David Brent is still curling toes
NEW ON NETFLIX
Donal Lynch
David Brent: Life On The Road (2016)
Available from Friday It was unlikely, given the incredible success of The Office, that there wouldn’t be a cover version or two to satisfy its monumental fanbase. But then David Brent did always say that he was “a friend first, then a boss and probably an entertainer third”. This film spin-off, which rejoins an older, slightly deflated Brent, now a salesman of sanitary products, as he is about to embark on a self-funded tour with his band, contains the same toe-curling and sphincter-tightening approach to comedy. As one character remarks of Brent’s decision to let a camera crew follow him again: “It’s worse, because the world’s worse.” The writing, especially on the songs is brilliant (Ricky Gervais always had a gift for this — who could forget his lyric ‘Not die, like Lady Di but die, like when she died’ from The Simpsons). Fans of The Office will love this.
Middle School: The Worst Years Of My Life
Available from Friday There was a time when teen movies seemed to get a bit dark. Films like Mean Girls and Thirteen explored the bullying, jealousy and back-biting that characterises the
modern adolescence. That title of Middle School: The Worst Years Of My Life might lead one to believe that it continues in this angst-y vein but in fact it’s a throwback to a warmer John Hughes-type view of adolescence. Based on the best-selling book series by James Patterson, it harks back to films like the Hughes-directed Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The story centres on Rafe (Griffin Gluck), an artistic-minded kid who’s forever doodling and drawing in his sketchbook and who, because of his rebellious ways, is entering his third middle school. He immediately runs foul of the school’s principal Dwight (Andy Daly of Comedy Central’s Review), whose strict “Code of Conduct” contains more rules than Rafe could possibly abide by. The principal confiscates Rafe’s sketchbook and the kid begins an elaborate revenge scheme.
The Big Short (2015)
Available now Quentin Crisp once said that the problem with modern movies was that the ‘action’ sequences invariably involved a character typing, which is inherently less exciting than, say, riding a horse. The Big Short has to make — not only typing — but also complex financial instruments exciting enough to sustain the audience’s interest. And miraculously it does this with ease. The screenplay (which won an Oscar) deftly simplifies the factors which led to the 2007 financial crisis and enlightens while entertaining. Often this is done with a wit that Crisp himself would have approved of. For instance Ryan Gosling plays a lizard-eyed banker who enriches himself enormously on the back of other people’s misery. Every so often, he says things like “I know this sounds confusing. Here’s Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain it to you”. Sure enough, the star of The Wolf of Wall Street pops up in a sea of bubbles, sipping champagne, to discuss some obscure economic concept. Besides the always-luscious Gosling and Robbie, there is an all-star cast. One of the best films of the last few years.
Homeland
5 seasons, available now It’s sort of fitting that Homeland — which is, in essence, a frantic glimpse into the workings of the post-9/11 American “security” state — should air amid the implementation of the White House’s deeply controversial executive order on immigration and the ferocious, rousing public outcry against it. The land of the free and the home of the brave has reached the logical next step in 15-plus years of authoritarian impulses, impulses to which the series itself has occasionally succumbed (who could forget the mischievous graffiti in the show last year which read, in Arabic, ‘Homeland is racist’ — producers had not even bothered to translate it). As the FBI’s Ray Conlin (Dominic Fumusa) tells Carrie (Claire Danes) when she inquires, somewhat naively, when we started arresting people for crimes they might commit, “Somewhere between 9/11 and Orlando”. Homeland’s problem might be that, like political satire, it struggles to keep up with jaw-dropping reality. Which, in a strange way, makes it even more watchable.