Editor's Reviews
In-depth reviews by our experts 🔮
Brazil
"For a dystopian science fiction, this was really funny. Even the set design was a piece of satire. The characters were silly and madcap. The machinery and equipment were wacky. Dialogues were snippy snappy. Apparels and cuisine; hilarious. It must be like a carnival inside the mind of Terry Gilliam. If Kafka and PKD had met for a soiree over a movie starring Charlie Chaplin performing his antics in a Monty Python bit, Brazil would have been the perfect choice. By the end of the movie, I was left wondering if I just watched a musical without being fully aware that it was in fact supposed to be a musical!! Like Orwell's 1984 if it was a comedy and the department had run out of funding. To be more accurate, a science fiction version of The Truman Show years before The Truman Show."
Blue Heron
"Compassionate portrait of an undesirable.... If Glen Powell hadn't joined the gym. I was dying inside imagining this one to end the same way as those movies that have characters like Kevin or if Australian, it's Martin. Richard Brody suggested this one as his top movie as of midyear. I can see why. And I agree to some extent. Too many and I mean too many close-up shots and ambient sounds. While most of this kind of movies have been centered around the antagonistic characters that are seen as antisocial culprits, Blue Heron takes a whole different approach of being centered around the people surrounding the troubled individual, who throughout all of their lives feel a crippling sense of helplessness for not getting to the bottom of the nagging questions and feel like pariahs themselves in a society even in twenty-first century, when much of the stigma are still being perpetuated due to a whole lot of non-answer voids."
Deadloch Season 2
"A tight-knit follow-up to the massively underappreciated Amazon's original Australian show that was going so well until the final episode and its climax. The chaos, the red herring, the short bursts of comedy bits along with the community-specific themes are all intact this season with its meaty plot points (quite literally) and solid crisscross detective work but this time around, after investing in some much complex pathways to what could have been a satisfactory ending that cleverly connects the origin of Eddie's journey with the rest of the characters and their whereabouts turns into a formulaic conclusion. But, it's still intriguingly binge-able, if not for that I would still have stuck for the comedy scenes. Season 2 takes the serene, lakeside, hilly, cool climate and the somewhat good-natured friendly members of Deadloch (at least on the outside) and turns the whole thing on its head. It's full-on wild west and it perfectly explains the demeanor of one detective partner, who I think is one of the funniest characters of all time, not only in a thriller show rather in any show. The cast of season 2 apart from the main and recurring roles are as much loud-mouthed brutes, uncouth and hilarious as they are fine beings on the inside who got the receiving end of hundreds of years of neglect and the lingering effects of colonization and the prejudices that still run in some quarters just like the first season. This season, both Kates crank it up with deadly reptiles, bugs, and a whole host of wildlife creatures, long stretches of temperate forests with dry soils and hot humid weather and how it all has an effect on the inhabitants. Although the latest season can't hold a candle to the precisely crafted thrills, reveals, twists and turns as well as backstories, personal identities and interpersonal relationships and character dynamic and especially the comedic timing and funny dialogues and in terms of almost all of the metrics, this season carries where the show left three years ago and tries really hard to move hard and fast. Despite some obstacles, it stays afloat even if it doesn't exactly sail like its predecessor as I was anticipating."
Jacob's Ladder
"Born on The Fourth of July meets MKUltra. It's not at all hard to believe that the popular Reddit Lamp story and this one episode of Inside No. 9 have had their origin out of something that was three decades older than it was supposed to be. Tim Robbins, the perpetually traumatized man of Hollywood finds himself drafted as the Vietnam War version of The Manchurian Candidate. Although, the whole angel-devil-hell talk was a little too on the nose. It didn't require that much explaining about how an unreliable mind and the fragmented memories out of it creates a delirious reality plunging oneself into madness."
Double Indemnity
"I get it now why Satyajit Ray sent letters to Billy Wilder real appreciative of his works. When he collaborated his filmography with Raymond Chandler, it was double the treat. Noir becomes magic without any presence of a gumshoe tailing a prospect or a possible suspect or perpetrator through dark alleys under the shadow by just the sheer power of writing, spitfire dialogues and questionable character morals with oneupmanship on each other. No fancy wordplay nor philosophizing or ruminating in endless self-doubt, Double Indemnity was straightforward and efficient in its execution. Most of the characters are simple enough yet shady and quite to the point emboldened by their razor-sharp lines and sophisticated charm. Wilder made insurance salesmen look like detectives and an ordinary housewife as a conniving femme fatale akin to those Bond girls. Right off the bat, Billy Wilder presents some class-A fast flirting that would be considered harassment and outraging a woman's modesty, a married woman at that in today's scenario even on screen in contemporary dramas even though by the time the whole thing ends, one would find it difficult as to root for whom even the one who gets to win when it's all over."
