What to watch, or avoid, on your favourite streaming service

From a basketball doco non-sports fans will actually want to watch, to an action flick that will give you the explosive thrill ride you’re after, let Leigh Paatsch guide you to some gems this weekend.

From a basketball doco non-sports fans will actually want to watch, to an action flick that will give you the explosive thrill ride you’re after, there’s plenty of options on your streaming platform this weekend.

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THE ONE THAT’S SUPER AND HEROIC

BLACK PANTHER (M) ****

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Black Panther doesn’t just hit its marks. It leaves marks. Landmarks. As the first Marvel movie blockbuster to put a superhero of colour at the epicentre of the action - and score an Best Picture Oscar nomination - much fuss has rightly been made of the significant blows that Black Panther strikes so emphatically.

An elite, predominantly female fighting force fend off a destructive wave of threats in the film.

Not just in the interests of racial diversity (the movie’s raucous, yet respectful embrace of black culture and history is a breakthrough Hollywood moment), but also gender equality (the women of Black Panther are no passengers in this fast-moving tale, they propel it just as much as the males).

An involving plot tracks the dramatic rise, fall and resurrection of T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), young ruler of the mysteriously insular and technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda.

In his secret superhero guise of Black Panther, T’Challa leads an elite, predominantly female fighting force to fend off a destructive wave of threats to his homeland’s future. Co-Stars Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis.

THE ONE WITH HOOPS AND HAGGLING

HIGH FLYING BIRD (M) ***

NETFLIX

This intriguing, if erratic drama is sure to be prominent on the feeds of Netflix users who love their sports.

Devotees of American basketball will probably press ‘play’ without a second thought. Hold it right there: High Flying Bird might be a movie about basketball, but you’re not going to see much basketball going on.

Cocky manager and manipulator Ray Burke steps in. Played by Andre Holland, right, with Melvin Gregg. Picture: Peter Andrews/Netflix via AP

This is more a deep-dig into the off-court machinations of the NBA, where players and team owners are always at loggerheads over who gets a bigger cut of the billions on offer for broadcast and endorsement rights.

Director Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike, Ocean’s Eleven) frames the tale around a fictional lockout where an NBA game hasn’t been played in six months.

Emerging stars not yet to cash in on their fame are beginning to panic. Established stars whose spending habits are out of control are also sweating bullets. Enter cocky manager and manipulator Ray Burke (Andre Holland), who just might have the tricks up his sleeve to defuse this explosive standoff. Co-stars Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2).

THE ONE WHERE DENZEL GOES ROGUE

SAFE HOUSE (M) ***

NETFLIX

As we have learned from Training Day and American Gangster, whenever Denzel Washington channels his bad side, it can only be a good thing.

Denzel Washington makes Safe House better than it should be.

The Washington wacko driving this pulpy freight train of a pic is Tobin Frost, a rogue CIA black-ops man who went off the grid in the late 1990s.

Now back in US custody - albeit on South African soil - Frost is dragged all over Cape Town by a rookie agent (Ryan Reynolds) trying to steer clear of local armed mercenaries.

As you would expect, the sociopathic gravitas so effortlessly dispensed by Washington makes a run-of-the-mill shoot-‘em-up like Safe House often seem better than it actually is. Certain to give fans of explosive action the blast they are after.

THE ONE WITH NO FAULT IN ITS STARS

PAPER TOWNS (M) **1/2

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An endearingly unassuming and quietly affecting adaptation of an early novel by wildly popular young-adult author John Green (The Fault in our Stars).

Nat Wolff plays an average suburban teen hopelessly infatuated with the not-so-average girl next door (Cara Delevingne).

A casually conversational affair that features some very well-written dialogue for a film in this genre, Paper Towns floats by on an air of genial melancholy many Green fans won’t mind breathing in at all.

Cara Delevingne stars as Nat Wolff in Paper Towns.

THE ONE WHERE AN ARTIST WON’T BE PAINTED INTO A CORNER

HAVE YOU SEEN THE LISTERS? (M) ***1/2

NETFLIX

A raw, yet carefully constructed documentary portrait of one of this country’s most vital contemporary artists.
Anthony Lister has been referred to in the past as ‘Brisbane’s Banksy,’ due in part to the omnipresence of his work on metropolitan streets, back alleys and railways lines up and down the east coast (you’ve probably seen a Lister original or two in the open air without ever knowing it).

A camera appears to have almost always been present to chronicle Lister’s meteoric flight to fame and the widening distance at which it has put his young family.

This compelling footage is edited to serve both as a retrospective exhibition of the artist’s ever-evolving talent, and also a painful personal diary of losses which may never be regained.

The documentary on Anthony Lister is raw but well constructed.

Though the doco can get achingly personal at times (particularly when it comes to Lister’s fractured relationships with his wife and three children), it remains more of a revelatory experience than a wearing one.

THE ONE THAT’S UP, CLOSE AND PERSONAL

WEEKEND (M) ***1/2

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This beautifully scripted light drama is highly reminiscent of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, a riveting duo of conversational romances starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

The protagonists whose paths will cross for just a day or so are two young British gay men, Glen (Chris New) and Russell (Tom Cullen).

Each is still coming terms with his sexuality in his own way. One-night stands are no longer cutting it. But the prospect of a full, committed relationship is still too daunting.

Writer-director Andrew Haigh (45 Years) films the catchy, bittersweet banter shared by Glen and Russell in a low-key (almost no-key) way, summoning an honesty and intimacy that any filmmaker, straight or gay, would kill to capture on-screen.

THE ONE THAT JUST HASN’T GOT A PRAYER

MARY MAGDALENE (M) **

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While doing a respectable job of defining Mary Magdalene’s motives as she moved through the inner circle of Jesus Christ, it is also a religious drama so dour and dreary that you start wondering if there is a God.

Mary is played with a bare minimum of expression and an unfeasible number of wistful stares into the distance by Rooney Mara.

Not sure what some devout viewers will make of Joaquin Phoenix here, who plays Jesus as a cross between The Dude from The Big Lebowski and a guy who enjoys starting conversations with strangers on public transport. Directed by Garth Davis (Lion).

Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus and Rooney Mara as Mary in the film.