The Rings of Power, David Attenborough and classic Fincher: what’s new to streaming in Australia in August
Netflix
Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough
TV, UK, 2024 – out 7 August
Every nature lover surely has a soft spot for David Attenborough, now 98 and still narrating documentaries with that finely cultivated lilt and irresistibly British voice. This Attenborough production reportedly prioritises audio over images, focusing on the sounds of nature, some of which humans can’t even hear – our review reporting that “the task of packaging up some of the world’s most obscure noises and delivering them to us sometimes proves impossible”. But there are also “ways around the problem” as the show unpacks various case studies, from bee vibrations to roaring lions and swooping owls.
The Deliverance
Film, USA, 2024 – out 30 August
The intensely atmospheric trailer for Lee Daniels’s supernatural horror movie contains growls, possessed humans, contorted bodies, Glenn Close smoking durries and fours words from a sermon (You shall be saved!) again and again. Let’s take a bold guess and say this might be exorcism-related.
Andra Day leads the cast as Ebony, a single mother who, in the tradition of many crestfallen characters before her, moves into a new home hoping for a fresh start but instead experiences hell on earth, finding herself (according to the official synopsis) “locked in a battle for her life and the souls of her children”.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Film, USA, 1998 – out 1 August Hunter S Thompson’s seminal work of gonzo journalism, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, was one of those books that attracted the label “unfilmable”– until Terry Gilliam came and filmed the hell out of it. His classic, starring Johnny Depp as Thompson’s alter ego Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as his Samoan attorney, moves like a bat out of hell (after all, “this is bat country!”) and is a true oddity, filled with wildly hallucinogenic visions and the unmistakable flavour of Thompson’s era-defining prose.
Honourable mentions: Kingsman:
The Secret Service (film, 8 August), Kingsman: The Golden Circle (film, 8 August), Lost seasons 1-6 (TV, 15 August), Terminator Zero (film, 29 August), Breathless (film, 30 August).
Stan Critical Incident
TV, Australia, 2024 – out 12 August The eponymous incident here is a tragic accident that occurs after a senior constable (British actor Akshay Khanna, sporting an impressive Australian accent) chases a suspect (Zoë Boe) into a train station. Any new Australian police drama joins an impressive array of local cop shows – my favourites including East West 101, Wildside, Scales of Justice and Mystery Road.
Galveston
Film, USA, 2018 – out 17 August Adapted from a novel by True Detective author Nic Pizzolatto, this unusually tender crime drama follows Ben Foster’s terminally ill hitman, Roy – who narrowly avoids getting whacked – and a sex worker (Elle Fanning) entangled in the scene of his near-death.
The pair hotfoot it out of town, but – to quote a line from Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – “you can’t run away from your own feet”. Sporting a beautifully moody neo-noir look and elevating what could’ve been standard genre fare, Galveston evolves into an unexpectedly poignant rumination on second chances and borrowed time.
Panic Room
Film, USA, 2002 – out 10 August
The word “Hitchcockian” is bandied around a lot, especially about David Fincher. For me, Fincher’s films have never channelled the spirit of Hitchcock’s more than this near-single setting thriller based in a four-story brownstone in a ritzy New York City neighbourhood. On their first night living there, Jodie Foster’s Meg and her daughter (Kristen Stewart) lock themselves in the eponymous room when three thieves break in. The twist: what they want to steal is inside the panic room!
The ensuing cat-and-mouse game is executed with visual audacity and long explorative takes. It’s well-paced and acted, with Foster leading the charge and Forest Whitaker freshening up the “good thief” archetype.
Honourable mentions: Stand By
Me (film, 3 August), Almost Famous (film, 4 August), I’m Your Man (film, 4 August), For Your Consideration (film, 18 August), Dragged Across Concrete (film, 18 August), The Fall of the House of Murdaugh (TV, 18 August), Hook (film, 23 August), The Body Next or (TV, 24 August), Donnie Brasco (film, 24 August), $9.99 (film, 28 August).
ABCiView Mulholland Drive
Film, USA/France, 2001 – out 23 August
David Lynch’s Hollywood mindbender, which was named in a 2016 BBC poll as the greatest film so far in the 21st century, is as noodle-scratching as they come, chocked to the gills with nightmarish peculiarities. But as the late critic Roger Ebert memorably wrote: “There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery.” Its mosaiclike story follows a cheerful aspiring actor (Naomi Watts) who moves to LA, where she meets a mysterious woman (Laura Harring) left amnesiac by a car accident.
Honourable mentions: Shaun Micallef ’s Eve of Destruction (TV, 14 August), Guy Montgomery’s Guy MontSpelling Bee (TV, 14 August), Good Game Spawn Point (TV, 23 August).
SBS on Demand 12 Angry Men
Film, USA, 1957 – out 9 August
One of cinema’s great courtroom dramas is almost entirely devoid of scenes in an actual courtroom. Sidney Lumet’s 1957 masterpiece unfolds in real time and takes place in a jury room on a stinking hot day, as a dozen men thrash out whether they think a poor teenager killed his father.
It initially seems like an open/shut case, with Henry Fonda’s Juror 8 the only person to encourage others not rush to judgment. “I just want to talk,” he declares to the chagrin of the rest of the group, who want things to wrap up quickly.
For me this film is fundamentally about logic and compassion, but there’s many ways you can read it, including as a study of the weaknesses and susceptibilities of the American court system and of highly problematic gender-oriented behaviour – what we might now call “toxic masculinity.”
