Two Oscar-worthy movies to watch this weekend
Coda and The Power of the Dog are the favourites to take out the Best Picture Oscar and you can stream them both this weekend.
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A strikingly unique story about a deaf family and an incredibly acted period drama have slowly risen through the ranks to become serious contenders for the prestigious Best Picture Oscar.
Stream those and more this weekend.
CODA (M)
THE ONE THAT MIGHT WIN THE NEXT BEST PICTURE OSCAR
****
APPLE TV+
This highly accessible, yet strikingly unique family-oriented production has slowly risen through the ranks to suddenly become a serious contender for the prestigious Best Picture Oscar this weekend. The title of the movie is all-caps shorthand for “child of deaf adults,” an acronym which has followed around CODA’s teenage heroine Ruby (Emilia Jones) for her entire life. As the sole person able to hear in an otherwise deaf family, Ruby has to shoulder heavy responsibilities that would crush most kids in her age group. Since she was able to talk, Ruby has acted as chief interpreter for father Frank (Troy Kotsur), mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin) and older brother Leo (Daniel Durant). If the plotting of CODA sounds familiar in any way, it just might be because it is a remake of a 2014 French film called The Belier Family. This is the far superior rendition of the tale, largely because it has cast deaf actors in deaf roles. The authenticity in play here is truly something to experience, not just in relaying the disparity in senses between Ruby and her family, but also the unity and love that holds them all together.
THE POWER OF THE DOG (M)
THE OTHER ONE THAT MIGHT WIN THE NEXT BEST PICTURE OSCAR
****
NETFLIX
This period drama from the acclaimed New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion (The Piano, TV’s Top of the Lake) is the only other possible contender for Best Picture this year, and it all starts with the incredible acting on display. But it does not end there. Benedict Cumberbatch turns in a true career best as Phil, a roughneck rancher of the 1920s who is none too happy when his brother George (Jesse Plemons) suddenly takes a wife (Kirsten Dunst) and hauls her to the family homestead to take up residence. The unpleasant atmosphere worsens with the arrival of the bewildered bride’s teenage son (Australian star Kodi Smit-McPhee in a breakout performance). Phil can sense an opportunity to lash out at anyone and everyone. He takes that opportunity with both hands, and crafts it into something malicious, intimidating and spiteful. Something bad is fated to happen in The Power of the Dog, and as we draw closer to this inevitable moment, a good, and sometimes great, movie continues to rise in stature.
IN THE HEIGHTS (PG)
THE ONE THAT SINGS AND DANCES LIKE ITS LIFE DEPENDS ON IT
***1/2
BINGE, FOXTEL, NETFLIX
The many story strands threaded through this vibrant, rambunctious musical all intersect at a New York City corner shop run by an ambitious young fella named Usnavi (Anthony Ramos, a deadset star of the future after this). While the characters, their backstories and motivations may be thinly drawn, everything about them comes alive once the yapping stops and the songs begin. It is here that composer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s genius with rhythm, melody and wicked wordplay continually takes everything in the movie and spins it like a top.
THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE (M)
THE ONE THAT’S A (SACRI)RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
***
DISNEY+, FOXTEL, or RENT
This fictionalised rendition of the true story of the disgraced televangelist team of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker never quite matches the award-winning documentary (of the same name) on which it is based. As with many a religious money-grubber who flew so high in the 1980s, the Bakkers were certain to crash and burn before the decade was through. So it proved to be for the impossibly folksy Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) and the undeniably weird Jim (Andrew Garfield), but not before they built an impressive global empire from the funds of easily duped devotees. Chastain is the current fave to win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance, which impresses in ways the film itself does not.
PARASITE (MA15+)
THE ONE WHERE IT PAYS TO LOOK BEFORE YOU LEECH
****
SBS ON DEMAND, STAN; or RENT
A Recent winner of the Best Picture Oscar. Just who is drawing the life force from whom in Parasite? There is no definitive answer forthcoming, and that might just be the point of a funny, strange, sobering and distinctly original satire. We open in a back alley of Seoul, where a poor family subsists on a combo of the help-yourself (an ever-pressing task is nicking some nearby wi-fi) and the hand-to-mouth (pre-folding pizza boxes to secure their next meal). So far, so down-and-out, right? Not so fast: things suddenly look up when eldest son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik) gets a job tutoring the daughter of a wealthy chief executive, Mr Park. One by one, the rest of Ki-woo’s family infiltrate Park’s lavish designer home in menial positions. So far, so happy ending, right? Wrong again. An ever-blackening dark comedy starts hinting Ki-woo and clan may merely be swapping one form of daily desperation to another.
WIND RIVER (MA15+)
THE ONE ALWAYS GOING IN FOR THE CHILL
****
BINGE, FOXTEL, STAN; or RENT
This (literally) chilly crime procedural takes place on the frigid snowscapes of a Native American reservation in Wyoming. It is here that unprepared FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) in investigating a strange homicide. Jane’s only guide through this ravaged region — where the devastation is so complete, it feels like an abandoned planet — is hard-bitten local game tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner). Tough, testing going, but yet another storytelling triumph from crack screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water and the TV series Yellowstone).
THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD (MA15+)
YET ANOTHER ONE STARRING RYAN REYNOLDS
**
AMAZON, BINGE, FOXTEL; or RENT
Four years ago, Ryan Reynolds came off his Deadpool triumph with a decided thud after the dud action comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard underwhelmed the masses. That was the one where Reynolds played Michael Bryce, the prissy protector of hard line hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson). Back then Reynolds and Jackson did not click as an adversarial double-act, and nothing has improved now that a hammy, scenery-chewing Salma Hayek has joined the franchise as the oversexed, out-to-lunch Mrs Kincaid. Bryce must keep her and these lairy, sweary spouses alive long enough to save the world from a rich, suave and sinister madman (Antonio Banderas). There is the occasional quality stunt to be seen and killer line to be heard, but the gaps in between are long and telling.
Originally published as Two Oscar-worthy movies to watch this weekend