Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 198

‘What If We Were…’ – Graphic Novel Review

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Marie likes boys, Harry Potter and mushy movies, while Nathalie prefers girls, Mad Max and dystopian stuff. Despite their clashing interest, the two are best-friends and love killing time by playing their favorite game – “what if..”. The game involves picking up a hypothetical situation and imagining what they would do under those circumstances. “What if we were scientists?”, “What if we were in a Manga?”, “What if we were magical creatures?”… The possibilities are limitless.

Titled “What If We Were…”, this vibrantly drawn graphic novel by Axelle Lenoir is entertaining. The art is modern comic-book style, it’s glossy and colorful. Lenoir mixes mediums and changes the art styles throughout the book, depending on the what the protagonists are talking about. For example, when Marie and a supporting character imagine being in a Japanese manga, their characters turn into big-eyed chibi like characters.

‘What If We Were…’ is not just about playing pretend, the creator also slips in a simple cute love story without any typical teen drama. And to give the characters more depth, Axelle even deviates from typical comic-book panels and inserts a few diary entries to give a detailed idea about the kind of emotions and thoughts running through the protagonists’ head. Despite being just about 100 pages long, due to the crazy number of topics the girls discuss, the graphic novel feels longer than it is.

Overall, the tone of the graphic novel is fun, breezy and it makes for a simple quick weekend read. The title is available on Kindle Unlimited.

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Ep 79 – Five Graphic Novel Adaptations Worth Checking Out

‘Dhoka: Round D Corner’ Review: Deceptively Dull

“All characters/incidents and places in this film are fictitious” – this disclaimer flashes at the beginning of 2022 Bollywood film ‘Dhoka: Round D Corner”, which is standard practice, but it really didn’t need to display one. The plot about a terrorist escaping from police custody and holding a house-wife hostage is so ludicrous, no viewer at any point would wonder if the story were based on real events.

Directed and written by Kooki Gulati, the film stars debutante Khushali Kumar as Saanchi Sinha, a married woman who apparently suffers from a personality disorder, Madhavan plays her husband Yathaarth and Aparshakti Khurana is a weirdly chatty gullible terrorist Haq Riyaaz Gul who holes himself up in a residential building. The decision to mix two drastically different themes was absurd. On one hand you have a terrorist accused in a deadly bombing holding a woman hostage, on the other hand you have the woman and her husband whine about their relationship troubles. Saanchi pours her heart out to the terrorist, while Yathaarth unburdens himself to the cops stationed at the crime scene.

Yathaarth claims his wife is mentally unstable, while Saanchi thinks her husband is deliberately driving her insane by slipping illegal medication in her food. Who cares? There’s a terrorist at large! The movie trivializes every theme it covers – terrorism, mental health and fraught marriages.

Aparshakti Khurana is surprisingly good in his part, while Khushali is barely bearable and both their characters are terribly written. Some of the plot twists must have sounded great on paper, but they only weaken the story further. Madhavan was effortless in his part, which was just a slightly different version of his character from ‘Tannu Weds Mannu’. Yathaarth is just whinier, angstier and foul-mouthed.

In a climactic twist, the writers reveal another sub-plot to explain the bizarre marriage of terrorism & relationship troubles in one movie, but it was too far-fetched.

It’s a 3/10 from me. The film is available to stream on Netflix.

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Listen To – ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Better Than ‘1917’?!

1899 Review – ‘Doomed Ship’ Mystery Runs Out of Steam

By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

After some coffee, breakfast and a two hour long class, I decided to go on Netflix for a bit. But strangely, the homepage didn’t have the series I was watching in the ‘continue watching’ section featured on the top. Annoyed, I looked up the title and scrolled through the episodes to realize – I had streamed them all the previous night. Funny, because the show is about a woman who forgets stuff. And also indicative of how abruptly things ended.

Created by Jantje Friese and Baran Bo Odar, ‘1899’ is set in the same year as the title and follows a certain Maura Franklin (Emily Beecham), daughter of the man who owns the ship she is sailing on. He also owned the ‘Prometheus’, which went missing four months ago with 1500 passengers. Maura is sure her father is up to something sinister and has a hand in the ship’s disappearance, but she cannot remember how.

