Paatal Lok: A Modern Noir Narrative Centered Around India’s Purgatory
Amazon Prime's Paatal Lok has often been compared to Sacred Games, and deservedly so. It's as much a crime thriller as a nuanced and somber study of India's downtrodden hinterlands, illuminating the injustices and hypocrisies in both Delhi and Uttar…
Thappad Explores the Silent Injustices against Women in South-East Asian Society, Helmed by a Compelling Taapsee Pannu Performance
Thappad revealed its central conceit in it’s trailer: a woman seeks retribution after being slapped by her husband in a party. What could have been a thin, stretched narrative was, thankfully, spun into a thoughtful, nuanced take on domestic bliss…
Netflix’s Hollywood Brushes over History with a Wistful Brush, Painting a Flawed Narrative that Undermines Real Achievements
Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood takes a broad brush to the industry’s history and repaints it, in hopes of inspiring change in the real world. And by the end of the limited series, it’s hard not to get swept up in the…
Gangs of London Tells a Familiar Story, with Pulse-Pounding Action Scenes
The first impression you get from seeing Gangs of London’s poster is that it might be a modern spin on the tried-and-tested Peaky Blinders formula. While the show stars Peaky Blinders alum Joe Cole and centers around an Irish crime…
Upload is a Warm, Comfy take on a Digital Afterlife (and Class Inequality)
Upload is hardly the first show to tackle the afterlife. In recent years, shows like The Good Place and Black Mirror have used varying concepts of life after death, and what the showrunner, Greg Daniels (co-creator of The Office and…
Westworld Season Three Trades Intricacy for Cinematic Set Pieces and Uneven Characterization
We have all seen prestige TV shows that once showed promise but have slowly degraded to sub-par quality. The last time we saw it was with Game of Thrones, which collapsed in on itself after the showrunners ran out of…
Never Have I Ever Tells the Age-Old Coming of Age Story, this Time from the Perspective of an Indian American Teen
It’s hard to do a teen-centric coming of age story right, especially when there have been so many attempts in the last couple of years. Never Have I Ever tries to do it by taking a fresh perspective: that of…
Extraction Paints a Grim Picture of Urban Dhaka, Filled with Fast-Paced Kinetic Action
Extraction is one of those action movies whose plot can be neatly summed up in one sentence. A mercenary with a death wish is sent to rescue an Indian drug lord’s son in Dhaka, where he is held captive by…
Altered Carbon: Resleeved is High on Slick Action (and Low on Character Development)
Altered Carbon: Resleeved has many elements of a typical Takeshi Kovacs story. Kovacs finds himself in a new military grade sleeve, hired by a meth named Tanaseda Hideki to protect a young tattooist named Holly Togram and find out what…
Onward Tries to Marry Emotions and Magic into a Standard Adventure Narrative, with Mixed Results
On the surface, Onward fits the bill for the typical Pixar emotional adventure vehicle. Set in a world once filled with magic that has long since moved onto the convenience of technology, it follows two brothers on a quest for…
