wed 02/04/2025

Netflix

The Potato Lab, Netflix review - a K-drama with heart and wit

When the world’s darkness is too much, there is a Netflix rabbit-hole you can disappear down to a kinder place: the Korean romcoms section. This is a recommendation for romcom fans, a warm indulgent bubble bath of a watch. It's like turning the...

Read more...

Adolescence, Netflix review - Stephen Graham battles the phantom menace of the internet

A dictionary definition of adolescence is “the transitional phase of growth and development between childhood and adulthood”, but in this four-part drama it looks more like a nightmare zone of uncontrolled rage, anxiety and sexual confusion.Created...

Read more...

Drive to Survive, Season 7, Netflix review - speed, scandal and skulduggery in the pitlane

Last year’s sixth season of Drive to Survive radiated an air of diminishing returns. It was as though the novelty of its spy-in-the-paddock ethos was wearing off as the Formula One teams sought to mould the show to suit their own interests, and what...

Read more...

Zero Day, Netflix review - can ex-President Robert De Niro save the Land of the Free?

It seems that esteemed former US President George Mullen is subsiding gently into retirement on his luxurious country estate, with a publishing contract for his memoirs if he can ever manage to knuckle down and write them, when fate throws a curve-...

Read more...

Surviving Black Hawk Down, Netflix review - the real story behind Ridley Scott's Oscar-winner

Ridley Scott’s 2001 film Black Hawk Down was a technically superb blockbuster bristling with thunderous action sequences and famous actors, though its gung-ho depiction of the heroics of American special forces during the appalling Somalian civil...

Read more...

American Primeval, Netflix review - nightmare on the Wild Frontier

It seems The Osmonds may not have been the worst outrage perpetrated on an unsuspecting public by the Mormons. American Primeval is set in the 1850s, and is based around the real-life massacre of settlers travelling from Arkansas to California by...

Read more...

Best of 2024: TV

They say cinema is dying (you never know, they may be wrong), but you can’t help noticing the stampede of movie stars towards TV and streaming. Many of 2024’s most memorable shows had a big-screen name attached, even if it was impossible to be...

Read more...

Jamie Foxx, Netflix Special review - doctors and divine intervention

In April 2023 the actor and comic Jamie Foxx had a stroke and was lucky to survive. In his latest Netflix Special, What Had Happened Was... he tells us about it, and his recovery. It's fitting, he tells us, that the show was recorded in Atlanta,...

Read more...

Black Doves, Netflix review - Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw battle against the implausible

It’s rare to spot Keira Knightley in a TV series, and it’s no doubt a sign of changing times that she’s starring in this six-part spies-and-guns caper, penned by Joe Barton (of Giri/Haji and The Lazarus Project fame).Set in a seasonally Christmassy...

Read more...

Senna, Netflix review - the life and legend of Brazil's greatest driver

Brazilian Formula One triple-champion Ayrton Senna was already legendary during his lifetime, but his fatal crash at Imola in 1994 brought him virtual deification in his home country. The Brazilian government declared three days of national mourning...

Read more...

Joy review - the birth pangs of in vitro fertilisation

Marie Curie excepted, movies about female scientists remain scarce, not just because STEM careers and Nobel Prizes still favour men. Now comes the British-made Joy, which explores women’s contributions to a decades-long quest to cure infertility....

Read more...

Woman of the Hour, Netflix review - gripping drama follows a true-life Seventies serial killer

“I knew he was risky, but like fuck it, everyone’s risky.” A young woman (Kelley Jakle) poses for pictures on a deserted mountain road in Wyoming in 1977, telling Rodney, a charming, award-winning photographer (Daniel Zovatto), about the boyfriend...

Read more...
Subscribe to Netflix