Baby Boy

A 20-year-elderly person named Joseph "Jody" Summers lives with his 36-year-old mother Juanita in South Central Los Angeles. He invests the vast majority of his energy with his jobless closest companion Sweetpea and does not appear to be keen on turning into a dependable grown-up. In any case, he is compelled to develop because of an ex-con named Melvin, who moves into their home. Another factor is his kids—a child Joseph "JoJo" Summers Jr. with his sweetheart of five years, 22-year-old Yvette, and a little girl with a 19-year-old young lady that he went behind Yvette's back with named Peanut who additionally lives with her mom.

Toward the start of the film, Jody sits tight for Yvette at the facility and it is discovered that she was pregnant and that Jody influenced her to have a fetus removal. Yvette continually inquires as to whether he will at any point come live with her and their child so they could resemble a family, however, Jody maintains a strategic distance from the subject and travels every which way however he sees fit. Jody additionally keeps seeing and engaging in sexual relations with other ladies, including Peanut. Jody additionally about has intercourse with 23-year-old Pandora, Yvette's associate, and collaborator, however, figures out how to rebuke her advances. This turns into an issue among him and Yvette also, particularly since Yvette doesn't coexist with Peanut nor Pandora. When she finds his tricking, they get in a warmed contention which results in Yvette punching Jody in the face and Jody slapping Yvette in the face. After this, Yvette changes the locks on the entryway. This angers Jody and they get into contention, which JoJo witnesses.

In the end, Yvette's criminal ex Rodney is discharged from San Quentin State Prison and comes back to the area to move in with Yvette, sadly. Rodney couldn't care less for JoJo and needs to impregnate Yvette himself. Rodney endeavors to assault Yvette before her child yet reevaluates in the wake of being coerced by Yvette and JoJo. In spite of their past contrasts, Yvette starts to acknowledge she is still enamored with Jody. For the following couple of days, Yvette lives in dread and disturbing of Rodney being there. Juanita discovers maryjane in her patio nursery and reprimands Jody for planting it. Jody ends up irate at his mother and faults Melvin for the cannabis. Melvin gets back home and admits to Juanita that he planted it. Jody and Melvin get into a warmed contention, which results in Melvin punching him in the face and breaking the table. Jody goes out to see Sweetpea. After this, Yvette kicks Rodney and his companions out of her condo. In the end, after some all the more squabbling, Yvette and Jody accommodate at Sweetpea's home, and Yvette discloses to Jody that Rodney endeavored to assault her before JoJo. Rodney takes the cash and keys from her wallet and takes off in her vehicle to proceed to discover Jody. Rodney endeavors to murder Jody in a drive-by shooting; be that as it may, he is fruitless.

Soon thereafter, Jody and Sweetpea stand up to Rodney, and as he endeavors to get away, Jody shoots him in the back of the legs. Sweetpea urges Jody to slaughter Rodney, yet he won't, so, all in all, Sweetpea shoots Rodney at any rate. Frightened by Rodney's passing, Jody gets ready to end it all by shooting himself in the head, however, Melvin gets him just under the wire and takes the firearm. In the wake of thinking about the demise of Rodney and how he put Yvette and his child in peril by not being around reliably, Jody at last moves out of his mother's home and in with Yvette.

Jody has now turned into a develop man, understanding that Juanita's association with Melvin is a steady one and that he has his very own group that he needs to secure and deal with. A short time later, Jody and Yvette get hitched and anticipate the introduction of their unborn kid. Sweetpea chooses to make a fresh start and gets immersed, putting his previous lifestyle as a hooligan behind him.

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY

The Umbrella Academy is a recent show Netflix launched after a 2007 comic that was made in an alternate reality where JFK wasn’t murdered. Having little knowledge of these comics, the show has been altered slightly to their own TV adaption. After watching the trailer of the season I was pretty hyped about the idea of it all but all the same I had a feeling a great idea will be shattered as it would have been better as a movie rather than a TV show. When these sort of TV shows are made, they tend to drag the idea and milk money from it as long as they possibly can until the point viewers start criticizing and stop watching it all at once. 

