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TV Reviews

TV Review: Welcome to Wrexham

STORY

Two American celebrities grab an opportunity to invest and become the owners of a Welsh football club, Wrexham A.F.C. The journey from takeover until the conclusion of the first season under their ownership is documented in ”Welcome to Wrexham”.

INTRODUCTION

”Welcome to Wrexham” is a sports documented series by FX that covers all the important events that have occurred with time since Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds bought the club. Wrexham A.F.C. Why Wrexham? Why this club has blown the trumpets all over the world among the football loyalists? There are two major reasons that reflect highly on Wrexham’s significance.

One is history. Wrexham A.F.C. is the oldest football club of Wales and the third-oldest professional football club in the world. The club was formed in 1864 and since then, the Racecourse Stadium has been the club’s home. Therefore, this is the world’s oldest international football stadium that itself was established back in 1807.

There was a time when the club used to be Wales’ best club. In the late 1970s, Wrexham actually reached to the second division. But in the eighties, the city become economically challenged with increasing unemployment. With that followed a sore collapse in the club’s performance and got repeatedly relegated. Since 2008, the club has been playing in the National League which is the lowest division in the English Football Pyramid.

The second compelling significance is the people of Wrexham. Their staunch enthusiasm and passion for football has kept the spirit of the club alive for 150 years. The one remarkable proof of their dedication is the existence of the club’s official public house, The Turf. This tavern was built back in the 1840s and since the inception of the club, this place has lit up to gather the locals and support the club at any cost. In the past, it was the only pub to be built inside the ground of a football club. Today, this is the oldest pub in the United Kingdom for any sports.

Observing what Wrexham stands for in the British football, the coverage of their remarkable tale of football attracts the global football audience to be sticking around towards their progress.

REVIEW

WELCOME TO WREXHAM- Pictured: (l-r) Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney. CR: Patrick McElhenney/FX.

”Welcome to Wrexham” has many incredible aspects for a sports docu-series. The show serves its purpose not only in reminding us football fans why Wrexham story should be narrated louder and deserves revival but also showing us what it takes to the owners and the locals to raise optimism to see them achieve success.

Yes, Rob and Ryan like a few American owners of football clubs have no knowledge of ‘soccer’ as we can watch in the episodes that they try to understand how this game and the whole football system in the United Kingdom works. But the point that I loved about them is that they found a purpose to buy the club. Considering to document the whole new-era club-story has to be the wisest decision. Not only recording the whole progress brought awareness in the global football audience but also helped in generating the revenue that contributed to the seasonal budget.

By this way, Rob and Ryan with or without intentions also demonstrated to the world how the business decisions and strategies can help fetch the positive results in a venture where you have your heart but the knowledge is minimal. More than that, Rob and Ryan set an example by getting accustomed and understand the system, the society, and the legacy of the local club. Visiting ”The Turf”, meeting hardcore club supporters, asking their opinions and taking suggestions. Things like these wins the locals and builds the trust. Despite all the investments and further heartbreaks, they trusted in the manager, the staff, and the squad.

The presentation and editing of the series makes the case to develop interest towards such an incredible underdog story. Wrexham story under Rob and Ryan is something the writer and director seeks to script down and intensify the proceedings. Wrexham’s last season needed no spice to add up. The earlier episodes stretched to their failures and changed the tone with their winning ways. It looked like some Bollywood larger-than-life unthinkable tale. So, I particularly liked how the show maintained the tone while depicting their ups and downs.

Another point of admiration is that the makers of the show reflected most of the sentimental setup around the Wrexham society that correlates with the club. The show took care of covering the club’s die-hard supporters and volunteers. Broadly covered the personal lives of a few of them. Even after losing the last league game, no fan left and cheered for the team. Recording such scenes grows the following of the show.

CLOSING REMARKS

Impressive leadership skills, never-say-die spirit of Wrexham fans, and superb presentation of the whole Rob-Ryan football journey has won the hearts of millions of fans. Like many, I whole-heartedly wish Wrexham football club all the success. If you are passionate to listen and watch a football story, Wrexham should not be avoided at all.

I wonder what if Wrexham gets promotion and with time, progress to reach Premier League one day? It is a tough call. English football is mad and unpredictable. But if Wrexham reaches to the highest football rank with all these years-long recording, ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ will be the greatest club football story ever told.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: Gullak

INTRODUCTION

My fellow brownies! There were days in our lives when we children along with our parents used to sit together to watch a family drama with rich elements of humor and episodic stories so relatable.

Neither the parents were reluctant nor the children embarrassed that the show would ever startle a cringe tone with a subject to insecure or discomfort its loyal household viewers at any moment.

But now, the quality of humor has drastically changed. Alas! those golden moments of our lives are missing. Great writers and storytellers have disappeared. And the contents of romance and sex, and the importance of woke, political correctness, and LGBTQ+ make more rounds. And in all this process, the evening get-together of a family for a show to watch on the television has lost the spark.

But I have a piece of good news for you. An Indian family drama by The Viral Fever (TVF) circulated on my radar and after years or maybe a couple of decades, I finally found a family drama that is technically a masterpiece in performance, screenplay, writing, and direction. And more than that, a show that wittingly addresses a social satire and domesticity in the most convenient manner – Gullak.

STORY and WRITING

Gullak is a Hindi word that means a saving jar. In other words, it is also called a piggy bank. Displayed on different furniture with time, Gullak narrates the everyday incidents that occur in the house of the Mishras.

A family consisting of the parents (Papa Santosh and Mummy Shanti) and their two sons (Annu the eldest and Aman) struggles to survive the unwanted challenges that drag them to plenty of obstacles.

