There’s something for everybody hitting streaming services this week, led by Taika Waitit’s sci-fi TV series remake Time Bandits, Nathan Fielder’s satirical black comedy The Curse, and Dave Bautista’s action-comedy sequel My Spy: The Eternal City.
SERIES
Omnivore S1
19 July 2024 – Apple TV+
Food is more than just sustenance and sensation. It’s a medium through which all of humanity can connect and share and stands as a reflection of culture and history like nothing else. And it’s the metatextual approach to food that is the focus in Omnivore, a new documentary series co-created by filmmaker Cary Joji Fukunaga (True Detective, No Time to Die) and world-renowned chef René Redzepi. Narrated by Redzepi, the chef and co-owner of Noma (rated the best restaurant in the world five times!), this global series looks to explore the ingredients that built societies, shaped our beliefs and forever altered the human story.
The Curse S1
22 July 2024 – Showmax
If you’re into wild, cringey, “Oh my god! What am I watching?!” kind of shows, then make sure to check out The Curse. Created and written by Nathan Fielder (Nathan for Your) and Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems), this series (yes, that’s a lot, I know) stars Fielder and Emma Stone as a newly married couple trying to conceive a child, while at the same time co-starring on a new HGTV home-flipping reality show that is starting to come off the rails. That type of setup might sound like a straightforward domestic drama, but there’s a reason that The Curse is billed as a “satirical black comedy thriller”, as there’s also an alleged curse that is disrupting the lives of this couple, causing all sorts of weird shenanigans.
Time Bandits S1
24 July 2024 – Apple TV+
Speaking of… Actors, filmmakers, and all-around funnymen Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement definitely know a thing or two about shenanigans. Across their careers, they’ve most notably given us comic book (Thor: Ragnarok), vampire (What We Do in the Shadows), pirate (Our Flag Means Death), and musical (Flight of the Conchords) shenanigans. And now it’s time for time travel. A TV series remake Terry Gilliam’s acclaimed 1981 British fantasy adventure file, Time Bandits is described as “a comedic journey through time and space with a ragtag group of thieves and their newest recruit: an eleven-year-old history nerd.” The series stars Lisa Kudrow as the leader of the titular Time Bandits and newcomer Kai-El Tuck as said history nerd. Both Waititi and Clement also appear.
MOVIES
My Spy: The Eternal City
18 July 2024 – Prime Video
When My Spy was released in 2020, I thought it was… fine. It was during the grim lockdown times, and it starred Dave Bautista. Why wouldn’t I watch it even if it was a by-the-numbers action movie? But either it was a much better movie than I thought it was, or more people ending up randomly watching it like I did, because here we are four years later with a sequel! Bautista’s CIA Operative JJ has now taken a desk job and gotten all domesticated, while Chloe Coleman’s Sophie – the young girl he took under his spy-wing in the first film – is now a high-schooler with attitude. When her school singing group go on a tour of Italy, it feels like the perfect time for JJ to stretch his legs in the field again by signing up as a chaperone, while also moonlighting on a new mission.
Lady in the Lake
19 July 2024 – Apple TV+
Adapted from Lauta Lippman’s 2019 novel of the same name, Lady in the Lake is a new Apple TV+ noir thriller miniseries starring Natalie Portman and Moises Ingram. Set in 1960s Baltimore, it follows two overlapping stories of women after the highly publicized killing of a young girl. Maddie Schwartz (Portman) is a well-off Jewish housewife looking to reinvent herself as an investigative journalist by unraveling the mystery of the dead girl, who finds herself becoming obsessed with the seemingly unrelated death of Cleo Johnson (Ingram), a struggling black mother fighting to advance the political lot of her community.
Skywalkers: A Love Story
19 January 2024 – Netflix
Ok, calm down ReyLo shippers! No, this is not a new romance-centric Star Wars film but rather a feature film documentary that couldn’t be further from a sci-fi saga. Just make sure to take whatever anti-anxiety meds you have before watching it. Billed as “part romance, part thriller”, Skywalkers: A Love Story follows a daredevil couple as they take their relationship to terrifying new heights in a wild scheme to climb the world’s second highest skyscraper and perform a death-defying stunt on the spire.
Find Me Falling
19 January 2024 – Netflix
If you prefer the romantic butterflies in your stomach of the more conventional, non-panicky sort, then Find Me Falling may just be your speed. And yes, the “falling” part is just an unfortunate coincidence. Harry Connick Jr. stars as Harry Allman, an aging rock star who decides to take a break from his rapidly dwindling career to reclaim his spark by moving to an isolated cliffside home on the idyllic Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His dream of keeping a low profile is derailed when he is routinely confronted by desperate souls and later faced with even more complicated surprises when an old flame reignites.
Silent Night
22 July 2024 – Showmax
Action maestro John Woo has often left fans speechless with his “violent ballet” displays in classics like Hard Boiled and Face/Off. In Silent Night though, EVERYBODY is speechless. Featuring almost no dialogue throughout its 100-minute runtime, this action thriller stars Joel Kinnaman as an aggrieved father out for revenge after his son is inadvertently shot and killed by local gang members in a drive-by shooting on Christmas Eve. And that’s really all the story you need to know, because the rest is just all about the punching and shooting.