Churails is now streaming on Zee5. Theatres and film and TV production remain largely suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. And new content, filmed months and even years in advance, continues to be released on streaming services. There might be a lack of stuff to watch next year, but for now, we are fully stocked.
This week, the two biggest releases had women in lead roles. Janhvi Kapoor starrer Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl was the biggest release this week. The Netflix movie, which is about the titular Gunjan Saxena — the first Indian female air-force pilot in combat, was directed by Sharan Sharma. It also stars Pankaj Tripathi and Angad Bedi.
In a PTI interview, Janhvi had spoken about portraying Gunjan Saxena. She said, “It is an important story and it should reach people. I think it is a story of hope. This story, meeting Gunjan ma’am and spending time with her has reinstated my belief in myself. I hope it impacts people the way it impacted me.” The actor added that the father-daughter relationship shown in the film is its real heart and her dynamic with Pankaj Tripathi translated on the screen. “I got a chance to learn from him, to talk to him about his work and movies. I was very excited. Gunjan ji looks up to her father and idolizes him and that’s how I look up to Pankaj ji. Even on the sets, I would watch him perform and seek his guidance. Basically, we had a similar relationship off camera.”
Pankaj Tripathi spoke to Indianexpress.com about the film. He said, “Janhvi and I met on a flight six months before we started work on Gunjan Saxena. We were going to Goa. This girl walked in and greeted me. She then told me that when I was sent the script for Gunjan Saxena. She prayed and pledged to God that she will become a vegetarian so that I agree to do the film. The day I agreed, the director called her to share that I was onboard. I had gone to my village where there’s little internet, so it took me around 10 days to respond to the director’s message. I told her she should’ve informed me about her pledge before. I would’ve then said a yes without even reading the script (laughs).”
Other important releases this week include Khuda Haafiz, Dangerous and Abhay 2.
Here are the movies, web series and TV shows on platforms like ZEE5, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, SonyLIV, ALTBalaji and Voot
Based on Robert Galbraith's crime books, this series follows Afghan War vet and private investigator Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin as they solve mysteries. In case you are not aware, Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym of JK Rowling.
This one is among the weirder and eccentric shows. Frodo of Lord of the Rings movies, Elijah Wood, plays an everyman whose life is turned into a veritable whirlwind a flamboyantly British "holistic" detective; holistic because he believes everything in the universe to be interconnected. And indeed, he has a seemingly preternatural ability. The feel of the show is like from one of the more strange comic-books from the 80s came to life. The story is loosely based on the writings of the great Douglas Adams.
An Amazon Original, Lore is based on a podcast of the same name. Every episode of the show tells the origins of a horror story and although it is more of a documentary than drama, it is a slickly produced show that is engaging enough for a binge. You might want to check out the podcast as well. It is sublime.
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.
Based on the 1993 novel of the same name by John le Carré, this miniseries has two of the best actors on television: Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston. It is a espionage drama and is engaging throughout its run.
In this Sam Hargrave directorial, Chris Hemsworth’s character Tyler Rake, a mercenary, is recruited by another mercenary Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani) to rescue the son (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) of an imprisoned crime lord (Pankaj Tripathi). Randeep Hooda, Priyanshu Painyuli and David Harbour also star.
While the plot and characters are thin, Extraction is all the same a gripping piece of entertainment.
In Ad Astra, Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride, an astronaut who chooses the profession to be like his father. The last space mission that his father went on had a lot of secrets, and there is a possibility of him either being dead or alive. It’s now Roy’s job to get to the truth. Directed by James Gray, the film also stars Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland.
The Pakistani show Churails centres around four women who come from different walks of life – lawyer, wedding planner, boxer and ex-convict, who band together to form a detective agency to spy on cheating husbands. Their idea is an instant hit, and more women join their team until they hit a roadblock. The Indian Express critic Shubhra Gupta wrote, "
This Martin Scorsese directorial is about the rise and fall of mobster Henry Hill (a real figure) and stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta. The film is easily one of the best Scorsese film -- it is that good -- if not the best.
Helmed by Drew Goddard and co-written by him and Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods is a subversive horror film that takes the hackneyed remote forest cabin premise of so many horror films and turns it on its head. The result is a smartly written and acted movie. Chris Hemsworth plays the role of Curt Vaughan, who is one of the college students who go on a vacation to that forest cabin.
