The Walking Dead: “Say the Word” Review

Director:

Greg Nicotero

Writer:

Angela Kang

Review:

OHHMYGOD!! The Walking Dead’s third season has consistently delivered wonderful episodes and this is no different.

As the episode starts you might think that it’s a flash back to happier times, but NO! It is actually Woodbury and its party. People seem to be happy there. Then we see The Governor combing a little girl’s hair and then a piece of her scalp falls of and we realise that the girl is actually a Walker/Biter and is his daughter. That whole scene was twisted and sick and messed up…. In a good way of course.

This was Michonne’s episode. She doesn’t trust The Governor (Obviously!). I must commend Danai Gurira‘s acting. She brings out the true essence of Michonne from the comics, which I love! She nonchalant way in which she cuts those walkers is just amazing! She then leaves Woodbury after having an argument with Andrea. Andrea has become somewhat irritating and Michonne got away from her. Woodbury has its parties too. Drinks, merriment and for entertainment… gladiator fights with… Walkers of course… Which led to Andrea getting angry at The Governor.

Back at the prison, Rick goes on a mad rampage. He takes an axe and starts killing all the walkers in the infested cellblock. On the other hand, the baby need formula to survive and thus Maggie and Daryl go into the town to find it. And when he returns, we see an emotional side of Daryl. He feeds the baby, smile at her and cradles her. He also keeps a Cherokee Rose on Carols grave.

Andrew Lincoln is an awesome actor. His emotional breakdown in the previous episode and continued in this is amazingly played out. He converted his grief to an intense killing urge. Rick had no dialogue in the whole episode (except till the very end, where he says “Hello?”) is a nice touch. He actually pushes away Glen who tries to help him. The phone ringing at the end and Rick answering it raises a lot of questions.

I’m upset that they havent cleared the air aout Carol. It’s been bugging me.. IS SHE ALIVE OR IS SHE DEAD? The Walkers kills were amazing. Kudos to the graphics team. I’d say that the best performances in this episode were my Michonne, Daryl and Rick. The only problem is that Andrea has become dense. Otherwise, this episode is amazing, just like the rest of the season.

Final Verdict:

8.7/10

Fringe Season 5 Premiere Review

Director:

Jeannot Szwarc, Miguel Sapochnik

Writer:

J. H. Wyman

Review:

Yay! Fringe is back for the fifth and the final season! The last season is here and only 13 episodes till the end. There are very few stories and each have to be magnified value. I’m concerned that this episode wasn’t as powerful as it was needed to be.

This episode is a continuation of the previous season’s episode- Letters of Transit. The episode starts with a voice over by Walter filling us in on the details of the Observer invasion. We then see how it happened in Peter’s dream. The events that took place in the years between Season 4 and 2036 is still unclear, Peters Dream and the other characters give us some of the information. But still there is something missing..

The story continued as the team tries to find Olivia. They find out that she had Ambered her self and Amber Gypsies took her. There is a black market for these people stuck in Amber. When they go to the person who sells them, to no surprise, he calls the Observers to rat them out. They later find out that Markham has already bought her. He is delusional and is in love with her. After that, they get her out of the amber and the whole team is reunited. Well almost.

While they are there, The observers arrive and they take Walter away. He is tortured by one of the Observers and that also by mind tricks.. Back to where the team is now, Olivia meets her adult daughter Henrietta for the first time. Then Olivia and Peter have an emotional discussion and Peter cries. When they apologize for the wrongs of the past, we don’t have context. The plot fills you in. but it is still unclear.

The rescue mission for Walter wasn’t as exciting as I would like it. It was also far too easy to retrieve him. Then, the realization that Walter has forgotten everything about the plan just shocks you. The episode ends with Walter listening to a 80’s track while looking at a dandelion growing from the barren ground. It ends with pop music, which is rare for Fringe. It sets the mood. The scene was beautiful and it was nicely directed and it sets the mood for the whole season. The writing was good and the acting was as usual very good. But it’ll take some time before we actually get to the thick of it.

Final Verdict:

7.5/10

Elementary Series Premiere Review

Director:

Michael Cuesta

Writer:

Rob Doherty

Cast:

Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes

Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson.

Aidan Quinn as Captain Tobias Gregson

Review:

Sherlock in modern times… Wait a minute.. Haven’t I already seen something like this?

Sherlock Holmes in modern times isn’t a new concept.. The great Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have already used it in their BBC series ‘Sherlock’. Two major differences in this is that, this is in America and Watson is a woman. I was apprehensive of changing the gender of Watson and thus destroying the essential Holmes/Watson Bromance that I look forward to in any Sherlock story. After sometime I was quite excited to see how Elementary actually is. How were they going to explain Sherlock in New York? What will happen between Holmes and Watson? These were few of the questions in my mind before. I really wanted them answered.

