With the beginning of a new month, the streaming platforms have updated their content library with new movies, web series and shows. While Netflix has added films like Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol, Catch Me If You Can and Tamil film Psycho, Amazon Prime Video is now showing Taapsee Pannu’s Thappad and Tom Hanks A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood.
Read More
Recently, Netflix released yet another Indian original, titled Mrs Serial Killer. The Indian Express’ film critic Shubhra Gupta, in the review of the movie, wrote, “Nothing, not Jacqueline Fernandez in her perfectly coiffed curls, nor Mohit Raina trying very hard to appear as if he knows what’s going on, nor the sundry others who come and go, help. Nor, I’m forced to regretfully report, Manoj Bajpayee, who should have known better.”
Also read | Streaming in May 2020: Paatal Lok, Mrs Serial Killer, Baarish 2 and others
Now, since you might have plenty of time in hand to consume the variety of content due to the extended nationwide lockdown, we try to save you some time of scrolling through the content library of several streaming platforms. Hence, here are our best picks which you can watch or re-watch in the upcoming days of the lockdown. Read less
This week, Amazon Prime Video also released its American web series Upload. The Indian Express' Ektaa Malik, in her review of the series, wrote, "Patience is the key with Upload. The first two episodes are where you have to stay put and plough through, but once you get over the nerd lingo, you get the minute satire that’s inbuilt in every scene — very Greg Daniels, who created the show."
Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.
A somewhat revised adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, this is the tale of four sisters and how they perceive life. The film was honoured with multiple Oscar nominations and featured Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet, Saorise Ronan and Florence Pugh among more. Click here to know more about the Greta Gerwig directorial.
Directed by Patrick Hughes, this movie features Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L Jackson, Gary Oldman and Salma Hayek. What happens when one man is called upon to save his mortal enemy? Mayhem and hilarity ensues.
monthly limit of free stories.
with an Express account.
In this live-action version of the children's fable, Emma Watson stars as the bookworm 'beauty.' The film had received mixed reviews upon its release. However, it is a perfectly enjoyable weekend watch.
This is not your regular stand-up. In her hour-long set called Nanette, Australian comic Hannah Gadsby talks about her life as a queer woman, sexuality and her identity in the stand-up circuit. She forces us to think about things differently.
Watch Irrfan Khan and Deepak Dobriyal in Angrezi Medium on Disney+ Hotstar. The film also stars Kareena Kapoor Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Kiku Sharda among others.
Steven Spielberg's adaptation of HG Wells' novel of the same name, War of the Worlds sees an invasion by the Martians. Tom Cruise stars as a longshoreman who witnesses the invasion directly. Scores of people are disintegrated by the Martian war machines called Tripods that emerge from beneath the earth. War of the Worlds is a non-stop thriller that never lets up.
It takes some courage to question religious beliefs in India. But Rajkumar Hirani did it and how. With Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma in the lead roles, Hirani presented a satirical take on the prevalent superstitions in Indian society.
Bill Hader's titular character is an ex-United States Marine who now works as a ruthless hitman in the Midwest, but he does not like his job. He goes to Los Angeles on an 'assignment' and ends up in a community of people looking to making an entry into Los Angeles's theatre scene.
Elementary is a contemporary retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes starring Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson. The show follows Holmes, a recovering drug addict and former consultant to Scotland Yard, as he assists the New York City Police Department in solving crimes, where he is joined by Dr Watson.
This show is based on the children book series of the same name and follows two young siblings as they try to protect themselves and their fortune from the devilish Count Olaf (played with a menacing glee by the inimitable Neil Patrick Harris). The series is the right mix of horror and comedy and you scarcely mind the improbability of the events unfolding before you, since it is incredibly entertaining.
Part of the MonsterVerse, Godzilla: King of the Monsters pits Godzilla against King Ghidorah, the three headed dragon, in a titanic brawl. Oh, and there is some other stuff too. This is a gorgeous monster movie that is slightly marred by a weak story and human characters.
