Love Lies Bleeding Is A Dark Fairytale On Steroids |
The Kristen Stewart-starrer is a Lynchian romantic thriller that swaps the feral identities of lust and violence. Rahul Desai writes. |
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| | Cast: Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian | | |
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LOVE LIES BLEEDING is a passionate love story between two distinct genres of storytelling. One film is a bleak underdog drama whose protagonist, Jackie (Katy O’Brian), is an ambitious bodybuilder trapped within the role of a volatile outsider in a small town. The other film is a retro coming-of-age drama whose protagonist, Lou (Kristen Stewart), is a reclusive gym manager aching to escape the cycle of generational crime. When Jackie meets Lou, sparks fly. But they don’t fall for, so much as detonate each other. The consequent explosion is a Lynchian romantic thriller that swaps the feral identities of lust and violence. It is strange, twisted and wonderfully addictive. (Stream top-rated movies and shows across platforms and languages, using the OTTplay Premium Jhakaas pack, for just Rs 249/month.) A homeless Jackie rolls into town and solicits work at the local gun range. Lou is so intoxicated by Jackie on their first night that she lets her move in; they can’t get enough of one another. The complications begin when the two women discover each other beyond sex and the fantasy of domestic bliss. Jackie learns of Lou’s skeletons: She is estranged from her devious dad (Ed Harris) who runs the gun range, and enraged with her abusive brother-in-law (Dave Franco) who batters her sister. In a fit of steroid-fuelled rage — but also overcome by crippling tenderness for an upset Lou — Jackie kills the brother-in-law. Lou is both appalled and aroused by Jackie’s ‘gesture’. Instead of simply covering up the crime, Lou decides to turn this event into her — their — exit strategy. |
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Scoop: Netflix Thriller Expands The Stylebook Of A Journalism Movie |
Sam McAlister's book Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews serves as the source material for this film |
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NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME, Gillian Anderson sits on a chair in Buckingham Palace and asks tough questions of the British monarchy. After playing Margaret Thatcher in Season 4 of The Crown, the American actress appears in the Peter Moffat-written Scoop as Emily Maitlis, the BBC Newsnight anchor who grills Prince Andrew about allegations of his sexual assault and his ‘friendship’ with Jeffrey Epstein in that 2019 television interview. The programme became the catalyst for the downfall of “the Queen’s favourite son” — with Maitlis’ firm questions and reactions shaping the language of an internet-era trial. Anderson is pitch-perfect as a no-nonsense newsreader who atones for her complicity (“I didn’t ask Clinton about Lewinsky”) by conducting an interview that unfolds like an action set piece featuring words and pauses. She navigates the tricky terrain of being fair to her interviewee while letting him — an embattled man out to renovate his public image — do the unravelling. — R.D. |
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Dukaan: The Year’s Worst Film Is Possibly Here |
Dukaan centres on surrogacy, but unfolds as a cautionary tale on how not to make a film, writes Ishita Sengupta |
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| Cast: Monika Pawar, Sikandar Kher |
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HERE are some things I remember from watching Siddharth Singh and Garima Wahal’s Dukaan: a series of pregnant women with identical rotund stomachs like they have been created by AI; time passing faster than the speed of light – one moment I look down to eat popcorn and in the next a kid is born, he has grown up and his mother has already abandoned him; a very disinterested Sunny Deol appearing out of nowhere and saying something about family and his hand; a very interested man sitting behind me and screaming, “oh shit” every time a pregnant woman screamed in pain on the hospital bed. Let me come clean at this point and admit that I do not remember Siddharth and Garima’s film as much as moments from it are seared into my brain. Dukaan, the directorial debut of the duo known for their association with Sanjay Leela Bhansali (they were writers on Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela), centres on surrogacy but unfolds as a cautionary tale on how not to make a film. It is so uniformly bad and unwatchable that the few times it evokes reaction is when it gets worse and plummets to depths I did not imagine were possible. |
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WrestleMania XL: WWE 2K24 Is Your Ticket To The Event’s Storied History |
Since its inception in 1985, WrestleMania has grown into an annual global phenomenon, drawing fans from all over the world, writes Karan Pradhan |
LET’S get down to brass tacks right away. WrestleMania, for the uninitiated, is the flagship event of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and is widely regarded as the Super Bowl of professional wrestling. Also it takes place this weekend. Since its inception in 1985, WrestleMania has grown into an annual global phenomenon, drawing fans from all over the world. It is a spectacle that combines high-octane matches, celebrity appearances, live music performances, and storytelling at its finest, all culminating in a multi-hour extravaganza. The brainchild of alleged sex-trafficker (among a rash of other charges) and former WWE chairman Vince McMahon, the inaugural WrestleMania took place on March 31, 1985, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. A total of 19,121 people were in attendance. The 40th edition of WrestleMania is set to take place on Saturday and Sunday at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field with over 60,000 expected to be in the audience on each night. And that’s not even the biggest turnout they’ve ever had. Featuring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson stepping away from the boardroom — he’s on the board of directors of TKO that owns the WWE — to antagonise fan favourite Cody Rhodes, WrestleMania XL is one of the most hyped editions of the event in history. It’s the last word of that sentence we’re here to discuss. |
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