The Journalist — Netflix
The Journalist is a Japanese drama exploring the determination of a dogged, smart journalist to investigate a story involving high-level government corruption in a dodgy land case.
It may be a fantasy of a perfect-world version of how the relationship between the fourth estate and government is supposed to work but in many countries, including ours, it’s a fundamental relationship that has benefited the public and needs to be protected.
Solidly plotted, well-acted and offering plenty of nasty characters whose downfall we eagerly root for, it’s all so familiar and eerily similar to our own real-world battles for truth and accountability that it’s hard not to get behind.
Dr Death — Showmax
Joshua Jackson stars as the cold and psychotic Texas medical professional wunderkind at the heart of this true story adapted from an acclaimed podcast.
Jackson plays Dr Christopher Duntsch, a surgeon who comes under scrutiny from other doctors and the authorities after a large number of his patients are either mangled or killed as a result of his questionable operating procedures.
Co-starring Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater, it’s a compelling mystery cum medical drama whose story is a shocking indictment on medical practitioners who have scant regard for the welfare of their patients in the face of professional plaudits and reputational gains.
Anxious People — Netflix
This is an oddball dark comedy murder mystery from Sweden in which an eccentric bank robber holds a group of visitors to an open house hostage and then mysteriously disappears.
He’s pursued by a dysfunctional and not competent father-son team of police detectives with charming and sometimes poignant results as we learn a little about each of the hostages and how they ended up attending an open house they won’t forget in a hurry.
Munich: The Edge of the World — Netflix
This is a handsomely crafted World War 2 spy thriller, whose ending we all know. Based on the thriller by best-selling writer Robert Harris, it’s the story of two young men on opposite sides of the political wrangling that will lead to the outbreak of the war.
At the Munich emergency conference in 1938, the two friends — one a British civil servant and the other a German diplomat — find themselves caught in the chaos of double-dealing and obfuscation as Hitler prepares to push the world over the brink.
Echoes in the Canyon — Netflix
Echoes in the Canyon is a documentary that pays loving tribute to the music and musicians who came together in the LA suburb of Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s to create a new melding of folk and singer-songwriting rock that defined a generation and exerted a big influence on generations to come.
The Laurel Canyon scene included The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to name a few.
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