Bullet Train, Review: Brad luck Pitt
A Japanese book adapted into an American film, with Brad Pitt in the leading role, set on a high speed train, with armed and dangerous Mafia agents and gangsters on board, seems to be the menu for a high-octane entertainer. And for once, a film delivers most of what it promises. It is a quaint mix of mayhem, mirth and thrills. Bullet Train re-works the gangster genre with a twist that is so obvious that you wonder why did nobody think of it before. And tha...
The Current War, Review: DC Edison v/s AC Westinghouse
Unless you do some background reading, this review included, you will not guess that the film is not about a conventional war but about the rivalry between Thomas Alva Edison, credited with inventing Direct Current operated incandescent bulbs, and their Alternating Current based, dynamo-run variants, developed by George Westinghouse, back in the 1880s. It’s a double-barrelled bio-pic that spouts too much jargon and is not saved by f...
The Shape of Water, Review: Half full, half empty
It’s co-written and directed Guillermo del Toro. And here is an excerpt of the synopsis: In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda discover a secret classified experiment. Sounds interesting? Yes. Premise can work on its own? As a sci-fi thriller, yes, but as an allegory and metaphor-packed Guillermo d...
12 Strong, review: Lucky by the Dozen
You are about to watch the declassified true story of the first American soldiers sent into Afghanistan after 9/11. They were called the Army Green Berets Operational Detachment Alpha 595 (ODA 595) and consisted of just twelve. On the battleground in Afghanistan, they were outnumbered 40 to 1. But they won their battle, and all of them returned, largely unscarred. Now that is what I would call being lucky. They were heroes, nevertheless, but since the ope...
by Martin I. Petrov
Midnight special by US director Jeff Nichols, one of the most highly anticipated premieres at the 66th Berlinale Competition tells the story of a father (Michael Shannon) who begins a journey with his eight year old son, convinced that his special powers are of great importance to humanity.
Jeff Nichols, whose previous films Mud and Take shelter put the dircetor in the spotlight of the film festival circuit, returns to Berlin after his 2007 debut in ...
An impromptu conversation that took place in the Lobero Theater green room was the direct result of an accidental drop off of both Melissa Leo and Rosemarie DeWitt at a red carpet event, albeit not for the Virtuosos Awards, but for the surf film Waveriders.
“Looking for something hot to do in Santa Barbara? Check out the new film Surfer Dude … no wait, Super Dude, yeah, that’s funnier. Okay, Super Dude it is … I saw lights, I saw a red carpet … did I look at th...