Guillermo del Toro's Oscar-winning feature The Shape of Water twists the traditional beauty-and-the-beast story and in the process tells a story that is gorgeous both visually and musically.
A prequel of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, Bates Motel tells the story of Normal Bates from when he was a kid. The acting is superb, both by Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga as his mother Norma Bates. There is uneasy, almost incestuous tension between the duo and that is the biggest strength of this show. Sometimes scary and sometimes creepy, Bates Motel is a worthy prequel.
Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark of Game of Thrones) stars as a mentally-ill and suicidal woman in this series which turns from a mental health drama to a survival drama in a bizarre twist.
Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney play the roles of school superintendent Dr Frank A Tassone and district official Pamela Gluckin, respectively. The two are accused of embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars from district funds. Their job is to bury the accusation and keep it from going public.
The Indian Express film critic Shubhra Gupta gave Taapsee Pannu starrer Thappad 3.5 stars. She wrote, "Thappad resonates, as it is meant to. Because the director shows, without mincing any words (sometimes too many, and too explicatory), just how patriarchy is handed down from one generation to another, and how women are equally complicit. After that fateful slap, in full view of family and guests, Amrita responds by self-soothing, and when that doesn’t work, by expecting her own family, including her mother (Shah) and her brother and his girl-friend (Grewal), plus, of course, her father, to be supportive. No surprise that it is her mother who baulks, and talks about the importance of ‘rishtey nibhana’, and ‘wohi tumhara ghar hai’. After marriage, the ‘maayka’ is no longer the girl’s by right. It is a place where she can visit and stay for a while. A traditional Indian girl in a traditional Indian marriage can never go back home again." Read more.
While Mission: Impossible 2 is the weakest film in Mission: Impossible series, Ghost Protocol features the best and most famous action scene in any Mission: Impossible movie. In a franchise that is famous for death-defying stunts, Tom Cruise scaling the tallest skyscraper in the world is a sight to behold.
Four prominent filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Karan Johar and Dibakar Banerjee explored the theme of lust in Netflix’s anthology film Lust Stories. Karan Johar’s segment ends the anthology and serves a distinctive take on how Indian men remain oblivious to women’s desires. It stars Neha Dhupia, Kiara Advani and Vicky Kaushal.
Hundred is about two women, Netra Patil (Rinku Rajguru) and Saumya Shukla (Lara Dutta). Netra, who works in the census department, is given the tragic news that she has a brain tumour. She has 100 days left. Saumya, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, is struggling to prove there is more to her than just being a woman. One day, their paths cross and thus begins the story of Hundred, a web series on Disney + Hotstar. Read more
Created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, Never Have I Ever is a high school drama that follows the life of Devi Vishwakumar. The Indian Express' review of Never Have I Ever read, "What sets Never Have I Ever apart is the self-absorbed protagonist. Vishwakumar is sooo wrapped in her quest for the coolest jock in school, that she at times struggles to find any empathy from the audience. But that’s what teenage high school girl drama is supposed to be like. It helps that Vishwakumar, played by debutante Maitreyi Ramakrishnan looks the part to the T, right up to her unthreaded forehead. She is completely believable as she has loud arguments with her doctor mother Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), who is now struggling to raise a teenaged daughter all by herself. There is also an overachieving cousin Kamala to contend with. Throw in grief and mourning in the equation, and you would ideally have a complex, layered look of the life of an average teenager." Read More.
Rajesh Khanna’s character of Anand while suffering from cancer makes you fall in love with him courtesy his ‘live life to its fullest’ attitude and the thought ’embrace death as much as you embrace life.’ Through the film, he, along with Amitabh Bachchan, give lessons on death and life to the audience. And, mind you, it’s done in such an entertaining way that not for a second you get bored with all the life philosophy thrown at you.
In this engrossing tale of three siblings, the characters of Amol Parashar, Maanvi Gagroo and Sumeet Vyas develop a deeper bond as their journey together takes them to unexpected places.
The Indian Express film critic Shubhra Gupta gave Baaghi 3 two stars in a mixed review. Shubhra concluded the review by noting, “The main act has Shroff show us just how he’s conquered the action space. And two tiny, almost throwaway things, which you cling on to in this much too stretched saga, despite all the hustle-bustle: when a cop (yes, Jackie’s here too, as a brave, sacrificial daddy-o) says that rioters have no dharm aur mazhab, which gives off a sharp resonance. And when sonny boy strikes another for Hindu-Muslim amity, and rescues not just Hindustanis but also Pakistanis from the Jehadis, who are the enemies-of-us-all.”
In 2010, Ranveer Singh’s Bitto Sharma and Anushka Sharma’s Shruti Kakkar, with dialogues like “break pakode ki kasam”, “Jiske saath vyapaar karo, usse kabhi na pyar karo”, sneaked their way into our hearts. Their relatable characters gave a much-needed break from many fictionalised characters on celluloid at that time. Read more
The latest season of MasterChef Australia titled Back to Win is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar. The show streams just a few hours after its Australia telecast. Catch all the excitement on this food reality show five times a week.
The main selling point of The Raikar Case is its able cast. Atul Kulkarni, who plays the family patriarch, is as good as he has always been. Ashvini Bhave's experience shows in her performance. Read More.
The documentary film Epicenter: 24 Hours in Wuhan chronicles Chinese city Wuhan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in its initial days. For those who do not know, Wuhan is now considered to be the place from where the novel coronavirus originated.
One of the first Netflix stand-up specials from comedian and artiste Hasan Minhaj, Homecoming King is more of a tale than a stand-up. It has a love story at the centre of it and a delicate narrative of love and laughter is built around the central romantic plot. It is also a well-told story of immigration and it’s deeply personal. All the good things.
Ajith plays an auto mechanic who falls in love with a rich man’s daughter. What’s more, the woman he loves is already engaged to an egoistic, obnoxious man. This movie is a quintessential 90s romantic movie with dollops of class struggle.
Narrated by a dog named Pluto, Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do is the story of a dysfunctional upper-class Punjabi family who takes a ten-day cruise. Through the multi-starrer, Zoya Akhtar showcased the reality of today’s society and how family values have changed with time.
Starring Sanjay Mishra and Deepak Dobriyal in pivotal roles, Kaamyaab is the story of a character actor who has appeared in 499 films and is looking for his 500th project. It is a poignant tale that focuses on the lost dreams of Bollywood. Indian Express critic Shubhra Gupta rated the film 3.5 stars out of 5. In her review, she wrote, “Kaamyaab is a moving, consistently engaging portrait of an artiste as a weathering, weathered man. And Sanjay Mishra is faultless as the lead character - always the bridesmaid, never the bride; an insider but always on the outside.” Read more
Mysskin doesn’t pay homage to Hitchcock by borrowing the premise or mimicking Psycho. He does it through adopting Hitchcock’s ‘bomb theory’ to create suspense. He shows us the bomb in the very beginning and then moves the camera to the ticking clock. Mysskin aspires to achieve multiple things with Psycho, not just provide a mere edge-of-the-seat horror experience, which makes you watch the movie through the gaps between your fingers. The movie is a social commentary on various matters starting from its effort to expand the definition of a psychopath. Read more
Self-driving cars. Phones that are essentially a hologram that snap into existence in the L between the forefinger and thumb. The promise of eternal life even after you are dead. These are the few salient features of Upload, a quirky, sci-fi-ish show that is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The show is for sure heavy on the tech stuff, but that’s just the world it is set in. Once you get over the initial geekiness of it all, Upload reveals its many layers. Read more
Mrs Serial Killer stars Jacqueline Fernandez, Manoj Bajpayee and Mohit Raina in pivotal roles. The official synopsis of Shirish Kunder directorial reads, “When her husband is framed and imprisoned for serial murders, a doting wife must perform a murder exactly like the serial killer, to prove her husband innocent.” Read more