Star Wars: The Last Skywalker review

Tags

babu frik, disney, lucasfilm, rise of skywalker, star wars, starwars

 

Buying Lucasfilm for $4B has got to be up there with the best decisions that Disney has ever made. It has already incorporated Star Wars in its theme parks, has merchandise sales, has gotten content for Disney+.. pretty sure that the list goes on. And all at the cost of creating sub-standard films that keep generating monetary value!

I have absolutely hated the movies since The Phantom Menace but episodes I, II, III still felt like they had a coherent story to tell. The ones that have released since have just served the purpose of making money for our Disney overlords! Knowing all this, I decided to leave my brain at home and went to watch this movie.

If you decide to not apply logic to the asinine sequences, time jumps, cop-outs and some of the worst wrapping up of character arcs- it can be a fun experience. The jokes are surprisingly funny and the action sequences are fabulous. The massive fleet fight at the end takes the cake and I got to say-I almost became invested in the film for a good hour in between.

Go for it if you are a fan, I felt that I needed to see the end of the Skywalker saga. Even though tight storylines is a concept that lies in a galaxy far far away.

 

P.S: This dude might just be my new favorite character. Babu Frik comfortably stole every scene he was a part of.

 

 

 

 

 

Protected: Kabir Singh: Movie Review

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“Arriving somewhere, not here”

 

Walked for miles and miles with no end in sight,
No companions, stuck in a tunnel
whose end he couldn’t find.

Walking through, doubts got stuck in his head,
Should have he gotten in with least one of his mates?
Though the realization had already dawned he had pushed it away,
Your friends really are only for your summer days.

No one likes a sad sod, that sure holds true,
Go wipe your tears and if you are in a good mood,
We’ll always be there for you.

Walked some more, thought to himself,
“This was good, did I just have a catharsis by myself?”
Damn you, fool, there’s still miles to go,
But you aren’t all alone, I’ll have you know.

And just then, he saw a shadow move,
A shape, a cape,
someone sharing his doom.

Ran to it like there was no tomorrow,
The tunnel still dark as ever but there sparked hope in his forlorn borough.
His lungs bursting, face in tears,
Feared what he might find in there.

He ran through these void spaces, all the uninhabited places,
Reached all out, down below.
Chased only to find,
An empty face, a mannequin,
Only a shadow.

An Outsider

His hand instinctively reached out to the inners of his coat pocket for the pack of smokes before he remembered that he had given up on that habit a while back. “Old habits die hard, and this one was one stubborn sonovabitch innit”, he mused with a smile while digging for gold in form of a chewing gum in his jeans. “I sure could have used a smoke right now”, he thought to himself, trying to figure out a pattern that made his tightly structured security walls collapse like a stack of dominos.

He had always been an outsider, at least through his adult life. The once optimistic self looking at the truth of the world – and how everyone around was living a lie- shut itself down, opening a part-time and again to let people in. Those, it felt comfortable with. Those, it felt it shared a common belief, a common interest in. Those, it felt connected to.
There’s a very thin line between feeling like an outsider to becoming a pariah. And boy did he know how to tread it. His arsenal of useless trivia knowledge, the hours spent in isolation watching movies, reading books, roaming around places- they all came to his aid when talking to people the first few times. The ones he found interesting, he kept a note to connect with; the others, couldn’t care less. He had made a fair few connections and could proudly say were worth his time.

Saving his insides was one thing but little could he do about his surrounding. The constant cacophony bristling through the air, the disvalue of human life, the culture, the common disdain of nature, the tightly integrated relations- he had been trying to escape these for the past decade but it all kept catching up to him, and he decided to just move altogether. A different continent, a fresh start. A picture that had been painted in books and by his favorite artists. A life without the shackles of the past.
But can one truly escape where he comes from? Can one truly escape their past? Can one put up a candle and really expect it to weather the storm? While constructing the walls around his fragile self, what do you do when the foundation is broken? Where do you run off to now when the whole world is almost the same?

But he tried to run, he tried to fight. If only he’d been a little careful, a little smart, heeded more to the foreshadowing of his heart, he would have seen the whole picture and not just the myopic half. With his every start, the shackles around him gnawed, ate away at him. part by part.

Don’t worry, be happy

 

Don’t worry, be happy.
Don’t let the worries of the future eat your today,
Or the past cast a shadow on what’s in front.
And when at all your minds tries to wander off,
Just know, remember, you gotta,
Not worry, and be happy.

