Netflix
The Sandman
TV, US, 2022 – out 5 August
Film and TV producers have long wanted to get their mitts on Neil Gaiman’s cult comic book, with several projects collapsing well before anyone could call, “Action!” Revolving around dark fantasies of the titular character, Dream – AKA Morpheus or Sandman, who goes on a quest to return to a realm called the Dreaming – the books have been described with that overused term: “unfilmable”.
But no book is unfilmable for the same reason one could argue every book is unfilmable: movies and books are entirely different mediums and require entirely different methodologies. When it comes to adaptations, reinventing the source material is not so much desirable as inevitable. Fingers crossed The Sandman delivers the goods.
Echoes
TV, US, 2022 – out 19 August
The premise of this miniseries from Australian creator and writer Vanessa Gazy (who also made Australian drama Eden) reminds me of a twist from Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. It revolves around identical twins Leni and Gina (Michelle Monaghan) who, according to the official synopsis, “have secretly swapped lives since they were children”. Which is all well and good, until the day (insert dramatic music) one of them goes missing.
Rams
Film, Australia, 2020 – out 10 August
The film industry is shamefully awash with unoriginal ideas, though there’s an obvious justification for remaking foreign productions: local film-makers can imbue an established concept with another country’s sensibilities (and, of course, dialect). The excellent Icelandic drama Rams provides material thoroughly befitting of a rural Australian setting, as Jeremy Sims demonstrates in this calm-tempered remake co-starring Michael Caton and Sam Neill as brothers who live on neighbouring farms but hate each other’s guts. They are ewe-nited by a common cause: protecting their family’s prized bloodline of sheep, after authorities mandate a mass culling to contain a disease.
Honourable mentions: Top Gun (film, 1 August), Footloose (film, 1 August), Mission: Impossible 1-4 (film, 1 August), Kleo (TV, 19 August), Day Shift (TV, 12 August), 13: The Musical (film, 12 August), Day Shift (film, 12 August), Back to the Future (film, 16 August), Superwog (TV, 24 August), Me Time (TV, 26 August).
Stan
Game Night
Film, US, 2018 – out 16 August
If you want an example of “narrative economy” in action, check out the first couple of minutes of this terrifically sharp and sly film co-directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, and written by Mark Perez. The opening condenses the equivalent of an entire first act, bringing together ultra-competitive married couple Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams), who host a regular game night that goes spectacularly topsy-turvy when Max’s wealthy brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) introduces an interactive role-playing game featuring real actors.
Brooks is abducted early in the performance … but not for real, right? The “game or not” element is teased throughout, in the spirit of films contemplating the recreational indulgences of the well heeled.
Game Night is one of the best comedies of the last decade, with the pep and bounce of Preston Sturges and pressure-packed editing reminiscent of Edgar Wright.
The Shining
Film, 1980, US/UK – out 30 August
“Hhheeerrrreee’s Johnny!” Every few years I return to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece and every time it chills my blood in a different way. The aforementioned quote was of course delivered by a sensationally scary and shit-eating Jack Nicholson, playing a caretaker of a haunted hotel who goes crazy and attacks his wife (Shelley Duvall) and telepathetic child (Danny Lloyd).
With its eerie symmetrical compositions and atmosphere of opulent menace, there are too many great moments to list: the elevator full of blood, those creepy identical twins, and that insane last-minute twist expressed entirely through a zoomed in shot of a photograph. The Shining is one of the greatest horror movies and the best Stephen King adaptation (although the author famously hated it).
Honourable mentions: Drive My Car (film, 1 August), The Untouchables (film, 1 August), Contagion (film, 3 August), Sing (film, 6 August), Dirty Harry (film, 6 August), Hotel Rwanda (film, 11 August), Goodfellas (film, 12 August), Gremlins (film, 18 August), House of Ho (TV, 25 August), The Shining (film, 1980).