Titled ‘The Ship’, episode one does a fantastic job of setting the basic plot and building up an ominous amount of suspense. It begins with a nightmare. Maura the protagonist wakes up in a sweat onboard the ‘Kerberos’, a migrant steamship carrying hundreds of mixed origin migrants to America. Eyk Larsen (Andreas Pietschmann), the captain is told the crew has been constantly getting signals that could be from the ‘Prometheus’. To the chagrin of almost all passengers, Eyk decides to turn his ship to look for the ‘Prometheus’, with slim chances of finding survivors. When they do find the lost ship, strange tragic events begin to unfold on the ‘Kerberos’. Is it a plague, a curse or something that’s beyond the grasp of what’s known to man?

From episode two onward, ‘1899’ begins to test viewers’ patience. There are more psychological events than actual action. The trailer misleads viewers into believing there will be ample horror, but instead, a lot of the drama hinges on hallucination. Fortunately, the visions also serve as flashback stories, giving a glimpse into each character’s past, so the hallucinations aren’t simply there for jump scares. While the series is largely in English, there’s a lot of diversity in the cast and a lot of the dialogues also unfold in German, French, Danish, Spanish, Polish and Cantonese. Each supporting cast member has a sub-plot to themselves, but most viewers would be a lot more interested in finding out what happened to the ‘Prometheus’ to care much about side-stories, most of which progress at snail’s pace.

Just when you feel like the story is nose-diving into becoming a snooze-fest, the second episode ends with a surprisingly intriguing cliff-hanger, one forces you to look at the whole show in a new light and change your expectations with the coming episodes. However, each episode is laden with tiny morsels of mysterious twists (some predictable ones) and cliffhangers, steadily increasing anticipation, yet never delivering the cataclysmic climax you begin to hope for. There’s no “woah!” moment, even though there are opportunities in the tale for the creators to execute some hair-raising horror. For example, ‘1899’ has a segment which is a dark take on the famous German legend ‘Pied Piper of Hamlin’, but the events that unfold on the ship feel strangely distant and exaggerated. The overall effect is thus not as horrifying as it should’ve been.

Visually, the series isn’t as striking as historical dramas tend to be, especially since it’s a migrant steamship and not a luxury cruise. But going by its dominant themes, the cinematography is broody, gloomy and creates a gothic horror atmosphere. The background score is haunting in parts, especially when they use a piece that sounds like a dying person wailing for help. But a lot of the musical score also serves as either a red herring or a spoiler. Like the track ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane stands out in the series (it also plays in the intro sequence) and depending on how the viewer interprets the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ inspired lyrics, they will have a specific sort of foreboding about where the story is going.

One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small

And the ones that mother gives you, don’t do anything at all

Go ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits, you know you’re going to fall

Lyrics of ‘White Rabbit’

Jantje Friese and Baran Bo Odar borrow some tropes from their hit Netflix show ‘Dark’, so those who’ve seen it could feel slightly bummed about the minor repetitions. Just like in ‘Dark’, the creators make up their own little games and rules for 1899, so there isn’t much point in questioning some of the inexplicable things that happen. The cast is fantastic, and while Emily Beecham gets most of the screen-space, the eight episodes are evenly divided into the very many passengers onboard the doomed ‘Kerberos’ and this would become a ridiculously long essay if I were to comment on each one’s performance. The diversity and themes are staggering; religious fanaticism, flesh trade, combat stress, class divide, sexual freedom… the writers try to cover more than necessary really.

When the final episode concluded, I was completely taken aback, not because it was shocking or surprising, but just jarring. Imagine being on a Ferris Wheel, and half-way through the ride, when your seats are mid-air, you are told “hey, the ride is over, get off now”. What on earth? From constructing a massive, larger than life horror mystery, the climax reveals the mystery to be more personal in nature than anticipated. ‘1899’ will need a second season to give viewers more closure, but I am not sure if I would want to see it. This slow-burn horror mystery eventually starts to lose steam and left me disappointed, but for all the efforts put in by the makers, it’s worth a watch for mystery fans. Horror enthusiasts – you’ve been warned – don’t go expecting literal ghosts, ghouls and gore.

It’s a 7/10 from me.

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Listen To – ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Better Than ‘1917’?!

