Wow. Thank you so much NYU Tisch School of the Arts Open Arts Program for sharing the doubly good news in their article about The Jeff & Shuvam Show, which I’m happy to say seems to be really taking off, and separately celebrating my article in UK peer-reviewed journal Race & Class. I’m grateful that they mentioned my podcast collaborators Shuvam Dasgupta and my fellow Fulbright alum, film director Abhijit Chowdhury, whose idea this was, and his India-based media production company Concept Cube which launched the podcast, not me solely.
My grant to attend the Fulbright Association conference last October, as mentioned in the article, was provided by our terrific adjunct faculty union ACT-UAW Local 7902.
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.
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.
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.
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.”