I've been bingeing these, and you should too.
La Casa de Papel is brilliant, intelligent, meticulously plotted, with some incredible set pieces and a climax to set your teeth on edge. Eight small-time crooks break into the Royal Mint of Spain, but they get caught halfway through the heist and are besieged for over a week. Except it wasn't really a heist, and the siege is all part of the plan. Night's Black Agents directors and players need to have this in their lives. Why am I singing its praises again? Because Season Three is coming soon, and it would be a terrible, terrible shame not to see the first two seasons before Three's July debut.
The Bar, another Spanish shocker from cult director Alejandro de la Iglesia, is a much more claustrophobic comic horror piece. A group of strangers are trapped in a small hole-in-the-wall boozer, when a mad gunman opens fire. One customer's dropped with a headshot, and everyone wonders who's next to get got. But wait! Why are the streets completely deserted? Was it really some crazed sniper, or is this all part of some government plot? Standout performance award goes to Jaime Ordonez as Israel, who spends the entire film chewing the scenery and spitting chunks of it all over the floor.
Unit 42 is a Belgian cop drama, about cyber crimes. Widower and father of three Sam Leroy is parachuted in as the new head of the unit, and must find his feet while keeping his fractious team focused on their job. For once, a police procedural that doesn't treat computer crime like some alien sci-fi looney bin, though it does wear its sci-fi credentials proudly. Hence 42, as in the Meaning of Life. I like that it remembers corpses stink, and aren't pleasant to look at. The first season touches on Anonymous, ISIS and other topics ripped from the headlines, but never buries itself in bullshit. YouTube only has an English dub trailer and several non-subbed French trailers, and I shan't inflict the English dub on you.
I like it best for its subtle character details. Example: the boss' boss, a character who only appears occasionally, keeps goldfish and plants in her office. She's absolutely fatal, black thumb personified, and everything she touches dies. In another series there'd be long speeches about her inability. In this, we just see her harried expression as she brings another container of dead goldfish to the toilet for a solemn burial.
Again, highly recommended to Night's Black Agents Directors and players alike.
Charite At War is a second world war epic, about the Charite Hospital in Berlin. The doctors, nurses and patients have to survive a city under siege, threatened by aerial bombardment, Russians at the door, and cornered Nazis making a final stand. The narrative starts in 1943 and goes to the end of the war, all in six episodes. Fair warning: eugenics and experimentation on children both feature significantly.
I like it best for its characters, but I was struck by its intelligent use of wartime footage to flesh out its world. Every so often you'd see brief glimpses of Berlin as it was, then Berlin as it became, after the bombs dropped. It made the narrative much larger, even compelling.
Tokyo Stories: Midnight Diner is my chillax series. When the day's gone on too long, it's always a pleasure to sink back into this cheerful, slice-of-life narrative. Each day, after midnight, the Diner opens, for people who can't bear to go home. The Master has a limited menu, but offers to cook anything his customers want, so long as he has the ingredients. The Diner becomes a story hub, as each of the customers take it in turn to have some kind of crisis, which can only be solved at the Diner's counter. Slightly saccharine and very Japanese, in the same way that Studio Ghibli films are very Japanese; nostalgic, elegiac, sentimental.
Plus, free recipe with every episode. Can't beat that!
Finally, Office, a Korean horror film from 2015. Family man Kim Byong-gook goes to the office day in, day out, never deviating, never relaxing. One day he murders his entire family, then disappears. Where did he go? Why did he do it? Why do security cameras record him going back to the office one more time, but there's no footage of him leaving?
Freaky as hell, very psychological. Winner of the 2015 Camera d'Or at Cannes. I'm not saying much about it because I don't want to spoil, but trust me when I say, it delivers the goods in the craziest way imaginable.
Enjoy!
Unit 42 is a Belgian cop drama, about cyber crimes. Widower and father of three Sam Leroy is parachuted in as the new head of the unit, and must find his feet while keeping his fractious team focused on their job. For once, a police procedural that doesn't treat computer crime like some alien sci-fi looney bin, though it does wear its sci-fi credentials proudly. Hence 42, as in the Meaning of Life. I like that it remembers corpses stink, and aren't pleasant to look at. The first season touches on Anonymous, ISIS and other topics ripped from the headlines, but never buries itself in bullshit. YouTube only has an English dub trailer and several non-subbed French trailers, and I shan't inflict the English dub on you.
I like it best for its subtle character details. Example: the boss' boss, a character who only appears occasionally, keeps goldfish and plants in her office. She's absolutely fatal, black thumb personified, and everything she touches dies. In another series there'd be long speeches about her inability. In this, we just see her harried expression as she brings another container of dead goldfish to the toilet for a solemn burial.
Again, highly recommended to Night's Black Agents Directors and players alike.
Charite At War is a second world war epic, about the Charite Hospital in Berlin. The doctors, nurses and patients have to survive a city under siege, threatened by aerial bombardment, Russians at the door, and cornered Nazis making a final stand. The narrative starts in 1943 and goes to the end of the war, all in six episodes. Fair warning: eugenics and experimentation on children both feature significantly.
I like it best for its characters, but I was struck by its intelligent use of wartime footage to flesh out its world. Every so often you'd see brief glimpses of Berlin as it was, then Berlin as it became, after the bombs dropped. It made the narrative much larger, even compelling.
Tokyo Stories: Midnight Diner is my chillax series. When the day's gone on too long, it's always a pleasure to sink back into this cheerful, slice-of-life narrative. Each day, after midnight, the Diner opens, for people who can't bear to go home. The Master has a limited menu, but offers to cook anything his customers want, so long as he has the ingredients. The Diner becomes a story hub, as each of the customers take it in turn to have some kind of crisis, which can only be solved at the Diner's counter. Slightly saccharine and very Japanese, in the same way that Studio Ghibli films are very Japanese; nostalgic, elegiac, sentimental.
Plus, free recipe with every episode. Can't beat that!
Finally, Office, a Korean horror film from 2015. Family man Kim Byong-gook goes to the office day in, day out, never deviating, never relaxing. One day he murders his entire family, then disappears. Where did he go? Why did he do it? Why do security cameras record him going back to the office one more time, but there's no footage of him leaving?
Freaky as hell, very psychological. Winner of the 2015 Camera d'Or at Cannes. I'm not saying much about it because I don't want to spoil, but trust me when I say, it delivers the goods in the craziest way imaginable.
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