An interesting story but the narrative style gives the film a highly disjointed feel and we never really get to know the enigmatic title character – no attempts to fathom what / how Charles is thinking / doing – just moving from one episode to another, from one woman / sexual escapade to another.
Supposedly on the life of Charles Sobhraj, the movie focuses on his jailbreak from Delhi, his escape to Goa (and the partying there), his relationship with Richa Chaddha and the attempts of Adil Hussain and Madhav to catch him – the rest of his life is largely ignored and not referred to. The relentless back and forth (too many flashbacks) also don’t help us get a clear picture.
Randeep’s look is quite cool and his expressions are bang on but his accent doesn’t work / jars. Richa, Adil, Vipin, Alexx and Madhav are very good in their roles as are the bevy of beauties we encounter on Charles trail. The soundtrack is excellent as is the styling, mood, look of the film. The scenes between Tisca (Adil’s wife) and Adil, especially when she is unabashedly showing her interest in the life of Charles, were the pick of the movie.
Unfortunately, by focusing more on the sexual conquests, the bikinis and the backless scenes, than anything else, the makers reveal their intent. They don’t really engage us with the complete story or the brain behind the man but revel in the more salacious aspects of the story.
In India we’re normally not very good at biopics – either trying to present the entire life or falling prey to hero-worship. This one, at least, selects a part of his life – chooses which aspects of his personality to communicate. It does glorify a criminal, someone seen as a psychopath and a cold-blooded killer. But thankfully, thanks to the episodic nature of story-telling adopted by the director, we don’t really feel too much or too strongly about anything happening on the screen
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Posted on 08:59
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Rating : 6/10 Release Date : 30th October, 2015 Time : 101 minutes Director : John Wells; Writers :Michael Kalesniko; Music : Rob Simonsen; Starring : Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Daniel Bruhl, Riccardo Scamarcio, Omar Sy, Sam Keeley, Matthew Rhys, Emma Thompson, Uma Thurman, Alicia Vikander, Sarah Greene
Gorgeous visuals of food – both raw and cooked ingredients. Fancy plate settings, culinary flourishes. Beautiful, minimalist decor restaurants. And, as one investor exasperatedly put it, chefs who ‘behave like schoolgirls’.
Bradley Cooper, a two star Michelin Chef, wants to redeem himself. He’d crashed and burnt spectacularly in Paris a while back – wine, women, drugs – had hurt himself and those around him. He’d done his penance, he feels, by shucking a million oysters. And now he wants to go for the third Michelin.
At first, in scenes reminiscent of A Team, he goes around putting his team of chefs together. And then, convinces an investor, Daniel Bruh’s family, (who’d already been badly burnt at his hands once in Paris) to invest in a restaurant with a clever bit of blackmail. Daniel, himself one of the best Maitre’D’s, eventually reluctantly agrees but does post some unusual conditions and Bradley begins work… Will his demons come back to haunt him ? His drug debts from the past ? Will he be able to get his motley crew to work together ? And, most importantly, what of his rivalries from the past, especially with Matthew Rhys, who has already bagged the coveted third star ?
The food part is fun – especially watching the ingredients transform into those beautiful dishes. Some of the conversations about food are fun too, such as ‘Why wouldn’t you eat at a Burger King vs a fancy restaurant which charges a 100 times’ – though the ones which try to be a bit deeper, like ‘What cooking means to you’, come off as a bit contrived.
Emma Thompson, Alicia Vikander and Uma Thurman have small cameos and Daniel, while he has an important role, it lacks the layers he’s so capable of – he seems a bit wasted. Bradley is good (his eyes look so blue!) but is a little flat. The ones who really impress are Rhys, Omar and Sienna – all chefs under Bradley
There is a layer of predictability around it – you can foresee some of the ‘twists’ a mile away. And finally, thanks to the proliferation of cooking shows on TV (Gordon Ramsay is a Chef Consultant to the movie), you wonder if there is really something new here at all…
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Posted on 02:12
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NOTE: As ever, articles like this are brought to you in part by The MovieBob Patreon.
At this point, there are probably three types of AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D fans (with significant crossover, of course):
1. Marvel Cinematic Universe completists watching to make absolutely sure that they don't miss any subplots, threads, etc being either launched or tied-up here.
2. Fans of all things Marvel and/or comics in general watching to make sure they don't miss appearances by any characters or iconography that hasn't shown up elsewhere yet.
3. People who've genuinely become invested in the characters/world of this specific show, care about the characters and want to know what happens to them.
"4,722 HOURS" is a rare episode that feels designed with Audience #3 exclusively in mind: It's a single story strictly involving the series' own storylines, no cutaways to any other subplots and no (definitive, at least for now) ties to either the Cinematic or Comics Universe. It also happened to be pretty damn well-executed and a fine acting showcase for Elizabeth Henstridge, which I imagine helped soothe the lack of case-specific goodies for viewers of other stripes.
