It’s not just the weekend, it’s the beginning of March, as well, so there are plenty of new shows added to watch on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime! so let’s get started!
HULU
And, if it’s a new month, it must be time for another edition for Hulu’s Into the Dark, this time Treehouse, starring Jimmi Simpson(Westworld). The holiday celebrated in this one is the Ides of March(the 15th), when , in old Rome, debts were considered due. So Treehouse deals with revenge, and in it, Simpson plays a celeb chef, seeking to outrun a scandal, to his family’s vacation home. But hiding from his past is not too easy, there, of course. The show also stars Mary McCormack, Shaunette Renee Wilson(Black Panther), Maggie Lawson,Stephanie Beatriz(Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Julianna Guill, and is directed by James Roday. And, there are no reviews yet available, and it’s way to scary for me, but a post on IMDb says it maybe the best episode of Into the Dark yet. Hulu has also added Three Identical Strangers, the 2018 award winning doc from director Tim Wardle. This movie focuses on the identical brothers, Edward, David and Robert, who were separated at birth, after being born to a single teen-age mother, and each adopted (intentionally) to families at different economic levels(blue collar, middle class, affluent) and went on to meet coincidentally, during college. The Neubauer Twin experiment was first uncovered by Lawrence Wright, who appears in the film and the impact of the experiment(nature vs nurture) can be seen on the three men. This film won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Storytelling, and was short listed for the Academy Awards for Best Documentary. And it gets a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7/10 on IMDb. Hulu also offers The Guilty, a 2018 thriller from Denmark. This movie follows Asger Holm, played by Jakob Cedergren, a cop who has been placed as a emergency dispatcher, while under disciplinary review, who finds himself trying to save a woman he thinks is abducted, using only his phone. It also stars the voices of Jessica Dinnage,Omar Shargawi,Johan Olsen,Katinka Evers-Jahnsen and Jacob Lohmann, and was written and directed by Gustav Möller. Brian Tallerico of rogerebert.com calls it “a tight, excellent piece of work that will likely be seen by way too few and forgotten in the year-end conversation,” and it gets a stunning 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. And it is due to be made into an American movie with Jake Gyllenhaal, so see the original first. And, finally, because I know horror is a constant need, Hulu has added The School, an Australian supernatural flick from 2018. It’s about a doctor and mother, who goes looking for her missing child , awakens to find herself in an old abandoned school, and must survive the horrors there to save her son. It stars Megan Drury, Milly Alcock, Texas Watterston, Nicholas Hope, Will McDonald and Sassy Soupidis. Stephen Romei of The Australian says of it “It may be low on budget but it’s high on high on ideas” and it gets a 3.9/10 on IMDb.
NETFLIX
Netflix, too, has some good additions this week, including Northern Rescue, a Canadian family drama series. It stars Stephen Baldwin as a man, recently widowed, who moves his family abruptly to his Ontario hometown, to head a search and rescue team. It also stars Kathleen Robertson, Amalia Williamson, Spencer MacPherson, Michelle Nolden and Natalie Lisinska. It centers mostly on the kids and their feeling of loss after their mother’s sudden death and it gets a 7.2/10 on IMDb. But if you want something more offbeat and less predictable, yet still Canadian, try Room for Rent. a 2017 comedy starring Brett Gelman. It stars Mark Little as a 32 year-old ex lottery winner, who lives with his parents after losing it all, and who recommends his parents get a boarder, who is more than weird. This movie has a host of veteran actors and comedians, including Carla Gallo(Bones, Californication), Stephanie Weir(Madtv), Patrick J. Adams(Suits) and Mark McKinney(The Kids in the Hall, Saturday Night Live) and won numerous awards, including Best Feature Film, Best Actor(Gelman) and Best Screenplay(Matt Atkinson) at the 2017 LA Comedy Film and went on to win more at the Chicago Comedy Film Festival and the Canadian Film Festival. And it gets an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. I am definitely watching. Netflix has also added Quien te Cantará, a 2018 drama from Spain. In this, a famous singer, Lila Casson(played by Najwa Nimri),loses her memory after nearly drowning and goes to a Karaoke imitator, played by Eva Lorach, to teach her to be Lila again. It also stars Carme Elías, Natalia de Molina and is directed by the famous Spanish director Carlos Vermut(Magical Girl). Lorach won both a Goya Award and a Feroz Award for her role here and reviewers have compared the film to Bergman’s Persona and Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. And it gets an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Netflix also offers The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a 2019 British drama. In this film,written, directed by and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and based on a true story, a 13 year-old Malawi boy,William Kamkwamba ,played by Maxwell Simba, is already a skilled inventor and devises a special windmill, to save his community from famine and drought. It also stars Noma Dumezweni , Joseph Marcell and Aïssa Maïga. And it gets an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.2/10 on IMDb. And, finally, Netflix has River’s Edge, a Japanese comedy/drama from 2018. This movies is based on a manga novel of the same name, and stars Fumi Nikaidō as a teen girl who befriends an unpopular boy, played by Ryo Yoshizawa, who is bullied and isolated. It takes place in the ‘90′s and also stars Aoi Morikawa, Shûhei Uesugi and Sumire. It’s directed by Isao Yukisada and gets a 6.5/10 on IMDb.
AMAZON PRIME
Amazon‘s big addition this week has to be The Widow, an 8-part series starring Kate Beckinsale. In this Itv series, Beckinsale plays a woman, whose investigation into her husband’s death leads her to the Congo. It also stars Charles Dance(Game of Thrones, The Jewel in the Crown), Alex Kingston(Doctor Who), Babs Olusanmokun,Howard Charles, Luiana Bonfim and Louise Brealey(Sherlock). And it gets a 6.8/10 on IMDb. Also, new on Amazon, is Lost Birds, a 2015 Turkish drama. This movie focuses on two Armenian children, in Turkey in 1915, who survive slaughter hidden in a dove cote, only to find an empty village. So they go in search of their mother together with their bird. It stars Heros Agopyan, Takuhi Bahar, Sarkis Acemyan, Arto Arsenyan and Bercuhi Berberyan. It’s a moving portrayal of the Armenian Holocaust and gets a 6.5/10 on IMDb. Amazon has also added Heavy Trip ,a 2018 comedy from Finland. This movie follows an amateur metal band, Impaled Rectum, stuck in a small town and working regular jobs, they get visited by a promoter and decide to go on tour, with a stolen van and a corpse, to hit it big. It stars Johannes Holopainen, Minka Kuustonen,Ville Tiihonen, Max Ovaska and Samuli Jaskio. And it gets a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.2/10 on IMDb. And finally, Amazon has added some classic British mystery and procedural series , including Unforgotten, starring Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar; The Tunnel, starring Stephan Dillane and Elise Wassermann; and Silent Witness, the 1990′s version, starring Amanda Burton and Bill Armstrong.
So sit back and relax this weekend and binge on movie and tv series online, at Netflix, Hulu and Amazon!
Grownups Guide to Streaming 