Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 193
December 15, 2022
X Review – Creepy Slow-Burn Slasher
Truth is, I started streaming 2022 horror movie ‘X’ weeks ago when it first dropped on Prime Video, but soon got distracted and stopped watching it. However, every time I visit IMDB, it is always on their top 20 ‘Most Popular Movies’, like a reminder “you still haven’t seen me”. So, I finally did.
Directed and written by Ti West, the movie has a great cast for a horror slasher. Set in 1979, the plot follows a group of six people who’ve rented a remote farmhouse to shoot an adult movie, but when their hosts – an elderly couple – find out what they’re up to, the repercussions are gorily bloody. Mia Goth plays Maxine, a young aspiring actress who wants to be world famous, while Brittany Snow and Kid Cudi play her laid-back older co-actors, who are in it simply for the money.
‘X’ delivers what it promises – a ‘R’ rated film about making a dirty film, where things get crazily bloody. There’s plenty of sex, skin show, violence and gore; but it takes too much time in unleashing the horror bits. Ti West steers clear from cliched jump scares and simply goes for the jugular each time someone dies. Visually, the film is very 70s and the cinematography switches to a slightly grainy retro style footage when the group is recording their work.
Interestingly, Mia Goth also plays Pearl, the old woman who owns the property and develops a creepy interest in Maxine. The make-up team has done a ridiculously fantastic job on Mia for the older role, there’s barely any traces of her youth or facial features, you’d think an actual senior actor was given the part. Mia’s Maxine is everything Pearl wishes she still was – young, beautiful, desirable. The women are two sides of the same coin, one side is still shiny, while the other has rusted into insanity. Stephen Ure is Pearl’s cranky cynical husband Howard, who she claims served in both World Wars. Martin Henderson plays Wayne, Maxine’s boyfriend and producer, his southern accent and voice sounded exactly like Matthew McConaughey. Owen Campbell is RJ, the director-cum-cameraman, who has grand visions of making an artsy sex film, while Jenna Ortega plays his girlfriend Lorraine, who handles the sound.
What works best for ‘X’ is the fact that the villains are fleshed out well. Stephen and Pearl are so old, they look like dead people walking, but they are fiery in spirit and their mere presence is ominously disturbing. Maxine and gang appear to be a bunch of silly hillbillies pretending to be ‘avant-garde’; so, as viewers you don’t really care if they live or die
It’s a 6/10 from me.
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Listen To – The Closet’ Horror Comic Series Review
December 14, 2022
‘I Believe in Santa’ – Quick Review
‘I Believe in Santa’ is yet another film with a modern take on ‘The Christmas Carol’ – a woman who hates Christmas falls in love with a man who turns out to be obsessed with it and tries to awaken her holiday spirit.
Directed by Alex Ranarivelo, ‘I Believe in Santa’ has been written by John Ducey and he also plays the protagonist Tom, a lawyer who still believes in Santa and begins dating a cynical writer Lisa (Christina Moore) who is divorced and has a eight-year-old daughter. The makers did have a sweet silly script that could’ve been a nice weekend watch, but the lead couple doesn’t click, even though they are married in real life. Reminds you of Joey’s quote from the sitcom ‘Friends’ about how actors dating in real life usually lack chemistry on the stage.
When Lisa meets Tom for the first time at a July 4th fest, she thinks he is a creep. And John Ducey’s Tom does fit more into the ‘creepy guy who kidnaps kids’ description, than ‘charming lawyer who still believes in Santa’. Fortunately, the film is only 90 minutes long, has pretty Christmas decorations and the adorable Violet McGraw (she was little Nell Crane in ‘Haunting of Hill House’) playing Lisa’s daughter, so it manages to be a bearable campy flick.
It’s a 5/10 from me. Stream it on Netflix if you want to.
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Listen to – Twelve 2022 Holiday Releases To Stream (and Some to Skip!)
