Weekend Watch List: Computer Games, Killer Sharks, And Comedians

Every week, we take a look at what’s hitting cinemas and streaming to bring you our top picks.

In Cinemas

One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson‘s second trip to the Thomas Pynchon well finds Leonardo DiCaprio as a burnt out former radical who finds himself drawn back into the underground when his old nemesis Colonel Lockjaw (an RFK-lookin’ Sean Penn) comes gunning for him and his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti).

Beast Of War

It’s Mark Coles Smith versus a Great White Shark, which has a certain symmetry to it. In this WWII survival thriller from Kiah Roache-Turner, a troop ship full of Aussie diggers gets torpedoed, only for the survivors to be menaced by… well, you know. Pretty much a pitch-perfect pulp adventure.

Tron: Ares

Look, the film is garbage – go read my review if you don’t believe me. Having said that, you are not gonna get too many opportunities in this life to see a two hour Nine Inch Nails music video in a cinema, and Tron: Ares works remarkably well on that level and that level alone.

Streaming

The Lowdown

One of our favourite weirdos, Ethan Hawke, gets down and dirty in this new crime comedy from Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo. Hawke is dogged citizen journalist Lee Raybon, on the trail of endemic corruption in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which puts him on a collision course with Kyle MacLachlan’s gubernatorial candidate. Looks like a good time all ’round. On Disney+.

Play Dirty

Not a patch on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or The Nice Guys, but from the same writer and director. That’ll be Shane Black, here adapting, more or less, Richard Stark’s Parker novels. Mark Wahlberg is the titular career criminal, here teaming up with LaKeith Stanfield’s thesping thief to take down the score of a lifetime. As you do. Not actually a great Parker adaptation, to my mind, but a pretty fun heist flick nonetheless. On Prime Video.

John Candy: I Like Me

Get the tissues handy for this doco from director Colin Hanks and producer Ryan Reynolds on the late and legendary funny man, John Candy. A wild roster of colleagues, friends, and admirers shows up to sing Candy’s praises – and to rue the lifestyle and industry that led to the Uncle Buck star’s premature death at the age of 43. On Prime Video.