On The SCREEN
Looking for something different to watch in your downtime?Checkouttheserecommendations,from classicstonewreleases,andseeexpatliving.hkfor more ideas of things to do at home!
Lucifer
What would the Devil do if he took a break from managing Hell to spend some years in Los Angeles instead? This is the premise of TV series Lucifer, based on the DC Comics character created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg.
Fallen angel Lucifer Morningstar quits Hell and has been living it up in LA, where he owns a nightclub called Lux. He becomes a consultant to the LAPD, working closely with homicide detective Chloe Decker to solve cases. Their relationship develops to more than just work partners.
Along the way, his views of humanity, definition of good and evil, and understanding of what defines the Devil are challenged through interactions with different characters.
The series culminates in a battle between Michael and Lucifer over who gets to take the spot that’s been vacated by dad!
This is an engaging series for fans of fantasy superhero stories. Each episode focuses on a standalone homicide case. The process of solving these cases puts human nature in the spotlight. Is someone inherently bad, or do they become bad through circumstance? And, if someone is bad, can they become good?
The Towering Inferno
Released in 1974, this classic film has a simple premise. On the night of its dedication as the world’s tallest building, a fire breaks out on the 81st floor of a skyscraper, trapping party revellers on the 135th floor. The developer refuses to believe that the fire is a possible hazard and doesn’t call off the party until it’s too late. As firefighters battle to put out the quickly spreading blaze, guests become trapped as elevators and stairways become blocked or inaccessible.
Suffice to say, there isn’t a happy ending and I was left wondering how the two novels that the film was based on foreshadowed an even bigger tragedy that would unfold 27 years later with 9/11. This was the highest grossing film of 1974 and won three Oscars after being nominated for eight.
Signal
This 2016 South Korean police drama series is inspired by real-life criminal cases that happened in Korea. It imagines the scenarios of how the crimes happened and how they could have been solved.
The crime-solving duo are Lee Jae-Han, a detective in the year 1989, and Park Hae-Young, a cold case profiler in 2015.
They’re connected by a broken walkie talkie that works only when the time is right. With the foresight and hindsight gained from their communications, the duo are able to solve some of the crimes in the past and prevent some from taking place before 2015 rolls in.
The series questions what would make a person choose protecting themselves over the people around them and the consequences.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
If you’ve read the novel, I would suggest giving the movie a miss or risk disappointment – there are gaps in the storytelling as well as alterations in character development. The film follows Lily James as Juliet Ashton as she develops her story about the Society and the island’s missing inhabitant, Elizabeth McKenna.
Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil Crawley in Downtown Abbey) provides a riveting performance as Elizabeth, although without the background provided by reading the book, the viewer would be left wondering what motivates her to carry out what she did.
Regardless, the film clearly depicts the resilience, fellowship and love that people possess even during times of hardship. You’ll feel warm and fuzzy at the end of it. Catch it on Netflix.
Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened
It was meant to be a huge music festival in 2017 taking place on an exotic island with all the trimmings – private planes, luxury accommodation in eco-friendly geodesic dome and meals by celebrity chef as revellers rocked out to a line-up that included Blink-182, Lee Burridge, Tyga and Pusha T. Promotional videos and Instagram posts by models and influencers such as Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin and Chanel Iman implied that they would be attending the festival.
Through actual footage and interviews, this documentary film on Netflix exposes the deceit spun by co-organiser Billy McFarland that ran all the way until festival day, while co-organiser Ja-Rule and investors are portrayed as clueless to the fraud. Besides hearing from workers, service providers and ticket holders about unpaid debts and confusion caused, we also hear how staff at McFarland’s company were kept in the dark about snags in organising the festival.
As I watched the mess unfold, I wondered why anyone would entrust the organisation of this massive event to someone without any prior experience. It was a recipe for disaster right from the beginning.
Altered Carbon
This cyperpunk TV series is set in the year 2384 in a futuristic metropolis, where former soldier and convicted criminal Takeshi Kovacs is pulled out of prison to investigate the murder of Laurens Bancroft, who’s also the man who hired Kovacs for the job. The rich don’t die of old age like everyone else as they can afford to clone new bodies and store their consciousness remotely in satellites so that they can “live” infinitely.
Season 1 focuses on Kovacs’ relationship with Quellcrist Falconer, the leader of a rebel group that rose against the new world order 250 years ago, who was also his lover, as he continues solving a series of brutal murders that seem linked.
Based on a novel of the same name by English author Richard K Morgan, the series was unfortunately cancelled after Season 2. So you’ll have to pick up the book to know how the story unfolds further!