The Sane Lunatic

Hi! It's been a while since the last post because I haven't been out to see a movie which is mainly because of how busy I am nowadays. But I couldn't pass on the opportunity to do a short year-end post as we head into 2019. I'm going to focus on the last four months in particular because they have been quite the turnaround in my fortunes in so many different ways. Starting off with September which kicked off with a round of interviews for a new job, the kind of job I had been looking for throughout the year. Even better was finally getting the job, despite all manners of issues coming up in the last minute that could well have led to completely different outcomes. My success in getting this new job was also a big boost to my self-confidence and made me feel so, so relieved because it meant that I had not stubbornly put myself through all that pain and anxiety for nothing. Another big part of September was how hard I was working on my automotive blog, The Auto Loon...

I like watching movies and I like listening to certain kinds of songs. Sometimes I watch musicals but unlike most of Bollywood, I'm happy to enjoy the two separately most of the time. This is different though. It's a movie about songs, some of the most iconic songs of the 20th Century and the men behind them. One man in particular, who possessed prodigious talent and lived a life worth debate - Freddie Mercury from Queen. This biopic gives a brief insight into the story of Farrokh Bulsara, ie, Freddie Mercury. Born in Tanzania to a Parsi family that then fled to the suburbs of England, Freddie is brought to life by the splendid performance of Rami Malek. Following the man's passion for music, his distinguished dressing sense and how Queen came to be as a band. While some may argue that this part of the story was treated with too much brevity, I find it the perfect directorial choice to keep the film entertaining and not make it into a BBC special documentary. From ...

Oh, look. It's another superhero movie. Which one is it this time? Marvel or DC? What? What d'you mean neither? Sony? I thought they're working on Spiderman flicks with Marvel Studios only. It's not Spiderman but it's kind of related? Would you just temme already, this is quite a tiresome questioning you know? (Gets shown trailer for Venom). Ohhhhh. This should be goood (rubs hands gleefully). Venom. Possibly the most badass anti-hero character in my memory from the Spiderverse. Tom Hardy. One of the best badass actors of this generation. Add it up and what you should have is an epic comic-book live-action movie. But there's this big, big problem and it's got to do with legal ownership of characters and their fictional universes. Venom is an alien symbiote life-form with a back story rooted deep in the Spiderverse and involves Spidey himself. But with the third-gen reboot of the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman being driven by the Marvel Comic Univer...

Sequels and prequels have a tendency to disappoint, even more so in the case of horror movies. Yet, this particular movie had the burden of some high expectations given how impressive the previous instalments had been - The Nun. 'The Nun' is the prequel to the highly acclaimed horror movie series called 'The Conjuring'. The first Conjuring movie was definitely a surprise in how it deployed the element of jump scares and is definitely on my list of top scary films, but the second one left me wanting for a deeper storyline. A demon called Valak is the source of all misery in these films and appears in the form of a nun with yellow eyes and terrifying features. This prequel dives into the story of the demon and its history in the 'Conjuring' series. We follow the journey of a priest and a nun-to-be around the events dated to have taken place in 1952 in post-war Romanian backwoods. That sets it up nicely for a gothic feel with a massive Christian abbey that ...

Alessandro Zanardi, better known as Alex Zanardi, is an Italian racing driver, born 23rd October 1966. He is a two-time CART champion, ex-F1 driver, sports car racer and Olympic gold medalist. His racing career isn't one of the most successful ones but he is one of the most inspirational racers out there today. He is also a double-amputee above the knee. This is his story as I know it from various sources. Alex began racing karts at the age of 13, building his kart from the wheels of a dustbin and pipes from his father's work. By 1988, he joined the Italian F3 series and in the following year, he took two pole positions and three podium finishes. In 1991, he partook in the Formula 3000 series, won his debut race and two others to finish second in the championship. This strong performance got him a seat in F1 with three starts for Jordan that same year. However, he remained a test and guest driver for a bunch of F1 teams over the 1992 season before getting contracted by ...

It's been a looong time since I shared some of the Sane Loon life here. The last time I opened up, things were looking pretty grim in my opinion. And three months later, not a whole lot has changed in the areas of life that I've been struggling in but a lot of other stuff has happened since then. Near the end of May, I went on a short road trip with family to a secluded coffee plantation resort in Himachal Pradesh in the newly acquired family car. It was a good drive and for the most part, it was a welcome break from the noisy bustle of the city existence. But the trip didn't end so well as I was way beyond my limit in terms of putting up with family in a small, confined space with no breaks. As such, it was weighing heavily on my mind and my attention span. Knowing that, I should have cleared my mind before I got behind the wheel to do my share of the drive back, but I didn't and through a case of poor judgment and unfortunate circumstances, found myself between ...

