Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 245

‘Inventing Anna’ First Look & Just Who The Hell Is She

Netflix dropped the official Teaser for its upcoming series ‘Inventing Anna’ on YouTube and it seems promising. For viewers who don’t know Anna Delvey, the teaser doesn’t give anything away. All we see is some fashionably dressed women posing for photos and a journalist claiming she might have an interesting story. And the teaser declaring that the series is ‘INSPIRED BY THE STORY OF A TOTAL FAKE’. A total fake could be anything – a fake businesswoman, a fake designer, a fake social media ‘influencer’ fooling people with a misleading lifestyle. Well… the options are unlimited.

So who the hell is Anna Delvey?

Born in 1991 in Russia, Anna Sorokin is a German con-artist, who posed as a German heiress to swindle banks, hotels and wealthy people. She basically leeched off gullible rich folks and service providers, by pretending to be super-rich. Funny but true. According to news reports, she was sentenced to 4-12 years in prison for fraud in May, 2019.

Almost a year before that, in April 2018, Vanity Fair ran a full-length feature by one of Anna’s victims titled “She Paid for Everything”: How a Fake Heiress Made My $62,000 Disappear”. Anna had befriended Rachel DeLoache Williams after meeting her at a fancy New York pub. The two kept meeting a fancier places, and one day Anna promised her friend an all-expenses-taken-care-off trip to Marrackech. Although, at the end of it all, it was Rachel who had to pay for everything, because Anna claimed something wasn’t right with her banks. And Rachel’s money disappeared, Anna did what cons do – become evasive.

Rachel was obviously not first of Anna’s victims. Micheal Xufu Huang, a Chinese art collector was one of the first few who had gotten suspicious of the young woman. The two had become friends and Anna had asked Micheal if she could accompany him for an art exhibition in Venice. He booked her flights and hotels, expecting to be paid back, but that never happened.

To those who knew Anna, they claim she was extremely confident in peddling her story of being a wealthy heiress with a lavish lifestyle and ambitious dreams. She used the classic trick of borrowing from one to pay another, creating a cycle of debt she hoped she could escape forever. But good luck can only last so long.

It would be interesting to see what Netflix has to offer! Here’s the teaser.

‘Still Life’ Review – Between Beautiful and Drab

‘Still life’ by Anoushka Khan would always pop up on my book recommendations each time I’d go shopping online for graphic novels. That’s how I ended up buying it on a whim one day, without reading even the blurb, like with countless other online titles. So I cannot blame anybody for finding out it wasn’t exactly like most regular graphic novel. It’s more like an illustrated book for adults. It doesn’t have comic panels, instead the pages have abstract art and paintings, and the story flows over them in poetry format.

The first few pages weren’t very engaging and might make some readers just give up. But it gets better. ‘Still Life’ tells the story of Pinky, who goes in search of her missing husband Pasha, starting from a local shop. Everybody believes the man is probably dead, but Pinky and her mother-in-law do not give up hope. One day, a clue turns up in a shirt’s pocket – a phone number of an old classmate, who reveals Pasha wanted to stay in their guest house. So off goes Pinky, in the hopes of finding the man she fell in love with and married.

It’s when Pinky goes to her childhood home, and author Anoushka Khan finally gives the readers glimpses to the protagonist’s life and relationships, that the book becomes interesting. The art is simple, some of it even feels very calming, while most others are quite forgettable. Anybody who has ever lost a loved one, will perhaps find a kindred spirit in Khan’s story. The first few pages were boring, the next few relatable, with childhood snippets and the last few come with the cold reality of relationships and family.

Just like the title suggests, not a lot happens in ‘Still Life’. Everybody goes on with their daily chapters, while Pinky’s life halts for a while, in search for a loved one. There’s that element of a good old mystery, even though Khan’s story-telling gives you a strong sense of foreboding, as if nothing is going to happen. The ending isn’t what one would quite expect, it’s realistic and perhaps that’s why is almost feels disappointing. I would have liked more story, but the climax arrives abruptly and the novel is before you expect it to.

It’s a 3/5 from me.

