Edge of Tomorrow

Director Doug Liman hit upon this original idea of making a movie that resembles a video game where you have no control over the players. He then roped in Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt to play the leads and lend sex appeal. For two hours you watch Tom die, live, die again at different points as he tries to stop an alien race from annihilating the human race. Unfortunately, you are not given an option of playing as an alien.

Rating: *

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Finding Fanny

Reminsicent of this fim, 'Finding Fanny' is about a dysfunctional group of friends, family & an artist who undertake a road journey across Goa in search of a long lost love. A robust cast with the best of the past (Pankaj Kapur standing out) and a couple of the young brigade. A decent addition to director Homi Adjani's resume but the general cuteness kills any edge - of the kind we saw in his earlier film. Yes, they are very different films. Nevertheless.

Rating: * * +

Divergent

Every once in a while it is important to check on your prejudices. Watching 'Divergent' was just that. Reassured me that it is perfectly rationale to avoid the realty game show type, hormone filled adventure genre.

Rating: * +

The Fifth Estate

Julian Assange & his WikiLeaks escapades had caught my attention at the time and still does in a way - what happens when the Ecuadorian Embassy's lease runs out in London? 

Anyway, I knew that the movie based on his one-time partner's Daniel Domscheit-Berg book, would portray only one side of the story. What had me more worried was having to sit through Benedict Cumberbatch's wierd ass Assange hairdo. In this instance, the general anti-hype helped me. Cumberbatch showed that he has the temparement to step into different kinds of roles. I got more than what I bargained for.

Rating: * * +

The Angel's Share

The film opens with a drunk man talking to a loudspeaker on a train platform. One after the other you are introduced to the main players of the film including the lead, Robbie, who are all charged with petty crimes of some sort. Community service introduces the lot to the vast world single malt scotches. Robbie in particular takes a liking in a connoisseur fashion. In the foreground to this is Robbie's issues with his girlfriend's overbearing family who think he is a piece of shit. Throw in a heist to this mix and you are left with a comedy that does not leave you in splits, but is definitely good for a chuckle or two.

Rating: * *

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

2 States

It had all the smugness that I had seen before. And the sense of nauseousness still prevails. Well, thats not what 2 states is about. It is about 2 young MBA students, from 2 different states, who fall in love and find that their respective parents don't seem to agree. Based on a true story, this trite can safely be ignored.

Rating: * +

Nowhere Boy

Aaron-Taylor Johnson does a reasonable job as young John Lennon in this film, which has very little about The Beatles. Yes, there is a Paul here and a George there - but it is pretty much about a young boy who is torn between his foster mother Aunt Mimi and his real mum Julia, who had abandoned him early on. And with no father figure in sight. It kind of adds up when you know how he treated women in his young adult life and possibly explains the Yoko Ono adventure. Nowhere Boy ends up being an accomplished ~90 min backstory of a mega star. Worth a watch only if you are interested in John Lennon.

Rating: * * +

Guardians of the Galaxy

Marvel's cosmic mishmash of a superhero team makes it way to the big screen. The comic books are known to be a little meandering with a host of characters and plot lines. This of course had to be simplified to make things fit in a 2 hour time frame. What you have then is an action packed slug fest that brings a team of an earthling, a tree, an assassin, a rodent and a green thug chasing after an orb whose fate will seal the future of the galaxy. Lots of 80s music and cheesy humor makes the film pleasant, but the Bollywood like melodrama wears on you after a while. Do watch it if you are a faithful Marvel fan for the sake of completion otherwise give it a miss.

Rating: * *

Poster licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Metroland

I read the Julian Barnes novel in early 2000. And that was after I had picked up the Mark Knopfler soundtrack the previous year. Both captured the spirit of the times and ore enjoyed them. Recently, for no particular reason, I found myself googling for Mark Knopfler soundtrack movies and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was Christian Bale that played the lead in the film. 

The movie didn't disappoint at all and captured the 'Metroland present' vs the 'Paris past' divide, the central theme of the story, very well. Christian Bale was effortless as Chris and managed to climb up to the same level as Mark & Julian. Possibly, a notch higher.

Rating: ***