It has been a long time ladies and gents but the Sane Loon is back with a movie review and we're getting back into this with an all-new blockbuster action movie. Tom Cruise is back with the Mission Impossible franchise for the sixth instalment and it's up to him and his crew to stop a global disaster. Again. 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' brings Ethan Hunt & the IMF back to the fray of saving the world from those looking to bring about mass destruction to overthrow the current world order. In the previous instalment, he and his team took down the 'Sentinel', an anti-establishment organization that wanted to wreak nuclear attacks around the world irrespective of nation, religion or race. This time the nuke threat is back and after Hunt lost the radioactive materials in order to save his teammate Luther (Ving Rhames), it's on him to track them down again and put a stop to the nefarious plans of the terrorist individuals known as the Apostles. Jere...

World Cup time. Once in four years, every footballing nation reaches a fever pitch from expectations and excitement to see their country's best players compete in the FIFA World Cup finals. The top 32 nations from across the world representing every continent except Antartica play for the biggest trophy in the game over the course of a month. It's a big deal for every player and every nation involved and this year Russia was playing host. The polar opposite climate from the previous World Cup held in Brazil, but one that would benefit most players who play in Europe for different leagues and are more used to the chill than to the heat. This is also the stage for individual players to become legends, to rise up when a loss would mean elimination, to be recognized as the World's best in their time. At each World Cup there are certain players who are the world's best on a club level and have won the prestigious Ballon d'Or but for whatever reason, they underperfor...

Woah! It's almost the end of April and this is only my second post this year that isn't a movie review. Am I getting old and boring or simply more careful of what I openly express in this increasingly dangerous and intolerant social atmosphere? Or maybe just a little lazy with putting thoughts into written form. Meh. Time for a personal update from the Sane Loon and it's not a good one as you can guess from the title of this blog. I don't even know how many real people read this and how many are just page-pings from bots trawling the worldwide web, but I feel like it helps me get things off my chest here without losing much of my privacy. Getting back to the title of this post, 'Breaking Point'. I'd assume that many of you like me have come across this expression before and most probably on some news channel with a story describing the volatile state of some nation or the other. Or maybe in a novel that has some intense circumstances. Nonetheless, he...

The movie that I've been waiting for more than any Marvel flick, got delayed by two weeks in my town before finally being available to watch in IMAX 3D, this is it - Ready Player One. If you're like me and you never knew about the book it is based on by the same name (written by Ernest Cline), here are two simple incentives - it's about video games and it's directed by Steven Spielberg. The narrative is set in a semi-dystopian future of 2045 where the world is on the brink of chaos, where instead of living in the depressing reality, people have found hope and salvation in the virtual reality universe called OASIS, made by an eccentric genius of gaming technology James Halliday (Mark Rylance). In the OASIS, the only limit is one's imagination as the universe allows people to create while also harbouring an extensive range of pop culture references. With time, the OASIS grew and evolved to the extent of having real-world implications. The skills and objects in t...

Yep. The Loon watched a new Hindi movie, first since 'Trapped' and for the same pitch: it's not your typical Bollywood movie. 'October' is the work of Shoojit Sircar (director and producer) and Juhi Chaturvedi (screenplay) and is an interesting piece of film. It's a bit tricky to tell you about the movie without giving away possible plot points even though it is no murder mystery. 'October' deals with a very real circumstance, an unfortunate circumstance, that many people deal with in many different forms. The narrative revolves around Dan (Varun Dhawan) a Hotel Management course student in his final semester, undergoing work training at a *top* hotel in Dwarka and how he deals with the daily struggles alongside his friends and fellow interns. One such colleague is the younger student, Shiuli (Banita Sandhu) who appears to be everything that Dan isn't - smart, reliable, responsible and an overall good person.  It all changes when on New...

Most of us would probably recognize John Krasinski as Jim from the US version of The Office, a docustyle sitcom, or as a hunk of American military muscle from his recent role in '13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi'. But what we would not associate with him is horror, and until recently, neither would he. Now in 2018, John makes a triple treat debut to the genre as he directs, writes and stars in - 'A Quiet Place'. The premise is simple yet brilliant - our world being overrun by a species that attacks sound. But the movie follows a traditional scope of the genre by focussing on a small group of people, one family to be precise and their struggle for survival. Now, if your life depends on how quiet you can live, move, work and all other unavoidable functions, the biggest task would be handling small kids in such a situation and the main characters of this film, the Abbots, have three . I'll admit, I missed the introductory five minutes of the film...

After one of the best Hollywood films about giant fricking monsters against giant fricking robots came out in 2013, Pacific Rim finally gets its much-awaited sequel — Pacific Rim: Uprising. The core attraction remains the same with more big, fricking robots and even bigger monsters bashing it out and decimating cityscapes in their wake, but everything else is pretty much new. We follow the story from the point of view of Jake Pentecost (John Boyega from the new Star Wars films) who is the son of the first instalment's badass, Stacker Pentecost (played by Idris Elba). It's a typical kid-under-the-shadow-of-his-dad's-legacy, one who saved the world at that. Ten years after the bridge was closed and the war was won, most of the destroyed coastal cities are still wastelands. Settlements of looters with barter exchange in place of a monetary system in order to acquire resources like food and shelter. Scavenging Jaegers (name of the giant frickin robots) for parts was the ...

