Alone Australia: addictive survival show gets the Down Under treatment
Ten Australians will be dropped in the Tasmanian wilderness, battling it out for a $250,000 cash prize.
Alone Australia
SBS, 7.30pm Wednesday March 29
For the first time ever, this criminally-addictive wilderness survival show will get the Down Under treatment. In the local version, 10 contestants will be dropped off at a remote Tasmanian location with 10 survival items of their choosing. They will have no connection to the outer world, and no knowledge of how the other survivalists are faring. Whoever lasts the longest takes home $250,000. This is a different beast to other shows in the genre because there are no camera crews. The participants film themselves and often, things get hairy. For selfish reasons, let’s hope the show is a roaring success so that zoomers (aka Gen Z) desperate to get into the housing market will have a shot at competing in season two. Some of these contestants whip up shelters that put our grody old rentals to shame. Alone Australia will premiere on free-to-air television and you can also catch up on previous seasons on Binge and Netflix.
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Netflix
Mexican horror maestro Guillermo del Toro offers his take on Alfred Hitchcock Presents with Cabinet of Curiosities, a Netflix anthology series in which he has tapped nine different directors to turn around gruesome and grisly tales. There are a few HP Lovecraft stories, an adaptation of a Michael Shea short starring F. Murray Abraham, and two original yarns penned by del Toro himself. Adelaide’s Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) directs the final episode “The Murmuring” about a grieving birdwatcher couple. Australian actor Essie Davies runs circles around her co-star Andrew Lincoln. It’s the least violent, and most meditative episode. But the best of the lot is by Iranian-American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour, known for her Iran-set vampire movie A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (which is astonishing if you can find it). She directs “The Outside” a startling self-improvement parable about an insecure woman (Kate Micucci) who is attempting to physically reinvent herself.
United States of Tara
Stan
As legend has it, United States of Tara was Steven Spielberg’s idea, who palmed it off to Juno writer and patron saint of dysfunctional families, Diablo Cody. It’s a flawed, seriously fun, and slyly emotional series that stars Toni Collette as Tara, a suburban Kansas artist and housewife with Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder). Tara has three “alters”: there’s “T” a lippy, gum-smacking, 15-year-old in a perpetually exposed thong; “Buck”, a beer-belching, homophobic horndog, who claims his whatsit was shot off in Vietnam; and Alice, a prim and proper 1950s trad wife. Despite her alters threatening to blow up her life at every turn her long-suffering husband (John Corbett, who played Carrie’s boyfriend Aidan in Sex In The City) and teenage children (Keir Gilchrist and Brie Larson) have endless patience for Tara, and accept her for who she is. If you’re in the market for a nuanced, masterful depiction of mental health, this isn’t it. If you want something wacky, or you just want to watch Toni Collette play dress-ups for three seasons, look no further.
Ted Lasso
AppleTV+
Ted Lasso is created by Jason Sudeikis, who also plays Ted, an idealistic small-time American college football coach who, despite knowing absolutely nothing about soccer, is shipped over to London to lead the fictional English Premier League team AFC Richmond. He has been enlisted by the club’s new owner (Hannah Waddingham), who won the club in a divorce settlement with her cheating husband and intends to drive it into the ground. This show shouldn’t work – the characters are little more than a collection of stereotypes, the storytelling is formulaic, and the jokes are corny — yet it’s a delight. If you enjoyed Hugh Grant’s droll red carpet interview with Ashley Graham at The Oscars, then you will appreciate Ted’s unrelenting optimism and American earnestness rubbing up against a bunch of sulky Brits. Those who yearn for the glory days of the 1998/1999 Manchester United squad are sure to love Brett Goldstein’s character, Roy Kent, who is absolutely based on the scrappy Irish midfielder Roy Keane.
Holy Motors
Stan
Holy Motors has it all: Denis Lavant acting like a freaky, feral, finger-devouring goblin; a melancholy Kylie Minogue with a Jean Seberg crop, speaking perfect French; talking cars; a random accordion interlude, and chimpanzees. Leos Carax’s film defies easy characterisation. It’s a cryptic shape-shifting puzzle that follows 24 hours in the life of a mysterious man named Monsieur Oscar (Lavant, no one does it better), who rides around in a chauffeur-driven limousine that doubles as a changing room, to different appointments — each which require him to adopt a new life and identity. He’s a wealthy businessman; a hunched over, babushka-like beggar; a motion capture actor; an assassin; a stern, down-and-out father; among others. Is he an actor? Is he someone who is paid to kill? Nothing is clear, and nothing will be revealed, but it’s a hell of a ride.