Your Name

View fullsize

It has been some time since a Japanese anime had got me so emotionally involved into the characters. ‘Your Name’ (君の名は) managed to do that when I was just casually flicking through pages of Netflix recommendations the other day. I was looking for something to accompany me through my cooking, but I ended up sitting down completely engaged in the story.

The premise seemed straightforward – a boy dreamed about a girl and a girl dreamt about a boy. However as with a lot of Japanese anime, they are rarely so. As the story unfolds it gets more and more complicated and by that time you figured out the threads, you have involved so much in that emotional journey that you just couldn’t help but root for the characters.

It is hard to write about it without giving away too much. But the ingenuity of the movie was that it skilfully manipulated our modern-day technologies and lifestyle, and weaved them into a fabric that before you travelled to the end of the roll you will not know what’s going to happen. Also, it smartly left a lot of hints here and there and rewards you with all those enlightened moments that fed you with doses of satisfaction, if you managed to spot them.

Japanese anime might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for me in an age of candy soap opera and tacky romantic comedies, ‘Your Name’ is a breath of fresh air, not just for anime but the whole genre. In fact, it feels like it had redefined the genre. I felt like I haven’t seen something like this before and thus became so engaged with the story and the character. All those ‘what ifs’ and ‘buts’ that were scattered around the plot made you really wanted to find out what impact would every decision made have on every character you came to know and care about.

‘Your Name’ is a classic example of a story told right and complimented by some of the most beautifully drawn scenery in animation. This is particularly impressive when you are watching it on a 4K HD big screen. The scenery just jumped to life on your TV in the most impressive manner. In the day and age of computer-generated animation, it is when you saw something like ‘Your Name’ that you remembered how you need to appreciate the master artistry Japanese animators brought to the medium. From the sketches drawn by the main male character Taki, to the actual scenery you saw when you actually saw the ‘real thing’ in the story, you couldn’t help but wonder how did we come to forget the beauty of traditional drawing and painting?

Accompanying with the story was a beautifully composed soundtrack by Radwimps that starts and stops at every single right moment in the story. From the urban hustle bustle of Tokyo to the tranquillity of the countryside, the soundtrack captured the world of ‘Your Name’ perfectly, and without losing a beat.

As with most Japanese anime, the characters were beautifully voice acted and I felt that this is why it became so engaging. Japanese voice actors were highly regarded in Japan and it shows why. They commanded real emotion with their animated counterpart so perfectly that you sometimes forgot they were just hand drawn characters on sheets. That is the magic of superb Japanese voice acting.

As I said, Japanese anime is not for everyone. This is especially the case with ‘Your Name’ as it started off pretty slowly and could be head scratching for some if you are not paying attention to the details. But once you see past the anime fabric of the movie, you will appreciate that it is a great and intriguing story told in the most masterful way that one could imagine. If you have an hour and a half to spare, check it out on Netflix before it disappears.

Love, Simon

View fullsize

Movies about teenagers seemed to have changed a lot since my self-imposed exile from them because of ‘cannot relate to them’. Last I wrote about the surprised Netflix hit for me through ‘To All the Boys I Loved Before’, which I felt a breath of fresh air into the genre. Tonight, I ran into a little piece of gem that I missed while people were raving about it when it was in the cinemas – ‘Love, Simon’.

Yes, I know. I am late to the party and the whole universe had moved on. But I was quite impressed about how the movie dealt with the issue being highlighted as the theme. Simon, played by the perfectly performed Nick Robinson, came from your most picture-perfect suburban family. Dad Jack (Josh Duhamel) was a famous ex-League player and mum Emily (Jennifer Garner) was the smartest and most liberal wife and mother you could find. With a well-articulated and ‘career-focused’ younger sister, Simon had it all – except for one thing – his secret identity as a gay teenager.

