Movies and shows you should watch on April 6.
Since India is under lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, people have been watching shows and movies on their favourite streaming platforms to pass time.
With the launch of Disney+ as a section on Hotstar, the market just got even more competitive.
Streaming Guide: April 3 and 4 | April 1 and 2 | March 30 and 31Â |Â March 28 and 29 |Â March 26 and 27|Â March 24 and 25 |Â March 22 and 23Â |Â March 20 and 21Â |Â March 19 and 18Â Â |Â March 17Â |Â March 16Â Â
Here are the movies, web series and TV shows you should watch on platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, SonyLIV, ALTBalaji, ZEE5 and Voot.
Live Blog
Your definitive zombie movie. In this South Korean film, zombies do not hobble, they run like Usain Bolt and possess the stamina of a racehorse. Cramped confines of a train do wonders and well-drawn characters are pretty relatable. The pacing is just right. Bottom line is, if you love zombie movies, you cannot really go wrong with this one.
Irrfan Khan, Radhika Madan, Kiku Sharda, Pankaj Tripathi, Deepak Dobriyal, Ranvir Shorey as well as Dinesh Vijan (producer) and Homi Adajania (director) had a watch party to celebrate the film's debut on Disney+ Hotstar. The film was pulled from the theatres in the wake of coronavirus outbreak.
Modern Love is a romantic anthology TV series that dramatises the real-life love stories from the New York Times' column of the same name. For those not familiar with the column, it has essays and stories submitted by readers. The column offers honest explorations of love, relationships and related topics. Modern Love explores love in all its forms, including experiencing it, feeling it, needing it, betrayal, heartbreak, and so on.
This Mike Flanagan film, which is a Stephen King adaptation, is not horror in the sense that there are ghosts. Well, there might or might not be ghosts, but it is not scary because of them. It is scary because it is one of the darkest films you will ever see. Gerald’s Game explores topics like misogyny and child abuse in gory detail and it is advised to watch the film only if you can handle them.
Armando lannucci's The Death of Stalin is a deliciously entertaining satirical period comedy. It is a take on the events that transpired immediately after the death of the ruthless dictator of Soviet Union Joseph Stalin.
One would not have called Stephen Hawking a lover boy, considering his brain scarcely had space for much emotion. But he, too, was bitten by the bug. The Theory of Everything is based on the book Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Hawking and is a love-story in the classical sense of the word, complete with kisses, tragedy, and a, mostly, happy ending. Eddie Redmayne gives a storming central performance and, as it turns out, an Oscar-winning one.
Based on Neil Gaiman's fantasy novel, Stardust is directed by Matthew Vaughn. It stars two actors who later played comic-book superheroes - Charlie Cox (Daredevil) and Henry Cavill (Superman).
A highly underrated show, Elementary is another take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ace detective Sherlock Holmes. Only, Sherlock works in New York City and he assists the New York Police Department instead of Scotland Yard. Oh, and did I mention, the Watson is female? Elementary is worth checking out for Sherock Holmes fans and even those who like the BBC series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
While nowhere near as good as the Frank Darabont film, The Mist is nonetheless is very nice show that adapts the famous Stephen King novella of the same name. The series received mixed reviews but that is probably because reviewers compared to Darabont's film which, I think, is not fair. It is far from perfect, The Mist is still a well-made, entertaining show about a bunch of people locked inside a supermarket as a mysterious mist full with otherwordly monsters swirls outside.
Warrior is a Cinemax TV series based on an original concept by late legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee. It is created by Jonathan Tropper and Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious movies) and stars Andrew Koji in the lead as a Chinese martial arts expert of partial European ancestry. A period drama, it is set in in the late 19th century during the Tong wars. The Tong Wars were a series of conflicts in the 1880s between rival Chinese Tong factions centered in the Chinatowns of various American cities especially San Francisco.
Based on Robert Galbraith's crime books, this series follows Afghan War vet and private investigator Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin as they solve mysteries. In case you are not aware, Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym of JK Rowling.
The Dark Knight is widely considered to be the best superhero movie ever made, though it has little common with the superhero movies being made today. Its ‘superhero’ was just a costumed and well-muscled rich guy – a man without any superhuman abilities.
Starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in the titular roles of Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, the Fast and Furious spin-off movie featured Idris Elba as villain Brixton Lore.
Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin was the live-action remake of the 1992 Disney animated classic of the same name. It starred Will Smith, Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott as Genie, Aladdin and Jasmine, respectively. Ritchie co-wrote the screenplay with John August.
The Lion King was a remake of the 1994 animated classic. The story was pretty much the same. Only the visuals were recreated in high definition photorealism unlike the 2D style of the original. James Earl Jones reprised his original role as Mufasa. While Donald Glover voiced Simba, Chiwetel Ejiofor lend his voice to the villainous Scar. Seth Rogen, Alfre Woodard, Billy Eichner, John Kani, John Oliver and Beyoncé also voiced different characters.
'Nicole (Johansson) and Charlie (Driver) are a great couple, great artistes, great friends, and great parents. Baumbach opens with the two reading out what got them attracted to one another in the first place, and both Nicole and Charlie’s accounts drip with warmth and genuine affection. Suddenly though we cut to the two of them with a marriage counsellor, where a distressed Nicole refuses to read what she has written. It is the first sign that this won’t be the elegant, neat divorce that Gwyneth Paltrow ambitiously termed ‘conscious uncoupling’.'
