When it comes to this week’s streaming releases, variety is the word! We’ve got a true-story axe murder drama, a new spin on sci-fi horror classic The Village of the Damned, an adaptation of sci-fi novel Wool, a couple of musical biopics, and more!
SERIES
Love & Death S1
Showmax – 2 May 2023
When it comes to star power, few other new offerings can compete with Love & Death this week. Created by 11-time Emmy-winning TV legend David E. Kelley, this new “based on a true story” crime drama/black comedy stars Elizabeth Olsen, Patrick Fugit, Jesse Plemons, and Lily Rabe as two respective church-going model couples in small-town Texas (with supporting roles from Krysten Ritter and Tom Pelphrey). What appears to be two idyllic marriages on the surface, actually harbour deep cracks leading Olsen’s Candy Montgomery and Plemons’ Allan Gore to start an extramarital affair. But what starts as a dalliance would eventually end in a brutal axe murder – so what the hell happened? The four-episode miniseries actually debuted its first three episodes earlier this week with the final episode dropping next Tuesday so maybe just wait until then to binge it all.
A Small Light S1
Disney+ – 2 May 2023
National Geographic may not be known for scripted drama series, but the Disney-owned network is changing that with offerings such as the two-episode miniseries A Small Light. The upcoming biographical drama series tells a historically famous story from what may be a fresh POV for many, as it follows Miep Gies (Bel Powley) a carefree young woman in 1940s Netherlands who gets given a dangerous task when her German-born Jewish boss, Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber), asks her to help hide his family, including his soon to be famous daughter Anne Frank, from the Nazis.
The Midwich Cuckoos S1
Showmax – 5 May 2023
You probably don’t recognize the name “The Midwich Cuckoos”, but you should know the classic sci-fi horror film Village of the Damned which is actually an adaptation of John Wyndham’s original 1957 novel. Now we get a new adaptation under the original title from acclaimed showrunner David Farr (The Night Manager), this time being a modern-day reimagining of the beloved story set in the sleepy small English town of Midwich. When a mysterious blackout hits the town, every woman of child-bearing age suddenly falls unconscious only to awaken inexplicably pregnant. That’s just the start of the creepiness though, as the resulting offspring are born… different!
Silo S1
Apple TV+ – 5 May 2023
Speaking of adaptations with different names… Silo is Apple TV+’s big budget TV series adaptation of Hugh Howey’s critically acclaimed sci-fi novel trilogy, starting with Wool. Sitting in a development for over a decade due to a mix of factors – most notably Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox who owned the rights at the time – Silo is now finally seeing the light of day, unlike the remnants of humanity struggling to survive on post-apocalyptic Earth by scratching out an existence in a giant subterranean city extending hundreds of stories underground. What holds this fragile society together is a series of rules and regulations designed to protect them… or so they’ve been told. Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible franchise, Dune) leads the cast.
The Muppets Mayhem S1
Disney+ – 10 May 2023
The Muppets is a beloved franchise for a good reason: It’s just damn good! And the latest offering is a rocking new series following The Electric Mayhem Band, a beloved rock band who have achieved worldwide success for decades. There’s just one thing they have never done: Record a studio album. With the help of an ambitious young music exec, The Electric Mayhem Band can finally cross this looooong overdue item off their list, but this is easier said than done!
Queen Cleopatra
Netflix – 10 May 2023
When the Jada Pinkett Smith-produced docuseries African Queens: Njinga debuted in February, it only got some modest buzz. However, the same most definitely cannot be said for Queen Cleopatra, the upcoming second installment of the series looking at powerful African women. Unfortunately for Pinkett Smith and co, the buzz was mostly due to the controversy of casting a black actress in the role of Cleopatra, a historical figure who may have ruled Egypt but who was of Ptolemaic Greek ancestry, i.e. European (this despite some scholars suggesting she may have had an African mother). The furor has reached viral levels, with Egyptian youths running several online protest campaigns, an Egyptian lawyer filing a complaint demanding that Netflix be banned outright in his home country, and the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Egyptian Archaeology describing the production as “blatant historical misconception”. Hell, the Egyptian government has even released a statement and images of historical depictions of Cleopatra to prove that she had “white skin and Hellenistic characteristics”. Of course, we could be looking at another “Barbara Streissand effect” as all this noise to shut down the production will probably send viewers to actually go check out the miniseries for themselves.
MOVIES
Men
Amazon Prime Video – 5 May 2023
While he had long been known as a great screenwriter with credits such as Dredd, Sunshine, and 28 Days Later, it was the thought-provoking sci-fi double whammy of Ex Machina and Annihilation that really launched Alex Garland as a director. And after establishing himself as one of the most interesting filmmaking voices in the genre, he promptly switched gears from science-fiction to folk horror with Men. As Noelle mentioned in her review, while a bit on the nose with its gender politics messaging and a little too obtusely artsy for most mainstream audiences, Men is still a very intriguing offering as it follows a London city girl (Jessie Buckley) vacationing in the idyllic English countryside after a tragedy who discovers that someone may be stalking her. Oh yes, and every single male in the sleepy village she visits looks identical (all played by Rory Kinnear), which is totally not creepy at all! And now you can get creeped out on your couch as the film has hit Prime Video locally.
I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Apple TV (rental) – 5 May 2023
The greatest-selling female R&B artist of all time, Whitney Houston was called the voice of a generation. She shattered records and broke barriers with her powerful singing. Unfortunately, with all that success also came plenty of deep personal struggles and drama. Starring Naomie Ackie as the incredible songstress, I Wanna Dance with Somebody is the 2022 biopic that tracks Houston’s journey from church choir obscurity to global musical superstar and to her eventual tragic death by accidental drowning in a bathtub. The film was released in cinemas at the end last year with barely a murmur though, but now you can watch it at home as it’s up for rental on Apple TV for R45.
Elvis
Showmax – 8 May 2023
And keeping things musical… One of the big hopefuls during Hollywood awards season, Baz Luhrmann’s biopic about the King of Rock earned nominations and wins from all the major players and was so successful that it even spawned a stage adaptation. And if you missed it on the big screen, you can now finally see what the fuss is all about on Showmax. Austin Butler stars as iconoclastic rocker Elvis Presley with Tom Hanks (under a whole lot of makeup) playing his infamous manager Colonel Tom Parker, as Lurhmann charts Elvis’ climb from gospel obscurity to becoming the biggest musician in the world at the time, with all the drama that entails.