Sherlock Season 2

"Brainy is the new sexy."

Picking up where Season 1 left off, with Watson dressed in explosives, Holmes is finally able to put a face to his arch enemy, the maniacal, Jim Moriarty – played by the versatile genius, Andrew Scott. Moriarty is the perfect opposite of Sherlock, and balances the scales by becoming the world’s first consulting criminal, waging a war on the world’s first consulting detective.

We also happen to meet Irene Adler (played by the stunning Laura Pulver), Sherlock’s somewhat romantic interest/rival in A Scandal in Belgravia. Playing a dominatrix, the chemistry between the two is just way too much to handle for our dear Watson.

The 2nd Season of Sherlock, just  like the last one, a compilation of three 90-minute stories, this time loosely adapting A Scandal in Bohemia, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Final Problem showing Holmes at a professional peak but at an existential low point. Holmes might seem like a bit of a cliché (with the iconic Deerstalker hat making an appearance), but change the context a little, find the perfectly aloof and icy-pale actor in Benedict Cumberbatch, give him dialogue from some of the cleverest writers in England and a visual style that’s absolutely pulsating and always shifting, and the same old Sherlock is again riveting. Before I go on and reveal too much, go and see the 1^st season (if you haven’t already), as it is very easy to catch up on just 3 episodes per season.

STARRING:
Benedict Cumberbatch
Martin Freeman

CREATED BY:
Mark Gatiss
Steven Moffat

DATE OF RELEASE:
23rd January, 2012

EPISODES:
3

First appeared on Spydistrict, over here. They're cool.

The Lunchbox

"A must-watch that you can miss."

When movies like Dabbang (quite obviously) don’t cut it anymore, someone needs to come up with ‘food-for-the-soul’ for cinephiles, and thus we look up the cinematic brilliance of movies like Rang De Basanti, Dhobi Ghat and Slumdog Millionaire. These movies cannot be compared with each other; however they tend to be slotted in the same category. The Lunchbox goes there as well.

A bored and extremely dissatisfied housewife, an old widower close to retiring and a very eager employee come together in this piece that was apparently being nominated for an Oscar. However the plot is kind of meaningless and frankly, just a little boring but still holds you as an audience. Wait till the end and one cannot stop feeling how abrupt and insulting it is to the entire film. It almost feels like they wanted to end the movie and thus, became lazy and picked out chits from a bowl as to what should be the end of the movie.  The only saving grace for Lunchbox seems to be Nowaz.

Irrfan Khan, no stranger to Hollywood, plays the role Sajjan Fernandes intensely and brings a certain depth to his character without getting too boring, but the same cannot be said about Nimrat Kaur as she plays the role of ‘Ila’ with a lot be desired. Nawazuddin Siddiqui equates to genius.

STARRING:
Irrfan Khan
Nimrat Kaur
Nawazuddin Siddiqui

DIRECTOR:
Ritesh Batra

DATE OF RELEASE:
20th September, 2013

RUNNING TIME:
104 Minutes

Wrote this one for Spydistrict, and they were nice to let me use it for my own blog. 

Sherlock Season 1

"Seduction through deduction."

When you read the stories of Sherlock Holmes in the 7^th grade, you never imagined Robert Downey Jr would play the legend, did you? And you certainly weren’t the least bit impressed when Ironman not only destroyed the greatest detective ever lived, but also made Jude Law a completely sexless entity. Or maybe I’m jaded.

However, BBC’s Sherlock is a complete 180 to the movies. It’s smart, suave, and seductive. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat (both of the Doctor Who fame) have gone on to completely revamp the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, setting the series in the present-day London where Watson regularly writes a blog about his ‘adventures’ with his eccentric roommate, and the world’s first consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Nicotine patches as a replacement for a pipe, and instead of telegrams, Holmes relies heavily on his smartphone and his website to solve baffling crimes and to occasionally converse with his nemesis – Moriarty.

Benedict Cumberbatch, the sadistic rapist from Atonement, is a fantastic choice for Sherlock Holmes – he is physically right, he actually comes across as a high-functioning sociopath (his own words) and most importantly, he is a damn good actor. Martin Freeman is an excellent foil for Holmes without being portrayed as the dorky sidekick that Dr Watson has often been shown in the other adaptations. “Watson is not an idiot, although it’s true that Conan Doyle always took the piss out of him,” says co-creator Gatiss. “But only an idiot would surround himself with idiots.”

