Gossip Girl finally bares its fangs

From season 2 of Gossip Girl, to a long-dormant Lucasfilm reboot, here's what we're watching this weekend. Xoxo.

From season 2 of Gossip Girl, to a long-dormant Lucasfilm reboot, here's what we're watching this weekend. Xoxo.

Willow

Between HBO’s House of the Dragon and Prime’s Rings of Power, it’s been a stonking year for television fantasy franchises. Now Disney+ has joined the ranks, waking Willow from its three-decade slumber. Remember Willow? That late 80s’ sword and sorcery romp starring Warwick Davis in the titular role as a humble farmer and aspiring sorcerer, who finds and vows to protect a magical baby with the help of an excruciatingly handsome Val Kilmer. That home-from-school-sick-day classic has returned as an eight-part series, set years after the original film took place. We’re back in Tir Asleen and, after a period of peace, wickedness is nigh. So Willow, the magical infant, now grown up, and a troupe of newcomers set out on a daredevil quest to save the kingdom. Is it any good? Hm. It looks horrendous, the modern vernacular is jolting, and the lore is both too boring and elaborate to bother understanding. But is it enjoyable? Immensely. 

Watch Willow on Disney +

Dead Ringers

I hope whoever programs the World Movies channel is doing okay. There’s a screening of David Cronenberg’s psychological horror Dead Ringers at 10:35 am on Sunday. Whilst this isn’t the obvious choice for tea and toast entertainment —what with all the blood, mutilation, and sexual depravity — it’s not one to miss. It stars Jeremy Irons in a dual role as Beverly and Elliot Mantle, two gifted twins who grow up to be leading gynecologists. Beverly and Elliot are so indistinguishable that they often pretend to be each other, trading lives and women. Things take a hellish descent when Beverly, the weaker of the two, begins a drug-fuelled love affair with one of the women they share, a famous actress (Genevieve Bujold). 

Watch Dead Ringers on WM Movies, Sunday 10:35 am.

Boiling Point

Stephen Graham (This is England, Time) is one of the best small screen actors to ever do it. In Philip Barantini’s Boiling Point he plays Andy, a chef that’s barely hanging on. Set in an upmarket London restaurant and shot in a single take, the film tracks one night of service on an overbooked Friday before Christmas. Kitchen tensions are high before the restaurant even opens after a nitpicky health inspector leaves nerves frayed. The customers roll in, and a series of minor catastrophes ensue: there’s a vile racist who has a run-in with a black waitress; a troupe of insufferable and demanding influencers; a couple who are to be engaged (one with a fatal nut allergy); and a celebrity chef whom Andy resents but is indebted. Watching this film is a deeply unpleasant experience — that’s not to say it isn’t good, it really is — it’s just so intensely stressful and aggravating that you’ll wonder why you’re putting yourself through it. Boiling Point should come with a trigger warning for anybody who has ever survived the trenches of hospo.

Watch on Boling Point on Prime Video

We Are Who We Are

I’m using the release of Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s cannibal romance Bones and All to wax lyrical about his gorgeous, unsung coming-of-age series, 2020’s We Are Who We Are. Across eight languid episodes, Guadagnino follows a group of teenagers and their parents who are living on an American military base in Italy. It’s 2016 and political turmoil is in the air, with news reports of the Presidential campaign punctuating Dev Hynes’ yearning score. But politics aren’t the concern, nor is plot for that matter. This is a show about growing up: about what it is to be a teenager, coming to terms with identity, sexuality, grief and love, when you’re severed from normal adolescent life. It’s moody and anguished, filled with drawn out silences and lingering shots. Guadagnino never tells us exactly who these teenagers are, he just observes. 

Watch We Are Who We Are on SBS on Demand

Gossip Girl Season 2

The first season of HBO Max’s Gossip Girl reboot floundered about trying to balance Gen Z’s social and political consciousness with the nastiness of its 00s predecessor. It didn’t work. Thankfully, the second season has all but ditched its attempts at being “woke” and given us what we truly crave: the Upper East Side elites behaving poorly. Season two taps into what made its original so delectable: the fangs of the filthy rich are out and they’re back to scheming, backstabbing, callously hooking up and recklessly spending. As Julien (Jordan Alexander) says towards the end of the third episode, “I’m sick of pretending I’m some great person,” and thank God for that. 

Watch Gossip Girl on Binge