Tag: Netflix

  • India child rights body demands ban on ‘Bombay Begums’ for showing ‘minors having cocaine’

    India child rights body demands ban on ‘Bombay Begums’ for showing ‘minors having cocaine’

    An Indian government agency for protecting child rights has asked Netflix Inc to immediately stop streaming its new drama series Bombay Begums after it reviewed complaints around scenes showing children consuming drugs.

    According to details, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), in a letter to Netflix, asked the streaming giant to investigate the matter and submit a report within 24 hours or face further action.

    The NCPCR took action based on a complaint which alleged that the series normalises minors indulging in casual sex and drug abuse and objected to a scene showing “minors having cocaine”.

    “The series with this type of content will not only pollute the young minds of children, and may also result in abuse and exploitation of children,” the NCPCR notice said, adding “Netflix should take extra precaution while streaming any content in respect of the children or for the children and shall also refrain from getting into such things,” the commission said in its notice.

    Netflix did not respond to a request for comment.

    Featuring Pooja Bhatt, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, Plabita Borthakur and Aadhya Anand, Bombay Begums is a series about five women from different parts of society trying to get ahead in modern Mumbai, formerly called Bombay.

    The controversy is the latest to hit video streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in India, where they have faced complaints also around promoting obscenity or hurting religious sentiments. Industry executives say such complaints go against freedom of speech and expression in the country.

    Read more – ‘The Fab Lives of Bolly Wives’ falls flat despite the glam and starry special appearances

    A member of India’s ruling party’s youth wing last year lodged a police complaint against Netflix objecting to scenes in the series A Suitable Boy showing a Hindu girl kissing a Muslim boy against the backdrop of a Hindu temple.

    Amazon recently became embroiled in legal cases following allegations that its political drama Tandav depicts Hindu gods in a derogatory manner.

    Several users on Friday tweeted their objections and support for the new Netflix show, making #BombayBegums a top trend on the microblogging website.

    “If your child is influenced to do drugs by scenes in which a young girl does cocaine … You need to talk to your child, not the show,” Twitter user Sahir said.

  • Javeria Saud’s ‘Aurat Gardi’ to reportedly be on Aurat March

    The first look of Javeria Saud and Alyy Khan’s Aurat Gardi was released Friday and the trailer of the web-series suggests that it is based on Aurat March.

    The trailer shows Javeria and Khan engaging in a heated debate over some of the play cards and slogans used during last year’s Aurat March that went viral, including one of the most debated slogan ‘Mera Jism Meri Marzi‘.

    As per details, Aurat Gardi will premiere on UrduFlix on April 2, 2021. The web-series has been directed by Awais Sulaman and produced by Rao Ayaz Shahzad with Farhan Gauher as Executive Producer.

    UrduFlix is Pakistan’s first Urdu OTT platform. It went live on March 5 and will provide viewers with access to original Urdu films, series, documentaries, cartoons, and Urdu dubbed Turkish dramas among other exclusively made shows for the platform. The first few shows on the platform would include the Mashal Khan starter Lifafa Dayaan, Hareem Shah starrer Raaz with a lot more to come. The first exclusively available show going up on the platform with its launch is Dulhan Aur 1 Raat featuring Alizeh Shah in the lead.

  • Malala shares a list of her favourite TV shows, films

    Malala shares a list of her favourite TV shows, films

    If anything the pandemic induced quarantine gave everyone a chance to binge-watch endless TV shows and films. Malala Yousafzai, in a recent interactive session with her Instagram followers, asked them to share their recommendations and listed TV shows and movies she recently watched and enjoyed.

    Malala revealed that she recently watched and enjoyed The White Tiger, Wolfwalkers and Soul.

    Read more – ‘Family-friendly’ movies you should NOT be watching with your family

    The White Tiger

    Based on Aravind Adiga’s book of the same name, The White Tiger explores poverty and class struggles in modern-day India. The book was published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize in the same year. Meanwhile, the cast of the movie includes Priyanka Chopra-Jonas and Adarsh Gourav besides Rao. It has been directed by Ramin Bahrani. The final instalment in directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart’s “Irish folklore trilogy” 

    Wolfwalkers

    Wolfwalkers is an animated movie and has been directed by Tomm Moore, and Ross Stewart. Wolfwalkers is the final installment of the Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart’s “Irish folklore trilogy”.

    Soul

    Soul, produced by Disney, revolves around the Joe, who is a middle school band teacher , who suddenly finds his soul detached from his body. The movie premiered at the London Film Festival on October 11, 2020.

