Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
If you’re not one of the millions of people who helped save Hollywood by watching Greta Gerwig’s neon-pink entertaining toy advert in cinemas, then you now have the chance to enjoy it in the comfort of your own Barbie house. Starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and a show-stealing Ryan Gosling as Ken, it’s a smart, funny, postmodern tribute to the plastic girl living in her plastic world, who has influenced generations of women’s idea of who they are and what they can achieve.
Gerwig and husband Noah Baumbach’s script creates an adventure for Barbie and Ken that offers a refreshing re-evaluation of gender roles and stereotypes with plenty of knowing winks to older audiences of Barbie’s long and twisted history as a staple of pop culture, all vibrantly realised through good old-fashioned production design, costume and toe-tapping musical numbers.
To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken.
El Conde — Netflix
Chilean director Pablo Larraín (Jackie, Spencer) takes on his homeland’s most nefarious monster, the murderous fascist military dictator Augusto Pinochet in this very black, gothic, black-and-white filmed comedy which reimagines the tyrant as an ageing vampire who has lived for 250 years. After centuries of feeding on the innocent to sustain his existence, the count makes a decision to forego blood drinking and give up the promise of eternal life — but when an intriguing young woman enters his life, he’s faced with an existential crisis that might offer him the opportunity to turn his life around.
Pablo Larraín's new film is a satire that portrays a universe in which Augusto Pinochet, a 250-year-old vampire who, tired of being remembered as a thief, decides to die.
Welcome to Wrexham Season 2 — Disney Plus
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney return as the fairy godfathers of dogged Welsh lower-tier football team Wrexham FC in this second season. So far they’ve turned the third-oldest professional club in the world into a fairytale rags-to-glory sports story that’s seen the club fly around the world and participate in exhibition matches with some of the game’s most famous teams. Here they continue the journey, beginning with a very funny and awkward visit from none other than King Charles III. New episodes are added weekly.
The boys are back in town.
The Other Black Girl — Disney Plus
Producer Rashida Jones and writer Zakiya Dalila Harris team up for this dark mash-up of workplace satire and horror thriller adapted from Harris’s bestselling book. When a young woman starts trying to figure out why she is the only black employee at a swanky glass-clad Manhattan office, she soon discovers something a lot more terrifying going on than racially exclusionary employment policies.
From executive producer Rashida Jones comes the new series, #The Other Black Girl. Based on the New York Times bestseller by Zakiya Dalila Harris.
The Murdochs: Empire of Influence — Showmax
An exhaustive docuseries based on the explosive New York Magazine article by Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg, this CNN-produced show traces the rise to global dominance of Rupert Murdoch and the back-stabbing and bitter battles for succession to his throne that have emerged over the course of the last decade in his spoilt and dysfunctional family. From his childhood in Australia to the creation of Fox News, the series traces how Murdoch rose to become the most influential media baron in history and why he’s proved so fascinating and influential with everyone from journalists to family friends and associates and slippery acolytes like Donald Trump enforcer Roger Stone.
Behind the scenes of the improbable rise of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, his outsized influence around the globe, and the intense succession battle between his children over who will inherit his position.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Five things to watch this week
Barbie — Rent or buy from Apple TV+
If you’re not one of the millions of people who helped save Hollywood by watching Greta Gerwig’s neon-pink entertaining toy advert in cinemas, then you now have the chance to enjoy it in the comfort of your own Barbie house. Starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and a show-stealing Ryan Gosling as Ken, it’s a smart, funny, postmodern tribute to the plastic girl living in her plastic world, who has influenced generations of women’s idea of who they are and what they can achieve.
Gerwig and husband Noah Baumbach’s script creates an adventure for Barbie and Ken that offers a refreshing re-evaluation of gender roles and stereotypes with plenty of knowing winks to older audiences of Barbie’s long and twisted history as a staple of pop culture, all vibrantly realised through good old-fashioned production design, costume and toe-tapping musical numbers.
To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken.
El Conde — Netflix
Chilean director Pablo Larraín (Jackie, Spencer) takes on his homeland’s most nefarious monster, the murderous fascist military dictator Augusto Pinochet in this very black, gothic, black-and-white filmed comedy which reimagines the tyrant as an ageing vampire who has lived for 250 years. After centuries of feeding on the innocent to sustain his existence, the count makes a decision to forego blood drinking and give up the promise of eternal life — but when an intriguing young woman enters his life, he’s faced with an existential crisis that might offer him the opportunity to turn his life around.
Pablo Larraín's new film is a satire that portrays a universe in which Augusto Pinochet, a 250-year-old vampire who, tired of being remembered as a thief, decides to die.
Welcome to Wrexham Season 2 — Disney Plus
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney return as the fairy godfathers of dogged Welsh lower-tier football team Wrexham FC in this second season. So far they’ve turned the third-oldest professional club in the world into a fairytale rags-to-glory sports story that’s seen the club fly around the world and participate in exhibition matches with some of the game’s most famous teams. Here they continue the journey, beginning with a very funny and awkward visit from none other than King Charles III. New episodes are added weekly.
The boys are back in town.
The Other Black Girl — Disney Plus
Producer Rashida Jones and writer Zakiya Dalila Harris team up for this dark mash-up of workplace satire and horror thriller adapted from Harris’s bestselling book. When a young woman starts trying to figure out why she is the only black employee at a swanky glass-clad Manhattan office, she soon discovers something a lot more terrifying going on than racially exclusionary employment policies.
From executive producer Rashida Jones comes the new series, #The Other Black Girl. Based on the New York Times bestseller by Zakiya Dalila Harris.
The Murdochs: Empire of Influence — Showmax
An exhaustive docuseries based on the explosive New York Magazine article by Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg, this CNN-produced show traces the rise to global dominance of Rupert Murdoch and the back-stabbing and bitter battles for succession to his throne that have emerged over the course of the last decade in his spoilt and dysfunctional family. From his childhood in Australia to the creation of Fox News, the series traces how Murdoch rose to become the most influential media baron in history and why he’s proved so fascinating and influential with everyone from journalists to family friends and associates and slippery acolytes like Donald Trump enforcer Roger Stone.
Behind the scenes of the improbable rise of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, his outsized influence around the globe, and the intense succession battle between his children over who will inherit his position.
Five things to watch
Five things to watch this week
Five things to watch this week
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