. As one character espouses life as this great adventure while another character retorts, claiming life is an obstacle course. Very deftly, with much care, Life After Life rebuts both by showing- An adventure is an adventure because it has obstacles. It's Rilke's "no feeling is final", which incidentally also ties back to McKenzie."
Sound of Falling
"These batches of humans didn't come out right. In a sort of a Salinger kinda way. A weirdly told tale of multigenerational abuses and trauma in different forms and sexuality and the passage of time influences memory, perspectives and even the ghost of history itself. And how normal ambient sounds can trigger those memories. Sound of Falling is subtle and flagrant than The White Ribbon."
The North Water
"In a battle of men versus men and men versus nature, the aquatic giants or the other tribes aren't the real hurdles, rather this Andrew Haigh adaptation of Ian McGuire's The North Water looks inward for the monster although in an uneven disjointed sort of way. Jack O'Connell as a remorseful man with enough demons from his past and Colin Farrell as the savage mean brut along with a seafaring crew get stranded due to unfortunate circumstances due to ulterior motives of impropriety. In this 19th century arctic adventure that starts with cheerful whaling soon becomes a whodunit and then turns into a brutal display of survivalism in a frigid setting where the very nature of men being at the top of the food chain, that notion gets tested both psychologically and physically. Randomness is the fresh route it takes which is surprising for a show like this, which means there were bound to be loose ends and some abrupt stopping points without any resolutions. One would think nature here would be displayed as this great equalizer, even if all it takes is a voyage to the ends of earth and even if the wicked ways of the so-called 'White Man's Burden' bestowed upon him by himself . But, the beauty of The North Water lies in its practicality as the protagonist often tries to reason with the faithful believers. Both good and evil men perish and thrive in the crucible of that chaotic randomness. No purpose, no reason, no redemption. It's not exactly Master and Commander nor is it In The Heart of The Sea, it shapes its own theme with righteous, naive and hapless characters along with some that might not be humans at all. That being said, it's not Dan Simmons' The Terror either. Farrell at this point in his career, I believe, can take on any role and do justice to it. The guy truly is a chameleon. As for O'Connell, he has always been underutilized throughout his filmography despite some of his prominent choices."
Martha Marcy May Marlene
"Elizabeth Olsen's career best performance comes out of a film 15 years ago, about deprogramming done cold-turkey and the PTSD that follows, directed flawlessly by Sean Durkin. Martha Marcy May Marlene isn't quite as gruesome or as unbelievable as The Ant Hill Kids but it puts too fine a point of the gradual progression of how non-exciting and uneventful the whole "groom 'em while they're young" for a cult thing gets. In a slow pervasive way it brainwashes until the victim has no idea how mudane menial chores become the routine rituals of the entire process. Elizabeth Olsen has this lingering shadow of a halo following her husk of a self around and at first I couldn't put my finger on the air around her disposition and then it struck me it's strikingly similar to what Brie Larson was going for in Room. Of course, where this one stands out is how calmly yet at times disturbingly it dissects the colliding viewpoints for or against having a commune style life vis-a-vis the whole picket fence nuclear family domestic bliss and why in the first place is it that often the people that are surrounded by dysfunctional family with a dearth of genuine connection gravitate towards a false sense of affection, purpose and warmth a close-knit detached solitary cult provides, which in most of the cases, as it happens to be the big selling point. A perfect breeding ground to fall prey to, a neat trap to get yourself ensnared. But, what amazed me the most was the depiction of her lost sense of any vitality and normalcy due a warped construct of behavior; taboo or otherwise and how a guru-like figure can easily shape that kind of self-sustainable heinous system which in return churns out one victim after another by internalizing the twisted mode of reassurance and a corrupt view of rationalizing. The only mechanism of coping remains is curling up into a ball and reverting to being a small child. Brutally insidious and simultaneously fascinating to watch the healing process with this kind of fresh portrayal of societal adjustment through frustratingly painful and confusing recalibration of life. All in all, could be a comfort movie for the Red Pill community. If not for the Manson family reenactment, it would've been a full five star."
Harper's Island
"A serial killer loose on an island where even for a murder mystery thriller one doesn't expect that insane of a kill count. Not Poirot. Not Holmes. It's like if Ruth Ware wrote one season of Love Island. The most preposterously campy whodunit I have ever come across. It resembles one of those 90s pay channel movies. Add to that a dime store version of And There Were None with an exaggeratedly ludicrous and contrived plot inhabited by a couple of amateur actors playing characters as oblivious as the large swaths of trees the island possesses."
Rope
""Mr. Cadell got a bad leg in the war for his courage. And you've got your sleeve in the celery, Mr. phillip." What a line to characterize the quintessential James Stewart roles. Simple. Sophisticated. Elegant. Dialogue-focused. Play-format. Classic chamber piece. The touch of early style of Hitchcock prior to the 50s. A perceptive Jimmy Stewart taking over the room. Distinguished, minimalistic and less chaotic in its emphasis on the tone. Prolonged conversations about decor, a series of gossip, unusual plugins of astrology of old school celebrities."