Simon is loved among his friends and was never the target of bullies. He is doing fine at school and is the principal’s favourite student. However, as Emily pointed out, Simon has been holding back his breaths for years. That is, until Simon met ‘Blue’. A fellow student at his high-school who posted a blog on the school’s gossip site talking about a secret that was affecting him all throughout the years. Feeling a connection Simon reached out as Jacques, and the correspondence continued. Their online relationship flourished and Simon started putting genuine smiles back on his face. His favourite pass time was waiting for ‘Blue’s’ replies. He felt that he was himself again. However, the freedom within the online world was also met with threats when part of the conversation was accidentally spotted by another fellow student and started blackmailing Simon. Determined to keep his ‘relationship’ with Blue under wraps Simon juggled and as we all knew juggling is taxing and eventually things fell apart.

It was a movie not just about growing up, but about the need to deal with shit that nobody should be dealing with because of who he / she is. As Simon’s fellow classmate Ethan said, coming out, no matter at what age, is not easy. Simon’s jealousy of the freedom Ethan enjoyed at school for being who he was, was not at a small cost. But that is the part that Simon slowly learnt and accepted. And this was the same for his friends, whom responded in their own ways to the crisis unfolding at school while re-assessing their own identities.

The movie was dealing with some heavy issues but with expert light heartedness that did not trivialise the subject. I think that was the reason that I was so impressed and got hooked into it. The conversation between Jack and Simon, in which Jack was filled with guilt for not knowing earlier to be more helpful and understanding, while Simon was the person who salvaged the situation for him, demonstrated one would never know what is inside another person’s head, no matter how close they are, and also help would always come in its surprising way. At the end of the day, proper space and open-mindedness are important for everyone involved. I also particularly like how the principal flashed out what is meant by ‘tolerance’ without letting the notion going down the cliché drain.

Love, Simon seemed to have initially presented itself as a teenage love story but it is so much more. The delicate balance that it presented made this movie an exceptional story and experience for the audience. I do not know whether everyone who saw it took away something with him / her but for me the most outstanding part was its achievements of balance without being laborious. You don’t need to overthink. It is there. Whether you want to take it with you is your choice.

Love, Simon is a teenage movie done right. It is not cliché and it is full of joy, heartache and surprises. If you have missed it, come in with an open mind for you will never know what you can learn from these teenagers.

The Agents of SHIELD - 6 Years On

View fullsize

With the closing to a chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) dawning on us, lots of people were talking about how all the previous 22 films drew us to an epic conclusion. With a whopping initial plan of 3 hours 2 minutes run, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ could make history in a short period of time. However, with all these talks going on, people might have forgotten the MCU’s link in the television space. For that I was not referring to the ill-fated but occasional critical hit series on Netflix, but ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ on the Disney owned ABC.

As a spin off series from the MCU featuring the #SaveCoulson SHIELD agent Phil Coulson, ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ had initially acted as a bridging device for some of the plot points in the movies that cannot be elaborated on screen. In the first seasons the series was tightly knitted with the Avengers movies, including the resurrection of Coulson from the Battle of New York in the first Avengers movie, the fall of SHIELD in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, the repair of the Hellicarrier for Nick Fury in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ and the aftermath of the ‘Sokovia Accords’ in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ etc. Throughout its initial 3 seasons, ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ while pursuing its own stories provided significant continuation of background stories for their MCU counterparts.

However, this doesn’t mean that the series is nothing more than a bridging device. While the MCU continued the Infinity Saga in a large-scale about those much love superheroes, ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ deals with how what happened in the movies had an impact on the ground level, when not everyone has superpowers. It was this point of difference that initially drew me to the series. It was about technology, science, and strategies because these agents do not have photon blasts or super serum to make them invincible (well until ‘The Infinity War’ at least). What they were dealing with, initially with Hydra were really about battle tactics.