District 9
"Creme de la creme of all time extraterrestrial science fictionOn my first watch, I was too much of a teenager to understand what this fascinating piece of work by Blomkamp was actually trying to convey. A first contact movie that at first co-opts the themes of Kafka's Metamorphosis but in a much deeper rather transparent sense is a commentary way ahead of its time about immigration, imperialism, colonial powers at the helm of a global body, defence alliances, the military industrial complex, militia turf war parallel to the real-world results of apartheid; infusing all that into the sci-fi genre. That's gotta be a milestone of some sort. For a movie from 2009, the special effects in this thing were insane and groundbreaking while thematically heartbreaking to see a man going through the ordeal of, for lack of a better word, transhumanism and the overall theme of speciesism and anthropocentric hegemony."
eXistenZ
"Apart from the atrocious dialogues and ludicrous acting choices, it's safe to assume in a reassuring kind of way that Cronenberg maintains his trademark brand of weirdness in this late late 90s futuristic immersive game simulation sci-fi without actually showing us the CGI-laden Matrix. Except for the funny character names that sounded like something out of a pharmacy prescription, this lo-fi technique of highlighting an advanced but pathetic version of a civilization muddles a rather straightforward concept of losing the sense of reality while traversing in and out of a virtual reality simulation that's not in opposition with the true reality whatever that means to Mr. Cronenberg. It was like an elevator pitch sample for Inception 10 years before Nolan's dream within a dream plot but in a shoestring budget, only a fraction awe-inspiring in scale and vision of Inception."
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
"Filling the gaps present inside a delirium that's already pretty tough to interpret. Yet, it still remains mystical."
Main Vaapas Aaunga
"Diljit finds his roots by going down Naseeruddin's memory lane, the same Tara Singh-Sakeena lane Bollywood somehow couldn't go beyond. Some dark chapters of bloodsoaked history doesn't always have to be painted with Valentine Red. I seriously thought with Amar Singh Chamkila, Imtiaz Ali must be past his usual hang-ups of the side plot of Love Aaj Kal but here he comes with another young love lost in the backdrop of partition. Bollywood's gotta make a pact of some kind along the line of- "If not a solidly extraordinarily unique script, we shouldn't touch the wounds of partition again." I mean more than five hundred thousand to two million people lost their lives and around five million to ten million people got displaced, yet somehow plot after plot gets revolved around one man's personal desires and/or ambitions. Certainly in a grand scheme of things, somewhere one has to trump the other. And it's not even a one-off idea for which a pass may as well be given here, it's time and again we come across the similar stories and the same type of devices, where past ruins and trauma comprising socio-cultural and political orders to further overused tropes so that the bleeding heart strings of the viewers could be tugged. How have we not become sick of it that I fail to figure out. One consistent theme of Imtiaz's that runs through almost all his movies remains intact in Main Vaapas Aaunga too and that is a restless protagonist who can't find his place in the world for which he keeps running away from circumstances in search of the self and personal identity. Whether it's Shahid in Jab We Met or Saif in Love Aaj Kal or Alia in Highway or Ranbir in Rockstar and Tamasha, it's always been there perpetually. Ali maintains that to the letter here but with a two-pronged approach this time. One younger, one old both running away from situations in their own ways consistent with their times and respective generational angst. Rahman tries to put his magic in the midst of all these but I would say it's rather very unnoticeable this time unlike his previous stints with Imtiaz where the soundtrack and background score used to weave their own themes and characters into the premise. The whole screenplay going back and forth in time with an oversaturated presence of flashbacks which I admit has been sort of a trademark style of the director is getting real trite and stale by now. At least with his previous exploits, Imtiaz used to insert good dialogue writing that enriched his storytelling and somehow in this latest project of his, somehow he managed to throw even that with the most banal lines that turned out to be a real travesty, delivered and acted out atrociously by two fairly newcomers. Shoddy crammed editing also marred the narrative aspects by overwhelmingly stitching everything that must be shot, by not applying brevity. Even Diljit's stand-up set was a complete bust with those customary formal laughs and don't even start with the forced Swades subplot in the middle of all this. Many a times, showing less and giving space to the audience to work out the rest in their minds is a better more elegant choice. These movies don't need to be 165 minutes long. We need something like a Hotel Rwanda or Quo Vadis, Aida? to address these historically sensitive subjects and it's a foregone conclusion that should have been entered