The Sane Lunatic

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...