Netflix
Death to 2020
Film, US/UK, 2020 – out now
That old saying “comedy is tragedy plus time” makes the point that terrible things can become hilarious with a little bit of distance. Creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones (who also helmed Black Mirror) are hoping audiences don’t need much time to view the – for want of a better word – absurdities of 2020 in a humorous light, packing together a fast-paced recap of the year in the very witty and entertaining Death to 2020.
The presence of high-profile actors playing talking head experts (including Samuel L Jackson as a journalist, Lisa Kudrow as a Kayleigh McEnany-like rightwinger and Hugh Grant as a pompous historian) position the show in the genre of the mockumentary, delivering lots of LOL lines. But the many events it reflects on were sadly very real, making this a “stranger than fiction” true story with a very short turnaround.
The History of Swear Words
TV, US, 2020 – out 5 January
A documentary series about the history of swear words, hosted by Nicolas Cage? That just has to work. I will admit however that you are not reading the opinion of a rational person: rather somebody who, in what some online commenters described as a textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome, emerged from a 24-hour Nicolas Cage marathon a couple of years ago with an unhealthy infatuation with the actor and a new life goal to watch all his movies – preferably several times. And yet I remain convinced: this show just has to work.
The Dig
Film, US/UK – out 29 January
Acclaimed Australian theatre director Simon Stone made a gripping film debut with 2015’s The Daughter: a moody, brooding reworking of Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck. The Dig is Stone’s sophomore feature, adapting John Preston’s novel of the same name, with Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes leading the cast in a true story about a wealthy widow who, along with an archaeologist she hires, chances upon one of the greatest British archeological discoveries of the 20th century.
Honourable mentions: Cobra Kai season three (TV, 1 January), Pieces of a Woman (film, 7 January), Beneath Clouds (film, 10 January), Disenchantment season three (TV, 15 January), Outside the Wire (film, 15 January), Riverdale season 5 (TV, 21 January)
Stan
The Watch
TV, UK, 2020 – out 1 January
This new Discworld-inspired eight-part production presents the city of Ankh-Morpork in a very different way to how I imagined it from Terry Pratchett’s books. But that’s not a bad thing – in fact I’m very fond of the peculiar look of this series, which is a little dystopian, a little medieval, a little junkyard-esque, as if cobbled together from the detritus of various cities and moments in time. We are informed that the show is set “somewhere in a distant secondhand dimension”, secondhand being the operative word: it has a really great, scrappy aesthetic, looking used and discounted in a genuine and worn-in rather than cheap way.
The story revolves around the titular Ankh-Morpork police force: a law-enforcing/bending/breaking/completely ignoring outfit in an absurd society divided into various guilds – the thieves guild, for instance, which allows people to legally steal, and the assassin’s guild, which permits legal murder. I’ve watched the first two episodes and look forward to returning to this world; in fact I wish it were a video game, so I could spend time inspecting and exploring it on my own terms.
Bump
TV, Australia, 2020 – out 1 January
Emerging actor Nathalie Morris delivers a highly engaging performance as the standoffish teen protagonist in Bump, Stan’s new original 10-part Australian series. She plays Oly, who in the first episode gives birth without knowing she was pregnant – the kind of story we sometimes hear in tabloid media, but told here with grace and accessibility. Episodes are doled out in moreish 30-minute instalments; the first two (all I’ve seen so far) are well-acted, well-paced and enjoyable, prying open a potentially heavy subject with lightness of touch.
Honourable mentions: Arrival (film, 1 January), The Railway Man (film, 1 January), 8 Mile (film, 2 January), Babe (film, 3 January), Babe: Pig in the City (film, 3 January), Jaws (film, 4 January), Patrick Melrose (TV, 5 January), The Purge (film, 6 January), The Hateful Eight (film, 7 January), Inglourious Basterds (film, 9 January), The Game (film, 11 January), Search Party season 4 (TV, 14 January), Walker season one (TV, 22 January)
SBS on Demand
Miss S
TV, China, 2020 – out 28 January
Here’s something you don’t see very often: an Australian TV series remade in China. Miss S is a Mandarin-language adaptation of the beloved Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, which of course stars Essie Davis as a fashionista super sleuth getting to the bottom of various murders and acts of jiggery-pokery in Melbourne circa the 1920s. Miss S stars Mai Yili as Miss Su Wen Li. who, with the help of inspector Luo Qiuheng (Gao Weiguang), solves various cases in and around Shanghai during the 1930s.
Crime coupled with beautiful period details makes a winning combination, with Shanghai’s settings sure to add a splash of international appeal – which will be particularly welcome at a time international travel is off the cards for most people.
Tudawali
Film, Australia, 1987 – out 17 January
Ernie Dingo gives a terrific performance in this 1987 telemovie about Indigenous Australian actor Robert Tudawali, who was the star of Charles Chauvel’s landmark 1995 film Jedda, the first Australian film featuring two Aboriginal actors in the lead roles and the first to be shot in colour.
Directed by TV veteran Steve Jodrell, the film doesn’t match the high standard set by Dingo, but there are many interesting tangents – including recreations of the production of Jedda and scenes depicting moments of intense sadness in the rollercoaster life of its subject, who died of severe burns and tuberculosis in his late 30s.
