THE 2015 TOP 8

 

8. Show Me A Hero  

Brilliantly directed by Paul Haggis, a show about the politics and civil rights of the people of New York has never before been so interesting. Having a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, Show me a hero was the easily the best HBO show this year (yes, even better than GoT).

7.  Manto 

 By far the best Pakistani flick that stands head and shoulders above all other movies in these past few years, Sarmad Khoosat's biopic on the life of Saadat Hassan Manto was nothing short of a masterpiece.

6. Ex Machina 

 

The perfection of Alex Garland brings forward the story of Eva, an artificially intelligent android who uses her wits to escape the maze her creator put her in. The movie is perfectly paced and keeps on surprising every now and then.

5. Kingsman: The Secret Service

What do you get when you take special agents dressed in perfectly tailored suits fitted with cool gadgets and then have them save the world from a devious Sam Jackson while making you laugh every five minutes? This movie.

4. Inside out

After making movies about feelings of cars, monsters, bugs and robots, Pixar come back in form with a movie about feelings of feelings. Without doubt the best family movie of the year and a strong nominee for an Academy Award, Inside out makes the little yellow joy in your head jump up and down with excitement.

3. Mad Max: Fury Road 

 
The rebirth of a long dead franchise, Mad Max Fury Road was the best summer action movie of the year and brought forward the most dominating female lead in a long time. With the awards for the best movie and the best director by the National Board of Review and being nominated for 13 Oscars, George Miller's hard work is surely paying off.

2. TVF Pitchers

Who could've thought that an Indian YouTube channel could come up with such an amazing web series. Pitchers follows the story of four friends who want to make it big in the entrepreneurship world and are crazy about their business idea. Currently standing at No. 22 on the list of IMDb's best ever TV shows, Pitchers is a must watch for all.

1. The Martian 

Matt Damon shows how it feels to be the only living thing on an entire planet in what is definitely the best movie of the year. The Martian portrays the story of an astronaut who gets left behind on Mars after the rest of his crew members had to make an emergency return but the immaculate direction of Ridley Scott  makes you feel as if you're actually stuck there with him. Praised by all spectators, The Martian will be tough to beat at the Oscars.

The Martian (2015) - Review

THE MARTIAN (2015)

'Just a million miles from home'

A survival movie on Mars comes out just as they discover water there, is that a great coincidence or what?!

The Martian is the story of Mark Watney (Matt Damon) who is accidentally left on Mars after his team thought he was dead in a storm as they had to make an emergency launch back home and now Watney must survive on Mars until someone comes back to rescue him. As simple as it may sound this movie blew me away and it is very hard to think of even one thing wrong with it.

There were two things that stood out in this movie which were never before seen. The first element was the science, this movie shows hundreds of problems, problems that you would expect in situations like this but some how someone always comes up with an ingenious solution with science so convincing it’s hard to argue with it, solutions so big that creating water and planting crops of Mars doesn’t even crack the top ten. The second most incredible element was Matt Damon’s attitude towards this whole scenario, his entire proactive approach towards his survival was wonderful, I mean the guy is cracking jokes, cursing NASA officials on live TV and talking about disco music while he knows his chances of returning home are next to none.

Director Ridley Scott has lived up to his name and this is definitely one of his best movies, he’s done so much to make Mars an interesting place, which if you think of is nothing but sand and rock and the way he’s shown the intensity of the corporate decision making and the reaction of the people towards the whole scenario back on earth is amazing. Like every sci-fi movie these days the graphics department clearly worked overtime and their efforts were more than visible, in fact I don’t see any other movie taking home the Oscar for best visual effects this year.

Coming to the Actors, It was clearly a Matt Damon show and there’s only one word for him, exceptional. Other actors include Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Chastain and Sean Bean (who thankfully doesn’t die here) and if you have any idea at all about Hollywood you would know that these people hardly disappoint. 

A lot of people might think that the 2 hr 20 min run-time a little bit too much but it isn’t, it’s a pretty well paced movie and you never get bored, surely they could’ve removed five minutes or so from the scenes on earth because they’re not as interesting but we can let this one slide by. The only problem with the movie that I can come up with is the 3D release, there wasn’t much 3D stuff in there and I think it would’ve looked just as beautiful in 2D. There are some curse words and full moon in there so a heads up for all you parents out there with little children, but you’re enjoying so much that you don’t really notice all of that, in fact it’s a great movie to see with your family.

In conclusion then, if you’ve ever wondered what “Cast Away” in space would be like, this is it and it’s just as good. This movie is a great watch for everyone and is definitely worth the price of the ticket.

