The Movie Geek

A movie is called a good one when it is able to entertain it's audience. What makes a movie great is if that movie succeeds in connecting with the audience and stays with them long after the movie has ended. The Oscars is a celebration of such movies. A platform where the world is made aware of the great films that were released in that specific year, which would've been lost and withered off if otherwise. Many great movies do not get the publicity they deserve owing to comparatively less budget they were made against their action/adventure counterparts. A way larger group of people were well aware of Furious 7 than Spotlight, which in turn won The Best Picture Oscar 2016. The Oscars make sure that a great movie reaches greater group of audience it deserves. Though there were fairly good number of cases where the Academy's judgement was wrong (The Crash winning Best Picture against The Brokeback Mountain, for one), their credibility is still intact today for the service th...

***Spoiler Alert!*** Don't blame me for liking violence when it is so damn beautifully captured. Keanu Reeves comes back for the second installment of surprise hit film, John Wick. In the era where quality action movies had a fall from greatness, Chad Stahelski brings an action movie with a lot of power, potential and style. He continues it for the second time too. John Wick had floored the audience with a revenge tale after a bunch of amateurs steal John's car and kills his dog in the process. Keanu Reeves got praised a lot for his performance as the troubled, retired assassin with style and suave written all over him. That suave assassin is back again and well, will he recreate his magic on screen? The movie kicks off with John Wick (Keanu Reeves) kicking some ass to retrieve his stolen car. A lot of bodies are dropped even before the titles. He gives a shot at retirement, again, but his demons from the past are hell bent on keeping him alive in business. This time ar...

We are a country where Liam Neeson is famous for Taken franchise and not for Schindler's List . A country where David Fincher is relatively unknown compared to Michael Bay. A country which sees Hollywood only for a grand screen of destruction and not at the art and depth of films it can offer. On an average, two out of five movies that get nominated for Academy Awards do not get released in India with 2016's Best Picture Academy Award Winner not seeing light in India until after it's win. Yet, not a single feature from Fast & Furious or Transformers will be overlooked by Indian audience. 2016, was no different. Three critically acclaimed, Oscar buzzed movies, Moonlight , Manchester by the Sea and Hacksaw Ridge didn't get a release in India. There were other great movies that got their release but were not paid enough attention by the audience. Out of them, I pick two, which for all their brilliance, deserved a great deal of attention we were unable to offer. ...

***Spoiler Alert!*** The Spin-off of Harry Potter  franchise had made Potter-heads go bonkers when it was announced. Then it was announced that Eddie Redmayne (Theory of Everything and The Danish Girl fame) was cast as Newt Scamander and that David Yates (Director of last 4 Harry Potter movies) will be directing this venture. Though Yates was not able to make his magic work with Tarzan, I've expected him to work wonders with Fantastic Beasts. Then, great talents as Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Ezra Miller and of course, Johnny Depp join in and make this movie one of the most anticipated movie of this year. Trailers boasted of quality, action, thrill and magic. Let's see if the movie has managed to live to the expectations. Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) reaches NY in 1926 with a case full of magical creatures with an intent to release Frank, a giant Eagle-like creature. One among them, is a Niffler, sneaky duckbill platypus-looking animal, which has a thing for shiny o...

***Spoiler Alert!*** Golden Rule #1: Not every super hit movie needs a sequel. Golden Rule #2: When you force a unnecessary sequel on audience with absolutely no interesting plot, it falls flat. It'll not even work as a cash grab. Yup, the makers of Rock On 2 totally and completely ignored both these golden rules. They tried forcing this movie so desperately on audience that they didn't even hesitate to twist each and every one of our favorite characters from the first part so much that they lost all that we loved about them. Totally. Rock On!! ends perfectly. The story of Magik , a rock band and their friendship, sorting out their issues and giving closure to all the characters involved. Rock On 2 completely undoes all that work and creates a mess. And moving forward, it keeps messing up the situations and characters that at a certain point, you feel like every character involved need psychiatric treatment. Though Rock On!! was a complete picture, when Rock On 2 was ...

***Spoiler Alert!*** After a long time since its inception, MCU introduces magic to their universe and due to that, Doctor Strange has been a very important movie. They got is perfect with casting. This is one of the most star-studded cast movies in the whole of MCU. Being an origin story and not having much of connections with the rest of MCU movies, Doctor Strange had large audience base and Marvel has been successful in getting them give a shot for their latest outing. With a strategically planned path by Kevin Feige (President of Marvel Studios) and wonderful vision of Scott Derrickson (Director of Doctor Strange) , Doctor Strange comes out as a fresh serve-up. Doctor Strange starts off with Master Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) and his disciples stealing forbidden rituals from their London Sanctum Library (too much for being a safe house eh!) . They hold the librarian with Lassos of Truth  something that looks like the Lasso of Truth (of Wonder Woman) and beheads him. ...

***Spoiler Alert!*** Thanks to my sisters, I had to watch this movie which I wouldn't have otherwise! The best thing about this movie? The whole controversy stirred couple of weeks before it's release. Yup, that was much more entertaining! Though I didn't have much hopes from Karan Johar, I've always been an admirer of Ranbir Kapoor's acting, especially when he cries and looking at sensible subjects he usually chooses  (barring a few like Besharam, Roy e.t.c.) , I was tricked into believing there'll be something new in the movie. Oh boy, was I wrong! The movie starts off with Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor) being interviewed after he has become a successful singer. One of the questions from the interviewer makes him start his life story with Alizeh (Anushka Sharma) and Saba (Aishwarya Rai). Ayan has these obsessive feelings (ooh! creepy!!) towards Alizeh, a weak character who is obsessed (creepy part 2!!) with Ali (Fawad Khan). As Alizeh carries off to marry Ali af...