Watch to watch on Binge, Netflix, Google, Stan this weekend
With the sad passing of actor Chadwick Boseman this week there is almost no better way to pay tribute to his shining career by indulging in some of his lesser known, albeit incredible films. Here’s what else you should be streaming this weekend in lockdown.
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THE ONE TO REMEMBER A FINE ACTOR BY …
MARSHALL (M)
***1/2
NETFLIX, SBS ON DEMAND
With the sad passing this week of actor Chadwick Boseman, most of the (rightly glowing) obituaries have focused on his starring role in the game-changing Marvel action epic Black Panther. However, across a very short, yet extraordinarily consistent and strong career, Boseman’s favourite work remained his stirring performance in the unjustly overlooked courtroom drama Marshall. Anyone looking to pay tribute to a singular talent gone way too soon should make tracks for this gem. You will not be disappointed in any way. Boseman plays future US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the early throes of a celebrated legal career. The year is 1941, and Marshall has been given a near-impossible case to defend. Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown) is a black chauffeur who stands accused of raping his white employer, Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson). Spell is not the most trustworthy defendant, but that turns out to be just one of many obstacles placed in Marshall’s path towards a right and just outcome.
THE ONE WHERE CRIME DOES PAY
21 BRIDGES (MA15+)
***
stream via AMAZON; rent via GOOGLE, ITUNES, YOUTUBE MOVIES
A bit more Chadwick Boseman for your watch list. In a solid pulp crime thriller set across a single night on the streets of New York City, Boseman plays Andre Davis, a complicated NYPD Detective with an unfair rep for being a bit too trigger-happy on the job. Almost as soon as Davis is advised to stop with the pumping of lead into crooks, two mysterious gunmen start wasting cops left, right and centre. Our hard-pressed hero is given a single night to hunt down the perps and halt the carnage, courtesy of an unprecedented sealing off of the whole of Manhattan by city authorities. Co-stars J.K. Simmons, Sienna Miller.
THE ONE WITH A BIG HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE
DUMPLIN’ (M)
***
NETFLIX
Anyone who thought Australian actress Danielle Macdonald might turn out to be a one-film wonder after making a sensational breakthrough in the US with last year’s excellent Patti Cake$ had better think again. Macdonald is going to be in it for the long haul, and the proof is there for all to see with yet another inspired performance in Dumplin’. The movie itself? Not so inspired. But it doesn’t really matter. As a feel-good comedy-drama, its heart is always in the right place. Macdonald plays Willowdean, the overweight teenage daughter of Rosie (Jennifer Aniston), a towering figure on the local beauty pageant scene. Tensions between mother and child have always been in play, but intensify when Rosie enters a coming pageant to honour the memory of a beloved aunt. It’s corny stuff in some ways, but also emotionally astute in others, particularly when it comes to getting inside the heads of teens who see themselves as outsiders. A winning soundtrack is compromised of choice cuts by the great Dolly Parton.
THE ONE THAT KEEPS PRESSING PAWS
THE CALL OF THE WILD (PG)
***
Rent via FOXTEL STORE, GOOGLE, APPLE TV, YOUTUBE
Yet another family-friendly dog movie that intends to play go-fetch with your emotions. At least this one has a reputable pedigree, being a refreshingly faithful adaptation of Jack London’s timeless Alaskan adventure novel The Call of the Wild. Our four-pawed hero who will follow his fate all the way from the sunny climes of California to the snow-white frontiers of the Yukon goes by the name of Buck. This clever, clumsy and lovingly loyal St Bernard and Scotch Shepherd mix is destined to become the best of friends with a grouchy, but kind old prospector (played by a grouchy, but kind old Harrison Ford). But not before Buck is dognapped by poachers, appointed head of a sled team running along a dangerous mail route, becomes mortal enemies with a gold-obsessed psycho, and falls in love with the best-lookin’ she-wolf this side of the North Pole. While this stuff can get mighty sappy when it wants – the computer effects boosting Buck’s performance can look a little strange – there is no denying how much fun it can be without trying all that hard.
THE ONE WHERE FAME CAN MEAN MISFORTUNE
SHOWBIZ KIDS (M)
****
FOXTEL; coming soon to BINGE.
“Every year, over 20,000 child actors audition for roles in Hollywood. 95% of them don’t book a single job.” It was with this sobering stat that this compelling HBO-produced doco begins, and it soon becomes clear this rigorously researched production is a cut above other titles that have investigated the pitfalls of preadult stardom. Director Alex Winter was a child actor himself, and his insider’s grasp of this still-misunderstood topic draws some raw and telling contributions from the doco’s many interviewees. Among those with the most illuminating and cautionary experiences to share are Henry Thomas (best known as Elliott in E.T.), Mara Wilson (Mrs. Doubtfire and Matilda), Milla Jovovich (a model and actress from age 11), Wil Wheaton (Stand By Me) and the late Disney teen star Cameron Boyce (who tragically dies from an epilepsy attack shortly after filming his very eloquent contributions here. Recommended viewing for both parents of kids with showbiz ambitions, and the kids themselves.
THE ONE THAT AIN’T QUITE SCOT THE LOT
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS (MA15+)
**1/2
NETFLIX, FOXTEL
A visually dazzling, but thematically drab take on the fateful rivalry between two major monarchs in the late 16th century. If the pairing of the great Irish star Saoirse Ronanand our own Margot Robbie was not the key part of the creative equation here, the end result would have much, much worse. Proceedings commence in 1587, where young Scottish queen Mary Stuart (Ronan) is about to literally put her head on the chopping block on the day of her execution. Weirdly, and tellingly, the care factor provoked from the viewer at this worrying sight is decidedly low. Things don’t improve when the clock is inevitably wound back to work out how the idealistic and upbeat Mary and her pragmatic and downbeat cousin, Queen Elizabeth the First of England (Robbie) fell out so tragically. To cut a long story short – and it is long – all you need to know is that the pair’s all-male coteries of advisers considered each ruler a subversive threat to the other.
THE ONE THAT’S A CHIMP OFF THE OLD BLOCK
JANE (PG)
****
NETFLIX, SBS ON DEMAND
Pioneering primatologist Jane Goodall has been the subject of several documentaries throughout her long, prominent and unique career. However, this recent one from National Geographic’s prestige production unit is clearly the best to date. Accomplished director Brett Morgen (Cobain: Montage of Heck) focuses largely on the remarkable first phase of Goodall’s odyssey as an explorer of both our own species and our closest known relatives in the animal kingdom. Via a stack of evocative footage screened for the first time, we meet Goodall in her late 20s, embarking on an ambitious research project in the wilds of Tanzania. Despite having no scientific background to speak of, Goodall was determined to earn the trust of a community of chimpanzees and chronicle their daily lives as intuitive social beings. Her interactions with the chimps evolve in sophistication and even emotion over time, and there are moments captured here that border on the truly miraculous. Includes a wonderful music score by composer Philip Glass.