The Brunch round-up: The week and how it made us feel

Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video, about a leaked sex tape, is neither funny nor insightful. Tripti Dimri plays a doctor who has all the time in the world to run around, trying to recover her wedding-night CD. They’ve even remixed two iconic songs without great results: Sajna Ve Sajna from 2003’s Chameli, and 1997’s Daler Mehndi number Na Na Na Re. It’s... (Don’t say it! Don’t say it!) an anti-climax.

All year, we tried to make sense of what a green, red, beige, black and white flag means in a relationship. Reddit and Insta had to go muddy the waters. A green flag is now a red flag. People are showing off their supposedly, caring, kind partners as green flags. There aren’t that many perfect people in existence. And it’s happening so often, we’re raising the red flag in suspicion.

Rose from Blackpink just released a new music video for her song, Toxic Till The End. Fans are going nuts because she kisses model Evan Mock in it. Then, Bruno Mars (who did the APT music video with her) added to the drama by commenting on her Instagram post like he’s a jealous BF. Let her live. She finally looks like she’s having fun after the four members of the band decided to go solo.

OpenAI recently released o1, a faster, more precise update to ChatGPT. Some idiot coder didn’t add a manual override. The programme tried to stop itself from being shut down during the testing stages, and tried to manipulate data to suit its own ends. Just like humans, but scarily reminiscent of I, Robot, Terminator, and Ex Machina.

Keira Knightley’s Black Doves is kind of a comeback. The show about a British spy has all the classic elements: A lover who’s oblivious to the partner’s secret identity, covert ops, flashes of insight. Knightley’s fighting chops are believable. But we love how she’s held on to the cheekiness of Jules, the Bend It Like Beckham role that catapulted her to fame in 2002.

You’ve been there. You’ve sent someone a hilarious Reel, and they reply with ‘I’ve seen this already’. The only appropriate response is ‘See it again’. But what if Insta offered a pop-up saying, ‘Your friend has already seen this’ before you hit send? Genius. Now, who’s going to make this happen?

Apparently, director Sandeep Reddy Vanga wants to extend Animal into an “over three-part” story. That means two more movies, at least. We’re all for artistic license, but we won’t be watching. And we definitely won’t judge you if you do. But if our faces have subtitles, don’t blame us.

HBO’s done it again. After True Detective, The Penguin, and House of the Dragon, they’ve knocked it out of the park with Dune: Prophecy. The sci-fi prequel series delves into the lives of the Bene Gesserit. They’ve pulled in Tabu as Sister Francesca too. The only hitch is that they release an episode a week. The binge generation can’t deal with the drip-feed. Give us more!