Netflix
June Again
Film, 2021, Australia – out 4 February
Noni Hazlehurst delivers an excellent, multifaceted performance as June, a woman suffering from dementia, who one day suddenly and inexplicably recovers. The catch? Her newfound lucidity won’t last long. So June escapes her nursing home to reconnect with her family, only to discover circumstances have changed for the worse, creating for her a kind of bizarro reality, sort of familiar and sort of not. A world conceptually similar to that experienced by the protagonist of the Australian film (and novel) Bliss.
If the premise sounds heavy, writer/director JJ Winlove’s film has a lightness of touch. It’s frequently funny, warm, but also prickly around the edges, with well drawn characters and a great cast including Hazlehurst, Claudia Karvan and Stephen Curry.
Murderville
TV, 2022, US – out 3 February
Will Arnett has some big runs on the board – including and especially BoJack Horseman and Arrested Development. Based on the British sitcom Murder in Successville, the trailer for his procedural crime comedy about butter-fingered senior detective Terry Seattle (Arnett) looks pretty goofy, which is perhaps to be expected. This is a semi-improvised show, with a different celebrity playing Seattle’s offsider to help solve a crime each episode, but the celebrities (including Sharon Stone, Kumail Nanjiani and Conan O’Brien) don’t get a script. Netflix claims it is “Law & Order meets Whose Line Is It Anyway?”
Why Are You Like This
TV, 2021, Australia – out 16 February
Edgy humour often involves satirising the cultural mores of the time, which is a particularly fraught exercise with modern minefields including identity politics and cancel culture. Creators Naomi Higgins, Humyara Mahbub and Mark Bonanno go where many fear to tread, producing uncomfortable comedy through the story of a trio of opportunistic gen Zers – Mia (Olivia Junkeer), Penny (Higgins) and Austin (Wil King) – who exploit positive societal progress to serve their own interests. After arriving on iView last year, season one is finally on Australian Netflix this month. Hopefully the ABC commissions a second season to nurture original, incisive young voices.
Honourable mentions: Red Dog: True Blue (film, 1 February), The Tinder Swindler (film, 2 February), Jindabyne (film, 4 February), Inventing Anna (TV, 11 February), Bigbug (film, 11 February), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (film, 18 February), Vikings: Valhalla (TV, 25 February).
Stan
Bel-Air
TV, US, 2022 – out 14 February
In 2019 a fan of the classic 90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air made a mock trailer for a dramatic remake of the series, retaining the same premise – a young Black man from wrong-side-of-the-tracks Philadelphia is sent to live with wealthy relatives in the affluent titular neighbourhood. Will Smith saw the video, liked the idea and voilà – a new series arrives with a semi-autobiographical twang, starring Jabari Banks as a semi-fictional version of Smith himself.
Locke
Film, UK/US, 2013 – out 9 February
A film consisting entirely of Tom Hardy driving a car, never once leaving the car, and with no other actors and no sets may not sound like the best time. But Hardy and writer/director Steven Knight do a bang-up job building and sustaining interest throughout this highly ambitious and tightly constructed dialogue-driven drama about a construction worker who drives to London to be with a woman (voiced by Olivia Colman) about to give birth to a child they conceived during a one night stand.
Honourable mentions: The Fear Index (TV, 11 February), Frank (film, 13 February), Sleeping with Other People (film, 20 February), Counterpart seasons 1 and 2 (TV, 21 February), Primal Fear (film, 25 February), Airplane! (film, 26 February), Babel (film, 27 February).
Amazon Prime Video
Reacher
TV, 2022, US – out 4 February
Like the Tom Cruise movies Jack Reacher and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, this eight-part action thriller is based on author Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books, following a former military major who frequently finds himself in rather precarious cloak-and-dagger situations. This time the protagonist is played by the very buff Alan Ritchson, presenting a version of the character who swings his fists, frowns a lot and can open screw cap bottles by pressing them against his biceps.
