Larry David and Ellia English in Season 12 of Curb Your Enthusiasm.HBO / Crave
Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for weekend streaming.
Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 12 (HBO/Crave, starting Feb. 4 at 10 p.m.)
How are Larry David fans feeling about Curb Your Enthusiasm entering its 12th and final season? Pretty, pretty, prettttttyyyyyy ... bad. At one point, it seemed as if David could simply crank out a new batch of Curb episodes every few years until the day he dies, with HBO happy to work on his unpredictable schedule. But for whatever reason, everyone’s favourite least-favourite person is deciding to call it a day after this final go-round of comic misadventures. While preview episodes were not made available to the press before the season’s premiere this Sunday night, it is safe to say that Season 12 will find Larry falling into all kinds of awkward misunderstandings, most of which will be completely his fault. Godspeed, your Curmudgeon King.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (Paramount+)
Now having officially dropped the “Part 1″ from its title, Tom Cruise’s latest blockbuster is available to stream for those who foolishly missed the adventure in all its massive big-screen glory this past summer. This seventh spy spectacle features Cruise – not a stunt double or an AI-engineered deep-fake facsimile – double-daring himself to near-death. He runs atop a terminal at Abu Dhabi’s airport, races a Fiat 500 through the slippery streets of Rome, engages in a knife fight while standing on the top of a speeding train, and rides a motorbike off the edge of a cliff before ditching that bike to execute a high-risk BASE jump with only a six-second window before impact. (That last feat took a year of rehearsals, with 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps.) There are no green screens, no shortcuts, no clones of Cruise waiting in the wings, Prestige-style. Only one man and his death wish. Which makes the iron will of Tom Cruise the most extraordinary stunt of the film – and of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking.
Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella (CBC Gem, starting Feb. 4, CBC television premiere, Feb. 4, 8 p.m.)
After premiering at Hot Docs last year and hitting the festival circuit, this precise and concise look at the remarkable life and career of former Supreme Court judge Rosalie Abella makes its broadcast debut on CBC this Sunday at 8 p.m., as well as being available to stream on CBC Gem. Directed by the prolific Canadian documentarian Barry Avrich (The Talented Mr. Rosenberg), Without Precedent doesn’t attempt to innovate the documentary wheel – this is mostly an A-to-B chronicle of a life, following Abella’s journey from being the refugee daughter of Holocaust survivors to a leader in the global justice community. There are slick talking-head interviews from its subject, her family, admirers and well-meaning critics. There are intriguing snippets of archive footage. And there is some gentle onscreen ribbing. But the film is produced with such a smooth sort of graceful, genuine appreciation that you quickly surrender to its charms.
Ferrari (on-demand, including Apple TV, Amazon, Cineplex Store)
Despite Michael Mann’s Ferrari walking away from last week’s Academy Award nominations with exactly zero attention – there was a moment when it looked like Penelope Cruz might snag a best supporting actress nod, but alas – I have the nagging sense that in five, maybe 10, years this searing and complicated drama will start to be reappraised as an unjustly ignored masterpiece. All the better now, then, to make your own assessment and watch Mann’s look at one tumultuous summer in the life of legendary Italian carmaker Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), his wife Laura (Cruz) and his mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley).
The Big Sick (Netflix)
Watching the animated kids flick Migration recently with my kids, I was reminded of the great comic value of Kumail Nanjiani, who voices a mallard in that flick but also delivered a tremendous double-threat punch back in 2017 with this acting-and-writing vehicle. The actor (still best known for his role on HBO’s Silicon Valley) lets his natural deadpan charisma carry The Big Sick, which lightly fictionalizes his real-life courtship with co-writer Emily V. Gordon (played here by Zoe Kazan). There’s a traumatic twist planted along the pair’s path to romance, but it’s handled with sincerity by director Michael Showalter and the uniformly excellent cast (including a scene-stealing Ray Romano as Gordon’s father).