The Jeff & Ishan Show #16 – Con City

Hot out of the oven, our review of Con City, a 2026 Tamil-language crime comedy starring Arjun Das and Anna Ben, written and directed by Harish Durairaj, streaming now on Netflix. Rated MA-14. Our original theme music by Ano Malee. Tune in for a big time!

“It’s a cute movie. Really one of my favorite things was the final song that reminded me very much of early 1970s Bollywood. They’re all lip-syncing happily to voices that couldn’t possibly be theirs, and it doesn’t matter. Great job on the feel-good ending…I had this love-hate relationship with the plot. Sometimes it felt like a little too much was going on and it started to get a little all-over-the-place.”

Volunteering in Philly: Fulbright Global Day of Service 2026

I had a blast on July 23rd as part of a fantastic team of volunteers and dedicated organizers at Cobbs Creek Park working to remove invasive species and pick up litter along the trails.

I especially enjoyed whacking all the poison ivy as revenge for their always ganging up on me.

Here’s a great place to look for opportunities.


On August 7th, I worked with a great team of volunteers setting up for the carnival at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.

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Food Scarcity Outreach: Fulbright Global Service Day 2026

Please join us for our Fulbright Global Day of Service co-hosted by the Fulbright India Interest Group & the Fulbright Greater Los Angeles Chapter. Help with food preparation for Hope the Mission shelters and programs throughout Southern California.

  • Date: Saturday, August 1, 2026.
  • Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM.
  • Address: Hope the Mission, 16641 Roscoe Pl, North Hills, CA.

RSVP at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXhqrdWkEfYRhSZXilS-jcf8Bpf7bCPCazJPMR9mP0azbSTw/viewform  

How We Do It!

The Jeff & Ishan Show explainer as 1950s American newsreel. A (mostly) AI deepfake of us, by us, showing the steps in how we create our Indian film reviews.

SOURCES:

  • Universal-International News 1950 newsreel opening and closing titles (public domain) modified to “International News” and upscaled with  @Photoshop  Photoshop and  @AdobeFirefly 
  • Music: “American Tune”, 1928, Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra (public domain)
  • Calendar pages from Internet Archive (public domain) superimposed with Adobe Stock clock spiral.
  • Excerpt from “Foxy Grandpa”, 1902 silent short, American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. (public domain), upscaled with Adobe Firefly
  • Excerpt from “Kennedy on Telstar”, Universal-International News 1962 newsreel (public domain) superimposed with YouTube logo
  • Photo of Mother India film premiere in India, 1957 (public domain), animated with Adobe Firefly
  • Clips from promotional trailers for the films 120 Bahadur, Single Salma, Ek Chatur Naar and Jolly LLB 3 (Fair Use)
  • Film grain overlay from Adobe Stock
  • Static sound effect downloaded from pixabay.com
  • All other images, video and spoken dialogue are originals shot and recorded, or created by, Jeffrey Stanley using his own images modified with Adobe Firefly
  • Voiceover narration written and performed by Jeffrey Stanley.

Edited on Adobe Premiere.

©2026 by Jeffrey Stanley. All rights reserved.

Hyder Ali and the American Revolution

Uff, the efforts I made along with my colleague, playwright Vijay Padaki, to create a university student-involved creative project around the topic over the past few years but, alas, we got zero interest from students. Maybe it was us. Maybe we did a poor job of pitching it.

I then pitched it as an America 250 article to Smithsonian Magazine and got no response.

Now this fascinating history is in a terrific New Yorker story by Ishaan Tharoor. As a writer, you win some, you lose some. I’m just glad to see more Americans made aware of India’s connection to the American Revolution.

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