A relentlessly paced film in which a deaf and dumb author living in a remote spot has to fight a psychopathic killer. The lead actress (Kate Siegel) does a superb job in portraying the agony of a woman who has to survive alone without her two senses. She cannot hear him coming and she cannot scream for help. The director Mike Flanagan fully utilises the intriguing premise.
The animated series follows a mad but brilliant scientist Rick Sanchez and his naive, impressionable grandson Morty Smith's adventures across faraway galaxies, planets, parallel worlds, different realities and so on. Rick and Morty boasts some of the most intelligent writing in the medium currently, with jokes that are easy to miss if the attention wavers even a little. And before you have managed to wrap your head around it, the show has already moved ahead.
Adapted from Donna Tartt's Pulitzer-winning novel, The Goldfinch is about a young man Theodore Decker (Ansel Elgort) whose mother died in a museum bombing when he was 13 years old. The event changed his life and he became grief and guilt-ridden. He has only one tangible piece of hope in his life -- a painting of a goldfinch.
Christopher Nolan’s last film before he became a global household name with Batman Begins, The Prestige stars two of the best ‘star’ actors Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. It is about two competing late 19th century London whose rivalry ends in the greatest trick of them all.
The Plot Against America belongs to the genre of alternative-historywhere fascists took control of USA in the 1940s. The show stars Winona Ryder in the lead role.
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.
James Bobin directorial Dora and the Lost City of Gold was a live action adaptation of Nickelodeon's television series Dora the Explorer. It starred Isabela Moner in the lead role as the titular explorer. The film was acclaimed by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored 84 per cent. The critical consensus read, "Led by a winning performance from Isabela Moner, Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a family-friendly adventure that retains its source material's youthful spirit."
Just like how the English author Alan Moore boldly confronted the contemporary social and political issues in the United States in the late 1980s, Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen deals with the present concerns: chiefly white supremacy and racism. And it does it amazingly well.
If only the zombies in The Walking Dead knew they would not lose their wits if they had a ready supply of human brains! At least that is the premise if this show, which is equal parts horrifying and funny (uproariously so). If you liked horror comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Zombie Island, you can't go wrong with this one.
A Ryan Murphy creation, American Horror Story is incredibly scary, but the more interesting thing is every season of the show tells a new story. So if you don't like a particular season (unlikely), you can skip it and jump to the next season without losing any backstory.
Two brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester, team up to fight supernatural threats. The threats include vampires, shape-shifters, demons, even angels and Lucifer himself among others. The premise is basically the same every episode. Dean and Sam spot news hinting at something bizarre and race to the location in their Impala, acting as FBI agents. Despite repetitiveness, Supernatural has remained enjoyable across 13 seasons (!) because of some really interesting characters. My favourite is Crowley, a powerful demon with whom the brothers have a love-hate relationship.
Beautifully shot and acted, this drama, set in Victorian London, brings to life some of the most terrifying and well-known characters of British literature, including Dracula, Jack the Ripper, Frankenstein’s monster, Dorian Gray and others. It is a compelling story of a woman’s struggle against forces of the dark and tells a coherent story across three seasons, a kind of hasty ending notwithstanding
One of the longest runnings horror shows, the post apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead is immersive and believable not because it has zombies and special effects, but because it paints fellow humans as the real villains, instead of the ‘walkers’. And don’t we know it? Andrew Lincoln plays Rick Grimes, a former sheriff, who leads a band of hardened survivors across the length and breadth of the United States. The Walking Dead streams on Netflix
Let's not spoil its plot, but in Calibre, two men go hunting in the Scottish countryside and get more than they bargained for. The film is a harrowing watch, and it’s like the tragedy at the centre of the story occurred with you — so good is the direction.
Three kids break into a blind veteran’s secluded house, thinking it would be an easy job. Go inside and pick up the money. If the vet wakes up, knock him cold and run away. However, they are in for a nasty surprise.
Two legends – Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson – play terminally ill men completing their wish list before they “kick the bucket”. Freeman and Nicholson’s performances elevate the relatively weak script.
Inspired by comic-books, high-school student Dave Lizewski transforms into a masked crime-fighter and becomes an internet sensation. However, he is not the only player in his game and others play dirtier. This movie is immensely profane, violent and a lot of fun. It is directed by Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn.
