Category Archives: Netflix

Vive l’indifférence! Netflix’s Room 2806 exposes France’s #MeToo apathy

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Centred on a sex-assault case involving former French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn, this docuseries reveals worryingly outdated attitudes

Most people will have only the haziest recollection of the fallout that occurred after the French presidential hopeful and then head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexually assaulting a room attendant in a New York hotel in 2011. That allows the Netflix documentary Room 2806: The Accusation to possess all the qualities of a slick political thriller. Who will be believed? The immigrant, hotel cleaner, a single parent living in a flat in the Bronx or the globally powerful, immensely rich politician?

This tense, four-part documentary has astonishing material to work with. There is plenty of CCTV footage, filmed from the ceiling, of chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo making her way to the presidential suite, and later, visibly distressed, being shepherded by her supervisor to a subterranean network of shabby staff offices in the bowels of the building, away from the gilded foyer, where she wipes away tears and recounts how she has been assaulted by Strauss-Kahn as she cleaned his rooms.

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Headspace Guide to Meditation: can Netflix deliver enlightenment in 20 minutes?

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The streaming service and the mindfulness app have joined forces to inject some calm into our tech diet. Elle Hunt tries to switch off, while switching on

Those who subscribe to the notion of “new year, new me” will be familiar with the advice to empty your fridge and kitchen cupboards of junk food before 1 January, so as to set yourself up for healthy-eating success. (Or else a New Year’s Day McDonald’s delivery, when you wake up very much the old you, and not in the mood for overnight oats.)

After all that bingeing on Love Is Blind and Selling Sunset last year, Netflix now provides a similarly aspirational refresh, with a new series of guided meditations. Produced with the popular Headspace app, the eight 20-minute episodes are billed as a beginner’s guide to meditation, helping you to start the year “by being kind to your mind”.

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Game of Thrones video game tycoon dies in suspected poisoning

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Police in China detain colleague of Yoozoo Games founder Lin Qi on suspicion of involvement in death

Shanghai police have detained a man in relation to the suspected poisoning death of the wealthy founder of a video games company.

Lin Qi, 39, died on Christmas Day, eight days after he was taken to hospital with “acute symptoms of illness”, according to his company, Yoozoo Games Co, known for the Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming strategy game and as the producer of a forthcoming Netflix adaptation of the science fiction hit The Three-Body Problem.

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‘Boys can be fairies – it’s the 21st century’: How Fate: The Winx Saga finds the reality in fantasy

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The writer and star of the new Netflix series explain the myriad challenges of turning a manga-style kids’ cartoon into a live-action teen drama

How do you make teen TV magic? You call Brian Young. The writer cut his teeth on The Vampire Diaries, a supernatural teen drama that emerged from the Twilight era of sexy-horror fandoms, but it soon established its own identity, resulting in a successful eight seasons. So, when Netflix wanted to turn Winx Club – the hit Italian cartoon about fairies – into a live-action fantasy series for young adults, they recruited Young.

To him, the challenge of re-imagining the Winx world for a more mature audience was clear: “Tone. It’s trying to figure out how we ground this show in real character moments, things that any audience member would relate to. And this is coming from a massive fantasy fan – I had my Dungeons & Dragons character when I was a kid – but it is very easy to spiral off into absurdity with stuff like this.”

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Scottie Pippen: ‘I told Michael Jordan I wasn’t too pleased with The Last Dance’

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The ex-Chicago Bulls star won new fans in the acclaimed Netflix documentary. He talks about his special relationship with MJ – and basketball’s equality problem

Born in Arkansas in 1965, the youngest of 12 children, Scottie Pippen is one of basketball’s all-time greats. He played alongside Michael Jordan for the Chicago Bulls when they dominated the sport in the 1990s, winning six NBA championships. (He also won two Olympic gold medals.) That period, the Bulls’ and, in particular Jordan’s, extraordinary achievements are the focus of the 10-part, critically acclaimed Netflix docuseries The Last Dance, which has been a major hit in 2020.

