NL Hafta

In the latest episode of The Awful and Awesome Entertainment Wrap, hosts Abhinandan Sekhri and Rajyasree Sen discuss BCCI’s notice to Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul for their appearance on Koffee with Karan, the Golden Globes, the new Uber Eats advertisement, The Mule, the Gully Boy trailer, and Backstreet Boys being back—again! The discussion begins with a quick tussle between our hosts over Rajyasree’s accusation that Koffee with Karan is a Graham Norton Show rip-off. Rajyasree also points out the irony of BCCI being the moral police in light of the complaints against BCCI’s CEO. Both agree that the degree of reaction to Pandya’s alleged misogyny is unwarranted and that it's more important to call out Karan Johar’s “infantile humour”. Rajyasree then talks about Clint Eastwood’s The Mule, based on the true story of Leo Sharp. They praise the cast, especially Eastwood and his “grasp on cinema”, nominating him for a lifetime achievement award at age 90. Abhinandan was put off by the “easiness” of the film and the “goody-goodiness of the resolution” despite being greatly impressed by Eastwood. The conversation moves to the Golden Globes. Abhinandan and Rajyasree praise Christian Bale and Glenn Close’s speeches, the former for his humour and the latter for bringing to the fore the struggle of women to be accepted both as mothers and professionals. They then discuss the Uber Eats ad, “Alia’s Tinda Moment”. Rajyasree says the ad was cute but not very compelling. Abhinandan expresses his problem with Alia Bhatt—though he thinks “she is the best actor of her generation”, because of her “child’s face”, her sexuality on screen makes him feel “queasy”. Abhinandan isn't very excited about Gully Boy because he believes hip-hop is very culturally specific to the US so it cannot be entirely transposed to Bombay. He is more excited about the Manoj Bajpayee-starrer Sonchiraiya, which is “a Paan Singh Tomar marries Bandit Queen and gives birth to a Gangs of Wasseypur kind of thing”. Finally, our hosts do not see the point of the Backstreet Boys' mushy comeback. They discuss how the main message of their latest video is that family is the most important thing in life. Featuring the Backstreet Boys with their wives and children, it promotes a heteronormative idea of family. “Yeh music video wagera unke bas ka raha nahin (this music video stuff is not in their league any more),” Abhinandan remarks. Tune in for more!