TV
Real Rob
Now streaming
This new Netflix original boasts a familiar – indeed, some might say over-familiar – conceit. Rob Schneider is the latest comedian to play a self-deprecatingly fictionalised version of himself. Is he a lovable enough character to pull it off? And does this idea really still have legs? On the basis of the opening episode, the jury’s out.
A Very Murray Christmas
Now streaming
Netflix moves into the world of Christmas variety shows. But this is a variety show with a difference – your average, low-rent crackers and carols affair can’t usually boast direction by Sofia Coppola. This Bill Murray-helmed extravaganza offers some serious star power with contributions from George Clooney, Amy Poehler and Chris Rock. And it’s an enjoyably meta and self-aware business, pitched somewhere between piss-take and homage.
F is for Family
18 December
Yet another animated sitcom exploring the American family but this one at least boasts the period trappings of 1973 as a USP. Back then, people did things differently; they smoked like chimneys, drank like fish, patronised their woman-folk and took guns to the airport. And the Murphy clan were no different – Bill Burr voices sweary, lairy patriarch Frank and Laura Dern his long-suffering wife (is there any other kind in American animated sitcoms?) Sue.
Glitter Force
18 December
Perfectly timed for the beginning of the school holidays, this new childrens’ series is set in the magical kingdom of Jubiland, which has been invaded by an evil emperor. Fortunately, a pixie called Candy is on hand to recruit five pre-teen girls – aka Glitter Force – to save the day.
Making a Murderer
18 December
Netflix has clearly been paying attention to the success of sleeper sensation podcast Serial. This documentary series is only the site’s second non-fiction offering and it follows the harrowing true story of Steven Avery who was convicted and then exonerated on an assault charge, then filed a lawsuit in search of compensation before becoming the prime suspect in a second, equally grisly case. Directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos have spent the last decade on this project but the case itself now spans 30 years.
Film
Streaming now
“Watching Ryan Gosling’s feature debut as writer-director is like getting an over-rich but also somehow flavourless stew plonked down in front of you by the preening winner of Celebrity MasterChef.”
Streaming now
“With this piercing study of a US drone pilot, writer-director Andrew Niccol updates the premise of his script for 1998’s The Truman Show: Big Brother is now not only watching, but able to obliterate us with a single button-push. The irony is that Ethan Hawke’s Tom Egan, patrolling Afghanistan from a Portakabin in the Nevada desert, suffers a growing impotence…”
Streaming now
“The first Hot Tub, a spirited Hangover derivative, qualified as a guilty pleasure; five years on, any enjoyment this afterthought generates may necessitate a lifetime of Hail Marys.”
Streaming now
“Still Alice casts the superb Julianne Moore as a 50-year-old linguistics professor whose bouts of forgetfulness are devastatingly diagnosed as early onset Alzheimer’s.”
7 December
“Spike Lee’s English-language remake of Park Chan-wook’s revenge nightmare fails to grasp its black-comic bad taste.”
10 December
“Cameron Crowe has been making movies about lost man-puppies on the comeback trail for so long now that it’s almost become a kind of mantra. His latest movie, Aloha, is so hell-bent on self-consolation it feels like whistling in the dark. You want to pet it and tell it not to worry: everything will be OK.”
The Ridiculous 6
11 December
A spoof Western that represents the first fruits of a four-film deal between Netflix and Adam Sandler.
20 December
“Paul Schrader’s The Canyons has had a bad rap. This is the erotic thriller he shot with $250,000 (£150,000) raised through Kickstarter – making every cent count. It features a sulphurous script by Bret Easton Ellis, and stars the extravagantly unreliable and difficult Lindsay Lohan, with whom Schrader has now fallen out. Or perhaps it is rather that Lohan never regarded herself as having fallen in with him.”
Christmas Day
“There’s lots to love in Muppets’ 1992 take on Dickens, not least Gonzo’s narrative skills.”
Boxing Day
“Kenneth Branagh’s old-fashioned cold war thriller is an efficient nail-biter.”
28 December
“JC Chandor’s All is Lost is a quasi-silent movie, or perhaps rather quasi-mute, portraying the ordeal of a lone sailor in a desperate situation: he is played with grizzled impassivity by the 77-year-old Robert Redford. Throughout the film, he is the only person on screen.”
New Year’s Eve
“This refreshingly angular approach to class, racism and the interracial sex taboo addresses the elephants in cinema’s crowded room.”
New Year’s Eve
“This disappointing sequel, directed by Tom Green, mimics the Alien/Aliens genre shift, moving from moody atmospherics to blood-and-guts warpic as it follows soldiers from Detroit into the expanding “infected zone” battlefields of the Middle East.”
