Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for weekend streaming.
Jacqueline Novak: Get On Your Knees (Netflix)
Part stand-up comedy routine, part sociopolitical lecture and part how-to guide, Jacqueline Novak’s new Netflix special is all about one specific sexual act whose popular nickname cannot be printed in a family newspaper (but which can easily be guessed if you take a hard look at the show’s subtitle above). What might seem to be a crass come-on is in fact a deeply witty and intellectual exercise, with a dressed-down Novak – her grey T-shirt and white sneakers seem to deliberately recall George Carlin in his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” era – guiding her tittering audience into all manner of unexpected corners. This is deep, full-throated comedy.
Sexy Beast (Paramount+)
The central appeal of the ultradark 2000 gangster comedy Sexy Beast boiled down to three elements: the duelling performances of Ray Winstone (deadpan) and Ben Kingsley (maniacally intense), and the idiosyncratically dry direction of music-video director Jonathan Glazer, making his feature debut. With those three collaborators absent from this new prequel series following the early years of two British crooks, it’s hard to see what exactly the enticing factor might be. Perhaps James McArdle (taking over from Winstone) and Emun Elliott (subbing in for Kingsley) will deliver as impressive performances under the watch of showrunner Michael Caleo. Or maybe a few episodes will just remind everyone to go back and revisit Glazer’s original film. I’ll admit: I’m cautiously curious.
You Hurt My Feelings (Prime Video)
Nicole Holofcener’s latest film focuses on the kind of characters who once found a home inside Woody Allen’s New York – or really the Manhattan of Holofcener’s own canon, which includes the gently prickly dramedies Enough Said, The Land of Steady Habits, Please Give and Friends with Money. These are movies about wealthy people, comfortable in their Restoration Hardware-furnished homes, their personal dilemmas decidedly minor-key. But that doesn’t mean they are not also compelling, carefully crafted characters inhabiting warm and witty worlds.
Reteaming with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star of Enough Said, Holofcener focuses her story on a couple who, on the surface, seem perfect for one another. Beth (Louis-Dreyfus) is an author and creative-writing professor who is struggling with the umpteenth draft of her new book. Don (Tobias Menzies) is a therapist who is so checked out that he struggles to remember the backstories of his patients (which include a who’s-who of ace comic actors, including David Cross, Amber Tamblyn and Zach Cherry). Quickly, though, Beth and Don’s union is torn asunder after she overhears him telling a friend that, well, her new book just isn’t very good.
Holofcener cleverly cues up this betrayal from an array of perspectives, and nearly every performance is excellent, a beautiful balance of nerves and neuroses.
Nobody (Netflix)
After suffering through another round of Emmy Awards in which Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk was shut out, there’s no better time to revisit this 2021 thriller that proved there are far more shades to the actor than previously known. Odenkirk is far and away the best thing about Nobody, which casts the actor as Hutch Mansell, a mild-mannered accountant and father of two whose contract-killer past awakens after a home invasion. Asked to start the film as a suburban sad-sack and then flip a switch to highly skilled murder machine, Odenkirk nails the required extremes. And while the situation is played for dark laughs, Odenkirk’s commitment to the role is dead serious. He makes its ridiculousness believable. By the end of Nobody, I wanted desperately for the producers of the next Fast & Furious film to cast Odenkirk as the muscle-car-driving villain. In your heart of hearts, you know it would work, too.
Editor’s note: Jan. 25th, 2024: Due to a scheduling change, the documentary 299 Queen Street West will no longer premiere on Crave on Friday Jan. 26th, as reported in an earlier version of this article.
Barry Hertz