This Lily James and Michiel Huisman starrer is an engaging film that bibliophiles would love. The characters are well-drawn, and the cast is great too. The setting is also quite well-realised, and the English countryside never loses its charm.
This show created by Jonathan Nolan is basically about artificial intelligence. The writing is good, and that is no surprise considering that people like Nolan and JJ Abrams are involved in the show. Lost fans would find themselves at home, not because the two shows are in any way similar, but because Michael Emerson is at the top of his game in both shows.
An underrated show of the time when the Palace of Versailles was being built, and the court was being moved from Paris to Versailles. The show offers insight into the politics of the time and how kings dealt threats, internal and external.
The Last Kingdom is about how the country of England came to be. It is based on Bernard Cornwell's books. The main character is a deposed lord living as a Viking. It gives some interesting insights on Alfred the Great, the man who first envisioned the idea of England as a single entity as opposed to a conglomerate of disparate kingdoms like Mercia and Wessex.
A Stephen King adaptation, the events in HBO's miniseries The Outsider are kicked in motion by the rape and murder of a child. All the circumstantial and DNA evidence and eye-witness reports point towards Jason Bateman’s Terry Maitland, a baseball coach with easy access to kids. But he says he was at a conference outside town during the incident, and there is footage affirming his claim. Ben Mendelsohn’s Detective Ralph Anderson is tasked with the investigation.
Lauren Miller’s Like Father, starring Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammar, is a perfect time-killer in these times when we are confined to our homes. It is set during a cruise and is a perfect virtual getaway and escape for you. If you cannot go on vacation, enjoy is vicariously. Also, there is a story and an excellent performance by Bell, without whom this film would be so much tosh.
A mysterious quarantined zone is affected by an alien phenomenon that is mutating creatures and landscapes inside it. The zone is surrounded by a shimmering electromagnetic field and it is thus called the Shimmer. The zone is getting larger and the US government believes that it would one day surround the whole world if not stopped. This Alex Garland directorial has elements of science fiction, horror and mystery. Its denouement is a gorgeous interplay between mind-bending visuals and incongruous electronic notes.
This movie was about a school kid who has nothing special about him. His fortunes change, however, when he pulls King Arthur’s famous sword Excalibur from the stone it is buried in. According to the Arthur stories, only the true king could pull the sword and wield it. The film was an enjoyable adventure for kids and adults alike.
Brightburn was a truly terrifying superhero (or supervillain?) horror film. It was an inversion of Superman’s lore. Everything else was same, just one thing was reversed. Just like Clarke Kent, Brandon Breyer came from outer space and fell in a Kansas farm. And just like Clarke, he found loving parents. But instead of being a kind, thoughtful individual, he submitted before his darker proclivities and went on a murder spree. That was incredibly scary, just the thought of it: an evil, amoral and invulnerable kid with nobody to stop him.
A horror series, The Returned is the adaptation of 2012 French series Les Revenants. Inhabitants living in a small American town get shocked when the people who had been dead begin to reappear. The performances are solid and the pace, while slow at first, improves with time.
Netflix’s new travel series Dark Tourist is about a certain kind of tourism in which travellers steer clear of the usual tourist attractions and instead opt for more morbid places. You know, those related to death, massacre, nuclear fallout and other macabre stuff. gave me a concrete idea about this type of tourism. It is hosted by New Zealand journalist David Farrier. Farrier is a pretty nice presenter. He is self-effacing and amiable and prone to understating things – not somebody you would expect to host this kind of show. But it works.
Hugh Grant is one of my favourite actors, and A Very English Scandal is easily one of his best performances. Oh, and Ben Whishaw is good too. A three-part miniseries created by Russell T Davies and directed by, A Very English Scandal is set in 1960's England and is about politician Jeremy Thorpe (Grant) who begins a whirlwind homosexual affair with a young stable hand, Norman Scott (Whishaw). After Norman threatens to expose the affair, Jeremy makes a (bad) plan to murder Norman.
An HBO miniseries, The Night Of targets the American criminal justice system and its inherent biases. A Pakistani-American young man is charged with rape and murder, and the procedure is more defined by the race and origin of the person than evidence. Performances are great including Riz Ahmed as a naive young man, but my favourite is John Turturro as a small-time lawyer with troubles of his own.
