The new Queen of Mean returns
Chelsea Season 2, premiere on Friday, then weekly
CHELSEA Handler made headlines this past week with her comments on BF Jennifer Aniston’s attitude to the Brangelina divorce (Aniston doesn’t care, apparently) and the Trump presidency — Chelsea just wants it to be over soon (Donald Trump Jr issued a lengthy Twitter riposte to her). This flurry of commentary is of course no coincidence, as the comedienne has a new series of her Netflix chat show to promote. And how you feel about that probably depends on how you feel about Handler’s singular brand of snark. To some she is a refreshing antidote to the bubble bath interviewing techniques that her competitors use, while to others she, like her heroine Joan Rivers, is just the wrong side of the mean line. To be fair to Handler she is definitely not afraid to mess with existing chat show tropes and she mixes interesting non-celebrities with big stars. But a lot of it is very American-centric and the video inserts and financial advice segments last season fell a little flat. The trailer for the new series presents her as a wholesome 1950s housewife and gives us her etiquette tips, so it’s likely that Handler will subvert even more of the conventions of chat this time around. Future episodes will see the host interview Charlize Theron and Rosario Dawson. The premiere on Friday features Melissa McCarthy.
Better Call Saul Season 3, premiere on Thursday, then weekly
IN Breaking Bad, the charmingly crooked lawyer Saul Goodman provided comic relief as Walt descended into his new life as a drug lord. There were those who wondered whether the character, played by Saturday Night Live alumnus Bob Odenkirk, would have enough dramatic depth to carry a whole spinoff by himself. In fact in the two seasons since Saul got his own show, it has proven itself to be at least as brilliant as the source material. The sensational news for fans of the show is that this season Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) will be making an appearance. After Bryan Cranston himself, Esposito provided probably the most incredible performance in Breaking Bad and he was robbed of the Emmy for the role — Aaron Paul picked it up instead. We see Gus in a promotional video for Los Pollos Hermanos — the fast food chain which served as a cover for the drugs empire. It all indicates that we may be getting closer to the end of this prequel, but its fans will be hoping that AMC — the network which produces it — draws out the action a little longer.
Sandy Wexler (2017) Available from Friday
ADAM Sandler is the actor most people love to hate. You could speculate on the reasons for this — the slew of dreadful movies he’s put out, his very belated retiring of ‘gay panic’ jokes, or his insufferable man-baby voice — but the general feeling about him is perhaps winkingly referenced in Sandy Wexler. Sandler plays the title character, a fictional talent agent, and nobody has a good word to say about him. The likes of Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien and Dana Carvey appear as themselves, tearing strips off Wexler’s reputation. It all sails very close to self parody but then you can’t be sure about that either because like many Sandler vehicles there is also a cheesy love story to account for. Wexler’s devotion to his career is put to the test when he falls in love with his newest client, Courtney Clarke (Jennifer Hudson), a talented singer who he discovers. It all sets the scene for a lot of 1990s nostalgia — much of the film is set then — and it’s not-unbearable, by Sandler’s standards (assuming you can handle the voice he puts on for the whole thing).
Slam (2017) Available from Saturday
NETFLIX won the global rights outside Italy to Italian director Andrea Molaioli’s teen pregnancy pic Slam, which is based on the novel by British writer Nick Hornby, known for High Fidelity, Fever Pitch and About a Boy. The story follows a boy with a passion for skateboarding and a plan to travel to the US who meets a girl and gets her pregnant. This got lukewarm festival response but while the pace is slow and there are some mawkish moments the performances are excellent and Italian is probably the most pleasant foreign language to watch a film in (this is in fact the first film on Netflix entirely in the language).