Also Read | Marriage Story movie review: A deeply affecting drama
HBO’s The Outsider has proven to be as good as, if not better, than the best-selling Stephen King novel it takes its source material from. That is not something you can say so often with the Master of Horror.
A low budget film that tells the story of screenwriter Emily V. Gordon and her husband and comedian Kumail Nanjiani, who have also written the story together. This is a no-holds-barred story that does not gloss over anything a relationship is - messy, sometimes infuriating and perplexing, but beautiful nonetheless.
Steven Spielberg's adaptation of HG Wells' novel of the same name, War of the Worlds sees an invasion by the Martians. Tom Cruise stars as a longshoreman who witnesses the invasion directly. Scores of people are disintegrated by the Martian war machines called Tripods that emerge from beneath the earth. War of the Worlds is a non-stop thriller that never lets up.
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.
This FX series has everything in its favour - colourful characters, dark humour, varied settings (every season takes place in different places and times), and excellent writing. Cops face solo gangsters or gangsters with families and your sympathies are dragged all over the place. You think things like -- why did this charismatic rascal had to be a bad person, inherently? There is a character played by David Thewlis in the third reason who is the repelling-yet-compelling sort -- a perfect representation of the show as a whole, I think.
A mysterious quarantined zone is affected by an alien phenomenon that is mutating creatures and landscapes inside it. The zone is surrounded by a shimmering electromagnetic field and it is thus called the Shimmer. The zone is getting larger and larger and the US government believes that it would one day surround the whole world if not stopped. This film has elements of science fiction, horror, and mystery. Its denouement is a gorgeous interplay between mind-bending visuals and incongruous electronic notes.
Here is the first ever comedy special of arguably one of the greatest stand-up comics ever, wherein George Carlin talks about monopoly, flying in aeroplanes and everything under the sun.
Based on the amazing book series by British writer Bernard Cornwell, BBC’s The Last Kingdom follows the invasion of Danish vikings of the place that would later be called England. The protagonist is a torn man who loves the viking way of like but is a Northumbrian. His loyalties are so confused that he fights for Alfred (yes, the Alfred the Great) against the people he loves. The title sequence of The Last Kingdom shows a map of England which is being engulfed by a wave but stops just before Wessex - the last kingdom that held out and whose monarch - Alfred - first came up with the idea of England.
Looking for a tightly plotted edge-of-the-seat thriller? Look no further than Bodyguard. Richard Madden stars as a damaged war veteran David Budd tasked with protecting the British Home Secretary. The job is not easy, but things are exacerbated by the fact that Budd has his own problems. He is seperated from his wife due to his PTSD. He has hardly any friends and lots of enemies. The suspense in the series is almost palpable. The story is just okay, but top-notch direction gives it a lift. It was only after its Netflix debut that the rest of the world realised why the Brits were so crazy about it.
The animated series follows a mad but brilliant scientist Rick Sanchez and his naive, impressionable grandson Morty Smith's adventures across faraway galaxies, planets, parallel worlds, different realities and so on. Rick and Morty boasts some of the most intelligent writing in the medium currently, with jokes that are easy to miss if the attention wavers even a little. And before you have managed to wrap your head around it, the show has already moved ahead.
NOS4A2 is a fresh take on the vampire genre of literature. Instead of drinking blood, the antagonist of the novel, the terrifying Charlie Manx, feeds off the the souls of children. He then puts them into a place that is supposed to be blissful and dreamlike, but is actually something you cannot escape from. The title is a variation on the archaic Hungarian-Romanian word, Nosferatu, meaning vampire, and also the registration ID written on Manx's licence plate. The series adapts Joe Hill's horror novel of the same name. Joe Hill is the pen name of Joseph Hillstrom King, Stephen King's elder son.
An adaptation of the comic book series of the same name, The Boys is an attack on the very concept of superheroes, something that has rarely been done well. Sure, Batman v Superman had similar elements (Superman as a Jesus-like figure who could go evil; Batman branding criminals with the symbol), but the ideas were poorly implemented. This is a world in which superheroes are real, but instead of being symbols of nobility and goodness like the Avengers and Justice League, they have allowed status and fame to go to their head, and have become violent and reckless. It offers formula of gallows humour and unremitting, gleeful brutality. A refreshing change from the so-called 'Avengers fatigue'.
An Amazon Original, Lore is based on a podcast of the same name. Every episode of the show tells the origins of a horror story and although it is more of a documentary than drama, it is a slickly produced show that is engaging enough for a binge. You might want to check out the podcast as well. It is sublime.
Did you know the Batman once fought the Predator? No, it is not canon, but in this short (and very well-made) film, it did happen. Batman: Dead End was a fan film written and directed by one Sandy Collora and released in 2003. It was made on a reported budget of just 30,000 dollars. It brought the Batman into conflict with two alien species from other cinematic universes, Fox’s Predator and Alien film franchises.
The Brandon Routh starrer is not perfect. But as a Superman film, it is pretty damn good. If you love the superhero, you will certainly love it.
While Toy Story humanised toys, Wall-E told a magical love story between… robots. Wall-E is easily one of the best movies Pixar has made.
Free Solo is an Oscar-winning documentary directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. It is based on a free solo climb of El Capitan by rock climber Alex Honnold. A thrilling and inspiring tale, Free Solo is a compulsive watch.