    Malala further revealed that she loved Boys State.

    “In this documentary, it’s amazing to see teenage boys act like established politicians,” said Malala. “Some have strong convictions based on their own experiences. Other boys will just say anything for power and to win the support of the crowd.”

    Malala added that she would love to see Girls State too.

    In December 2020, Malala joined TikTok to raise funds for her charity organisation.

  • Netflix India announces star-studded lineup for 2021

    Netflix India has announced that it would release 41 shows and films in India this year, calling the move its “next big leap” in the world’s second-most populous nation India, where video streaming services have become more popular.

    According to details, Netflix’s new roster includes 41 titles featuring Bollywood actors, stand-up comedy shows and original series. Most shows will be in the Hindi language.

    The upcoming content will feature top Bollywood actors including Madhuri Dixit, Kartik Aryan, Sonakshi Sinha, Karan Johar, Manoj Bajpayee, R. Madhavan, and Raveena Tandon.

    “We are taking our next big leap in India,” said Netflix while announcing the news, adding that the upcoming lineup “features more variety and diversity than we have seen before”.

    India, whose Bollywood film industry makes more productions each year than Hollywood, remains a challenging market for the streaming services.

    Amazon’s Prime Video has become embroiled in legal cases and police complaints over a political drama Tandav deemed offensive to Hindu religious sentiments. The streaming platform apologised to viewers over some scenes.

    Earlier this year, Netflix announced that it will release more than 70 movies this year across comedy, drama, family and other genres, a lineup that underscores the streaming service’s growing prominence in the film business. It added that it plans to release a new movie every week for the entire year of 2021.

  • Parineeti Chopra appreciates makeup artist Natasha’s recreation of her look

    Parineeti Chopra has appreciated Pakistani makeup artist Natasha Ali Lakhani’s recreation of her look from her latest film The Girl on the Train. The Bollywood actor shared the tutorial of Natasha’s look on her Instagram story.

    Read more – Natasha of Natasha’s Salon shares a body-positive message for new mommies

    Sharing screenshots of Parineeti’s story, Natasha wrote: “When Parineeti Chopra reposts the recreation that I did of her look in her latest movie The Girl on the Train.”

    “I know it’s shameless self promotion but so fun,” she added.

    Earlier, Natasha also shared pictures of the recreation on social media along with the reason why she decide to recreate this look.

    Natasha said that she was inspired by a fellow makeup artist to recreate the look and also wanted to do it for fun.

    “I went back to my roots as an editorial makeup artist and other than the makeup created fake wounds/blood/bruising and I loved the end result,” wrote Natasha.

    The Girl on the Train is the Hindi remake of a 2016 Hollywood film featuring Emily Blunt, which was an adaption of Paula Hawkins’ bestselling novel. The movie released on February 26 on Netflix. The cast of the movie includes Aditi Rao Hydari and Kirti Kulhari, besides Parineeti.

  • Obamas to adapt Mohsin Hamid’s ‘Exit West’ for Netflix with Riz Ahmed in the lead

    Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground Productions on Friday announced six new projects in development for Netflix Inc, including a love story with a supernatural twist and a young adult thriller.

    The former president and first lady’s Higher Ground Productions will adapt British-Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid’s novel Exit West into a film, according to a statement from Netflix. The book tells the story of a young couple who find magical doors to transport them to other places and land in the middle of a global refugee crisis. Obama had also named it as one of the best books he read in 2017. According to The New York Times, the upcoming project will star the Pakistani-British actor Riz Ahmed.

    Other film projects include a science-fiction movie called Satellite, which will be produced with T Street, a production company run by Star Wars director Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman. Another is Tenzing, the story of the Nepalese-Indian man who first reached the summit of Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand.

    The Young Wife is a feature film that follows a woman on the day of her wedding who feels out of sync as a storm approaches.

    The company also is developing two TV series. Firekeeper’s Daughter is a thriller based on a young adult novel by Angeline Boulley about an 18-year-old Ojibwe tribe member who reluctantly goes undercover in a police investigation on her reservation.

    The other series is a nature documentary about national parks.

    Netflix said the projects will be released over the next few years but did not give exact release dates.

    Read more – Netflix to release a new movie every week in 2021

    The Obamas signed a multiyear production deal with Netflix in 2018. Their earlier Netflix projects include American Factory, which won an Oscar in 2020 for best documentary.