Moonstruck
Film, USA, 1987 – out 9 August
“This is the most tormented man
I have ever met – I’m in love with this man!” proclaims Cher’s Loretta Castorini about Nicolas Cage’s Ronny, a one-handed baker with an intense animosity towards his estranged brother Johnny (Danny Aiello), to whom she’s engaged to marry. Cher is charming but Cage steals the show with a sensationally theatrical performance that beams in from a higher reality, featuring oddly melodramatic lines such as: “What is life? They say bread is life!”
Honourable mentions: Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations seasons 1-5 (TV, 1 August), Rebus (film, 1 August), Sophie’s Choice (film, 1 August), The Handmaid’s Tale (TV, 1 August), The Red King (TV, 8 August), Chorus Girls (TV, 15 August), Ammo (TV, 22 August), The Lawnmower Man (film, 23 August).
Amazon Prime Video The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, season two
TV, 2024 – out 29 August
It’s become normal for insanely expensive productions to arrive with great fanfare, then leave virtually no cultural imprint. No doubt I was one of many who sat through the first few episodes of The Rings of Power, and thought it was pretty good, though not quite compelling enough to keep watching given all the other content vying for our attention (also, to be fair, Peter Jackson really milked the Lord of the Rings franchise dry, and just won’t stop).
It’d be remiss of me not to mention this show’s second season, given the sheer scale of it and the certainty of grand drama and eye-watering visuals. Taking place 1,000 years before the events in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, season two reportedly focuses heavily on the rise of Charlie Vickers’ villain Sauron.
Jackpot!
Film, 2024 – out 15 August
Winning the lottery is usually considered a good thing but it proves rather dangerous for the protagonist of Paul Feig’s action-comedy, set in a nearfuture California that’s introduced a The Purge-esque initiative, whereby lottery winners can be legally murdered – the killer collecting all the moolah.
Awkwafina plays Katie, a struggling actor who’s unaware of this law and indeed finds herself in possession of the winning ticket. John Cena co-stars as a “lottery protection agent” whose job is to keep her alive in order to pocket some of the prize. Presumably, the film addresses why he doesn’t just kill her and collect it all …
Honourable mentions: Batman: Caped Crusader (TV, 1 August), A Sacrifice (film, 2 August), Sicario: Day of the Soldado (film, 6 August), Madame Web (film, 8 August), The Hobbit, parts 1, 2 and 3 (film, 15 August), Sicario (film, 18 August), The Beekeeper (film, 23 August).
Binge Chimp Crazy
TV, 2024, USA – out 18 August
These days any television documentary centred on a kooky animal lover who fraternises with exotic species is inevitably compared to Tiger King. That’s especially the case in this series that follows Tonia Haddix – the self-professed “Dolly Parton of chimps” – given it comes from Tiger King’s codirector.
Haddix is good talent; like in Tiger King, human behaviour in this series in some ways is wilder than the animals. The first two episodes (all I’ve seen so far) contain interesting moments, but the narrative arc has many dangling threads and the structure feels a bit shapeless. For a more engaging doco about chimps, check out 2011’s fascinating Project Nim.
The Holdovers
Film, USA, 2023 – out 3 August Alexander Payne has a knack for creating films featuring characters you both like and loathe. In his latest, nominated for best picture at this year’s Oscars, Paul Giamatti is faultlessly convincing as a pompous boarding school teacher. The way this stiff-as-a-board personality slowly connects with a student (Dominic Sessa) with whom he’s forced to spend the holidays is quite sublime. The characters are richly rendered and the drama heartwarming.
Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes
Film, USA, 2024 – out 4 August
The spine of Nanette Burstein’s documentary about the inimitable Elizabeth Taylor is a series of interviews conducted in 1964 between the star and journalist Richard Meryman, which were eventually uncovered and cleared by both Taylor and Meryman’s estates.
The film contains insights from the lucid and self-analytical Taylor, who reflects on pretty much all the expected talking points – attitudes towards fame, acting, her health and her marriages. Taylor’s responses feel genuinely candid, sometimes bitingly so.
Honourable mentions: Mr Bigstuff (TV, 1 August), ER seasons 1-15 (TV, 1 August), Strange Way of Life (film, 1 August), Please Like Me seasons 1-4 (TV, 1 August), The Postman Always Rings Twice (film, 6 August), Madame Web (film, 8 August), The Killer (film, 24 August).
Disney+ Only Murders in the Building, season four
TV, USA, 2024 – out 27 August There’s no shortage of murder mysteries, but none have quite the same charm and sheer likeability of this beloved series revolving around a trio of podcasting mystery solvers – played by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez.
The third season literally ended with a bang, announcing the death of a supporting character and virtually guaranteeing a fresh case for the characters to solve. One wonders how many more seasons (and how many more dead bodies) will pile up before the show loses its lustre; fingers crossed the fourth season delivers the goods.
Honourable mentions: A Teacher (TV, 7 August), The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat (film, 23 August).
AppleTV+ Bad Monkey
TV, USA, 2024 – out 14 August A severed arm with an erect middle finger becomes the visual motif of this charmingly screwy mystery series about a former police detective (Vince Vaughn) attempting to solve the case of the bird-flipping hand, only to be told it’s a matter of “random rigor mortis”.
I’ve only seen the first episode, but it’s already clear this entertaining and faintly preposterous show is doing its own thing, with an endearingly downplayed performance from Vaughn and a quirky narrator (Tom Nowicki) who regularly interjects, sometimes adding colourful details, sometimes intentionally derailing the story.
Honourable mentions: Cowboy Cartel (TV, 2 August), The Instigators (film, 9 August), Pachinko season 2 (TV, 23 August).