I’d never have heard about the Crusades, if it hadn’t been for Assassin’s Creed. Video games can teach us so much more than the drab, narrow view of history we are fed at school.
Black Mitzvah, Tiffany Haddish’s debut Netflix stand-up special, is both a celebration of its star’s newly-minted fame. But it’s also a sobering commentary on the limited chances that a woman gets in the male-dominated trenches of comedy.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat is a gross misrepresentation of facts… just not the ones the Karni Sena has been so upset about. Alauddin Khilji certainly did not dress in black furs and rip meat from the bone like a Viking.
It’s the age of #PeakTV, and there’s a plethora of content out there that is intellectually stimulating, aesthetically pleasing, and artistically rewarding. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Acclaimed shows are like caviar – perfectly fine to treat yourself to, but sometimes you just want good old vada pav.
In Padmaavat, Alauddin Khilji is reduced to a unidimensional villain. All that the script required, was a Muslim ruler to serve as a vessel into which a depressingly contemporary take on communal relations could be poured.
Like Tiger King, the breathless obsession with Four More Shots Please! has less to do with its quality and more to do with how unequivocally it commands our attention. Perhaps its best achievement is that it takes our minds off the lockdown and Covid-19’s progress.
Ajji is this year’s fifth rape-revenge drama, joining the ranks of the manufactured vigilantism of Kaabil, Maatr, MOM, and Bhoomi. But, unlike its predecessors, Ajji refuses to become a vehicle that only champions a problematic solution of self-styled vigilantism.
The Indian middle class is righteous to the point that it believes that right will be done by them. It’s also one that contradicts itself on a daily basis . Sorry Bhaisaab is a small capsule that delivers some big-stage ideas about the idiosyncrasies that has this most fascinating proportion of Indian civilisation consumed.