‘Khakee: The Bihar Chapter’ Review – Binge-Worthy
Diesel maai – that’s what we called the my grandparents’ cook-cum-help in my native village that was close to the Bihar-Bengal border. Maai’s son was named Diesel in honor of a diesel-powered locomotive that first chugged through our village the year the tyke was born. Thus, his mom’s nom-de-plume: Diesel’s mom or Diesel maai. This innocent memory struck me while I saw Chyawanprash explain the origin of his quirky name in Netflix’s Khakee: The Bihar Chapter. Directed by Neeraj Pandey, the show is crisp, no-frills and binge-worthy for crime drama fans.
90s’ style musical flourishes, dusty rural villages with powers cuts, gun-toting goons extorting locals, corrupt cops who run out of breath within a minute’s chase, noxious netas relying on caste equations and free alcohol to win over the electorate – ‘Khakee’ is a brilliant cocktail of how a few upright officers beat the system to nab a dangerous criminal creating murderous mayhem in the region. Adapted from IPS officer Amit Lodha’s book, the fictionalized show stars Karan Tacker as his reel version, while Avinash Tiwary plays anti-hero Chandan Mahto loosely based on real-life gangster Pintu Mahto. Jatin Sarna plays Chandan’s right hand-man/brother-in-arms Chyawanprash Sahu.
Titled ‘Patra Parichay!’, the first episode does a fantastic job of introducing its principal protagonists and themes in an engrossing manner. The exclamation mark for an extra dramatic effect was well placed and validated by its content. The narrator of this series isn’t Amit Lodha, but a character called Ranjan Kumar, a junior honest cop perfectly portrayed by Abhimanyu Singh, who viewers are used to seeing in villainous roles. As Ranjan, Abhimanyu sets the tone for the action-series set in the Hindi heartland during the early 2000s, following daring dreams and devious exploits of men.
The best bit about the show is the razor-sharp focus on the themes of corruption and crime, there’s simply no time for romance, so those looking for the usual love story between bandits, bloodshed and brotherhood are going to be disappointed. Avinash Tiwary is the breakout star of this show, he was almost unrecognizable as the uneducated goon Chandan, a far cry from his portrayal of the sophisticated Satya in the 2020 Netflix horror movie Bulbbul. Chandan undergoes on the most transformative journey in the story, from a cowardly nobody who drove trucks, to one of the most dreaded criminals in the region ballsy enough to threaten top cops. Ashutosh Rana on the other hand has an entertaining cameo, a senior cop who is chameleon-like in his loyalties. Ravi Kishan plays hothead Abhyudaya, the brother of an influential politician, who takes Chandan Mahto under his patronage and allows him to be reborn into a new kind of monster.
In a refreshing change, the shoot-outs and action scenes aren’t exaggeratedly choreographed like regular Bollywood content. The mindless massacring of innocents to simply settle political scores and personal petty ego tussles were shot in a way that would make most viewers want to look away from the screen and not cheer for anybody. But you want to root for Amit Lodha and Ranjan Kumar, good cops shunted for doing their jobs and not bending to their political masters. Except for the last few minutes in the last episode which was unnecessarily dramatized, the series is fast paced, riveting and a thrilling dark slice of Bihar.
It’s a 8.5/10 from me. Stream it on Netflix.
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Listen To – The Closet’ Horror Comic Series Review
December 13, 2022
‘Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’ Trailer Looks Great
It’s the sequel everybody did ask for! The official trailer for ‘Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’ is finally out and the movie is expected to get its theatrical release on June 2, 2023.
Miles Morales is still spider-man in his universe and the trailer has a surprisingly emotional first half, where Miles’ mom gives him a poignant talk on love, family and identity. Right after her talk, the trailer changes its tone and things get crazy – dozens of spider-men crowd the screen. And apparently… they aren’t always the good guys! Without giving too much away, the trailer manages to be intriguing.
The animation is much like ‘Into The Spider-Verse’ and if the story turns out to be as exciting too, it’s going to be one hell of an entertaining movie. Watch the trailer below.
Nitham Oru Vaanam – Movie Review
A man in his late twenties gets dumped by his fiancee on the day of their wedding, shattered, he shuts himself out from those who care about him. When his family doctor hands him a diary containing two real stories sans their endings, he sets out to meet the protagonists to find out what happened to them.