SPOILERS follow: For those just jumping onboard: Midway through Season 2's back-half, it was discovered that S.H.I.E.L.D has been in (high-level secret) possession of a mysterious stone monolith that morphs into a "living" liquid form and back again seemingly at random and has existed on Earth since ancient times. In the final moments of the season finale, said monolith managed to leak out of it's containment-cell long enough to liquefy and (apparently) swallow Agent Jemma Simmons whole. Earlier this season, it was discovered that the monolith actually functions as a time-space portal and that Simmons was still alive... but had been zapped off to a mysterious alien planet that looks absolutely nothing like the California desert processed through a blue day-for-night filter.
Through the obsessive dedication to her rescue of her BFF-who'd-really-really-really-like-to-be-more Agent Fitz, Simmons was rescued and yanked back to Earth early on but has demonstrated signs of detachment and strange behavior ever since - particularly in a resistance to picking up her awkward mutual courtship with Fitz where it left off (he had just finished managing to ask her out to a for-real romantic dinner when the monolith "ate" her.) This culminated in a stinger from two episodes ago, wherein she confided in fellow Agent Bobbi "Mockingbird" Morse that the real issue she was having was that she was desperate to get back to wherever it was she'd been marooned. "4,722 HOURS" presents Simmons' story of her ordeal as she relates it to Fitz (who's help she requires to "go back"), in order to explain not only where she was and why she'd want to return... but why she was so reluctant to tell him in the first place.
The fact that there weren't many other reasons for her to keep a secret from her best (only?) lifelong friend that made any sense, it would appear that most fans already figured that last part (she met and fell into a romantic relationship with someone else while offworld) out well beforehand. But even with the guessing games neutralized, the meat of the story (NASA sent an astronaut team through the portal 14 years ago, Simmons is rescued and ultimately falls in love with the last survivor of the doomed expedition, Will Daniels) was compelling and interesting; even as the "showcase" stuff re: Simmons showing off her DIY survivalist chops before meeting Will was frontloaded into the beginning.
Budgetary issues for non-recurring FX, sets, etc is AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D's consistent bugbear, and while there's a certain amount of charm in the oldschool B-movie solutions this episode pulls out to try and work around it (I almost wish they'd gone all the way and just openly shot in Bronson Canyon - or did they?) it's hard not to wish that the alien world looked a little more "alien" or that there was more creature-feature action than Henstridge (however enthusiastically) pretending to wrestle a floppy rubber tentacle we're meant to imagine is attached to some much larger water-monster. Still, if they were saving the money for their big "mystery heavy" (the planet is "haunted" by a shadowy shape-shifter who comes and goes with the aid of a powerful sandstorm) it was probably worth it, as those sequences were impressively "different" for the series.
On the other hand, much as I enjoyed this one, I'm worried about where it's going. Fitz's luckless longing for his platonic lifemate has been at the core of his carefully-managed "adorkable" persona from the beginning of the show, it's been fun to watch AGENTS prod at it for drama to make him even more likable/identifiable (he has now endured drowning, shootouts with terrorists and diving into a black hole for this woman, but - awww! - still stammers like a schoolboy when actually trying to ask her out) and it's very in-character for him to immediately decide to help her rescue Will is perfectly in-character... but I hope they don't take this too far in the obvious direction. Yeah, it's hard not to feel the character (he risked his life multiple times over to save her and it turns out she met someone else? Ouch!), but "Woe is me! Even the female nerds I actually have things in common with prefer jocks!" (it's made expressly clear that Will isn't a scientist, he was the other astronauts' macho survivalist backup) is a really tiresome male nerd angst trope, and I'd really hate to see Fitz become an icon to the internet MRA "male geeks are denied the sex we're entitled to!" set because the show decides to give him one righteous feeling-sorry-for-himself monologue too many over this. (By the same token, I'm genuinely depressed imagining how much slut-shaming hatemail and forum-posting is being directed at Henstridge right now.)
BULLET POINTS:
Yes, when Will said that the planet "has moods," my first thought was Ego: The Living Planet, too.
I'll say it but I bet I'm not the only one thinking it: How cool would it have been if "Will Daniels" had been John Jameson III instead? It's unlikely, but I wonder if that was ever floated as a possibility - he's never been among the most important tertiary Marvel characters (so he's probably not a big part of anyone's movie plans) and it'd be quite a "we're still worth paying attention to!" coup for AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D to have debuted the first official piece of the MCU-official SPIDER-MAN world.
If AGENTS does one thing consistently, it's nesting reveals and twists inside one another in multiple layers. As such, it's probably safe to say that there's more to Will than we already know. The fact that we only "know" that his crewmates went space-mad and had to be killed in self-defense from his story (Simmons finds the bodies of transportees from other eras, but not them) his very science-ish understanding of the planet's glowing-hot substrata, etc. I hope he's not an out-and-out villain, as that would play way too much toward the "Lament of The Nice Guy" stuff I'm hoping they avoid re: Fitz.
