Jeffrey Stanley – Jefe's House

The Jeff & Shuvam Show #3: LSD 2

Rock photographer Shuvam Dasgupta and Jeffrey Stanley

This month, Shuvam and I experimented with LSD. We liked it so much we tried LSD2. Here’s the result, our review of Dibakar Banerjee’s 2024 Hindi-language film Love Sex aur Dhoka 2 (Love, Sex and Betrayal 2), known to fans as LSD2, the long-awaited sequel to LSD1, now streaming on Netflix.

“It’s like Lars Von Trier meets Richard Linklater…I love that it’s about trans, gay and straight characters and how they see the world, how they see themselves, how the world sees them…And the acceptance of it…And what it means to be an ally…Are you empowering them or are you just playing a game?”

– The Jeff & Shuvam Show

We’re each doing these reviews for our own reasons. For me, I hope to turn more people in the US on to Indian cinema and not just Bollywood. Our reviews are, by design, casually presented, unpretentious, just two people hanging out in a dining room discussing films easily available through services viewers here likely already have.

I’m hoping our reviews will be a gateway drug to the harder stuff like Satyajit Ray, whom most Americans in my experience, short of film students and serious cinephiles, have never heard of, not even his Apu trilogy, or any of India’s other outstanding films and filmmakers.

So go ahead and try a little LSD2. It’s not addictive, I swear.

If a Spotify podcast is more your thing, we’re there too.

Tiktok? Gotcha covered.

The Jeff & Shuvam Show is produced by Kolkata-based media production company Concept Cube.

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The Jeff & Shuvam Show #2 is Live: AAVESHAM

The Jeff & Shuvam Show‘s 2nd installment, produced by Kolkata-based media production company Concept Cube, is live. Check out our latest new Indian cinema review and like, share, subscribe, well you know what to do. Watch it now on Youtube.

This week we review the Malayalam-language action-comedy film from Kerala, Aavesham (meaning Excitement) streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

“It shows how you can find dopamine in all aspects of your life and what happens when you start playing with fire…I loved this movie. It’s really funny. Like when it turns out Ranga, in addition to being a feared crime lord, posts TikTok videos of himself dancing.

– The Jeff & Shuvam Show

If a Spotify podcast is more your thing, we’re there too.

Tiktok? Gotcha covered.

The Jeff & Shuvam Show is produced by Kolkata-based media production company Concept Cube.

The Jeff & Shuvam Show #1 is Live: CAPTAIN MILLER

Are you feeling empty inside? Do you know what’s been missing from your life? Some Indian guy (heavy metal photographer Shuvam Dasgupta) and some American guy reviewing the latest Indian films available on Amazon Prime and Netflix.

The Jeff & Shuvam Show is the brainchild of award-winning director and my fellow Fulbrighter Abhijit Chowdhury and his cohorts at their Kolkata-based media production company Concept Cube.

Check it out on Youtube and — I never thought I’d be saying this with a straight face — smash that like button. Sharing it doesn’t hurt either and will make you feel good. Up first, a Tamil-language film from Tamil Nadu, Captain Miller on Amazon Prime.

“It’s very Tarantinoesque…It’s like playing Fortnite set in 1920s British India.”
The Jeff & Shuvam Show

More to come.

If a Spotify podcast is more your thing, we’re there too.

Tiktok? Gotcha covered.

Congratulations, Vijay

I was honored this week to be asked to introduce dramatist and lifelong theatre practitioner Vijay Padaki when he was honored by a group of his former business students from the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore. They organized the event to recognize his recent Lifetime Achievement Award presented to him by ASSITEJ, a global network of children’s theatre practitioners, at their annual Congress which was held this year in Havana, Cuba.

Transcript of my spoken remarks:

A wise person once wrote, “A man often finds his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.” Put differently, life is full of surprises and unexplored paths inviting you in new directions.

In 1979 while I was a 12-year-old growing up in southwestern Virginia, Vijay Padaki was teaching Organizational Behavior at IIM-B. Who would have thought that Vijay, in addition to his background in management and psychology, was also actively involved in running, and in continually growing, the Bangalore Little Theatre, which has now been going strong for more than 60 years. It is Bangalore’s oldest nonprofit theatre.

I have never met a wiser, more astute, more dedicated theatre artist than Vijay Padaki. Mine and Vijay’s paths first crossed in 2012 thanks to the power of the worldwide web, when he reached out to me about my play Tesla’s Letters.