The costumes are put away, the Christmas decorations at stores are entering their second month, and we’re all looking forward to the only Thursday of the year where they play three football games that last all day. It’s that time of year again!
As a byproduct of the streaming wars, there’s an unimaginable flood of content that makes every month feel like Christmas. Here’s a few gems that I’ve been loving lately to check out if you’re lucky enough to have extra time off this month or next.
WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY - Streaming on The Roku Channel, which has ads but is free and available on most smart TVs. - I thought this was going to be a straight biopic of Al Yankovic with Daniel Radcliffe in the title roll, which sounded great to me, but this turned out to be a totally fantastical spoof of biopics with more celebrity cameos than you can drop a name on. Just like actual Weird Al’s career, this movie is silly and light-hearted, and if you need something safe to watch with family this holiday season, reach for this.
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON - Streaming on HBOMAX, which is not free but is one of the streamers that’s definitely worth paying for - I had heard rather mixed things about this Game of Thrones spinoff, and of course the last two seasons of GoT itself were truly atrocious, one of the biggest disappointments in TV history, frankly. This series was a breath of fresh air in that context—or rather, a breath of stank dungeon air that carries with it the screams of the tortured, but in a fun way. There are definitely some logic gaps when it comes to the dragons, starting with “why aren’t they using dragons more” and “how can anyone really challenge someone who has dragons”, but they don’t make a big thing of it and instead focus on creating some great characters and setting up a genuine tension without the supernatural aspects that ended up dragging the original GoT off track. Get on board with this now and hopefully the creators don’t get bored and wrap things up at such warp speed. (Warning: There is serious harm to children in this show. If that’s not something you want to deal with, steer clear.)
ANDOR - Streaming on Disney+, along with every other Star Wars thing ever made - I have only watched the pilot of this show, but I’m already recommending it to everyone I know and trying to drum up support, because this is Star Wars for adults, what the franchise could be. If you liked “Rogue One”, you’ll love this. If you didn’t see “Rogue One”, first go watch “Rogue One” because it’s the best Star Wars movie since at least “The Empire Strikes Back”, then get into this show so that they’ll make more of it and more shows like it. Bad Star Wars is really bad, but great Star Wars is some of the absolute best pop-sci fi ever made.
SANDMAN - Streaming on Netflix - I have read and revisited Neil Gaiman’s magisterial graphic novel over the years, and have heard Hollywood scuttlebutt about various attempts to make the show, always wondering if they could make it work. This result is not perfect, but about as good as it could be—beautiful, well-cast-and-acted, whimsical, and mysterious. You need to go into this series expecting it to be a sort of tone poem. There are stories and there’s a big overall story—The God of Dreams has his magical objects stolen and must retrieve them before his realm falls apart—but there’s also digressions aplenty and those are some of the best parts. Just enjoy the journey and don’t expect the ending to blow your mind and this series is a lot of fun. I hope enough people watch it and they make more, because Gaiman wrote a *lot* of these comics and many of my favorite issues haven’t yet been put on screen.
OATS STUDIOS - Streaming on Netflix - This is a collection of short films from Neil Blomkamp, the South African director behind “District Nine” and “Chappie”. They range from eight to 30 minutes, they’re all sci fi but a range of tones, and they all bring Blomkamp’s theatrical genius to bear in various ways. “District Nine” started as a short film and he clearly loves the format. He has an uncanny ability to create a moody and engaging world in a seemingly unhurried way while in fact telling a tight story that really goes somewhere, and it’s on full display in this shorter format.
That’s what I’ve got to offer! Hope everyone has a great week, and I’ll be back next Sunday with another original story.
House of the Dragon is such a good show! I initially had my reservations about it since the final season of Game of Thrones was so awful, but the showrunners did such an amazing job!