Blink and you will miss it, but in episode 12 of the British classic sitcom The Office, a journalist shows up to interview David Brent. It coincides with the leader being told that his services will not be needed again as a motivational speaker.
It’s an unfortunate appearance by a 28-year-old actress in what is otherwise an ingenious scene: before she leaves, she requests a picture of the dilapidated manager. Two long pauses follow while she waits for the flash on her camera to work and Brent dies slowly!
Well, two things have happened since then. Mobile phone cameras have come a long way. And the 28-year-old has become one of the biggest stars in the world and has won an Oscar, an Emmy, three BAFTAs and three Golden Globes.
In fact, she has 84 wins listed on her IMDB page.
One of us, one of them
Olivia Colman is extremely likeable, but if she had remained a partial character actress throughout her career, none of us would have hit an eyelid. In a way, she is the male equivalent of Benedict Cumberbatch, who in an alternate universe is Stephen Merchant’s body double, and the British equivalent of Frances McDormand.
Not particularly nice, classy, but with a Norwich accent, she is one of ‘us’ who can be one of ‘them’ and humanize from within. Queens or maids, devoted daughters or ruthless wives, it does not matter she receives a nomination.
For winter, she comes to both the big screen and the small: in The prodigal daughter (Jan. 27; Not Released Worldwide), for which she is the third favorite to win an Oscar for best female lead, and Landscape gardeners (HBO Max since December 7; 79 on Metacritic).
The former, the directorial debut for Maggie Gyllenhaal, is a psychological drama based on a novel by Elena Ferrante (whose pronouns in reality are he, she and the btw), while the latter is about an English couple suspected of a murder in a cold case . Remember, she can make anyone sympathetic.
Lost: exaggerated like the series
The Lost Daughter sounds like a winner, but we’m not so sure about the lost bit – it’s about to be hacked. We had the boys, Prince and in translation, so far so good, but things started to take a turn in the wrong direction via the highway, in space, in Mancha, the world and the City of Z.
And now this winter we have three more – the other two are the miniseries The lost symbol (just released on CMore) and the documentary The missing Leonardo (Jan. 27; 79). Since the first is based on a Dan Brown novel, and that his most famous book was about a hidden truth in a Da Vinci painting, they are practically related.
You can not quite place Ashley Zukerman, who plays a much younger Robert Langdon, right? Well, he’s good at playing creeps flying under the radar – which Shivs loves in succession. And don’t worry, as this novel is far ahead of the events of the Da Vinci Code, so there is less of the complacency that lies in getting the scoop of the millennium.
Honors Andreas Koefoed, the Danish director of The Lost Leonardo, who tells the story of ‘Salvator Mundi’, a painting that broke the world record for the most expensive ever, but is only believed to be by the Renaissance master. It has been ‘lost’ since 2019 on its way to a Saudi cultural center.
Everyone greets the candidates
West Side Story (December 8; 85) has a similar story as it was recorded in the fall of 2019. So in the end, Stephen Sondheim does not get to see Stephen Spielberg’s remake of the classic from 1961 that he wrote the lyrics to… unless this is what eventually polished him off.
A whole host of other Oscar challengers are also on their way out, including the fashion house’s biopic House of Gucci (Dec. 2; 59) with Lady Gaga and Adam Driver; Drives again in a little strange musical Annette (December 16; 67); comet destruction hijacker Do not look up (December 9; December 24 on Netflix; NRW) starring Leonardo DiCaprio; and Lady Diana biopic Spencer (December 25; 76) starring Kristian Stewart.
Most anticipated among them is Guillermo del Toro’s latest, Nightmare alley (Jan. 27; 70), a thriller starring Bradley Cooper. The film could give Peaky Blinders star Paul Anderson a delayed break in Hollywood, but let’s hope he’s not confused with Paul Thomas Anderson, whose latest, Licorice pizza (December 9; 90), was featured in the November issue of On Stages.
To be with other promising horrors, Nitram (January 27) depicts the Post Arthur massacre in 1996, when a Tasmanian shot 36 tourists; Morbius (Jan. 27) is a superhero-meeting vampire free-for-all from the ever-expanding Marvel universe starring Jared Leto and Matt Smith; while the poster off PIG (December 25; 82), portraying Nicolas Cage as the central character truffle maker, is so terrifying that there should be warnings on the cinema door.
Any other guy… thanks
Less Expected is a whole plethora of as yet unreleased sequels: Spiderman 3: No Way Home (December 16), Matrix 4: Resurrections (December 22), Kingsman 3 (January 6) and Scream 5 (January 13).
And there are several movies that we hope will not spawn them: a terrible female operative thriller The 355 (January 6; NRW) starring Jessica Chastain in what is basically a tribute to Pulp Fiction’s Fox Force Five, while The contractor (Jan. 6; NRW) is the male version; Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas play a liberated pair in Deep water (Jan. 13), the film that presumably liberated their relationship; and an ordinary Joe (Kevin Hart) is mistaken for an assassin The man from Toronto (Jan. 13; NRW) with little cheerful effect.
But they are all Oscar challengers compared to Guy Ritchie, who directs Jason Statham Operation Fortune: Rus de guerre (January 13). Run while you can.
Finally on Netflix, Paolo Sorrentinos God’s hand (December 15) revisits the Maradona era Naples while the rehabilitation drama The unforgivable (December 10; 42) starring Sandra Bullock is more Amanda Knox-era Perugia. Single all the way (December 2) and Mixtape (Dec. 3), meanwhile, is busy competing for the best offer of the Christmas season.
Go north for shine
Over in TV country, recurring series include Emily and Paris (S2; December 22) and The Witcher (S2; December 17) on Netflix; A million little things (S4; December 13) and Dexter (S9; published) on CMore; and BeForeigners (S2; Dec. 5) and And just like that (S7; December 9) on HBO Nordic. If the latter does not look familiar, it is because it is a sequel to Sex and the City, but without the wise Samantha, who has gone off with all the proper lines. If the first paragraph is anything to go by, it’s really awful!
Finally, there is a Danish release for the excellent HACKS (HBO Nordic; December 15; 81) with Jean Smart in the lead role, who was last on screen and played Mare of Easttown’s mother. Station eleven (HBO Nordic; December 16) – which has a Cloud Atlas element, but with a post-apocalyptic twist – also looks promising, as does dysfunctional drama Moonlight (December 1 on CMore).
But are they TV gold? If it’s shine you’re after, look Nordvandet (dr.dk/drtv; 74), a captivating BBC miniseries about the doomed journey of a 19th-century Arctic whaler with Jack O’Connell and a career-best Colin Farrell, whom DR2 described as “mastodontic”.
Do not let it be the monster hit that ended up losing you.
Source: The Nordic Page