The Mishras represent millions and millions of middle-class houses and their average life spent on blaming, forgetting, mistaking, and taunting. Winning minor battles of arguments over each other, tolerating bad habits, lying to survive one day without wife or mother scolding. The writers of the show presented an authentic look at the domestic incidents between the four walls and the ceiling.

The most convincing element of the writing of Gullak is that the snippets of the incidents and dialogues in all the episodes are extremely relatable. The global audience especially the South Asian audience will feel it and remember their time. And when you watch the episodes of Gullak and naturally relate the moments to yours, that is the success point of the show’s presentation.

Gullak also guarantees the story growing in the audience due to the fact that because of incredibly rich aesthetics, the art of storytelling sketches unfiltered emotions. The dramatization doesn’t look artificial at all. The parents fight about the relatives, the youngest family member Aman spending more time in the toilet, the mother taking tension about the eldest son Annu being late reaching home, father and sons in agreement on the matriarch preparing the usual food they hate to eat, written phone numbers inside the bedsheet, Aman asking mom to visit the hospital because it smells good, and so many incidents.

The dialogues matter more when the characters in the limited storyline have to develop and Gullak exceeded that expectation too. Santosh hitting the nerve on his wife Shanti while arguing about tying the knot was superbly dramatized. Especially when Santosh crossed the limit by insulting her that her marriage proposal before him was not accepted due to head lice.

AAPKO NAHIN PATA?

If I am not wrong, every episode had a “Don’t You Know?” sketch. The question of the episode emphasizes a social satire of keeping the incidental records of the neighbors and this trend made some really impressive rounds. Another point that cannot be missed to point out is the assistance of the talkative neighbor, Bittu’s mummy. Her spicy presence made the atmosphere more exciting.

OBJECTIONS

I hold only two objections to this show. One is needless music score which has been a cultural norm in presenting a film in India. That could have easily been controlled instead of being a distraction on countless shots.

The other objection which I believe is a massive miss from the content of Gullak is not adding a family member in the Mishras – a daughter. Where the writing of the Mishras nearly perfected their character strength, the absence of a daughter in the house was terribly missed. The story arc of a daughter would have thoroughly completed the Mishras and Gullak.

BEST PERFORMANCE

It is hard to point out one actor who surpassed other actors in performance. Jameel Khan as Santosh gives you the same vibes as his iconic Asghar from Gangs of Wasseypur. Vaibhav Raj Gupta and Harsh Mayar were impressive. Especially Vaibhav’s aggression in the character was natural. But I think Gitanjali Kulkarni as Shanti Mishra has to be singled out for giving so much strength to the character and raising the bar for an onscreen mother.

BEST SCENE

There were topics in Gullak that brought a lot of attention and were important to address. The hard-hitting point was when Santosh is hospitalized. It was a remarkable piece of detailing, and so emotional and so well performed.

If you notice, Annu rushes to the hospital bare feet and Aman remembers to collect his father’s slippers. While Annu runs to buy medicines, Aman drops his father’s slippers on his feet. Despite being shorter in size, he wears and leaves.

It was a commanding message. The role of a father was shifting to his eldest son through those pair of slippers. And this is what I am talking about. Gullak is a show about incidents and this show has addressed, portrayed, and dramatized to zeal.

CLOSING REMARKS

Gullak Season 3

Gullak is the reminder of good-old Indian and Pakistani family dramas of the 1980s that had a stupendous blend of writing, direction, and performances with exuberant comedy.

Three seasons have been aired and I sincerely hope that Gullak continues writing about the Mishras because there is a lot to happen in this family. By ‘a lot to happen’, I mean to say as Gullak continuously emphasizes incidents, but not stories.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: Farzi

STORY

Sunny is an artist and Firoz, is a printer. Both of them work in a printing press that is run by Sunny’s grandfather. When the printing business hit a crisis and runs out of solutions, Sunny decides to generate money by making counterfeit money.

INTRODUCTION

Released on Amazon Prime Video, Farzi is an Indian black-comedy action series starring Shahid Kapoor. During its eight-episode run, we come to know that the show is set in the same universe as Manoj Bajpayee-starrer ‘The Family Man‘. Directed by the filmmaking duo Raj & DK, Farzi was first planned to be a film years ago but then they decided to make a series.

REVIEW

Looking at its story and the continuity, Farzi is a kind of project that is flexible to be shaped into a film as well as a tv series. The plus point for deciding to stretch Farzi is that the audience got the whole exposure of printing currency and running a business out of it. Officer Michael’s life was focused as well as Megha’s.

But when you stretch the details, the screenplay of the tv series notions development in the central story. I feel this is the area where Farzi is weak because Farzi easily could have been a four-episode show. The writing’s commitment to action and comedy drops the quality in the second half of the season.

I like the plot, it is fresh for the audience with a Narcos-tic narration by Shahid Kapoor. Some minor points raised were sharp like the minister and other attendees not listening to the presentation, Megha and her mother’s typical calls, Michael speaking with his wife and family in Tamil and English, etc. I wanted Michael’s scenes with his family completely without Hindi but it is okay.

Presenting the show in a non-linear way was also a good idea. The dialogues were natural but on several counts, I felt the dialogues went cheesy.

Farzi has plenty of errors in writing. Officer Michael’s disrespectful conduct in conversation with the minister was quite surprising. Just because you have his private pictures, doesn’t mean that you can try to annoy a minister that often and he will tolerate that much.

I have never understood the Bollywood logic. Why the friend of the leading character is always silly and ultra-loyalist to him? Why cannot the directors level the personalities of two or more friends? When the press is demanded to open, uncle Yasir goes cold as the dead body. How come the police and Megha do not suspect Yasir of lying or hiding something from them?

The action sequence in the season finale was quite stretched and boring. The cops repeatedly running towards the front and back was so stupid.