Flight
Film, 2012, US – out 1 February
Robert Zemeckis’ underrated 2012 drama opens with a spectacular white-knuckle plane crash sequence in which the pilot, Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), performs a daring crash landing after a mechanical error. He flips the plane, realigns it, and saves almost everybody on board. A bona fide hero, right?
But Whitaker, a drug user and alcoholic, was three sheets to the wind at the time. Which leads to a bold question: what if being drunk gave him the audacity to pull the manoeuvre that saved almost everybody? It is an intriguing, potentially fraught way to approach the issue of drug use, in a film that is ultimately about a man confronting his demons and overcoming his addictions.
Honourable mentions: Central Intelligence (film, 1 February), Cast Away (film, 1 February), Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2 (film, 1 February), Overlord (film, 1 February), Into the Wild (film, 1 February), It’s a Wonderful Life, (film, 1 February), Scrooged (film, 1 February), Ted (film, 1 February), The Fame (film, 1 February), The Truman Show (film, 1 February), The Witch (film, 1 February), School of Rock (film, 1 February) The Marvelous Mrs Maisel season 4 (TV, 18 February), Phat Tuesdays (TV, 4 February), I Want You Back (TV, 11 February).
ABC iView
Starstruck season two
TV, UK/US, 2022 – out 16 February
Rose Matafeo – whose oeuvre includes Baby Done and Squinters – is such a funny, charming and relatable presence, you never want to stop being around her. The New Zealand comedian created, wrote and stars in the thoroughly bingeable Starstruck, playing a woman living in London who discovers her one night stand is a super famous movie star (Nikesh Patel). This triggers a “will they or won’t they?” romantic back and forth that never gets old. Fingers crossed the second season is as good as the first.
Troppo
TV, Australia, 2022 – out 27 February
Now that Jack Irish has finished and Guy Pearce has hung up his cape (well, cardigan) as one of Australian TV’s greatest private eyes, there is space for new players. Enter former police officer Ted Conkaffey (Thomas Jane) and ex-con Amanda Pharrell (Nicole Chamoun), who partner up to solve the disappearance of a Korean tech pioneer. Shot in Queensland and directed by veteran Jocelyn Moorhouse (whose work includes the superb Wakefield), Troppo is based on Candice Fox’s bestselling novel Crimson Lake.
Honourable mentions: Good Grief (film, 9 February), Dementia and Us (TV, 15 February), How to Paint the Mona Lisa (TV, 16 February), The Missing Children (TV, 28 February).
SBS on Demand
Shadow
Film, China, 2018 – out 5 February
You may not have heard of director Zhang Yimou’s visually ravishing epic, but it was the best action movie of 2018, offering a genuinely fresh aesthetic experience. Inspired by Chinese ink brush paintings and the tai chi diagram, the production was shot in colour but filled with black and white sets and costumes, with almost all of its colour coming from the actors’ skin.
Set during the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese legend (AD220-AD290), the narrative involves a bad-tempered king (Zheng Kai) and a commander (Deng Chao) who rallies against him. Unbeknown to the king, the commander is actually a doppelganger or “shadow”, with the real commander (also Deng Chao) wounded and in hiding.
Police Story
Film, China, 1985 – out now
Jackie Chan is to movie martial arts what Charlie Chaplin was to silent comedy – pure physical genius. A decade on from the international superstar’s retirement announcement, nobody has come remotely close to filling his shoes, making it abundantly clear (if it wasn’t already) that history will remember him as a true one of a kind.
Chan co-wrote, co-directed, starred in and of course performed his own stunts for this rolled-gold 80s classic about a kung fu police officer who must protect a witness (Bridgett Lin) from being killed by gangsters before being able to testify against them. Like many of his films, the final credits scene of Police Story includes a combination of outtakes, bloopers and behind-the-scenes footage. SBS on Demand has a ton of other Jackie Chan films to stream including Police Story 2, Armour of God, The Young Master and Wheels on Meals.
