We recommend: The best new movies and TV series

 

The Roses: British thespians Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman square off as a couple whose marriage is threatened when Theo’s (Cumberbatch) architecture career is on the rocks while Ivy’s (Colman) restaurant business is booming. This dark comedy—an adaptation of the 1981 novel The War of the Roses—is directed by Jay Roach, maker of the hilarious Austin Powers films. The novel had previously been adapted into an acclaimed black comedy by actor-filmmaker Danny DeVito back in 1989, with a knockout cast of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. 

 

Our take: Acting royalty and comedy giants aside, the film also stars everybody’s favourite Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Lonely Island), illustrious Saturday Night Live alum Kate McKinnon, and American acting giant Allison Janney. Sounds like a reliable time at the movies.

 

Their take: Hollywood Reporter mentions with caution, “The lead actors’ combative chemistry is what keeps Jay Roach’s overcrowded remake zingy even when it threatens to turn from savage to sour.” IndieWire has some caveats as well: “That McNamara has written a truly new spin on Adler’s novel is genuinely refreshing, but the lighter tone and greater reliance on actual romance between its leads makes what’s to come all the harder to swallow.”

 

Where to watch: In cinemas. 

 

Katrina: Come Hell and High Water: 2005's devastating Hurricane Katrina wiped out 80% of New Orleans, the predominantly Black American city in the Deep South of the United States. Damages cost reportedly $125 billion. The government response was widely criticised. Television news coverage of survivors trawling shopping centres for food was regarded to have a racist tone.

 

Rapper Ye, then-Kanye West (and now a self-parody), famously declared on live television, "I hate the way they portray us in the media... if they see a Black family, they say they are looting, if they see a White family, they say they are looking for food," before dropping the bomb: "George Bush doesn't care about Black people.”

 

Three years later, Barack Obama was President.

 

Filmmaker Spike Lee, acclaimed for his thorough coverage of Black-American life in such classics as Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X, is executive producer on this docuseries that looks back on the tragedy. He previously dealt with these events in the Peabody Award-winning 2006 HBO documentary If God Is Willing And Da Creek Don't Rise.

 

Our take: In her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, journalist Naomi Klein cited Hurricane Katrina to explain how the government abandoned its citizens so the crisis could be exploited by corporations, causing a real estate spike.

 

Klein wrote, “I watched hordes of private military contractors descend on the flooded city to find ways to profit from the disaster, even as thousands of the city’s residents, abandoned by their government, were treated like dangerous criminals just for trying to survive.” In the hands of a motivated and passionate filmmaker like Lee, expect a lot of anger from this Netflix docuseries.

 

Their take: The Guardian wants audiences to take note of the final episode directed by Lee in particular: “...the city’s unique culture was deliberately and methodically prevented from reasserting itself, starting with insurance companies and banks ruthlessly taking what they said they were owed. A federally funded rebuilding drive was weighted in favour of wealthier areas, assigning money based on buildings’ previous values. Public services were markedly underfunded. Black teachers were laid off. Many local residents, notably the Black middle classes, left for Atlanta or Houston.”

 

Songs of Paradise: The Melody Queen of Kashmir takes centre-stage here. In this tribute to Raj Begum, the important Kashmiri singer in the ’50s who was awarded a Padma Shri, we follow the story of Noor Begum, as she’s named here. Noor, played by Soni Razad—yup, Alia Bhatt’s mum—and, in her younger days, by Saba Azad, is a gifted singer trying to break free from the shackles imposed on her by society. Director Danish Renzu explores these oppressive societal structures through the story of Noor and her desire to sing in a world where such expressions remain off-limits.

 

Our take: The story and performances suggest a genuine sincerity that appeals to our sensibilities. Biopics need not reinvent the wheel as long as there’s heart and feeling.

 

Their take: OTTplay praises the film as it “honours Noor's strength, creativity, and the unwavering impact of her voice amid the stunning scenery of Kashmir.” Hindustan Times points out that the performances carry the weight here, with the music “undoubtedly the film’s soul”. 

 

Where to watch: Amazon Prime. 

