What to watch: a comedy on terrorists
Another great comedy series and a newly available Oscar nominee
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Dear friends,
You may have heard that Netflix is moving to restrict password sharing, one of three major changes they are introducing. The other two include selling Netflix Originals to other providers like NBC and CBS, and making a bigger shift toward reality TV.
I hope you’re safe and well. Have a great weekend.
OUR TOP MOVIE OF THE WEEK
Four Lions
New on Amazon Prime U.S.
This excellent dark comedy is about a group of wannabe terrorists living in Sheffield, UK, trying their best to join the jihadist movement. They shoot introduction videos, blow up birds, and eat SIM cards to avoid detection — professional terrorist stuff.
Their leader, played by Oscar nominee Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), is constantly trying to manage the mess his inept clique gets into. And while the movie is mostly fun and games, it actually took four years of pure research to make Four Lions.
The end result is a statement on how, as dangerous as terrorists can be, most of them are just plain dumb. And this bunch is one of the dumbest.
📰 Roger Ebert back in 2010, when the film first came out: “It's an exceedingly dark comedy, a wicked satire, a thriller where the thrills center on the incompetence of the villains. It's fueled by both merriment and anger.”
📺 On Amazon Prime U.S.; 🍅 rating: 82%
OUR TOP TV SHOW OF THE WEEK
Féminin/Féminin
On Amazon Prime U.S. and select other geographies. In French and sometimes English.
This Canadian slice-of-life comedy is about six women who live in Montreal in a series of 10- to 15-minute capsules about relationships, sexuality, LGBTQ+ culture, and sometimes, love of Grey’s Anatomy.
The pool is diverse in terms of orientation: lesbian, bisexual, and questioning. They all intersect in interesting ways but each episode is focused on one of them.
If you like watching things that transport you into other people’s daily life, you’ll love this.
📰 Not yet reviewed by any major publication
📺 On Amazon Prime U.S..; 🍅 rating: -not rated
Top picks outside of Netflix and Amazon
Collective, nominated for this year’s Oscars, is new this week on Hulu. It’s a documentary about the 2015 fire in a Romanian nightclub that provoked outrage across the country. It also prompted investigative journalists to go on a dangerous mission to uncover widespread corruption within the Romanian government.
The National Geographic anthology series Genius is back for season three on Hulu. The first widely-acclaimed season was about Einstein, the second about Picasso, and this one is about Aretha Franklin.
That’s it for this week, I hope there is something in there for you.
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The next edition of this weekly letter will be in your inbox Friday, April, 2nd.
Until then,
Bilal