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Listen to Episode 48 – Three Underrated Graphic Memoirs To Read

Adele’s ‘Oh My God’ Has Drawn Me Into Loop Hell/Heaven

It’s been an hour since Adele’s ‘Oh My God’ has been playing on repeat on my speakers, from her new album 30. It’s nothing like her other songs on the album. The music is upbeat, the vibe feels like a cross between Jazz and disco to me, the kind that makes you want to sing and dance along. And her voice is like dessert – smooth, like your favorite flavored cream being poured into a glass.

‘Rolling in the deep’ was the first song by Adele that I had heard many years ago, her powerful smouldering vocals lamenting a broken relationship and what could’ve been. With ‘Oh My God’, Adele seems to be more at peace with her decisions and past relationships. It’s a sentiment that would resonate with a lot of listeners.

I ain’t got too much time to spare
But I’ll make time for you to show how much I care
Wish that I’d let you break my walls
But I’m still spinning out of control from the fall
Boy you give good love… I won’t lie
It’s what keeps me coming back even though I’m terrified

I know that it’s wrong
But I want to have fun
Mm yeah
Mm yeah

Oh my God, I can’t believe it, out of all the people in the world

What is the likelihood of jumping out of my life and into your arms?

Maybe baby I’m just losing my mind ’cause this is trouble, but it feels right

Teetering on the edge of heaven and hell is a battle I cannot fight

Lyrics of Adele’s new song

I don’t usually write about music, but it’s been so long since I last played a song on repeat, that I couldn’t help but write an appreciation post. Although it’s not fun to be dragged into a space where you just want to listen to one song over and over again.

Dhamaka Review – Skewed Tale of Live TV Lacks Spark, Spirit, Spunk

To a broadcast journalist’s eye the trailer for the 2021 ‘Dhamaka’ didn’t seem impressive enough. However, it managed to pique my interest a little, so I chose to stream the film on Netflix, telling myself ‘don’t be too cynical’. Directed by Ram Madhvani, the film is an adaptation of the 2013 Korean movie ‘The Terror Live’.

The movie starts with happy snippets of a married journalist couple Arjun Pathak (Kartik Aaryan) and Soumya Mehra Pathak (Mrunal Thakur), told through ‘memories’ on a social media app. It’s done well, and had me smiling. Promising start indeed. We are informed that Arjun was an award-winning news anchor of sorts, but was demoted to being a radio-jockey by his firm. His marriage with Soumya hits rock-bottom too and the two are getting a divorce. But Arjun smells a shot at redemption when he receives a call during his radio show. The caller threatens to blow up the Mumbai sea-link and follows up on his word. Instead of alerting the cops, Arjun promptly calls up his former TV boss, strikes a bargain for his exclusive call with the terrorist. What happens next forms the rest of the plot.

Unfortunately, the plot loses steam after the intriguing first 15 minutes. Ram Madhvani isn’t able to conjure up the madness of a real newsroom. There just isn’t enough tension for the viewer to be at the edge of their seat and the story is muddled with deliberate emotional scenes that don’t feel legitimate. Amruta Subhash plays Ankita Malaskar, the ruthless tv boss/editor, who wants to beat all competitors with their exclusive, she does a better job than Kartik Aryan.

One of the biggest problem with the film is the inconsistent characterization of Arjun Pathak, one one hand he is shown as an unscrupulous journalist, who immediately sniffs up a chance at climbing the career ladder; yet minutes later, when is on a call with the terrorist, he starts sniffling like a sad puppy when the man who just blew up a bridge recalls his sob-story of how hard life can be for a poor construction worker. What was supposed to be an emotional scene made me laugh out loud at the ridiculousness at it all. Dudes! – decide if you want your lead journalist to be a spineless vulture or a hardened professional with a heart of gold. The confusing plot-points are annoying and laughable. Yes, a character can be grey, somewhere between good and evil, but Kartik Aaryan fails to pull it off. “I CAN’T DO THIS” Aaryan’s Arjun screams at one point in the second-half, where he finds it difficult to go on with the live broadcast, and the funny thing is – he isn’t able to act out the emotionally turbulent scene either. It’s double irony and unwittingly funny. “He really cannot do this” I chuckled.

