My friend Dean Kalyan and his family are really into sport, music, photography and videography.
A collection of images shot and produced by Kalyan Studios in the past year.
Click PLAY or watch some of their quirky, personal work on Vimeo.
If you need a video made contact info (a) kalyanstudios.com
Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 vampire film … starring Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, Jeffrey Wright, Slimane Dazi, and John Hurt. A co-production of the United Kingdom and Germany, the film was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. …
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 85% based on 158 reviews. The critical consensus states that “Worth watching for Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton’s performances alone …”
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
Tim Grierson of Paste noted that “Hiddleston and Swinton play their characters not as blasé hipsters but, rather, deeply reflective, almost regretful old souls who seem to have decided that love is about the only thing you can count on.”
Tilda Swinton is fantastic. Can you believe she’s age 54?
Tom Hiddleston, her romantic partner, is is 20 years younger.
Music and vintage instruments are an important theme. Click PLAY or watch a performance by Yasmine Hamdan on YouTube.
Taken 3 (stylized as TAK3N) is a 2014 French action thriller … the third and final installment in the Taken trilogy, and the sequel to the 2008 film Taken and the 2012 film Taken 2. The film stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen and Forest Whitaker. …
Despite being largely panned by critics, the film was a box office success, grossing over $289 million.
OK, I’m a sucker for Liam Neeson. That must be it. The film is weak.
Liam’s fight scenes are the most unrealistic since 1960s TV, but I still enjoyed this pic.
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
Neeson is a critic of the proliferation of firearms in the US and has made calls for gun control. In January 2015, he repeated his views, calling US gun laws a “disgrace” in an interview with Dubai newspaper Gulf News when replying to a question about the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris earlier that month.
I’ve not yet read the book. But the film is excellent.
Gone Girl is a 2014 American psychological thriller film directed by David Fincher and adapted by Gillian Flynn from her 2012 novel of the same name. It stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. …
Affleck can only play Affleck. He’s OK. But there’s not much acting there.
Rosamund Pike is fantastic.
… she received nominations for an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. …
What a freak.
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
The Theory of Everything is a 2014 British biographical romantic drama … from the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Wilde Hawking, which deals with her relationship with her ex-husband, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, his diagnosis of motor neuron disease, and his success in physics. …
Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 79% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 214 reviews with an average score of 7.3/10. …
At the 87th Academy Awards, it has been nominated in the categories of Best Picture, Best Actor for Redmayne, Best Actress for Jones, …
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) would be a far more worthy winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor than is Michael Keaton (“Birdman”)
Redmayne spent six months researching Hawking’s life, watching every interview footage he could find on him. …
… Hawking gave him his blessing and also revealed that, “[Hawking’s] response was very positive, so much so that he offered to lend his voice, the real voice that he uses. The voice you hear in the latter part of the story is in fact Stephen’s actual electronic voice as he uses it” …
Selma is a 2014 American historical drama film …
It is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches …
Selma has received universal acclaim from film critics. Praise has gone particularly to the film’s acting, cinematography, screenplay, and direction. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds a rating of 98% …
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
It’s an important movie. A good history lesson.
Martin Luther King Jr. emulated my personal hero Gandhi. Non-violent resistance. The best way for an oppressed minority to challenge a privileged majority.
It worked.
But as a film I found Selma average. Too preachy. The dialogue often not believable. The good guys too good, the bad guys too evil.
It might have been better as a documentary.
Instead it’s a Hollywood fiction based on a true story. I know not all the facts are exactly right. But John Lewis, being bludgeoned in this photo March 7, 1965, feels the film gets enough right. To him the film is true to the story.
Alabama Governor George Wallace was a prototype segregationist. During his final years, Wallace recanted his racist views and asked for forgiveness from African Americans.
I visited Alabama for the first time last year. Surprised and pleased to see no outward signs of overt racism.
Sooner or later the echos of American slavery will be entirely forgotten.
In the meantime, Selma is a reminder of how far we’ve come. And how far we have not come.
related – Neil Young – Southern Man
In a word, over-rated. Very good. But not the best picture of 2014.
Edward Norton is excellent, as always. Convincing. Emma Stone too.
Michael Keaton is good, but was too over-the-top. Trying too hard for Best Actor. I didn’t believe in his persona. Aside from one or two quieter scenes, it looked too much like acting.
I found Boyhood a much more honest movie.
Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.
It’s an ambitious film. I liked the magic realism. And was impressed by the continuous long take hand held camera shots.
(The director did not know whether the technique would be successful however, describing it as “almost suicidal”, and faced resistance from “huge” and “important” people.)
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is a 2014 American black comedy–drama film …
Keaton plays a faded Hollywood actor famous for his superhero role struggling to mount a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story. …
… the 87th Academy Awards, Birdman received nine nominations, joint most for the ceremony (with The Grand Budapest Hotel), including Best Picture, Best Director, and acting nominations for Keaton, Norton and Stone. Additional Oscar honors included nominations for cinematography, sound editing, sound mixing, and writing for an original screenplay. …
Birdman received widespread critical acclaim. At Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 92% based on 251 reviews, with an average rating of 8.5/10. …
Killing Floor is the debut novel by Lee Child, first published in 1997 …
… the first book to feature the character Jack Reacher. …
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He’s just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he’s arrested for murder.
Not much of a welcome. All Jack knows is that he didn’t kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone. not in Margrave, Georgia. Not a chance in hell.
I enjoyed the book.
It’s Hemingway brusk. Simple. No Nobel Prize winner.
But the plot, while not perfect, was engaging and entertaining. It kept me going as a good thriller should.
I’ve already downloaded Die Trying, the second novel in the Jack Reacher series. There are already 19 books in that series. If I get hooked, I’ll be reading Reacher revenge stories for a long, long time. 🙂
Jim Grant (born 29 October 1954), better known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British thriller writer …
Grant was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2009.
In 2012, his novel One Shot was adapted into Jack Reacher; an American thriller film starring Tom Cruise. Grant has a cameo appearance as a police desk sergeant in the film. …
#BlackLivesMatter
This guy bought a firearm for protection. He had a concealed weapons permit.
He was found guilty October 1, 2014, and was sentenced to a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole on October 17, 2014.
If he had it all to do over again, he wouldn’t have carried a loaded firearm in his vehicle. 😦
Jordan Russell Davis, a 17-year-old African American high school student, was fatally shot by Michael David Dunn, a 45-year-old software developer from Brevard County who was visiting the city for a wedding.
The incident began when Dunn asked Davis and his companions to turn down the loud music that was being played in the vehicle in which Davis was a passenger …
After Dunn shot up the teen’s car, he ordered pizza. Did not call the police. 😦
The film is getting good reviews. I definitely want to see it.
The Sundance Film That Explores The Tragic Killing Of A Black Florida Teenager
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on Vimeo.
Rick McCharles 