Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for weekend streaming.
What to watch in 2023: The best movies (so far)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Netflix)
Between this summer’s delightful Asteroid City and this new Netflix short film, 2023 is shaping up to be the immaculately tailored year of Wes Anderson. Based on a short story by Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar follows a wealthy man (Benedict Cumberbatch) who seeks to recruit a guru who “can see without using his eyes” to help him cheat at gambling. For reasons only Netflix executives can answer, the 39-minute production wasn’t screened in advance for Canadian press, despite the short playing to great acclaim at the Venice Film Festival last month. But hopes are high – not only thanks to already published reviews and the fact that the short co-stars regular Anderson collaborator Ralph Fiennes, but also because it is just one of four Dahl stories that Anderson has adapted for the streaming giant. Henry Sugar will be available to stream starting Sept. 27, while The Swan arrives a day later on Sept. 28, The Ratcatcher on Sept. 29, and Poison on Sept. 30. An entire week of Wes Anderson? Netflix, you are forgiven for Heart of Stone.
Gen V (Prime Video)
Before The Boys returns for its fourth season of superhero carnage, the proudly perverted executives over at Prime Video have finally delivered Gen V, a long-in-the-works spin-off of the wildly popular series based on Garth Ennis’s cult comic book. Judging by the hour-long series premiere, it’s hard to imagine Gen V luring any new fans to the franchise – this is exactly the same kind of ultragory, sickly cynical action-comedy that The Boys has been peddling since 2019, only with a slightly younger perspective, as it takes place at a university for wannabe supes (shot at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, no less).
Which is fine, for those into this sort of thing. Like Prime Video’s other big superviolent spin-off this fall season, The Continental: From the World of John Wick, Gen V is explicitly designed to give fans more of the same, rather than any new spin on the mothership property. Limbs are ripped off, bodies burst into flames, there’s a half-decent dig at Marvel’s WandaVision, and there’s one outrageous sex scene that pushes the boundaries of full-frontal male nudity further than even the fine folk at Pornhub might dare to go. Deep inside your heart (or other organs), you already know whether Gen V is appointment viewing or not. Myself, I’ll just wait for the inevitable NSFW memes and screencaps to hit the internet the day after the latest episodes air.
Elemental (Disney+)
A candy-coloured allegory for the tensions of immigration and urban racism, the new Pixar film Elemental was initially branded a failure for the animation giant when it was released to tepid box-office receipts this summer. But Elemental kept chugging along and earning money, proving that family audiences were otherwise starved for half-decent big-screen entertainment. Set in Element City, where water-people, land-people and air-people live a kind of upper-class existence but fire-people are shunned, Elemental follows Ember (Leah Lewis), a young fire-woman who has a meet-cute with the water-dude Wade (Mamoudou Athie). It’s When Water Met Sally, with dashes of Moonstruck and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which is perhaps too ambitious of a thing to filter through the lens of a kid’s flick. But director Peter Sohn fights mightily to dazzle and enchant whenever possible, his metropolis an inventive world bursting with detail. Read review.
Therapy Dogs (Crave)
Not everyone can make a movie at 17 years old, fewer still who can get that film into the prestigious Slamdance Film Festival. But then, Mississauga filmmaker Ethan Eng has a history of going against expectations and self-imposed rules. For starters, his debut feature Therapy Dogs only got made because he told his school officials that he’d be shooting a yearbook video on campus, not in fact this scrappy film about youth in revolt. Following in the proud, trickster footsteps of his The Dirties/Nirvanna the Band the Show/BlackBerry mentors Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller (who serve as executive producers here), Eng has produced a highly energetic, if anarchic, film about teenage rebellion.
Following two high-schoolers (Eng and co-writer Justin Morrice), Therapy Dogs isn’t a straight-ahead narrative as it is a jagged collection of antics and adventures, as much a Jackass audition as it is a work of Richard Linklater-esque yearning. Its first 10 minutes should scare off all but the most adventurous adults in the room, but those who stick around will be rewarded with the fiery vision of a filmmaker who won’t take no for an answer. And now it’s available on Crave for everyone to at least test out.
Rustic Oracle (Hollywood Suite)
To mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30, streamer Hollywood Suite is showcasing a special programming suite of titles that highlight the culture and history of Indigenous filmmakers. Along with Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls and Alanis Obomsawin’s Incident at Restigouche, Hollywood Suite will be hosting the broadcast premiere of the under-seen 2019 Canadian drama Rustic Oracle. Director Sonia Bonspille’s film, which opened to warm reviews when it premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival before its theatrical release was scuttled because of the pandemic, follows a young girl trying to solve the mystery of her big sister’s disappearance. The premiere, set for 9 p.m. ET and available to stream on-demand afterward, is an admirable programming move from Hollywood Suite as it makes a bid to distinguish itself in the country’s crowded small-screen landscape.