You and Michael Jordan seemed to have a special bond in the film. When you were both on your game, it seemed like the team was going to win. Was that the case?
Yeah, that relationship, we established that we felt like that in the late 80s, playing against the Pistons, just starting to grow and mature and have each other’s backs. We grew up together and we defended each other. That respect we had on the court, that competitiveness we took through to the top – it was special. That was the respect we had for each other, because we had to be on the court to do what we did. We had to be dominant.

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Carole Baskin: ‘After Tiger King, my phone rang every two minutes for months’

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The animal sanctuary owner was catapulted to fame by the Netflix series – and became an unlikely fashion trendsetter

Carole Baskin watched the Netflix documentary series Tiger King as many of us did: she binged it, devouring all seven episodes in one sitting as soon as it was released in March. “It was like watching a dumpster fire, you just couldn’t turn away from it,” says Baskin on a video call. “It was just mesmerising that there could be this many crazy people doing so many wretched things to animals.”

Of course, one of the “crazy people”, the show implied, was her. Baskin, a 59-year-old owner of the Big Cat Rescue sanctuary in Florida, she she had been told by the film-makers that Tiger King would be an exposé of the mistreatment of the animals by private owners in America. Instead, the series mainly focused on a long-running feud between Baskin and Joseph Maldonado-Passage, a mulleted, polygamous, country music-loving zoo owner from Oklahoma who calls himself “Joe Exotic”.

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The Crown has slipped: how the Netflix epic captures our relationship with the royals

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While the fourth series has come under fire for factual inaccuracy, it is just one of many series to reflect the royals long history of mythmaking

‘Let’s get it over with,” sighs Prince Philip as he reluctantly prepares to venture towards a crowd of adoring subjects. On the one hand, this moment in The Crown has the ring of truth: realistically, why would members of the royal family be enthusiastic about meeting yet another mob of curtsying, awestruck plebs? It must be tremendously boring. And yet, on the other hand, how dare they? Who pays their wages?

A few things have become clear during the fourth season of Peter Morgan’s Netflix epic. Firstly, it’s just as well The Crown isn’t on the BBC. Because if it was, the nation’s enraged rightwing culture warriors would have descended upon Broadcasting House and stormed it. Secondly, this is a portrait of managed decline. And finally, The Crown means The Queen. But Olivia Colman’s Elizabeth II is more Canute than Britannia – not ruling the waves but nobly, if eventually absurdly, trying to hold them back.

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Helena Bonham Carter says The Crown should stress to viewers it’s a drama

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Actor who plays Princess Margaret adds her voice to calls for Netflix to add a disclaimer

Helena Bonham Carter has said The Crown has a “moral responsibility” to tell viewers that it is a drama, rather than historical fact, in the wake of calls for a “health warning” for people watching the series.

The actor, who played Princess Margaret in series three and four of the Netflix hit drama, told an official podcast for the show that there was an important distinction between “our version”, and the “real version”.

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Culture secretary to ask Netflix to play ‘health warning’ that The Crown is fictional

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Oliver Dowden says younger viewers might take historical drama’s portrayal as fact

The culture secretary plans to write to Netflix and request a “health warning” is played before The Crown so viewers are aware that the historical drama is a work of fiction, he said in an intervention that prompted criticism.

Oliver Dowden said that without the caveat younger viewers who did not live through the events might “mistake fiction for fact” following complaints that the fourth series of the drama had abused its artistic licence and fabricated events.

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BBC’s A Suitable Boy rankles ‘love jihad’ conspiracy theorists in India

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BJP reaction to depiction of Hindu-Muslim romance follows recent rows over interfaith marriages

When the BBC’s adaptation of Vikram’s Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy recently landed on Indian Netflix it did not take long for the fanfare to turn to controversy.

The series, it was claimed by politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), had “hurt religious sentiments” of Hindus by depicting the lead character, a Hindu girl called Lata, passionately kissing a Muslim boy against the backdrop of a temple.

