Streaming guide: What to watch this weekend
You’ll take the Jimmy Barnes you thought you knew and throw him out the window after you watch this powerful documentary about the Aussie rocker’s hard-fought childhood. Here’s what else to stream this weekend.
Weekly Guide
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THE ONE WHERE BARNESY BREAKS YOUR HEART
WORKING CLASS BOY (M)
****1/2
GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES
Moving, confronting and yet, a distinct pleasure to watch, this fine Australian-made documentary examines two disarmingly vivid subjects for the price of one.
The first is the Jimmy Barnes you thought you knew. It may pay to take one last look at him, for he won’t be passing this way again.
The second is the real Jimmy Barnes, someone that the man himself has only recently gotten to know, and is still coming to terms with.
If you fell under the spell of the legendary singer’s award-winning debut book (a raw memoir of dual hardscrabble upbringings in inner-city Glasgow and outer-suburban Adelaide), then you will be relieved to learn the same stormy lightning has been captured in a bottle here. Those with no inkling of what Barnes went through as a child will be riveted as they wonder how he ever made it to adulthood in one piece.
While a collection of flat-ish live music interludes disrupt what is quite a powerful flow at times, Barnes and his healthily honest take on a troubled past will take you to a better place and leave you there.
THE ONE THAT THINKS BIG WHILE STAYING SMALL
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (PG)
***1/2
DISNEY PLUS
A far more cohesive, exciting and entertaining commodity than its predecessor. The story picks up with Ant-Man’s alter ego Scott Lang (another winning effort from the underrated Paul Rudd) under house arrest for misdemeanours committed during Captain America: Civil War.
However, just days short of freedom, our hero is busted loose to help inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) rescue long-lost wife and mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) from the dreaded Quantum Realm.
Plenty of awesomely designed set-piece action sequences – where the mayhem of sudden shrinking and supersizing is taken to surreal new heights – are casually blended into jokes and japes delivered with infectious, freewheeling flair.
THE ONE WHERE THE BEATLES ARE NOT A HIT
YESTERDAY (M)
**1/2
FOXTEL, AMAZON
Here we have the decorated duo of director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and screenwriter Richard Curtis (Love Actually) welding an audacious ‘what if …?’ premise to an anodyne rom-com framework.
Whether the structure stays upright will come down to the eye (and ear) of the beholder. Here’s your ‘what if …?’, then. What if some wide time-warping phenomenon wiped all memory of The Beatles and their music from history, and only one person on the planet could remember their songs?
The lucky intermediary is failed singer-songwriter Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), who rides a rocket to mega-stardom after passing off The Fab Four’s compositional goldmine as his own. The music biz aspect of the movie is carried off fairly well – Ed Sheeran playing himself is a key character throughout – and Patel’s performance smarts are above average.
However, with equal weighting given to whether Jack and his true love (Lily James) will make it out of ‘the friend zone’, the only possible result is a flat pass mark.
THE ONE COMING TO THE RESCUE REPEATEDLY
HACKSAW RIDGE (M)
****
GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES
A harrowing and highly impacting war drama directed by Mel Gibson. The central focus is on the 1945 Battle of Okinawa at the close of WWII, where US army medic Desmond Doss (played by Andrew Garfield) famously survived a punishing two-day period at the height of fighting without once picking up a weapon to defend himself.
Instead, this devoutly religious conscientious objector single-handedly carried 75 wounded men from his company to safety, miraculously avoiding unrelenting attacks from the enemy.
THE ONE WHERE BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO
MAGGIE’S PLAN (M)
***1/2
SBS ON DEMAND
An American rom-com blessed with sincere charm and subtle sophistication, factors which have been in short supply in Hollywood for a long time.
Greta Gerwig (writer and director of the recent hit Little Women) is Maggie, a cosmopolitan college administrator who can good-naturedly scheme her way out of most tricky situations. So when she falls for a married man (Ethan Hawke) and later wants out, Maggie figures it would be a good idea to return her lover to his wife (Julianne Moore).
This isn’t the only plan Maggie will be enacting during this vibrantly talky, oh-so-New-York-y affair (she’s also exploring ways to have a baby, sans a father) and there is real pleasure to be drawn from the way the movie conveys what is going on inside her unconventional mind.
THE ONE WHERE TRADITIONAL APPEARANCES WILL DECEIVE
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP (PG)
****
STAN
With Jane Austen’s Emma currently doing well in Australian cinemas, why not try one of her lesser-known works? This one happens to be one of the finest Austen movie adaptations on record.
It is the turn of the 19th century, and the self-styled “most accomplished flirt in all of England” is looking for a new man to tease, seduce and, if so decreed by her bank balance, marry.
To the youngish widow Lady Susan Vernon (a magnificent Kate Beckinsale), a man with money, a title, or both, is something to be manipulated for extended periods of shelter. Or brief moments of pleasure.
A busily-plotted affair which picks up characters and puts them down (and oh, how caustically does Lady Susan put them down) at a remarkably cracking pace for a period-era farce. Co-stars Xavier Samuel.
THE ONE TAKEN BY A MAN OF STEAL
ROBIN HOOD (M)
**1/2
NETFLIX, FOXTEL
This umpteenth run-through of the ancient Robin Hood legend (spoiler alert: he robs from the rich, and gives to the poor) gets a reckless remixing for modern audiences.
Now a subversive man of the people, Robin (Taron Egerton of Rocketman fame) plots his revenge against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn having a grand old hammy time) while winning back his ex-girlfriend Maid Marian (Eve Hewson) from the clutches of her new boyfriend (Jamie ‘Fifty Shades’ Dornan).
The action sequences have a wacky intensity that might win you over sometimes, but a scrappy, pappy story will lose you over and over again.
Co-stars Jamie Foxx.
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