The worst character of the show is Mansoor Dalal played by such a quality actor like Kay Kay Menon. A very stereotypical villain who thinks he is funny but merciless. There was no originality in his antagonism. It was like just another clone of a psycho pretending to be a psycho.

CLOSING REMARKS

What propels me to watch ‘Farzi’ is the continuity of the story that is set toward the next season and Shahid Kapoor’s performance. With age, his mental strength in acting has gone better, and improved his skill in depicting anger and frustration.

I am not sure if Vijay Sethupati has worked on a Hindi project before but it was absolute fun to listen to him uttering thick curse words in his Tamilian Hindi. I am happy to see Amol Palekar but it looks visible that his acting has faded. What took him so long to return to acting?

Those who are willing to try a black-comedy action series with an interesting plot can try this.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: That ’90s Show

STORY

16 years after the events that wrapped in ‘That ’70s Show‘, the house of the Formans in the fictional town of Point Place in Wisconsin becomes lively in the summer of 1995 when Leia Forman arrives to spend time with her grandparents and joins a group of teenagers.

REVIEW

“That ’90s Show” is a spin-off of “That ’70s Show” with Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp as the cantankerous Red and super-cheerful Kitty Forman returning as one of television history’s most beloved parents ever.

The aesthetics are the same and the fans of That ’70s Show will be excited to get into the skin of the spin-off so easily. The nostalgia is there and is still vibrant.

Red Forman has gone a little soft by some tiny little percent and is understood as the character goes older. If anyone notices, he begins to hold a stick in the second half of the season.

But Kitty hasn’t aged. Debra Jo Rupp has not aged at all. She is still someone where heart melts for the elders. The Formans are still a joy to watch. I wish Betty White would have returned as Kitty’s mother. She passed away a few months after the announcement of this show.

OLD BATCH

The old batch of young rebels that starred Topher Grace as Eric, Ashton Kutcher as Michael, Mila Kunis as Jackie, Laura Prepon as Donna, Danny Masterson as Steven, and Wilmer Valderamma as Fez, shows up as cameos which was quite understood as they do not have much favor to do in the script.

Maybe it is surprising that the reunion of the group didn’t happen. Perhaps, it is better to keep it for the future when the audience settles well into the second season of the show. Who knows? Maybe Danny Masterson as Steven Hyde makes a cameo in the future and we manage to see a complete reunion only if he gets cleared as Danny is hit with heavy sexual assault allegations that have finished his career to date.

But the rest of the old friends were fun to watch especially Eric Forman. The father-son chemistry just never fades at all.

NEW BATCH

Coming to the new batch of teenage friends. At first, I wasn’t confident about how far will they take the show to convince the audience in a new phase of fashion, music, and humor. Plus, the show is run by Netflix, which began to indicate whether the political messages will ruin the show.

See, the Netflix element is present and it is very obvious that the new batch will never be able to stand as the new favorites as those in the ’70s were. I felt that the makers remade the nostalgia in the new band. The theme, the personifications, and the references were all there. I am okay with it but settling for the new band to act the very way as the older ones lack originality.

Nate and Nikki are the new Michael and Jackie. Ozzie is the new Steven. Jay is the new Fez and I must praise the selection for Jay as Michael and Jackie’s son was so accurate. I thought if the actor is actually the son of Ashton and Mila. And this Kelso is smarter than his father.

And speaking of the Kelsos, Michael and Jackie are remarried. If I am not wrong, Jackie was with Fez in the series finale. I have forgotten if Jackie went back to Michael in the finale or what? Maybe we get to see Jackie and Fez in the future.

Ozzie represents the Queer community and is gay. And I think it was a good idea to address the complicated silence of that group of teenagers in the ’90s living in the US who were overthinking to coming out. And it was never easy for the kids to show their parents and friends who they were. It still is not easy for sure but Ozzie’s character went in the right direction.

Isn’t it that funny Eric and Donna named their daughter Leia? Knowing the fact that Eric is a lifetime lover of Star Wars, naming her Leia looked so naturally funny. They must have added a character of Leia’s brother and named him Luke. Leia is the new Eric, awkward and nerd.

CLOSING REMARKS

If the use of humor in this group looks to fall apart, remember this is a teenage comedy and we are older now. We certainly cannot expect them to build the same ambiance as the oldies did.

It is plain stupid if the audience compares it with the original. But one thing is for sure, in order to run the follow-up in the right direction, the show does not disappoint at all. It is not at all trash. Even if you do not like it, at least you will agree this is a lot better than the last season. “That ’90s Show” is funny and enjoyable and will make the audience wait for the second season.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: Wednesday

STORY

Wednesday Addams punishes the boys in the school who bullies her brother Pugsley Addams. As a consequence, she is expelled. The concerned parents admit her to the Nevermore Academy, a school for the monstrous outcasts where they studied but were accused of a crime scene. Incidentally, the event recirculates with Wednesday’s admission when a creature begins to take lives and she uses her psychic instincts to solve the mystery.

ORIGINS

The Addams Family was neither a novel nor did it start as an amination show but the gag cartoons that were published in The New Yorker from 1938 until the 1950s. All the characters were unnamed until the 1964 television show ‘The Addams Family‘.

PRODUCTION

Wednesday hampers a toolbox that was decorated for Tim Burton to utilize when his turn comes to work on the project. The Addams Family and Tim Burton crossed paths but never joined hands which was a sad chapter just like Leo Messi was not lifting the World Cup before it finally happened.

Back in 1991, when Tim Burton was focused on directing Batman Returns, he was approached to work on The Addams Family. He passed on the project due to scheduling conflicts and The Addams Family and its sequel were produced establishing cult status with the audience.

20 years later, Tim Burton was planning to write and direct The Addams Family film, perhaps a reboot, but got canceled due to creative differences with the producers. Then Miles Millar and Alfred Gough acquired the rights, wrote the pilot, and forwarded it to Burton. He became interested and joined them.

It took thirty years for Tim Burton to work and complete a project that looks to me to be the most fitting project he ever happened to work on before. It was a love story that was waiting for its romantic moment to bring the two together.

When the strings are pulled rightly, there is every chance of playing the right notes. Producers Miles Millar and Alfred Gough are well known for creating ‘Smallville‘. Tim Burton has the reputation for many excellent Gothic fantasies. And then his decades-old collaboration with the musician Danny Elfman, the musical notes that ideally fit in Tim Burton films.

CASTING

Wednesday. (L to R) Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Adams, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams, Issac Ordonez as Pugsley Addams in Wednesday. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

With Tim Burton on the director chair, I would have loved to see Morticia and Gomez Addams played by Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia and more particularly Luis Guzmán as Gomez were quite interesting choices. I felt that spark was missing between the two which was quite a thing between Raul Julia and Angelica Huston in those two films. But here, Catherine and Luis looked pretty odd together.

Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester was an imposing choice. Christopher Lloyd‘s Uncle Fester was character-driven and someone on whom the story was centered around. In a quite different setting, this Uncle Fester was more jolly and exciting. I want to see more appearances in the next season. It was a pleasure to watch Christina Ricci in the show who was Wednesday Addams in the films.

My kudos to whoever decided to give the titular role to Jenna Ortega. This has to be the best-ever casting of Wednesday Addams to date. Let me tell you how I think that Jenna did this role better than Christina.

Christina’s Wednesday lacked the body language of a melancholic personality that defines Wednesday. Plus, the writing of her character in the film didn’t guarantee any growth. Wednesday being the center stage of the plot and a tv series of eight episodes at stretch, Jenna had enough time to grow as Wednesday and answer all our questions that were related to her character that was visibly missing in the films.

WHY WEDNESDAY? WHY NOT ADDAMS FAMILY?

I will continue my point about Jenna’s Wednesday because this leads to a whole new level of storytelling. The films heavily focused on couples as well as Uncle Fester but not children. When my generation watched these films back in the 1990s, we had this feeling about the girl that her side of the story didn’t make rounds and that had a lot of potential to grow due to her sadistic personality. I felt the writers of the films missed the chance.

But this chance was smartly grabbed by Millar and Gough with the creme of the plot centralizing the hows and whys of Wednesday’s character. And this is why her parents were almost out of the frame.

The makers installed the character of Enid Sinclair who struggles to befriend Wednesday and there develops a strange bond between a cheerful roommate and a morosely black soul. The makers also built a rigid mother-daughter relationship. The screenwriting of the show also restricted the fan-favorite Uncle Fester’s character to a very brief appearance. Convincing the audience to stick with Wednesday without Fester is a win.

DANCE

Of course, I have to mention that iconic dance in my assessment. A dance that was actually shot with Goo Goo Muck by the gothic rock legends ‘The Cramps‘ playing in the background but the TikTokers perfectly remixed the dance video with Lady Gaga‘s Bloody Mary and is now called a TikTok Remix of Wednesday Dance. Jenna choreographed the dance herself and the most astonishing fact about the dance is that the dance steps pulled the right strings of Wednesday Addam’s cold-blooded personality. The dance visibly reflected her oddness.

In one of her tweets, Jenna confirmed that gothic rock legends Siouxie Sioux and Lene Lovich, actor Denis Lavant, first Wednesday actress Lisa Loring, and the dance number from Sweet Charity called The Rich Man’s Frug by Bob Fosse were the inspirations behind this dance.

CLOSING REMARKS

I felt that the finale lost control of the pace and hurriedly strove to a conclusion. But in any case, there is a lot to happen in the future seasons. I really want to watch Grandmama and Cousin Itt.

I have read that Wednesday and Enid may develop a romance in the next season. This is totally out of a syllabus stunt. A girl like Wednesday who lacks emotions and has zero-match with the completely opposite Enid, goes 360 and they become lovers, is not so Wednesday we know of.

Whatever happened to something called friendship? Why cannot the writers try to bring both of them in a bond where they find common grounds to somehow live through. Befriending has been a struggle so far so better to focus on friendship.

Wednesday is highly recommended to the fans of Goth culture and The Addams Family. The films and this show cannot be compared at all. They have different vibes and aesthetics on which different stories have been presented to us.

Wednesday has a lot of adventures or misadventures to excite us. I hope to see a Stranger Things kind of excellent follow-up of the show.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: They Call Me Magic

Produced by Apple TV+, ‘They Call Me Magic‘ is a four-part documentary about one of basketball’s greatest legends, Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson. One of the most exciting stories on and off the basketball court, the show covers almost everything Magic stands for; his childhood, his family, and his relationships. The show also highlights a much-needed detailing about the making of his legacy in college basketball. This was very necessary due to his being arguably the greatest college basketball player since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson.

The documentary features interviews of Magic, his wife, family, coaches, teammates, and his rivals. Speaking of rivals, I am glad Larry Bird was also part of this documentary and he had his own narrative about their rivalry and games. But Larry’s contribution to Magic’s documentary is an acknowledgment that one of the greatest sports rivalries that encompassed in the 1980s developed a respect for each other.

The icing on the cake is when the show also features Michael Jordan. You know it is a huge ask when the greatest basketball player of all time shows up in a documentary of another basketball legend. Although, there are other legends to talk about Magic like Jerry West and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but Michael is a different picture. And Michael Jordan already had a blast talking about his dynasty exactly two years ago. So this means a lot. And why not? Before the Bulls dynasty began, it was Magic’s Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s that dominated. This is like MJ passes the torch of the dynasty to MJ, especially in the 1991 NBA Finals.

