We recommend: The best new movies and TV series
Three years back, the Kannada folklore-themed actioner Kantara earned over 25X its budget of a reported 16 crores. Naturally, director-star Rakshit Shetty had to spawn a franchise.
Kantara introduced to a national audience the colourful and boisterous Bhuta Kola, a shamanistic dance-based holy ritual practiced by the Tulus of coastal Karnataka. Since it was this aspect from the 1990s-based story that drew attention, Shetty and the producers are claiming to have excavated the magical and mythological origins of Bhuta Kola in the prequel titled Chapter 1. The cast includes Shetty himself, Rukmini Vasanth and Gulshan Devaiah.
Deccan Herald praised the cast and the VFX but pointed out the film’s problematic politics: "One of the critical problems in Kantara was the use of divine intervention to address problems such as the official appropriation of commonly held tribal land. Chapter 1 is no different. In fact, to empower one tribe, it presents another tribe as the antagonist."
Where to watch: Theatres
What joy for true crime lovers! Ed Gein is easily among the top 10 American serial killers of all time. His legend has particularly survived for apparently being the one to inspire Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 thriller Psycho. British hunk Charlie Hunnam, who headlined the outlaw biker-themed crime series Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014), goes de-glam to play Gein in this eight-episode miniseries.
The cast includes acting goddesses Laurie Metcalf (the mom in Lady Bird), playing Gein's mother. Vicky Krieps (the fantastic lead opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread) stars as Nazi war criminal Ilse Koch.
By the way, in case you were never aware of Gein, a couple of sentences on his specific brand of serial killing: active in the US between 1947 and '57, Gein exhumed corpses and turned them into home accessories. He only confessed to two murders, but that was enough for the court to have him locked away in a psychiatric facility until his death in 1984.
Where to watch: Netflix
Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari
Think Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor, Karan Johar as producer, and director Shashank Khaitan, who previously directed Dhawan in the superhits Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and Badrinath Ki Dulhania. These four have collaborated for SSKTK, a romantic comedy as deep-fried in desi ghee and sprinkled with sugar as you can imagine with the names involved.
The story: Sunny (Dhawan) and Tulsi (Kapoor) are angry their respective partners have dumped them. Sunny and Tulsi team up to screw with their exes, played by Rohit Saraf and Sanya Malhotra. Scroll has singled out Dhawan's performance as fabulous, praising his "comedic timing" and "utter ease with slipping between silly scenes and moist-eyed moments." So, fans of Varun Dhawan and Hindi-language romcoms, this one's for you.
Where to watch: Theatres
A new romantic K-drama, written by the godmother of romantic K-dramas, veteran Kim Eun-sook, whose series Lovers in Paris and Descendants of the Sun are Hallyu staples.
This one has a young (and beautiful) woman with “antisocial personality disorder”, as the trailer will have you know, summoning an evil (and handsome) genie. They are stuck together until the woman has made three wishes and the genie has fulfilled them. The genie tells her, “Come with me to be corrupted”. The woman replies, “You evil bastard!” Are they flirting?
Where to watch: Netflix
Everyone’s favourite Cillian Murphy is an intense and quietly troubled teacher at a school for boys with behavioural problems. Set in mid-’90s England, the film unfolds over a single day. The boys are unruly and prone to violence. Murphy’s teacher is trying to help them while battling his own mental health.
The film is based on the 2023 novel Shy by Max Porter; while the novel tells the story from the perspective of the titular student, played by Jay Lycurgo, the film positions the teacher as the protagonist. From director Tim Mielants, who directed Murphy in last year’s acclaimed Small Things Like These.
Where to watch: Netflix
Avatar: The Way of Water (re-release)
December 19 will see the worldwide release of James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third installment in the series that began with 2009’s Avatar. To jog everyone’s memory, the second film from 2022, which earned over 1 lakh and 80 thousand crores (over $ 2 billion), is having a re-release in both 3D and IMAX formats. US marine-turned-Na’vi leader Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has to fight American colonisers once again, this time with the help of an amphibious Na’vi clan.
Where to watch: Theatres
Fresh off the big screen…
Released a month back, Ghajini director AR Murugadoss' Tamil actioner, featuring yet another mentally ill badass (Sivakarthikeyan), is now online. The villains are a gun-running syndicate led by Bollywood action star Vidyut Jammwal. The heroine is Rukmini Vasanth, who has a meaty role in the aforementioned Kantara: Chapter 1.
While the film didn't set the box office on fire, which explains the quick OTT release, most critics liked it. The Week even invoked the Japanese master in the opening line of their review: "Madharaasi calls to mind a line from Akira Kurosawa's Ran: In a mad world, only the mad are sane..." Whew!
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Bus driver Kevin’s (Matthew McConaughey) life is falling apart when he gets a call to pick up 23 kids during a California fire that’s spreading. Soon enough, it’s a blazing wildfire as Kevin and the school teacher Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera) are tasked with the responsibility of saving these young lives; will they step up?
The writer-director is Paul Greengrass (The Bourne series, Captain Phillips), a scientific expert with high-octane thrillers that are gritty and grounded despite genre thrills. Co-written by Brad Ingelsby, the in-demand creator and writer of The Mare of Easttown. USA Today called this film, based on real life events, a “cathartic quest”.
Where to watch: Apple TV+
The extremely prolific and always-unpredictable Steven Soderbergh (Oceans trilogy, Erin Brokovich, Traffic, Magic Mike) directs his first film ever in the supernatural horror genre. In Presence, a ghost is haunting a family in American suburbia. The catch? We see the film entirely from the perspective of the ghost, floating through the house, and via it, we make sense of a disconnected family.
“It might be the simplest idea I’ve ever had,” Soderbergh, who has also shot and edited the film, said in an interview earlier this year. “The camera’s the ghost". Reviews are most positive, although The Guardian found the concept a bit too ambitious: “... a ghost story haunted more by the possibility of what it could have been.”
Where to watch: Lionsgate Play
Here’s a new chapter…
Gather up, weebs. The eighth and final season of My Hero Academia premieres this weekend. Izuku Midoriya was born without a superpower in a world where nearly everyone has them. But once he inherited the powers of his idol, All Might, life changed drastically. Harry Potter-like, the early seasons focused on friendship and coming-of-age, but the new seasons have become darker and complex as the story heads towards an emotional end this season. Happy watching!
Where to watch: Crunchyroll
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