PEs - Run All Night

A retired hitman is forced to take up his gun again when his son and his family are threatened by his ex-boss. Though the theme is a Liam Neeson cliché, you will want to hit the theatres for this one just to catch his screen presence. If you are a Hollywood villain, you should NOT mess with Neeson’s character or his family, because he will hunt you down, find you and kill you!

PEs - The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

In continuation of the first part, this sequel is about how Sonny the zealous proprietor of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a hotel where the retired can spend their last days juggles his hotel expansion plans and wedding plans. However, with the hurdles he faces and the help which he gets from his existing clientele, the tone changes from the end of days to the beginning of days. When weathered actors are cast together, one can only expect good entertainment. With the characters of Maggie Smith and Judi Dench trading some jabs in good humour which will pull  quite a few laughs and those portrayed by Bill Nighy and Richard Gere being the hopeless romantics and the rest of the characters trying to put their lives in perspective, this one is a feel good movie. 

PEs - Wild Card / Focus

Wild Card – A bodyguard who tries to avenge the wrong done to his good lady friend by a thug realises that he has gone a feet too long into the Vegas mob world, but manages to come out unscathed.   With the most high octane and sazzy Jason Statham in the lead role, one would expect a high octane entertainer. Unfortunately, one is disappointed with the storyline falling to bits a little while into the movie with even Statham’s high powered action sequences, all five minutes of it, failing to rescue the movie. This one you may conveniently avoid.

Focus – Story of a con artist who takes an amateur con girl under his tutelage, until the chemistry between them forges into romance and he is forced to abruptly part ways with her. Their paths however cross again, when the conman takes up an assignment in the sexy lively city of Buenos Aires which catches our man afoot, with the story developing into a con within a con! With Will Smith flashing his usual confident, cool self as the master of deception and Margot Robbie playing the femme fatale, this one is a good watch. 

PEs - Whiplash

Whiplash - you can push a person to do something better...or from better to almost perfect...but if you push further, the person will reach the brink of perfection and the beginning of insanity! This movie portrays such a story where a young drummer aspires to be the best and is pulled into a jazz band by a master conducter, whose methods to extract the best from a pupil are outright ludicrous...J.K.Simmons excels in his role as the teacher who pushes the young drummer from passion to obsession! A real good watch...

Popcorn evenings

Theory of Everything - What a movie to start the Oscar season with! I said this last year for Silver Linings Playbook and I reiterate - Portraying emotions is the most difficult act. Eddie Redmayne has done a killer job with ample support from Felicity Jones....to top it all it shows us not just how strong a theoretical physicist Hawking is but also how strong a man he is.

The Imitation Game - a treat for all Cumberbitches (read: Benedict Cumberbatch fans), the narrative itself is captivating...another fantastic biopic on an eccentric professor who changed the course of World War II...with the underlining that normal people can't accomplish the fantastic!

American Sniper - if you take the politics, strategy and reason out of war it is just a mindless, abhorrent hell that nobody wants to be a part off. This film displays how much war affects a soldier, more so psychologically than physically, that he gets sucked into it with an over-zealous sense of duty and an insatiable addiction! Something which was portrayed in the movie Hurt Locker too. A sniping good watch.

Birdman - its very difficult to make a black comedy that ticks and this one is just that. Very well made with killah performances from Michael Keaton and Edward Norton.

Foxcatcher - story of a wrestler who tries to come out of the shadow of his popular wrestler brother and in the bargain falls for the 'money and fame' carrot dangled by a whimsical psycopath billionaire. If anybody thought Rosamund Pike and Jake Gyllenhaal psyched you out in Gone Girl and Nightcrawlers, then watch Steve Carrell in this wink emoticon bet u'll get shocked by the climax

Kingsman : the secret service - mix half a glass of James Bond and half a glass of Jason Bourne..shake well..add a generous pinch of humour. U get this movie...and what's a spy thriller without Brit humour in it supplemented by Samuel L Jackson's cocky presence....a real fun watch.