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Cape Town - With two shows from each internet TV platform currently available in South Africa, we give you a line-up of six stellar opportunities for binge-watching this weekend, from classic 70s movies to grownup-cartoons to a lavish period drama.
There’s something for everyone, whether you’re a comedy-horror fan or a reality show junkie.
You’re welcome!
In the build-up to the Oscars next Sunday night, ShowMax is releasing 11 movies that have scooped multiple Academy Awards. This weekend sees the release of the three Godfather movies: the first revolutionised the mafia genre, and is one of the most influential and celebrated films ever made. The second may be even better than the first: it won more Oscars, for one thing. And the third film is regarded by aficionados to be … regrettable, but still a must-see.
Did you know?
• Marlon Brando won the Oscar for Best Actor for the first Godfather movie in 1972. But he refused the award, sending an Indian Rights activist in his place to announce that he wouldn’t be accepting, because of the discrimination against Native Americans in film.
• Al Pacino, nominated for Best Supporting Actor, also boycotted the awards because he felt that since he had more screentime than Brando, he should have been nominated for Best Actor instead. Petty, much?
• The second Godfather movie (1978) is the only sequel ever to have won Best Picture.
• Director Francis Ford Coppola felt that the Corleones’ story had been concluded in the second movie, but had to accept the studio’s long-standing offer to make the third movie in 1990 because: money.
Available on ShowMax
Watch the trailer here:
2. The Real Housewives of Atlanta, S1
This is the highest-rated of all the Real Housewives franchises, for good reason – it’s the ultimate guilty pleasure, and the genesis of several spin-offs. Meet the five main “housewives”, who are faced with demanding careers, the challenges of motherhood, moderate amounts of fame, and having to look fabulous pretty much all the time. Two of the women, aspirant fashion designer Sheree Whitfield and actress NeNe Leakes, are engaged in a bitter feud, and the others, Kim Zolciak, aspiring country music star, DeShawn Snow, a wannabe famous socialite, and former backup dancer Lisa Wu, are forced to pick sides.
Available on ShowMax
Watch the trailer here:
3. Santa Clarita Diet
This show will not be everybody’s cup of tea. And even if you enjoy comedy-horror, you’ll want to make sure you’ve digested your dinner before you start streaming. This is not a show for the elderly, or your squeamish friends. It’s good, old-fashioned gore spiked with some very funny lines. Drew Barrymore plays an ordinary woman who turns into a zombie and starts craving raw meat, then human flesh ... and a Range Rover. Her reaction to a creepy, gropey colleague who won’t take “no” for an answer is fantastically and horribly perfect. We haven’t enjoyed Drew this much since ET!
Available on Netflix
Watch the trailer here:
4. Bojack Horseman
This series is completely bizarre, but we’ll stick our necks out and say that it’s the best satirical adult cartoon we’ve had since the Simpsons. Will Arnett lends his voice to Bojack Horseman, a horse (yes, a horse - a slightly tubby one, in a cardigan) who is a washed-up former sitcom star living in his mansion in Hollywood, with lots of booze, even more regrets, and a hippy housemate-hanger-on. Bojack’s irreverent and a horrible person/animal, but we’re addicted to watching him slowly stumble his way to redemption.
Available on Netflix
Watch the trailer here:
5. Sneaky Pete
From Bryan Cranston comes this gritty crime drama about Marius (Giovanni Ribisi), a conman who pulls the ultimate stunt when he gets out of prison - infiltrating his ex-cellmate Pete’s family and posing as their long-lost grandson and cousin. Marius realises almost immediately that the family’s not as well-to-do as he’d hoped, but he’s got to stay hidden at the farm until he can come up with the 100 grand he owes the ruthless gangster Vince, who’s got Marius’s (real) brother as collateral. Meanwhile, there’s plenty he can teach his “cousins”, who run a bail bonds business, about how to catch a criminal: it takes one to know one.
Available on Amazon Prime
Watch the trailer here:
6. Z: The Beginning of Everything
Zelda Fitzgerald has become the stuff of literary lore - the muse and lover and sometimes enemy of the writer who gifted us The Great Gatsby. In this lush series, Christina Ricci plays the socialite Zelda at the height of the Roaring 20s. She’s the flapper we all wish we could’ve been, with her perfect hair, long cigarettes, Southern drawl and sharp tongue … but nothing lasts forever, even a relationship as passionate as hers and Fitzgerald’s. This is very much a fictionalised account, but when it comes with this much sex and raciness and amazing outfits, we don’t care too much about accuracy!
Available on Amazon Prime
Watch the trailer here:
