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From The Big Bull to Mortal Kombat, What to Watch in April
Internationally, we’re getting a new Mortal Kombat movie on April 16, a week before it drops on HBO Max. Kate Winslet returns to TV after a decade with HBO miniseries Mare of Easttown, premiering April 19. Idris Elba is an urban cowboy in Netflix’s Concrete Cowboy, dropping April 2. Michael B. Jordan is gunning for vengeance in Without Remorse, April 30 on Prime Video. Joss Whedon’s new superhero series The Nevers is also from HBO, coming April 12. Anna Kendrick is an astronaut headed to Mars in Stowaway, on Netflix April 22. Justin Theroux moves to the jungle in The Mosquito Coast, premiering April 30 on Apple TV+.
With that, here’s our April 2021 guide to Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and Apple TV+.
Concrete Cowboy
When: April 2
Where: Netflix
Idris Elba plays an absent father to a 15-year-old rebellious son (Caleb McLaughlin, from Stranger Things) in Ricky Staub’s debut movie that is based on Greg Neri’s 2011 young adult coming-of-age novel “Ghetto Cowboy” that gives us a peek into the urban African-American horseriding culture present in the American city of Philadelphia. It got fairly favourable reviews when it premiered at Toronto International Film Festival last year.
Irul
When: April 2
Where: Netflix
Fahadh Faasil, Soubin Shahir, and Darshana Rajendran lead this self-described “old-fashioned whodunit” that follows a stranded couple and a stranger caught in an abandoned and haunted house on a dark rainy night. Who is the killer and who is the victim? And what’s happening with that dead body in the basement? Naseef Yusuf Izuddin makes his directorial debut.
The Serpent
When: April 2
Where: Netflix
Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) — the serial killer who preyed on tourists across Southeast Asia in the 1970s — is the topic of this eight-part miniseries co-produced by BBC One and Netflix, which charts his murderous exploits and the efforts to bring him to justice. Sobhraj spent two decades in Indian jails, and is currently serving a life sentence in Nepal. All episodes on release date.
Joji
When: April 7
Where: Amazon Prime Video
Fahadh Faasil isn’t happy with being on one platform in a month (I imagine), which is why he’ll also be seen in this Shakespearian Macbeth-inspired drama about an engineering dropout and the youngest son (Faasil) of a rich plantation family who, driven by father’s jabs, greed and blind ambition, embarks on an ambitious plan after a family tragedy.
Baburaj, Shammi Thilakan, Unnimaya Prasad, and Alistair Alex also star. Dileesh Pothan directs off a screenplay by Syam Pushkaran.
The Big Bull
When: April 8
Where: Disney+ Hotstar
Abhishek Bachchan steps into the shoes of Harshad Mehta Hemant Shah (likely for legal reasons) in this feature-length take on the financial scandal that powered the critically-acclaimed 10-episode Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (on SonyLIV). That’s a big ask — and The Big Bull trailer only further hints that this will be a much more Bollywood-ised take on the whole shebang.
Ileana D’Cruz, Nikita Dutta, Soham Shah, Ram Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, and Saurabh Shukla are also part of The Big Bull cast. Mahesh Manjrekar has a cameo.
Hello Charlie
When: April 9
Where: Amazon Prime Video
Jackie Shroff dons a gorilla suit (which means he didn’t need to be on set) in this wacko comedy that follows Mumbai dreamer Chirag “Charlie” Rastogi (Aadar Jain) who’s tasked with helping a financial defrauder (Shroff) escape to Dubai. Naturally, what ensues are some zany (and eye-rolling) adventures, involving a circus and a real gorilla.
Shlokka Pandit, Elnaaz Norouzi, Darshan Jariwalla, Rajpal Yadav, Girish Kulkarni, Bharat Ganeshpure, and Siddhanth Kapoor co-star in Hello Charlie. Pankaj Saraswat is the writer and director. Excel’s Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar served as producers.
Them
When: April 9
Where: Amazon Prime Video
Emmy-winner Lena Waithe (Master of None) is a producer on this horror anthology from writer and creator Little Marvin — he makes his TV debut — that adopts the same format as American Horror Story: each season is standalone. The first one, subtitled Them: Covenant, centres on a black family that moves into an all-white Los Angeles neighbourhood in 1953.
Deborah Ayorinde, Ashley Thomas, Alison Pill, Shahadi Wright Joseph, and Ryan Kwanten are part of Them: Covenant cast. Amazon has greenlit Them for a second season.
Thunder Force
When: April 9
Where: Netflix
Real-life best friends Octavia Spencer and Melissa McCarthy play estranged childhood best friends in this superhero spoof. After they reunite, Lydia (McCarthy) discovers that Emily (Spencer) has come up with a genetic formula to give people superpowers. Lydia accidentally triggers it and becomes super strong. Emily reveals she’s invisible. They team up to fight crime in Chicago, which includes the likes of The King (Bobby Cannavale), The Crab (Jason Bateman), and Laser (Pom Klementieff).
Written and directed by Ben Falcone (Superintelligence), Thunder Force marks his fifth collaboration with his wife McCarthy.
The Nevers
When: April 12
Where: Disney+ Hotstar
Created by The Avengers director Joss Whedon — who has since quit the show citing exhaustion due to COVID-19 challenges, though some wondered if it’s actually tied to the abuse and harassment allegations around Justice League — this superhero series is set in Victorian-era London and follows a group of gifted women, including a mysterious quick-fisted widow Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) and brilliant young inventor Penance Adair (Ann Skelly), who must protect their kind and battle brutal forces.