The series is simply enthralling with just 3 (90 minute) episodes, it is easy to catch up on, and if you’re bored with the predictable and extremely generic type of detective shows out there (read: Castle), Sherlock is for you.

STARRING:
Benedict Cumberbatch
Martin Freeman

CREATED BY:
Mark Gatiss
Steven Moffat

DATE OF RELEASE:
25th July, 2010

EPISODES:
3

What can I say, Spydistrict is cool to let me use this one for my own blog too. It first appeared here.

Orphan Black Season 1

"Just one, I’m a few, no family too, who am I?"

What do you do when you witness a random woman committing suicide on a casual, deserted train station in the middle of the night? More importantly, what do you do when you witness your clone committing suicide on a random, deserted train station in the middle of the night? That is exactly what Orphan Black is all about.

A drifter, Sarah Manning, witnesses such a death of her clone – named Beth, and is soon pulled into a maddening plot where she not only discovers that she is just one out of a series of clones, but that they are all being killed one-by-one. Soon, Sarah starts impersonating Beth, who as luck would have it, is a cop investigating the clone conspiracy with the other clones. One of them is a soccer mom – Allison, the other, a Hippie lesbian scientist Cosima. Katja, the German clone is killed in the first episode, as she ambushes “Beth”. Through a series of phone calls to Beth, Sarah realizes there is much more to this as she is the only clone who isn’t barren, as she has a daughter she left in the care of Mrs. S, her own foster mother.

Now, I could give away the entire plot, but then what’s the fun in that? A crazy, mind-numbing story-line grips you and makes you crave for more. Tatiana Maslany plays literally half a dozen different characters flawlessly and there are likely to be more as the seasons roll on. Sarah’s gay foster brother Felix is played by Jordan Gavaris, who provides the show with his flamboyant wit and and also acts as a comic relief sometimes. But let’s go back to Tatiana Maslany. With the help of her make-up artists and excellent hair stylists, she plays six different roles of the clones with perfection – a bad-ass British punk (Sarah), an uptight Soccer mom in pink (Allison), a trippy lesbian scientist with dreadlocks (Cosima), the rock-n-roller German (Katja), a witty cop (Beth), a blonde and feral Ukrainian (Helena) and a Proclone, I had a hard time believing it was just one actress playing all of these roles. Each clone has a distinct stage presence as they have their very own and very different styles, looks, accents and personalities. They form their own #CloneClub.

STARRING:
Tatiana Maslany
Dylan Bruce
Jordan Gavaris
Kevin Hanchard
Michael Mando
Maria Doyle Kennedy

CREATED BY:
Graeme Manson
John Fawcett

DATE OF RELEASE:
16th July, 2013 (Region 1)
16th September, 2013 (Region 2)

EPISODES:
10

This article first appeared on the pop-culture website Spydistrict over here.

The Lords Of Salem

“In the name of Satan, Ruler of the Earth, the King of the world; open wide the gates of Hell and come forth from your blessed abyss.”

Rocker-turned-director Rob Zombie has established the fact that he knows what he is doing with five films in his strapping technique, as one of Hollywood’s most unlikely film-maker. The guy can compose some truly astounding imagery even though his gruesome kind of onscreen bedlam may be thematically revolting. Now I won’t actually brand myself a fan, but I will admit that the ending of The Devil’s Rejects was beautiful in its own sickly anarchic way, the one reason I had high hopes for his newest film, The Lords of Salem.

It’s easy to imagine that Salem (a small town not very far from where Zombie grew up), which is well-known for its witch trials during the 1600s, in a way, helped  mold Zombie into the mad genius of chaos that he is today. However, The Lords of Salem is just a boring mess. The film seems like a mixture of a behind-the-scenes shoot of one of the many psychedelic Satanic horror movies of the 70s.

