Streaming guide: What to watch this weekend
Winner of Best Picture at this year’s Oscars, Parasite should be top of your list to stream this weekend, along with an F1-inspired flick starring a Hemsworth and an HBO-produced biopic starring Peter Dinklage.
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THE ONE WITH DE PLANES! DE PLANES!
MY DINNER WITH HERVE (M)
****
FOXTEL, BINGE
This fine HBO-produced biopic of the late Herve Villechaize has been a passion project for Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage for several years. He has certainly left nothing on the table in terms of throwing his full range of talents at portraying the mercurial Villechaize, best remembered here in Australia for his years fronting the cheesy TV series Fantasy Island. Life was anything but cheesy away from the cameras for French-born Villechaize, whose diminutive height of 1.2 metres (or 3 foot 11 inches for you old-timers out there) was more a curse than a blessing in a world that treated “little people” as a big joke. The movie is framed around the last press interview Villechaize gave before his tragic death at age 50 in 1993. Jamie Dornan (the male lead of the Fifty Shades flicks) plays the writer who hears out the angst-ridden, excess-prone Villechaize over the space of one colourful, action-packed week in Los Angeles.
THE ONE IN A SCARY MOOD
THE LODGE (MA15+)
***1/2
RENT VIA GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES
An expertly constructed horror film, more interested in the elliptical manipulation of moods than straight shocks to the senses. Anyone knocked for a loop by the 2018 angst-fest Hereditary will be most taken by the quietly menacing momentum building from scene to scene here. (Hereditary fans will also notice a few scripting and visual similarities, which cannot be classified as merely coincidental.) The story centres on a family unit recently reconfigured by a sudden death. As a result, youngsters Aidan and Mia have a new stepmother, Grace (Riley Keough), they cannot abide, and a father that cannot be reached. ***1/2
THE ONE WITH MUSIC AND MEANING
HEARTS BEAT LOUD (PG)
***1/2
SBS ON DEMAND
A modest, yet exquisitely realised story is beautifully told here, via a casually authentic script, two faultless lead performances, and lots of quality music. 50 years old and with a dud vinyl record store emptying his pockets, Frank (Nick Offerman, aka Ron Swanson from TV’s Parks and Recreation) is the one who needs to start acting his age. 18 years old and about to start medical school, Sam (Kiersey Clemons) may have to face letting go of her promising musical talent if she is to become a doctor. A delightful, endearing and unpretentious slice of life, carved out with real feeling and shrewd good taste. Co-stars Toni Collette, Ted Danson.
THE ONE WHERE THE HERO IS TREATED LIKE A ZERO
RICHARD JEWELL (M)
***
RENT VIA FOXTEL STORE, GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES
During the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, security guard Richard Jewell went from celebrated hero to prime suspect after discovering a hidden bomb in a busy public space. The media feeding frenzy that followed is clearly what has drawn a high-profile filmmaker like Clint Eastwood to revisit this chilling, cautionary tale. However, it is actor Paul Walter Hauser’s natural, understated portrayal of Jewell that humanises and elevates this feisty production. Long an actor’s director, Eastwood also draws great support work from Sam Rockwell (as Jewell’s crusading lawyer) and Kathy Bates (his heartbroken mother).
THE ONE THAT KEEPS UPPING THE PACE
RUSH (M)
***
BINGE, FOXTEL
An enjoyable and exciting time capsule of old-school Formula One motor racing, with the main focus on the 1976 Drivers Championship. Two daredevils cleared out from the pack and duelled for the ultimate honours. Their rivalry? Beyond intense. Their individual personalities? Beyond opposite. British maverick James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) drives fast, and lives even faster. Austrian ace Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) plays the percentages, and lives only to drive. Though Lauda almost dies in a fiery wreck at the German Grand Prix, it all comes down to the final event of the season. As directed by Ron Howard from a workmanlike script by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), Rush goes about its business like Hunt and Lauda themselves: briskly and bluntly. Great racing sequences throughout, too.
THE ONE THAT LEECHES ON TO YOU
PARASITE (MA15+)
****
STAN; OR RENT VIA FOXTEL STORE, GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES
Recent winner of the Best Picture Oscar. Just who is leeching 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 CEO, 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.
THE ONE WITH A REAL STORY TO TELL
BUOYANCY (M)
***1/2
SBS ON DEMAND
A compelling, harrowing and stridently informative drama about a plague of modern slavery infesting the poorer regions of Southeast Asia. An all too typical story is sympathetically framed around Chakra (newcomer Sarm Heng), a 14-year-old Cambodian farm worker who thinks he’s set for a better life when he ventures to neighbouring Thailand on the promise of a well-paid job in a factory. Instead, Chakra and many others who have fallen for the same ruse soon find themselves held captive on a fishing boat on the open seas. All aboard the cramped vessel lead a horrifying existence, forced to toil day and night reeling in haul after haul. While the film does have some pacing and coherency problems, what immediately hits home – and then stays with the viewer for some time afterwards – is just how commonplace such deception and abuse remains in this supposedly enlightened age. (As you read this, an estimated 200,000 migrant workers are being held as virtual slaves within the $7 billion Thai fishing industry.)
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Originally published as Streaming guide: What to watch this weekend