The Trial of Chicago 7 is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. (Photo: Netflix)Film theatres are slowly but gradually reopening across the country, but it is going to take a lot of convincing to get people out of their homes to watch movies with hundreds of people during a pandemic. It will be a few weeks before theatres in the country are fully functional.
For now, streaming services remain the primary source of entertainment for millions of Indians.
Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of Chicago 7 is one of the most important releases on streaming services this month. It is the only second directorial after 2017’s Molly’s Game and is about the titular Chicago Seven, a group of men who protested against the US involvement in the anti-Vietnam War. The film is a courtroom drama and follows their trial after they were charged with inciting riots at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
The film stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Alex Sharp, Thomas Middleditch, Frank Langella, William Hurt, Michael Keaton and Mark Rylance.
Evil Eye is another big recent release on OTT. It is one of Blumhouse’s film productions made for Amazon Prime Video. In the film, a typical Indian mother fusses over her daughter, who is living in the United States. Unable to secure a good sanskari Indian boy as a match for her despite all the astrology knowledge at her disposal, she is unnerved by the man her daughter does end up liking.
Here are the movies, web series and TV shows on platforms like ZEE5, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, SonyLIV, ALTBalaji and Voot
Directed by Antonio Campos, The Devil All the Time is based on the novel of the same name by Donald Ray Pollock. The movie boasts of a star-studded cast with Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, Haley Bennett, Eliza Scanlen, Mia Wasikowska and Robert Pattinson.
Aaron Sorkin's star-studded courtroom drama The Trial of Chicago 7 is based on the trial of the titular group of people who protested against the Vietnam War. It stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Alex Sharp, Thomas Middleditch, Frank Langella, William Hurt, Michael Keaton, and Mark Rylance.
The Haunting of Bly Manor is the follow-up to The Haunting of Hill Home, which was additionally created by Mike Flanagan. Each are a part of the anthology sequence The Haunting. Whereas Hill Home tackled Shirley Jackson’s iconic horror novel of the identical title, Bly Manor makes use of materials from one other well-known piece of horror fiction, the late Nineteenth-century novella The Flip of the Screw by Henry James.
Devs marks Annihilation director Alex Garland’s small screen debut, and it is a confident foray indeed. Equal parts thrilling and uncanny, the TV series builds tension and delivers information in bits – constantly keeping the viewers on their toes.
They Shall Not Grow Old is an extraordinary experience which has rightly earned plaudits around the world. Director Peter Jackson, best known for directing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has used modern post-production techniques, both visual and sound, including voice-acting and colourisation to bring alive World War II in all its terrible glory.
What We Do in the Shadows chronicles the ‘life’ of three centuries old, powerful vampires — Nandor (Kayvan Novak), Laszlo (Matt Berry), and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou). There is one other vampire, Colin Robinson, who feeds on the energy of humans by boring them. Ouch.
It falls on Harvey Guillén’s adorable and sweet Guillermo De la Cruz, Nandor’s familiar, to do practically everything for them, starting from opening the coffin in which they sleep to bringing them gullible humans.
Cate Blanchett starrer Mrs America is mighty entertaining. The 70s are brought to life in great detail by the makers right down to the costumes, decor and subtle inflections in accent.
The prime joy of watching this German sci-fi series is the intellectual stimulation obtained from unravelling its intricate story and making sense of its characters and mythology.
Paddington is simply the sweetest film ever made. The cuddly titular character is just so entertaining to watch and also gives a lesson, to young and adults alike, in kindness.
The Vast of Night, an indie sci-fi thriller distributed by Amazon, harks back to those classic stories and accounts of UFOs and alleged alien sightings, and the steady diet of shows and movies made on them which many of us grew up on. The movie, helmed by Andrew Patterson and penned by James Montague and Craig W Sanger, makes no secret that it is meant to be a nostalgia-tinged experience — for viewers who are old enough anyway.
The Social Dilemma is a Netflix documentary that delves deep into the detrimental side of popular social media sites.
This Joseph Gordon-Levitt starrer does a great job of making the viewer feel what Tobias is going through. The restrictive cinematography works wonders for the story, heightening the already sky-high tension.
Project Power is a strange beast. On the one hand, it appears to be trying to critique the superhero culture; on the other, it undermines that aspect by showing superpowers in favourable light. Yet, it ends up being way more entertaining than it has a right to be.
One of the few films that dared to take oppressive societal mores that restrict personal independence head on, Masaan was a surprisingly swell directorial debut by Neeraj Ghaywan. It dexterously wove two independent storylines that run parallel and hardly met. Richa Chaddha once again demonstrated why she is a force to be reckoned with by getting into her role with a professional ease. Vicky Kaushal, then a newcomer, was pretty convincing as a shy and awkward small-town boy.
HBO's miniseries The Third Day is an effective mystery that rises above its premise's trappings largely due to Jude Law's superlative performance, capable direction and cinematography.
They Shall Not Grow Old is a World War II documentary directed by Peter Jackson. It is an extraordinary experience, which has rightly earned plaudits around the world. Jackson, best known for directing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, has used modern post-production techniques, both visual and sound, including new voice-acting, and colourisation to bring alive World War II in all its terrible glory.
Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One paints the picture of a dystopian society in which most people are poor and have a virtual reality world called OASIS as an escape from their humdrum reality. Ready Player One, starring Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance among others, is an escapist film in every sense of the word.
Before Game of Thrones, HBO had Rome, a lavish and no-holds-barred take on Roman Empire around the time of Caesar’s assassination. It is a gorgeously shot show that unfortunately turned out to be simply too expensive and was discontinued after 2 seasons in spite of huge success.
Based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s stories, which also inspired a hugely popular series of open-world RPG video-games, the world of the witcher resembles Westeros (from Game of Thrones) in many ways. For one, it is a gritty, dirty world full of violence, sex, and so on. For another, there is no clear division of good or bad like in most fantasy tales. However, The Witcher boasts of a lot of magic and fantastical creatures, which George RR Martin’s novels shied away from. The hero itself, Geralt of Rivia, is a mutated human with superhuman abilities. Game of Thrones in comparison had magic, but only on the periphery, at least in the first few seasons.
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.