Prepare to be addicted once again Narcos, Season 3 The Squid and the Whale (2005) Who the F**k Is That Guy (2017) Pulp Fiction (1994)
Donal Lynch
10 episodes, available from Friday TO begin with, Narcos was as addictive as befitted a drama about drug cartels. But whereas season one was a sensation, there were those who wondered if Narcos had anywhere to go after season two. The first two seasons revolved around the hunt for 1980s-era Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura). With his capture/death in the season two finale, there didn’t seem to be much scope to keep the series going. This new series deals with the aftermath of Escobar’s death and DEA agents on a new hunt for an organisation called the Cali Cartel, which is known as the richest drug-trafficking organisation in the world and is led by four powerful godfathers who have their own way of dealing with rivals and staying out of the spotlight. These four kingpins are expanding their empire to New York City and further afield in the US. The elements that made Narcos so compelling in its first season are all here: sweeping cinematography and plenty of suspense as we get to know some of the new characters. Pedro Pascal stays true to form as the droll Javy, and there’s even a nod to the reckoning scene from The Godfather. Definitely worth sticking with this one. Available from Friday THIS quiet cracker of a film passed many people by when it was released just over a decade ago. Set in New York City in the mid1980s, it follows the breakdown of a marriage between Bernard (Jeff Daniels), a college professor and novelist whose star has fallen in recent years, and Joan (the always wonderful Laura Linney), a writer whose star is on the rise. The story is told largely from the perspective of their two children, teenage Walt (Jesse Eisenberg, in his big-screen debut) and pre-teen Frank (Owen Kline), who are grappling with their own growing pains while also trying to navigate the uncharted waters of their family’s demise, which happens early in the film. In fact, the familial lines are readily apparent in the opening sequence, which finds the family playing a tennis match, each moment of which highlights the simmering tensions that will soon erupt. Director Noah Baumbach shot the entire film on a handheld Super 16mm, which gives it a documentary-like feel and his razor-sharp dialogue illuminates every scene of this drama. Available from Friday NO, nothing to do with Conor McGregor, who made this phrase famous in his own way, Who the F**k Is That Guy instead deals with the life of Michael Alago, a Puerto Rican kid living in the insular Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Borough Park, who becomes a tastemaker who (among other things) helps introduce the world to Metallica. There’s loads here about the East Village glory days and some great interviews with those who survived them (Cyndi Lauper, filmmaker Dito Montiel), the movie shows how quickly Alago went from running a fanzine to getting work at the just-opened Ritz, an influential rock club operating in the historic building that is now Webster Hall. Despite its very modest production values and narrow scope, this friendly doc is one more small chapter in the ongoing cultural history of Downtown Manhattan around the turn of the 1980s, and will be appreciated by those who just can’t get enough of the music from that period. Available from Friday FOLLOWING on from his debut Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino this time had an improved, but still modest, budget of $8m, and a growing level of expectation to negotiate. With a script that played with time as much as it dazzled with sparkling dialogue and shocked with brutal moments of violence, Tarantino sidestepped any potential Sophomore pitfalls, and saw his indie masterpiece surge to seven Oscar nominations (including a win in Best Original Screenplay for the director) and the Palme D’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Uma Thurman was apparently worried about the gimp bit but she need not have fretted; this film basically made her, and revived the career of John Travolta. It grossed more than $100m at the box office, almost invented the idea of the indie multiplex hit, and is undoubtedly one of the seminal films of the 1990s.