With the weather seeming to be taking another turn in the past week, why not stay in this weekend and watch a film? On top of that, we have another five more years of David Cameron looming ahead of us, so what better reason would there be to sit it out this weekend, and wallow in our NHS fears with a great big bag of chocolate buttons and a Netflix binge. Here are our picks of the week:
The Thick of It
There is literally no better time than now to watch the brilliant The Thick of It. British politics are seemingly a mess, and this award-winning satirical comedy perfectly captures the ineptitude of the British government. Before Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi played the utterly brutal Malcolm Tucker, number 10’s central policy enforcer. It’s worth watching purely for Tucker’s marvelous imagination when it comes to swearing, his daily rants really are a joy to behold and it would be even more of a joy to watch Tucker in a room with the likes of Clegg and Farage.
Mean Streets
Martin Scorsese’s breakthrough film is as brilliant today as it was on its release all the way back in 1973. The director has come a long way since these humble beginnings, but Mean Streets remains his most autobiographical, and his most visually striking. Scorsese regular De Niro and Harvey Keitel are exceptional as two young and naïve hustlers growing up on the “mean streets” of New York’s little Italy.
The Bridge (Bron)
Scandinavians really do know their drama; there has been a string of fantastic drama films and television series arising from the likes of Denmark and Norway, all harking back to the late Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium trilogy”. The Bridge is no different; the series follows Danish inspector Martin and Swedish detective Saga (both wonderfully acted by Sofia Helin and Kim Bodnia) being paired together as a body is found exactly halfway along the bridge between Sweden and Denmark. If you’re looking for a dark, brooding subtitled detective drama, look no further.
The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)
Netflix has an impressive array of foreign imports, and Argentinian Juan José Campanella’s Oscar winning crime thriller is one of the picks of the bunch. Ricardo Darín has a huge presence as Benjamin Esposito, a retired legal counselor who is writing a novel in an attempt to find closure from an unsolved case. The film exposes the dark, corrupt underbelly of Argentinian politics and does so with a wonderfully acted, and wonderfully scripted flourish.
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