The episode opens with a woman swimming. She goes to dive in the pool and starts screaming in pain with blood forming in water. People around her pull her out and she gives birth, even though before diving she wasn’t pregnant at all. The very same day 43 other children are born the same way. A multi billionaire pays 7 mothers and adopts them. He could only get a hold of 7 unusually super powered children born in an unnatural, sudden birth. These seven children lived in a mansion with a highly intellectual chimpanzee named Pogo and a mother figure who they called mom. Each one of them have a unique power they can control. Number 1, or Luther, is a buff guy who I’m assuming has super strength and works on the moon. Number 2, or Diego, has heightened sense and works as a police officer. Number 3, or Alison, can whisper into peoples ears, making them bend to her will. She is a super star. Number 4, or Klaus, can talk to the dead. He has a giddy personality and is known for abusing drugs. Number 5 can move through time and space, or telekinetically move, but has been missing for years. Number 6, or Ben is dead He could transform himself into anything he wanted. Klaus can see and talk to Ben at times. And number 7, Vanya, has no super power. 

All these children find out that their father died in the first 10 mins into the plot and they meet up at the mansion. Everyone hates Vanya because she gave out family secrets in order to be someone in the Umbrella Academy. Feeling overwhelmed and an under achiever due to her circumstances has lead her to be depressed and is seen popping pills often. After lurking around the house, Luther seems to think dad’s death was out of the blue, while Diego constantly shuts it down. After a while a small black hole is formed outside their yard and number 5 appears. He answers no questions as to where he was or why he went. A small ceremony is made where Pogo tries to speak generously about dad. But with all the tension around, it is unveiled that dad was a strict dictator figure who wasn’t attached to the kids and thought of them more as an experiment, and none of the children seem to take that admirably. Short flashbacks of how these children were trained is shown and Vanya always seems to be left out. After all that has been said and done, everyone goes their own way. Number 5 ends up in a coffee shop and is followed by some gang of upgraded technology goons who track him down and try to kill him. Needless to say he teleports into space and kills them in a fraction of time. After everyone ends up back to their lives, Vanya opens the door and finds number 5 sitting on her couch. He tells her he traveled in time and the world is ending in 8 days from today and doesn’t know how to stop it. 

Having seen the only plot, I sense that the show is very predictable and though it may seem that us figuring out some parts is very Sherlock of us, it is indeed not. They made it easily comprehensible for those who cannot catch on to the plot of the whole season in one go. Even though the plot of the umbrella academy was well established for the viewers to catch on to the idea of the show, a lot of scenes felt very forced and the lines were pretty calculated with shorted pauses. The plot could not figure out if it wanted to be light or dramatic and switching from comical music to theatrical constantly was getting a little tiring. The overall base that they made to continue the show was entertaining yet it could have been made better if the back stories of what the characters were referring to came to an instant flashback WHEN they were saying it or sliding it smoothly in an hours time of the episode. The sequencing of the plot felt disorganized and chaotic

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Two people are suspects of killing dad, the chimpanzee, Pogo, and possibly Diego, but that might be a little too obvious to be true. Watch the show and comment who you’re betting on. I hope the show doesn’t getting over stretched, predictable and sticks to a good script.

Overall I’d give this one a 7.5/10.

3 idiots ( All is well )

3 idiots is a 2009 Hindi movie, directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. As we are in 21^st century but still at most of the places, students are not given freedom to choose their profession. Parents think that they have done so much for their child to make him a better person and their children should follow the profession of their choice. In our society most of the people tell their child either to become an engineer or a doctor. No other profession is considered. In this film the writer, producers and director has beautifully presented social pressure under an Indian education culture. They have also made it humorous, so people won’t get bored. 3 Idiots has won nine awards including best film awards because of the outclass acting and story.

This film is based on a story of three friends Farhan (R. Madhavan), Raju (Sharman Joshi) and Rancho (Amir Khan) who are students at Indian Engineering College. While, Farhan and Raju were average students belonged from a middle-class family whom parents forced them to choose engineering and Rancho, he was an intelligent student who belonged from a rich family. In fact, he didn’t belong from a rich family, but was the son of a servant of the rich family. His boss sent him instead of his son to get a degree for him. He was kind of a person who wanted to learn, or we can say that his hobby was to get knowledge. As he also quoted one sentence in movie “Get knowledge from any place you can get”. His friend Farhan wanted to become a wildlife photographer, but his father wanted to see him as an engineer and Raju, he wanted to improve his family living style. He wanted to remove economic poverty from their lives.

