What‘s on TV tonight? In fact: what is there today? Maybe on these very vacation days you can devote yourself to watching backlogged series or must-see movies that you always missed, however. However, if you are lacking some ideas about what to see, here are a few tips. These are shows, TV series and movies presented for their duration, from the shortest to the longest.
Let’s get going!
30 minutes
Two Distant Strangers (Two Distant Strangers)
In a little more than half an hour (32 minutes to be exact, which was still enough for them to win the 2021 Oscar for Best Short Film) Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe tell the story of a man who, after an evening spent with a girl he just met, returns home to his dog. The story is really that simple and really lasts 32 minutes. If I were to tell you how it is possible, however, I would have to reveal a detail that gives it quality and substance (although it is not new, it is still beautiful).
Why see it: because it is a story that makes you think about serious issues in life, even if they are not (at least not apparently) the ones told by this short film.
Where to see it: Netflix
One hour
Ronny Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America!
The beauty of Netflix is that it has introduced a lot of very talented comedians, especially from the United States but not only. Malaysian Ronny Chieng is not unknown to the American public: in fact, he has been a correspondent on Trevor Noah’s Daily Show since 2015. In this 2019 show he manages to demonstrate the quality of his line writing, recited with a seemingly expressionless face. The formula is not new, but he is compelling in his critique of American society and its exaggerations through the eyes of a foreigner who is in truth very well integrated and, not too thinly veiled, very much in love with his adopted country.
The line: “Amazon Prime is too little. It takes Amazon NOW. Better yet: Amazon Before – Send it to me before I even want it.”
Why see it: because it makes for a lot of laughs and for its intelligent critique of American society, which has so many traits in common with our own.
Where to see it: Netflix
A few hours
Don’t Look Up
What’s new this Christmas comes once again from Netflix and it is a movie with a decidedly impressive parterre of actors and actresses: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Ariana Grande, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, Jonah Hill, to name just a few but there are really dozens.
The story: a comet is on a collision course with Earth and astronomers DiCaprio and Lawrence desperately try to warn humanity that within six months life on the planet will be wiped out but no one seems to be paying attention to them.
Someone (I’m sorry I can’t remember who and I apologize for the periphrasis but I’m going from memory) defined it very effectively like this, “If instead of the comet you put the pandemic, it’s a movie about us.”
Between drama and satire of contemporary society (I realize on the third board that I focus almost only on works that criticize our society, mmm), with comic moments that do not overshadow the momentous reflections they allude to, Don’t Look Up is a must-see because DiCaprio famously almost never makes a movie wrong, because Lawrence is so good, because Streep is Streep, and because good movies always speak to something in us. Even if we don’t want to listen.
The line: “Do you know how many ‘the world is coming to an end’ meetings I’ve had to attend in the last two years? Drought, world hunger, the ozone hole. God what a bore.”
Why see it: to understand what anyone on social media is talking about, to laugh while reflecting, to get worried while laughing, to reflect while getting worried and laughing. Especially to get to the ending: surprising. And I’m not saying which ending.
Where to see it: Netflix
Eight hours
The Silent Sea and Alice in Borderland
Two TV series: one South Korean (it’s definitely South Korea’s year) and one Japanese, both somewhat related to Squid Game. The first is “The Silent Sea,” lasting eight episodes of about an hour and chronicling the mission of a team of astronauts who must retrieve samples of an unknown substance on a lunar station abandoned years earlier after a mysterious accident. The quality of South Korean productions is definitely high, and this one is also dubbed in Italian, which doesn’t hurt. The connection with Squid Game in this case is due to the fact that many actors also appear in the other, very successful TV series.
“Alice in Borderland” is instead a 2020 Japanese series, also eight episodes long, which has a narrative mechanism very similar to Squid Game: a group of people must pass deadly tests in a Japanese city in which there seems to be no one left but the contestants in the game itself. Its release date predates Squid Game so much so that many have seen a very pronounced inspiration in it, although in reality both tell a genre of story that is not exactly original, and for both one can trace more or less obvious ancestry. As always, it matters how the story is told and not just the story itself.
Why see them: to understand where we are, perhaps, headed.
Where to see them: Netflix