Unpaused is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. (Photo: Amazon Studios)2020 is about to end, and while this year might not have been merry for many, it was a game-changer for OTT platforms. With most people staying indoors for a large part of the year, OTT platforms built a strong audience and kept them entertained with new content all year long.
This week, the new content on streaming platforms includes Amazon Prime Video’s Unpaused, ZEE5’s Black Widows and Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Paava Kadhaigal.
Unpaused, on Amazon Prime Video, is a set of five short films put together with the common theme of the coronavirus-induced lockdown. The five films have been directed by Raj & DK, Nikkhil Advani, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Avinash Arun and Nitya Mehra. Gulshan Devaiah, Saiyami Kher, Richa Chadha, Sumeet Vyas, Lillete Dubey, Rinku Rajguru, Abhishek Banerjee, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan and Ratna Pathak Shah are part of the star cast.
ZEE5’s Black Widows stars Mona Singh, Swastika Mukherjee and Shamita Shetty. The show is an official adaptation of Finnish show Mustat lesket. It is the story of three women who decide to take control of their life after being subjected to repeated domestic violence.
Swastika Mukherjee, in an earlier statement, said, “Given the international reputation of the show, the team has put their heart and soul to create something quite extraordinary. The three widows will slap patriarchy and set their own rules and celebrate their new freedom. Rest assured, it is not your ordinary women-centric drama and we don’t need men to save us. These are strong powerful women putting an end to their dark past and blossoming into a new life.”
Peter Jackson’s adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings trilogy is still without equal. The scale, the vision, the visual effects, the performances, the writing, the small character moments that are given as much importance as the big moments, LotR is a staggering achievement.
Based on the eponymous series of books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a fun and adventurous fantasy movie involving fantastic creatures and an engaging story. It is for young adults, but just like Harry Potter, it is good enough for people of all ages. Freddy Highmore delivers a really good performance in the movie.
With Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne in the lead roles, this mini-series is set during the second-wave of feminism in the US where feminists like Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and many others were spearheading a revolution for women’s rights but to their shock, one of their biggest opposers came in the form of Phyllis Schlafly.
This film was all about repairing the supposed damage that the previous entry in the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi, did. Essentially, it tried to please the fanboys and turned out to be so messy that it did not please anybody. However, as a send off it is pretty good and if you are a fan, it will make you emotional and teary-eyed.
A science fiction drama TV anthology series, Tales from the Loop is a gripping, superbly shot and well-written piece of entertainment that will delight everyone, but specifically those who liked HBO's Westworld and FX's recent series Devs.
Based on an intriguing what-if premise, The Man in the High Castle is an alternate reality show. In this world, the Axis powers won and the United States was carved up between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Common Americans live under two foreign, oppressive regimes and they are resigned to their fate... until the people come across another reality -- our reality -- according to which things could be better.
Chernobyl, a miniseries based on the nuclear disaster of the same name, is scarier than any horror story in existence, precisely because it did happen in the past and a similar event can happen in future. Human incompetence, after all, has no limits. Read more
Paava Kadhaigal is an anthology film starring Kalidas Jayaram, Shanthnu Bhagyaraj, Bhavani Sre, Gautham Menon, Simran, Anjali, Kalki Koechlin, Prakash Raj, Sai Pallavi, Jaffer Sadiq.
Read review
Chadwick Boseman's swan song revolves around Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (Viola Davis), one of the earliest African-American blues singers, and one of her recording sessions in Chicago of the 1920s. The session had Rainey clashing with her white manager over the control of her music.
Read review
While the sunny Los Angeles is not as compelling a setting for horror as the dank streets of Victorian London, The City of Angels, Showtime horror series Penny Dreadful's spinoff, is surprisingly good, with a nice amalgam of contemporary social issues and the supernatural.
Two men go hunting deer in Scottish countryside and get more than they bargained for.
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.
There are few movies that manage to outdo their source material. There are fewer movies that are based on a Stephen King book and still manage to outdo the source material. 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?
Bong Joon-ho's 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 splendid work), refuses to let it go.
Directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, One Child Nation talks about the ramifications of the one-child policy of China that lasted for almost 25 years. It’s a harrowing account of people who emotionally talk about the harsh experiences their families went through as China enforced the policy on all its citizens.
The classic Doordarshan TV series based on RK Narayan's charming small-town based stories still holds up well. Relive your childhood (if you watched Malgudi Days as a child, that is) with this series.
Netflix’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Victorian-era Gothic horror novel was a surprisingly clever, well-performed piece of entertainment. While it was a considerable departure from the source material, it remains an interpretation that Stoker himself probably would have been proud of.
A Series of Unfortunate Events is based on the book series of the same name by Daniel Handler who uses his pen name Lemony Snicket to write the books. The story follows three Baudelaire children – a baby girl, a boy and his elder sister. The children have a fortune to their name, but a certain Count Olaf (played with a patent delight by Neil Patrick Harris) would like the fortune to himself. He will kill the children if that is what it took. The devilish Count is assisted by even nastier minions.
Larry David plays his own fictionalised version in this HBO series. The show is uproariously funny, and it really brings out the talent of the writer behind Seinfeld.