Binge-r #287: Bumper July Edition

Trans-Europe Excess: Alicia Vikander (Mira Harberg) in Irma Vep

REMOTE! COUCH! ACTION!

A note from your fellow binger: Hello, would you like some more streaming TV advice? My BINGE-R sabbatical has run for almost three months, and while I’m not sure what format this newsletter should take going forward I am excited to offer up this catch-up of what I have been – and will be – watching. Thanks for your patience, and a special nod to everyone who got in touch to say that they missed my recommendations and demand I get back to work. I hope the issue below provides a degree of satisfaction. Be safe, and click on that next episode, CM.

BECOMING ELIZABETH S1 (Stan)

Tudor-era period intrigue is a self-contained genre at this point, but this urgent account of the teenage years of the future Queen Elizabeth I – she was at risk, lusted after, and faced with empowered siblings – has a vivid, wily energy to it. The danger creates a form of excitement, for both Alicia von Rittberg’s title character and the audience. The machinations have a snarl and an intimacy, which is why this period drama draws comparisons to another (better) show about a powerful but fractured family: Succession.

BLACK BIRD (Apple TV+)

Taron Egerton follows up the Elton John biopic Rocketman with this American prison thriller, where he plays a cocky drug dealer, Jimmy Keene, who is tempted by early release if he will enter a maximum-security jail, befriend a suspected serial killer, Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser), and get incriminating details from him. It sounds like Netflix’s Mindhunter, but with crime fiction great Dennis Lehane running the show it’s a nuanced and uneasy journey into masculinity, matched by parallel storylines outside that include a desperate police investigation and the complications provided by Keane’s ailing father, Big Jim, who is played by the late Ray Liotta.

CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS (Amazon)

This new Sally Rooney adaptation didn’t strike a chord the way Normal People did at the start of the pandemic, but several of the creative team have returned, including lead director Lenny Abrahamson, and while it is not as austerely impactful as it’s predecessor, it’s an often captivating Dublin-based take on friendship and desire, class and ambition. All four actors are first-rate: Alison Oliver and Sasha Lane as the former lovers and university students discovering their voice, and Jemima Kirke and Joe Alwyn as the 30-something artists they begin increasingly fraught dalliances with. Take the episodes slowly, savour them.

IRMA VEP (Binge)

I may be in the minority, but I live for this level of refined European black comedy. A meta-commentary about the creative process, a celebration of cinema, an invocation of celebrity’s emotional fluidity, and a jaw-dropping showcase of malignant German theatre actors (take a bow, Lars Eidinger), Olivier Assayas’ autobiographical elegy about the chaotic Parisian shoot of a limited TV series interweaves juicy ideas with accomplished ease. As the American film star taking a break from blockbusters but not her neuroses, Alicia Vikander gives the performance of her career to date.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER S1 (Netflix)

It’s been a thin year for Netflix, which mistakenly opted for quantity over quality after The Queen’s Gambit. Perennial network showrunner David E. Kelley spins author Michael Connolly’s maverick Los Angeles lawyer into a decent legal thriller, with a committed performance from Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as recovering addict and legal eagle Mickey Haller. There’s no shortage of plot to push along Haller’s defence of a tech mogul charged with a double murder, but this is a serviceable drama that lacks the L.A. pungency of the books.

OBI-WAN KENOBI (Disney+)

I watched it – it was initially an event in our household – but once again the Star Wars universe lets Ewan McGregor down with this torpid limited series that checks in on his exiled Jedi Knight a decade prior to the original George Lucas film. Having the burnt-out Ben Kenobi find redemption through a bond with a child was way too much of a nod to The Mandalorian, but unlike the Baby Yoda space western this series established little beyond the nostalgic link of fan service. And the fan service – even with Darth Vader being Darth Vader – wasn’t that inspiring.

