12 Strong, review: Lucky by the Dozen You are about to watch the declassified true story of the first American soldiers sent into Afghanistan after 9/11. They were called the Army Green Berets Operational Detachment Alpha 595 (ODA 595) and consisted of just twelve. On the battleground in Afghanistan, they were outnumbered 40 to 1. But they won their battle, and all of them returned, largely unscarred. Now that is what I would call being lucky. They were heroes, nevertheless, but since the ope...

Paddington 2, review: Bear maximum Imagine a London where bears are accepted as persons and move about freely; a London where Aunt Lucy and her nephew Paddington board a bus and buy tickets for “One-and-a-half bears.” Imagine a bear named Paddington, so called because his adoptive human family find him at Paddington railway station. And imagine a bear that has the highest moral standards and sets the benchmark for ethics and courtesy, not only among regular humans, but even jailbi...

Downsizing, review: Mini We Once in a while, a movie comes along that renews our faith in creative writing and the ability of cinema to rise above its own decadence. Maybe it took a dozen ‘shrink’, ‘little’ and ‘antman’ films, from 1957 to 2015, to inspire the writers of Downsizing, the title itself a pun, but the resulting effort has a fresh new feel about it. After setting up a very interesting premise and some smooth as silk spellbinding VFX, the film th...

Insidious 4-The Last Key, review: Spectral Sightings by Psychic and her side-kicks Was a time when unfriendly ghosts used to have a motive for their haunting, and usually, it was revenge. Then, they began to exist for existence’s sake, in an alternate world, or the beyond, paranormal realm, crossing over accidentally into mother earth. Over time, they have inherited one most condemnable human trait--sadism. Once we stipulate that ghosts can exist solely with the motive of torturing hum...

Pitch Perfect 3, review: Fat Amy’s tall father and DJ Khaled’s Bella a capella Wrapping-up the three-part series, the third instalment queers the pitch and is not perfect by a long mile. Some tweens have enjoyed their 93 minutes at the cinema-house, judging by the box-office collections, and so be it. More discerning cine-goers might have a flippant time at best, watching some caustic exchanges, routine choreography and songs that don’t stay with you too long. Three years ...

All the Money in the World, Review: Ear today, gone tomorrow Cinquanta to Gail: “Who is this so-called grandfather? How can he leave his own flesh and blood in the plight that your poor son is in? Here is the richest man in America, and you tell me he refuses to find just 10 miliardi for his grandson’s safety. Signora, you take me for a fool.” Two Ridley Scott releases in the same year? Alien Covenant and All the Money in the World mark the repeat of a phenomenon that occur...

The Greatest Showman, Review: Also fraudster, huckster and the King of humbug! Hollywood’s great showman Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) was a grandiose, over-the-big-top tribute to circuses, and won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Story. It was the story of the Ringling Circus and not about Phineas Taylor Barnum, who has inspired the film at hand. The Greatest Showman is about P.T. Barnum, and the reference to the film of 65 years ago is made becau...

Jumanji-Welcome to the Jungle, Review: You only live thrice If you happen to get your hands on a board-game called Jumanji, you and all within range will be transported to a virtual jungle, where virtually all imaginable forms of carnivorous animals will vie with each other to gobble you up. But even if they do, do not worry, you will still live, to die another day, by falling off a cliff, perhaps. Now that you have used up two of your allotted three lives (nine are for cats only), you better...

Star Wars-The Last Jedi, Review: The Lost Jedi George Lucas maintains that his Star Wars films were for kids. Back in the late 70s, when the trade-mark skewed angle intro rolling text greeted us as the film began, I was not a kid. Maybe the sensibilities of an Indian film-goer at 25 were akin to the school-kids in the West, but I loved what I saw. Since, I have seen most, if not all, the core movies and the spin-offs/anthologies, most of them likeable, but the 40th anniversary release saw me ...

Mark Felt--The Man Who Brought Down the White House, Review: Clearing Deep Throat After John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, at age 46, which remains an unresolved conspiracy 53 years later, there was another political event that pinned dirty political tricks on President Richard Nixon around the time of his re-election, and he had to resign soon after being re-elected, in 1974. The Watergate exposé was published by two journalists of the Washington Post and one from Time Mag...

My Little Pony-The Movie, review: Rainbow in her pony tail Featuring the universe of the 1986 debut, My Little Pony: The Movie, the 2017 franchise, takes us back to the good old world of traditional animation, which is a rarity in the days of VFX, CGI and Motion Capture. A veritable feast of colours and dream architecture keep you enchanted and entranced for 99 minutes, and it matters little that the series is a spin-off from Equestrian Girls, a Hasbro Toys venture, targeted at, who else? You...

A Bad Moms Christmas, review: Santa is a stripper They don’t bother giving any back-stories, and none are needed in this sequel to the 2016 outing. Christmas and Bad Mom specialists (Bad Dads is coming) Jon Lucas and Scott Moore team-up once again to debrief what Christmas and happiness is all about, and span it across three generations of American families. A Bad Moms Christmas peppers its script with a dozen stereo-types, and then proceeds to revel in ripping them apart, in the most i...