  • ‘Emily in Paris’ writer surprised with Golden Globe nomination

    The nominations for the 78th annual Golden Globe Awards were unveiled on Wednesday, and Netflix’s Emily in Paris ended up receiving two nominations – Best TV Series (Musical or Comedy) and Best Performance by an Actress in a TV series (Musical or Comedy).

    The unusual nominations did not sit very well with audiences who were upset with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – a 90-member group known, and often criticised for, unpredictable choices – for snubbing out favourites such as I May Destroy You and Bridgerton.

    Read more – Every Pakistani girl wants to be ‘Emily in Paris’

    Interestingly, even the writers on the show are surprised with the nominations.

    “I’m a writer on the show. I tried to avoid reading its criticism, but I don’t live under a rock. It never occurred to me that our show would be nominated,” said Deborah Copakenn, a writer on the show.

    In a piece for The Guardian, Copaken said: “Emily in Paris aired a few months after I’d spent June and July marching for racial justice through the streets of New York with my kids. I could definitely see how a show about a white American selling luxury whiteness, in a pre-pandemic Paris scrubbed free of its vibrant African and Muslim communities, might rankle. Our show also aired soon after I read Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and gobbled down Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, a work of sheer genius about the aftermath of a rape. ‘That show,’ I told everyone who would listen, ‘deserves to win all the awards’.”

    She continued: “When it didn’t, I was stunned. I May Destroy You was not only my favourite show of 2020. It’s my favourite show ever. It takes the complicated issue of rape – I’m a sexual assault survivor myself – and infuses it with heart, humour, pathos and a story constructed so well, I had to watch it twice, just to understand how Coel did it.”

    Copaken added that though she is excited about the nomination, “but that excitement is now unfortunately tempered by my rage over Coel’s snub. I May Destroy You did not get one Golden Globe nod is not only wrong, it’s what is wrong with everything.”

    Created by Darren Star of the Sex and the City fame, Emily in Paris follows Emily as she navigates her life in Paris and tries to add an “American touch” to the firm she works at. The series has been produced by the show’s star Lily Collins.

    In November 2020, Netflix announced that it was renewing Emily in Paris for a second season.

    Note – An earlier version of the story wrongly credited Abby Govindan as a writer on the show after she tweeted: “As the creator of Emily in Paris, can I just say…why the f*** were we nominated for a Golden Globe. I made that show as a prank.”

  • Sonic the Hedgehog will save the multiverse in new Netflix series

    Sonic the Hedgehog will save the multiverse in new Netflix series

    A new Sonic the Hedgehog series is in the works at Netflix.

    Read more – Netflix to release a new movie every week in 2021

    Sonic Prime, a family-friendly, 24-episode animated series starring the popular video game character, is set to premiere on the streamer in 2022, Netflix, Sega of America and Wildbrain announced Monday.

    According to the announcement, the show will focus on Sonic’s race to save the multiverse. The “high-octane adventure” will also be “a journey of self-discovery and redemption” for the hero. Man of Action Entertainment — known for creating Ben 10 and the characters of Big Hero 6 — will serve as showrunners and executive producers. The series will be animated by Wildbrain.

    “Sonic is a beloved character and holds a special place in everyone’s heart including my own,” said Dominique Bazay, Netflix’s director of original animation, in a statement. “I spent many hours with the blue blur as a kid and it’s a privilege to be able to bring this character everyone knows and loves on a brand-new adventure with Netflix — one that a generation of loyal fans and brand-new fans around the world can enjoy.”

    Since debuting in Sega’s 1991 video game Sonic the Hedgehog, the critter has been the face of a media franchise that has grown to include TV shows, comic books and movies.

    Meanwhile, the beloved video game is completing it’s 30th anniversary this year.

    The beloved blue speedster was seen most recently in the 2020 movie Sonic the Hedgehog, starring Ben Schwartz, James Marsden and Jim Carrey. The film grossed almost $320 million worldwide.

  • Tan France opens up on being a queer Muslim South Asian

    Tan France opens up on being a queer Muslim South Asian

    British-Pakistani-American fashion designer famed for Netflix’s makeover series Queer Eye, Tan France in a recent interview with a local media publication opened up about being a queer Pakistani-Muslim and shed light on his love for his home country.

    Talking about taking the burden of representation, France said: “I think the pressure on me is a little different – I am the only member of the LGBTQ community, who is also South Asian and very open about the fact that I am Muslim also. And so, I’m a few things in America – I’m an immigrant, I’m Muslim, I’m South Asian and I’m gay – and there hasn’t been anybody like that on TV in the US before, or entertainment in general, so the pressure is really really great. It’s the hardest part of this job without a doubt.”