A signification chunk of the movie depicts live negotiations with the terrorist, and it’s vexatious and not in the least bit engrossing. There’s some boring/idiotic cross television banter, where two anchors on different news channels are talking to each other, washing their dirty linen in public. There are a lot of other movies out their who’ve done a better job of bashing the media, ‘Dhamaka’ however has no spark to it. Even though visually, the film looks pretty believable, the VFX of the blasts look authentic enough. The makers also get a lot of the nuances of doing live tv quite right, including how viewership oriented producers can be, although it’s all exaggerated a little too much. Which is fine, exaggeration is fun in films, but at least make it entertaining.

As the climax approaches, things only get tedious, ridiculous, even though what seemed like a big plot-hole (the identity of the caller) is explained in the end, and even though it’s not very convincing, one can roll with it. But holy shit, the ending is just disappointing AF – “what a pointless film!” I screamed as the end credits rolled in.

‘Dhamaka’ is too bloody long, could’ve been sharper, and might have even seemed brilliant if some other actor had been cast for the lead role.

It’s a 4/10 from me. You can stream it on Netflix.

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Gazing At The Adiyogi Statue

The Isha Yoga Centre is nestled in the beautiful hills of Coimbatore, India. The crowning jewel of the property is the Adiyogi Shiva Statue, a grand bust of one of the most revered Hindu God. We were visiting family in the city, so we decided to do a little outing to visit the center, which was only about 15kms from our residence.

How To Get There: While there are direct public buses to the spot, we booked an out-station cab for four hours and it cost us Rs 699, although the driver demanded Rs 200 more, so we ended up paying Rs 900 in total, which is about 12 USD. We picked a week-day (Wednesday) to visit, hoping there wouldn’t be too many people, considering the covid19 pandemic is still lurking around, even though we are all completely vaccinated. Luckily for us, the crowd was thin for a tourist spot and most people were wearing masks.

As far as the Adiyogi Statue is concerned, it’s definitely a sight worth beholding for a while. Smiling against a blue sky, with clouds floating over the hills behind, the bust looks surreal and peaceful. It was raining, we had umbrellas, and the statue glistened under the drops, looking even better.

There is no entry fee to visit the center. Visitors are given paper tokens to go beyond the statue and visit a temple, but there is no fee for the tokens either. The temple is in a separate enclosure, along with a meditation center, so there’s another entrance for them and people cannot take their mobile-phones along. I chose to sit at the benches outside the enclosure, but most of the family went to see the temple and meditated a bit too. “It was very peaceful, we could experience positive vibes” was the general consensus. So it’s probably a great place for those who are spiritual and do yoga. A friend who lived in Coimbatore for a few years had recommended that we take a dip in the water pools at the center, but none of us were interested in wading into a public bathing place, so nobody saw the pools.

Some locals feel that some of the area’s former peace has been robbed off due to the statue’s fame with tourists. Regardless, it’s remains a beautiful property, with hills on three sides. And the clouds feel like they are within your reach. Those interested to stay at the property need to make prior bookings via email or through their help-desk (ishastay@ishafoundation.org – email)

What came as a surprise to us was the fact that the canteen was closed and so was the Pepperwine cafe that’s listed on their website. A handful of small shops were open, but there wasn’t any dine-in place where we could all sit and have lunch. There was a tempting ice-cream shop with interesting flavors on offer, but seeing a visitor feed most of their cup to a stray dog didn’t inspire confidence. Either they love animals or hated the dessert. Who’s to say? So we didn’t eat or drink anything during our visit. Instead we had lunch at a small place that was one kilometer away.

The Adiyogi Statue holds a Guiness book of World records for being the world’s “largest bust sculpture”. And while that makes it a bit of a marvel, I feel like it’s a place worth visiting only for people who already live in Coimbatore or around. Or if you have a long south-India trip planned, and Coimbatore happens to be on the way, then you could make a small pit-stop. Avoid summer months.

Turtle In Paradise Book Review – ‘Diaper Gang’ is Fun Enough

“You’ve got a club called the diaper gang? What do you do? Change diapers?” the protagonist asks a bunch of boys, tone filled with sarcasm. The boys look at her as if she is “dumb as a post” and one of them responds in a matter of fact tone – ‘course we change diapers, that’s why we are called the diaper gang’.

