The much-anticipated return of an HBO favourite, the pinnacle of Dad TV and a new dating show that's about as far from MAFS as possible. Photo / The Spinoff
The much-anticipated return of an HBO favourite, the pinnacle of Dad TV and a new dating show that's about as far from MAFS as possible. Photo / The Spinoff
We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.
If you enjoy whip-smart satire: The White Lotus (Neon, February 17)
HBO’s award-winning The White Lotus is back for what critics are calling “an absolutely exquisite third season”. With an all-new setting — an opulent Thai resort — the show shifts focus to expose the absurdity of wellness culture and highlight the fetishisation of Eastern spirituality by Western tourists. Walton Goggins, Aimee Lou Wood, Parker Posey and Patrick Schwarzenegger (yes, the son of Arnie), join our own Morgana O’Reilly in the show that’s been described as a “deeply funny and bracingly topical piece of art”.
If you like dating shows with a twist: Offline Love (Netflix, February 18)
If you can’t wait for the next episode of Mafs Au to get your reality dating show fix, Offline Love is for you. The unique Japanese dating show challenges the idea of romance in the age of Tinder and Hinge by removing all digital devices. Relying only on letters, promises and meet-cutes, 10 singles have 10 days in the picturesque city of Nice to find love the old-fashioned way. Will the singles in Offline Love go home hand-in-hand with their soulmate, or will they be left broken-hearted? Fate works in mysterious ways, so expect emotions to run high and tears to flow.
If you love ass-kicking thrillers: Reacher (Prime Video, February 20)
Based on Lee Child’s immensely popular book series and previously adapted into two films starring the woefully miscast Tom Cruise, Prime Video’s Reacher is returning for a highly-anticipated third season. Starring man-mountain Alan Ritchson, the show follows a former military police officer and lone wolf as he drifts from town to town, solving one crime at a time. Season three sees Reacher facing up against rogue DEA agents and a deadly foe from his past. Labelled “the crème de la crème of Dad TV”, this action-packed thriller is well worth binging.
If you like behind-the-scenes music documentaries: Dig! XX (DocPlay, February 20)
Between 1996 and 2003, documentarian Ondi Timoner recorded 2500 hours of footage that chronicled the ups and downs of alt-rock bands the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. That footage was compiled into cult-classic Dig! which won the Documentary Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Twenty years later, Timoner is back with Dig! XX, which features over 40 minutes of never-before-seen footage. The film has been touted as “a savagely funny rockumentary” and “sardonic comment on the politics of selling out” — an explosive must-see.
If you love dramas that pack a punch: A Thousand Blows (Disney+, February 21)
From the creative mind of Steven Knight, the mastermind behind Peaky Blinders, A Thousand Blows is set in the brutal underworld of East End London during the post-industrial revolution. Bafta-winner Malachi Kirby plays Hezekiah Moscow, a Jamaican immigrant who is thrust into the thriving bare-knuckle boxing scene. Finding fame and fortune with each haymaker, he becomes entangled with Mary Carr (Erin Doherty), the Queen of the infamous all-female gang The Forty Elephants, while also finding a rival in the self-declared King of the East End boxing world, Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham). A Thousand Blows is sure to be a knockout.
Pick of the Flicks: All The President’s Men (Neon, February 17)
Few films are truer to the craft of journalism than Alan J Pakula’s Oscar-winning political thriller All The President’s Men. In the run-up to the 1972 presidential election, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) investigate the botched burglary of the Democratic Party Headquarters at the Watergate apartment complex. What initially appears to be a minor story leads all the way to the Oval Office. Superbly directed on every level, All The President’s Men is one of the “most intelligent and provocative accounts of a nation’s political failings”. The film is 50 years old, yet it’s as relevant as ever.