That said, if Will IS a villain, a possibility would be that he's actually just a further manifestation of whatever the Big Evil on the planet is (see below) and all his actions have been to trick Simmons into pulling him/it onto Earth. (Alternate theory: He's a Skrull.)
On the other hand, y'know what we've been hearing a lot lately? "Death," used in atypical contexts. The Hebrew symbol for the word was on the scroll Fitz found that helped unlock what the monolith was, and Will refers to the Big Evil in the sandstorm as a personification of Death. As readers of these recaps are likely already aware, Death Personified is a major Cosmic Marvel figure whose romantic attention is the motivating goal of INFINITY WAR's big central villain. So, there's that.
On the other hand, if Death is going to be an MCU character (I still think it's more likely they'll conflate Death and Hela into one character, debuting in either DOCTOR STRANGE, THOR: RAGNAROK or both) I can't really imagine AGENTS getting to be the place where she first appears. More likely, though, I think the whole monolith/portal/weird-planet subplot will tie back into the Inhumans/Kree business that's still technically the "A-plot" of Season 3.
NEXT WEEK:
"AMONG US HIDE..." is mainly promising more of the "Let's Get Ward!" storyline (yawn) but with Bobbi finally getting back into the field (yay!) for what may or may not still be a build towards the spin-off. The teaser is being explicit calling Andrew dead, but I don't care - I'm still thinking he's Lash. The title, incidentally, is a reference to Fantastic Four Issue #45, which featured the debut of the original Inhumans Royal Family; so presumably there'll be more from that storyline as well.
ALSO: We're still awaiting the appearance of Powers Boothe, who's scheduled to reprise his role as the (now former) Security Council head from AVENGERS and WINTER SOLDIER. Word is AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D will reveal his character name if Gideon Malick, which some fans are predicting is a clue that he'll be the MCU version of Albert Malik, aka Red Skull II.
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Posted on 15:02
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Hey gang.
So, update on the status of the next REALLY THAT GOOD episode. Short version: It's coming, and soon. Obviously, I did not want to let the series go this long with VACATION as the most recent installment, but sometimes life gets in the way.
I could probably blame my recent health concerns, but the fact is it's less about that and more about that being the impetus to reconnect with parts of my life that I'd allowed to become detached. A social life, even one as haphazardly-managed as mine, is important to cultivate; and a side-effect of this is less time alloted between paid work to give over to passion projects - particularly passion projects that don't (for the most part) generate funding in and of themselves outside of viewers being hopefully wooed to chip in at The MovieBob Patreon.
That having been said, a greater impediment still was that I happened upon a situation where a film turned out to be impossible to place in proper retrospect without talking about its direct sequel, which in turn was impossible to itself quantify without talking about its predecessor. As such, the next REALLY THAT GOOD has become (by necessity) a two-film piece; which presents a new set of challenges and a rethinking of style and approach - which I believe I have cracked, hence this update.
I usually try to do these things as surprises, but since you've been kept waiting long enough I figured a small tease, at least, is in order. So...
The next REALLY THAT GOOD, ideally hitting in early November, will be Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN & SPIDER-MAN 2.
I've been picking away at this/these one/two for awhile in the background now, and I'm excited for how it's coming together. I can't wait to share it with you all, and I hope you'll find the wait worth it.
P.S. Just for a further tease, I also hope to have a second episode ready for late-November and at least one for December as well. One is a Christmas movie (that I am mentally-preparing to record sound for while remaining verbally-composed), the other is about a boat. Stay tuned :)
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Posted on 13:21
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I liked DAREDEVIL a lot, but I never really got onboard that it represented some kind of next-level evolution for the Marvel Universe brand.
Too much of the story felt stretched-thin between the "main" beats (why is the law practice so incidental to the series so far?) and I'm less inclined to see it's much-ballyhooed aesthetic and tone as the welcome "dark side" of the MCU and more like the eyeroll-inducing "stuck in the early-2000s" side. A good series, but mainly one that does the best possible version of stuff I'd thought the superhero genre had managed to otherwise outgrow: Unrelentingly grim, afraid of its own four-color shadow (Matt Murdock, in both his getups, is the worst-dressed superhero in Marvel not named Quicksilver), celelbrity-villain dependent (yes, D'Onofrio was magnificent all the same) etc.
