What to stream this weekend
A gripping documentary about one of the most blatant cases of corporate fraud to ever make dodgy billions disappear is your weekend must-watch. Here’s what else to stream this weekend.
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THE ONE WHERE THE CASH-IN IS KING
THE INVENTOR: OUT FOR BLOOD IN SILICON VALLEY (M)
****1/2
BINGE, FOXTEL
Gripping documentary about one of the most blatant cases of corporate fraud to ever make billions disappear in dodgy circumstances. And it all happened just recently, in plain view of the whole world. Charismatic young entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes took some big names for a ride with her feel-good pitch for a machine that could test for a multitude of diseases in a mere fraction of the time usually taken by conventional medicine. There was just one problem: the technology she was talking up was a dodgy blood-testing box that contravened the laws of good science and standard hygiene. Oh, and it didn’t work whatsoever. The beauty of this expertly researched and mounted doco (produced by HBO) is that there is a stack of footage of Holmes in full flight, telling untruths left, right and centre. Holmes couldn’t resist a publicity opportunity of any size. For a while there, a gullible media had her marked down as “the next Steve Jobs”. As you watch her do her thing, you wonder why nobody bothered to ask her if her crazy claims were actually for real.
THE ONE WHERE TELLING THE TRUTH IS NOT A GOOD THING
OFFICIAL SECRETS (M)
***1/2
RENT VIA FOXTEL STORE, GOOGLE PLAY, YOUTUBE MOVIES
Movies about those fearless enough to speak against the wishes of the powers-that-be inevitably zero in on the same personal quandary. How do you successfully blow the whistle without spectacularly blowing up your own world in the process? British filmmakers execute this fare better than most, and so it proves yet again with this conscientious take on the true story of Katherine Gun (Keira Knightley). This low-level intelligence analyst rattled her higher-ups in 2003 by leaking documents showing Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Cabinet were dodgily accelerating moves to go to war with Iraq. Co-stars Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode.
THE ONE WHERE EVERLASTING LIFE CAN BE AN EVERLASTING PROBLEM
THE OLD GUARD (MA15+)
***
NETFLIX
Big-budget, low-calorie action has long been a house specialty for Netflix’s original productions division. This new Charlize Theron butt-kicker will definitely appease those who thought highly of the platform’s recent hit Extraction with Chris Hemsworth. Theron plays Andy, the leader of a band of immortal warriors whose one job is save the world from its self-destructive tendencies. Andy is tired of centuries of dying and resurrecting repeatedly, and seems to want out just as her posse is admitting their first new member (Kiki Layne) in many generations. Plotting can get pedestrian here – the stakes feel a little low for a tale encompassing political hotspots like Afghanistan and South Sudan – but well-designed fight sequences never drop their guard for a moment. Based on the cult graphic novel series by Greg Rucka.
THE ONE WITH AN OLD COP AND NEW ROBBERS
HELL OR HIGH WATER (MA15+)
****1/2
SBS ON DEMAND
If you have never seen this recent classic (one of the best movies of 2016), then get across to SBS On Demand and witness its brilliance for free ASAP. On first appearances, Hell or High Water appears to be working with basic storytelling elements too tried and tested to carry our full attention for long. The setting is the far west of Texas, a dustbowl of dashed hopes and dirty back roads. The featured characters are two brothers (Ben Foster and Chris Pine) starting a career in armed robbery, and a veteran cop (a majestic Jeff Bridges) weeks away from retirement. And yet, in just minutes, a dynamic, transfixing spell is cast here that will not be broken. All by merely clearing a corner of the world that is not just there to be looked at, but lived in. Once lured there, you will regret ever having to leave. The relaxed redneck spirit of rural Texas so famously captured by No Country for Old Men is at work in a decidedly different and totally engrossing way here. Highly recommended.
THE ONE THAT’S A FIVE-STAR TREASURE
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (G)
*****
BINGE, FOXTEL
This regular on most best-film-of-all-time lists hasn’t dated at all. Although its projections for a future of interplanetary travel and exploration are yet to land in the relevant ballpark (geez, when was the last time we even bothered going to the moon?), 2001’s depiction of man’s uneasy relationship with technology is more eerily on the money than ever before. Director Stanley Kubrick’s amazing marriage of music and images – seen at its absolute best in the space ballet of the capsule docking to the strains of Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz – points to what we can achieve as a species when we put our minds to it. Conversely, one of the most indecipherable endings ever committed to celluloid reminds us there are some things we will never comprehend, no matter how hard we try.
THE ONE THAT’S A FIVE-STAR HIDDEN GEM
THE BOYS (MA15+)
*****
ABC iVIEW
Wow. This just might be the best Australian movie you have never seen. It definitely houses one of the greatest performances by an Australian I have seen. Drawing on select elements of Sydney’s notorious Anita Cobby murder case of the mid-1980s, The Boys trails petty crim Brett Sprague (David Wenham) through the 24 hours following his release from jail. Reunited once more with his family – brothers Stevie (Anthony Hayes) and Glenn (John Polson), and mother Sandra (Lynette Curran) – it soon becomes clear that Brett is a very unpleasant piece of work. Littered amongst the low-rent events of Brett’s first day out are sudden flashes forward into the future. It is here we learn that Brett’s potential for pure evil will be horrifically realised by the end of the film. A stunning piece of work that took the temperature of a chilling criminal psyche over a decade before Animal Kingdom and Snowtown did so to great acclaim.
THE ONE THAT’S ALWAYS READY FOR A TAKE-OFF
MAGIC MIKE XXL (MA15+) ***
NETFLIX
If it’s only he-things in G-strings that you’re after in the hunked-up sequel Magic Mike XXL, you’re going to have to wait until well into the closing act to unwrap all that guy candy. This laid-back road movie rounds up most of the old Magic Mike gang for one last gripping and groping group-disrobing. So lucky that leading man Channing Tatum has the looks, the moves and the casual acting smarts needed to repeatedly save the day.
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Originally published as What to stream this weekend