telltale: my take on what I watch on screen

Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Ratna Pathak Shah, Deepak Dobriyal, Vijay Raaz, Saurabh Shukla… the list goes on. They are not heroes in movies; this is list of ‘Kalakaars’ (Artists). These are so called supporting actors without whose support the movies they act in will never be the same. However, hardly any of them ever get the recognition they deserve. ‘Har kissi ke hisse: Kamyaab’, now streaming on Netflix in India, is a call for attention to such supporting character actors. The movie, directed by Hardik Mehta, stars Sanjay Mishra – another one of those actors who belong to the above list. He plays the role of Sudheer, a successful supporting actor who is now past his heydays. As an actor, he has played every supporting role one can imagine mouthing (the now cliched but then popular) dialogues from the 80's and 90's. Realizing that he has done 499 movies in his career which ended abruptly, he wants to act in one last movie to complete 500 movies and ...

Remember the scenes on the streets when India announced a nationwide lockdown in response to pandemic crisis. People rushed out to stock essentials fearing they may not be available later. And people bought more than they required resulting in stocks running out. This led to few people having more than they required and most having less or nothing. The optimal behaviour in such a situation would have been to stay calm and buy only what one needs. However, this works only if everyone in unison exhibits this same behaviour. Fear that some would opt to hoard leaving others stranded, leads to most people opting for a not so ideal solution to avoid regret. Changing the strategy from not hoarding and buying only what one need when they need, in absence of others following suit, will result in no additional gains. As defined in Game Theory, this is the Nash Equilibrium – a solution of a non-cooperative game where no player has anything to gain by changing only his/her own strategy....

Do people responsible for protection need protecting? Vigilantes or criminals wear a mask to hide their identity. They use masks for protection from the law as they do not have the legal authority to carry out their activities. So, does it make sense for people with legal authority to wear a mask? Why do they need protection? This paradox forms the crux of Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen universe streaming on Hotstar in India. This TV series is a sequel to the original 1987 DC Comic book series. Set in the same alternate universe, this is a world where the US has won the Vietnam War and is now their 51st state, Robert Redford (the American actor director) is the President and the Watergate scandal is never exposed. There are no mobile phones with people still using pagers. But there are inter dimensional portals and spaceships and satellites that travel across the galaxy. A white supremist group called the Seventh Kavalry, targets the police department in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This ...

Trust, talking and truth - Words said by Jean Millburn (Gillian Anderson) in the premier episode of season 2 - is an apt representation of season 1 of sex education which dropped on Netflix in 2017. Teens trust a kid in their class and talk to him about sex related issues who in turn speaks the truth to them. As a plot-line, this was refreshing and funny. The creators kept it simple. Season 2, however, expands the scope beyond this and it's three central characters - Otis, Maeve and Eric. In terms of the story, Season 2 picks off from where season 1 ended.  As the school break gets over, Otis Millburn (Asa Butterfield) - the sex kid - and the rest of the class are back to Moordale High. Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackay) is back too albeit without the dash of pink hair which drew comparisons of Emma Mackay with Margot Robbie. The sex clinic is up and running as well saving the day for hundreds of helpless horny kids. But this time around they have competition from Jean, Otis...

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. Quentin Tarantino. Expectations with 'Once upon a time in.. Hollywood' were sky high. Add to that the news that the famous Tate-la Bianca murders would intertwine with the story, made O.U.A.T.I.H. a must watch movie in 2019. Which makes it that much more weird that I watched it only recently, 6 months after it was released. I missed watching it on the first weekend and discouraging reviews (from friends and critics) dashed my hopes which led me to avoiding it completely. Come February 2020, thanks to Amazon Prime and a wonderfully worded review from Raja Sen, I decided to go for it. And it turned out to be a lot more fun than what I had anticipated. The chemistry between Pitt and DiCaprio makes it worth your time and money. Described as a relationship which is 'more than a brother and little less than a wife', their on screen friendship is refreshing and believable. Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) is an actor who is past his prime i...