Whedon also served as the writer, director, and showrunner until the time he quit. On the first batch of six episodes — there will be 10 in total, but The Nevers season 1 has been split into two parts due to COVID-19 again — Whedon is credited as the writer on one and director on three. Philippa Goslett (How to Talk to Girls at Parties) is the new showrunner. New episodes weekly.
Ajeeb Daastaans
When: April 16
Where: Netflix
Having directed shorts in two anthology films — Lust Stories and Ghost Stories — Karan Johar the producer now brings together four directors for another Netflix India anthology. Shashank Khaitan, Raj Mehta, Neeraj Ghaywan, and Kayoze Irani are at the helm of Ajeeb Daastaans’ four short films, which feature the likes of Fatima Sana Shaikh, Jaideep Ahlawat, Armaan Ralhan, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Abhishek Banerjee, Konkana Sensharma, Aditi Rao Hydari, Shefali Shah, and Manav Kaul.
But what is Ajeeb Daastaans about? It explores jealousy, entitlement, prejudices and toxicity through fractured relationships that at times involve a third “other” in a two-person dynamic. The four short films will also attempt to blur the lines between what’s right and what’s wrong.
Mortal Kombat
When: April 16 (India), April 23 (USA)
Where: Cinemas (India), HBO Max (USA)
In this reboot of the video game movie series, an MMA fighter Cole Young (Lewis Tan) who loses for money discovers his special heritage and sets out to train with experienced supernatural warriors, in order to save his family and help defend Earth from the Outworld’s otherworldly ice-expert Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) who has been tasked to hunt Cole down.
James Wan (Aquaman) is a producer. Simon McQuoid makes his feature directorial debut on Mortal Kombat. The movie stars several game characters, including Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Tadanobu Asano as Raiden, Mehcad Brooks as Jax Briggs, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, and Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi/ Scorpion.
Watch the Mortal Kombat Trailer in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu
Mare of Easttown
When: April 19
Where: Disney+ Hotstar
Kate Winslet returns to television after 10 years (her last miniseries Mildred Pierce was also at HBO) and is reunited with her co-star Guy Pearce (from Mildred Pierce). Here on the seven-part Mare of Easttown, Winslet plays a struggling detective investigating a small-town murder in the US state of Pennsylvania.
Brad Ingelsby (The Way Back) is the creator and writer. Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, and Evan Peters also star in Mare of Easttown.
Stowaway
When: April 22
Where: Netflix
Three astronauts — Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette, and Daniel Dae Kim — on their way to Mars for a two-year mission discover that a launch support engineer (Shamier Anderson) has accidentally ended up on the spaceship with them. He just wants to get back home but that’s not an option. Things further spiral out of control after the life support systems are damaged, which essentially means they will suffocate before they even make it to Mars. Joe Penna (Arctic) directs.
Shadow and Bone
When: April 23
Where: Netflix
Arrival and Bird Box writer Eric Heisserer is the creator, head writer and showrunner on this adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s best-selling young adult fantasy “Grishaverse” novels — five books across a trilogy (Shadow and Bone) and a follow-up duology (Six of Crows) — that draw on Russian mythology. But there are many changes here, chief among which is the fact that characters from both those series co-exist somehow. All episodes on release date.
The Disciple
When: April 30
Where: Netflix
Court writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane returns with his second feature — executive produced by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) — that is also set in his native Mumbai and is the journey of the titular Indian classical music vocalist trainee (Aditya Modak) who is starting to question the years he has spent diligently following the traditions and discipline of the old masters (his guru and his father), as she struggles to achieve the excellence he’s been striving for.
Watch the New Trailer for The Disciple
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
When: April 30
Where: Netflix
In a bid to reconnect (the movie was called “Connected” at one point) with his aspiring filmmaker and device-addicted daughter (Abbi Jacobson) who is leaving for college, a nature-loving father (Danny McBride) plans a cross-country road trip that turns into a lot more after the machines decide it’s time to take over the world.
Maya Rudolph, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman, Blake Griffin, Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Conan O’Brien, and Doug the Pug also lend their voices to The Mitchells vs. The Machines. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) serve as producers. Originally a Sony Pictures movie that’s been sold to Netflix.
The Mosquito Coast
When: April 30
Where: Apple TV+
Justin Theroux leads this adaptation of his uncle Paul Theroux’s 1981 novel of the same name — previously a 1986 movie with Harrison Ford — about an American family that has the bonkers idea of moving to the Latin American jungles to start a new life. Melissa George and Gabriel Bateman also star.
Neil Cross (Luther) is the creator and head writer on The Mosquito Coast. Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) has directed the first two episodes. Two episodes on release date, and then one weekly thereafter for a total of seven episodes.
Without Remorse
When: April 30
Where: Amazon Prime Video
Michael B. Jordan stars as US Navy SEAL officer John Clark in this Jack Ryan film spin-off who loses his pregnant wife in a Russia-sponsored attack on his home, and then sets out to uncover a conspiracy — with the help of fellow SEAL Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith) and CIA officer Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell) — that threatens to engulf US and Russia in all-out war. It’s adapted from a 1993 novel, so naturally it’s full of Cold War paranoia.
Stefano Sollima (Sicario: Day of the Soldado) directs off a screenplay by Taylor Sheridan and Will Staples. Without Remorse, a Paramount Pictures movie, was meant for theatres but thanks to COVID-19, it was sold off to Amazon, also the home for the John Krasinski-led Jack Ryan series.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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