Nonetheless, as the series proceeded, ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ sprung into its own life. The major plot twist provided in the first season with Hydra might have gotten the series the much needed exposure and attention, but it was what they introduced, and successfully, to the MCU that the movie could not dealt with that built its own unique Identity. From season two, the Inhumans were introduced (not the ill-fated God forsaken movie turned TV series turned disaster), whom in season 3 led a huge charge for the storyline to move forward. Season 3 of ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ was practically Inhumans in the MCU did right. From Season 4 onward, ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ excelled with its ground level approach under the influence of the bigger picture. The clouds of the Sokovia Accords had hugely impacted the existence of Inhumans, both politically and socially but it was because of this with the introduction of the Life Decoy Models (LMDs) that brought the series to a different direction. The introduction of a proper Ghost Rider that tied in to the LMD and later the Framework storylines demonstrated that ‘The Agents of SHILED’ had successfully established itself as a grounded series within the grander universe in the MCU. Season 4 of the series delivered some of the best narratives within the MCU. So I was not surprised that fans were up in arms and fired up when initially ABC wanted to cancel the series. The series had established its own cult following. While being more demanding for the audience to follow the stories than its movie counterparts, ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ continued to lay groundworks for the movies when telling their own stories.

Disney’s direct intervention to ABC resulted in the 5th Season of ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ though ABC had cut the budget significantly for the production. As a result, the producers brought the series to a confined space station in the outer space to save cost. The sadistic tyranny displayed by the Kree introduced in this season laid the groundworks for the Krees in ‘Captain Marvel’ as the audience who had follow the series would have had no doubt questioning the motivations of all the Kree members in Captain Marvel’s team.  

By Season 5, the Inhumans are already firmly established in the world of ‘The Agents of SHIELD’. Despite having all that power, what I liked about how the series is how they treated the Inhumans storylines. Inhumans in the series were individuals who happened to have those powers that they did not ask for. Their struggles and identity crisis and the discrimination against them were fully and thoroughly explored. That made them a lot more human than superheroes as compared to the movie counterparts. And for me, it made me feel these characters are more real, and I would care about them.

The fate of the series was thrown into uncertainty when ABC decided to just renew it for a shorten season for 2019. A lot of followers considered this as a signed of rebellion from ABC against Disney to cancel and wrap up the show, despite having delivered solid storytelling and further following for the series in Season 5 by the show. Reassurance of commitment to the series came after the Marvel Studio and ABC explained the reason for the shorter season was to avoid providing any spoiler for ‘Avengers: Endgame’ because if the season continued during from the Fall to April, it would have no choice but to talk about and show the aftermath of the Decimation as Season 5 finished right before the Decimation. This could spoil a lot of stories for ‘Endgame’. Fans were treated an early Christmas when ABC announced the ordering of the 7th Season as they debut the trailer for Season 6.

With the current MCU story arc finishing in April 2019, it is unknown what direction ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ would go or what role it would play in the bigger MCU. The show’s integration with the movies were too tight to just completely separate it. Only time will tell what would happen but the fact that Phil Coulson re-appeared in ‘Captain Marvel’ it was a timely reminder for people who once loved this SHIELD agent and demanded his resurrection. In a time when Disney is preparing for its own streaming channel with MCU tied in original series on its own platform, and the demise of the Netflix series, how ‘The Agents of SHIELD’ would move forward would be the most interesting to see.

Sex Education

View fullsize

Netflix has grown to become a platform for some really interesting movies and TV series. Starting with being well known for dramas like ‘House of Cards’ and then black comedies like ‘Orange is the New Black’ and reboots of ‘Arrested Development’ then the house of the Marvel TV series such as ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Jessica Jones’, ‘Sex Education’ is a new take on dramedy in a high school setting. And the result was surprisingly refreshing.