But for what it was, it worked. But I'm wondering whether or not having this as the default-setting of the Netflix/DEFENDERS Marvel material is going to prove limiting. Case in point, the otherwise very good looking first full trailer for JESSICA JONES:
I'm feeling this (Krysten Ritter as a bitter hard-living superhuman detective? Good pitch) but not without reservation. For starters, it occurs to me that no one seems to have asked how Jessica's comic backstory (put-upon average girl gets super-powers by accident, tries to be a superheroine, suffers a horrible fate that jades her on the costumed life, becomes superhuman-problems-focused private eye instead) is going to "work" in an MCU where widespread superheroism is only a few years old. Will she have even ever been "Jewel" in this version (the next-to-last scheduled episode is title "Jewel & The Power Man," which reads like an intent to take the piss out of the idea of Jones and Luke Cage acting anything like their "super" selves) And, if not, doesn't that negate a lot of the "point" of the edginess i.e. "Here's what happens when the fantasy fails?"
I'm also wondering if making David Tennant's Zebediah "Purple Man" Killgrave apparently a central focus is a great idea. Yes, he's important in this mythos, but I hope they haven't looked at how much everyone loved Kingpin in DAREDEVIL and decided that building the narrative mainly around the villain is the way to go for all of these series. Also, yes, it bugs me that he's not purple - or maybe he is, and just mind-controlling everyone to not notice it? That'd be fun. And it'd be a nice surprise if Rachel Taylor's Patsy Walker turned out to already be Hellcat, but I'm not counting on it (ditto Marvel using this series as a surprise-introduction for Carol Danvers, who was part of this project back when it was pitching as a network show but doesn't seem to be now.)
In any case, the series hits in about a month so we won't have to wait long to find out.
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Posted on 18:40
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Rating : 5/10 Release Date : 23rd October, 2015 Time : 106 minutes Director : Breck Eisner; Writers : Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless; Music : Steve Jablonsky; Starring : Vin Diesel, Rose Leslie, Michael Caine, Elijah Wood, Julie Engelbrecht, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Isaach De Bankole, Sloane Coombs, Lotte Verbeek
There is just a teeny bit more to this than the typical Vin Diesel ‘Wham-Bam-Thank You, Ma’am’. A little less humour than usual but a little more story, one which is a bit more interesting than the normal fast cars, thrilling rides we’re accustomed to from him.
A witch-hunter (Vin Diesel), cursed with immortality by the Witch Queen (Julie Engelbrecht), has to now, in present day New York, prepare for possibly his greatest challenge yet – one that will involve dream-walkers, resurrection, his chroniclers and some snazzy special effects
The world today has witches among us, but governed by the Axe & Cross Council via strict laws (such as not practicing any of the tricks classified as dark arts), which are enforced by Vin Diesel. He is their main weapon, keeping the dark forces of witchcraft at bay, maintaining the balance between witches and humanity. His deeds dutifully recorded by his Chroniclers (known as Dolans) – Michael Caine has been one for the last 50 odd years (this must be the first time in many years Mr Caine was called ‘Kid’), is about to retire, and Elijah Wood is his replacement.
Rose Leslie (the spunky wildling Ygritte from Game of Thrones ?) is a witch, a feisty one at that, and Isaach, Olafur (both warlocks) play crucial roles as well
Vin pretty much has one expression through the film – that of bored disinterest – with Michael Caine wasted in his role too. The sparkle is brought by Rose (she’s good!) and a succession of good looking women in one minute roles with Isaach, Olafur providing some good old-fashioned menace. The special effects are great, the story is decent enough to keep your interest hooked, despite the predictability / the Hindi filmy-ness of it all – watch, if a fan of Vin Diesel or nothing better to do.
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Posted on 02:08
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Rating : 3/10 Release Date : 22nd October, 2015 Time : 144 minutes Director, Writer : Vikas Bahl; Co-Writers : Chaitally Parmar, Anvita Dutt; Music : Amit Trivedi; Starring : Shahid Kapur; Alia Bhatt; Pankaj Kapur; Sushma Seth, Sanah, Sanjay Kapoor, Vikas Verma
This is a desperate attempt at cuteness
Frogs, an animation back story, dreams drawn on strips of paper, horses, damsels that need rescuing (or someone to make them sleep), glitzy sets, flying ladybugs, more abbreviations than in the Oxford dictionary, a cuddly kind of love, an unending supply of songs, Karan Johar, fireflies, Sindhi jokes rehashed, gold, a touching father-daughter relationship, imaginary cups of tea (with two cubes of sugar), fake moustaches and the gravelly voice of Naseeruddin Shah – everything is thrown at us in the vain hope that something sticks, something connects – anything to distract our attention from the fact that there is no story – and the only thing with real substance in the film is Sanah
Add to this potpourri, a dominating matriarch (Sushma Seth) – who has decided that Sanah, her grand-daughter (born to her son, Pankaj) will get married to a golden, glitzy, garish Sindhi family (headed by Sanjay Kapoor) - a kind of a business deal to save them from impending bankruptcy. The fact that Sanjay’s brother, the groom, Vikas, is a gym / protein shake obsessed, narcisstic idiot with eight (and a half) pack abs, and precious little else doesn’t make them think again. Nor does the fact that he so obviously doesn’t relish getting married to the slightly overweight but pretty, smart Sanah, make the entire clan even pause for thought.