Honourable mentions: Whiplash (film, 5 January), Vikings season 6B (TV, 6 January), Cry Wolf (TV, 7 January), Birdman (film, 8 January), State of Happiness (TV, 14 January), Babel (film, 16 January), Tudawali (film, 17 January), The White Wall (TV, 21 January), Blue Jasmine (film, 21 January), No Man’s Land (TV, 28 January)
ABC iView
Auschwitz: Untold in Colour
TV, UK, 2020 – out 27 January
Several recent documentaries have applied colourising techniques to old black-and-white photographs and footage – among them Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old, about the first world war, and SBS’s Australia in Colour, which retraces the history of modern Australia. Auschwitz: Untold in Colour similarly revitalises time-worn monochrome footage by turning it into colour for the first time, bringing newfound immediacy to images from inside the titular Nazi death camp. According to one of the producers, it aspires to “remove a barrier that separates contemporary audiences ... so that we never ever forget the atrocities of the past.”
Honourable mentions: Louis Theroux: Life on the Edge (TV, 3 January), David Attenborough’s Extinction (film, 5 January), Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (film, 21 January), Louis Theroux: America’s Most Dangerous Pets (TV, 31 January), Enslaved season 1 (TV, 31 January)
Binge
12 Monkeys
Film, US, 1995 – out 23 January
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Terry Gilliam’s dystopian time-travelling classic, starring Bruce Willis as a grubby hero plonked in a mental hospital – after unsuccessfully arguing that he really, truly, please-bloody-hell-believe-me has been sent back from the future to save the human race from a deadly virus. Rewatching it is a weird experience given an actual global pandemic is happening – albeit not as deadly as the one in the movie, which wipes out five billion people and sees the return of wild animals to the streets.
It’s a great film with an excellent message about hope in apocalyptic times, rejecting the hackneyed neoliberalist view commonly espoused in superhero movies, about how one person can totally save the world. “This already happened. I can’t save you. Nobody can,” says Willis at one point, which sounds dark and despairing out of context, but the film gets the message across that while there’s no magic reset button, a better world can be achieved through the pursuit of logic, hard work and science.
Every Harry Potter movie
UK/US, 2001-2011 – out 21 January
Diehard Harry Potter fans have seen all these films before, and probably own the DVDs and Blu Rays – stacked next to the books and essential Harry Potter merch, such as bobble heads, soft toys and, erm, battery-operated vibrating broomsticks. Still, lots of people are going to be interested in returning to this series, which, while never exceptional, offers occasional gold. The best film of the bunch is Alfonso Cuaron’s The Prisoner of Azkaban, which replaced the clean look of Chris Columbus’ movies with a grainer and edgier aesthetic.
Honourable mentions: Gossip Girl season 1-6 (TV, 1 January), Molly’s Game (film, 2 January), Little Fish (film, 8 January), Monty Python’s Meaning of Life (film, 9 January), Tiger (TV, 11 January), Paper Planes (film, 15 January), Caddyshack (film, 16 January), Batwoman (TV, 19 January) Devils (TV, 19 January), Sicario (film, 29 January)
Amazon Prime Video
One Night in Miami
Film, US, 2020 – out 15 January
Regina King’s very well-acted, earnest and verbose drama – adapted from Kemp Powers’ play of the same name – invests its early moments establishing four main characters, who spend most of the film engaged in spirited discussion: Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), as the great boxer was known before changing his name to Muhammad Ali; Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir); NFL star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge); and soul singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr). Placed inside the same motel room, the group exchange robust debate about racial relations and black activism in America.
Powers’ carefully massaged dialogue is rooted in characterisation – each man coming at things from their own perspectives, in ways that exacerbate dramatic friction but always feel genuine. King successfully captures the truth that any kind of activism is not about one homogeneous group moving forward in unison, but an array of people with differing approaches and motivations.
The Stand
TV, US, 2020 – out 15 January
Set in the aftermath of a global pandemic that eliminates most of the world’s population, the most compelling idea presented by The Stand is that of starting afresh. What should a new society look like? What values should it hold? These big questions are unfortunately a relatively small part of both this series and Stephen King’s book of the same name, which was previously adapted for a trashy but guiltily enjoyable (sometimes in a man-this-is-terrible way) 1994 miniseries.
Prime Video’s highly anticipated new adaptation requires considerable patience, with (at least in the five episodes I’ve watched) little payoff. Some heavy lifting was always going to be required to bring a disparate bunch of characters strewn across America together, many of whom (the ones marked “good” in highlighter pen) are beckoned to a particular location after being visited in their dreams by Whoopi Goldberg in a cornfield. Like 12 Monkeys, The Stand explores subjects that are of heightened interest right now; unfortunately, it lacks atmosphere and the characters are bland.
Honourable mentions: American Gods season 3 (TV, 11 January), Star Trek: Lower Decks (TV, 22 January), The Rental (film, 22 January), South Park season 23 (TV, 21 January)
Disney+
WandaVision
TV, US, 2021 – out 15 January
Unsurprisingly, many of the most memorable superhero movies and TV shows are the ones that think outside the box – from James Gunn’s excellent 2010 comedy Super, to last year’s superb reimagining of Watchmen. In WandaVision, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their roles of Wanda Maximoff (a witch) and Vision (an android) from the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.
The twist: the series appears to have been made in the style of a camp retro sitcom, as the couple get accustomed to their new lives in quiet suburbia. The trailer looks very ... weird, indicating (hopefully) a compelling counterpoint to the franchise’s usual same-old same-old production line.
Honourable mentions: Pixar Popcorn (22 January), The Book of Life (film, 22 January), Dinosaurs seasons 1-4 (out 29 January).