Directed and written by R. Karthik, the 2022 film ‘Nitham Oru Vaanam’ stars Ashok Selvan as lead protagonist Arjun, a guy with OCD who works for a travel company. There are a total of three stories running through the film, the main plot follows Arjun and how he gets his heart broken, the other two sub-plots are about two different couples he reads about while imagining himself as the men in the stories. So, Ashok Selvan essentially plays three different characters, all of which he depicts in a distinctly different and engrossing manner. But Aparna Balarmurali was a total show-stealer as Mathi, a young woman whose father wants to marry her off, but she wants to find love first. She is energetic, ebullient and an absolute delight as Mathi and the music accompanying her plot is joyously Indian in flavor.
The cinematography in scenic, it’s a well shot film which covers a vast landscape, from Tamil Nadu to Himachal Pradesh, the visual spectrum is vibrant. The stories on the other hand needed more work, especially the characterization of the primary protagonist. Arjun has a ridiculous change of personality just because he meets two sets of people who’ve had it far worse in life than him, if only it were so easy to turn over. For an educated cynical man who loves reading comic-books, hates dogs, and is generally wary of humans, it’s absurd that he was on the verge of marrying a girl within two months of meeting each other. The second tale starring Shivathmika Rajashekar has the couple tying the knot while they are still in college, which happens a lot in real life, but wasn’t necessary in a modern-day romance about self-discovery. And Mathi is asked to marry a guy she hasn’t even met! With each story, the duration between the couple’s first meeting and wedding gets shorter. And the script also fuels the popular misconception that love can alter people’s core personalities.
Back to the positives – Ritu Verma was sweet as Subha, a girl Arjun meets during his travels and the two end up going to his destinations together. The hero has a not very believable change of heart in the end, and the climax was light, funny, and cute.
It’s a 7/10 from me. Stream it on Netflix.
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Listen to – Twelve 2022 Holiday Releases To Stream (and Some to Skip!)
‘Blue Lock’ Episode 10 Review
Say hello to the craziest episode of ‘Blue Lock’ yet. The final match between Team Z & V is still ongoing and akin to a crazy choreographed orchestra, which might not make sense but is entertaining nonetheless.
(Read ‘Blue Lock’ Episode 1 Review if you have no idea what the show is about)
After Team Z’s ‘awaking’ in previous episode, the unbeatable trio of Reo Mikage, Nagi Seishiro, Zantetsu Tsurugi are forced to see their opponents in new light. We get a flashback for Wataru Kuon, which at this stage of an exciting match seemed unnecessary. Who is interested in knowing why a guy like that would betray his own team? Still, viewers get glimpses of his school games and it does nothing to make him likable. Perhaps its time for us to get some insight on Blue Lock mastermind Jinpachi Ego instead. But he is nowhere to be seen during the game.
Apart from Kuon’s back-story, episode ten is largely driven by Isagi’s narrative, who finally figures out his true capabilities and the way he calculates everything during the soccer game was comically intense and exaggerated. His head is like a computer and the creators slip in some graphics to explain the strategy unfolding inside his brain. Unfortunately for fans, the chapter ends at a crucial juncture – just when a possessed Isagi says “this is our last chance” when a team member passes the ball to him!
Stream the series on Netflix.
Subscribe to our Podcast show by the same name on YouTube.
Listen to – 12 Holiday Releases To Stream (and Some to Skip!)
December 12, 2022
Something from Tiffany’s – Sparkly Sweet Romance
Apart from being a giant ad for the luxury jewellery retailer in its title, the 2022 movie ‘Something from Tiffany’s’ starring Zoey Dutch and Kendrick Samson is a sweet holiday romance. Like most flicks in the genre, it is obviously slightly unrealistic, but the perfect stream for those looking for a romantic Christmas themed film.
Directed by Daryl Wein and based on a book by Melissa Hill, the film is about two men accidentally swapping their Tiffany gift bags, the mix up leads to some life-changing events. One bag had earrings while the other one contained an extravagant engagement ring. Zoey Dutch plays baker/cafe owner Rachel Meyer who spots the swapped bag and thinks her boyfriend wants to marry her, unaware that the ring belongs to someone else. But the confusion also leads to her meeting the ‘right’ man.
