Five things to watch this weekend

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues — Apple TV

In his later years Louis Armstrong often came under fire for been a too friendly, smiling, easy listening entertainer who was unwilling to rock the boat by taking a political position on the burning issue of race in America. As Sacha Jenkins’ extensively researched documentary shows, Armstrong was keenly aware of what was happening in the world around him. Using rare archive material and interviews with other musicians, critics and commentators, the film offers a portrait of Armstrong as not just one of the most important innovators in the history of American music but also as a man who was constantly negotiating the difficult tightrope that he walked between his role as a popular entertainer and his identity as a black man in a deeply racially divided society.

The White Lotus Season 02 — Showmax

Mike White’s super sharp, quietly devastating and funny satire of the foibles of rich Americans on holiday returns, following the first season’s 10 Emmy-winning smash hit success. This time we’re at the White Lotus luxury hotel in Sicily where once again it’s all fun and games until a body turns up floating in the azure waters of the Med. Jennifer Coolidge’s awkward heiress Tanya and her new husband return from the first season but for the rest it’s a new crew of dysfunctional families, competitive wealthy couples and hustling locals who make up the cast of what continues to be one of the best written, layered and on-target satirical examinations of the insecurities and slippery moral values of the 1%.

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber — Showmax

Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a committed and often uncomfortable performance as Uber founder Travis Kalanick in the latest addition to the growing genre of drama series about the dodgy dealings of the tech world. Kalanick’s version of events is placed under the microscope and gradually revealed to be more brash bravado and vainglorious truth manipulation than is borne out by the facts.

Causeway — Apple TV

Jennifer Lawrence and Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry star in this understated but emotionally charged drama, which effectively examines the long shadows that trauma casts on the lives of those who experience it. Lawrence returns to her indie-film roots to play a returning soldier from Afghanistan who is dealing with the effects of an injury and struggles to readjust to normal life until she receives a little but much needed help thanks to an unlikely friendship with Tyree Henry’s laid-back but wise local mechanic.

Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman — Netflix

The final film from pioneering Nigerian director Biyi Bandele — who died a month before the film’s premier at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival — offers a vibrant, powerfully acted adaptation of The Death of the King’s Horseman, Wole Soyinka’s seminal play about colonial rulers’ ignorance of the traditions and beliefs of the people they colonised. Odunlade Adekola gives a powerhouse performance in the lead role as the horseman of the Yoruba king, who after his master’s death, declares his intention to follow in his footsteps by committing ritual suicide until the British authorities get wind of his plan and step in to stop him.