It’s easy having a metric ton on your head,
Misery can act very kind, it loves company.
If not for yourself, do it for ones who spend their time with you,
When you are down, you drag them behind too.
Just for a while, try to be free,
Don’t worry, be happy.

Life is a marathon, not a rat race,
A few months of giving yourself some time won’t hurt you, will it?
If your counter on things to do starts in the morning and you’re spent come night,
Is there any justice you’re doing yourself or your mind?
When you feel the shackles are making their move,
You close your eyes, you break free,
You jump off to the next platform,
Laugh,
And not worry, just be happy.

There will always be folks trying to pull you down,
Distress that will make you want yank your hairs out.
But remember you always have a choice,
You can either be weighed down,
Or just smile, refuse to be.
Be content,
Find your zen,
and
Not worry, are happy.

 

 

 

Sanju- Movie Review

Tags

movie review, ranbeer kapoor, sanjay dutt, sanju, sanju movie, vicky kaushal

Granted, it’s always difficult to make a biopic about someone who still is very much in the public arena; and while ‘Sanju’ ticks off a lot of boxes, it falters at a fair few as well. Much as its protagonist’s story.

The movie is a mix of good, bad, and ugly. Both in respect to Sanjay Dutt’s life and the narration. The movie tries to give in a very one-sided view of the actual story of Sanjay Dutt, but maybe Hirani thought that we’ve gotten enough from the other side (‘the press’)- which he attacks from a couple of fronts in the movie. It’s just a bit ironic that in the age that every other news is being branded as ‘Fake News’, in here, they have put in a symbol in the form of a ‘question mark’ (quite literally) to brand most that had been sprouted by the media as lies. But that’s the creative freedom which we need to give the story-teller, and even if you aren’t completely ecstatic about this, you can respect that.

But there were a couple of things that massively exasperated me in the film. The first being the use of stereotypes, time and again. The scene with the Parsi family kept stretching on and the whole Gujju thing has been done on-screen for countless times already, man, you really cannot add anything on the subject at this point in time. And for the second- the use of ‘Kamli’ in the film, at times comes out to be taking the easy route, used for nothing but a prop to propel the story forward.

Personally, I would have liked this story presented as more of a grey macabre than a black-and-white mural, a show with some added nuance, a hint of secrecy, and some unanswered questions. The best thing about it is the performance of Ranbir Kapoor, who does his reputation of being the finest Indian actor of this generation no harm- his performance is nothing short of brilliant, Paresh Raval, who made us want a movie about Sunil Dutt’s life, and a mention has to go to Vicky Kaushal’s portrayal of the slapstick comedy dude, ‘Kamli’.

It was a decent movie, but it’s for the masses and the box results of ~300 Cr. speaks plenty of the chord it has stuck with them. I just wish it had prodded and poked a bit more.

 

Abyss

Times had tried, and one as the next,
They had failed.
Each of those fought with all their might,
Helplessly try muster the strength to topple his life.

He knew he had a fragile mind,
a feeble defense and a flimsy core.
The only way he could protect it all,
Was deny anyone access to his whole.

He built boundaries,
Got himself a mask.
People came close but none past,
For there lay he- naked, vulnerable, and alone.

But along those jolly lines,
He met someone who made his breath queasy inside.
Looking at her, he realized what goosebumps were,
Touching her was electric sensations he never knew existed before.
Day after day, he let his defenses slip by,
Little by little, he gave her his keys.
For there was nothing that could harm him now,
Or so he thought, why shouldn’t he?

As it does to every single one,
life happened to them both.
And at the end- in his failures or his shortcomings,
He didn’t know who to blame more.

It’s not that she didn’t try,
Not that she hadn’t desperately kept looking at ways to break his slide.
He hated when he made her cry and cry she did,
when she knew she was kissing him goodbye.
As she watched him slowly fall into the abyss,
In front of her powerless eyes.

 

 

Starry Nights

“Aaah fuuuuuuuck that!”, he exclaimed to no one in particular as he tried to not imagine the mess that he would have to clean up, that he himself had created. “For the 1000^th fucking time, screw the lid on the freaking bottle before you decide to shake it up”, he reprimanded his already bummed mind, his eyes squinting to his freshly stained t-shirt and the floor with a cocktail of milk, bananas and his flavory powders, “now I gotta change and take a bath again”.

