What to watch on Netflix, Stan and Foxtel Now
A WHODUNNIT, a beloved children’s classic and male strippers: there’s something for everyone in this week’s streaming guide. Here’s what to watch (and what to avoid) on Netflix, Stan and Foxtel Now.
Leigh Paatsch
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THIS week’s streaming guide is a broad church, ranging from murder to a beloved children’s classic and male strippers.
Here’s the verdict on the new movies streaming on Netflix, Stan and Foxtel Now.
THE BEST MOVIES (SO FAR) OF 2018
The one that tells a story of a storyteller
GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (PG) ***
FOXTEL NOW
There’s a new movie about to come out called Christopher Robin, starring Ewan McGregor as the adult incarnation of the title character. This one, meanwhile, fills us in on the life of author A.A. Milne, whose vision of Winnie-the-Pooh resulted in one of the most beloved children’s book characters of all time.
As this serious (often bordering on stern) biopic shows us, Milne’s wistful lightness of touch as a writer came from quite a heavy place. Suffering a PSTD after WW1, Milne (played by Domhnall Gleeson) keeps a careful emotional distance from his dissatisfied wife Daphne (Margot Robbie) and their neglected young boy Christopher (nicknamed Billy).
Retreating to the countryside to find some purpose in life, Milne strikes literary gold in the rare combination of imagination and innocence pouring out of his son. Billy becomes the inspiration for Christopher Robin, the cherubic mainstay of the tales that catapult Milne to fame and fortune.
The one so seventies it kind of hurts
SWINGING SAFARI (M) **1/2
FOXTEL NOW
The opening act of this erratic new Australian comedy is nothing short of sensational. Director Stephan Elliott (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) uses a polyester slingshot to catapult his audience deep into mid-1970s Australia, an esoteric era awash with boozy barbecues, barrels of bronzing oil, bilious fashion choices and bad taste.
It is such an incredible feat of period production design that you could almost classify it as time travel. Unfortunately, once the need to tell a tall story about partner-swapping parents and their hilariously unsupervised offspring kicks in, the movie is soon cut down to size. Stars Guy Pearce, Julian McMahon, Radha Mitchell, Kylie Minogue, Asher Keddie.
The one that stays on the tracks throughout
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (M) ***
FOXTEL NOW
Welcome aboard the Orient Express, departing 1934 Istanbul for Calais. Please be aware your journey will be interrupted by a lengthy stop on the side of a mountain. Primarily so that staff can deal with a sudden derailment in the wake of an avalanche.
Oh, and also so that brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) can exactly identify who has recently murdered a fellow passenger. There are plenty of potential perps in this lavish new adaptation of author Agatha Christie’s classic whodunnit, and a starry cast has been assembled to cough up their characters’ respective alibis.
These include a sour old princess (Judi Dench), a sweet young governess (Daisy Ridley), a dubious academic (Willem Dafoe), a dutiful missionary (Penelope Cruz) and a slick-talking conman (Johnny Depp).
It is difficult to mess up such a time-honoured crowd-pleaser, and though this showboating affair almost stuffs up the ending, the movie ticks enough of the right boxes to adequately satisfy the world’s many Poirot purists (and Christie crackpots).
The one that’s always ready for a takeoff
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.
The one where an old detective tries new tricks
MR HOLMES (M) ***1/2
GOOGLE, ITUNES
In this stately adaptation of Mitch Cullin’s 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, Ian McKellen’s Sherlock Holmes is 93 years old. Self-analytical to a fault, Holmes can sense his renowned intellect could be on the wane.
To revive his fading powers of deduction, Sherlock re-examines the case which forced his retirement 30 years prior. While the direction is quite vanilla, McKellen’s fearless, focused performance has the flavour to compensate.
The one with its art in the right place
THE SQUARE (MA15+) ***
STAN
This tangential take-down of the contemporary art scene takes place in Stockholm, where a cunning curator named Christian (played by Claes Bang) wants some heated attention for his oh-so-cool gallery.
What follows is a series of extended, faintly satirical vignettes, hinting the world of modern art is nothing but smoke, mirrors and a smug line in self-indulgent provocation. The movie is rigorously composed in its design, yet clinically baffling in its execution.
You won’t forget it in a hurry, but you may never come to understand it. Arthouse buffs will readily agree last year’s Killing of a Sacred Deer did the same kind of unworldly, unsettling thing a little better.
The one that just doesn’t blossom
TULIP FEVER (MA15+) **
FOXTEL NOW, STAN
This dozy romantic drama has all the makings of a bonkers bodice-ripper that might have been great fun. Set in the heavy-breathing hotbed that was 1630s Amsterdam, there’s sex, money, sex, unhappy marriages, sex, phantom pregnancies, sex, blackmail, and then a little more sex.
As for colourful characters, well, there’s a randy painter (Dane DeHaan), a randy fisherman (Jack O’Connell), a randy housemaid (Holiday Grainger), a randy merchant tycoon (Christoph Waltz) and err, a money-hungry nun (Judi Dench).
Looking impossibly pretty throughout all of the implausibly dirty dealings is Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander, playing the young and unwilling new wife of Waltz.
Originally published as What to watch on Netflix, Stan and Foxtel Now
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