Adam Sandler’s all grown up
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Available From Friday OH dear, says you. More Adam Sandler. Just what we need. Well, on the plus side he doesn’t play a naive man-child with a silly voice here, it’s instead one of his rarer and better serious dramatic roles.
His character, Danny Meyerowitz, is a man at a crossroads of life. His own child having moved away to college, he moves back in with his elderly sculptor father (Dustin Hoffman), who has another family headed up by his second wife (Murphy Brown herself — Candice Bergen) and what unfolds is four Salinger-esque chapters about the unhappiness of families and relationships, written with heavy borrowings from psychoanalysis and the work of Woody Allen.
Director Noah Baumbach has rich history doing this kind of thing — he brought us The Squid and the Whale over a decade ago — but at times this can feel a little overly talky and stuffed full of ideas. The quips and scepticism of the characters seems to work against giving them depth and that brittle intellectual feel makes the few moments of sentimentality almost seem mawkish. Which isn’t what you need with Adam Sandler already in the picture.
The Babysitter (2017) Available from Friday
SOME horror movies have to be belatedly embraced as camp classics and some just jump right to the head of the game and put the camp front and centre.
A little early for Halloween but still welcome, The Babysitter is a playful send-up of schlocky 1980s horror flicks. It revels in slasher-flick tropes, gleefully depicting excessive gore, naughty language, and nubile bodies.
Directed by McG, who is no stranger to high camp (he did Charlie’s Angels) The Babysitter follows a 12-year-old boy named Cole (Judah Lewis), who is head-over-heels for his babysitter Bee (Samara Weaving). Before long, however, he realises that instead of being the girl of his dreams, she’s actually the leader of a satanic, homicidal cult — and he’s her next victim. There are bits of the Scream movies in here, nods to classics like Carrie and one or two genuinely scary moments to leaven the laughs. It’s not a classic by any stretch but it might be a guilty pleasure.
Mindhunter, Season 1 Available from Friday
IT’S been a quarter of a century since Silence of the Lambs cleared up at the Oscars and in the year that the film’s director died, comes a series from Netflix which taps into the fascination with serial killers and the FBI.
It is set in 1979 and centres on the exploits of two FBI agents who are tasked with interviewing imprisoned serial killers in order to gain insight into the minds of like-minded individuals. The portions of the series we were able to see depict a dark, creepy, psychological atmosphere, and the slick touch of David Fincher, who directs four episodes, is heavily in evidence, as are the nods to Silence.
This dark thriller, based on the book Mind Hunter: Inside The FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, has already been renewed for a second season by Netflix, so they clearly think it’s going to do well.
Riverdale, Season 2
Available from Thursday IT was sometimes said that the music of The Smiths was compelling because it combined an irresistible pop sound with darkly mordant lyrics. In some ways you could say the same about Riverdale.
This teen drama might be based on the wholesome Archie comics, but its debut season was more like a noirish Twin Peaks knockoff than it was sugary daytime fare — the first outing featured a season-long mystery about who killed high-school football star Jason Blossom. This new season doubles down on the dark stuff, with fresh relationship roadblocks for the show’s core couples, new cast additions stirring up trouble and a less innocent Archie after his dad Fred got shot by a masked gunman in last season’s finale.
In the first episode, A Kiss Before Dying, the gang gathers to await news of Fred after the shooting. What follows is a tough journey of discovery for Archie and a torturous Romeo and Juliet situation for Jughead and Betty.