into our collective consciousness that it's about time we realize that we are grownups now in terms of cinema literacy and these difficult subjects don't need to be shoehorned or diluted or palatable by mixing it up with only love stories. This one meanders two-third of its runtime and then suddenly, it turns a corner and reaches the point it wants to comes across. By then, I had already ran out of patience. For brief moments, Main Vaapas Aaunga taps into the right notes reminding us that even though it's been around 80 years and most of us weren't around that time to have any memories, how for some old-timers the trauma still remains as fresh as the day of having to lose their land and neighborhood. While most of the countries post-fragmentation were joyous and couldn't contain their happiness whose source was attached to the newly achieved freedom and the sense of independence, crores of people were mourning and couldn't participate in that celebration due to the unbearable pain and anguish they had to experience witnessing a scale of savagery that still creeps its way among the various communities today. Another theme of the movie that has to be mentioned here is about tribalism, the ancient source of evil that turns one brother of the community against another and burns down centuries worth of harmonious coexistence which also happens to be a global source of bane, whether it was Germany, Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Timor, China, Myanmar, Rwanda or other countries across the six continents similar to the black spot in the history of the formation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. You know what? Read Hannah Arendt's The Banality of Evil or Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning or Amrita Pritam to expand the foundational background information. Apart from pulling on that thread, this film fails to bring anything new to the already cluttered table. Yet, despite everything Naseer Sahab's still got his shine."
The Invite
"Eyes Wide Open in a non-culty non-threatening non-conspiratorial chamber piece wayI think the sense of community and the spark of intimacy in the West got sucked dry when they started bonding over whose snobbery would outlast whose in the name of LARPing over home decorations as art and lost their touch in recreational activities such as being in open relationships. Less focus on straits and canals and more on playing swingers. The Invite is like a Cold War between spouses and among couples but with more teeth grinding and eye squinting tension and of course, sudden bursts of comedy which if the Americans had pursued, a great deal imperialism in the form military interventions could have been avoided. I mean by the end of it, I was afraid my teeth would just be powder or I might get crow's feet. Olivia Wilde should stick to this type of stuff or her usual Booksmart type comedy and in no way, helm projects starring Harry Styles. All in all, it's a really funny movie. It's much better than Splitsville. Controlled environment and suppressed chaos. Contrary to much of my premature skepticism, Seth Rogen was actually a perfect cast in this. Just three people having an awkward conversation while Seth fires zinger after zinger sitting across on the couch. Not to mention, Penelope Cruz has always been a wild one with her selection of performances, that's a given and no surprises there but it feels like for the last couple of films in Norton's filmography, he seems to be enjoying his roles quite a bit. Anyways, it's very new for us audiences to watch Rogen teetering on the precipice of the new horizon like he's about to melt. Hilarious yet meaningful. Comedy drama of the year. In a couple's therapy kind of way."
Gattaca
"What begins as a personal grooming ritual akin to Patrick Bateman in American Psycho metamorphoses itself into a very personal journey about the illusion and tyranny associated with an extreme form of meritocracy, preordained legacy, identity and ambition along with elite class hegemony and how much of a determined formidable weight one must require to punch through all that. Although I don't know what needs more suspension of disbelief that they tried to pass Ethan Hawke as a doppelganger of Jude Law or make it so that Hawke wouldn't pass up as 6'1", this sci-fi refreshed my memory as to why the 90s and early 2000s were a paradigm shifting period for the science fiction genre. I can only guess, Is it because the technology at the turn of the century complemented the horizon of the futuristic ideas and daring vision or that up and comer celebrities used to throw their hats in the ring on a stage breaking in groundbreaking concepts which paved the way for well-established actors to take risks in the later periods within this same genre. Though it's less techy tech and not at all high-concept, rather it plays like a thriller surrounding a swindler with a cat and mouse routine, Gattaca has its moments while it misses on other marks. It's not very Arthur Clarke or Greg Egan sci-fi, it's more Ishiguro sci-fi. My contention was as it has always been with movies such as these with one too many lucky interventions, when the plot is riding on so many obstacles being cleared away with so many coincidences falling right into the lap, putting another one at the end just might break the camel's back."