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Trial 4: how a teen spent 22 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit

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Sean Ellis was 19 years old when he was arrested for killing a police officer in Boston. Decades later, he prepares for his fourth trial in Netflix’s Trial 4

Sean Ellis was 19 when he was arrested by Boston police over the killing of an officer in October 1993. Head down and nearly collapsing, barely keeping pace with police, Ellis wore his best suit as officers dragged him into custody – he had just attended the funeral of Celine Kirk and Tracy Brown, his cousins, who had been murdered by Celine’s ex-boyfriend in Ellis’s neighborhood of Dorchester. Ellis had spoken voluntarily to police about his cousins, with whom he was close; days later, he was on trial over the murder of a crooked cop as he slept in his car in a Walgreens parking lot.

Related: A Wilderness of Error: the year's most troubling true crime series

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The Crown season four, first look review – enter Diana, Thatcher, bombast and bomb blasts

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The best series so far of the royal drama, with the family sliding into dysfunction and new characters providing 80s shoulder-padded spectacle

The Crown (Netflix) has finally reached the blockbuster era, thanks to the pincer-like introduction of Diana (soon to be Princess) and Margaret (Thatcher), at long last, who both elevate the season to its best form yet. It begins in 1979, with the election of Britain’s first female prime minister, and ends in 1990, amid the furious flames that were beginning to consume the marriage of the heir to the throne. It is grand, gorgeous and as soapy as ever, perfect for a wintery period of hunkering down.

I have not always been convinced by The Crown. In the past, it has been prone to sentimentality, and never knowingly using one word to hint at a situation when several thousand will do. The sumptuous look of it all and the delicious performances have frequently been called upon to come to the rescue of the writing, which is sometimes clumsy, over-explaining subtext, not trusting its own subtlety, eventually spelling any emotional conclusions out all in bold capital letters.

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Over the Moon review – Netflix family animation is more Disney than Disney

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The voices of Cathy Ang, John Cho and Sandra Oh star in this K-poppy, trippy fantasy about a girl who builds a rocket and flies to the moon

Watch your back, Disney; here comes Netflix in Hollywood studio mode, flexing its ambition with an animated family fantasy adventure about a sunny, 13-year-old girl called Fei Fei who flies to the moon in a homemade rocket. It’s a film for the globalised 21st century (and presumably Netflix’s global audience): a Chinese story directed by an American – the veteran Disney animator Glen Keane – and voiced in English by actors of (mostly) east Asian heritage.

Cathy Ang is Fei Fei, who is horrified when her dad (John Cho) brings home a new girlfriend (Sandra Oh) four years after her mum’s death. Fei Fei is a true believer in the mythical goddess Chang’e, who is said to languish on the moon, pining for her mortal lover. Our heroine reasons that if she can prove Chang’e and eternal love really do exist, her dad will have to chuck his girlfriend and devote himself to the memory of her mumThus, as a science whizz, she builds a spaceship. It’s a contrived plot but Keane’s character design is beautifully expressive, adding real emotional force – Fei Fei’s face scrunched in anguish when she realises her dad plans to remarry is very touching.

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Netflix indicted by Texas grand jury over ‘lewd visual material’ in Cuties

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French film about pre-teen girls who form a dance group is called ‘prurient’ in Tyler County prosecution. Netflix defends story as social commentary against sexualisation

Netflix has defended the controversial film Cuties after it emerged the streaming giant is facing a criminal charge in Texas over the movie’s allegedly “lewd” depiction of children.

Cuties follows an 11-year-old Senegalese girl living in Paris who rebels against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a “free-spirited dance crew”.

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Why Netflix is a lifeline for African film-makers

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The streaming giant’s ambitious initiative Made By Africa, Watched By the World is a welcome platform for the continent’s overlooked cinematic talent

‘Have you ever had someone tell your story, take your voice … and replace your face until no one else can see or hear you?” These are the powerful words that Nigerian actor/director Genevieve Nnaji speaks to introduce the Netflix initiative Made By Africa, Watched By the World. Mixing new, original content with older African classics that have not previously been streamed elsewhere, this initiative, much like Strong Black Lead (2018), aims to showcase content that centres black stories but – unlike Strong Black Lead – it will be by and about Africans. It creates a path for stories that specifically address different slices of the African experience to see the light of day and reach a wider audience. Considering that there’s a growing feeling among Africans that inaccurate representation on screen is a given, that’s a good thing for everyone.

