What to stream this week: On The Record, I Hate Suzie, I Am Woman, Escape to the Chateau and more
After lobbying by celebrities, Oprah Winfrey distanced herself from a movie she was producing. Now you can judge for yourself if it was the right call.
From pure escapism to something more challenging, we’ve got you covered if you’re looking for some prime viewing at home this week.
SOMETHING UNNERVING
On the Record: Made by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, the documentary filmmakers behind The Hunting Ground and The Invisible War), On The Record premiered at Sundance at the beginning of this year and currently has a 100 per cent Rotten Tomatoes score. It’s a MeToo film that examines the power structures of sexual harassment, centred on the allegations made by music executive Drew Dixon against Def Jam founder Russell Simmons.
But perhaps it’s better known as the movie executive producer Oprah pulled her support from at the last minute, after she was lobbied by Simmons and 50 Cent. You can judge for yourself whether she made the correct call. Watch it: SBS On Demand (and broadcast on NITV) from Sunday, August 30 at 8.30pm
Memento: Remember the first time Christopher Nolan made you question everything you were watching for the past two hours? Maybe you rushed to a preview screening of Tenet, or maybe you’re in Victoria and you can’t – either way, relive (in more ways than one) the backwards logic of Memento, the story of amnesiac Leonard and his quest to find the man who killed his wife. Watch it: Amazon Prime Video
SOMETHING NEW
I Hate Suzie: Reuniting Billie Piper with her Diary of a Call Girl writer Lucy Prebble, I Hate Suzie is the first series to debut from Stan’s just announced content agreement with NBC Universal. Piper plays Suzie, a fading star who’s thrust back into the spotlight when her phone is hacked and a compromising photo is leaked. The episodes are structured around her experiences as framed through the stages of grief – bargaining, denial etc. Watch it: Stan, from Friday, August 28
Salisbury Poisonings: The 2018 Skripal Affair had the world enthralled with its espionage story of Russian double agents being poisoned by biochemical weapons on British soil. The international press descended on sleepy Salisbury, looking for spies and trench coat-shaped shadows. But the story that wasn’t told, until now in this dramatised miniseries, is that of the local heroes who fought to contain the threat and save lives. Watch it: SBS On Demand
SOMETHING HEARTWARMING
Escape to the Chateau: To buy a dilapidated 45-room chateau in the French countryside, you’d either have to be mad or wildly ambitious, or a bit of both. This cosy British lifestyle series follows engineer Dick Strawbridge and partner Angel and their two very small children as they seek to transform an abandoned dump into a fairytale castle. It’s one of those shows that hits the same relaxed spot as a cup of tea – you can just feel your anxieties melt away. Watch it: 9Now (6 seasons)/Foxtel Now (4 seasons)/Binge (2 seasons)
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The One and Only Ivan: You know how it goes. Anytime there’s a movie with anthropomorphised animals, you’re going to end up bawling. So a movie with loads of anthropomorphised animals – and voiced by Sam Rockwell, Angelina Jolie and Helen Mirren – learning to find their freedom and themselves? You have no chance of keeping it dignified. Watch it: Disney+
SOMETHING HAUNTED
Lovecraft Country: After all the ugliness we’ve witnessed in just 2020 (let alone millennia of human history), it’s not hard to believe that humans are more heinous than slimy monsters that chomp your head off. Set in the 1950s, Lovecraft Country uses the cosmic horror motifs of H.P. Lovecraft (genre god but white supremacist) to tell a story about Jim Crow segregation racism in the US. But it’s hardly a quaint period piece with frightening contemporary parallels. One of the most impressive shows we’ve had this year. Watch it: Binge/Foxtel Now
Hungry Ghosts: Like genes and DNA, trauma is passed down through generations, an uneasy spectral force that you can’t quite shake off. This four-part Australian drama is set in the Vietnamese-Australian community in Melbourne, using the genre tropes of a supernatural haunting to work through the historical ordeals four families have tried to repress. Think of it as extreme therapy. Watch it: SBS On Demand
SOMETHING MUSICAL
I Am Woman: Helen Reddy was something of a musical superstar in the 1970s, off the back of her feminist pop-folk anthem I Am Woman, going on to top the US charts several times and even had her own TV show. But what many people may not know is that only a few years earlier, Reddy arrived in the US from Australia with a toddler and barely enough money to pay the rent in her hovel apartment. Directed by Unjoo Moon, this biopic stars Adelaide actor Tilda Cobham-Hervey. Watch it: Stan, from Friday, August 28
Love & Mercy: While we’re in musical biopic territory, check out the 2014 drama made about The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, played by Paul Dano and John Cusack at different stages of the singer-songwriter’s life. It’s an emotional and sometimes hallucinatory ride with a man whose life and talent was marked by anxiety, drugs and other mental health struggles. The performances are great and The Beach Boys’ songs are effectively woven through to really highlight the legacy of a great musician. Watch it: Foxtel Now/Stan
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