Five (more) things to watch this weekend
Limitless With Chris Hemsworth (Disney+)
Oscar-nominated director Darren Aronofsky takes the concerns about longevity and immortality he first explored in his 2006 drama “The Fountain” into the real world of science.
This docuseries pushes Thor actor Chris Hemsworth to the limit as he undergoes a series of Herculean tests in pursuit of showing how new science is changing the way we think about ageing and offering us the potential to live better, longer.
Fire of Love (Disney+)
Miranda July narrates this extraordinary documentary that tells the tragic true story of volcanologist lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft who spent their lives together pursuing their passion to understand the mystery of volcanoes and died after being trapped in a lava flow in Japan in 1991.
Before that the Kraffts created a wealth of filmed archive that director Sara Dosa ingeniously pieces together to tell an intimate and moving story of two eccentric quixotic dreamers. Their determination to understand the imposing natural phenomenon that brought them together and ended their lives, left us with some of the most awesome volcano imagery recorded, and a far greater understanding of how volcanoes work that continues to benefit the researchers who have followed in their footsteps.
The Wonder (Netflix)
Florence Pugh gives a stellar performance in Chilean director Sebastián Lelio’s slow-burning adaptation of the novel by Emma Donoghue. Pugh plays 19th century English nurse Lib Wright who is brought to a small Irish village to observe an 11year-old girl who, in spite of refusing to eat, continues to survive.
Her survival is regarded as a miracle by many of the villagers and the large numbers of pilgrims and curious tourists who arrive to witness it. As Wright watches the drama unfold she becomes ever more suspicious that there’s more going on than meets the eye.
Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? (Netflix)
In the 1990s Pepsi launched a total advertising onslaught in an effort to convince the world that it was indeed better than its more famous soft drink rival. The company even went so far as to promise customers that if they managed to amass 7-million Pepsi points, they could win a Harrier fighter jet. But Pepsi got far more trouble than it bargained for when 20-year-old John Leonard decided to amass those points and claim his prize. His attempts to force the company to deliver on its promise would see them both embroiled in a landmark and much publicised court case.
The Lazarus Project (Prime Video)
Paapa Essiedu stars in this dystopian time travel series that offers a dark but not humourless twist on the Groundhog Day premise. When a British app developer finds himself stuck in a six-month time loop he soon finds himself recruited into the ranks of a secret organisation that uses time-travel to reboot the world every time there’s the threat of civilisation ending plague, nuclear war or other cataclysmic event.