So what does Made By Africa, Watched By the World give us? Netflix has purchased previously produced content and also produced its own, both TV shows and films. Kagiso Lediga and Pearl Thusi have followed up their 2018 romantic drama Catching Feelings with a TV show, Queen Sono, about an undercover spy, that premiered earlier this year. Nick Mutuma’s coming of age drama, Sincerely Daisy, is having its highly anticipated premiere on Friday, while other Kenyan films – Tosh Gitonga’s romcom Disconnect and Tom Whitworth’s Poacher – have also found a home on Netflix.

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Netflix faces call to rethink Liu Cixin adaptation after his Uighur comments

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Five US senators have written to question plans to adapt The Three-Body Problem after its author voiced support for China’s mass internments in Xinjiang

Five Republican US senators have asked Netflix to reconsider its plans to adapt the bestselling Chinese author Liu Cixin’s book The Three-Body Problem, citing Liu’s comments in support of the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims.

In a letter to Netflix, the senators said they had “significant concerns with Netflix’s decision to do business with an individual who is parroting dangerous CCP propaganda”. The letter cites Liu’s interview with the New Yorker last year, in which the Chinese novelist was asked about the mass internment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.

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Cuties controversy sparks #CancelNetflix campaign

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French film Mignonnes sparks 200,000 tweets calling for boycott of streaming service over claims the film sexualises its young stars

A call to boycott Netflix on Thursday over the French film Mignonnes – AKA Cuties – has been launched on social media, over claims that its young stars were portrayed in a sexualised way.

The film is directed by French-Senegalese director Maïmouna Doucouré, and started streaming on 9 September. More than 200,000 tweets with the hashtag #CancelNetflix became the top trending topic one day later.

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Does Netflix’s Blood and Water show the ‘real’ South Africa?

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The streaming giant’s Cape Town-set series has been a huge hit. But do dramas of its ilk lack authenticity, or is their global feel the key to their success?

Neon lights dance across an infinity pool, while, inside an enormous mansion, couples canoodle in immaculate white corridors and the cool kids sneak away to smoke. At this kind of party, there are those who are recognised at the door and those who have to blag to get their name on the guestlist. As the birthday girl schmoozes with her guests, an awkward attendee does anything to escape the hubbub and keep her head down, as red cups pile up in the garden and a queue forms for the bar.

So far, so teen drama. But this isn’t London or LA: the two girls are Fikile Bhele and Puleng Khumalo, and the show is Blood and Water, set in South Africa. The second African series produced and released by Netflix, it focuses on the class divide between private Parkhurst school in Cape Town and its unnamed public counterpart, as well as Khumalo’s search for her missing sister. Like many dramas aimed at younger viewers, the first instalment kicks off in the midst of a debauched, booze-soaked gathering before branching out into the dark underbelly of popularity – think student-teacher relationships and moneyed parents wielding their power in the education system in the form of “donations”.

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Netflix portrayal of female Indian Air Force pilot flies into flak

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Gunjan Saxena was one of the first women in the IAF, but her biopic has drawn rebukes from fellow officers over sexism claims

Former and current members of the Indian military have criticised a Netflix film for portraying the armed forces as rife with gender discrimination.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has written to an Indian censor board, as well as Dharma Productions, which produced the film, and Netflix to complain that Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl “presented some situations that are misleading and portray an inappropriate work culture especially against women in the IAF”.

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Netflix stands by hit film 365 Days despite Duffy’s sex trafficking criticism

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Streaming platform says it is giving viewers ‘more choice’ after British singer accuses film of glamourising rape

Netflix will continue to stream hit Polish film 365 Days despite calls for its withdrawal, including by British singer Duffy, who accused it of glamourising rape and sex trafficking.

The Welsh singer-songwriter wrote an open letter to the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, raising her concerns about the film based on a bestselling Polish book trilogy by Blanka Lipińska.

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