Alia, meanwhile, is a poor, little, wee anath, brought home by Pankaj, against the wishes of his mom or his wife. Obviously, there is a predictable secret somewhere but no one really questions the otherwise jelly-in-front-of-his-mother Pankaj or dissuades him from doing so. Alia is an insomniac, reads a lot of books, is a trivia queen but like all good girls, is waiting for her prince to come and put her to sleep.
Enter Shahid. The wedding organizer in the rented mansion / hotel. Who also doubles up as lead dancer. He doesn’t hit it off with Pankaj. Does with Alia. And you can, pretty easily, fill in the rest of the blanks…
Alia and Sanah (Pankaj’s daughter in real life too) stole the show with their performances. Shahid and Pankaj tried just that teeny-weensy bit too hard. The rest hung around in the background for their two bit parts
This was an attempt at a fairy story. A kind of a reverse Sleeping Beauty – where an insomniac prince is needed to make the insomniac princess fall asleep – and learn to dream. Will work for you if you’re under 12. Or like songs. And big fat Indian weddings (pun intended). Or sets with twinkling lights, heart shapes and cuddly-wuddly stuff. But will stretch interminably and senselessly for all others. Vikas Bahl, after Queen, this Shaandaar failure ? Et tu ?!
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Posted on 15:05
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Now we're getting back on track.
After nothing much special happening last week, AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D rebounds this week with an episode where not much happens for the most part... and then everything happens in the last 10 minutes or so. Not exactly appointment-viewing stuff, granted, but this time last year we were still dealing with the "Coulson keeps drawing maps" business, so yeah.
SPOILERS follow: For the most part, we're continuing the threads laid down last time: S.H.I.E.L.D and ATCU are now (reluctantly) working together on the Inhumans "problem" in order to track the movements of the Inhuman-hunting monster Lash, with the added wrinkle of Daisy being extra-annoyed because she's getting the sense that Coulson's decisions are being swayed because he's kinda "into" ATCU boss Rosalind Price. Also annoyed: May's ex-husband Andrew Garner (Blair Underwood), the psychiarist who's been counseling Inhuman "Secret Warriors" prospects for S.H.I.E.L.D and isn't happy to learn that self-duplicator Alisha (last seen in Season 2) is already on active assignments. Meanwhile: Fitz is still trying to reconnect with Simmons, not yet aware that her real problem is that she actually wants to "go back" to the alien otherworld she was marooned on between seasons. Elsewhere: Agent May finally has enough of Hunter's recklessness in his let's-go-kill-Ward mission (me too - it's boring) and rats the whole thing out to Coulson, only to be surprised to find Andrew working at S.H.I.E.L.D.
The May/Andrew stuff is, surprisingly, the most compelling this time. The writing typically plays May as so close to the vest it's easy to miss when the show is actually setting up unseen parts of her story to be "mysterious" instead of just "taciturn badass." The idea is that she and Andrew did some near-reconnecting at the start of her leave, but then he took off without explanation and now she's even more bitter/jaded than ever - the duality now being that both parties have disappeared on the other to (apparently, in Andrew's case) go do secret work for S.H.I.E.L.D.
Oh, and it's also more compelling since Andrew promises to explain where he went and why "later" to May... only to be DEAD (apparently) by the end of the episode because Ward threatened to have him whacked after discovering Hunter's undercover gambit and Hunter called his bluff. So yeah, down goes Andrew, blown up in a convenience store explosion by Werner Von Strucker. Because this is a series that really needed to keep killing off it's Black supporting characters.
Anyway! The supposed Lash "origin" teased at the end of last week was more misdirection: Instead, we meet a soon-to-be-dead Inhuman whose "power" is breaking out in a rash around other Inhumans whose been helping Lash (who is also an Inhuman, just like in the comics) find his victims - his rationale being that being Inhuman is so unpleasant that these are mercy-killings. He turns out to be wrong, of course: Lash turns up to kill him by attacking the ATCU truck transporting him (and Daisy and Mack, reluctantly being allowed to inspect their "partner's" facilities) and describes his actions (existance?) as "necessary" rather than merciful.
For reasons unknown, Lash doesn't bother to kill Daisy - so she's alive/awake to see his retreating shadow seemingly morph back into that of a "normal" human (Lash looks like a hedgehog-man, if you haven't been watching.) "So he could be ayone!," she helpfully explains to Mack/The Audience... just before Rosalind awkwardly steps into the room (meaning that Lash is definitely NOT her, unless AGENTS' misdirection-lever is busted.)
And then there's Fitz/Simmons. After doing the world's worst job of hiding her private research into rebuilding the portal, Simmons reveals that she needs Fitz's help to go back to Planet Day-For-Night Desert because "something happened" there - something we'll presumably find out next week.