The episode started like any other crime and police procedural drama by showing us a woman being killed. Then we meet Joan played by Lucy Liu and Sherlock played by Johnny Lee Miller. She is his sober companion sent by his father. Sherlock being Sherlock figures out that she was a surgeon. Then we meet Captain Tobias Gregson, Elementary’s Lestrade (though he is a minor character in the Conan Doyle’s series). They get into the case and Sherlock uses his deduction skills to find out that something was missing from the house and found the body and found out that she allowed the killer into the house and gave him some water. He just goes on figuring out stuff in the episode and we just have to keep wondering who the killer is. When we think that this man is the killer, he goes and finds another man who might be the killer and then another and then we return to the first man who is that actual killer.

Frankly I wasn’t very impressed by this episode. This episode had no reference to the books or anything. The BBC Sherlock was filled with nods to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. The story in this episode was quite weak. The chemistry between Holmes and Watson was different. I can’t explain what’s happening or what going to happen between them. As I mentioned before the essential Bromance is missing. Joan is a good companion (though one would have thought of her to be more of a firefly companion, but she is more like a Doctor Who companion), she gets into the business of being Holmes’ partner pretty fast and is an efficient one. She helps him and she also shows ger dedication to her job.

As I mentioned before the story was weak. For a pilot, which is quite important to make the show work and people to like it, it was disappointing. On the bright side, the acting was good. Johnny Lee Miller’s Sherlock is good but, it is no where near Benedict Cumberpatch’s or even Robert Downey’s. Lucy Liu’s Dr. Joan Watson is also pretty good, but I am missing the bromance. Aidan Quinn’s Gregson was amazing; his performance was one of the high points of the episode. There were some funny lines in this episode one of them was “My barrister was rubbish”. Elementary’s cast outclasses its script..

Though this episode isn’t as much of a disaster as I had initially expected it to be. It was fun to see Miller’s Holmes, Liu’s Watson and Quinn’s Gregson, but neither is it worth watching. In a world where Moffat’s Sherlock didn’t exist, this would have been better. But thank god we don’t live in such a world.

Nevertheless I will continue watching this series to see where it goes.

Final Verdict:

4/10

Political Animals Episode 1

Elaine Barrish: Never call a bitch, a bitch. Us bitches hate that.

Director:

Greg Berlanti

Creator: 

Greg Berlanti, Laurence Mark

Writer:

Greg Berlanti

Cast:

Sigourney Weaver as Elaine Barrish

Carla Gugino as Susan Berg

Ciarán Hinds as Bud Hammond

James Wolk as Douglas Hammond

Sebastian Stan as Thomas (T. J.) Hammond

Ellen Burstyn as Margaret Barrish

Brittany Ishibashi as Anne Ogami

Adrian Pasdar as Paul Garcetti

Dylan Baker as Fred Collie

Story:

Elaine Barrish, a former First Lady and current Secretary of State, finds herself recently divorced, and must deal with State Department issues while trying to keep her family together.

Review:

The Queen of Sci-fi is back! She is one of the best female actors. And now she plays a role which fits her perfectly. The Former First Lady and now Secretary of State, is such a powerful character. Her role seems little like Hilary Clinton. Her dialogues are funny and sarcastic.

The first episode has a slow start but builds up to a wonderful end. The acting of Sigourney is AWESOME and Ciaran Hinds voice sounds to loud and at times I can’t understand his dialogues. The end was awesome. Sadly this is only a limited miniseries of only 6 episodes.

Final Verdict:

7.5/10

Book Review: The Great Gatsby

“Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.”

Author:

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Publisher:

Charles Scribner’s Sons

Published on:

April 10, 1925

Review:

When people say that a book is a classic, you’d expect something great out of that book. I was told that The Great Gatsby was a classic novel, this was one of the reason I read this book. The second reason was that a movie adaptation of this was coming end of this year with Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of Gatsby. I started reading this book expecting this to blow me away. But I was sadly disappointed with it.

The book had an irregular narrative. It skipped from one point of time to another. The story was presented haphazardly in the book. The writing wasn’t very good. I know that this is a classic, but I think that I would have appreciated it more if i had read it when it was released in 1925.

All in all the book was quite boring. It was a task for me to finish it.

