Rana Banik – Google

I guess we all had that moment when you see your favorite birthday balloon getting deflated or deliberately exploded by a bunch of monstrous kids with cruel smugness in their faces. Satyajit Ray is not just a mere director, writer, and literary genius for Bengali, he is another name of passion. All Bengali kids grew up reading his stories, fiction and then watching his directed films. So when Netflix drummed up the heat by making a series on Ray's 4 short stories, I got carried away too. But here I am utterly disappointed, trying to inform fellow watchers on the wall(read OTT), and movie aficionados. Forget me not___, the two stars I gave were for this episode. This was so well made. To some extent, the scriptwriter did an amazing job to take us to the sky with the main protagonist and then throw us from the plane. Srijit Mukherjee did amazing direction with Ali Fazal's captivating on-screen presence. This episode proves that adaptation can also be built on real literary work based on modern aspects of time. Bahurupiya___, the script was too shabby. It is nearly impossible to buy the make. Wish Kay Kay Menon had got a better script. I am not blaming the short stories(how dare I!!) because they were not meant for movie scripts. The screenplay was too dark and gloomy. I think Sreejit got inspired from the 'Joker' movie cinematography or so. Hungama Hai Kyun ___ is good as a comedy. I enjoyed the scenes inside the train and their conversation. That's why one more star. The ending could have been better but the script didn't test the boundary of Manoj Bajpayee's acting capability(does it have any boundary at all?!). Spotlight ___ was an amazing short story that has a twist in it. It was a gem from Ray. This story is too good and that really makes me cringe that the director/scriptwriter ruined it horribly. I was in agony and could barely finish. Any Bengali(or not) who read the story will cringe too. It is like seeing your favorite shirt being torn apart by some ugly beast. So horrible ending. Would like to thank Netflix for the initiative though. Please do watch the series, I am not a film expert don't trust my words lol. You have heard the story of a fox losing his tail right? N.B. There is a short film 'Anukul' based on Ray's another story. Those who read till here should definitely watch it.

Debi is one of the finest fictions I have read in any language. I don't think it is an easy job for any filmmaker to create the aura of this amazing story by maestro Humayun Ahmed. Saying that I think the director and the casts did pretty well. The screenplay seemed unfinished and scattered. There were few scenes I can follow sequences. Felt disconnected and lack of flow. Things were happening out of nowhere, for example, suddenly Iresh Jaker's character changed. Suddenly Neelu became like Ranu, suddenly Misir Ali left Ranu's house without any conclusion and ended up in university. I only liked Chanchal Chowdhury's acting, though Misir Ali is a skinny character portrayed by Humayun Ahmed. No other characters were developed to feel anything for them by the audiences. The Jitu Miah spooky scene is the only part I felt the chill. Good music. Well attempted. Hopefully, the next Misir Ali would be more like Humayun Ahmed's storytelling marvel. I guess I had unrealistic expectations.

It was so bad, I couldn't watch more than 10 minutes at a time. Personally, I read the book by Paula Hawkins and didn't like the story too much either. But the making of this film is literally horrible. The acting from NRI casts is egregious. Please at least put some effort into casting. The movie is based in the UK but none of the actors or actresses had any slight British accent. Nowadays actors/filmmakers make it to that level to learn native accents. Movie plot loosely based on 4-5 characters. The motive shown to strangle and kill a person is too trivial. And background singing, musicals atypical Bollywood films makes the suspense and thriller ludicrous. This movie is complete garbage. Why did I even watch it!

As an astrophysics and space aficionado, I will have a soft corner for movies made on space travels. But I understand depicting just space travels for 10 episodes will be pretty boring. That is where the show puts it's best effort by showing also the human part of the five astronauts for the Martian voyage. Their life stories, upbringing, relations, ups, and downs in flashback. The science fiction is not too much fiction at all rather pretty much scientific. A lot of space travel details were brought into reality. And I liked the relations and how they change during their long journey to another planet. Overall I loved the series and will eagerly wait for the second season.