Age Against the Machine: Jeff Bridges (Dan Chase) in The Old Man

LOOT S1 (Apple TV+)

Consider this warmly chaotic comedy a reverse Parks and Recreation. It’s driven by a belief in people and our better collective nature, but it’s told through the lens of the newly divorced third richest woman in America. With a US$87 billion settlement from her Jeff Bezos-like ex, Molly Wells (Maya Rudolph) seeks purpose – and discipline – in the affairs of the charitable foundation she’s long ignored. She naturally finds friendship and affection with the neatly sketched supporting cast, and as much as the inequality is galling Rudolph is just too enjoyable a comic lead. Give it three episodes – if for nothing else than the hot wings scene.

THE OLD MAN S1 (Disney+)

What if Graham Greene had to rewrite Taken? Jeff Bridges, doing TV work for the first time in, oh, 60 years, gives a typically excellent performance (watch how his character subtly takes in the stories of others) in this espionage drama. Playing an ageing spy on the run from his former CIA colleagues, Bridges is at the centre of equally lengthy dialogue set-pieces (John Lithgow is the perfect foil as an FBI boss) and intricate fight scenes, where his ageing widower fights for his life with younger adversaries who measure muscle against guile. The story is laced with regret (and flashbacks), and like the action sequences packs a punch.

PISTOL (Disney+)

Absolutely not. This limited series, directed by a typically frenetic Danny Boyle, fundamentally misunderstands The Sex Pistols and 1976 punk rock. The idea that the band were a corrective force, that they wanted to change a decaying Britain, is a ludicrous notion reinforced by despairingly blunt biopic dialogue. To quote the band: “no future”.

PLAYERS S1 (Paramount+)

I remain a huge admirer of the 2017 Netflix series American Vandal, so I happily queued up for creators Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda new mockumentary, which follows the travails of a professional Esports team (they play League of Legends). With an egocentric star and an uncooperative new teenage prodigy at odds, the half hour episodes almost perfectly duplicate both the gaming milieu and the classic sports tale storytelling. The problem? The humour is somewhat marginalised, smuggled in with the driest of wit and character flourishes. I miss the laugh out loud gags American Vandal skilfully dropped.

THE REHEARSAL S1 (Binge)

Canadian comic Nathan Fielder (Nathan for You) goes fully conceptual in this reality fantasia, where he uses actors and sets to help strangers – and himself – prepare for potentially life-altering actions. The deadpan ambition is jaw-dropping, revealing a level of detail that moves from the eccentric to the unsettling, with Fielder as nebbish deity drily pulling the levers and regarding his subjects with academic detachment. It’s one of the most original comedies made. It might be a masterpiece. It might also – and this is only my suspicion – be entirely fabricated.

SHINING GIRLS (Apple TV+)

Elisabeth Moss continued to deliver elite-tier performances where her character has the taut, painful responses of a raw nerve, with this science-fiction thriller which reconfigured crime drama’s dead girl tropes through time-travel and parallel dimensions. Lives were lived again and characters were seen anew, so that details and recriminations piled up. It was a story where trauma literally couldn’t be escaped, with terrific complementary supporting roles from Jamie Bell and Wagner Moura. It was gripping but unflinching, and I may also be one of the show’s few advocates.

THE TIME TRAVELLER’S WIFE (Binge)

Another time-travel drama, but this is purely for aficionados of bonkers bad television. The love affair between a woman (Rose Leslie) and an accidental time traveller (Theo James) careens from being a creepy rom-com to truly demented gambits. The scene – thankfully brief – where the teenage time traveller goes back a few days and sleeps with himself deserves to go down in bad TV history.

Notable Returns: Girls5Eva S2 (Stan, S1 review here); Hacks S2 (Stan, S1 review here); Borgen S4 (Netflix, S1 review here); The Boys S3 (Amazon, S1 review here); Physical S2 (Apple TV+, S1 review here); For All Mankind S3 (Apple TV+, S1 review here); Only Murders in the Building S2 (Disney+, S1 review here).

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>> The Complete BINGE-R Archive: 385 series reviewed here, 163 movies reviewed here, and 45 lists compiled here.