Hi friends,
The big bad news in streaming (there’s always one) is that Cartoon Network could possibly be saying its last hurrah as Warner Bros. decides to combine the beloved channel with its other animation properties. Between massive layoffs and the impending HBO Max/Discovery merger, prospects seem bleak for WB.
As always, I hope you have a nice weekend.
OUR TOP TV SHOW OF THE WEEK
The Playlist
New on Netflix 🍅 rating: —
The Playlist is a Swedish miniseries centered around the impressive rise of Spotify and its founder, tech wunderkind Daniel Ek. The fictionalized account of how the music streaming platform came to be is extremely watchable, not least because it focuses less on personal drama (though it has many of those) and more on the addictive chaos that comes with combining the startup, tech, and music industries.
A review from TechRadar says the Netflix drama is “far more gripping than it has any right to be,” and I couldn’t agree more.
OUR TOP MOVIE OF THE WEEK
The Good Boss
On Amazon Prime Video, starting at $4.99 🍅 rating: 92%
In this office comedy of errors, Javier Bardem plays Blanco, the titular boss, but whether he is actually good is what the movie wryly examines.
As head of a small manufacturing company, Blanco treats his employees intimately, going so far as make their problems his own. He believes this is why his company is nominated for an excellence certification, but as he waits for the possible award, cracks start to appear in his “work is family” facade as everything that could go wrong, starts going wrong. The Good Boss is an anxiety fest for Blanco to be sure, but a winning tragicomedy for us all.
Top picks outside of Netflix and Amazon Prime
ABC’s Alaska Daily follows Eileen Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a hard-hitting journalist who leaves New York for Anchorage, Alaska after falling from grace. Along with a fellow reporter, she takes on cases of missing and murdered indigenous persons in the area, and the series becomes a necessary deep dive into the issue. It might not come as a surprise that the show is run by Tom McCarthy, who was also the brains behind the Oscar-winning investigative reporting film Spotlight. Streaming on Hulu.
In Dinner in America, a punk rock singer and a fan of his band fall in love and wreak havoc in an otherwise quiet suburb in Midwest America. It’s an explosive coming-of-age romcom whose aggressiveness could be a hit or miss among viewers, but if you enjoyed the delinquent pair-up of Bonnie and Clyde or miss the rebellious energy of the punk scene, then this could be for you. Streaming on Hulu.
New titles worth your time
Seasons one to three of The Sinner, the police anthology led by Bill Pullman, and Belascoaran, PI, a Mexican police procedural led by The Resort’s Luis Gerardo Méndez, are new on Netflix.
Over at Amazon Prime, new exciting arrivals include the Viking epic The Northman, the demon-inspired series Lucifer, the Washington Irving adaptation Sleepy Hollow, the ‘70s period drama The Deuce, and (a personal favorite of mine) the celeb DNA tracking show Finding your Roots.
Great titles that will soon expire
No notable titles are expiring soon on Netflix, but over at Amazon Prime, the excellent documentary Best of Enemies, about the fiery debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal, expires on October 17. The Anthony Hopkins-led docudrama The World's Fastest Indian expires October 22 on the same platform.
That’s all for this week. This edition of the newsletter will be back on Friday, October 21.
Till then,
Renee