In college Rancho had very bad experience with some teachers because he wanted his teachers to make study more interesting rather than giving them a bookish knowledge. All the lecturers were irritated by his logics and points. The dean of the college didn’t like him at all and thought that Raju was a non-serious student and he will distract other students too. Meanwhile, Raju fell in love with dean’s daughter, role played by Karena Kapoor, who was a doctor. I won’t disclose their story yet. The movie is based on intermittent flashbacks from the present day and ten years later. There was another student named as Chatur, who was one of the topper students. After he got embarrassed in front of whole university because of Rancho’s plan, he challenged him that he will become more successful than him in future and he will see him after ten years where he lies. What happened exactly after ten years, I prefer you guys to you watch this outclass movie. It almost been ten years and I’m still eager to re-watch this movie.

BANDERSNATCH

For those who haven’t seen Bandersnatch it is a movie based on a British TV series called Black Mirror. Now personally, I see a lot less movies than I used to for the sole reason that all of them are just a repetition of the same story line with different actors and better graphics. The film industry at this point seems very dull and unattractive, with the same story over and over and over… Yeesh.

But as soon as I saw the name Black Mirror attached to it there was a sense of excitement. If you haven’t seen Black Mirror I recommend you check it out. It’s a series experimenting with different ideas of technology in the future and the effects it can have. Every episode has it’s own story line and you can watch it in any order without getting confused. I highly recommend watching the 3^rdseason and even though it has a pretty creepy vibe to it you can never get enough.

Bandersnatch, being made by the same people, without a doubt has the same vibe as well. So naturally I was also slightly scared to watch the movie alone as you can never expect what’s coming, which is what’s so great about the whole Black Mirror world. Bandersnatch is an interactive movie and they used Netflix’s platform to their extent, but you can only watch it on your phones or tablet. Sorry pirates… you can’t put this on torrent. You are given two choices and the story line is taken by the choice you make and you are given 6-8 seconds to make a decision. There are 5 main endings to the movie with different choices on each, clearly. With all honesty, no matter what choice you make you will always feel like you’re making the wrong one. So don’t worry. It’s just how Black Mirror rolls. 

The idea of the story is that there are alternate realities and nothing really matters, as one mistake in one reality you can alter in the next. What’s going to happen is going to happen. There’s someone controlling your fate and no matter what you do you can’t run away from it. Bandersnatch, at one point, breaks the 4^th wall. And let me tell you, it feels like you’re on 70 drugs when that happens. So strap on to your seat belts. This one’s a real roller coaster. 

Warning: Spoiler alert. Move to the second last paragraph if you want to skip spoilers.

So the movie starts off by giving you an idea of the decision making and gives you two options at breakfast: Sugar Puffs or Frosties. You choose either one. I don’t believe it matters, but somehow you feel it decides your fate. The main character, Stefan Butler, or rather you, are going for an interview. You choose a mix tape on your way in the bus. The interviewer, Mohan Thakur, greets you and makes you meet the most significant person in video game making, Colin Ritman. You have a conversation with him regarding his new game and then explain your game to both of them. Mohan seems very pumped up and excited and asks you to make it in the office with a team, and gives you a deadline. The game is based on a book called Bandersnatch. It’s an interactive game and based on your choices leads you to an ending. Ironic. Mohan then asks you your answer: accept or reject.  If you’re anything me, or 99% of the population you’d say yes. Doing that, Colin taps your back and says “Wrong path.” 

At that moment, you’re just a little startled because this is the first big decision you’ve made in this game and Oh No… was it the wrong one.

Fast forward to the day it’s released and given a rating on a tv show. It got 0/5 stars. Stefan, being mad about that wants to try again. And then the whole movie loops back to all the things that have happened from the start. Breakfast, bus ride, meeting Colin and back to the great question: Will you do it? 

This time, obviously, you say no. Unless you want a constant loop of 5 hours says yes. No, as in Stefan would do this at home, in his own space. Fast forward to the day it’s released and it gets a 4/5 review. 

Stefan is then seen talking to his therapist talking about the video game and he feels like the therapist is talking like his dad. The therapist asks about talking about his mom then. She asks if you want to talk about it and like most people you’d say yes. He talks about how his dad hid his favorite toy rabbit and while he was looking for it, his mom left without Stefan because he couldn’t find it. The train crashes and the mom dies, hence Stefan blames his dad for it. 

