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.
Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos (HBO/Crave, starting Sept. 7)
Director David Chase on the set of The Sopranos. The two-part documentary, Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos, offers a comprehensive dive into the genesis and legacy of the iconic HBO series.Will Hart/Supplied
Twenty-five years ago this past January, David Chase and his team, including the inimitable James Gandolfini, changed the face of television forever when HBO debuted the first season of The Sopranos, the very best television series ever made. I could go on for thousands of words – and have, several times – about how the thoroughly brilliant series constantly one-upped itself over the course of its 86 episodes, lacing outrageous comedy and searing drama into the comfortably violent trappings of a mafia thriller. And yes, this includes the finale, whose ultimate power can be felt in how its final minutes still, a quarter-century later, confound and beguile. But as much a devotee I am of The Sopranos, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney might have me beat. Or at least he’s secured better access.
In his new two-part documentary, Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos, Gibney offers a comprehensive dive into the genesis and legacy of the HBO phenomenon, which inspired leagues of “prestige-television” wannabes while also changing the scope, scale and ambitions of small-screen storytelling. While there is a certain eye-roll to Gibney’s setup – he interviews Chase in a replica of Dr. Melfi’s psychiatrist office – the production promises to be essential viewing for any Sopranos fan. Not only does Chase spill his guts, but Gibney has also wrangled in-depth interviews with Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco and Michael Imperioli. Don’t you fuggedaboutit.
The Movie Man (Hollywood Suite)
The Movie Man focuses on Keith Stata, owner and operator of the Highlands Cinema in the tiny Ontario village of Kinmount. Over four decades, Stata has turned a single-screen theatre in the woods into a five-screen monstrosity that is as much a DIY museum as it is a multiplex.Scott Ramsay/Supplied
Movies about movie theatres have a spotty record. For every Cinema Paradiso and Matinee there is an Empire of Light or The Majestic – the line between exploring the magic of movie-going and lazily slobbering over it is as thin as the syrup-to-soda calibration on those Coke freestyle machines. Yet Canadian director Matt Finlin’s charming and humble new documentary The Movie Man delivers an ode to the theatrical experience that is genuine without slipping into easy sentimentality.
Following the ins and outs of Canada’s – if not perhaps the world’s – most unusual movie theatre, The Movie Man focuses on Keith Stata, owner and operator of the Highlands Cinema in the tiny Ontario village of Kinmount. Over four decades, Stata has turned a single-screen theatre situated in the woods – its neighbours are bears and deer, not Starbucks or Outback Steakhouse – into an idiosyncratically constructed five-screen monstrosity that is as much a labyrinthian DIY museum as it is a multiplex. If Stata and his business might be the last of their kind, then Finlin’s film proves that they won’t go down easy.
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (Crave)
Jena Malone appears in a scene from Horizon: An American Saga-Chapter I. After a rough theatrical launch, Kevin Costner's epic western moves to streaming on Crave.Richard Foreman/The Associated Press
Kevin Costner’s grand experiment in Western storytelling hit a few Donner Party-sized speedbumps this summer after Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it was pulling the second chapter of Horizon: An American Saga from its planned theatrical release. But perhaps Costner’s epic vision might find a larger, more enthusiastic audience on the streaming side of things, given that’s where his Yellowstone phenomenon resides. Whatever faults the first instalment of Horizon might have, it’s hard to argue with Costner’s ambitions. There isn’t another American filmmaker out there so intoxicated with his own commitment to the genre. Even if I’m unsure that I’ll make it to the yet-unfilmed Chapter Three (out of a planned four instalments!).
Old Enough! (TVO, starting Sept. 8)
Japanese series Old enough follows children, aged 3 to 6, as they head out into the world to run everyday errands for their parents.Supplied
There aren’t a great deal of Japanese series that translate well to North American audiences, but TVO is placing a bet that Nippon TV’s long-running hit Old Enough! is going to win over Canadians young and, well, you know. The premise is undeniably intriguing, inducing as many awws as it does gasps: In each episode of the series, hidden cameras follow real children, aged 3 to 6, as they head out into the world by running everyday errands for their parents. Each child is meticulously tracked and cared for by the filmmakers’ safety teams – just out of direct sight of the kids themselves, in order to give them a sense of autonomy. And what often start out as nerve-racking adventures for the children turn into hilarious and heartwarming experiences. Canadian comedy icon Colin Mochrie narrates each episode of TVO’s iteration, which just might be the most readily meme-able of the Ontario public broadcaster’s efforts in recent memory.
Adam Sandler: Love You (Netflix)
Adam Sandler plays guitar at the Nocturne Theater in Adam Sandler: Love You on Netflix. The Sandler stand-up comedy special toys with the very notions of the genre.Netflix
It’s been a beat since the Sandman’s last comedy special, but Netflix’s favourite in-house funnyman is back behind the mic here, in a production that offers something a little different than any random stand-up set. Together with Josh Safdie, who directed Sandler’s Uncut Gems alongside his brother Benny, Sandler has created a stand-up special that toys with the very notion of the genre, including a stage that is intentionally designed to be “the worst venue ever.” The result is the most meta-contextual project of Sandler’s career, or certainly one of the strangest. And that includes the time that the actor played the lisping son of the Devil in Little Nicky.