‘Sex Education’ is high school dramedy, so expect all the clichés of mean girls and popular boys in usually movies or TV series of the similar kind. However, the similarities stopped here. The premise of the show banks in on teenager’s curiosity and experimentation about sex without knowing what it is actually about. In came our protagonist Otis (played by the brilliant Asa Butterfield) whose mum (Gillian Anderson of the ‘X Files’ fame) is an established sex therapist whom he felt awfully weird about. However, because of him being soaked in this sex therapist environment, he unconsciously learnt the skills, which was discovered by the Harley Quinn like Maeve Wiley and decided to establish a clinic business with Otis as the school sex therapist. Together they have a great variety of clients with issues from masturbating with a melon to unsatisfying lesbian sex. The process was hilarious and it was through this process that both Otis and Maeve slowly discovered who they are.

The series focused a lot on both self-discovery and helping others to discover themselves, their partners and they true feelings around the world their people. Some of the therapy sessions were outlandishly hilarious and others were touching. It has graphic descriptions about teenage sex and their curiosity about their sexuality, but in a lot of cases, it transcends the physical aspects and dealt with the emotional and psychological aspects. And I think this provided a distinctive point of view for the series. Also the journey that both Otis and Maeve went through during the 8 episodes was intriguing as they came to terms to their change of status at the school and dealing with new relationships and falling out of old ones. The constant question of ‘Is it me or is it them’ continued to haunt them while they presented as a united front to help all those desperate souls at the school, with a fee.

Gillian Anderson as Otis’ mother Jean was without a doubt a screen stealer. Her sex therapist persona that sometimes unconsciously bled into her relationship with Otis at times made really good TV and was always a joy to watch. I think her casting was absolutely spot on. Asa Butterfield’s Otis has everything you can expect from an awkward kid who wanted to just stay invisible. However, the thriving school sex therapist business had put him into the limelight and forced him to gradually open up to the world around him. This development slowly brought him out of his comfort zones and look at the world in proper light. Emma Mackey’s Maeve was deep and rich and provided a great premise for Otis to thrive. Her unapologetic attitude to life while at the same time has massive insecurity because of her ‘deficiencies in the family department’ provided a great canvas for character development. And how Otis and Maeve fed off each other’s vibe to survive while enriching each other’s life was very interesting to watch. Ncuti Gatwa as Eric did a decent job with a character that was initially quite cliché and bland. For me initially I was a bit disappointed with a gay side kick character again and it felt token and stereotypical. However, as the character grew and you found out more and more about his background the character became a bit more full-fledged and I started to appreciate him a bit more. There are a number other interesting characters in the show too although in my opinion a number of them were quite under-developed, probably because of the shortness of the series.

The soundtrack of the show was as unapologetic as the premise. It strangely complements the theme of the show in a way that it brought out the rawness of young people in a seemingly protecting but in reality, a rough environment. The high school they were in looks like a prestigious high school from the look of the campus but within the walls of this majestic building are raw souls yearning to break out and march without regret into an unknown adulthood. This emotional (or probably hormonal) yearning was masterfully magnified by the soundtracks played throughout the series. And the soundtracks were not monotone but covered a wide variety of genre.

Despite breaking new grounds, the series itself is not flawless. For example despite the presence of two lesbian relationships, with which one of them were quite graphic from a sexual depiction point of view, the only ‘gay scene’ in the series was only lightly touched on despite there were two prominent gay characters in the show. For me this kind of imbalance made me wonder whether the writers or producers still think lesbian relationships are more acceptable than gay ones so trying to downplay its impact on screen? Also as mentioned earlier there were some interesting characters that were seriously under-developed. For instance Adam Groff, the headmaster son’s character was extremely one-dimensional and his action was too predictable to be interesting. Similarly the mean-team at school was just mean-team. Although it touched lightly on its in-group dynamic, they were never really that interesting to watch. That goes the same with some other characters such as Ola and his plumber dad, Jackson the head boy whose background story though interesting did not have sufficient materials to flash it out. The other really annoying aspect are the numerous on again and off again relationship with some characters and all those cliché chance co-incidence encounters putting characters out of phase with each other. I personally felt that the show would be so much better without them.

