Matt Linton
- Nov 11, 2017

The Weekend Watchlist

Hey everyone! Welcome to the first of our solo Weekend Watchlists. From here on out we’ll be rotating the lists among our regular and guest contributors, giving you a look at what we’ll be watching or recommending each weekend. For my first week, I thought I’d recommend two films I’m going to try to watch this weekend, and three TV series I’ve been enjoying.

American Vandal (2017) – This Netflix original series is a note-perfect parody of their Making a Murderer series from 2015. A documentary (high school) film crew works to prove the innocence of the intensely dumb Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tatro) after he’s expelled for spray-painting giant dicks on 27 cars in the faculty parking lot. Despite maintaining his innocence (while admitting it’s a “pretty good prank”), all signs seem to point Dylan. Or do they? It’s very clever and very dumb and the perfect distraction from the stress of grad school (or, you know, the world).

Available to stream on Netflix.

Black-ish (2014 - ) – It took me awhile to come around to this ABC sitcom revolving around an upper-middle class black family navigating life in their largely white surroundings. After the recent season premiere (titled “Juneteenth”) I’m fully onboard and I’ve been working my way through the series from the beginning. It’s not the most subtle of shows, but manages to tackle issues of race, class, and gender while also being genuinely funny. The show stars Anthony Anderson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Laurence Fishburne, and Peter Mackenzie.

Available to stream on Hulu.

Master of None (2015 - ) – Speaking of taking awhile to come around to a show, I don’t know why I haven’t been watching Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series until now. The Indian-American comedian/actor stars as an Indian-American comedian/actor navigating single life and professional challenges in New York. When people say we’re in a Golden Age of television, I think part of it is that a show as good as this probably wouldn’t even make a list of Top 5 shows of the last decade.

Available to stream on Netflix.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) – I’ve mentioned director Taika Waititi’s work before and after loving his most recent film, Thor: Ragnarok (2017) I really want to take a look at his comedy-drama from last year. The movie follows the adventures of a troublemaking kid (Julian Dennison) and his gruff foster father (Sam Neill) as they become the targets of a nationwide manhunt in New Zealand. I don’t know much about it beyond that, but at this point I don’t need to.

Available to stream on Amazon Prime Instant.

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) – One of the greatest things about the latest Thor film is Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster, an ancient, but still totally cool, alien. Understandably, I’m now eager to check out his previous turn as an alien in this comedy from director Julien Temple (best known for directing concert films and music documentaries) and co-starring Geena Davis, Marlon Wayans, and Jim Carrey. It’s described as a “musical romantic-comedy science fiction film” about aliens who crash land on Earth and take human forms to blend in.

Available to rent on Amazon, Playstation, Vudu, and Apple iTunes.