Good episode? Yeah, but more in the "keeps the stories moving" sense than "THIS is why you should be watching!" sense. I'm a lot more impatient for the next one than I was for this, though, so that's definitely something.
BULLET POINTS:
Lemme get this out of the way straight-off: Andrew is NOT actually dead because Andrew is Lash. It explains everything: Why he vanished suddenly on May, why he's so big on helping S.H.I.E.L.D catalog Inhumans but not on actually clearing them for combat, how Lash is always one step ahead of everyone, where he's getting his data from and (from this episode) why Werner looked panicked instead of psyched after the hit. The only remaining question for me is whether he's always been Inhuman (meaning he would've been one when May killed the kid psychic in her "Cavalry" origin) or whether he's among the recently-turned.
In the preview for next week, Simmons calls the mystery planet "Hell." Could be hyperbole, but recall that so far AGENTS' main point of connection to Cosmic Marvel has been through THOR-adjacent characters, and THOR: RAGNAROK supposedly involves Viking Hel.
One imagines that Hunter probably isn't going to "come back" from willingly getting a fellow Agent's loved-one "killed" to settle a grudge. Is that spin-off back on or still off? I can't keep track anymore.
NEXT WEEK: "4,722 Hours" appears to feature Simmons going all survivalist on Planet Whatever, with still no real indication as to why she'd want/need to go back there. Were there other people/things with her? Guess we'll find out in a week:
Posted by Unknown
Posted on 13:01
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I dunno. At this point I feel like JOY (installment number three of a film-series where we're not supposed to notice that the director of SPANKING THE MONKEY keeps inexplicably casting Jennifer Lawrence as middle-aged mother/nurturer figures) should stop playing cute and just own the fact that it's about the invention and maketing of The Miracle Mop.
I "get" that the idea is probably to avoid seeming like a "gimmick" premise, but from where I sit "Hey, this sort-of kitschy infomercial thing you maybe snickered at back in the 90s actually has a pretty compelling story behind it" is a more interesting pitch than "Jennifer Lawrence sternly walks through out-of-context working-class Americana for a few hours!"
THE FIGHTER was a solid, occasionally excellent movie; but the fact is David O. Russell has been on a career plunge since the magnificent THREE KINGS and thus far this one barely looks better than AMERICAN HUSTLE - and AMERICAN HUSTLE was fucking terrible.
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Posted on 23:03
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Yes, the STAR WARS trailer is lovely. But this is the preview I've been waiting for. Has it really taken 13 years to get to 6 Seasons of THE VENTURE BROS? It has. That would be irritating for any other series, but here it's more like an indicator of how much care goes into everything:
Now, the fun part: Re-watching everything to remember where exactly things left off.
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Posted on 00:44
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AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D's greatest strength is its ability to pivot on a dime into an entirely different tone or story-thrust than it had been in before, but that's also its most prominent stumbling block: When the show can be anything, what exactly are people holding on to week-to-week? The previous seasons (in hindsight) aimed to mitigate this by dividing their first and second halves by broad over-arching storylines: Season 1 was "Why is Coulson alive?" followed by "Oh shit, HYDRA's back!" Season 2 went with "What is Skye, really?" and segued to "Meet The Inhumans."
But Season 3, thus far, doesn't seem to have established a first arc or even a definite sense of purpose: Despite the season-specific "SECRET WARRIORS" branding, we mostly seem to be back in the scattershot, episodic structure of Season 1 but now the characters are all dragging two seasons worth of baggage and loose-end storylines. Maybe that's deliberate, maybe we won't know what this season is "really" about until CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR flips all the tables come May, but as of right now I'm missing the clear sense of purpose Season 2 already had by this point. SPOILERS FOLLOW: We're back to a three-way split storywise this week, in any case: Coulson and Daisy (formerly Skye) are still trying to protect newly-made (or "outed") Inhumans from both The ATCU and the monster Lash, Hunter and May are working to infiltrate Ward's new HYDRA start-up gang and Simmons, having been rescued from an alien world by Fitz, isn't re-adjusting to Earth all that well.
After taking a break last week to put the focus on reuniting Fitz/Simmons, "A Wanted (Inhu)man" turns back around to Coulson and Daisy racing against the government backed paramilitary outfit ATCU (Alien Threat Containment Unit) to get a handle on the rapidly-growing population of newly-turned Inhumans (read: Mutants, but because of Alien genetic-tampering from prehistory); the difference being that S.H.I.E.L.D wants to protect them and draft the willing into Coulson's "Secret Warriors" team, while ATCU boss Rosalind Price wants... well, it's not clear.