That’s the kind of simple humor that readers will find sprinkled throughout Jennifer L Holm’s novel ‘Turtle In Paradise’. It’s meant for children, although adults might equally enjoy this tale of a 11-year-old girl Turtle, who is packed off to her aunt’s house in Key West, in a poor community living on public relief. It’s heartening how despite the impoverished setting, the author manages to write an optimistic fun tale about a bunch of cheeky kids. Turtle doesn’t really like her first cousins at first sight, they are all a bunch of dirty little boys and they have a club that helps tired women out with their babies in exchange for candy. Money is hard around, it’s the 1930s, the time of the great depression, every body is in need of a job and some hope.

The story is in first person, narrated by Turtle, who comes across as a dry miss ‘know it all’. She loves listening to the radio and isn’t fond of the child-star Shirley Temple, who everybody else seems to be fond of. The little boys in the novel are absolute imps, somewhere between adorable mongrels and evil rascals. It was amusing to see the unruly bunch run a gang that takes care of babies and doesn’t allow girls to be members. Wouldn’t mothers in the real life love that? A world where men are completely in-charge of baby-care, while the moms relax a little and take care of other things!

In the author’s note, Jennifer talks about how the story was inspired from her great-grandmother’s life, who used to live in Key-West. So a lot of characters are based on real people, giving them a touch of authenticity. Most people in the area depend on fishing for their livelihood and the author does a fantastic job of conjuring up a friendly community. Folks may not have money, but still look out for each other.

The language is simple but laden with a lot of colloquial American terms, some of which are specific to the 1930s era. So a few things will be lost on both young and old readers, especially if they aren’t Americans. There is a sub-plot about a treasure-hunt, that felt a little abrupt. It pops out of nowhere, kind of like a storm that rips through the town in the latter half of the book. Nobody likes a bad storm. Although, it might seem forced and out of place only for adult readers like me. Kids might love it.

The climax is practical, sweet and heart-warming. It’s a 3.5/5 from me.

Don’t Look Up – ‘This Is The End’ Meets Sci-Fi Satire

Netflix finally unveiled the full trailer for its 2021 ensemble satire ‘Don’t Look Up’ directed by Adam McKay, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as an astronomy professor and Jennifer Lawrence who is his student. The two are convinced that a powerful comet is headed for the earth and could wipe it out. But nobody cares or takes them seriously. Not White House officials. Not folks on news channels. And definitely not random strangers they meet at the store. So it’s up to the duo to do something about it.

Going by the trailer, it seems a lot more promising than the other ‘end of the world’ movies out there. Like the 2013 ‘This Is The End’, the post-apocalyptic disaster movie that had a whole bunch of actors in it. Although, it’s hard not to make comparisons, and both films don’t take themselves too seriously. Also, it feels like a Hollywood after-party, because ‘Don’t Look Up’ has Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, Timothee Chalamet and a dozen of other familiar faces.

They really didn’t need to make a 3-minute-long trailer, because it sort of gives a lot of the story away. This is a little weird, because off-late, Netflix has been getting good with editing intriguing trailers, making even horrible films look like they have a lot of potential. Anyway, Leonardo & Jennifer Lawrence make a fun team, add to that the innumerable cameos by famous faces and it’s got a lot of movie enthusiasts excited for its release.

It’s going to be interesting how this film plays out with the audience, because with Covid19 pandemic is still on, many might not be in the mood for watching another film where the world might end. Or maybe it would be fun watching the comet destroy the earth and put us all out of our endless misery.

US Release Date: December 24, 2021

Father Christmas Is Back Review – Insidiously Boring

It’s been a while since we finished watching the 2021 comedy ‘Father Christmas Is Back’ and just thinking about it makes me feel sleepy. So here’s a quick review of a shitty film from a person trying to keep their eyes wide open, just so you can be warned about the perils of watching this Christmas disaster.

Directed by Mick Davis and Philipe Martinez, the story revolves around the Christmas family (it’s their surname), comprising of four sisters, who were all abandoned by their father James Christmas (Kelsey Grammer) on Christmas day. Elizabeth Hurley plays the eldest sister Joana, who loves fashion and abhors kids. Nathalie Cox is second in line, the neurotic Caroline Christmas-Hope, who is obsessed with the festive season and hosts her family for the holidays in her husband’s sprawling Yorkshire Mansion every year. Her plans for a perfect Christmas are completely ruined, when their father shows up unannounced at her doorstep after 27 years, with a young blonde girlfriend.

