Straight Outta Compton and straight onto Netflix.
With all the weather warnings we have been getting lately, it’s best to just snuggle up in front of the fire and watch some television for the next couple of days.
Netflix has answered the call and has released some brilliant new titles for the week ahead.
Straight Outta Compton (Now Streaming)
In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation.
Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these youngsters revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war. Starring O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell as Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, Straight Outta Compton is directed by F. Gary Gray (Friday, Set It Off, The Italian Job).
The drama is produced by original N.W.A. members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, who are joined by fellow producers Matt Alvarez and Tomica Woods-Wright. Will Packer serves as executive producer of the film alongside Gray.
Clip via Universal Pictures
Jeff Dunham: Relative Disaster (12 September)
Ventriloquist and global comedy superstar Jeff Dunham brings his rude and slightly demented posse of dummies to Ireland for a gleeful skewering of family and politics in his debut Netflix Original stand-up comedy special, “Jeff Dunham: Relative Disaster.”
Filmed at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin, Dunham and his famous cohorts Walter, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, Bubba J, Peanut and Seamus leave the audience in stitches from start to finish.
Clip via Netflix
Heroin(e) (12 September)
Heroin(e) focuses on the once bustling industrial town, Huntington, West Virginia that has become the epicentre of America’s modern opioid epidemic. With an overdose rate 10 times the national average, the crisis threatens to tear this community apart.
West Virginia native Sheldon highlights three women working to change the town’s narrative and break the devastating cycle of drug abuse one person at a time. Heroin(e) shows how the chain of compassion holds one town together. The Netflix original documentary short is by Peabody award-winning filmmaker, Elaine McMillion Sheldon (Hollow).
Clip via Netflix
American Vandal (15 September)
From co-creators Tony Yacenda (Pillow Talking) and Dan Perrault (Honest Trailers), and showrunner Dan Lagana (Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous), American Vandal is a half-hour true-crime satire that explores the aftermath of a costly high school prank that left twenty-seven faculty cars vandalized with phallic images.
Over the course of the eight-episode season, an aspiring sophomore documentarian investigates the controversial and potentially unjust expulsion of troubled senior (and known dick-drawer) Dylan Maxwell. Not unlike its now iconic true-crime predecessors, the addictive American Vandal will leave one question on everyone’s minds until the very end: Who drew the dicks?
Clip via Netflix
First They Killed My Father (15 September)
Directed by Angelina Jolie, First They Killed My Father is the adaptation of Cambodian author and human rights activist Loung Ung’s gripping memoir of surviving the deadly Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1978. The story is told through her eyes, from the age of five, when the Khmer Rouge came to power, to nine years old.
The film depicts the indomitable spirit and devotion of Loung and her family as they struggle to stay together during the Khmer Rouge years. First They Killed My Father is a Netflix film written by Angelina Jolie and Loung Ung and produced by Jolie and acclaimed Cambodian director and producer Rithy Panh, director of the Oscar-nominated The Missing Picture.
Clip via Netflix
Strong Island (15 September)
In April 1992, on Long Island NY, William Jr., the Ford’s eldest child, a black 24 year-old teacher, was killed by Mark Reilly, a white 19 year-old mechanic. Although Ford was unarmed, he became the prime suspect in his own murder. Director Yance Ford chronicles the arc of his family across history, geography and tragedy – from the racial segregation of the Jim Crow South to the promise of New York City; from the presumed safety of middle class suburbs, to the maelstrom of an unexpected, violent death.
It is the story of the Ford family: Barbara Dunmore, William Ford and their three children and how their lives were shaped by the enduring shadow of racism in America. A deeply intimate and meditative film, Strong Island asks what one can do when the grief of loss is entwined with historical injustice, and how one grapples with the complicity of silence, which can bind a family in an imitation of life, and a nation with a false sense of justice.
Clip via Netflix
Time: The Kalief Browder Story (15 September)
This series traces the tragic case of Kalief Browder, a Bronx teen who spent three horrific years in jail, despite never being convicted of a crime.
Project MC2 (15 September)
Project Mc2 follows four super smart and science-skilled girls as they are recruited to join the spy organization, NOV8 (“Innovate”), working together to save the day and prove that Smart is the New Cool™.
Jerry Before Seinfeld (19 September)
Jerry Before Seinfeld: Jerry Seinfeld returns to The Comic Strip for an intimate stand-up set at the club that helped launch his career. Interspersed with never-before-seen material — including a library of legal pads with every joke he’s written since 1975, childhood videos, and more — Jerry performs the jokes that put him on the comedy map in an hour-long stand-up special, only on Netflix.
Clip via Netflix UK & Ireland
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