“Comeon, man, it happens”, his mind shouted back at him, ”just chill, change and take a nice little bath and then we’ll relax. It’s been a decent day so far, let’s not spoil it, alright?“ And well, he thought that it made some sense, somehow, and decided to do exactly that. He undressed, flexed his non-existing muscles in the mirror, admired himself for a good minute before disgruntling at his beer belly- which even if wasn’t protruding nagged him to no relief. He sighed as if he had lost his six pack only recently (of course he never had one) and hopped into the shower. He projected himself as a mean manly man but his washroom had the sexiest collection of bath salts, perfumed body washes, three different styles of shampoos, and of course, a face wash for his every mood. He thought that he needed something cold and fresh at that moment and of course it felt good. It was cold, and it was fresh. He was relaxed and contemplated if he should play with himself. He rubbed his little Johnson, as if asking it if it were in the mood. He did it for a couple of seconds and then decided that he might carry on with it later when he was comfortable in his couch, much easier that way. Feeling a strange sense of pride and satisfaction, he jumped out of the shower, put on a fresh set of underwear and clothes, and went about making his shake again. And because this time he didn’t forget the cap, he felt awfully proud of himself and decided to go to the balcony for a change. To feel the fresh air, the night sky, the downtown lights- you know the jazz.

And as soon as he did, the cold breeze did hit his face in every cliched way possible, and he closed his eyes and just listened to the sound. Thankfully he lived a little further away from the highway else the only music to his ears would be the cacophony of sounds from exhaust pipes of superbikes and the zooming away cars. It was not the case, and he could hear the wind speak to him. He went ahead, rested aside a railing and took a sip of his drink. “How the times have changed, eh!”, again, to no one in particular, “from fooling around in this balcony with booze and cigarettes to having a healthy milk-shake! I am so goddamn proud of myself”. “Proud of leaving my youth behind, proud of growing up. But am I, really?”. This is why he always hated the alone peaceful time with nature, it started to put in front of him uncomfortable questions. This used to be his favorite pastime, getting stoned and looking at them stars. He had made friends for life doing that, both- with them constellations and with actual flesh and blood people, he had learnt a ton about himself- what made him content and what actually was important. In fact, the person he was today, he attributed a lot of it to his time spent gazing at the stars. So why was it that he didn’t spend as much time nowadays that he used to?, he asked himself again.

He could already notice the difference in the sky from the time all those years ago, and he had been noticing that for a good time now. The sky as he knew was disappearing and year by year, his favorite stars were disappearing from the view. And well, he smiled. He knew that he couldn’t let the good fight die, little by little he had to reach out to people to educate them about the ill effects of the most inane type of pollution- light. He knew that he needed to make a difference, even one person at a time. For this sky to be again the sky of his childhood lights. Not for himself, but for the generations to come, for his planet.

He took a good long look again, draining the last drops of his shake from the bottle.  “It’s been a long time since I saw you last too”, a voice whispered in his ears. He closed his eyes to the melody of that and just smiled, ear to ear. It had been a long time since the stars had talked back.

 

 

The Storyteller

What do you think they married into,
Was it the way you look or was it your ideals?
The way you talk or your actual thoughts?
What do you think really mattered,
A sustainable future or broken blocks from the past?

Concerning yourself with all that wasn’t important,
You lost your way a little.
You forgot your way to get into people’s hearts,
Battling the voice inside left not a lot,
To overcome your own prison walls.

So, you decorated your walls with paintings,
Cardboard cutouts of your lofty dreams.
Always been a dreamer, but only at night,
The sunshine never able to exorcise,
Your demons from the light.

You make plans, you half arse,
Magnanimous with words, and wanting in action.
And who wouldn’t put up with that at the start,
Your castles and castles of stories,
Promises of a wonderland not afar.

But eventually the day comes, you’re left with none,
Your pandora’s box is empty, you desperately look for one.
You know they’re waiting,
You know that you are!
If not stories, what else have you got?

 

 

Fights and Demise

The writing was there on the wall,
We couldn’t see it.
The place had been in ruins all along,
The blindfold’s opening just sealed it.

The endless quarrels, the anguish, the pain,
An understanding that never got two legs to stand.
We were mad at the world and took it out on us,
Hoping the love reserve would save us but we emptied it, alas.

Every fight we had, took something out of us,
Till what remained resembled a skeleton of broken dreams and such.
Each of our arguments had two losers,
The collateral damage being taken out from the memories that made us.

And in the end, who was wrong and who was right?
The love we extinguished in having the last laughs those nights.
If only, had we just stopped and listened,
Us could have lived,
Life been different.