Another weekend, another remake. This one is a relatively ill-timed reiteration of an action classic - Death Wish. The iconic role played out by Charles Bronson of being a manly vigilante is now played by the only old-looking badass that isn't bulky: Bruce Willis. It's pretty much the same story brought forward to the current times. Shooting related crimes and deaths are high in Chicago so it's the location for the plot. Bruce Willis plays a well-renowned surgeon by the name of Paul Kersey who has worked hard and lives with his beautiful wife Lucy (Elizabeth Shue) and daughter Jordan (Camila Morrone) in a big home, has nice cars and everything is going well for him. Then one night, a band of thieves are at the Kersey residence and it all goes wrong when the robbers confront Paul's wife and daughter. Lucy agrees to their terms to hand over all the valuables but while she's opening the safe, one of the robbers watching Jordan starts trying to molest her. Jordan...

A new Marvel hero getting his own solo film, even though he was introduced in the insanely epic Captain America: Civil War ( review here ), it's finally time for the Black Panther to dig its claws into the MCU. After all the hype and the incredible teasers from the trailers, it finally came and it delivered in every promise of being an entertainment spectacle. Chadwick Boseman returns as T'Challa, the King of Wakanda, aka Black Panther in a story that carries on from his introduction as the prince, who unveiled his badass vibranium black suit of armour while chasing the Winter Soldier. T'Challa is young but wise, a good man, and after his father was assassinated by Sargeant Barnes, it was his turn to take the throne. Wakanda has a massive reserve of the alien metal known as vibranium, the toughest metal on Earth and is the same stuff that Cap's shield is made out of. The meteor of vibranium had affected the land itself, making it fertile, while offering many mo...

Does anyone remember when they were first taught this word? I assume it was your parents or guardians when they were mad at you for doing something wrong and you were told to say sorry. Easy as that. Just say sorry. Make a mistake, say sorry. Drop something, say sorry. Hurt someone, say sorry. Be careless, say sorry. It's become such a common and often an emptily used word, it can be argued that it has lost some of its depth.  “I’m sorry.’ The two most inadequate words in the English language.” – Beth Revis I'm not saying people should stop expressing an apology. In fact, there are so many cases of ruined relationships where ego came in the way of an apology, where saying a heartfelt sorry can go a long way. But when that is not the case, when the apologies become frequent and repetitive, when no matter how earnest, they become part of the routine, what then? What if sorry was no longer a word and there was no replacement for it? What would we do? What w...

Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep in the same film, you are bound to get a memorable and powerful cinematic experience, but life has thrown in Steven Spielberg in as the director, just for good measure. 'The Post' is a well-paced, entertaining and timely docudrama about a pivotal moment in modern US history - the Pentagon Papers. These are intense times in the United States under the presidency of Trump and many parallels are being drawn between now and the period of the Nixon presidency. Hollywood is diving into the stories regarding the same with the docudrama about the FBI informant whose cooperation with the press led to the impeachment of Nixon, Mark Felt. Now it revolves around the incident preceding Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, a Department of Defense academic study about USA's war in Vietnam. The papers in question revealed that the US military was well aware for a long time that they would not win the war, but in order to save face, they kept it going for many mo...

Okay I know I don't particularly like horror movies but they do make for an interesting cinematic experience, provided I can find someone to watch em with. The Insidious series is something I stumbled upon and since the first one, I've been following all the sequels too which made it hard to miss what seems like the last one - The Last Key. The plot puts us once again with Elise the psychic and her side-kicks as a freakishly-strong demon from her childhood resurfaces to claim more souls. It isn't a particularly unique storyline but that's kind of what makes this series a reasonable watch. It doesn't try to be artsy or pretentious, but it does follow the basic elements of a good spook - jump scares, parallel realm walked by spirits and psychics, messed up looking dead people and really ugly demons. The film also incorporates a few moments of levity to give the audience a break from the flashbacks and slow build-ups. There is the standard policy of the ghouls ...

A remake or a modern sequel to a classic movie is a trend that has many franchise fans react in two possible ways - cringe of regret or quivers of excitement. When I heard there was new Jumanji movie coming out, my reaction was the former. I am a huge fan of the original one from 1995, starring the great Robin Williams and when I saw the trailer of this 'sequel' for the first time, I was interested but wary. But I'm happy to say I was happy to be wrong about my hesitations for this film. 'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle' remembers to keep two core elements of the original and the book that I haven't read, at its core: it's a game that kids/teens will play and will learn life lessons from through adverse and life-threatening adventures. Keeping that in mind, they have evolved Jumanji, or rather the game itself evolves to make itself attractive to the modern meaning of 'a game for kids'. Board game? Pfft. Video game! That's right, it is a vide...