ABC iView
Hook
Film, US, 1991 – out 1 August
Steven Spielberg’s take on Peter Pan breaks the most famous element of JM Barrie’s character: his eternal youthfulness. The boy who never ages grows up into an adult (Robin Williams), who has forgotten about his childhood and all that commotion in Neverland. Captain Hook (a deliciously wicked Dustin Hoffman) hasn’t, however, and lures him back. This is one of those films still vivid in my mind (including the imagined food fight and pirate singalong, “Give us the Hook!”) despite watching it at least 25 years ago.
Honourable mentions: Rosehaven season 4 (TV, 2 August), Walking Man (TV, 6 August), Suffragette (film, 7 August), 8 Nights Out West (TV, 7 August), Anatomy of a String Quartet (TV, 10 August), Here Out West (film, 14 August), Science of Drugs with Richard Roxburgh (TV, 17 August), Stateless (TV, 22 August).
SBS on Demand
Train to Busan
Film, South Korea, 2016 – out now
Train enthusiasts also partial to high-octane genre movies are in for a treat in August, with Brad Pitt riding the Bullet Train and Yeon Sang-ho’s fiendishly good zombie movie Train to Busan available on SBS on Demand. The film’s intro scene features undead roadkill, then, after a 20-minute lull, things get very violent and very zombified onboard the you-know-what headed to you-know-where. For other entertaining train-based action pictures check out Unstoppable, Snowpiercer and both versions (original and remake) of The Taking of Pelham 123.
Honourable mentions: Between Two Worlds (TV, 4 August), Black Wedding (TV, 11 August), My Brilliant Friend (TV, 11 August), Suspect (TV, 18 August), The Porter (TV, 25 August).
Prime Video
Thirteen Lives
Film, US, 2022 – out 5 August
After the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue captured the world’s attention, and the soccer team trapped for more than two weeks were successfully retrieved, a movie or show dramatising the event was virtually inevitable. Or make that movies and shows, plural: in addition to Ron Howard’s new film other productions include the documentary The Rescue; Tom Waller’s so-so narrative feature The Cave, which stars four of the actual rescue divers; and an upcoming Netflix TV drama arriving in September.
Like Waller, Howard sticks mostly to the rescuers and the complex logistics of their mission. Devoid of the briskness present in a lot of his work, Howard directs in an anonymous style (take his name off the credits and you’d never know it was one of his films) at all times emphasising the details of the story. The pace finally picks up more than an hour in, when rescuers come up with a wild idea to knock the boys out with ketamine and transport them out of the cave like parcels. Incredibly, as we know, they pulled it off.
A League of Their Own
TV, US, 2022 – out 12 August
There’s a jokey old-timer spirit in this remake of Penny Marshall’s well-regarded 90s comedy, inspired by the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The show extends the 1943-set storyline over an eight-episode arc, adding racial relations elements with the addition of new characters such as Chanté Adams’s Max. The first episode (all I’ve seen so far) doesn’t contain all that much baseball; perhaps they’re saving the home runs for later.
Honourable mentions: Sing (film, 1 August), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (film, 1 August), Cyrano (film, 12 August), The Paper Tigers (film, 12 August), Room (film, 24 August), Downton Abbey 2 (film, 26 August), Uncharted (film, 27 August).
BINGE
House of the Dragon
TV, US, 2022 – out 22 August
Producers of this highly anticipated Game of Thrones spin-off–set 200 years before the deaths of Ned Stark, and Robb Stark, and Catelyn Stark, and Talisa Stark, and Tywin Lannister, and Jaime Lannister, and Cersei Lannister, and Lancel Lannister, and Jon Snow, and pretty much bloody everybody, are obviously hoping for a success comparable to the GoT monolith. However much has changed since 2011 (the year the original show premiered) and I’ll eat my hat if this series is anywhere near as successful as its predecessor.
Having said that, even the nature of success is different now, with current blockbuster productions used by streaming platforms as tools to build and retain membership rather than deliver week-by-week ratings. One thing’s for sure about the first of nine (!!) GoT spin-offs: thar be dragons. The story revolves around a civil war and the Targaryen family, who have 17 fire-breathing beasts at their disposal.
