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These shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime will help you beat mid-October blues

Here are some shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime that will help you beat mid-October blues.

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By Manisha Lakhe  October 10, 2019, 8:53:15 PM IST (Updated)

These shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime will help you beat mid-October blues
The weather outside is odd. Hot when it’s supposed to be pleasant, raining when it shouldn’t… Be afraid. Be very afraid if you have not raised a voice even though Nature has been showing us what happens when we chop off the trees in the middle of the city or by reclaiming land where rivers once flowed… Be afraid of the tall grass even…




Stephen King and his son who writes under the name Joe Hill have created this spooky tale of nature and redemption called In The Tall Grass. The madness of finding yourself lost in the tall grass, being held back by forces you don’t understand, is a scary tale that plays with your sense of time. It’s easy to take sides with the characters, so you feel anger and fear when it envelops them inside the grass. After I watched the movie it was easy to follow the sign when I stepped out into the neighborhood park: Keep Off The Grass.

I know Halloween is a couple of weeks away, but I’m always prepared. And I was happy to find the scariest story of them all on Netflix, and it is not the happy scary Halloween films everyone is going to recommend. With this film , you can help someone choose to live in the close proximity and effusive intrusiveness of an Indian joint family and deter them from living away from all, by showing them the Stanley Kubrick masterpiece, The Shining. Of course the story came out of this marvelous brain of the one and only Stephen King.



Next time you check into this beautiful hotel called The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, the US, or go skiing up at Mount Hood in Oregon and stay at the Timberline lodge, you will realise that The Shining was shot there. It is called the Outlook Hotel in the movie. When you watch Jack Nicholson give us the career defining performance you do not wish to watch anything any more. But then an alert reminds you that there’s Dirty John to be watched. The series was released last year, and the trailer seems to give everything away, but the series keeps you glued because you know many women like Debra who fall into the trap of love, lies and deceit.



I know I sound like an old aunt who fusses about online dating, but this show goes beyond that. It’s how we create a world in our heads and try to fit people in our lives into those neat pigeonholes.

Enough with the seriousness. Want to have some fun? Now imagine being the Mayor or the Municipal chief of a city superheroes destroyed when they’re saving the world, and you have to foot the bill… Now imagine a series called The Boys. It’s on Amazon Prime Video. It’s an irreverent take on the superhero movies and shows. If you are fed up of the sameness of the superhero genre, then this series is quite engaging. I’m mildly fed up with the cursing, but that’s unimportant when the content is fun.

The trouble with Prime is that the algorithm throws up only Indian films at you if you start out with either a Tamil or a Telugu or a Malayalam film. I had to search for Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens (which i loved by the way!) and now instead of sharing more English content it continues offering me Indian films. So I was surprised to watch Undone. It came at me from nowhere, and it is so brilliant visually that I am happy to compare it to Philip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly. Yes, Undone is that good. It has a brilliant premise and is trippy, to say the least.



Undone should have been a salve to my soul that needed recovering from submitting question papers for the upcoming Uni exams, but I stumbled upon Raatchasi starring Jyotika. She is a wonderful actor, and can speak volumes with her saucer eyes. This story may not be new, but the setting and the local problems are tackled in a new way, and that was enough for me to watch this Tamil film about a teacher who says defiantly, ‘This is my school.’



Whenever I watch some bright spark fighting for the rights of the less privileged, this quote by the one and only Ernesto Guevara comes to mind: If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine…

And even though this docu series has been on Netflix for four years now, if you have not seen it, then considering what is happening in our country, I yearn for a revolution, I wish there were heroes like Che on our side. Plus, this series will make you want to experience the sights and the sounds of the awesomeness that is Cuba. Watch The Cuba Libre Story on Netflix because it will take us a while to get there in person. And if like Cuba, and I, you too are fighting for your freedoms, one way or the other, you will love it.



Until my dreams and Visas come through, I have this brilliant dream reckoner to live with: Cuba and the Cameraman



Dreams aside, there is Meryl Streep on Netflix! Forget about everything! Mark your wish list because The Laundromat arrives on October 18. Let Steven Soderberg transport you to the world of cleaning up frauds…



Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication.

Read her columns here.
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