‘Capturing the Killer Nurse’ Review – Absorbing

At first glance, it seemed odd that Netflix picked up both a documentary and film on the same case, but on second thoughts, it’s such an obvious decision – folks love true-crime stories, so why not cash in on a shocking serial-killer story in all possible ways. Cover all sorts of fans. And clearly the strategy is working, I ended up watching both after all. Although, having seen the film version (‘The Good Nurse’ starring Eddy Redmayne) already, I streamed the documentary merely out of curiosity and didn’t think it would be interesting enough, especially because a lot of the case details were already covered in the movie.

Titled ‘Capturing the Killer Nurse’, the 2022 documentary is about Charles Cullen, an American nurse who admitted to killing over two dozen patients and is suspected to have murdered hundreds. Directed by Tim Travers Hawkins, the documentary features interviews with detectives who worked on the case, nurses who worked with Cullen, relatives of the victims and chilling archival footage of the killer himself. Amy Loughren, the nurse who made nabbing Cullen possible, also gives a detailed account of her friendship with the murderer and how she aided the investigators. Loughren’s co-operation with authorities not just led to a serial-killer’s arrest in 2003, but also exposed a corrupt commercial healthcare establishment which prioritized PR over patients.

Ironically, the documentary turned out to be a lot more gripping than the film on Cullen, not only because it deals with facts and goes into more details, but it also gets a lot of other elements of the visual medium right. ‘Capturing the Killer Nurse’ is shot better, has grittier background music, and the interviews with those involved or affected by the case packed in more emotion. While it’s common practice for movie-makers to take creative liberties, change facts to make their story more sensational and emotional, ‘The Good Nurse’ was much mellower and failed to capture the scale of criminal corruption in the healthcare system and its tragic consequences the way the documentary does.

At the end, the documentary includes footage from the real life trial, where bereaved families talk about losing their loved ones due to someone who was supposed to protect them. It serves as a powerful closure to this factual recollection of the chilling Cullen murders.

It’s a 7.5/10 from me.

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Listen To – ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Better Than ‘1917’?!

‘Blue Lock’ Episode 6 Review

Anime series ‘Blue Lock’ is on a roll with intense dramatic back-to-back crazily competitive soccer matches. Episode six starts off with Isagi and his Team Z strategizing for their next face-off. They are to lock horns with Team W, a much stronger team whose key players are an insanely talented pair of brothers.

(Read ‘Blue Lock’ Episode 1 Review if you have no idea what the show is about)

While the creators have been playing with different art styles in the series so far, this was the first time they introduced two characters who looked distinctly different from the rest of the cast. Wanima Keisuke and Wanima Jun-ichi, the aces of Team W look more like demon puppets animated to life, which made for a fun creative choice, because they truly are like monsters while playing. Their incredible co-ordination and play style intimidates rival players almost immediately and their character designs make them seem hilariously scary.

Some serious strategizing, followed by an unbelievably thrilling match filled with smashing goals, episode six was pretty exciting. The background music does a great job of enhancing the competitive mood of the soccer match. While episode 5 shed brief light upon a character called Chigiri, viewers get more idea about his past and mental state. Will his inability to move on from the past cost his team or can Isagi help Chigiri out of his slump and be great at soccer again?

Since ‘Blue Lock’ is all about “ego”, the theme is pushed to the forefront in the second half of the episode, and some players have taken Ego’s (the dude in-charge of the facility) ideas about ego too literally. Not everybody is playing for their team and Isagi will have to learn some really hard lessons about who to trust. The episode ends with a major unexpected twist and we cannot wait to stream the next edition!

You can stream the series on Netflix.

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‘Oh! My Sunshine Night’ Review – 10 Episodes Too Long

Oh my! This 2022 Thai series was supposed to be about 14-15 episodes long, but for some reason, the makers decided they should overstretch it to 18 episodes. They barely had a plot to work on and while the series was still ongoing, they extended it. What were they even thinking? Actually, wrong question. Nobody was thinking. Definitely not the writers.