Final Verdict:

5/10

The Newsroom S01E01 Review

The Newsroom Season 1 Episode 1 ‘ We Just Decided To’

Director:

Greg Mottola

Producer:

Scott Rudin

Writer:

Aaron Sorkin

Cast:

Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy

Emily Mortimer as Mackenzie MacHale

John Gallagher, Jr. as Jim Harper

Alison Pill as Maggie Jordan

Dev Patel as Neal Sampat

Olivia Munn as Sloan Sabbith

Thomas Sadoski as Don Keefer

Sam Waterston as Charlie Skinner

Story:

In the aftermath of his breakdown, Will McAvoy returns to his job to find that most of his colleagues are leaving and his executive producer is his ex-girlfriend, and when some breaking news hits the station, the staff faces a new challenge.

Review:

First when I saw the trailer for this series, I thought that here is another boring show for TV. But now since I have actually seen the first episode, I realize that I couldn’t have been more wrong! Jeff Daniels has acted so well. The story is wonderfully created by Aaron Sorkin, who previously created The West Wing which was also an Emmy-award winning series.

The start of the series where Will McAvoy tell why America isn’t the best country in the world was a nicely written dialogue. The Newsroom is an Aaron Sorkin’s much-anticipated return to TV. The show is humorous and interesting. I actually expected this episode to be slow and boring. But it kept me engaged through out.  The acting was just marvelous especially by Jeff Daniels. His shouting contests were just too good.

Emily Mortimer and Alison Pill and John Gallenger have also done an awesome job! This is an interesting TV show and I want to see where it goes. Sadly only 8 episode in this series.

Final Verdict:

9/10. A truly amazing series!

Legend of Korra Season Finale Review

The Legend of Korra Book 1- Air Episode 11-12 “Skeletons in the Closet” & “Endgame”

Director:

Joaquim Dos Santos & Ki Hyun Ryu

Writer:

Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko

Review:

What an awesome season finale. The orignal Avatar was awesome. And this series lives up to the high expectations set by its predecessor. The episode was nicely written and the story was just awesome. Many things were revealed in this episode. We finally got to know the identity of Amaan. Who turns out to be Tarlok’s brother Noatak. This information, they get from Tarlok himself, who is being held captive by Amaan.   Also Ihro, arrives, who is the grand-son of Zuko. Korra, saves Ihro when his whole fleet of ships is destroyes by Equalists’ mines in the water. After which, he is taken to their hiding place. There they send a message to Bumi, Tenzin’s brother, they they may be ambushed. Then the Avatar sneaks in to the rally and tells everyone about Amaan’s true identity. Then she finds out that he has Tenzin and his family captive and he is going to take away his bending. She attacks him and then, Amaan and Korra have a duel. And in that, her bending is taken away. Mako, attacks Amaan and he runs wth her. She then realises that she can only air bend now. This was such an awesome scene.

Throughout that scene, i was telling my self that the avatar will ger her bending back! And is was hundred percent sure that no one can take an avatar’s bending. But as the story progressed I lost all hope that Korra would be able to bend the other elements, other than Air. But in that end, the best scene in the season,  Avatar Aang appears and returns her bending. And then she returns Baifung’s bending too.  In another scene, Amaan and Tarlok have run away from Republic city. And Tarlock, blows the whole boat up!.

Now after this episode got over, I was thinking to my self ‘Now What?’. By that I mean what will be the story for Book 2. Will some new enemy pop up? Or will it still be Amaan? Did he escape the explosion? The previous series had the Phoenix King as the protagonist. And in this the Protagonist was Amaan. So who is there for season 2? All of this we’d get to know only once Book 2 starts to air.

Final Verdict:

8.5/10

Drive

Driver: [on phone] There’s a hundred-thousand streets in this city. You don’t need to know the route. You give me a time and a place, I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes and I’m yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that and you’re on your own. Do you understand?

Director:

Nicholas Winding Refn

Producer:

Gigi Pritzker, Adam Siegel, Michel Litvak & John Palermo

Cast:

Ryan Gosling as The Driver

Carey Mulligan as Irene

Bryan Cranston as Bernie Rose

Oscar Issac as Standard Gabriel

Ron Perlman as Nino

Kaden Leos as Benicio

James Biberi as Cook

Music:

Cliff Martinez

Based on the novel of the same name by James Sallis

The Story:

A mysterious Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and getaway driver lands himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbour.

The Review:

The movie had slow start, but slowly it built up to an awesome story, Ryan Gosling acted very well, though he didn’t have much of a speaking part in the movie. The background score was also amazing. It suited the movie perfectly. The movie had some Quentin Tarantino-ish styles. The movie also payed homage to Taxi Driver. I thought the movie was wonderfully made with an awesome ending. Apparently the sequel book ‘Driven’ is being released soon, after which, it probably would be made into a movie.

