Cream of the Stream
Contributed By - Satish Kosuri
The Mentalist: (Amazon Prime Video) A famous "psychic" outs himself as a fake, and starts working as a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation so he can find "Red John", the madman who killed his wife and daughter. An enjoyable intelligent crime solver directed by Bruno Heller has Simon Baker as the lead character with Robin Tunney, Kim Kang, Owain Yeoman, Amanda Righetti, Rockmond Dunbar and others. There is crime drama, mental tricks, psychological and emotional aspects which are going to hook you till you finish watching all the 151 episodes. Forty something minutes of each episode has a magnetic charm (with the magnet being Simon Baker himself) to keep you glued to the screen with each stories equally intriguing and satisfying. Indian viewers will get a taste of some Bollywood drama (the most famous oft repeated airport scene) too which actually takes the series to its peak.
Mirzapur: (Amazon Prime Video) Mirzapur is set in UP, the north Indian state infamous for violence of both the communal and physical kind. The ensemble cast of characters in Mirzapur is comprised almost entirely of psychopaths. There’s Kaleen Bhaiya, a local crime lord played by the great Pankaj Tripathi, and his hot-headed son, Munna Bhaiya (Divyendu Sharma). Their dynamic is similar to the one shared by Tripathi’s character and his son in the fabulous Neo-noir, Gurgaon. And then there are the brothers Guddu and Bablu, played by Ali Fazal and Vikrant Massey - both of whom are in form as the aspirational sons of a local (and crucially) straight-laced lawyer. Kaleen Bhaiya sees them as the perfect balance of brains and brawn, and sensing potential, hires them to join his gun-running operation, much to the jealousy of the deeply unhinged Munna, and the dismay of their father. Except for a moral center expect all that is gore, violence, lust, lechery and a lot of blood and foul lingo. This hyper-violent series is strictly not for under-age viewers.
Roma: (Netflix) Cuaron’s own childhood, Netflix’s the most personal film in the director’s filmography, one that runs the gamut from a “Harry Potter” adventure (“The Prisoner of Azkaban”) to outer-space drama “Gravity.” By contrast, "Roma" (*** out of four; rated R) couldn’t be more down to earth, an intriguing study in human dynamics and an exploration of how important certain people are who come into our lives during a formative time. Roma marked a number of firsts for Netflix when the 2019 Oscar nominations were announced. The black-and-white, autobiographical drama not only received the streamer's first best picture nomination, but also nabbed Netflix's first noms for best director, actress in a leading role for Yalitza Aparicio, original screenplay, foreign-language film, production design, sound editing and sound mixing. Marina de Tavira was also nominated for best supporting actress, while Cuaron received a nod for cinematography. In another first, Roma is the first best picture nominee for which there are no box office grosses. So, ek watch to banta hi hain!
Bird Box: (Netflix) Five years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide, a survivor and her two children make a desperate bid to reach safety. The movie stars Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, and John Malkovich. The latest addition to Netflix's collection of original movies, Bird Box is an adaptation of the 2014 horror-thriller novel by Josh Malerman. Bird Box is a respectably moody and intelligent psychological thriller, if also a relatively muddled supernatural horror allegory.