The Testament of Ann Lee
"Seyfried's Oscar worthy performance in a film with enough force to convert you to Christianity or make you a skeptic of religion as a whole, depending what you make of it. Amanda Seyfried turns her grief of serial infant deaths through aversion towards sex and coping mechanisms by creating a separate Christian denomination of her own. Basically, she becomes an 18th century Tyler Durden if he had leaned towards spirituality out of religious episodes via song and dance routines (probably a case of malnourishment induced delusions and reality dissociation as a survival mode from intense agony) than a domestic guerrilla terrorist spearheading anti-consumerism through bare knuckle brawls and vandalism. The chronicles of Ann are expressed through the voice over of her close disciple how she got awakened through visions like Durden, started small mostly like an underground club just like Durden and then ventured into setting up franchises like Durden. What's baffling to me when I watch this kind of entertainment is the thought of religious denunciation when it comes to amorous activities, it has been preached throughout almost every religion to renounce the pleasure of the material, wealth, flesh or any other kind, yet wealth has risen to tremendously unprecedented level and the TFR which used to be as high as 12-13 which clearly means people back when religious fervor were high and apparently pure were doing it not just for the sake procreation, sure without the use of protection or contraception, their acts are now out in the open otherwise countries with less than one total fertility rate would have long become extinct. Thanks to our ancestors and forefathers and their recreational activities, the world population level has reached an explosive level and now, due to the contrary of the fashion it's been a existential problem for some country. Second thing that fascinates me is how quickly personal visions and imaginations used to get passed as divine inspirations as long as one was at the position of authority with enough gullible minds behind them. I'm more of a Saint Maud fan myself but will admit the songs in this one were quite overwhelming. For most, I am sure The Testament of Ann Lee can be representative of a call, a Providence whereas for me it is uncanny of the teachings of researchers who attested to the fact as to how in various cultures across borders and oceans, the oppressed and the repressed tended to have more cases of possessions among them. More particularly for Women, even terribly more so. Here, it's shown spectacularly hinged with cognitive biases and assigned meanings on whims and fancies based on the fallacy of begging the question. Some kind of fascinating mass psychogenic illness without any argut poisoning rather seeking refuge in those chambers of brains where the mind concocts meaning and purpose when it can't figure out the reasoning behind the problem of evil and inconsolable undeserved suffering, finding sanctuary as the infamous instance of the dancing plague takes hold of entire groups. It's really sad but at the same time it's very much empowering and healing from another angle. A lighthearted, more optimistic version of Benedetta, although so much chest beating and full-on ritualistic. Anyway, simply put The Testament of Ann Lee depicts how one woman's misfortunes brought about seismic upheaval in the religious landscape. An entire community of brothers and sisters built up on the foundation of recuperation of a sorrowful soul. It's quite evident that some of these women were having postpartum distress, not that "give your grief to god" hokum. Nonviolence, chastity, celibacy, equal labor for all, socialism. Gandhi would've rubbed one out watching this."
North by Northwest
"With the most precision of brilliance and remarkable eyes for details when it comes to direction, as it has been my experience watching these movies, I'm rather sorry and a tad bit disappointed that North By Northwest which from its reputation should be among the best of the best in his esteemed filmography wasn't up to my expectations when it comes to my fever for the Hitchcockian flavor. As usual this one also began with the hustling and bustling right in the midst of the crowd with feet of urgency and the intentions of reaching places via public commute. Taxis, trains, flights. There were the obvious paraphernalia trademarks. The cameo, The lamps, the prominent landmarks, the dapper suits, hanging off from ledges, the blondes and others. It also stays true to the quintessential flirty banters, the snappy back and forth, the shadows and the reflection shots. Yet, it's so conspicuous and elaborate to a fault, so preposterous for a conspiracy film with its knife-throwing assassin, shooting out of a plane and that explosion. It's just one man, for the genre's sake poison the guy. The CIA's oldest and efficient style. At first, I thought the whole tenor was off a key with its unusual choice of excessive humor and that overly long train segment for a director who doesn't waste reels and was known to be very economical and watertight about his runtimes. I mean, a fugitive on the run for killing a UN dignitary managed to take a reprieve to play a romantic side quest? Come on!"
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
"Jane Schoenbrun follows up her coming-of-age queer despair horror I Saw The TV Glow with a fully self-actualized and sex positive queer surrealism that has a postmodern take where it turns the 70s and 80s problematic issues on their heads craking the post-Hayes Code era with their subliminal messaging of warning against teenage sex and transcending the simplistic obstinate misguided moralising lessons into something empowering. Through an enlightened Jillian Anderson as an instrument in the story, Schoenbrun creates a safe space in the form of a classic slasher setting and shows the supposed anxious and apparently sex-starved reserved celibate generations how to embrace sexuality without the shame and none of the stress. Our favorite standup writer comes back but this time not to save the career of a fading Jean Smart rather as the fresh new blood for the reboot of a slasher franchise waning since the success of the original one turned out to be a one trick pony. Like those Saw movies. But, this clearly leans more towards Jason, Michael and Freddy. That dinner scene was golden where Hanah Einbinder describes the way studios have been soft rebooting or resurrecting old slasher franchise by adding contemporary socio-cultural messaging as themes and how the whole concept itself is so grand and too big that it's never dead and will always come back to a fresh new generation of viewers, doesn't matter how much the cultural mores would change."
Bring Them Down
"Gorgeous meadow and mountains of Ireland under with chilly overcast weather and covered with greenery in Bring Them Down couldn't be enjoyed thanks to a series of unfortunate events set in motion by a bunch of insufferable resentful characters. With an inventive screenplay structure and nonlinear loop-like chronological order, this drama thriller makes a commentary about how an aggressive form of masculinity corrodes the family structure and as a result creates even more toxic men down the generation taking the mold of a vicious cycle. It hurts the very ability that sets humans apart from other animals; using words to resolve issues and ward off misunderstandings instead of raising a club or a spear. There is an unambiguous snowballing effect attached to the story, the way it flows. But, where Bring Them Down excels is its downward V curve, starts from each end and meets at the top. Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbott lock horns alongside every other troubled man in this community to the point it gets a little obvious that all these men are the real rams of the story who had long got lost from their flocks. Lately, it's been strange with Keoghan choosing these scripts where he plays creepy weirdos and it's either kill or be killed. Abbott on the other hand has always been a sort of an under-the-radar, more deserving of recognition kind of actor and here too, he plays according to that part and that reputation."