Welcome to What to Watch, a twice-weekly newsletter with handpicked recommendations for Netflix and Amazon Prime. Please feel free to forward this issue to your friends and family or share it on social media.
Happy Friday!
Both top picks of this week’s edition are for Amazon Prime. This wasn’t intentional, but they were both big highlights from last year which were added to the platform this week. While Honey Boy might be more for drama lovers (and I guess Shia Laboeuf fans), Escape at Dannemora is an exciting show that can be enjoyed by anyone.
OUR TOP MOVIE OF THE WEEK
Honey Boy
New today on Amazon Prime.
There is so much power to this story based actor Shia Laboeuf’s childhood. While filming popular shows like Even Stevens, he lived on the road with his dad, a war veteran and recovering alcoholic, who suffered from anger issues that would in turn cause Shia to suffer from PTSD.
Putting Laboeuf’s fame aside, this story is universally recognizable in its portrayal of emotionally abusive parent-child relationships. With Shia Laboeuf as his father, Lucas Hedges as current-day Laboeuf and FKA Twigs in a supporting role.
📰 Calling it “an intimate drama”, The New Yorker’s Richard Brody said: “LaBeouf plays James [his father] with a psychodramatic intensity that’s nonetheless methodical. “
📺 on Amazon Prime U.S. and select other geographies; 🍅 rating: 93%
OUR TOP TV SHOW OF THE WEEK
Escape at Dannemora
New on Amazon Prime this month.
This TV show is based on the true story of a dramatic escape from a prison in Upstate New York. Patricia Arquette as a prison employee, and Benicio Del Toro and Paul Dano as the inmates who escape, are an unbelievable trio.
Arquette (above) is almost unrecognizable in the role of a frustrated middle-aged woman who gets romantically involved with the inmates. Dano plays the young one, a smart but quickly excited guy. Del Toro plays an experienced, clever, boss-type prisoner.
Together they take an already extraordinary story and create one of the most realistic mysteries in recent memory. Because of this, the pacing might be slow for some – but remember, it’s not like the cast is difficult to follow. Directed by Ben Stiller.
📰 Washington Post: “Escape at Dannemora is a master work of true-crime dramatization, remarkable in that it feels true in a way that even transcends the record of what happened.”
📺 on Amazon Prime U.S.; 🍅 rating:89%
Readers’ top picks
For the second week, Burning on Netflix is our readers’ top pick. It’s available on Netflix, and it’s based on a short story by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
The British-Japanese BBC thriller Giri/Haji is our readers’ favorite TV show this week. On Netflix, it tells the story of yakuza murders that take place between London and Tokyo.
New titles worth your time
If you would like to get a feel for the Sundance Festival, Horse Girl with Alison Brie, which premiered only a week ago in the festival, was added to Netflix today. It’s about a socially awkward girl who is unable to distinguish her dreams from a perceived supernatural reality. But be warned: while Brie was highly acclaimed for her performance, Horse Girl is getting mixed reviews.
The amazing 2011 movie Warrior with Tom Hardy is now available on Amazon Prime. He plays an MMA fighter who has to go against his estranged brother to win a competition his father is training him for. This half family drama and half sports movie also stars Nick Nolte and Joel Edgerton.
Great titles that will soon expire
The award-winning drama Clouds of Sils Maria leaves Netflix this Tuesday, February 11th. It stars Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart as a famous actress and her assistant. The actress is rehearsing for a big role in which an assistant and an actress fall for each other when in real life her assistant starts having feelings for her. Theater and reality intersect in this well-executed drama.
No notable titles expiring on Amazon Prime this week.
The Newsflash: Disabling Netflix autoplay
Netflix has quietly rolled out a feature that many users have been asking for: the option to disable autoplay, both for the next episodes and for trailers.
On your account settings, click on ‘playback settings’, or just visit this link.
You can then disable either the next episode autoplay or the trailers autoplay:
To many, the previews autoplay feature was the most frustrating aspect of the Netflix user experience, especially on desktop. So much so that people had to make their own Chrome extensions to disable it.
Now, depending on your preference, you can get rid of this feature, and for more productivity and less temptation, you can also get rid of the auto-playing episodes.
That’s it for this week, I hope there is something in there for you.
The next edition will be in your inbox on Friday, February 14th.
Until then,
Bilal Zou, founder [bilal@agoodmovietowatch.com]
Carried with the support of the Creative Europe Program – MEDIA.