    He continued: “I’m sure you can imagine when you are somebody who is a little different, a lot of Pakistanis don’t appreciate that. There still are a lot of small-minded Pakistani people in and outside of Pakistan, who say ‘we don’t have gay people in our community’, and that’s the most difficult part when there’s nobody else to help you balance it out. When there’s only one person to focus your anger on, you are responsible to make sure you are the ‘perfect’ version of that. That pressure is a lot.”

    “The first year of Queer Eye was very difficult, though I’m very grateful for its success. Being on such a massive international show may be lovely for my white castmates because they just get to enjoy the joy of being famous and successful and wealthy and all those things,” said the reality show star further.

    “Whereas for me the bigger the show got, the more pressure I got from my own community, to be perfect, to not bring shame onto the community. To not embarrass Pakistan. And that’s not easy, and it doesn’t get any easier,” said Tan, adding that the pressure on his has become less now “because I’ve stopped giving a sh*t, quite honestly, what ‘Uncle Bilal’ thinks of me – but – the bigger my star gets, the more pressure is put on me.”

    Later, responding to another question, France said: “The amount of DMs I get through the likes of Instagram, both good and bad where the Pakistani community is saying we don’t have gay people here. Well, that is ridiculous. The other community, the gay community, and the ally community say we need people that show that we exist, that we are not alone, we are not monsters and we deserve love and kindness. The fact that I get those DMs so regularly, makes it clear that things aren’t where they need to be in Pakistan.”

    “That’s why people like me are so important in entertainment. If I had people like me on TV, I wouldn’t have felt like a freak, I wouldn’t have felt alone as a child. I think it comes from the top, so laws need to be changed from the top”, said France.

    Meanwhile, recalling memories from the last time he visited Pakistan, Tan said: “My favourite memory is my last trip, about 14 years ago when I went to Rawalpindi to design my sister-in-law’s wedding lehenga. My brother was getting married, and our family was to provide the clothes so I was a designer, and I said I want to design it, but I want to go to Pakistan to make it.”

    “So, I went with my mom, and we stayed in Rawalpindi with my brother’s wife’s family who also came with us (I’m really close with my sister-in-law) and I had probably one of the best vacations of my life. I helped cook every day and my sister-in-law’s mom, who has never been to England–found it so strange that this boy from England wanted to make gobhi and bhindi every morning with her -and I would teach her to make it my way! She was just so confused that this boy was cooking!”

    “It was one of my favourite trips, I loved it so much! The rest of the time I would do whatever I wanted. I could go and explore, I went to a zoo, a theme park in Islamabad, it felt like the most fun trip there,” he shared.

  • ‘Bridgerton’ smashes records to become Netflix’s biggest show ever

    ‘Bridgerton’ smashes records to become Netflix’s biggest show ever

    Regency-era British drama Bridgerton is Netflix’s biggest series ever with more than 82 million households tuning in to watch the show, the streaming platform has announced. That is a 19M households higher than the four-week projection Netflix issued 10 days into the Shondaland series’ run (63 million), at the time the streamer’s fifth-biggest launch in history.

    Read more – ‘Bridgerton’ is the arranged marriage we all want

    The series which continues to be a sensation is now Netflix’s biggest series ever, pushing down the previous record-holder The Witcher (76M in its first 28 days) to number two.

    Read more – Netflix’s five most-watched original series revealed

    Created by Shondaland veteran, Chris Van Dusen, Bridgerton ranked number one overall in 83 countries including the US, UK, Pakistan, India, and South Africa, and made the top 10 in every country except Japan, Netflix stated in a blogpost. The series is based on Julia Quinn’s novels of the same name. The first season followed Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) as she made her debut in Regency London, seeking a husband.

    Analysts say that the series’ timing likely played a role in its breakout success. It arrived amid the latest deadly COVID-19 surge with people in many countries exhausted after months in quarantine.

    “I think the show really provides an incredible escape for audiences at a time where that’s exactly what’s needed,” Van Dusen said last week when the series Season 2 renewal was announced. ”Bridgerton is this lavish, vibrant, steamy Regency love story; it is about romance, love, and joy; I think all of those things are really universal themes people are responding to.”

    Meanwhile, the cast and creators of the drama have also expressed their shock and delight over the show’s success.

    It is pertinent to add here that The Queen’s Gambit still ranks as Netflix’s biggest scripted limited series to date.