The movie starts out with a sluggish build getting to know the protagonist, Heidi played by Sherri Moon Zombie, who is a recovering coke addict and a local radio-jockey for a funky late night radio show. Heidi receives a mysterious LP called The Lords and guessing that the album must be from a latest and upcoming band, the RJ play it on the show. As the echo goes out over the radio, the local women go into a trance, Heidi has brutal headaches and from that point on starts to have trippy hallucinations. Numerous flashbacks to the 1600s expose a coven of witches having their Sabbath or Black Mass, dancing naked around a fire, making horrific music, worshiping Satan with amateurish incantations like “You are the dragon, Lord Satan!”. The local authorities seize all the witches and put them on trial where they are burned alive at the stake. While dying, the leader of the coven curses Nathaniel Hawthorne, and all of his ancestors. Heidi starts a slow decent into madness from the moment she stands in front of a neon cross, holding her hands out, in her very first hallucination. She starts getting harassed by satanic forces, is forced to have very life-like hallucinations, and of course, the neighborhood witch and her coven of twisted ‘sisters’. Every rite involves a lot of repulsive nudity that is amplified by body suits. Public burnings and satanic births have never been so vivid.

The Lords of Salem has a genuine art-house inventive feel to it, which Zombie’s earlier films did not posses. Several shots that remind the viewer of classic Argento films like Suspiria. The use of gloomy yet groovy background scenery(the apartment building) is almost like an additional character in the film. The movie owes a lot of its influences to classic horror films like The Shining. The only part of the film that seemed way out of context was the psychedelic finale. If you can appreciate an art-house independent horror film you will enjoy it. If you prefer a grindhouse style gory action movie, you will hate it. A mix of Tarantino and Kubrik’s styles disrupts the flow of the film. Unfortunately, The Lords of Salem won’t really appeal to the general public and that fact is not helped as the movie did not get a wide release the way Zombie’s previous films did.

STARRING:
Sheri Moon Zombie
Bruce Davison
Jeff Daniel Phillips
Ken Foree
Patricia Quinn
Dee Wallace
María Conchita Alonso
Judy Geeson
Meg Foster

DIRECTOR:
Rob Zombie

DATE OF RELEASE:

• 10th September, 2012 (Toronto International Film Festival)
• 18th April, 2013 (Italy (limited))
• 19th April, 2013 (United States (limited)

RUNNING TIME:
101 Minutes

This first appeared on this epic website called Spydistrict, over here. 

Stoker

“Just as a flower does not choose its color, we are not responsible for what we have come to be.” – India Stoker

Twisted in the obscurity which is the state of the dark mind, Stoker is a story that entices as it gives way to disturbing perfection.

When you see the name on the writer in the opening credits, Wentworth Miller, for a moment all you think of is criminals, tattoos, and Prison Break, not Gothic thrillers. However, threatening, bizarrely sinister and oddly gripping is the best description of Chan-wook Park’s English debut, Stoker. It is difficult to not feel uneasy by their disturbing creation with a fabulous soundtrack and exceptional camera work.

On her 18^th birthday, India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) loses her father to an unexplained accident, the one member of her dysfunctional family unit who understood her quirks. Now she is trapped in her Gothic manor with her emotionally unstable mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman), who clings to the edge of her sanity. A devilishly charming uncle, Charlie (Matthew Goode), comes to live with them even though Evelyn and India basically never knew this mystery man existed. His charisma sends the house staff into a gossiping muddle and terrify India’s aunt Gwendolyn (Jacki Weaver).

India, considered intellectual but creepy by everyone, finds herself increasingly ensnared by Charlie, who like her father, seems to identify with her quirks that she never realized she possessed. He tries to befriend her by showing up to fetch her from school in his fancy car, warning her about the rain and leaving her an umbrella, yet she is indifferent to these gestures, in the beginning, but his sinister allure begins to shatter her cold shield.

A grotesquely claustrophobic environment reigns over her psyche and India is subdued, and Charlie, too, is holding back until they unleash hostility by playing the piano together, competing wordlessly. Evelyn seems to be only one caught out-of-place by giving herself the liberty to chase her deviant desires and thus the characters react unbecomingly, making the viewer squirm in discomfort.

Park is extremely subtle in revealing the horrifying truth that plagues the Stoker family. He teases and agitates the viewer’s mentality to the very seams, as he prepares to expose yet another level of this unsettling story.

Mia Wasikowska, of the Alice in Wonderland fame, delivers another stellar performance of overwhelming intensity. She manages to demonstrate a flood of passion almost invisibly. Kidman  is coldly self-possessed, and portraying this is essential to the story. Matthew Goode is an under-rated artist that performs enigmatically as he keeps the audience guessing until the end as to what is really on the nonchalant, yet delicately volatile Charlie’s mind.

