Pick of the week: The Wolfpack
SVT2, sep 19, 22:20
Journalist Crystal Moselle wasn’t expecting much when she ran into a young man on the streets of New York, but the result was a compelling documentary with an impressive 75 rating on Metacritic.
The man was on a rare outing from the apartment where his father Oscar Angulo, a conspiracy theorist and Hare Krishna follower, held the only key. He only allowed his six sons to go out less than once a year. They were isolated from the world.
Home-schooled by their mother, they spent most of their time watching Hollywood movies – thousands of them – which they recreated as home-movie versions, calling themselves ‘The Wolfpack’.
The siblings had nothing but their creativity. And then in 2010, Mukunda, one of the brothers, skipped out and met the future director of their bewildering story. (Alessandra Palmitesta)
Also new:
British viewers have embraced The Durrells, a 2016 family drama based on the books of Gerald Durrell that reflect on his childhood in the 1930s on Corfu. The always charismatic Keely Hawes plays his mother.
Paddy Considine – the star of The Suspicions of Mr Wilcher (DR1, Sep 5, 22:30) – is another actor who rarely disappoints, but the same can’t be said of Jimmy Saville, the DJ who let down a nation. Most contributors to Abused: The Untold Story (DR2, Sep 5, 23:05) wished to remain anonymous, but their faces are disguised to the extent they upset viewers more than the content.
No danger of that with Ivory Tower (DR2, Sep 13, 20:45), a slick if shallow investigation into the cost of an Ivy League education, although Missing Evidence: Jack the Ripper (TV2, Sep 8, 23:30) might be touch and go for the squeamish.
Elsewhere, we’ve got S2 of Indian Summers (DR2, Sep 7, 21:00) and Grantchester (SVT1, Sep 3, 21:00); you know summer’s over when you’ve got The Last Night of the Proms (SVT2, Sep 10, 20:00) and the return of X Factor UK (DR3, Sep 13, 20:00); and it’s a good month for drag fans with two docs airing their briefs: Miss Transgender (K4, Sep 2, 20:00) and Jinkx Monsoon (SVT2, Sep 13, 22:45). (BH)
Coming soon:
Spend some quality time with some lesbians, jocks and South Bronx’s finest – our three recommendations this issue of ‘Coming Soon’.
Take My Wife (Metacritic, 84) brings to the screen the real-life marriage of young lesbian couple Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher. Both stand-up comedians, the series shows their everyday life amongst work and relationships.
New Netflix series The Get Down (69) is also a musical, a film and a music video. Co-creator Baz Luhrmann retells the origins of hip-hop through a group of teenagers of the 70s South Bronx. Luhrmann personally directed the 93-minute pilot, and the rest of the series is rendered a little flat as a result.
The acclaimed Netflix documentary series Last Chance U (79) covers the 2015 American football season of East Mississippi Community, charting the highs and lows of a team. (AP)
Top sport:
You can’t say anything bad about the Paralympics. You just can’t. Unless it’s something about Oscar Pistorius. And no gags about Iceland as England kick off their 2018 World Cup campaign in Slovakia, the team they couldn’t break down in France. Elsewhere, the Manchester EPL derby follows the international break and the US Open climaxes on Eurosport on September 10 and 11. (BH)
Top film:
The 1981 version of Brideshead Revisited is one of the best TV series of all time, but the 2008 film isn’t bad either, even if it does bulldoze through subtleties the original had 12 hours to indulge. American Reunion is passable but pointless, while Daniel Craig is on the case of Stalin in Archangel, but sadly not as Bond. Now that would be amazing! (BH)
