Jurassic World is one of the mostly highly-anticipated films of the summer, and if the first trailer wasn’t enough to get you excited, the new global one undoubtedly is. Filled with more dinosaurs, more action, and more suspense, if the new trailer is an indication of what’s to come,  Jurassic World could very well be exactly what fans of the series have been waiting for.

Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor’s interest, which backfires horribly.

Directed by Colin Trevorrow, the film stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins, Jake Johnson, Omar Sy and Judy Greer.

Jurassic World arrives in theaters on June 12th.

Jurassic World trailer

It’s hard not to like a love story whose lovers are brought together by a home-cooked meal. Make it an Indian home-cooked meal, with aromatic curries and slow-cooked vegetables, and it’s borderline irresistible. Aside from eliciting tummy rumbles, Ritesh Batra’s feature debut, The Lunchbox, is an enticing, melancholy romantic indie about our universal hunger for validation and intimacy.

An anomaly sets our story in motion: in Mumbai, there is a remarkable delivery network made up of “dabbawallahs”, bicycle deliverymen who take hot homemade lunches from housewives to their husbands at work. Despite an antiquated coding system, the dabbawallahs’ error rate is unbelievably low, at an estimated one error per six million deliveries. Batra’s story follows one of those astronomical errors, in which a lunch prepared by Ila (a ravishing Nimrat Kaur) is mistakenly delivered to the desk an aging accountant and widower named Saajan (Iffran Khan, Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi) for reasons left unexplained by Batra, giving the coincidence a slight air of magic.

The delicious meal–which Ila lovingly prepared with the guidance of her “auntie” to rekindle her stagnant relationship with her husband– warms Saajan to the core. (He usually gets a ho-hum delivery from a local restaurant.) When Ila catches wind of the mix-ups, she’s compelled to write a note to Saajan, as he consistently sends her stacked-tin food containers back to her empty, the ultimate sign of appreciation.

They begin a pen pal relationship, with their passed notes becoming longer and more personal as the days go by, and they grow to look forward to the notes as a source of joy. They share their deepest secrets with one another and, with each thinking their lives had plateaued, they find that they’ve reawakened the dreamer in one another.

Saajan, on the precipice of retirement, has been aggressively avoiding his pestersome successor, Shaikh, who diligently stalks him around the office, begging Saajan for any piece of advice. (Seeing Saajan’s seething anger when Shaikh successfully hunts him down is hilarious.) But as Ila’s notes begin to soften Saajan’s calloused heart, he begins to open up to Shaikh, and he learns that there’s more to the young man than he thought. Ila’s husband is so emotionally distant it sometimes appears as if he’s looking straight through her. Saajan’s notes give her something to cling to, something mysterious and new.

What drives The Lunchbox is our yearning to see these two characters (excellently acted, by the way) finally meet. The vulnerability and finesse displayed by Khan and Kaur is riveting. Batra’s editing of their written conversations make these scenes feel intimate and electrified, as if there’s no one else in the world but these two. Batra recognizes that the gravitational pull between her characters means everything, and tastefully maintains that tension throughout. The film isn’t as overly sentimental as it may initially seem, with Batra and her actors operating largely on subtlety and undertones. Those hoping for a Hollywood-style resolution will be disappointed, but by keeping the ultimate feel-good moment just out of our reach, Batra makes The Lunchbox a more resonant, alluring piece of romantic storytelling.

Coming up this week is HBO’s tenth annual South Asian International Film Festival, featuring a diverse blend of some of the finest contemporary filmmakers South Asia has to offer. With several world premieres, exclusive interviews, (and what look like some interesting after-parties), this is an NYC event one does not want to miss!

With the festival’s mix of feature lengths and short films, running December 3^rd through the 8^th at the SVA Theatre and NYIT Auditorium, it might be hard to navigate the many options available to the curious viewer. Here’s a basic rundown of the SAIFF Must-Sees you should check out.

Monsoon Shootout

First on the list is certainly Monsoon Shootout, screened on the festival’s opening night. A fast-paced Hindi noir (with the occasional Tarantino-esque flourish), the film has been shown at both Cannes and Fantastic Fest to positive reception from both audiences and critics alike. It follows the story of rookie cop Adi, out on his first assignment in rain-drenched Mumbai. When Adi has to make a split-second decision whether to shoot or not when pursuing a suspect, we watch as the effects of his snap judgment affect people around him. It should be noted that director Amit Kumar will be in attendance for the screening!

Anima State and Khoon LTD

The second day of the festival features the world premiere of the thriller Anima State. Set against the background of a sectarian and divided Pakistan, a bandaged stranger embarks on a killing-spree in a major urban center. There’s no question the film is decidedly dark twisted in its slant, and seems pretty intriguing– the distorted image of the film’s veiled murderer alone is enough to attract fans of the genre! Also, Khoon LTD will also be screening on the same night. Khoon LTD is a short film about two vampires making their home in Mumbai. Low-budget horror at its vibrant best, it looks pretty interesting.