Thor-Ragnarok: Of hammers and horns, Avengers and Revengers Add humour. Suspended in mid space inside a trap-net by the fire demon Surtur, Thor asks a fellow prisoner how long has he been there. Pans out the fellow has already turned into a skeleton by this time, and, on hearing Thor’s query, his jaw (bone) drops off, literally. That’s the first scene, and the first laugh. After a marathon bout as gladiators in a cosmic arena, Thor and Hulk are freshening up, and Hulk comes out of...

  Sharon Waxman founder of The Wrap  at forefront, Harvey Weinstein and Tim Burton   Written by Laurie Gordon   Hollywood's culture of silence, dysfunction and enabling may finally be put to rest or come back up for air after this short commercial break brought to you by The Weinstein Brother (Hands Solo?).   How did Harvey Weinstein end up on a moderated by ex-NY Times reporter Sharon Waxman of The Wrap? Or better how did Wa...

mother!, review: The allegory category Darren Aronofsky’s reputation precedes him, as milling crowds at Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI)’s 19th Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) bore testimony. Every show was packed to capacity and it was only at 10.30 pm on the last day of the festival that I could get to see mother!, thanks to the consideration shown by an event manager earlier in the day. Any director who has names like Black Swan and Noah on his portfolio is bound to generate hi...

      KEITH COLLINS - DOUG BOLLINGER -TIMOTHY LAUREL HARRISON - ANNELISE NIELSEN  STAR IN NEW THRILLER  "THE SAMARITANS"    Award-Winning Team To Have World Premiere In Atlantic City, NJ      "No good deed goes unpunished"    The Thrilling new feature film "The Samaritans" will have its highly anticipated World Premiere at the 10th Annu...

  by Alex Deleon   The 2017 Venice Film Festival was so overwhelmingly dominated by Hollywood films and personalities that it was to all intents and purposes an American festival that happened to be taking place in Italy.  First of all the career awards.  Tandem career Lions were presented to senior Hollywood icons, Robert Redford (81) and one time First Lady of Protest Jane Fonda (79) on the second night of the fest. Both still looking good in spite of their de...

A special presentation of Denis Villeneuve’s BLADE RUNNER 2049  Opening film of the 46th Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC)   Montreal Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) is pleased to announce that Denis Villeneuve’s latest work, BLADE RUNNER 2049, will be presented at a special screening on October 4 at Théâtre Maisonneuve de la Place des Arts as the opening film of its 46th edition, which runs from...

By Maria Esteves – August 26, 2017 The amazing dance single 'Hard Times' by Randy Jones (RJ) released by Young Pals Music with remix compilations by world renowned DJs Drew G, Eric Kupper, Mark Saunders, and Tim Cox U.K.is available on Amazon, Apple and Young Pal Music store. The single "Hard Times" is unveiled in Ayhan Sahin's pop album "POP." While this year, the Village People recording group celebrates their 40th Anniversary, and this Sunday is the 34...

Atomic Blonde, Review by Siraj Syed: Blonde, Lorraine Blonde “Bond, James Bond” is the most famous self-introduction in spy movie history, courtesy Sean Connery playing Ian Fleming’s Cold War time British secret agent 007. Fifty-five years on, Charlize Theron has picked a graphic novel by Anthony Johnston to invent herself as Lorraine (blonde) Broughton, the present day ‘equivalent’ of not only Bond, but John Wick and Jason Bourne, with a dash of Mad Max, severel...

Dunkirk, Review by Siraj Syed: 300,000 stranded soldiers--Between certain death and uncertain rescue, a movie to cling on to It really happened. Give or take a few details, it really happened. Between 300,000 and 400,000 British troops were evacuated by British vessels from a beach in Dunkirk, , in May 1940, amidst German submarine and aerial attacks. Dunkirk, the movie, is a visual roller-coaster on land, sea and air, where thrills are interwoven with chills, and dizzy heights blend wit...

The Black Prince who walked the Red Carpet at Cannes Very little is known about Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Punjab with his capital at Lahore, who is said to have gifted the invaluable Koh-i-Noor diamond to Queen Victoria, while a young boy. Time and again, a lobby is raised in India to try and get it back from Britain, only to fizzle out. Dalip Singh remains an enigmatic figure, a missing chapter from India’s colonial history. All that is set to change with oncoming rel...

Transformers-The Last Knight, Review by Siraj Syed: Michael’s Bay Watch A lot of words related to media get either entirely new meanings or stretch their known meanings to the limit and beyond, once you have watched Michael Bay’s Transformers. It is far too tempting to let the last Knight remain as it is, without getting punny. I saw the film last Night (Wednesday late afternoon, to be precise), and I often felt that last Night was never going to end. It eventually did, and exiti...

Cars 3, Review by Siraj Syed: Car-actor roles Imagine this. You are a fading racing veteran and suddenly you lose a race to a rookie? What do you do? Seek professional help and training, even dig out your late mentor’s buddies and have a go at the next race. Now imagine all these characters are cars, not human beings, and you know you are watching the new Disney-Pixar enterprise dubbed Cars 3. It’s as human as human can be, but then again, it is as automobiley as automobiley can g...