Final Verdict:

Enjoyable movie. 7.75/10.

Another quote I loved from the movie:

Shannon: I know a lot of guys who mess around with married women, but you’re the only one I know who robs a place to pay back the husband.

Hugo

Georges Méliès: My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.

Director:

Martin Scorsese

Producer:

Johnny Depp, Graham King, Timothy Headington & Martin Scorsese.

Cast:

Asa Butterfield as Hugo Cabret

Ben Kingsley as Georges Méliès, the toy shop owner and former filmmaker.

Chloë Grace Moretz as Isabelle, Georges’ goddaughter

Sacha Baron Cohen as Inspector Gustave,

Ray Winstone as Claude Cabret, Hugo’s Uncle

Jude Law as Hugo’s father, a clockmaker

Christopher Lee, Monsieur Labisse, the bookshop owner

Helen McCrory as Mama Jeanne , Georges’ wife

Michael Sthulbarg as René Tabard, a film historian

Emily Mortimer as Lisette, the flower girl

Frances de la Tour as Madame Emile, the owner of the café

Music:

Howard Shore

Based on Brian Selznick‘s novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”

The Story:

Set in 1930s Paris, an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.

The Review:

What a wonderful movie. The acting of Chloë Grace Mortez and Asa Butterfield was brilliant. This is Martin Scorsese’s first movie shot in 3D. It’s a truly brilliant movie and the music was also fantastic. It won 5 oscars: Best Art Direction, Best Sound Mixing, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Editing.. It deserved all the awards. Its an enjoyable movie.. God knows why they are not releasing it in India. The reason given was that “it had no famous actors.” What about Ben Kingsley, Jude Law and Moretz? And they also said that it didn’t do well in the US box office. Did they even check? It earned around: $180,000,000 dollars.

Still they wont release it.

Final Verdict:

8.5/10

Kahaani

This I believe is my 100th post. Can’t believe I’ve managed to write 100 posts. So the 100th post is a review of a very rare, one in a million Hindi movie- “Kahaani“.

Director:

Sujoy Gosh

Producer:

Sujay Gosh and Kushal Gada

Cast:

Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi

Parambrata Chatterjee as Rana/ Satyuki

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Khan, IB Officer

Saswata Chatterjee as Bob Biswas

Indraneil Sengupta as Milan Damji

Abir Chatterjee as Vidya’s Husband.

Music:

Vishal-Shekar

The Story:

Vidya Bagchi, a young Tamilian married to a Bengali man, based in London arrives in Kolkata to search for her missing husband “Arnab Bagchi”. She is 7 months pregnant and alone in a festive city preparing for it’s annual mother of all festivals – the Durga Puja. She is helped by a young rookie cop Satyoki/Rana who goes all out to help the lady he feels very protective towards.Together they unravel the mysteries one by one, and come face to face with various characters like hardened Intelligence officer Khan, sinister contract killer Bob Biswas, sympathetic HR officer Agnes who all knowingly or unknowingly help Vidya and Rana go one step closer to finding the real truth about Arnab Bagchi, who doesn’t have any record in any papers whatsover. Does he even exist outside Vidya’s head or is she the victim of a vast conspiracy?

The Review:

The movie is brilliant. A well written script and even better acting by Vidya Balan. This is a one in a million movie, because the track record of Hindi Movies has been terrible. One in Fifteen are good. This is a very rare movie which I cannot fault in any way. Usually any good hindi movies have some or the other flaws, but this is a strangely awesome movie. This has almost no faults. And phenomenal acting by Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chatterjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

Only one problem I had in the movie, and I’m only mentioning it because I am forced to. Vidya Balan is acting as a Tamilian who can’t wear a sari. Thats the only problem. Otherwise the movie is flawless. Its a master piece.

Amitabh’s rendition of Rabindranath Tagore’s song “Ekla Chalo Re” was awesome to. Its a wonderful song. And so is the first song in the movie “Ami Shotti Bolchi” by Usha Uthup and Shekar Rajivani. Another strange thing in the movie is that there aren’t very many songs in the movie. The soundtrack as 6 but only 2 of them are in the movie. And the others seem to be only instrumental.

The movie has a very simple story where nothing is as it seems. I don’t want to reveal much of the movie. The movie has a very surprising ending which was not expected by any one.

Final Verdict:

The movie was very enjoyable and I couldn’t find many flaws in the movie as i was so engrossed in the compelling story. 9/10.

Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi. Artwork done by my cousin.

Check out my cousins review for Kahaani also.

Check out his blog too.