There are few movies that manage to outdo their source material. There are fewer still movies that are based on a Stephen King book and still manage to outdo the source material. Netflix original film Gerald’s Game is one such movie.
The concept of child soldiers is incredibly repelling. But it is not hypothetical. In some parts of the world, it is a reality. Beasts of No Nation involves Idris Elba's sadistic commandant conscripting a child into his army in Sierra Leone, West Africa. The film is a brutal blow to the viewer, and asks the question that how can we be so complacent when there still exist kids who are forced to fight and die?
Okja is a scathing critique of capitalism and also a satire on unrelenting human greed. A young South Korean girl and her father is given a specially bred super-pig that will potentially be used in pork production if the experiment is successful. But when the time comes to retrieve the animal, the girl, Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun, who does a simply splendid work), refuses to let it go.
This is the film that put Netflix on the Academy's map. A solid, emotional drama set in 1939, Mudbound is about race relations. A story of two families - one black and one white - that while sharing farmland are divided by the social hierarchies. The World War II also plays a pivotal role. The film is gorgeously shot and directed. Rachel Morrison, the cinematographer of the film, was nominated for an Academy Award for her work.
In This Breaking Bad spinoff movie, Jesse Pinkman finds himself hunted by law enforcement for collaborating with “Heisenberg” after fleeing from the Neo-Nazi hideout. His name is all over the news and there aren’t many people left who he can trust. Here is where Skinny Pete and Badger and more figure in.
The animated series follows a mad but brilliant scientist Rick Sanchez and his naive, impressionable grandson Morty Smith's adventures across faraway galaxies, planets, parallel worlds, different realities and so on. Rick and Morty boasts some of the most intelligent writing in the medium currently, with jokes that are easy to miss if the attention wavers even a little. And before you have managed to wrap your head around it, the show has already moved ahead.
Project Power is based on a particular drug that gives superpowers to those who takes the pills. The powers last for five minutes per pill and are unique to each individual. For instance, a particular person may get invisibility while somebody else may get invincibility.
The catch is, one will not know what power they will get. You could also die instead of becoming a superhero.
Shubhra Gupta wrote in her review of the series, "Shah towers over the show, showing us how silence can convey so much, his expressions ranging, with a slight flicker, from outright disgust, to disapproval, to faint praise: last seen toying with ragas in Sarfarosh (1999), he fills his role completely. You wish though that the writers hadn’t chosen to reveal a few dark secrets which have deeply impacted his family, especially his daughter-in-law, so late into the ten episodes. It’s done with the intention of cracking the façade of the guru who can do no wrong, and by implication, stating that the old is not always the best, but it’s all done in too much of a hurry."
This DICE Media series is a coming-of-age story of two women who share an apartment in Mumbai. Like many contemporary series, this too is a coming of age story, and as the name suggests, the women here are trying to transition to adulthood in the smoothest possible way. Adulting has had two seasons so far with a total of 10 episodes.
Starring Rajkumar Rao as Subhash Chandra Bose, the AltBalaji web series deals with the journey of Netaji from being a rebellious student to a popular leader. What makes the story gripping is that it delves into the widespread speculation surrounding Netaji’s death. Alongside Rajkumar Rao, Naveen Kasturia and Alexx O'Nell star in prominent roles.
The 10-episode web series Churails on Zee5 is set in Karachi. Its four protagonists (played by Sarwat Gilani, Mehar Bano, Nirma Bucha, and Yasra Rizvi) together run a fashion store, Halal Designs, which specialises in conservative clothing. Covertly, they are detectives exposing husbands who cheat on their wives. Watch the trailer of the web series here.
Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is inspired by the real-life story of Gunjan Saxena, India’s first female Air Force officer to fly in a combat zone during the 1999 Kargil War. It stars Janhvi Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Angad Bedi, Viineet Kumar, Manav Vij and Ayesha Raza Mishra among others. Directed by Sharan Sharma, the biopic has jointly been produced by Dharma Productions and Zee Studios.
Directed by Ken Ghosh, the crime thriller Abhay 2 has Kunal Kemmu playing a gutsy police officer Abhay Pratap Singh who is on a mission against some sharper and hardened evil masterminds, played by Ram Kapoor, Chunky Panday and Bidita Bag. Watch the trailer of the web series here.