Dear friends,
The 1996 Ethan Hawke movie Gattaca asked very prophetic questions about gene-editing and its temptations. Today’s top TV show feels like the world that it predicted, except, and Gattaca had no way of foreseeing this, with Youtube tutorials.
THE TOP TV SHOW OF THE WEEK
Unnatural Selection
On Netflix.
This four-part series tackles the ethical questions behind gene-editing, with a focus on “biohacking”, the process by which certain people experiment with gene editing at home, including on themselves.
Biohacking kits and Youtube-enabled gene editing are thriving. These non-expert outside-of-labs methods of testing are catching the scientific and legal communities off-guard. The implications of this popularity are subject to speculation and cause for divide even within biohackers.
Perhaps the most surprising part of Unnatural Selection is its non-futuristic nature. It merely reports on underestimated advances in gene-editing that will likely forever influence our future as a species.
📰 Vox: “The show lets the tension breathe, with Esvelt [a scientist] saying “we have no choice” but to continue exploring innovative new technologies, and Dana Perls, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit that advocates for environmental justice, saying “we don’t have to go that way.”
📺 on Netflix everywhere; 🍅 rating: - not yet available.
THE TOP MOVIE OF THE WEEK
Indian Horse
Now on Netflix.
This Canadian drama produced by Clint Eastwood is based on the true story of Saul Indian Horse, a famous indigenous hockey player who survived Canada’s residential school system. As recently as 1996, indigenous children were taken away from their families to attend brutal assimilation boarding schools.
Indian Horse, by virtue of being based on true events, is not an against-all-odds story. The main character goes through a series of ups and downs between the 70s and 90s, when the movie is set, which reflect the recent history of abuse that Indigenous communities suffered in Canada.
📰 Georgia Straight: “A heartfelt, well-acted, and somewhat one-dimensional effort containing a story that needs to be told right now.”
📺 on Netflix U.S. and select other countries; 🍅 rating: 79%
Readers’ top picks
The African Doctor on Netflix is still our readers’ favorite movie. It’s based on the true story of a remote French town’s first-ever African residents.
Norsemen also on Netflix is our readers’ favorite TV show. It’s a Norwegian comedy in English set in a Viking village.
New titles worth your time
The superhero series The Umbrella Academy comes back for a second season today. It stars Ellen Page and Tom Hopper.
The fourth season of the TNT crime drama Animal Kingdom has been added to Amazon Prime this week. It’s about a boy who moves in with a wealthy crime family after the death of his mother.
Great titles that will soon expire
Today is the last day on Netflix to watch The Edge of Seventeen, a great coming-of-age comedy with Woody Harrelson.
The excellent Canadian independent drama The Kings Of Summer leaves Amazon Prime tomorrow, August 1st.
The Newsflash: will the pandemic mark the end of U.S. dominance in cinema?
For Netflix, a data-obsessed firm, the potential of the non-U.S. audience has always been clear. North America, once constituting over 90% of Netflix’s subscriber base, now represents less than a third of the platform’s almost 200 million subscribers.
This is the result of aggressive investments in local-language movies and shows, worldwide availability of all content, and big marketing budgets.
It would seem that Hollywood is also taking the hint, not so much because of data but because of the pandemic. Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, this year’s biggest blockbuster, will be released outside of North America first, an unheard-of move.
The implications of this unconventional schedule are detailed in an article on The Atlantic from this week titled Hollywood Is Finally Admitting That the U.S. Is a Lost Cause.
Tenet is more than just another blockbuster. It’s considered the movie that can save cinemas and define how audiences interact with theaters for the remainder of the pandemic, which will be crucial to their survival:
Many critics see the movie as cinema’s potential savior—an original, big-screen blockbuster that could compel anxious audiences to pay money to sit in an enclosed room with a bunch of strangers.
The article continues:
If the film opens internationally and makes real money, expect more studios to follow suit and bypass America until U.S. caseloads have dropped […] Just as the American passport has lost its luster around the world this year, so too has the American movie theater.
That’s it for today, I hope there is something in there for you.
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Until then,
Bilal Zou, founder [bilal@agoodmovietowatch.com]
Carried with the support of the Creative Europe Program – MEDIA.