Netflix Archives

What American Sitcoms Taught India About Homosexuality

It was through American TV that many of us Indians got our first exposure to regular gay characters. With no real-life examples to know or understand from, watching amazing queer characters on screen like Jack McFarland from Will & Grace helped shape the idea of how similar they really were to me.

Runa Mukherjee April 26, 2016

Bollywood

Drive Review: This Netflix Heist-Action Drama is a Pile-up of Fiascos

Drive seems to be either completely unaware of its sub-standardness or weirdly boastful about it. It’s a nightmarish love child between the Dhoom series and the Fast and Furious franchise.

Poulomi Das April 24, 2016

Pop Culture

#Throwback 2018: Thank You, Sacred Games, for Ganesh Gaitonde, Katekar, and the Gang of Gopalmath

Sacred Games single-handedly ended the drought of smartly written and performed shows of Indian origin, on the internet. It was that unicorn that treated the small screen with the same level of ambition and respect usually reserved for the silver one.

Arré Bench April 24, 2016

Pop Culture

How Do You Measure the Success of Sacred Games? By a Token FIR for “Hurting Sentiments”

A Delhi-based politician has filed an FIR against Anurag Kashyap for offending religious sentiments, barely a week after the release of the new season of the Netflix series. Makes sense, shows like Sacred Games, are after all, the number one threat to religion since “scientists” officially became a thing.

#VALUE! April 23, 2016

Bollywood

Why Purab Kohli is Bollywood’s Most Overlooked Dependable Performer

Back in 1998, Purab Kohli debuted with Hip Hip Hurray, where he played a studious 12th grader raised by a single mother. Last week in Typewriter, he essays a single parent to a school-going student. It is the actor’s eagerness to work without obsessing over billing, screen time, or stardom that makes him a dependable performer, even today.

Pragyan Mohanty April 20, 2016

Pop Culture

Netflix’s Living with Yourself Provides a Millennial Manual for Accepting Your Flaws

With two Paul Rudds living side by side, Netflix’s Living with Yourself shows how, in the end, we are all metaphorically battling a version of ourselves that we think we are capable of being. And the worst kind of emotional abuse is the one we inflict on our confidence.

Jackie Thakkar April 19, 2016

POV

Decoding India’s Love-Hate Relationship with Hasan Minhaj

The “Howdy Modi” event held in Houston over the weekend was organised to celebrate the contributions of Indian-Americans to the arts. While it was a spectacle of sorts, one particular NRI felt a little left out. Comedian Hasan Minhaj was turned away at the entrance, rekindling the question — “Do Indians love or hate Hasan Minhaj?”

#VALUE! April 15, 2016

Bollywood

Soni Review: Empowerment is an Everyday Struggle for Indian Women and This Netflix Film Gets It Right

Debutante director Ivan Ayr's Soni, isn’t as much a film about gender equality as it is about the continued endurance of gender inequality in India – riding on the back of casual sexism, male entitlement, misogyny, and uncurbed sexual violence.

Poulomi Das April 15, 2016

Pop Culture

Alma Matters Review: An Honest Look at Life Inside IIT

Alma Matters: Inside the IIT Dream presents life as it is for a variety of students (and even faculty), leaving viewers to make up their own mind. It’s neither an endorsement of the IITs, nor an outright censure. The Netflix documentary takes a real, honest look at what it’s like to be an IITian.

Deepak Gopalakrishnan April 14, 2016

Pop Culture

SOS! Netflix’s Black Mirror is Getting Too Real

The three episodes of Black Mirror’s latest season may have lost their tech edge, but they are so relatable for a much scarier reason – our reality is quickly keeping pace with Charlie Brooker’s satire. This was probably his plan all along.

#VALUE! April 14, 2016