Since the story is set during Christmas in New York, the cinematography captures a lot of holiday cheer with scenic shots of decked up streets and pretty city lights. Zoey Dutch is adorable as the lead and her chemistry with Kendrick Samson is rather cute. Since Zoey is a baker, there’s a lot of delicious looking food peppered through the runtime that might want viewers to grab a bite. Jojo T Gibbs plays Terri Blake, Zoey’s best-friend and business partner, who is over-protective, meddling and entertaining as the boss-lady who thinks her BFF deserves better than the self-centered tattoo artist (Ray Nicholson) she is dating.
‘Something from Tiffany’s’ is predictable but surprisingly has a drama-free climax, even though it did seem like the plot was heading towards a typical ‘grand gesture’ scene to have a romantic ‘happy ending’.
It’s a 7/10 from me. Stream it on Prime Video.
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Listen to – 12 Holiday Releases To Stream (and Some to Skip!)
Should You Stream or Skip These 12 Holiday Releases?
All streaming platforms are flooded with new releases. We look at 12 titles from 2022 in the latest edition of our podcast and quickly tell you why you should stream or skip them. Listen in and don’t forget to subscribe. Most titles are available either on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.
December 11, 2022
Spy x Family Episode 23 Review
Titled ‘Unshaken Path’, episode 23 of ‘Spy x Family’ is probably the most hilariously exaggerated edition of the anime series so far. Agent Twilight and Nightfall are still posing as a civilian couple and playing a crazily rigged match at an underground tennis tournament to win a painting. Can they outwit their opponents who own the court and have all sorts of dirty tricks under their sleeves?
(Read Spy x Family Episode 1 Review if you have no clue what the show is about)
Like mentioned in the review for episode 22, Fiona AKA Nightfall is proving to be a side-splitting support character, giving Franky a run for his money. And heck, Twilight deserves to have a secret cheerleader on his team. Most of the episode was centred around the tennis match, but more than a sporting event, it was a battle of wits and superhuman strength.
Yor Forger and Anya have brief cameos and the new sub-plot pitting Yor against Fiona is comedic to say the least, especially because Loid seems to have no clue about the internal turmoil brewing between the two women. For a super intuitive/intelligent spy, Loid is rusty when it comes to understanding the ladies in his life. Which according to his character traits doesn’t make sense, but it’s necessary for laughs and drama.
Episode 23 is pacy, humorous and thoroughly entertaining, even though it had nothing much to do with Loid’s main mission – Operation Strix.
Stream the series on Netflix.
Subscribe to our podcast on YouTube by the same name – AbstractAF
Listen To ‘The House – An Unusual Animated Anthology’
December 10, 2022
‘Christmas on Mistletoe Farm’ – Quick Review
Few days before Christmas, a widowed dad of five inherits a large farm from his deceased father. His colleague convinces him to go check it out and spend some days working from there, claiming the quiet rural life could offer a great break. But a lot of chaos and madness follows…
Directed and written by Debbie Issit, the 2022 Netflix film ‘Christmas on Mistletoe Farm’ is a slapstick old school children’s film, that would be best enjoyed by those looking for a campy silly movie with potty jokes. It’s the kind of movie I would have probably laughed at while watching with friends, but streaming it alone wasn’t entertaining at all. Scott Garnham plays protagonist Matt Cunningham, who does a fabulous job of handling five little kids and a tough job with a Cruella like boss. The character is interesting, but Garnham is forgettable and cannot draw you into the story. The rest of the cast is guilty of the same – they have close to no charm.
Debbie Issit and team use every little cliche, trope and stale jokes to deliver a not so funny Christmas film. Some parts of the movie look like a reality show or footage of a family Vlog about spending a chaotic vacation at a farm. The cinematography is inconsistent, not sure if it was a deliberate decision or just choppy camerawork.
I should probably not even be reviewing this title, because I fast-forwarded most of it. So, stream ‘Christmas on Mistletoe Farm’ if you’ve run out of Holiday titles to watch. Who knows, you might even enjoy it! I didn’t.
Subscribe to our podcast on YouTube by the same name – AbstractAF
Listen to: 9 Must-Watch Animated Films From IMDB Top 100