Although ‘Sex Education’ is not without its issue but it did serve up a new template for teen dramas. It is not your average teen drama and I must say that if it is not on Netflix, it might not be produced. It is a short series of 8 episodes so if you are looking for something different and engaging ‘Sex Education’ can be one of your choices.

Captain Marvel

View fullsize

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) missed the boat when they refused / delayed the Black Widow movies early on. As a result, Wonder Woman hit the screen and made history. MCU from this point onward was playing catch up. The result was Captain Marvel hitting the cinemas in 2019.

Captain Marvel built up a lot of hype, not only because it is MCU first and only female superhero movie in the 11 years and after over 20 films, but also because of the significance of Carol Danvers in the comics. It is a much-loved character and without the burdening background of Black Widow in the MCU, Marvel Entertainment can really play with their material in an imaginative way.

The movie is an origin story in the 90s explaining where Captain Marvel came from through a bunch of flash back and flash forward scenes. It is a well-known fact that the premise was the Kree-Skrull War and Carol Danvers by the chance of fate sided with the Kree. A green (both experience and uniform colour) operative agent Carol encountered the Skrull and slowly peeled off her history layer by layer. There are lots of time movements in the film, so I would recommend audience members to pay attention to every screen to make sure they did not miss out important information. At times I felt the plot a bit convoluted but probably Marvel wanted to craft a more complicated character for Carol but I do not know whether some audience would find it confusing. There are quite a few moments that delivered nods to previous MCU movies and tied in to the overarching MCU story arc. However, one of the major item plot point in the movie got me scratching my head as it was confusing. Maybe I need to revisit older movies to find out more or maybe Marvel had more to tell about that story I don’t know. But when that plot twist happened, I genuinely had a “Huh?” moment.

Brie Larson in the titular role delivered a solid performance. From fighting scenes to just simple posing for her presence you can see that Brie had put a lot of effort to deliver the grandiose of this important Marvel character. She presented as a rogue agent in a disciplined team and Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury did not waste a bit of time to call her out. Her moments of reckoning were well played and sometimes I did wonder how could she make it interesting when the character is so unrivallingly powerful? A ‘young’ Samuel L Jackson reprised his role as Level 3 Agent Fury in SHIELD.  I was quite surprise at such a low level he got such high degree of clearance. But you can certainly see the chemistry between Brie’s Carol and Sam’s Fury. As a result, most of their scenes together were the best in the whole movie. Their banter and borderline distrust with each other initially unwittingly made them the best partners in the MCU. Clark Gregg also reprised as a young Agent Coulson being just joining SHIELD but already showed traces of judgement and leadership for his later years in the MCU. There are other famous faces such as Jude Law, Annette Benning etc. who delivered solid performances but they were just not on the screen long enough for me to enjoy them. Also, for me the two scene stealers were Goose and Akira Akbar’s Monica Rambeau. Goose well, is Goose, it is destined for great things. But Akira’s Monica was full of personality. I do not know whether MCU will utilise her further in the future as a character but Akira had certainly created a rich character despite for her minor screen presence.

The film was set in the 90s. So, expect a lot of 90s soundtracks peppered across the whole movie. I also like how they made fun of the technology in the 90s, particularly the scenes about the CD ROM and dialled up Internet. Captain Marvel is the last movie before Avengers End Game. So, expect a lot of hints and scene setting for End Game and some of the other movies (hence making me more confused about one of the plot twists that post a question mark on the time line for me). If you are a fan of mid and end credit scenes, be sure to sit through the whole mid and end credits.

Overall, I enjoyed Captain Marvel a lot. I had never one moment needed to check my watch and when things are funny on screen, I truly laughed out loud. Whether Captain Marvel would make history or MCU history is still a bit too early to say, but it did set up End Game nicely to create the necessary anticipation for all MCU fans.