What are you going to be watching in February? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon, Acorn and TVNZ OnDemand. The biggies Men in Kilts (docu-series on Neon from February 15) Outlander fans, rejoice. Two stars from the popular time-travelling drama – … Read more
What are you going to be watching in January? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. The biggies Good Lord Bird (on Neon from January 20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Tm63y-S4s “Anti-slavery campaigner” doesn’t even begin to capture the extreme reality of John … Read more
Summer reissue: She’s an Oscar-winning actress, a widely hated celebrity and founder of one of the most successful wellness brands in the world. And all your jade egg jokes make no difference at all, writes Sam Brooks. First published January 24, 2020. A few weeks ago, the trailer for new Netflix show The GOOP Lab … Read more
The last big show of the year might just be its most satisfying. Sam Brooks reviews Bridgerton, the latest from Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes. If you told me, 15 years ago, that newcomer Shonda Rhimes would be one of television’s biggest players, I wouldn’t believe you. But, after the juggernaut that was, and continues … Read more
Another Ryan Murphy joint, another shitshow. Netflix’s The Prom, adapted from the Broadway musical of the same name, is the latest outrage from writer-director Ryan Murphy, and Sam Brooks has had enough. I’ll put this up front: I think Ryan Murphy is one of the worst things to happen to television in the past decade. … Read more
David Fincher marks his feature film Netflix debut with Mank, a biopic about the man who co-wrote Citizen Kane. It’s more interesting than it sounds, and his loosest effort yet, writes Christopher Smol. Can one word explain a whole life? Citizen Kane is structured around that question, and the answer is “not really”. Lives are … Read more
What are you going to be watching in December? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. The biggies Industry (season 1 on Neon from December 2) Think of the finance industry on film and you probably think of masters … Read more
Can we ever get enough of Dolly Parton? The answer is no. Dolly Parton is everywhere right now. Put the TV on and you’ll see the award-winning actor, writer and singer shimmering back at you, radiant with yuletide joy as the star of a new Netflix movie. Turn on the wireless and you’ll hear her … Read more
What happens if you take a personal memoir and strip it of everything that made it unique? You get Hillbilly Elegy. The opening line of J.D Vance’s 2016 sleeper hit memoir Hillbilly Elegy is “I find the existence of the book you hold in your hands somewhat absurd.” While that’s a little hyperbolic – its … Read more
Australian sketch comedy group Aunty Donna finally got a Netflix series. Have they sold out to Big American Comedy? No, says Josie Adams. I shook Mark Bonanno’s hand while he was flyering in Edinburgh. I stood next to Zachary Ruane in line for the movies in Melbourne. I ricoheted off Broden “Manbeast” Kelly when I … Read more
It seems everybody is watching The Queen’s Gambit. What is it about the Netflix series that is so damned compelling? Let’s be real for a moment: for most of us, unless you’re the one playing it, chess is incredibly boring. It is about as aurally and visually stimulating as watching beige paint dry on a … Read more
What are you going to be watching in November? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. The biggies The Crown (binge season 4 on Netflix from November 15) Something good was bound to happen in 2020, and the new … Read more
A new trailer for season four of The Crown dropped overnight, and big news, Aotearoa: we’re in it. London-based Māori group Ngāti Rānana has confirmed they were involved in filming a haka scene. The fourth season of Netflix’s award-winning drama about the life and reign of Queen Elizabeth II premieres next month, and a new … Read more
Our most verbose screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, makes good on all his hype in just his second turn as director. If I had to pick one of the best opening scenes of the past decade, I’d go with the scene that opens The Social Network. It’s an immediate evisceration of Mark Zuckerberg – and by proxy, … Read more
Emily in Paris wants to be a homemade pain au chocolat but can barely reach the level of a store-bought croissant. For over two decades, Darren Star has had his very specific genre locked down: he makes shows about professional women trying to have it all, where all the stakes are emotional and all the … Read more
What are you going to be watching in October? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. The biggies The Mandalorian (season two weekly on Disney+ from October 30) The Mandalorian was the surprise hit of 2019 for reasons nobody … Read more
Netflix’s new ‘must-see’ documentary is an alarming watch, but a bunch of woke tech bros commodifying fear is not enough to impress Anna Rawhiti-Connell. The Social Dilemma, Netflix’s latest “must see” documentary, opens with a line-up of gulping, nervous white men (and one or two women), who are asked to try to articulate “the problem” … Read more
Netflix drama Ratched aims to rehabilitate the villain from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but would do better in the electric chair. Nurse Ratched is, quite rightly, one of the most famous movie villains of all time. The source of all of McMurphy’s despair and angst in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written … Read more
Shrill, now streaming on Neon, is more than just a comedy – it’s a landmark in millennial feminist storytelling. Shrill is a sitcom with social grit and feminist nuance that goes where other fat-focused shows have failed to go before – straight into your heart. High on laughs and equally high on feels, the shows … Read more
The Social Dilemma includes a clip from the shooter’s live-streamed Facebook video showing him preparing to enter one of the Christchurch mosques. A warning has been added to a new Netflix documentary-drama for featuring a banned excerpt from the video filmed by the Christchurch terrorist. The Social Dilemma, which explores the rise of social media … Read more
Snowpiercer imagines a world where the class system follows us to the grave, but in doing so, does it fail at its own goals? It was Snowpiercer, not Parasite, that was meant to be Bong Joon-ho’s big western debut, but the film had the misfortune to be picked up by the Weinstein Company. Harvey Weinstein … Read more
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is another trip into the mind of the pathetic man, but Charlie Kaufman finally finds universality in one man’s fantasy. Mild spoilers for I’m Thinking of Ending Things below. You can mark the exact point at which one-time wunderkind Charlie Kaufman went from being a critic’s darling to a difficult … Read more
Away tries to be a space drama and a family drama, but fails massively at both. There’s a good reason why outer space is such a popular setting for fiction: the stakes are so obvious. Just off camera, just off the page, is an endless void that can kill your protagonists if a single thing … Read more
What are you going to be watching in September? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. The biggies Shrill (on Neon now) It’s the superhero show we need right now: a woman who decides she’s had enough of everyone … Read more
Because there’s no time like now to catch up on the best the small screen can offer. Picture this scenario: it’s the end of the workday, you’ve just got home (or if you’re working from home, transformed your work-couch into your rest-couch) and you hit up your streaming services. Instantly, you’re bombarded with choices across … Read more
Around a quarter of the country has been at home for just over a week. So what the hell are they watching? Here’s what New Zealanders have been streaming on Netflix, Neon, TVNZ on Demand and ThreeNow in the past week. YouTube is not included in these statistics. That’s between you, God and the algorithm. … Read more
A new season of reality series Selling Sunset just landed on Netflix. Tara Ward finds that if you set your expectations low, you won’t be disappointed. If you threw Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Million Dollar Listing and The Hills into a reality TV juicer, you’d pour out a long, tall glass of Selling Sunset. … Read more
What are you going to be watching in August? The Spinoff rounds up everything that’s coming to streaming services this month, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ OnDemand. Click here to see our listings from July. The biggies Dirty John: The Betty Broderick Story (on Netflix from August 14) The original … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews the latest Netflix movie of the week: the mildly erotic sex thriller Fatal Affair. It has to be said that most rip-offs of Fatal Attraction usually have the sense of mind to change both words in that title. We’re all familiar with the plot of Fatal Attraction, even if we’ve never seen … Read more