Cape Fear
"If De Niro was a mad dog, Bardem is a coyote. The classic Cape Fear was a cookie cutter revenge thriller, the 90s Scorsese's version was a simple straightforward but unhinged one but this new tv show doubles down on everything, even creating new branches out of inert storylines associated with characters that were previously just props in the older versions. Sure, a menacing Javier Bardem as Max Cady anchors the whole thing but almost all of the cast have somewhat imperative characters in contribution to the plot and no character is dormant in terms of the development of the premise. It's a web that adds to the sensationalism and the intimate and scandalous nature of the show by exploiting the individuality of each character and their inner troubles. By pursuing that, Cape Fear becomes too elaborate and detail-oriented for its own good. And that aspect is by design so as to extract every ounce of juicy details while tormenting a family and connecting a thread to the past deeds and an extensive family tree from which everything else is supposed to begin. It's more invasive, sinister, pernicious, voyeuristic, conniving, sociopathic and brutally violent than any other past rendition of The Executioners. Sometimes overly dramatic, sometimes incorrigible, Cape Fear's latest version has its moments when sometimes it hits and sometimes it misses. But, it is definitely worth the binge-watch."
Strangers on a Train
"Black, white and grey's dance to the seamless symphony of interplay between light and shadows. Conniving partner, gentleman killer, fancy suits and polished boots, white reflective curtains, table lamps and street lights, innovative use of reflective surfaces as lenses, fascinating setup for blocking, noisy giggles and ghastly screams. Strangers on A Train made me envious of a rather simple era with what little they had yet how passionately they used to employ those details without having to succumb to grand designs and ungodly tech that for the turn of the worse have contrived the quality down low in contemporary cinema. Hitchcock forces you to contemplate how basic ideas grounded in reality with rough imperfections around the edges make it look all the more like a creation of humanity that branches out with the involvement and invocation of a complex web of sophisticated codes and machines."
Vash Level 2
"The original Weapons before Zach Cregger's Weapons + Beti Bachao Beti Padhao + a hint of CJP protestLevel 2 is more blatant. A little too melodramatic even for the extenuating circumstances. But, the overly contrived dramatic scenes gradually weaned off into unsettlingly painful acting around realism. The performers were selling the crap out of the premise while having a field day. It's not at all hush hush like Weapons. Very outdoorsy and smack dab in the middle of daylight as well as in full view of the public. That kinda takes the edge off of the initial ghastly shock. Yet, it all works together seamlessly to create a solid follow-up. Disturbing. Cold. Cathartic."
Twin Peaks
"When the red curtains are raised in Twin Peaks to allow a peek behind, it achieved decades ago what Lost had lost by being all up in its head. Surprising how funny it was. Didn't realize Lynch had this color inside him. Amidst all the gruesome killings and affairs shenanigans as well as lucid dreaming, nightmarish visions and streams of consciousness, it's wonderful, almost hypnotic to watch how Twin Peaks balanced everything dark against matter-of-fact alongside lyrical dialogues, poems, slapstick comedy, snarky remarks and a plethora of shots capturing the essence of a rural town; waterfalls, glasses of milk, cups of coffee, doughnuts, pies, large really large tables, woods, timbers, animals and above everything else, gorgeous women. Even the songs and dances were both soothing and eerie at the same time. All thanks to Lynch's Jungian subscription. Yet, it's very simple and basic compared to the previous endeavors of David and what came later. Like a fairy tale only for adults; loopy and jumbled."
Vash
"A ritualistic humiliation in the face of Indian nationalist movement in a good way. I hope I had watched this before the Bollywood remake. This original one was way bolder and more brutal. Although, the climax of Shaitaan had somewhat of a more theatrical pizzazz in terms of setting and eeriness. Evidently, Madhavan and Devgn's performances were more polished than the Gujarati actors."
Alien: Romulus
"The Anti-Elon-Bezos sci-fi horrorRevival of an old project which has a stink that even the original creator couldn't get rid of and that means new faces, fresh new premise and a setting, embracing the horror side of it rather than the science fiction side and above all, putting Xenomorph at the centre stage instead of as a nuisance making straggler and the most important of 'em all, removing David from the principal plot. Too many shots with amber at the focus which makes it funnier without Ridley being at the helm, but, then again we are familiar with Alvarez's filmography. So, it's not missing the mark by quite a bit of wide berth. Still pretty ballsy there to expand the lore from Alien Resurrection. Romulus is more like a horror video game than a full-fledged movie."
Alien: Covenant
"The second Predator makeover of the franchise reboot since Resurrection was an utter failure. Although, it felt more like a Kong: Skull Island refurbishment rather than Predator. Covenant acts as a bridge to the original classic and the soft reboot but attempts to weave a plot around the newly discovered character and thus sheds all its intrigue to redesign something as an auxiliary of the original lore. At this point, it was crystal clear that Scott was too much in over his head to maintain the smooth transition into a new uncharted world."