Reservation Dogs season 2
TV, US, 2022 – out 4 August
Set on a Native American reservation in rural Oklahoma, this fresh and funny comedy-drama, co-created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, has at its core four thoroughly appealing delinquent youngsters – Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) and Cheese (Lane Factor). The first season opened with them hijacking a truck full of cheese-flavoured chips, before moving on to examine the details of their lives including the resentment they share towards their home community. What will they hijack at the start of the second season? A train carrying doughnuts?!
Honourable mentions: Ren & Stimpy seasons 1-5 (TV, 3 August), The Many Saints of Newark (film, 5 August), Anger Management (film, 6 August), Caddyshack (film, 12 August), Annabelle (film, 13 August), Clifford the Big Red Dog (film, 16 August), The Dressmaker (film, 26 August), IT: Chapter Two (film, 26 August), Uncharted (film, 27 August).
Disney+
The Bear
TV, (US), 2022 – out 31 August
While the clout of individual critics has deteriorated dramatically over the years, great collective responses from reviewers can now turn productions into highly sought after watercooler titles. Creator Christopher Storer’s acclaimed drama is one of these, capturing the stresses of running a hole-in-the-wall Chicago sandwich shop, which Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) takes over after the death of his brother.
Currently rocking a 100% Rotten Tomatoes approval rating, the show has generated a stacked buffet of think pieces and raves. It is, if you believe the headlines, the great Chicago TV show, one of the year’s best small screen productions, a skewering of the wild male genius, a painfully real depiction of kitchen-related trauma, and on and on we go. I’m looking forward to tucking in.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
TV, US, 2022 – out 17 August
Late one night a long time ago, squinty-eyed and half-baked during my university years, I vaguely recall watching a courtroom drama so odd I contemplated the idea that it was entirely a hallucination. But no, the 1989 telemovie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk really does exist. So does She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which stars Tatiana Maslany as the titular green attorney, who takes on a case representing a man (Tim Roth) who tried to kill her brother Bruce Banner, AKA the (He?) Hulk.
If any premise lent itself to wacky comedy and offbeat execution it’d be this. Countless MCU productions however have conditioned us to expect the conventional and risk-averse. Time will tell.
Honourable mentions: Lightyear (film, 3 August), Prey (film, 5 August), I am Groot (TV, 10 August), Fearless: The Inside Story of the AFLW (TV, 24 August), Mike (TV, 25 August), Andor (TV, 31 August).
Apple TV+
Bad Sisters
TV, US, 2022 – out 19 August
Corpses with boners are always funny, as the opening moments of creator Sharon Horgan’s new series reminds us. The close-knit titular sisters (Horgan, Anne-Marie Duff, Eva Birthistle, Sarah Greene and Eve Hewson) all had a motive to kill John Paul (Claes Bang) thus all become suspects after his death. Judging by the first episode, the tone is difficult to place: it’s a drama, and kind of a thriller, and quite funny sometimes, with an air of restrained kookiness. I dig the opening credits that feature a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Who By Fire.
Honourable mentions: Luck (film, 5 August), Five Days At Memorial (TV, 12 August), See season 3 (TV, 26 August).
Paramount+
Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head
TV, US, 2022 – out 5 August
Nostalgia used to be a thing of the past; now everything popular in yesteryear is being regurgitated. I can’t say I was ever a fan of Mike Judge’s comedy about a pair of chuckling, bone-headed idiots, which seems to me best left sealed off in a vault labeled “weird things from the 90s”. A clip from their new show reveals the pair this time around commenting not on music videos but on TikTok because, look, they’re being modern.
Honourable mentions: Secret Headquarters (film, 13 August), South Park The 25th Anniversary Concert (TV, 14 August), 6 Festivals (film, 25 August), MTV VMAs 2022 (TV, 29 August).
