Dear friends,
Today’s top pick is an unfairly little-known show by British comedian Guz Khan. Khan started as a Youtuber short skits like “Pakisaurus”, a funny reaction to Jurassic World naming one of its dinosaurs “Pachy”, which sounds like the racial slur “Paki”.
Steve Coogan took notice and commissioned a pilot based on Khan’s videos for the BBC. The result, in Khan’s words, was “very generic, super-sitcomy”, saying that he “wanted to make something more substantial”. He took his TV show elsewhere and the result is a funny, poignant, and meaningful comedy.
THE TOP TV SHOW OF THE WEEK
Man like Mobeen
On Netflix almost everywhere.
Mobeen, Nate, and Eight are three friends from Birmingham. Mobeen, the head of the group, takes care of his sister in the absence of his parents and tries to be a good Muslim and citizen while escaping his past as a drug dealer. In the first episode, a transaction to buy a laptop results in three SWAT teams being called on Mobeen and his friends.
A lot of Man like Mobeen is silly, laugh-out-loud comedy. But as its creator wanted, it also gets serious very quickly. Themes of teenage knife crime (in the second season), the rise of right-wing sentiment, and a problematic relationship with the police are constantly being brought up without ever feeling forced.
📰 NME: “[Man like Mobeen] isn’t just one of the funniest sitcoms of recent times – it may also be one of the most important.”
📺 on Netflix; 🍅 rating: unavailable
THE TOP MOVIE OF THE WEEK
Heartstone
On Amazon Prime. In Icelandic.
This coming-of-age drama is set in a remote fishing village in Iceland. It follows a group of boys during a summer who catch a break from the harsh Icelandic nature. They spend a lot of time outdoors bonding together and discovering themselves.
One of the boys develops feelings for his best friend, Kristian, while Kristian chases a girl.
Watching the boys wrestle with their growth in this wasteland playground is amazing, but the shots of fjords, beautiful coastline, and living so in touch with nature, all of that almost steals the show.
📰 Variety: “thoughtful, lyrical, slightly over-deliberate tour of a beautiful teenage wasteland.”
📺 on Netflix; 🍅 rating: 84%
Readers’ top picks
What Will People Say, last week’s top pick, is our readers’ favorite movie. On Amazon Prime, it tells the story of a teenage girl in Norway who gets taken back by her father to Pakistan, where he is from, against her will.
Never Have I Ever on Netflix is our readers’ top series this week. It’s a fun and easy sitcom / coming-of-age story of an Indian American high-schooler. Co-created by The Office’s Mindy Kaling.
New titles worth your time
Netflix premiered a Bandersnatch-style installment of Tina Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt called Kimmy vs the Reverend. You get to choose how where Kimmy’s adventures take her.
For a trip down memory lane, Alias seasons 1 through 5 have been added this week to Amazon Prime.
Great titles that will soon expire
What's Eating Gilbert Grape with 1993 Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp leaves Netlfix Tuesday, May, 19th. Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the excellent Japanese documentary about a sushi master whose restaurant is hidden in a Tokyo subway station, leaves Thursday, May 21st.
The six seasons of Sex and the City leave Amazon Prime this Tuesday, May 19th.
The Newsflash: Restoring HQ & We Are One update
This week’s newsflash is an update on two previous newsflashes (that’s a word, right?)
In another sign of looking beyond the pandemic, Netflix announced this week that they’re restoring streaming quality in Europe. They had previously lowered it upon request from the EU fearing internet outages.
Issue #80 had an invitation to lower your streaming quality manually to save bandwidth for people who needed it most and if you had done that (💖), it’s safe to say that you can turn it back to its normal level.
And if you remember in issue #86, the world’s biggest festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Toronto, teamed up to take their lineups online in one event called “We Are One”. This mega-festival will take place for 10 days from May 29th to June 7th, and will serve as a fundraiser. Watching the movies will be free, but you’ll be asked to donate if you’d like. All proceeds will go to COVID relief.
Every festival will be responsible for its own lineup, and most of them haven’t revealed the films that will be screening yet. One has, however, the Brooklyn Film Festival. Their exiting lineup includes 148 movies, from every continent which will all stream for free in 37 two-hour program blocks.
That’s it for today, I hope there is something in there for you.
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The next edition will be in your inbox on Friday, May 22nd.
Until then,
Bilal Zou, founder [bilal@agoodmovietowatch.com]
Carried with the support of the Creative Europe Program – MEDIA.