Director James De Frond, whose previous collaborations with Davis include the spy-thriller spoof Action Team, has a fine command of heist-movie conventions and gives the series a solid visual bedrock underpinned by Marli Wren’s nimble, genre-savvy score. Great stuff.
Uncoupled ★★★
Netflix
Neil Patrick Harris is a New York real estate agent who is devastated when his partner of 17 years suddenly leaves him in Uncoupled.Credit:Netflix
Neil Patrick Harris deserves better than this rotten quasi-comedy from Sex and the City creator Darren Star and modern-family Producer Jeffrey Richman.
Harris plays New York real estate agent Michael, who is devastated when his partner of 17 years, Colin (Tuc Watkins), suddenly leaves him. Michael at least has a support network that includes his business partner (Tisha Campbell) and his lonely best friend (Brooks Ashmanskas), and potentially a rich client played by Marcia Gay Harden (who is great fun but largely wasted in cliche ).
The problem is that Michael’s friends tend not to behave like real people – at least not likeable ones. One immediately pressures Michael to start having random sex while he’s clearly grieving. Another shares some shattering news only for everyone to essentially ignore it and keep obsessing about the will-they-won’t-they between Carrie and Big…sorry, Michael and Colin.
Harris commits completely to his role, delivering a beautifully nuanced performance that far surpasses the material. The cast is full of Broadway stars who don’t get to sing or dance, but it’s progress that gay shows can now be this lame.
The Many Saints of Newark
binge
Alessandro Nivola lays down the law in The Many Saints of Newark.Credit:
It’s catnip for fans of The Sopranos as David Chase’s prequel movie fills in the 1960s backstory. Michael Gandolfini, playing the teenage Tony Soprano, is the haunting image of his father, James, in a snapshot of a wilful teenager who does not look like a cold-blooded killer. Alessandro Nivola is brilliant as Tony’s uncle, Dickie Moltisanti, an unstable explosive who didn’t feature in The Sopranos but whose story provides fascinating insights into characters such as Tony’s mother, Lydia (Vera Farmiga). Expect laughs too.
My Life as a Rolling Stone
stand*
Charlie Watts (right) died before this documentary was made but his Rolling Stones bandmates Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards are on hand to share joyful memories.Credit:AP
It’s impossible not to skip straight to the Charlie episode of this new four-part biography series made for the Rolling Stones’ 60th anniversary. Charlie Watts died before filming began but Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood are on hand to share joyful memories while archival interviews give Watts a revealing voice in his own story. There’s real insight into his drumming from him too as the likes of the E Street Band’s Max Weinberg explain exactly how he gave the Stones their inimitable sound.
Urbex in Beirut
shelter
An illuminating documentary that introduces us to a small group of “urban explorers” whose photography is preserving the abandoned, war-scarred buildings of Beirut in all their faded beauty and haunting testimony. There are grand hotels and mansions, a school turned into a sniper’s den, an empty synagogue and even a movie studio where canisters of film lie undisturbed beneath the dust of decades. Campaigners say governments have done little to protect the city’s architectural heritage but some impressive restoration projects show what is possible.
happyish
Paramount+
Steve Coogan in Happyish.Credit:Mark Schafer/Showtime
Terrific performances by Steve Coogan and Kathryn Hahn, and the dark, bizarre imagination of series creator Shalom Auslander make this incisive comedy a salty delight. Coogan and Hahn play a creative couple with a young son and a well-earned cynicism about the New York advertising industry, among other things. The dialogue is brilliant, as are the cathartic monologues that end with a hearty “F— you” to such towering historical figures as Thomas Jefferson and Carol Brady from The Brady Bunch. It gets weird.
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