The key "wanted" aquisition this week is Daisy's (still boring) lightning-throwing pal Lincoln, who isn't interested in getting caught by either team but has to make a choice when ATCU leaks his name to the press and he finds himself in a tragic spot involving an old friend. Like everything else involving "Sparkplug" up to this point, it's not particularly compelling but it does the job of misdirecting a twist: Coulson is willing to give up Lincoln when it turns out ATCU's second-choice target is Daisy, but when he bolts (sorry) anyway The Director offers up a compromise: S.H.I.E.L.D (which, remember, is still technically unknown to still exist by nearly-everyone) will "temporarily" team up with ATCU.
Well... alright, then. It's a nice gray-shades turn for Coulson, taking him back to the morally-dubious problem-solver space he occupied prior to THE AVENGERS, but apart from that I'm not seeing how this is especially different from the deal struck with Talbot last season. The expectation, obviously, is that when CIVIL WAR's "let's regulate superheroes" thing kicks in ATCU will be said to be an arm of that, putting Coulson and his Secret Warriors in an awkward place, but even if that's the case it feels like a half-cooked plot turn for now.
The big secondary story continued to be Hunter and May (no James Hong this week, sadly) looking to climb into Ward's Nu-HYDRA team, which involved Hunter having to go through a FIGHT CLUB-style initiation to even get a meeting. The whole thing felt ugly and tonally off (this is another storyline where the super-spies on both sides just kinda agree not to use any of the scifi gadgetry shortcuts they have other times just because), with Hunter spilling (and losing) a ridiculous amount of blood while May wipes out a trio of would-be sexual-assailants - yeesh. A little grit is fine, but this reeked of AGENTS as the MCU's middle child trying to prove that it could be just as "cool" as its angry/ultra-violent baby sibiling DAREDEVIL.
The best stuff involved the Fitz/Simmons story, as Fitz's awkward but endearing attempts to help lead Simmons back to normality felt like it was teasing more interesting developments (in terms of the characters) than the showier A and B stories. The "button" of Bobbi and Fitz having developed a close personal friendship between seasons (he's helped her with physical rehab, she's turned out to have serious skills filling in for Simmons in the lab - alongside him) is getting hit especially hard in-tandem with Simmons being "different" now; which could make for some really uncomfortable drama i.e. one party or the other feeling like they might've waited too long to say... something. To me, that's more (potentially) interesting than the stinger of Simmons' "I have to go BACK!" (which has to be a deliberate LOST-reference, right?)
BULLET POINTS:
What's up with Simmons? Could still be (literally) anything, but the idea that she might actually need to go back through the portal somehow (to help someone? to help herself?) is a good wrinkle. This being fan-theory bait, let me throw mine in: This isn't the "real" Simmons.
Speaking of fan theories, another one being floated is that the monolith/portal is some kind of judging-mechanism that only gobbles up people "guilty" of something - recall that Simmons (unknown to everyone else) straight-up murdered a baddie last season. Notably, it also went all gooey for Professor Randolph last episode.
ATCU's endgame? Honestly, I'd be surprised if a lot of the details of that still aren't even clear to the people making the show: The degree of foreknowledge the Marvel TV team has of the Marvel Film team's specific plans is unclear, and now that they're serving two different masters (Kevin Feige now runs Marvel Studios as a separate-but-related Disney division, but TV and Netflix are still under the thumb of Marvel Inc. majority-stockholder Ike Perlmutter - a man the near-entirety of the film division famously despises) that's not likely getting any better. My guess is that the ATCU's "real mission" won't be clearly delineated until it can be revealed as a "prototype" of the pro-registration side of CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR. That having been said...
...CIVIL WAR, the comic storyline, led more-or-less directly into another Marvel's event series (after WORLD WAR HULK, which sequelized the pre-CW PLANET HULK maxiseries) SECRET INVASION. In that story, it's revealed that The Skrulls (alien shape-shifters) had been quietly infiltrating all levels of human society for decades to gradually prime us for takeover, and that they saw the post-CIVIL WAR fracturing of heroes as a perfect "coming out" opportunity. Of note, Skrulls are the ancient arch-enemies of The Kree - who created The Inhumans specifically as anti-Skrull bioweapons. Thus far our main known detail about Rosalind Price is that she's good with disguises and otherwise lacks a tangible past. Oh, and the Skrulls? They have a Queen.
I don't think we've seen the last of Professor Randolph, and I don't think he's coming back as a good guy.
Disclaimer : I haven’t seen Part 1, just the video clip of the famous anti-women speech from the film (you can see it here)
Which guy hasn’t suffered at the hands of women? Danced to her whims, coped with her ever-changing mind and struggled in the never-ending battle to win her over and please her ? This, surprisingly good, movie narrates the story of three pairs and some immensely relatable situations…and does it without ever crossing over that fine line…
Kartik, Sunny and Omkar are great friends and room-mates. Each doing well, in their respective jobs, Omkar probably the best of all, and comfortable enough with each other to constantly take each others trip when the occasion demands (or sometime doesn’t even do so). Then they all strike jackpot, in the form of three gorgeous women, at around the same time. Kartik finds Nushrat (cute, bouncy), Sunny (the least predatory, most seedha of the three) finds the svelte Sonnalli (tall, lissome) and Omkar strikes Gold in the gym with Ishita (a gorgeous figure and she knows what to do with it).