Besides his basketball career, there is quite an insider about a complex love story of Magic and his wife Cookie. The story has been stretched to, I feel, more than the screen length could have demanded. I felt Magic’s post-basketball career deserved more minutes than the affair. There was really a tremendous contribution he made as an investor when he started an investment company, Magic Johnson Enterprises.

One thing I would like to address about this documentary to the readers and the audience is not to compare it with HBO‘s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty due to many reasons. One, ‘Winning Time’ is about the entire Lakers dynasty while ‘They Call Me Magic’ is only about Magic. Two, the former is a television drama that is inspired by Jeff Pearlman‘s book, ‘Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s‘ while the latter features the players giving their input through interviews. The former is scripted and fictionalized for a dramatic touch to attract the audience while the latter doesn’t compromise on authenticity as the real people show up describing their stories and incidents.

Nothing to take away from ‘Winning Time’, I loved that show as a drama that came into existence through any network that was based on basketball but the tone of entertaining the audience shall be limited to enjoying the Lakers’ glory rather than digging facts about its being real or fictional. I wished that ‘Winning Time’ would have been 100% accurate but it is okay because now we have another source on the television format, and that is ‘They Call Me Magic’.

In my opinion, the biggest plus of watching this documentary is not only to understand the ‘magic’ he spelled that started a dynasty but more than that, the show heavily convinces the audience that it was Magic Johnson who stepped NBA up financially. Before him, NBA’s fame and state were different from each other. The fame was there but the state was economically awful. The television ratings were declining, and the spectators were diminishing. The shocking fact about NBA before the 1980s is that the show was not popular enough to be on prime time. One of the major reasons was too much violence and the NBA was considered too black to be termed as drug-infested. The racial standards were poor. So Magic’s arrival changed the fate and face of the NBA who established himself as a superstar in college basketball. His popularity gradually increased and became the most talking point when his becoming a pro was on the cards.

Therefore, ‘They Call Me Magic’ is a celebration and an honest tribute to a wonderful career.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: Mare of Easttown (2021)

Detective sergeant Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) is a well-known heroic figure in her neighborhood of Easttown, a small town in Chester County of Pennsylvania. But she has faced a trembling year in quest of a missing girl that has raised many eyebrows over her detective skills. Also, she suffers the worst possible personal crisis due to a divorce, a custody battle, and a son lost in suicide. And during all this, the cops find a body in the forest park one morning. She is Erin (Cailee Spaeny), a teenage mother, who was fighting a custody battle for her kid with her ex-boyfriend.

Looking at this magnificent miniseries and the continuity of the plot, I am surprised that Mare Of Easttown is neither adapted from a novel nor is based on a true incident. In fact, I am impressed by the quality of production that they came up with such a presentation that makes the audience believe that this may all be true. But to some extent, Mare of Easttown is somehow the story of everyday people which is why it makes you believe in the bullet detailing of the screenplay. It gives you a real feeling the way the whole show is dramatized like a cop who is sensitive to blood, an old man confessing an affair at his wife’s funeral, a priest alleged for raping a minor, a mentally disabled girl bullied in the school, the old couple who tries to figure how to set up a security camera, and many more.

ERIN McMENAMIN

The character of Erin in the first episode is the most fitting epitome of bad social treatment. I have watched so many television characters develop well but have taken time to grow with more than one episode. But Erin whose character lived for just one episode has to be the fastest growth-developing character in recent years. It was phenomenal writing about a character that screamed louder the more she gets unsettled. Facing the hardship of becoming a mother as a teenager, she suffered rigidity from her father and her ex-boyfriend who should have emotionally backed her instead of being unsupportive. How heartbreaking it was to see Erin get beaten in the park and the ex-boyfriend doing nothing but watching and enjoy it.

All the major characters in Easttown are affected by Erin’s murder. They are socially distressed and contribute to the plot which is another impressive point of the drama.

MARE SHEEHAN

There have been many detective stories with the central character in the uniform always portrayed to suffer due to his/her line of work and in person. So there is nothing new about Mare but the reason why Mare’s typical character is picked and praised highly over others in recent times is because of touching the deepest aspects of her life very rightly, addressing her miseries peculiarly, giving enough screen length to suffocate between her roles as a mother of a dead son, ex-wife in a troubled marriage, irresolute to her line of work, and doubtful heroism that has faded since no trace of a missing child in an unsolved crime case. Mare is hanging loosely on the walls of many parallels with no success and optimism.

And the most impressive factor of all – Kate Winslet. How much do you have to influence a character to your body that the audience traces no sign of the actor’s stunning performance but feels the pain of Mare Sheehan? I am lost at how Meryl Streep a performance can be. This has to be Kate’s best performance since ‘The Reader‘. There was everything about the role, her body language, the Delco accent of the Phillys, the facial translation of emotional distress, rage, frustration, and God knows what else. The only scene in the entire series she laughed was so natural and visibly showed to the audience that her guffaw came out after all the bad things happening to that lady and was so necessary.

Unnecessary Developments

Yes, there are elements that looked pretty forced and time-consuming. Mare’s daughter Siobhan (Angourie Rice) had unnecessary sequences for her relationship with the radio jockey that had nothing to do with either plot or sub-plot. It clearly looked like this segment was dramatized to keep the LGBTQ+ community happy.

The second is Mare’s love interest Richard Ryan, a writer and professor played by Guy Pearce. This character had absolutely no importance to the story and wasted quite heavy minutes in the development. In the beginning, I assumed that Richard’s character will be later linked to Erin’s murder somehow but he had no connection at all and was generally there for Mare. Giving so many minutes to his presence made no sense. The only theory that makes Richard in the story applicable is that his existence gave Mare’s unhappy life an opportunity to find positivity. She badly needed counseling so he was there. The same error in Detective Colin’s character, played by Evan Peters, who was brought to assist Mare in the criminal case. First, he was awkward and I have never understood why the assistant or vice to a detective or a cop has to be a little dumb or less confident. And then, out of nowhere, Colin falls in love with Mare. Why would you do that?

