Smorgasbord Fantasia

Congratulations. You have made it to the end of a ten year long, 22 movie-franchise third and arguably, the most spectacular phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If your eyes are prickling with restrained tears or you are just full-out bawling your lungs away, then don't feel bad. We are in this together. We did avenge, some yes. We managed to piece it all back together, of what was left of the smoking mess that the do-gooder Thanos' left sautéing on the Terran stovetop with that "snaptocalypse" at the end of the Infinity War. MCU has evolved into an epic, with Iron Man being one of the first of the lot to be introduced to us and then we had this ensemble of superheroes take centre-stage in our hearts. And so with the Avengers: End Game , the third phase ' The Infinity Saga " is over [technically it is going to be spider-man 2 that will call the wraps on it], a marvellous wrap to the proceedings. Russo brothers , you guys should take a bow. Because...

DC has really been struggling to get their act together but in Shazam ! I truly believe, that they have found their most "bankable" superhero. The irony being that it essentially took a sillier premise of a fourteen year old kid forced to take on the mantle of the world's "pure-hearted" savior to actually save them the blushes. The question posed by the movie seems logical enough. What happens if a fourteen year old kid is granted super hero powers? The answer is in the hilarious scene when Billy and Freddy, teenage boys - one a nerdy DC super-fan, the other in the body of a newly-anointed superhero still figuring out his prowess - go inside a super-market to try out 'adult' gimmicks. This sort of sets the tone for the entire movie. Firmly tongue-in-cheek, irreverent to the core and yet, balanced by a believable 'super-villain' in Mark Strong playing the role of Dr. Thaddeus Siva, who takes on power in its corrupt form [ as gifted by the ...

I have not been enchanted and bewitched by a book like Black Leopard, Red Wolf , in recent times. Period. I don't know what Marlon James was smoking as he wrote this opening chapter to the proposed Dark Star trilogy but this one's a psychedelic experience, a dazzling journey through magical lands teeming with danger and explosive violence, land that is brimming with elements from Marlon James' frenzied hyperactive imagination, and resembles a fantasy version of pre-colonial Africa. But it's a journey that will horrify you and amaze you in equal measure - for the man doesn't shy away from violence or skin-crawling descriptions of sex. Cinematic violence on a scale and form un-imagined before. [ think hatchets flying through the air, arrows bursting through from the back, hearts ripped out and eyeballs plucked dry and scores of bodies mutilated and hacked down, at random or on purpose. And it doesn't stop here!] This is an Africa you haven't even dr...

I admit, I have never read the Olympian Bound trilogy - the first series by Jordanna Max Brodsky . So I came into The Wolf in the Whale , fairly oblivious to Jordanna's amazing talent. Which kind of heightens the joy of having read this absolutely epic magnum opus. Jordanna picks up an off-beat little known account of a meeting between the Inuits and the first expedition from the Vikings land and then spins that off into a highly engaging, magical and sprawling epic full of timeless mythologies and peerless magic, building it up as a historical fiction that soars. In terms of the originality and the stunning language, The Wolf in the Whale stands way above many other books that I have read, in the recent past.  It is the story of the coming of age of Omat - a fearless Inuit hunter and shaman living on the edge of the world, living off the frozen nature and the bounties that the Ancient Spirits like Sea, Wind, Moon,Sun and the Animal spirits like the Wolf or the ...