MY VERDICT: Worth buying the nachos for

Jawani Phir Nahi Ani (2015) - Review

JAWANI PHIR NAHI ANI (2015)

'Product placements galore'

 

I was irritated by “Wrong No.”, annoyed by “Karachi Say Lahore” but this has just pissed me off.

Jawani Phir Nahi Ani is yet another “commercial” rom-com that has hit the Pakistani theaters this year and just like the previous two, this should’ve been one of those ideas that you come up with and then say “nah, that’s just too big a crap” because it is simply (and I don’t know how else to put this) pointless. The plot is as generic as it gets, when four friends get tired of their married lives, they decide to take a vacation to relive their bachelorhood and what better place to do it than Bangkok and somehow they end up in a pretty screwed up situation with the mafia and all hell breaks loose (if only I had a penny for every time I saw that).

Sure the movie had a couple of good laughs and the acting was good (as it should have been, given that they had signed some of the best names in the country), the visuals were pretty decent and the director did a fair job in directing a bad movie with no plot (so thumbs up… I guess?!) but the question here is not whether the movie was technically good or not, the question is that do we need it? and the answer, without a doubt, is no.

Pakistani film makers must ask themselves, is this what they mean by the evolution of Lollywood? Why is it that they put the label of “made in Pakistan” on their movies and yet the content is not in, any way, Pakistani. If I want to watch some random bachelor party movie with item songs and scenes that are insanely awkward when you’re sitting next to your mom, why on Earth would you not watch any Indian movie? Pakistanis need to decide what type of movies they want to watch, do they want the brilliance of flicks like “Bol”, “Zinda Bhaag”, “Waar” or “Manto” or do they want the glorified yet dirty humor of movies like this. I said it before and I’ll say it again, this “commercial” nonsense isn’t aiding to the resurrection of Pakistani Cinema, it’s just stabbing it in the face with a blunt knife.

In Conclusion, JPNA is an entertaining couple of hours for anyone who enjoys generic Indian rom-coms and they’ll probably give it 9 stars on IMDb. So go and watch it and make it successful, so they can make another one next year.

MY VERDICT: Worth the free download

Bridge of Spies (2015) - Review

BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015)

'A masterpiece for the patient'

What does it take to beat a Spielberg thriller starring Tom Hanks? Another Spielberg thriller starring Tom Hanks.

A true story, Bridge of spies takes place in 1960 and shows that James Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer is asked by the CIA to conduct a negotiation for the release of a spy pilot, Francis Powers (Victor Verhaeghe), who was arrested by the Soviet Union during a mission and in exchange give back the Russians, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), an intelligence officer arrested for espionage by the CIA.

Now as boring as the plot might sound, the movie itself is far from it, in fact it’s one of the most intense and enjoyable drama/thrillers in a long while. Lawyers are not the most fun people to be around and Insurance lawyers, well it’s safe to say they’re not exactly the life of the party but just ten minutes into the movie and Tom Hanks is your new best buddy after Jon Snow, you literally cheer for this person as he talks his way into battle and that’s all there is in the movie, negotiation, which is brilliant because negotiations are a key element in wars, sadly we just like to see people slicing each other.

It wouldn’t really be a surprise I said that the movie was directed and filmed perfectly, what else do you expect from Spielberg but what was surprising was the style of filming. This movie should have had good action and espionage or some secret government facilities, if it were a conventional Spielberg thriller but it didn’t have any of it and I guess the reason were the writers, this movie was written by the Coen Brothers and it only makes sense because those guys even put drama in comedies and this was a full on court room discussion movie and that is what makes this movie different from Saving Private Ryan.

Performance wise, Tom Hanks nails it in this movie and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got nominated for best actor this year but someone who came out of nowhere was Mark Rylance, I don’t know where this guy is from or who he is, all I know is that I want to see more of him.

In conclusion, Bridge of Spies may not be the best movie to watch with your friends on a Saturday night but it is most definitely worth watching if you enjoy well directed thrillers that don’t have much killing in them.

MY VERDICT: Worth the price of admission

Manto (2015) - Review

MANTO (2015)

'The chapter of the story our teachers skipped'

Like it or not, but the truth is that you will wish you had taken more interest in this guy when they were forcing it in your head in school and you kept on hating it for some reason.
“Manto” brings forward the untold stories from the life of the great Saadat Hassan Manto, untold because our parents and teachers probably thought it was a little inappropriate for us but boy does his life make an incredible movie or what? Directed and starred by Sarmad Khoosat, Manto has just the right amount of everything in it to make it one of the greats.