STARRING:
Mia Wasikowska
Matthew Goode
Nicole Kidman

DIRECTOR:
Park Chan-Wook

RELEASE:
1st March, 2013

RUNNING TIME:
99 Minutes

I wrote this for a super-cool website: Spydistrict, and it first appeared over here.

Dented and Painted

I am Dented and Painted. You are Dented and Painted. This nation has been Dented and Painted. Humanity is dead, and on its epitaph, is written - Dented and Painted.

Get your bloody politics out of my body and keep them there.

Yes, I’m pro-choice (no, I don’t kill babies). I have no issues with abortion, and I believe that every woman should have complete bodily autonomy and should be able to have a procedural abortion if she chooses to. This does not mean that I support abortion due to sex selection/discrimination. 

 

Motherhood is a powerful institution, and should only be entered into if and when the woman is willing to. I do not understand why politics, as well as religion are considered, when a woman has made a very personal decision to have an abortion? These backward laws are not stopping abortions; they are just making these medical procedures unsafe. If a girl wants to have an abortion, trust me, she will. 

 

And what about rape victims? Victims of incest? Teenagers who are pregnant with no fault of their own? Odds are that 1 in 3 women will be victims of sexual violence in her lifetime. Does this mean that 33% of all women should be forced to carry out a pregnancy from this violation? Should we allow this further risk to be endured on top of what has already been done? Why should a girl be forced to carry out a pregnancy that is only going to remind her of an extremely disturbing and traumatizing event? Where is the humanity in that?

 

Now many of you would argue that these women could endure the pregnancy, spending nearly a year of her life basically re-living the rape and its psychological and physical effects over and over again, to give up a baby at the end of it for adoption. However, we all are aware of the fact that there are millions of unwanted children awaiting adoption as you read this, who remain unclaimed; in fact, UNICEF estimates that there are 210 million orphans in the world right now. If they have no one willing to be their parent or custodian, why would another baby have a better chance?

Eternal Glory

Because the paths to the Lord are inscrutable
Because the essence of His forgiveness
Lies in His word and in His mystery
Because although God sends us the message
It is our task to decipher it
Because when we open our arms
The earth takes in only a hollow and senseless shell
Far away now is the soul in its eternal glory
Because it is in pain that we find the meaning of life
And the state of grace that we lose when we are born
Because God, in His infinite wisdom, puts the solution in our hands
And because it is only in His physical absence
That the place He occupies in our souls is reaffirmed.  


I recently watched the movie – El Laberinto Del Fauno (The Faun's Labyrinth) also known as Pan's Labyrinth in some countries, which is a dark fantasy film, written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro.
These particular words that were spoken by a priest, during Carmen’s funeral, is one of the most touching eulogies that I have ever heard in a movie (with subtitles). Going over and over the scene, I finally penned it down here, a place where I come in my darkest hours.

I just couldn’t get over the fact that when we die, all that is left behind is a ‘hollow and senseless shell’ and the soul is lost forever. Memories slowly fade away and die with those that we shared them with and that one day all traces of ourselves will be lost forever. All that will ever remain is a name on a stone laid there by the people we loved and who loved us back. Will the soul ever find eternal l glory, heaven or hell (whatever you want to believe in)? Or will it just vanish, just as our names will as the world progresses?

Devoid

Late night, and here I am. Sitting, thinking, biting my lip. What is this strangeness? This sadness? The cold doesn't make it numb. Is it the dim light? Maybe I could brighten the place up, but can that brighten my heart . . . do I even have a heart? I mean, I feel warm and fuzzy sometimes, but most of the time I can only feel the misery this causes me. The misery I cause to others, knowingly, unknowingly. I must stop biting my lip, it causes the bleeding.

I do see the knife. I do see the veins. They say it's like an adrenaline rush, feeling it pump out. But no, its a coward's way out. Plus, I don't have a tub to lay in and do it. The mess it would make on my floor. But then there is this feeling, and I can't seem to get a hold over it. Its not happiness for sure, not about the newest crush that I have, not PMS, not the cold. By the way, it is 18 degrees here, so suck it.

But then again, what is it?