Confession time, I saw the trailer and it was easy to understand this was going to be a mediocre Christmas comedy, a 5/10 types, but the sort of light film you wouldn’t mind watching with friends on a weekend. And we had friends over for the weekend. So we saw the trailer, thought “oh yeah, this could be fun”. Nobody was prepared for just how bad it was going to get. It’s not the ‘what the hell is going on?’ kind of bad, not even the ‘this shit is giving me a headache’ sort of boring, it’s so mundane, you just want to fast-forward through it all and go take a nap. Some porn movies might have better plots, and even if they don’t, at least they have sex. ‘Father Christmas Is Back’ has nothing.

The big twist towards the end is predictable, I was able to take a guess within the first half-an-hour of the story. So no surprises. Except for a mildly entertaining first few minutes, ‘Father Christmas’ is completely snooze-worthy. Skip skip skip. It’s a 2.5/10 from me. My friends may think that’s generous.

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Three Netflix Shows Worth Checking Out

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Red Notice Review – Mind-Numbingly Dumb, With Dull Jokes & Old Tropes

“Hum dono hai alag alag, hum dono hai juda juda”, I couldn’t help but sing this 90s Bollywood song from ‘Main Khiladi Tu Anari’ as Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds embarrassed themselves onscreen. If actors Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan teamed up together to make a smart cop vs dumb actor movie again, it would probably be a 100 times more entertaining than Johnson’s latest. Ryan in an interview had talked about how his film ‘Free Guy’ took inspiration from Bollywood, but he & Johnson take direct notes from Indian super-star Rajinikanth’s playbook in ‘Red Notice’, sans the swag.

Directed and written by Rawson Marshall Thurber, this 2021 Netflix film costs a crazy 200 million dollars, and is the streaming site’s most expensive movie yet. But for all the money they blew on this project, they couldn’t afford decent scriptwriters, CGI artists or even a believable Buddha statue that could pass off as an antique piece. It looks like they just picked it up from some flea market downtown. Thurber got a 10 million dollar paycheck for writing & directing, so some more work to show for it would have been nice. He does spin an interesting (fictional) historical legend as backstory for this heist/treasure hunt story, but after that he seems to have just given up.

Let’s talk plot. Dwayne Johnson is interpol agent John Hartley, who is on the heels of renowned art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds). Both these men are conned by a mysterious super-thief ‘Bishop’ played by Gal Gadot, who is pretty much wonder-woman with a snooty attitude. Seriously, she mysteriously appears out of nowhere all the time and kicks the butt out of hulking men. And what are these super-thieves after? The legendary eggs of Queen Cleopatra. Well, not her literal eggs, they couldn’t freeze them back then, but three mythical bejeweled eggs that were gifted to the Egyptian queen by her lover Mark Antony. The makers take every opportunity to make egg jokes, to the point that they get annoying as fuck.

This movie looks like a giant excuse for the stars and crew of the film to go vacationing around the world. The story is spread over Rome, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt and whatever else. Everybody was clearly just having some fun with this, nobody probably had the time to actually finish the script. So they just did some random fill in the blanks. And what’s with almost every character having ‘daddy issues’? Ryan Reynold’s Nolan Booth is exactly like Deadpool, except he gets to keep his cute face while making dirty jokes. “Top or bottom?” he asks from a bunk-bed, when Hartley enters his prison cell. Few seconds later, there’s a shower scene where Booth is talking about soap, and it’s almost disappointing that they didn’t make him drop the soap bar to make another inappropriate comment. There are a few clever lines that will crack viewers up, but for most parts, it’s hard to pay attention. The story is stretched so much that you’d rather go sleep than suffer through this brainless creation.

For the kind of budget the movie has, even the cinematography isn’t all that great. A lot of the camera-work is shaky, making scenes annoying on the eye. Especially in the very first few minutes of the film where Dwayne chases Ryan though a museum. The mind-numbingly dumb incidents that follow don’t help. For example there’s a scene where a bazooka is shot at a fleeing chopper, and miracles of miracles – the rocket flies right through the open doors of the flying machine. L-O-L. Or how about a 1935 car model lying unused since the 1940s roaring to life and running like a badass in 2021.

Netflix has clearly placed its money on the A-list actors headlining ‘Red Notice’. Storytelling be damned.

It’s a 4/10 from me.