Honourable mentions: Hidden Assets (TV, 2 February), Burning (film, 3 February), The Long Call (TV, 3 February), Educators seasons one and two (TV, 10 February), Devilsdorp (TV, 10 February), 12 Years a Slave (film, 22 February), The Light Between Oceans (film, 23 February), Hope (TV, 24 February).
Binge
The Girl Before
TV, UK, 2021 – out 10 February
In this four-part series based on the 2016 novel of the same name, Jane (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) moves into a sleek, ultra modern house after being interviewed by the architect/landlord himself, the mysterious Edward (David Oyelowo). He offers cheap rent with certain stipulations – the tenant must have few belongings and no kids.
When Jane discovers a previous renter, who looked just like her, died at the house, she becomes a wee bit distraught and starts asking questions. But is her resemblance to the deceased woman merely a coinkydink? I learned that very fun word while reading Lucy Mangan’s review, immediately vowing to use it in as many places as possible going forward. Coinkydink!
A Quiet Place Part II
Film, US, 2020 – out 11 February
I remember the name of the first (sadly now defunct) Facebook group I joined – “People who talk during movies deserve to get their tongues ripped out”. In John Krasinski’s well made smash-hit horror movies, people who make noise kind of do get their tongues ripped out and worse – getting quickly and gruesomely killed by vicious, blind aliens with an amazing sense of hearing.
The catch, sadly, is that people in this world can’t watch movies either, unless they turn the volume right down. Krasinski shows a knack for sustaining suspense in both films, including the sequel, which follows the Abbott family’s continual struggle to survive (and stay silent) in a post-apocalyptic world.
Honourable mentions: Raised by Wolves season 2 (TV, 3 February), An American Pickle (film, 4 February) Modern Family seasons 1-11 (film, 9 February), My Year with Helen (film, 15 February), The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (film, 18 February), Dream Horse (film, 18 February), The Last Impresario (film, 21 February), Aretha Franklin (film, 24 February), Driving Miss Daisy (film, 25 February), Phar Lap (film, 25 February), Old (film, 27 February).
Disney+
Pam & Tommy
TV, 2022, US – out 2 February
We were all expecting something salacious, with wobbly bits and super-attractive celebrities but Pam & Tommy delivered so much more. It is, among other things, a shrewd comedy, a crime drama and a history lesson of the early days of the internet centred around a cultural artefact (OK – sex tape) that arrived prior to the era of high-speed video streaming.
Spending time in the company of the titular characters (played by Lily James and Sebastian Stan) is kind of fun and kind of irritating – their vacuousness infects everything. But creator and writer Robert D Siegel finds numerous ways into the story, including through an aggrieved electrician (played with broad appeal by Seth Rogen) who steals the infamous tape then tries to work out what to do with it.
The French Dispatch
Film, 2021, US – out 2 February
Wes Anderson’s print journalism-inspired anthology film, set in the newsroom of an US publication in a fictitious French city, is far from the director’s best work – but it’s another opportunity to savour one of the most visually distinctive auteur’s working today. Expect a fastidiously arranged aesthetic and a stellar cast including Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Timothée Chalamet, Frances McDormand and Anjelica Huston.
Honourable mentions: Torn (film, 4 February), The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder (TV, 23 February), No Exit (film 25 February), The Kid (film, 25 February).
Paramount+
Women of the Movement
TV, US, 2022 – out 15 February
The first instalment in this anthology series about overlooked women in the civil rights movement – created by Marissa Jo Cerar and executive produced by Jay-Z and Will Smith – revolves around the brutal murder of Emmett Till in 1955, and the story of his mother, Mamie (Adrienne Warren), who famously resolved to “let the people see what they did to my boy”. Guardian reviewer Adrian Horton described the show as one that, at its best, “provocatively explores a chapter of American history most don’t know enough about with sensitivity, faithfulness and care not to exploit trauma”.
Honourable mentions: Steelers: The World’s First Gay Rugby Club (film, 1 February), MT Unplugged: Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett (TV, 1 February), Star Trek: Prodigy (TV, 11 February), Line in the Sand (TV, 16 February).