But yes, the makers of the show deserve special praise for funny sequences that occurred in such a dark drama out of nowhere. Not a single time did the comedy look forced and fitted so well. Mare’s mother Helen was a source of bringing excitement many times.

CLOSING REMARKS

Mare Of Easttown is another masterpiece that propels me to advise the television audience to prefer HBO over any network if they are willing to try a miniseries. HBO looks like a dominant force for limited writing and has impressed with many quality contents in recent years like Watchmen, Chernobyl, The Night Of, and a few more. The winner of 4 Emmies, the show deserves every credit for being one of the best suspense and detective thrillers in recent years.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: The Sandman

STORY

To those who are new to this Sandman world, the one fact you need to understand about this drama and comic book story of The Sandman is that the story is about a dysfunctional family called ‘The Endless‘. And they are seven siblings in different forms. And they are Death, Delirium, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction, and Dream.

‘The Sandman’ centrally focuses on Lord Morpheus, the ruler of Dreaming and the king of dreams. One day, he is captured by the occultist Roderick Burgress and is imprisoned for more than a hundred years until he gets a chance to escape and return. But when he returns to Dreaming, he witnesses it in a terrible state. Along with his only remaining loyalist and librarian Lucienne, Morpheus travels to different worlds and timelines to restore order to his kingdom, clean the mess and fix the chaos that occurred in his long absence.

PRODUCTION

After decades of pulling attempts to come up with a perfect project to execute for either film or television for one of the most acclaimed comics of all time, Netflix eventually succeeds in shaping the best possible adaptation the global audience would have ever demanded. The show has its flaws but the most important valuation to observe is the graphic detailing and writing of one of the most complex comic book stories.

The show is handled with care by some influential writers of the film and comics. Allan Heinberg is well-known for Young Avengers and JLA series while David S. Goyer is widely acclaimed for writing the Blade and Dark Knight trilogies and co. writing Call of Duty video games. The main showrunner is Neil Gaiman, the writer, and creator of The Sandman. So when the God of this universe is running this show, then there is neither a question nor disapproval about dramatizing his creation.

I am usually against taking liberty from the major elements of the original writing that includes the fundamentals of the characters. But at the same time if the author or the creator doesn’t object or holds the creative control of the film or tv show based on his/her own writing, then even if I find the changes to be in the wrong direction, I find no reason to object because the creator himself/herself is the control head and approves the developments.

PLUSSES

There were many reasons that established the theory or a prediction that ‘The Sandman’ will be praised and accepted once it is released on Netflix. One reason is that the original work has a massive following. Then, as mentioned above, Neil Gaiman himself is the showrunner so whoever the director he chooses to execute their writings, he knows the job is done with satisfaction.

Another plus is the extraordinary production budget that is quite understood after the viewers have enjoyed the luxury of watching some stunning visuals. And then the casting is excellent. Tom Sturridge as Dream and Boyd Holbrook as Corinthian are examples of accurate picks. Even for supporting but important roles, very well-known actors like Charles Dance, David Thewlis, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Stephen Fry, Souad Faress, Nina Wadia, Gwendoline Christie, Meera Syal, and Jenna Coleman make rounds in a few episodes. If that wasn’t enough, we heard memorable voices of Patton Oswalt as Matthew the Raven and Mark Hamill as Mervyn Pumpkinhead too.

The continuity of the screenplay is intrigued with a thoughtful and metaphorical portion of understanding some dark elements of life. The episode with Dream’s sister Death is very touching and upsetting but is also my favorite of the show. A kind of perception in which a human is made aware of his/her death by the angel that begins with contacting them and communicating. The whole process is so well dramatized.

This is followed by Dream reminiscing about his centuries-old friendship with Hob Gadling when he grants a customer’s will to live forever back in the 14th century and keeps meeting him once every hundred years in the same bar. This idea touched me and began to question myself, what if time travel was ever true? What if all of us could travel to any timeline, meet random people, speak to them in different centuries, just like that. Those who are deeply concerned about dreams like me will agree to me that dreamers deserve to have a companion or a truly loyal friend in his/her dream. Such an idea can only exist in dreams and Lord Morpheus, the king of dreams, is the key to all this stretch.

Then there is Doctor Destiny‘s dystopian take on the human race circulating their lives around truths and lies that he tests at a diner. That whole episode is superbly stretched to make his point.

MINUSES

A few portions of writing and aesthetics are not to my satisfaction. Netflix with its cult application of political correctness makes the entire dramatizing of the original writing an agenda to moralize forced inclusivity. Although the creator Neil Gaiman has no objection at all, but this is not the first time at all. The direction clearly indicates making many characters homosexual has a purpose. I am not against this form of diversity, I support it, but there should be a method of addressing it through the story instead of dramatizing it like a protest.

Amongst all the characters, the one actor that I am not convinced of selection is Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer Morningstar. Because she looked more angelic than the devil in the role. If the showrunners were adamant to go for a female Lucifer then they should have picked an actress with a lot darker persona. A female Lucifer had to be someone with more devil or gothic vibes. Any of Eva Green, Krysten Ritter, Cate Blanchett, or Helena Bonham Carter would have made superb Lucifer.

COMIC ADAPTATION

This is actually another ‘PLUS’ element but I want to address it separately due to a broad detailing a comic geek can speak and emphasize. We comic book readers generally have been raising this matter for a couple of decades that a television show or a film usually doesn’t do justice while translating the comic pages into this medium.