Directed by Ongart Singlumpong, ‘Oh! My Sunshine Night’ is a mundane romantic drama about two rich brothers attending the same college, and how the snootier one falls for a guy with a heart condition. Fluke Natouch Siripongthon plays Sun, who constantly eats apples, because it’s supposed to be good for him. Despite being a good actor, Fluke is wasted in this series with a bizarre ‘damsel in distress’ character and has an awful hairstyle through the show. Ohm Thitiwat is Khim, the richer lead, who plays Cello and hates the world because his billionaire father wants him to take up the family business and not music. When Sun and Khim meet, they don’t like each other in the beginning (obviously), but then begin fall for each other because Khim gives Sun apples. The creators also throw in a childhood connection between the pair, to make their love more believable.

Noh Phouluang Thongprasert plays Khim’s more humane older brother Rain and was the biggest surprise in this show, since he was absolutely forgettable in ‘Nitiman’ despite being the protagonist (saw it, didn’t finish it, hence didn’t review it). In ‘Nitiman’, Noh was slightly creepy & ill-fitting for the role, but in ‘Oh! My Sunshine Night’ he is smart, sexy and in line with his character’s personality – Rain is the rich popular hot boy on campus. His romantic plot with Phayu (Peterpan Thasapon Wiwitwaron) was a lot more sensible and their chemistry was a lot better too.

On the surface, the series seemed like an average college romance, but eventually turned into this weird/toxic business themed drama, about an evil villain trying to destroy Khim’s family. Poor Sun gets completely shadowed in the end, and isn’t even treated too well. It was all just such a mess. The series did have a few good moments, but too many unwanted ones. It should’ve been at least 10 episodes shorter.

It’s a 4/10 from me.

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Listen To – ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Better Than ‘1917’?!

Spy x Family Episode 18 Review

What a wholesome family centered episode this was! At least in the first half. Mid-term exams are around the corner and slacker Anya needs to ensure she doesn’t fail, or she could get expelled from the prestigious Eden Academy and that would jeopardize her father’s secret mission. So spy dad Loid Forger and undercover assassin mom Yor put in all their efforts into their daughter’s education. Yor goes a step further and ropes in her younger brother Yuri to help tutor Anya.

(Read Spy x Family Episode 1 Review if you have no clue what the show is about)

Titled ‘The Home Tutor Uncle/Daybreak’, episode 18 had an entertaining first half. Yuri comes over to the Forger household and reluctantly agrees to help Anya study. He is not keen on bonding with his sister’s step-daughter and still resents Loid, since he suffers from a ‘sister complex’ and is thus unreasonably hostile towards those who get her attention. The uncle-niece shenanigans were amusing and comedic.

There’s the obvious suspense over whether our little psychic can clear her exams, and because Loid cannot afford to leave that to chance, he has a fool-proof plan ‘B’ to keep Anya in school. The second half wasn’t as entertaining and shifts the mood from the domestic scenes to some spy action that was on the sillier side, instead of all the serious tense stuff fans were served in the last few episodes. A new character is introduced, a rival spy who serves as both an element of surprise and comic relief, but the sub-plot involving him wasn’t as funny. Regardless, overall, it was a fantastic edition!

You can stream the series on Netflix.

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‘Falling for Christmas’ Review – Simply Festive

By Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)

One thing is for certain, the 2022 Netflix movie ‘Falling for Christmas’ gets the festive season mood right from the very first minute. Gorgeous snow-capped mountains, warm fireplaces, people dressed in reds-greens and a whole bunch of pleasing festive decor… the sets scream ‘hello Christmas!’. Lindsay Lohan is in a dashing red jumpsuit, with green heels in her first few scenes, even her fancy glasses are red and green. Don’t get the wrong impression, I actually liked the fact that the makers went all out with their theme! The film was gorgeous, sparkly and pleasing to the eye.

Directed by Janeen Damian, the story follows spoiled wealthy hotel heiress Sierra Belmon (Lindsay Lohan) who is rescued by widower Jake Russell (Chord Overstreet) after she is in a skiing accident. Due to a head injury, Sierra cannot remember who she is, not even her name, and Jake lets her stay in his skiing lodge until she regains her memory. With no memory of her luxurious life, which included a train of people looking into her every need and feeding her caviar for breakfast, Sierra slips into a regular routine at Jake’s place and a romance brews. The two aren’t aware that Sierra has an obnoxious, self-centered ‘influencer’ boyfriend called Tad Fairchild (George Young), who was with her at the time of her accident and is lost in the dense snowy forest.