Tasher Desh

The third night offer’s Tasher Desh, a surrealist fairy-tale based upon the play by Rabindrath Tagore. Yet aside from basic themes, the film’s grand psychedelic vision seems radically different from Tagore’s relatively direct style. Dynamic and provocative, Tasher Desh is shaping up to be a powerful visual experience you certainly won’t want to miss.

Good Morning, Karachi

The festival’s featured film, Sabiha Sumar’s Good Morning, Karachi, will be shown on the fourth night, and is one of the real gems of the set. Featuring model Amna Ilyas as a young Pakistani woman living in the city of Karachi, what unfolds is a coming of age tale set against the growing conflict between tradition and modernity, religious extremism and changing identities in a rapidly shifting culture. Direct, earnest, and ultimately optimistic, it offers perspective on social pressures facing a young woman in a society struggling to redefine it’s values. As an added plus, the director will be present for the screening– don’t miss out!

Qissa

The last recommendation goes to Anup Singh’s Qissa, a genre-bending drama concerning gender, the Indian Partition of 1947, and a father’s obsession with having a son. The film features a handful of wins in Toronto, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi, and rounds out the best offerings of this year’s South Asian International Film Festival.

Visit www.saiff.org for festival details.

Ten years ago Hollywood graced the world with their Tobey Maguire led rendition of Spider-Man which helped pave the way for a generation of super hero movies to litter our summer line up. Then, Hollywood upped the ante and delivered upon us Spider-Man 2 which was met with critical and financial acclaim. With dollar signs in their eyes and arguably the best source material in the entire Spider-Man universe, Hollywood churned out Spider-Man 3, and came up about two feet short of home plate and was tagged out by a mob of pitchfork wielding critics and fans. Poor Hollywood retreated into its cave of remake henchmen and stewed upon the decision of what to do with the Spider-Man franchise. “We will remake it!” They cried as they threw stacks of $100 bills at each other. “Yes! And we won’t even bother with any of that Nolan-esque gritty reboot nonsense either!” And they made it so. With new directors, writers, and actors, Hollywood was ready to rock-and-roll with their shiny new Spider-Man vehicle in The Amazing Spider-Man!

And rock-and-roll they did not. I can’t imagine a more flat remake than this. It literally treads the same water as the original only more failingly. Andrew Garfield may make an arguably better Peter Parker/Spider-Man with his British-ness and super hair, but everyone forgets that in 2002, Tobey Maguire was being hailed as the true savior of all things spider related.

The Amazing Spider-Man sticks closer to the source material in that they invite Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy to the party and provides a more fleshed out and real super science corporation Oscorp versus the cartoonish one provided in 2002. But the film has the much of the same origin story as the ten year old Spider-Man.

Even if it isn’t exactly the same plot-wise as the original 2002 version, it feels the same. The film still has that sappy ham-fisted moment where everyone agrees to help Spider-Man at a moment of great need. I imagine if a Brooklynite man saw a teenager dressed in a spandex unitard shooting ropes out his wrists and limping around sixty stories overhead, they wouldn’t say, “My good gracious, that man needs our help! Quick! Frank! Help conjure the manpower needed to help this poor unitard wearing teenager in his swinging ways!”

The Amazing Spider-Man also falters with some of the action scenes as well. One particular scene that stands out as especially awkward is one where the villain, a scientist lizard-man, attacks the school Peter Parker attends in an attempt to destroy him quickly. During the whole fight, the musical score accompanying the fight is a wailing and triumphant orchestral movement that is a very strange juxtaposition of the fight scene in which Peter Parker is getting his spider face smashed into everything.

The biologist in me also cringed when the villain grabs a couple of unlabeled beakers of presumably colored water and mixes them together to form a perfectly sized explosion to knock Spider-Man out from his hiding spot. Hollywood still hasn’t grasped the concept that their audience can tell when their being spoon fed fake science. Although, I say this whilst viewing a Spider-Teenager fly around a city fighting crime. But my point is still valid!

Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man languishes in dull territory and left me wanting some grittier content over the already overcooked and cheesy Spider-Man story. It was steering towards campy but narrowly avoids it with some humor, well done special effects and close ups of Emma Stone. It simply lacks any heart. However, Hollywood knows a money maker when they see it and I’m sure there will probably be two more multimillion dollar installments of Spider-Man and we will have two more chances to see random New Yorkers delivering pancake flat lines like, “He needs our help!” Until then, I will be figuring out how to make wall demolishing explosives out of blue and green colored liquids in my nearest science classroom.