Streaming guide: What to watch this weekend
Aussie motorcycle legend Wayne Gardner cheated death and flouted convention on his way to the top of his sport — and had a blast doing it. A documentary on his wild ride heads this week’s streaming guide.
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Aussie motorcycle racing legend Wayne Gardner cheated death and flouted convention on his way to the top of his sport, and had a blast doing it. A documentary charting his wild ride heads this week’s streaming guide.
There’s also a brutal Joaquin Phoenix thriller which puts to rest any doubt on whether he is the right choice to anchor The Joker later this year.
Meanwhile Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo team up together for fans of romance movies.
TOP END WEDDING BOTTOMS OUT EARLY
JULIANNE MOORE’S BEST WORK SINCE OSCAR
The one you’ll love for revver
WAYNE (M) ***
STAN, GOOGLE, ITUNES
This enjoyable documentary on pioneering Australian motorcycle racing ace Wayne Gardner is not exactly a classic of the form, but remains a fitting tribute to a bloke who rode as fast as he bloody well could, and had a blast while doing so. What the doco does very well is chart the immense distance — both literally and metaphorically — Gardner had to traverse to become the first Australian to win the coveted 500cc World Championship.
A Wollongong boy through and through, Gardner first connected with his need for speed as a teenager, after buying a rundown ride for five bucks at the local wreckers. Inside a decade later, Gardner had slowly ascended through the ranks — cheating death, courting luck and flouting convention along the way — to become top dog in one of the most dangerous competitive sports on the planet. Especially in the mid-1980s, where on-track safety and off-track lifestyle choices were not, ahem, quite as evolved as they are today. Directed by Jeremy Sims (Last Cab to Darwin).
The one causing commotion on the ocean
BIG WEDNESDAY (M) ****1/2
FOXTEL NOW
One of the greatest surfing movies of all-time. If you’ve never seen it, you are in for something special. Writer-director John Milius (who would go on to script the classic Apocalypse Now as his next project) weaves a terrific tale of fading friendship around the exploits of three wave riders — Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent), Jack (William Katt) and Leroy (Gary Busey). This trio’s love of surf, sand and sea begins in the 1960’s, and fights against the tide of twelve event-filled years, an era that includes the Vietnam War, the rise of the drug culture, and the commercialisation of a sport that they live and breathe. So much more than a contrived celebration of the surfing lifestyle, Big Wednesday is an eloquent and poetic ode to the difficulty of holding on to what we learnt during our youth.
The one where talent is a blessing and a curse
GIFTED (M) ***1/2
STAN, GOOGLE, ITUNES
A modest light drama drawing strongly from the casual warmth and careful intelligence Chris Evans (Captain America) finds in the role of Frank, uncle and sole guardian of a seven-year-old girl showing signs of rare mathematical genius. Precocious, yet not obnoxious, Mary (McKenna Grace) becomes caught in a torrid custody battle sparked by the reappearance of her long-lost grandmother (Lindsay Duncan). Frank then complicates matters further by falling in love with Bonnie (Jenny Slate), Mary’s favourite teacher. The differing connections Evans makes with all three of his female co-stars gives the movie an involving quality it could easily have lacked given the familiar ground covered here.
The one that isn’t Joaquin around
YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (R18+) ***
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Meet Joe (Joaquin Phoenix). No, wait. On second thoughts, hope against all hell that you never have a reason to meet Joe. As this punishing psychological thriller begins, it seems as if Joe is always slowly walking away from a murder scene. Are these grisly deaths his own doing? It does look to be that way. Do we have a serial killer on our hands? Thankfully, no. There is one major saving grace here that will continually reward intrepid and adventurous tastes. And that is the stark power exuded by Phoenix at key flashpoints in the movie. Anyone who thinks he is the wrong choice to anchor The Joker later this year will change their minds after this devastating display.
The one that keeps you in the dark
LIGHTS OUT (M) ***
FOXTEL NOW
If you’re in need of some sudden, nerve-shredding jolts, then this short, sharp and not-so-sweet horror movie gets the job done with a merciful minimum of fuss. Not much going on in the need-to-know department here. A suburban house is under the nightly control of an evil spectre that can wreak total and terminal havoc if darkness levels approach pitch-black. In other words, if you’re not within reach of a torch or a candle — or stray too far from the nearest light switch — a one-way ticket to the cemetery awaits. Teresa Palmer, Maria Bello and promising newcomer Gabriel Bateman are among those staggering from one-dimly-lit room to another, looking for any kind of glow that will keep their creepy guest in the shadows. First-time director David F. Sandberg, overuses the same clanking-metallic-boom sound of many of his shock reveals, which are effective enough not to need the cheap sonic short-cuts to the audience’s collective ‘unhappy place’.
The one that’s a sweet sound investment
BEGIN AGAIN (M) ***
NETFLIX
There two morals to the story here. Never sell out. Never give in. Got that? Good. Keira Knightley plays Gretta, a talented and unknown British singer-songwriter stranded in the US after her boyfriend dumps her. A troubled talent scout (Mark Ruffalo) steps in to save the day, and soon Gretta is recording tracks for her debut album all over New York City. Begin Again is the work of Irish filmmaker John Carney, whose gentle, grassroots style of meshing music and romance was firmly established with the surprise 2007 hit Once. While lightning doesn’t quite strike twice here — cynical types won’t be enamoured of Carney’s love of the sincerely soppy — this remains a pleasant effort throughout.
The one that feels too much like homework
THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY (PG) **
SBS ON DEMAND
The numbers just don’t add up for a dreary drama based on the true story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a self-educated accounts clerk who ventured all the way from India to England over a century ago to change the face of mathematics forever. Under the protective wing of famed Cambridge scholar G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), Ramanujan (Dev Patel) moves past intense racial prejudice to achieve several lasting breakthroughs in just a few short years. Unlike A Beautiful Mind or The Imitation Game — two movies that powerfully convey the lonely, mind-twisting demands of a genius intellect — this politely cliched whitewashing of events equates to a multitude of facts minus any feeling.