Australian and New Zealand TV

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever*. 

As you might have noticed, things are hotting up in the tele stakes. In the past week, I’ve reviewed the first episodes of:

• Slasher (US: Chiller)
• Hap and Leonard (US: SundanceTV; UK: Amazon Instant Video)
• The Family (US: ABC)
• Damien (US: A&E)

But that’s by no means all the new shows. In the next few days, I’m hoping to give Underground (US: WGN America) a look over, as well as – assuming it’s not cancelled before then, given its ratings – Of Kings And Prophets (US: ABC), which sees one ‘Ray Winstone’ playing King Saul of Israel, who has to deal with some bloke called ‘David’. Careful – no spoilers, please.

I still haven’t got round to watching Netflix’s Love, but I did manage to watch a couple of episodes of…:

Flaked (Netflix)
Will Arnett is Chip, a furniture store owner in Venice Beach, California, who spends a lot of his time:

1. Hanging around at AA meetings
2. Cycling everywhere, because he’s been banned from driving, having killed someone while on drugs
3. Having sex with/fancying much younger women on popular types of mattresses
4. Lying about pretty much everything

And that’s about it, really. Just as Master of None didn’t have much plot and was really just a series of character moments, so Flaked is really a character study of a complete tosser who screws over everyone he meets, albeit in very small ways, for his own selfish needs. There also aren’t many jokes, either.

Despite that, it’s actually quite watchable, in part thanks to Arnett, in part because it’s smarter than this otherwise standard ‘edgy’ comedy format would suggest. The Venice Beach location is different from the usual standard settings for sitcoms, too.

There’s also a certain knowingness about the show similar to Arrested Development‘s (perhaps because of exec producer Mitch Hurwitz) that makes it less of a male fantasy: Arnett may be sleeping with hot young women a lot, but his unattractive male friends aren’t, and even Arnett is finding it all a bit empty and pointless, having nothing culturally in common with the woman he professes to love. 

I’ll try to watch the remaining episodes this week – Daredevil season two is on the way, very soon, so I’m going to need to clear the decks – and let you know how the rest of it goes. If you can’t wait, don’t go into it expecting big laughs. Instead, just expect to enjoy a lot of Will Arnett hanging out with a bunch of people and having a little sex.

I haven’t managed to watch any more episodes of Ófærð (Trapped), unfortunately, but after the jump, the regulars, including a couple of season finales and some double-episode rundowns: 11.22.63, American Crime, Billions, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Limitless, Lucifer, The Magicians, Man Seeking Woman, Okkupert (Occupied), Second Chance, Stan Lee’s Lucky Man and Vikings. At least one of the recommended shows is being demoted – can you guess which one?

But first, a movie:

The Intern (2015) (iTunes)
Four things in the credits made me think this was going to be absolute unwatchable: the title, which in combination with Anne Hathaway’s presence, made we think I was going to be getting The Devil Wears Prada 2; writer/director Nancy Meyers, whose It’s Complicated was so unimaginably bad and dull, I nearly fell asleep in the cinema; and Robert De Niro, who has been working purely for the cash for what feels like decades now.

However, I needn’t have been worried, since it seems like everyone involved induced everyone else to raise their games. De Niro looks like he’s actually putting some effort in as the 70-year-old retired widower who takes an internship at an Internet start-up to give himself something to do and ends up becoming friends with CEO Hathaway. Hathaway is likable and believable as the perfectionist workaholic businesswomen, while Meyers (who, in case we forget, also wrote Private Benjamin, Irreconcilable Differences, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Baby Boom, Father of the Bride and The Holiday) turns in a surprisingly authentic look at both twentysomethings and seventysomethings in modern business.

The first half of the movie is better than the second, with my lovely wife (who set up and runs her own company) finding a lot to identify with, but the second half adds an unnecessary dramatic twist that ruins a lot of the good, frequently (unpreachy) feminist work the first half develops. De Niro’s romance with in-house masseuse Rene Russo doesn’t quite work and a lot of plots are developed but ultimately go nowhere. The firm’s grasp of business isn’t totally top notch either, such as the question of why Hathaway’s firm needs a new CEO, rather than a halfway competent COO for Hathaway to delegate to.

Nevertheless, frequently moving, frequently funny, with a good range of characters and surprisingly smart, The Intern is that rare breed of movie: one aimed at adults that is entertaining, enjoyable but untaxing. I also think it speaks to my age that I identified far more with De Niro than with any of the 20something man-boys he works with.

• If you’re wondering where all the references to Locate TV have got to this week, turns out they’re shutting down on Wednesday. Can’t say I’m totally surprised, given the effort v reward potential of the idea, but it’s a shame all the same.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Flaked, The Intern, Lucifer and Billions”