What to Watch this Week (19-26 Sep)
The best films to watch this week on the big screen, the small screen and your laptop screen, including Little Men, The Magnificent Seven and Joe Swanberg's Netflix show Easy
What to stream this week: Easy
Prolific indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg brings his fleet-footed, improv-heavy shooting style to television with new Netflix show Easy. The eight-part anthology series is set in Chicago and follows the comic romantic entanglements of several couples as they feel their way through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture.
Swanberg has assembled an eclectic lineup of actors, with Orlando Bloom, Malin Åkerman, Michael Chernus, Marc Maron, Kiersey Clemons, Elizabeth Reaser, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jake Johnson, Aya Cash, Dave Franco, Jane Adams, Hannibal Buress and Emily Ratajkowski among the cast. We’re intrigued. Streaming on Netflix from 22 Sep
What to watch in cinemas: The Magnificent Seven
Does the world need a remake of the old Yul Brynner western, itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai? Well, maybe. Some of the film’s stars – who include Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Matt Bomer and Vincent D'Onofrio – have been insisting to press that The Magnificent Seven is just a piece of Friday night entertainment, but one of its stars, Ethan Hawke, isn’t shying away from its political dimension.
The film's titular multi-race posse, after all, are taking on a rapacious businessman who makes an easy Donald Trump surrogate. "I bet Trump would like the film," said Hawke at the San Sebastian Film Festival, "but he doesn't know that what the film is actually about is people gathering together to defeat him." Released 23 Sep by Sony
What to seek out at an indie cinema near you: Little Men
This vivid slice of life from Ira Sachs follows two 13-year-old boys who meet one day on a Brooklyn sidewalk and become best friends. They hang out, play video games, skate around the city, and Sachs' humane camera captures this friendship blossoming.
Their bond becomes under threat, however, when their parents begin a dispute over some property in the recently gentrified neighbourhood. Such is the power and charisma of the two pre-teen protagonists (Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri) that the high-stakes adult story never overpowers the simple tale of friendship at the heart of the film. Released 23 Sep by Altitude
Read our interview with Michael Barbieri
Also worth a watch: De Palma
Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow pay tribute to their friend and mentor Brian De Palma with this loving doc. It’s basically the director looking straight down the camera telling tales of his early life, his love of cinema and his up-and-down career, mixed in with some sharply chosen clips of his films, which include Carrie, Scarface, Dress to Kill and Blow Out. Like his films, the director is playful company, and this doc is sure to have you scrambling home after the screening to revisit some of your favourite De Palma titles. Released 23 Sep by StudioCanal
The key films of Brian De Palma
What to watch at home: Green Room
A fat-free Punk v Nazi thriller from the mind that brought you Blue Ruin, Green Room follows a wet-behind-the-ears punk band who find themselves in deep water when they witness a murder at a secluded club for skin-head fascists. Like the very best John Carpenter movies, the suspense builds imperceptibly as the band try to turn the tables on their Nazi captors.
Most of the headlines when the film was released focused on Patrick Stewart, who plays the club’s terrifying owner, but the whole cast deserve plaudits, including Anton Yelchin as the band’s sweet-natured bass player. You get the impression this is a young actor coming into his own, which makes his accidental death earlier this year, aged just 27, all the more heartbreaking. Released on DVD and Blu-ray 19 Sep