Netflix's week: comedy, documentaries and live darts
Netflix has a full slate for the seven days running from October 26 to November 1, and the highlights span scripted comedy, documentary and a live event. Minimum Wage, arriving October 26, adapts a popular web series into a mockumentary-style sitcom about teenagers trying to keep a local pizzeria, The Slice Club, running while balancing school, difficult customers, an erratic manager and poor pay. The show draws openly on workplace comedies such as The Office and Parks and Recreation.[S1]
Documentary viewers get two options. The One About Matthew Perry, a three-part series launching October 27, looks at the television career of the late Friends actor along with the personal difficulties he faced away from the screen. It is directed by Emmy winner Mary Robertson, includes contributions from Perry's family and friends, and features footage that has not been shown before. SCTV: The Greatest Show You've Never Heard Of, out October 30, traces the origins, rise and decline of the Canadian sketch series, with participation from surviving cast members and a reunion.[S1]
The week's live experiment is Beat Luke Littler, streaming October 30, in which amateur players from the United Kingdom try to defeat the world's top-ranked darts player for a large cash prize. Littler has close to 30 professional titles, so an upset looks unlikely, though the format is built around the hope of one. On the film side, Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell joins the library November 1; it stars Paul Walter Hauser as the security guard who spotted a backpack bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was later treated as a suspect, with Kathy Bates Oscar-nominated as his mother.[S1]
Prime Video's picks: Bond, magic and horror
Prime Video's weekly recommendations lean on the full James Bond catalogue, which arrived on the service this month. Casino Royale is the suggested starting point, partly because Amazon and director Denis Villeneuve are holding final screen tests for the next 007. The reported finalists are Jack Lowden, Callum Turner and Josh O'Connor, and the piece notes that an unexpected contender could still emerge. Daniel Craig's grounded, emotional debut as Bond was directed by Martin Campbell, who also made GoldenEye.[S2]
Now You See Me: Now You Don't brings the magic-heist franchise back for a third instalment, now streaming. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher and Lizzy Caplan return as the illusionists, while Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt join the cast to add a younger angle. For horror, The Witch, the 2015 breakout for Anya Taylor-Joy and director Robert Eggers, is set in 1630s New England and follows a family tormented by a witch in the woods; its naturalistic photography and period-accurate dialogue are credited with deepening the tension.[S2]