Because it is hard to deliver the same impact to the viewers that the readers had when they read that all. And it is admirable to observe how ‘The Sandman’ successfully developed a lot of moments from the graphic issues. And at some scenes, even the whole dialogue of a few particular scenes is delivered in the same way.

I wonder how every Sandman reader would have reacted when Death showed up to Dream followed by a conversation when they were sitting together.

Or when John Dee was thanked.

In a very interesting sequence, imprisoned former queen of the First People, Nada briefly appears whose eyes catch Dream’s figure passing from her prison and calls him Kai’ckul. The whole scene is pictured in the comics and will definitely proceed in the second season as showrunner Allen Heinberg has confirmed to one of the sources.

The terrible state of the Dreaming after Lord Morpheus returns is all accurately depicted.

Desire’s tall naked statue Threshold, the fortress of Desire is taken from the beginning of the second volume, The Doll’s House.

Dream’s centuries-old friendship with Hobb Gadling was well translated from the pages. The entire table-talk of centuries constitutes from issue#13.

The whole 24-hour diner episode happened in issue#6 called 24 Hours which is considered one of the darkest and the most horrific tales in comics history.

The whole Dream vs Lucifer challenge is well dramatized. In fact, comics had a lengthier challenge if I am not mistaken.

Dream’s meeting with ‘The Three‘ had a darker portrayal than comics.

Dream and Corinthian face-off exactly happened in the convention just like issue#14.

Even Corinthian stabbing Dream’s palm was covered.

Gilbert getting scared of Corinthian was different in the show. He actually lost his stature when Corinthian joins him in the elevator.

CLOSING REMARKS

There is so much to talk about ‘The Sandman’. But I hope the quality that the showrunners have settled the story in and the aesthetics that has mesmerized us audience shall be maintained for the future.

I am hoping that the show must be stretched to at least five seasons to cover all the aspects and elements of the writing. The Sandman is the best adapted comic book-based television show that I have watched. I recommend all the viewers who loved the show, to read the original content.

The Sandman is a 75-issue storyline that was written in seven years. This was followed by many spin-offs and Neil Gaiman wrote a few of them. But ‘Overture‘ and ‘The Dream Hunters‘ are those that must be read. Especially, Overture because it is the prequel of the entire Sandman story.

To those, who are very interested to watch a fantasy drama, The Sandman is currently the best I can think of to recommend.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: Modern Love Mumbai (2022)

Modern Love Mumbai is the Indian version of the Amazon Original anthology series, ‘Modern Love‘. MLM follows the same aesthetics as the original work. Set in Mumbai, each of the six episodes present different love stories expressing freedom and questioning the boundary to reach the human desire.

Modern Love was set in New York and all the stories were based on the essays published in The New York Times under the same title. So I am not sure if MLM also followed this route. But each of the stories has its significance and has the essence of the plot’s simplicity to sensualize. These stories are very close to life and most of the audience can relate.

Three of the six stories are about married women thoroughly divided in ages. One is as young as their twenties, the second is in her forties, and the third is in her late fifties or mid-sixties. One is about homosexuals, and another is about a young woman searching for the ideal man through a dating app. And there is one particular for the Northeast Indian mother-son story who is in the conflict of getting or not getting mixed in multiculturalism. So this indicates that MLM was written and developed with care.

I liked the panel of directors who worked on their part of the stories. Shonali Bose returned to the director’s seat for Raat Rani years after ‘The Sky Is Pink‘. Raat Rani is about A girl from Dal Lake, Lali, who marries a Mumbaikar, a security guard Lutfi and arrives in Mumbai but her life is dull until Lutfi is transferred to the other station leaving his bicycle behind for her.

Hansal Mehta directed a controversial episode ‘Baai‘ about homosexuality. Hansal previously directed ‘Aligarh‘ with the same subject. This is about Manzar Ali who belongs to a conservative Muslim household but is interested in men but is not able to tell his ailing grandmother Baai.

Another veteran director Vishal Bhardwaj did the Northeastern family drama ‘Mumbai Dragon‘ where the mother faces difficulty in accepting her son with his girlfriend who doesn’t belong to her ethnicity.

Alankrita Srivastava did ‘My Beautiful Wrinkles‘ about an old widow Dilbar who takes interest in a young athlete Kunal, a plot that is similar to one of the four stories in her ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha‘. Alankritas direction is like a wave for the liberalism of womanhood where she develops bold intentions in the plot and addresses them in a peculiar way. Alankrita shows the loneliness of Dilbar that absorbs and the passion and hunger in women in general for more adequate lust melts young men to daydream and draw their nudity in their honest illustration. Sticking with the old memories may lessen your optimism. Confessing private intentions is courageous but healthy for releasing the negative energy she had in life.

Super excited to see Little Things-famed Dhruv Sehgal who directed one of the episodes ‘I Love Thane‘ about Saiba who is seeking her ideal through a dating app but gives a shot at Parth to whom she finds out through work this time.

Nupur Asthana did the last episode ‘Cutting Chai‘ about a married woman Latika in her forties thinking about her life decisions, about becoming a wife, and a mother but not a novelist, something that was her ambition.

It is the beauty of small portions in the screenplay that gives you the feel about how these things matter in life, the human connection is strong in the drama. Like in Cutting Chai, Latika begins to regret her life decisions and imagine people around her agreeing and disagreeing with her. That is indicating how careful a young man or woman was when he/she was young and had to listen to society about what he/she should have decided and what not. In Raat Rani, Lali is about to throw her husband’s old bicycle from the flyover until she thinks about utilizing it by learning to ride it and earn bread through it.