‘Falling for Christmas’ is a simple holiday themed romance and Lindsay Lohan was pretty radiant as the romantic lead. She is not playing a brat for the first time, but her quick transformation into a more sober person was great, even if a little unbelievable. Jack Wagner was charming in his brief cameo as her onscreen father Beauregard Belmont. Alejandra Flores and Olivia Perez play Jake’s mother-in-law Alejandra (yes, she shares the same name as her character) and daughter Avy respectively. The family of three lives drama-free and are adorably affectionate.

A sub-plot about how Tad survives in the forest wasn’t very interesting and could’ve been skipped, although to George Young’s credit, he really nails the part of being a conceited social-media celebrity obsessed with ‘likes’ and ‘followers’. The best part about the film is it’s stunning cinematography, there are these aerial shots of the snowy town where the story unfolds in and it looks out of those picture-perfect December wallpapers. All the pretty little homes look like ginger-bread houses and some viewers may have the urge to eat them, because they are just so delicious in appearance.

Anyway, there really isn’t much to critique, stream it if you are looking for a straightforward family-friendly Christmas romance. It’s a 7.5/10 from me.

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Spy x Family Episode 17 Review

“My daughter can now jump a level higher on the vaulting box,” says a straight-faced Loid Forger, when asked to report on the ‘progress of Operation Strix’. Pretty sure that dialogue doesn’t count as a spoiler, it gives nothing away and was just such a hilarious scene, it had to make its way into the review.

(Read Spy x Family Episode 1 Review if you have no clue what the show is about)

Titled ‘Commence Operation Griffon/Fullmetal Lady’, episode 17 shifts focus back on Anya’s school and her endeavors to befriend Damian Desmond, the son of the man her spy father is trying to get access to. She immediately sniffs an opportunity to get close to the boy when their teacher assigns the class a group art project. But will she be able to impress the snooty little brat?

While Anya is the mind reader, the creators let the viewers hear her thoughts and she is adorably simplistic and optimistic. A lot of the comedy hinges on Anya’s exaggerated ideas to win over Damian and her messy attempts to execute those grand plans. This episode was particularly funny, because the writers cleverly take a dig at art and how different people perceive a particular piece of art in different ways.

The adult characters get only the last few minutes to themselves. Loid meets the Handler to discuss how his mission is going and we see the kind of efforts the Handler has to put in to avoid rival spies and informants who are constantly tracking her. Yor was pretty much missing in action, and makes a small appearance after the end credits. So here’s hoping fans get the full family bungling up together in the next episode.

Stream the series on Netflix.

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Minions & More Volume 2 – Review

Illumination lit up my Sunday evening with some of their short animated films in the anthology ‘Minions & More Volume 2’. The scale of stories was vast and varied – Minions trying to survive prison; singing bears attempting to woo a female; a super-dog on a mission to save her crush; a dancing pig struggling to babysit a whole bunch of impish piglets – there are all sorts of tales created with childlike joy in this collection.

At 53 minutes, volume two is just a few minutes longer than ‘Minions & More Volume 1’, and features characters from ‘Sing’ and ‘The Secret Life of Pets’. I love their animation style, it’s bright, colorful, spirited and shiny. The stories with the minions were pure pointless entertainment and end in the blink of an eye. “Speaking Minionese” would flash on the subtitles each time the goofy yellow beings spoke gibberish, and it just cracked me up throughout! (Pierre Coffin who voices the minions is simply brilliant, even though the editors obviously edit the sound a little to make him sound more high-pitched and cartoon-y to suit the characters)

All the ‘Illumination’ introductory animations were hilariously cute, the creativity that went in making each title intro different is just fantastic. This is definitely the kind of animated anthology that’s tailored for a younger audience than adults, but Minion fans would definitely derive plenty of laughs from it, regardless of their age. Like the first volume, the mini-movies in the second installment were also too short, some got over in a minute’s time. That’s really my only complaint, again.

It’s a 8/10 from me. You can stream the anthology on Netflix.

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Listen To ‘The House – An Unusual Animated Anthology’