Akhil Arora

Early into Maharaj—the new Netflix movie loosely adapted from Saurabh Shah’s book of the same name, which chronicles a famous libel court case from 1862—at the end of a frivolous song-and-dance sequence, a religious leader who’s known to prey on young, betrothed women walks up to his next victim as she celebrates Holi. The Maharaj (Jaideep Ahlawat) grabs a fistful of coloured powder and smears it across Kishori’s naked chest, essentially marking her. It’s disturbing. But for Kishori (Shalini Pandey) who worships him, it’s a moment of unbridled joy. She thinks she’s the chosen one, picked to perform a vital religious ritual. Her aunt says as much to her face. So, when she finds herself all alone with the Maharaj in his palatial room, she readily gives in to everything he asks of her.

Kota Factory has never lived up to its title. The name suggests a grim look at the dystopian reality of teenagers in their formative years transported to a town in the middle of nowhere for a single mindless pursuit. Instead—over 10 episodes across two seasons—we’ve been treated to a sentimental and meandering look at the life of students. Kota Factory isn’t in black-and-white because it’s drained of life. It’s in black-and-white because the creators, themselves former IITians, are nostalgic for the past. The third—and what feels like the final—season wants to course correct. It wants to brush up on lessons it has ignored so far. But it has no idea how to communicate any of it. Everything is too literal or spelt out.

Inside Out was a breathtaking showcase of Pixar at its best. In imagining our inner selves, the original Pixar movie gave life to our warring emotions, how memories are formed or repressed, and what it means to embrace great change. It truly understood how our brains work. But it wasn’t a philosophical treatise—Inside Out was great entertainment too. Amy Poehler’s unbridled optimistic Joy was a driving force behind that. She contrasted nicely with Anger’s (Lewis Black) outbursts, Fear’s (Bill Hader) jittery and Disgust’s (Mindy Kaling) judgmental behaviour, and Sadness’ (Phyllis Smith) willingness to wallow.

In one of the early episodes from The Boys season 4, a white woman—dressed in a tight-fitting red and blue outfit, who describes herself as an author, filmmaker, political activist, commentator, and leading voice of the alt-supe movement on YouTube—addresses a small audience at a conspiracy theory convention. In her opening rant, which she says will last the next two hours, she claims that Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is working with the “Hollywood paedophile cabal”. She plugs in a false flag operation, references to Satan, and implies that Tom Hanks had a whistleblower killed. Sitting amidst the audience, Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) asks Frenchie (Tomer Capone) if people really fall for this kind of nonsense. He replies: “People will believe anything. Even something as ludicrous as the moon landing.”

Since the beginning, every Star Wars movie has had a lightsaber duel. On rare occasions, only in the prequel trilogy, have there been situations where we have had more than two lightsabers in one scene. Towards the end of the fourth episode of the new Star Wars series The Acolyte, a masked stranger—wielding a red lightsaber—confronts our protagonist. In response, they are met with eight lightsabers: some green, others yellow, and one blue. It’s a fascinating and incredulous moment, not least because we haven’t seen the likes of it in live-action Star Wars. It’s made possible thanks to The Acolyte’s setting in the High Republic era—a hundred years prior to Episode I – The Phantom Menace—during a time when the Jedi Order was at the peak of its power.