Five things for you to binge watch this week
TURNING POINT: THE BOMB AND THE COLD WAR — NETFLIX
This nine-part docuseries offers an exhaustive analysis of the Cold War. Beginning with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, the series investigates many of the key points from the long and quietly terrifying history of the over four-decade era when the world was governed by the fear that it could be destroyed, at the push of a button, at any time.
It also makes a convincing argument that while the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union may have marked a symbolic end to the Cold War, its central governing principles — nuclear weapons and the threat of their use — continue to shape geopolitics and that we are still living in the long shadow of the ideological battle lines drawn at the end of World War 2.
MANHUNT — APPLE TV+
The assassination of US president Abraham Lincoln in 1865 remains a key tragic moment in US history. What is less known is the story of what happened next, when the nationwide manhunt for Lincoln’s killer — a middling actor and Confederate loyalist named John Wilkes Booth, revealed deep divisions within America, which as creator Monica Beletsky deftly demonstrates, have an all too depressing resonance for the current boiling ideological tensions that plague the country today.
Adapted from the non-fiction book by James L Swanson and starring Tobias Menzies, Anthony Boyle, Lili Taylor and Lovie Simone, it’s a satisfyingly engaging drama that often makes you feel that the more things change, the more they inevitably stay the same.
POOR THINGS — DISNEY PLUS
Emma Stone’s Oscar-winning performance in Yorgos Lanthimos’ absurdist, singular feminist Frankenstein adaptation of the novel by Alasdair Gray holds together an ambitiously imaginative and darkly humorous film about a memorably eccentric woman’s journey of self and sexual discovery. Stone is impressively supported by co-stars Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef, and impressively surreal world-building that makes it a gothic horror, steampunk fable for the ages.
CAMERAPERSON — MUBI.COM
Documentarian Kirsten Johnson uses her extensive archive of work behind the camera to craft a visually memorable personal essay about her life and work and the tricky ethics of observation in this distinctive and thoughtful film that both celebrates the power of the genre, while also interrogating its methodologies.
ICAHN: THE RESTLESS BILLIONAIRE — SHOWMAX
Activist investor Carl Icahn has made millions for shareholders in his decades long, storied Wall
Street career. He was the inspiration for Oliver Stone’s legendary ‘80s villain Gordon Gecko and here he proves an entertaining and knowing guide as he tells war stories and offers lessons from his experience.
The documentary may be somewhat reluctant to ask tough questions or criticise its subject, but thanks to Icahn’s no-nonsense approach it manages to keep on the sunny side of Wall Street and offer those who believe that greed is good all the evidence they need to support the claim.