Smorgasbord Fantasia

So Tom Hardy is out to prove a point. That its been a summer surfeit of superheroes. Let's get a dose of the anti-hero. And Venom brings the party in a voice that gives you the fuckin' jitters! < A voice that competes with Bane crossed with Dark Knight> Here's the new extended version of the trailer: Out in October.

As I watched the re-run of the movie Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, I found myself asking - What makes a man like Ethan Hunt tick? To push himself up after every bone-jarring bike-accident, to walk away from every nerve-wracking gun fights unscathed, to roll in and out of insane chopper chase sequences that would probably burst a normal man's beating heart with fright. These are normal occurrences that define Ethan's everyday life as he chooses to accept one mission after the other. Does he ever choose not to? We get the answer in MI-6, Fall Out; Luther and Julia's sad little bonding scene on top of a nuclear bomb as they discuss Ethan. "A pathetic sense of morality, of taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong in this world" Now  that is what keeps this agent from "falling out".  We ain't complaining, no sir - On the wrong side of fifty and still doing heart-stopping stunts for a living, Tom Cruise brings all his heart and

Blackwing  by  Ed McDonald  was one of the best debuts of last year that put the shine and focus right back into the grim dark genre, proving that this sub-genre still breathes life and this was done in a fairly stylistic engrossing manner ticking all the right boxes. Ed McDonald's series,  Raven's Mark  opens up in the best possible manner with this compelling tale of love, loss and sacrifices. There was so much to cheer about: the assured virtuoso writing, the cold black truths delivered in layers of black humour, the hard-edged but oh-so-real characters, the magic system  and of course the amazing places like Valengrad and the Misery that come alive on the pages.  In  Ravencry , Ed McDonald has delivered a winning sequel that takes everything that was good with the debut and then cranks it up manifold. Grim to the core, with nonstop relentless action that just ups and sweeps you along to a thundering climax, this one also feels a lot more personal. The pain and

Sacred Games was released on July 6th on Netflix India and a mere six days later I think this series has hit a cult status and following. It is definitely one of the sharpest originally 'made for India' content that I have seen in years and while yes, there is a lot of hype for the heavyweight names associated with Bollywood getting down and dirty on the small screen, I think it is all justified and totally worth it. Is it India's answer to hit international web series, like Narcos or Marco Polo? I think we shall soon find out the numbers. But it is definitely opened the floodgates for Netflix India, in terms of the awareness and its war-cry in this brutal 'content' game up against the stalwarts like Amazon Prime. So Sacred Games is directed by two stalwarts of the industry, A nurag Kashyap (Gangs of Wasseypur and many more acclaimed movies) and V ikramaditya Motwane ( Udaan, Lootera) and stars Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddique and Radhika Apte in key ro