🇮🇹 🇸🇪 What to Watch this week
+ I'm launching a new website about the genre of movies I love most
Dear friends,
I’m launching a new website called Uprooted for immigrant movies.
These are some of the movies I personally enjoy watching the most, but it’s always so hard to locate them. This will be the first website dedicated only to immigrant filmmaking.
If you have any feedback or ideas for me, including other immigrant movies to watch, please let me know by answering this email!
I hope you have a great weekend.
OUR TOP MOVIE OF THE WEEK
The Hand of God
New on Netflix 🍅 rating: 81%
This is the new movie from Paolo Sarrantino, who directed my all-time favorite movie The Great Beauty. He recently also directed The Young Pope with Jude Law and Youth Paul Dano, both in English. He’s back to his home Italy with this one.
More precisely, he’s in Naples, in the 1980s, where awkward teenager Fabietto Schisa’s life is about to change: his city’s soccer team Napoli is buying Diego Maradona.
Sarrantino, who is also from Naples, made this movie that is half a tribute to the city and half to what it meant growing up around the legend of Maradona.
The Hand of God is to Sarrantino what Roma was to Alfonso Cuarón, except it’s vulgar, fun, and excessive — in other words, it’s Italian.
OUR TOP TV SHOW OF THE WEEK
Bonus Family
Season 4 is now Netflix 🍅 rating: 93%
This Swedish comedy-drama is about two independent families who have to clash when the father of one and the mother of the other start having an affair, and divorce to be with each other.
In a disastrous decision, the new couple decides that they should host a party and invite their exes and their children from previous marriages. The result “didn’t feel like a party, more like mass suicide”, according to one of the exes. The first episode starts with the four adults attending group therapy to recover from that party.
If you’re interested in how family relationships evolve in other cultures (and you’re not a Swede), this is a great watch. The show’s original title is Bonusfamiljen, which is a nice way in Swedish to refer to family connections that get created after people remarry. But even cultures with nice linguistic concepts can’t hide the fact that divorce causes irreparable, forever lasting damage.
TOP PICKS OUTSIDE OF NETFLIX AND AMAZON PRIME
Life of Crime 1984-2020
On HBO MAX 🍅 rating: -
Footage from 36 years was assembled for this difficult and raw documentary about the lives of 3 residents of Newark, New Jersey, and their experiences with crime and drug abuse.
TOP PICKS OUTSIDE OF NETFLIX AND AMAZON PRIME
The Other Two
Season two is now on HBO MAX 🍅 rating: 94%
Molly Shannon stars in this comedy series about two siblings whose other brother, a 13-year-old, becomes an internet sensation.
That’s it for this week, I hope there’s something in there for you.
The next edition of this newsletter will be in your inbox Friday, December 24th.
Until then,
Bilal
Hi Bilal - what a fantastic idea - and website! Many of these are available via DVD Netflix by the way : ) That's been my go-to for foreign language films I can't find streaming. I've seen two on this list - Secret of the Grain, and Divines - both incredibly powerful movies. Thank you for this.