Stefan, while making another game, stays in his room for days. His dad walks in and asks him to go out and have lunch with him. While trying to explain to Stefan how he’s worried about him, Stefan plays the game and there’s and error. In the moment of anger you’re given two choices: throw tea over computer or yell at dad. If you’re a nice kid like me you’d throw tea all over your work. That puts you back in a loop of doing your work all over again, minus all the playback and you’re given the same choice again. This time you yell at dad. Dad tells him they’re going for lunch in a stern voice. To Stefan’s dismay, they end up at the therapist. There he sees Colin walking to somewhere. You’re given a choice again: Go to the therapist or go after Colin. I went to the therapist. 

Stefan tries to explain to Dr. Haynes that he feels like something is controlling him, making his choices. She gives him some medication. You’re then given a choice to take them or flush them. I flushed them down the drain. Taking them would have taken me to a different path. 

Fast forward to the day Stefan shows his game to Mohan and Colin, and it’s not working. He asks for a little time. Colin gives him a documentary on how Bandersnatch’s book was made for inspiration. The voice over talks about how the how the writer became insane and killed his wife, how the demon character was made, and called pax and how it came to being by the writer with symbols of significance. While Stefan is working on the game the voice over in the back constantly talks about how the maker of Bandersnatch didn’t have any control over fate and how generally fate is decided and nothing is in your control.  Stefan then plays the game to test it and the same problem again. You’re given a choice to hit the desk or destroy the computer. I hit the desk. At that moment Stefan has an epiphany that things are out of his control. He sees two things: a book and the family photo. I pick up the family photo. He holds it and falls asleep. Holding the photo, he dreams that he went through a mirror and becomes his young version again. The memory of his mother and father arguing over the rabbit occur again. He wakes up breathless. 

He tries again with the game and it doesn’t start. Two options arise: throw tea over computer or destroy computer. Whichever you chose, Stefan stops and doesn’t do it. He comes to the realization that someone is controlling him and so he yells into the void, directly talking to us, asking us who’s doing this to him. At this point of the movie you either feel like God or delusional that he broke the 4^th wall. Stefan asks for a sign. You’re presented with two options: Netflix or the symbol of the Bandersnatch maker, which, if you’re seen the series, appears constantly in season 2 episode 2 of Black Mirror. I pressed Netflix. On the screen it types “I am watching you on Netflix.” The show is set in a more 90’s time, therefore, Stefan questions what Netflix is. You can either explain more to him or try to explain what Netflix is. I took the chance to explain more to him because I felt immensely guilty and sorry for him. The screen tries to tell him more about how it’s for entertainment. He still seems confused. You can then stop the conversation or tell him more. I felt the need to tell him more. On that note his father walks in and asks him who he’s talking to, and he tries to explain himself. Dad calls the therapist.

Stefan goes to therapy because of this. They try to figure it out. Dr. Haynes asks if Netflix is really happening to entertain someone, then why isn’t all of this very entertaining, as though telling him choosing this path was the most boring and dull one. So she leans in and asks Stefan wouldn’t you want the viewer have more action to this story line. Two options are presented: yes and hell yes, either one leads to the same conclusion. Stefan throws coffee on her face and she pulls out nun chucks. You can either fight her or leap out the window. Obviously at this point you’d want to see how they fight. A whole action packed scene occurs and there’s a lot of adrenaline rush. The dad joins in. He pulls him out by the neck while Stefan screams at us asking if we’ve enjoyed the action. 

Netflix then loops us back to the time where you had the option to run after Colin, and asks if we want to take a different ending this time. You can stop the movie there or watch alternate timelines. I’ve just explained one ending.

Overall, the acting is pretty spot on, the whole creepy hollowness of the story is there, you feel delusional of the story at some point and believe you’re dissociating. Bandersnatch captured the essence that they were going for but they could’ve done a lot more because I feel like they were lacking in the making in some areas. The worst thing about the movie is when my sister watched it, it kept looping back to alternate endings, which was very confusing, I chose the fate of Stephan and it looped me back to what could’ve happened if I chose the other option. So I had only two endings. For my sister she had about 4 endings possible to the story, which gets a little draining at some point. Why can’t we just choose the one ending and stick to the consequences of it? If someone had to go back and check out other alternative endings that would’ve been okay too. 

The most amazing thing I felt about Bandersnatch was the interactiveness. They perform some action until you choose in the 6-8 seconds you’re given. Its a very minute detail focus but makes a whole lot of a difference unlike most interactive games. The directors achieved what they were going for and it was brilliantly executed. So for me 8/10.