The documentary everybody is talking about — and what else to watch this weekend
The broadcast of the Adam Goodes doco The Final Quarter has sparked an incredible debate about what constitutes racism in this supposedly enlightened age. Here’s where you can watch it, along with what else to stream this weekend.
Leigh Paatsch
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If the documentary everybody is talking about from Adam Goodes isn’t your thing, there’s a superhero movie that both sends up and stares down all that have come before it, a space movie that stands the test of time or a fast and futuristic thrill-ride film from Steven Spielberg.
Here’s what to watch this weekend.
THE ONE EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT
THE FINAL QUARTER (M)
****1/2
10 PLAY
Thursday night’s broadcast of the Adam Goodes documentary The Final Quarter has sparked an incredible level of debate all over the country about what constitutes racism in this supposedly enlightened age.
The doco definitely provokes a conversation worth having, and if you want to be a part of it but missed the original showing, you still have a month to catch up via Network Ten’s 10 Play platform.
You can view this incendiary and utterly sobering work via the 10 Play streaming app, or the equivalent website.
There is a slight catch, however: viewers can only see The Final Quarter if they register as a 10 Play member. You will either have to come up with an email address and password, or use your Facebook or Google account as a sign-in.
But what’s an extra minute of red tape matter when it means seeing one of the most important pieces of television of 2019?
THE ONE LITERALLY OUT OF THIS WORLD
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (PG)
*****
FOXTEL NOW
More than three decades after its production, this regular on most best-film-of-all-time lists hasn’t dated all that badly.
Although its projections for a future of interplanetary travel and exploration are yet to land in the relevant ballpark (when was the last time we even bothered going to the moon anyway?), 2001’s depiction of man’s uneasy mastery of (and slavery to) technology is more eerily on the money than ever before.
Based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke, and directed by the late, great Stanley Kubrick.
THE ONE THAT’S GAMING IF YOU’RE GAME
READY PLAYER ONE (M)
****
STAN
A fast and furious futuristic thrill ride that is the most a fun a Steven Spielberg-directed movie has been in many years.
Adapted from the 2011 best-selling novel by Ernest Cline, this exciting, entertaining and kinda crazy blockbuster is set inside OASIS, a dazzling Virtual Reality gaming environment where in the future, much of society retreats to seek their fortune.
Ready Player One is a pure action-adventure movie, and Spielberg’s filmmaking instincts wisely push the rich and relentlessly shapeshifting world of OASIS above all else.
Blink-or-you’ll-miss-it pop-culture references keep coming at a rapid-fire rate, many of them drawn from the 1980s.
The sheer scale and wit with which they have been inserted will bring on a total sensory overload. Especially to anyone whose DNA carries any trace of geek, nerd or gamer.
Stars Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn.
THE ONE THAT’S ALWAYS ON THE RUN
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (M)
***1/2
NETFLIX
A cryptic chase movie dotted and dashed with coded sci-fi flourishes that recall Steven Spielberg’s great Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Midnight Special is not an easy work to describe or process.
A small boy has been abducted from a religious cult in the Deep South. The kidnapper is the child’s father.
Just why Roy (Michael Shannon) has made a run for it with his estranged son is one of an ever-increasing collection of mysteries widening throughout this intriguing affair.
Another is why the unusual abilities of the little boy are already known to government authorities.
If writer-director Jeff Nichols (Mud) is being frustratingly selective with the answers, hang in there for the audacious, unworldly finale.
Co-stars Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst.
THE ONE WHERE BEING A SUPERHERO IS NOT SERIOUS BUSINESS
SHAZAM! (M)
***1/2
GOOGLE, ITUNES
A wilfully silly superhero movie that leaves just as much of a lasting mark as its more serious counterparts.
A spry, clever and unpretentious tale revolves around a 14-year-old kid named Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who acquires a weird transformative superpower.
Whenever Billy exclaims ‘Shazam!’, he becomes a 35-year-old superhero who can fly at will, zap things, repel artillery at close range, and much, much more.
The twist here (like the Tom Hanks classic Big) is that it is still the green teenager Billy inside the burly title character (played with just the right notes of knowing naivete by Zachary Levi).
Non-stop fun which at its best both sends up and stares down every stale and stodgy superhero flick you’ve ever had to sit through.
THE ONE WHERE DENZEL GETS MAD, GETS EVEN
THE EQUALIZER 2 (MA15+)
***
FOXTEL NOW
With much whacking, whomping and egregious body harm to dish out here, Denzel Washington (in his first ever sequel) is disarmingly fighting fit for a man of 63 years of age.
In an often brutal, bare-bones action thriller, Washington solemnly reprises the role of deep-cover freelance vigilante Robert ‘Bob’ McCall.
While Old Bob now turns a buck as an indie ride-share driver, he is still open to certain offers should there be a wrong in need of righting.
Once we’re across all that, the movie rather tactlessly, yet moderately effectively, plays the “this time it’s personal” card.
Bob’s close friend and former CIA teammate Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) has been murdered in what appears to be a random hotel room robbery.
Needless to say, a vast conspiracy is afoot, and only Robert McCall can slice, dice and thump his way through to the truth.
Overall, this COULD a bit of grind for anyone bar action hardliners, who will definitely dig the climactic dispensation of rough justice (amid a wild hurricane, of all things).
THE ONE THAT MIGHT BE WORTH THE PEAK
EDIE (M)
**1/2
STAN
Put yourself in the shoes of the title character here for a moment.
You are well into your eighties. The love of your life was not a perfect one, but he is now gone all the same. Your daughter wants you banished to the nearest old folks’ home, effective immediately. So what is your next move?
Well, if you are Edie (played with both great warmth and implacable resolve by Sheila Hancock), you drop everything to pick up a lifelong dream put on hold several decades ago.
So Edie literally heads for the hills, trekking deep into the Scottish Highlands to take on the Suliven, a mountain once scaled by her adventurous father so long ago.
This light drama unfolds in a very simple, undemanding fashion. Perhaps too much so, as it often feels as if there is more to the meaning of Edie’s impromptu odyssey into the unknown than a very patchy screenplay is letting on.
Thankfully, a charismatic Hancock is very much present in the moment to fill in just enough of the blanks in this coming-of-agelessness affair.
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