 

The Thursday Murder Club: Strong on the heels of Emmy-nominated Only Murders in the Building (Steve Martin, Selena Gomez), where sexagenerians solve crime to pass the time, comes the Netflix film adaptation of Richard Osman's bestselling cozy mystery The Thursday Murder Club.

 

Four pensioners, psyched by the opportunity to solve a murder, run into hilarious situations in this Agatha Christie tribute. The cast includes Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie. 

 

Our take: The director is Chris Columbus, who helmed the first two Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films. On paper, he is the right guy to kickstart a family-friendly franchise. With a cast this strong, and material that's a proven bestseller, this is laboratory-made for success.

 

Their take: The Guardian feels the adaptation is just about cute and inoffensive, “adapted as a funny and likable, if slightly bland, comedy-drama for Netflix, which as one character amusingly and pre-emptively comments, feels just like a Sunday teatime TV crime drama.”

 

Where to watch: Netflix

 

 

Our MUBI recommendations for August 

 

Editor’s note: We have started an exciting partnership with MUBI where the splainer team will bring to you a handful of movies streaming on the platform that are personally vetted once every month! The good news for splainer subscribers: you get a one-month free trial for MUBI! Click on this link to avail the free trial.

 

Vice is Broke: They flew American basketball player Dennis Rodman to North Korea and befriended Kim Jong Un. They filmed a guy getting high on snake venom. They had headlines like 'My Kinky Day Out at a Berlin Sex Tech Festival'. 

 

Vice Media's vision was to become a punk-rock media movement that could "make the cool guy feel rich and the rich guy feel cool," as one interviewee says in this entertaining eye-opener from chef-filmmaker Eddie Huang. He has been a Vice insider, who saw the scrappy Montreal-based zine become a media behemoth, valued at close to $6 billion in 2017. Six years later, the owners filed for bankruptcy. Perhaps, as someone says in Huang's documentary, "Coolness is not a renewable resource. You can sell it once."

 

A Touch of Sin: Jia Zhangke, the most consistent chronicler of China's social and political upheaval, is best-known for his quiet, sweeping work, including his breakthrough Platform (2000) and 2024's enigmatic Caught By The Tides, both of which are part of MUBI's retrospective that began this month.

 

We particularly recommend his wild and twisted A Touch of Sin, where Zhangke brings violent genre film elements to his typical social commentary. He picks key headline makers from 21st century China and weaves them into an anthology of blood-soaked stories. Think of this as a gateway into Jia Zhangke's filmography.

 

April: Attention! Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili is just two films old, but she has racked up a reputation for crafting heady, socially intense films that she shoots with "35mm film stock, creating mesmerising visual landscapes that throb with colour, texture, light and feeling," as described by Scroll’s Nandini Ramnath.

 

Her new film, April, follows a rural obstetrician who helps her patients with abortions. When an operation by her leads to the death of a newborn, she is thrust headlong into an investigation. Expect sensorial disturbia that seeps under your skin.

 

 

Fresh off the big screen…  

 

Metro... In Dino: Anurag Basu's 2007 urban drama Life in a... Metro tracked nine individuals crisscrossing one another through romantic relationships and betrayals. Basu's film was mostly gloomy. Pritam's soundtrack was angst-bitten rock.

 

The spiritual sequel, released earlier this year, is a sunnier affair. Writer-director Basu has packaged the stories as a musical, once again, but with chunks of the dialogue sung by the characters in elaborate setpieces. It’s bright and eye-popping with snatches of deeply felt truths about contemporary love. Pritam’s score is characteristically more new Coldplay than early Coldplay. A must watch for its sheer ingenuity. Catch it on Netflix.

 

Thunderbolts*: There’s no such thing as too many superhero ensembles. This group though, the Thunderbolts, are the anti-hero Avengers squad, consisting of Black Widow’s adoptive sister, Yelena Belova (played by Florence Pugh); her adoptive father, Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Winter Soldier, reprised by Sebastian Stan. This dysfunctional assortment of villains finds themselves in a death trap, for once forced to confront their past and their inner demons, as they set about on a fraught mission. Will they survive?

 

The movie hit theatres earlier this year, and now finds its way to JioHotstar this week.