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.

A group of teenagers from different cliques are thrown together in detention for a period of eight hours. They are ordered by their Assistant Principal Vernon (Paul Gleason) to not move around and write a 1000 word essay about who they think they are. Initially hesitant and wary of each other, the five teenagers — John, Claire, Andrew, Brian and Allison — in the end, find that despite their different interests and friend circles, they are not as dissimilar as they thought they were. Read more

Irrfan Khan plays Saajan Fernandes, a widower who has gotten used to his monotonous lifestyle until one day he gets a lunchbox with a personal note that wasn’t meant for him. He develops a pen friendship with Nimrat Kaur’s Ila and their delicate relationship takes the plot of the film forward.

Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla starrer is a perfect family entertainer. The story revolves around Rahul (Khan), the caretaker of his two nephews Vicky and Sunny and niece Munni. Rahul is tormented by Bijlani (Dalip Tahil) who wants to take over the former’s business. However, Bijlani is ready to let things slide if Rahul marries his daughter Maya. Amid this chaotic life, he has an unwanted guest at home, a Tamil girl called Vyjayanthi Iyer (Chawla). But because the children like her, he can’t let her go. Now, how he copes up with three naughty children, one prankster guest and two villains of his life, makes for the narrative of Hum Hai Rahi Pyar Ke.

Trevor Noah is never far behind when it comes to current affairs. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah is now called ‘The Daily Social Distancing Show With Trevor Noah’, as he is hosting the specials from home. He provides a hilarious and insightful take on current events. 

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.

This 1989 romantic drama featured Rishi Kapoor, Sridevi and Vinod Khanna in the lead roles. A love triangle, Chandni continues to be remembered for the leads’ chemistry and its hummable music.

Gossip Girl, starring Blake Lively and Penn Badgley, explored the lives of a few rich kids studying in an elite school in New York City. With social media just entering the scene at the time, this show took the paparazzi and gossip culture to new avenues. Gossip Girl is remembered for its bold fashion statements.

Disney movies, animations in particular, are often preachy by nature. However, the makers know how to mix things up. Add songs, a hero (and in Mulan’s case, a heroine) that everyone looks up to and some comic relief. When put simplistically like that, it becomes easy to decipher why these features work. But Mulan was more than a bunch of stereotypes put together. Especially considering the year it was released, it’s significance in cinematic history takes a serious turn.

Based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, the film was released during the period of ‘Disney Renaissance,’ a time when after years of slump, the brand was reinventing itself by churning out commercially viable and critically acclaimed movies. Read More.

Chris Evans has taken the charge of the Apple TV+ limited series Defending Jacob and judging by the initial episodes, it would be right to say that Evans has an intriguing thriller on his hands. Here, Evans plays Andy Barber, a lawyer who worked at the District Attorney’s office until recently. He is released from his duty after his teenage son Jacob (Jaeden Martell) becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a classmate. The show is largely narrated through Andy’s point of view as he discusses the events in a grand jury hearing a few months after the murder and we are shown those events in flashbacks. Read More.

The Indian Express’ Shubhra Gupta wrote in her review of the film, “We hear ‘Ilahabaad’, just the way real Allahabadis pronounce it, a few minutes into the film. And instantly, several crucial elements lock in: location, leheja (accents), and log (people), as well as the title, coarse but rooted. And these are the strongest aspects of a film which gives us the familiar headstrong boy-pretty girl romance-in-small-town-UP. Nasir aka Naate (great touch, that pyaar-ka-naam) loses his heart to Neelam (Pandey), who is tied to local mob boss Jigar (Varma) in mysterious ways. That one line tells us, pretty much, everything. In a town where ‘gunda’ raaj rules, what are the chances for the young lovebirds to chirp and flourish?” Read More.

The movie that is most representative of its genre, Fury Road is simply the best action movie ever made, bar none. The stunt work in this George Miller directorial is mind-boggling, and if you look at its behind-the-scenes clips, you will realise the movie had an insane amount of practical effects and actual people rather than CGI.

This documentary on Netflix will surely send chills down your spine as you see the story of Jan Broberg Felt, who was kidnapped by her neighbour Robert Berchtold on two separate occasions. The backstory of the kidnapper, his relationship with the pre-teen girl and his relationship with her parents are simply shocking and will make you question the so-called ‘sane’ adults in the picture.

Voot Select’s latest web series Asur is a crime-thriller (with a generous dose of Indian mythology) which stars Arshad Warsi, Barun Sobti, Anupriya Goenka, Riddhi Dogra and Sharib Hashmi among others. What is interesting about Asur is that it is dipping its hands into a lot of things – a dissolving marriage, love, crime, mythology and psychology. To juggle these and simultaneously make a watchable show is a task. Only future episodes would reveal how well they have accomplished the task. Read More.

Directed by Bryan Fogel, Icarus won the Oscar award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017. The film follows Fogel as he dabbles in doping for an amateur race. Things heat up when he digs deeper and finds a Russian link who can help him get by undetected. The Russian has been responsible for many athletes going unnoticed.

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton and Suki Waterhouse, Pokémon Detective Pikachu is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. “The star of the film is an amnesiac and adorable Pikachu (voiced by always-brilliant Ryan Reynolds), who is also a self-professed world-class detective. The Deadpool actor is able to give the character a lot of personality, and thoroughly outshines Justice Smith’s Tim Goodman, the other protagonist of the movie,” read the review of the film on The Indian Express. Read More.

The Middle is about a simple working-class family – parents and three kids, who struggle to put food on the table, deal with each other’s quirks and live in chaos but at the end of the day, it’s love that brings them all together. Every episode is narrated by Patricia Heaton’s Frankie Heck as she is dealing with one crisis after another. Her husband, Neil Flynn’s Mike Heck, is the chilled-out laid-back dad who steps in when things go out of control. The three kids – Axl (Charlie McDermott), Sue (Eden Sher) and Brick (Atticus Shaffer) are unique enough to carry entire storylines on their shoulders, and none of them disappoint. Read More.

Here, Irrfan Khan played Saajan Fernandes, a widower who has gotten used to his monotonous lifestyle until one day he gets a lunchbox with a personal note that wasn’t meant for him. He develops a pen friendship with Nimrat Kaur’s Ila and their delicate relationship takes the plot of the film forward.

Watch Irrfan Khan, Amitabh Bachchana and Deepika Padukone starrer Piku on Sony LIV. This slice-of-life film by Shoojit Sircar is a pleasant watch and is perfect to revisit given the recent events.