Modern Love Mumbai is the positive energy that addresses optimism and encourages us to move on or give it a chance. Although, any tv or film product can have similar elements, but the beauty of MLM stories is that the plot inclines towards a push that is needed to make the audience think. The continuity of each episode never looks pressing too hard at all.

I enjoyed when Dilbar gives a try to fantasize about young athlete Kunal in the fourth story or Manzar meets Rajveer after his fondness for the previous boy matters into heartbreak in the second episode. Same case with Saiba who gives a shot at Parth by breaking her norm to find men from the dating app. That explained a lot. Therefore, the audience gets to learn or realize a few things in life if not all by watching Modern Love Mumbai.

I don’t remember if I ever happened to see Naseeruddin Shah playing a Sikh character, that is another accomplishment in his celebrated career I reckon. Good to see Sarika after a long time, she deserves to get more recognition. Pratik Gandhi is quite an actor who has the ability to play different roles. From a rich Gujarati stockbroker to a Muslim homosexual from a conservative household, Pratik really has made a distinction in his choices. For me, from all the stories, the one actor amongst all who is the winner is Fatima Sana Shaikh in the first episode. The accent, the body language, the emotional breakdown, everything was there. She nailed her character. It was a delight to see such a quality performance.

MLM has impressive writing and direction as well as quality performances due to good choices about casting in the stories. Ram Sampath‘s music score is very touching and full of life. Modern Love’s creator John Carney was involved in financing MLM so that is also why the tone was maintained and none of the makers Bollyfied with curry aesthetics.

There is every capacity to go for more than one season. Because MLM is all about some quality essays to write about and stories to speak about. Stories will never die, and love won’t compromise. There is much human connection still to work on through different mediums. So MLM must go on.

Film Reviews

Film Review: Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)

THE AGING CRAWLEYS

In 1928, the Crawleys meet with two unexpected events knocking at their door. One is an opportunity to boost their finance when a film production company requests to use their estate for a silent film. Two, Lady Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, astounds the family when she reveals that she inherits a villa in France that was given to her by the recently deceased Marquis de Montmirail. To unveil the mystery, Robert and Cora travel to France and hand over the headship to Lady Mary to look after the estate and host the film crew.

Twelve years of legacy of this British cult Downton Abbey that all started as a television drama on ITV back in 2010 and was followed by the first feature film in 2019 has kept its loyal fans like me occupied on our chairs and enjoying the beautiful artistry of their aristocracy. One aspect that was maintained throughout their presentation is that the show remained persistent in facing not only emotional but economic and political challenges. Just like the television drama and the first film, Downton Abbey: The New Era emphasized the changing times testing the old and traditional family.

LADY VIOLET’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

There is a chance that the Downton Abbey-loving audience may get less motivated towards the plot of this film because both the events challenged in this film to the Crawleys may be assumed quite dramatic because these things neither occurred nor hinted at the future. The fan-favorite character of Lady Violet was assumed to die due to old age but the news she broke to the family after watching this drama for twelve years looked like a pretty forced attempt of writing in order to conclude this character. So revealing the news of her French inheritance is eyebrow-raising for me.

Why? If I assess this matter, perhaps will stretch at length but in short, the Crawleys, in the middle of the story met a severe financial crisis to the extent that they decided to cut the working staff. If the dowager knew about her inheritance for a long time, why didn’t she help out Robert when needed. If she came to know in this film in 1928, that’s the other thing.

But the death of Lady Violet’s character is a wise idea because I am not sure if Downton Abbey will continue to the third film although the story has the potential to continue to represent the Crawleys until the second World War if not the whole century. But it is the richness of Julian Fellowes‘ writing that I am concerned about, who is 72 already. How long can he continue storytelling us? What if he breathes his last during the continuity of Downton Abbey? I cannot imagine someone replacing his writing in the middle. After all, this Downton Abbey is his creation and needs to conclude one day. The same applies to Maggie Smith who is 87 at the time of writing this review. Therefore, killing the old character of the dowager was the right decision.

WAS FILM SHOOTING IN THE PLOT THE RIGHT IDEA?

This Downton Abbey film was particular to highlight the silent film industry business that reached the estate of the Crawleys. Shan’t film shooting be avoided and continued with a different plot? Here, there are two methods of judging this film. One is that the film didn’t need to show filmmaking and proceed with the familiar character developments. The audience may think that Julian Fellowes could have escaped the idea of shooting a film inside the estate for the sake of decent humor. Or the film definitely needed to show the change which was either acceptable or not to the old-age aristocratic family who has been facing economic, political, and social challenges. I support the latter.

Why? Because just like the Crawleys faced different events between 1912 and 1926, the art of filmmaking in the very same period was also meeting a change in the direction of the British winds. Many viewers may have not observed the sequence of shooting a silent film turning into sound after Lady Mary pinches the idea to the director that much of this is largely inspired by the making of Alfred Hitchcock‘s 1929 film ‘Blackmail‘ which is the first sound film in British filmmaking history. Blackmail was supposed to be a silent film but the producer let Hitchcock make some portions of the film in sound. But Hitchcock decided to make the entire film talkie. Just like depicted in Downton Abbey, Blackmail had a leading actress with a weak English accent and was dubbed by someone else. Moreover, Downton Abbey’s executive producer Gareth Neame is the grandson of Ronald Neame and was the assistant cameraman for ‘Blackmail’ before he established a prominent name in the film industry.

CLOSING REMARKS

Should Downton Abbey continue from here? I would love to see Julian Fellowes writing more about the Crawleys until the end of the Second World War if he guarantees that the aesthetics and quality will not compromise at all. Overall, Julian Fellowes offers another masterpiece presentation of the Crawleys with the visible ‘New Era’ elements. The loyalists of this drama will understand the film and praise it highly.

RATINGS: 8.2/10

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