The first thing you notice in this movie, even from the trailers, is that it has some of the most famous and acclaimed actors from Pakistan in it and they definitely didn’t disappoint. With more cameos than “This is the End”, Manto never lost its vibe as the direction was right up to the mark with the acting and Sarmad made sure that he conveyed his ideas completely with nothing left behind in this two hour long masterpiece.

The thing that distinguishes Manto from any other biopic is that mostly we are shown the struggles of someone on his way to greatness but with Manto it’s the other way round as here we see a great person being mocked by society for his bold style of writing and being eaten by his alcoholism as he travels from a mental asylum to his home and then back. He fears no man, abides no law but on the other hand is too weak to fight with his inner conflicts and that is where Sarmad (as an actor) has worked wonders because he shows you those emotions in that dual personality extremely well.

Not considering the fact that some of the younger audience found the second half a little too dark and boring and that they could’ve chopped off a good ten minutes at the end. A movie which has good direction, actors, screenplay and music is surely worth buying a cinema ticket for but liking or disliking is purely subjective, I mean the girls sitting behind me hated it, the girls on my right loved it and the girl on my left kept on laughing for some reason (yeah, I picked a good seat). The point is you should be intelligent enough to know from the trailers that this isn’t some masala rom-com and if you’re into that stuff than don’t waste your money.

MY VERDICT: Worth buying the popcorn for

Bin Roye (2015) - Review

BIN ROYE (2015)

'The Humsafar girl does it again'

In the midst of film-makers trying to portray the problems of the illiterate and poverty stricken Pakistan comes this masterpiece from Momina Duraid which says Rich people have emotions and problems as well.

After the flagship that was Humsafar, my mind unconditionally pairs up Mahira Khan with Fawad Khan, but to his credit, Humayun Saeed has done an incredible job at making this couple look great. This couple has great chemistry and they look extremely good in both intimate and intense scenes. 

Although Mahira has once again stuck to her forte and her character isn't all that different from what we've seen earlier from her but you really don't care about it that much when she's so refreshingly good at it, turning into the Julia Roberts of Pakistan, you like her more every time you see her on screen.

A brilliant direction ensured that all the characters stayed in the center for just the right amount of time while the main focus stayed on Mahira as she took up about 90 percent of the ideal 116 minute run-time and not for one second she felt boring. The directors also made sure that the romance was not over-done and hence it never felt cheesy, in fact it's a better family film than "Wrong No.". The picturesque landscapes and vivid colors in the background only added to what were already beautiful scenes.

Bin Roye's music however is one of the greatest standouts of the movie. All of the songs were good but then came along what is most probably the best mehndi song of the decade, incredible music playing back to an equally good dance-off, Ballay Ballay is the song you want in your mehndi playlist.

Sure the movie has some acing issues and starts to drag a bit in the second half and has a rather predictable "twist" but Bin Roye is great effort and a perfect addition to this newly resurrected Pakistani Cinema. After all the films we've had in the recent past we needed a good romantic one and thanks to Momina Duraid, we have it.

As far as a recommendation is concerned, if you're the type of person who enjoys a rather conventional love story with brilliant acting and great music, the price of the ticket is worth it.

MY VERDICT: Worth the price of admission

Wrong No. (2015) - Review

WRONG NO. (2015)

'If you can't beat them, join them'

Just when I think Pakistani movies are heading in the right direction they come up with stuff like this.

"If you can't beat them, join them", this was what Mr and Mrs Nawaz thought after watching a modern Bollywood masala-comedy and they probably said to their selves, "why can't we get away with this, Sajid Khan did, and it's not like the people in Pakistan have any more sense than those in India. Why go through the effort of building an entire film when you can just get a cheap script, fill it with dirty humor and two item songs later, we have ourselves a 130 minutes of utter nonsense" and that's when they decided to make this piece of crap they so proudly call a movie.

This movie has nothing going for it, the plot, the acting, the screenplay, the direction, nothing is worth mentioning and there was absolutely no character development or chemistry whatsoever in fact I've seen cave paintings with better stories than this movie.

Coming back to the inappropriate jokes/scenes, two families with little kids walked out of the theater halfway through the movie. If this is Nida Yasir's idea of a family film after years of doing a morning show then God help us.

Last year it was Na Maloom Afraad and now this, these "commercial movies" aren't really helping the revival of Lollywood, they're just stabbing it in the face with a blunt knife.

MY VERDICT:  Not even worth the free download