Soon, though, and in no particular order, the following situations strike their relationship
An excessive preference for pink, dresses and selfies Arguments about money – one woman always wants to pay for her half. Or does she ? The dreaded debate about Facebook status, and then worse, a demand to know her mates password…
The three women not really getting along – sometimes making nasty remarks about the others
One woman is too scared to tell her dad about her relationship, always waiting for the right time, despite knowing the parents are ‘looking’
The entry of a woman’s best friend, a guy (Manvir Singh), who seems uncomfortably close to her
A woman can’t fathom the hisaab between the three mates. But, despite several appeal to not go there, wants to.
One woman listens too much to the advice of her two girl-friends
The cops get called by zealous, protective dad
The way a guy is used for odd jobs, pick up and drops by her and her family A debate about the guy’s future plans, dreams – his desire to leave his job and set up a website
The refreshing part of the film was the non-judgmental way the women are shown to be very comfortable in their own skins, happy to drink, unabashedly wearing clothes of their choice, having no qualms about pre-marital sex (or if they do, that is not an issue). The guys are also reasonably straight-forward, neither behaving like a macho, khap panchayat or are just stringing the woman along for sex. Everything plays out quite normally, as you’d expect in real life, and is still so funny when presented the way it is. And, thankfully, the film-makers stick to their storyline and don’t clog it with back-stories or too many characters, sub-plots.
I was quite impressed with Omkar from a looks, acting skills perspective. Sunny was also quite good, as were Ishita, Sonnalli. Kartik was a little bit of a weak link – he looks a little sleazy, the chikna next door – and his expressions don’t always hit the right notes. The speech this time wasn’t as funny as the previous one and also didn’t totally relate to the situations in the film. But I loved the way the film ended – a good, gently sarcastic depiction of our men.
With each of the situations shown, you’re going to recall your own predicaments or those of someone you’ve known. The war of the sexes can be quite hilarious to observe. Unless you’re an involved party. And in this war, there really never is a victor…
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Posted on 20:04
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Rating : 2/10 Release Date : 16th October, 2015 Time : 119 minutes Director, Writer : Guillermo Del Toro; Co-Writer : Matthew Robbins; Music : Fernando Velazquez; Starring : Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver
The biggest mystery in this slasher / horror / thriller is why Tom Hiddleston took up his role ? Could he have been any more wimpier ? And overall, apart from a few cheap thrill, scary moments, could the film have been any more predictable ?
Mia is a strong-willed, feisty character, brought up by her doting, rich father (Jim) after her mother died when she was young. She has written a ghost story, partly because of the fact that she can occasionally see her mother’s ghost (quite scary, and absolutely non-maternal in behavior) ever since the night she passed away. However big publishers are encouraging her to trash her book and instead write romantic novels instead. While her mom’s ghost keeps warning her to stay away from Crimson Peak.
The return of her childhood friend, a doctor (Charlie), to set up practice coincides with the visit of a British Baronet, Tom Hiddleston and his sister, Jessica. And then things get interesting. Or do they ?
The fact that you can guess every little story twist, along with even the way the ghosts make their entrance doesn’t help the movie. The overall depressing atmosphere, the sordid going-ons, the rather black and white characters and the gore (sickening, unnecessary stuff) – nothing helps the movie. And you’re really left wondering till the end why couldn’t the brother-sister duo simply move away ?
The film has only one possible, larger-purpose use. If you’re of the right age and a guy, and you take a girl / woman to this one, you’re almost guaranteed some cling time. Apart from that, found it to be a most frightening waste of time – and I lay the blame squarely on Tom’s doorstep – I simply wouldn’t have gone, if it weren’t for him…
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Posted on 17:26
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As I said in this BMD piece, I was "onboard" with ABC's new MUPPETS show from the start, but even still I think it was probably a mistake for them to have not led with last night's 4th episode, which (thanks to stuff like this) felt a lot more like "classic Muppets" in execution - something the series has been criticized for.
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Posted on 19:02
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Realized I managed to NOT post last week's IN BOB WE TRUST, which featured the revival of SCHLOCKTOBER. My bad. Here it is below, along with the new one from this week:
Among the films I've mentioned - and attached the links for viewing - are Makhmal (starring Jackie Shroff), Debi (by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury) and Ahalya (made by Sujoy Ghosh, starring Radhika Apte, among others). I've also mentioned one secret film - based on a story by Stephen King - and possibly a way you can get to view that...
PFADZ, btw, is our website, a hub for creativity, where we even pay persons who post depending on our earning / article viewership
