Remember, remember for the month of November – there is no reason why these boxsets and movies should ever be forgot!
It’s easy to feel glum and sullen in November. It’s cold, summer seems like a distant memory and – if you’re living in England – you’re also facing a month-long second lockdown. But there is a trove of drama, adventure and escapism available at your fingertips with Amazon Prime Video, one of the entertainment options available to Vodafone UK Pay Monthly mobile customers.
Here are our picks for what to watch in the month ahead.
Parasite
Subtitle haters will recoil at the idea of watching this South Korean film, but everyone else should settle in for a treat. Parasite follows the Kims, a family of small-time con artists struggling to make ends meet, as they infiltrate the lives of the far wealthier Park clan.
It’s otherwise best to know as little about the plot as possible, as suspense and surprise are crucial to savouring this cutting black comedy. It stands up to repeat viewing too, as there’s plenty of foreshadowing and symbolism dotted throughout the film.
The razor sharp direction and expressive acting helped Parasite become the first-ever non-English language film to win the Best Picture award at the Oscars earlier in 2020.
Autumn Nations Cup
The home nations of Great Britain, as well as Ireland, France, Georgia and Fiji, are all competing for glory in this one-off rugby union tournament. Almost all of the Cup’s matches will be streamed live on Amazon Prime Video from Friday 13 November. Sam Warburton, a British and Irish Lions veteran, is one of the stars lined up to provide punditry.
1917
Although the historicity of this war film is uncertain, its raw verisimilitude is not. While 1917 starts in the trenches of the Western Front, it doesn’t stay there as it follows two fresh-faced British soldiers on a perilous mission across the disfigured landscapes of northern France.
Filmed and edited to appear as a ‘single take’ with almost no visible cuts or other transitions, the skilful direction and cinematography fully immerses you in the mud-caked trauma of the Great War right up until the closing credits roll.
Your Name
While Your Name may appear indulgently melodramatic at first glance, this animated Japanese movie is full of wit, humour and contemplative rumination as well as emotive highs and lows. Two teenagers, a worldly boy in Tokyo and a girl in the countryside longing for big city life, inexplicably and unpredictably start swapping bodies. This not only leads to awkward, comical japes but a dramatic mystery that irrevocably intertwines their fates.
If nothing else, the lusciously detailed animation of rural Japan and the evocative score are a feast for the eyes and ears.
A Star is Born
In music as in movies, cover versions and remakes are rarely better than the originals. A Star is Born is one of the uncommon few that bucks this trend. A remake of not just one but two previous movies, the film stars Lady Gaga as a down-on-her-luck singer who begins ascending the glitzy but slippery ladder of showbusiness after meeting a troubled country singer played by Bradley Cooper. The emotionally grounded performances and soaring musical numbers go hand-in-hand together.
The Americans
Eighties nostalgia may seem trite and clichéd now, but few pop culture artefacts have successfully evoked the era as well as The Americans. This TV series follows two married Soviet spies deep undercover in Washington DC with their American-born children, just as Ronald Reagan is elected to the White House. Even though we all know the outcome of the Cold War, The Americans nonetheless pulls you in as it’s equal parts espionage thriller, nostalgia trip, family drama and a study of deeply flawed yet sympathetic characters.
Colour Out of Space
Hollywood A-lister Nicolas Cage has starred in some deeply mediocre straight-to-DVD movies over the years, but Colour Out of Space isn’t one of them. Based on a short story by horror icon HP Lovecraft, Cage plays a farmer whose life slowly, inexplicably and unsettlingly starts to unravel after a mysterious meteorite crashes into his property.
Community
Community is the funniest sitcom you’ve never heard of. Each half-hour episode follows a group of eclectic misfits at a community college as they grapple with their studies, each other and their often surreal personality quirks. Community’s comedic arsenal not only includes a bottomless reservoir of pop culture references and a deeply self-referential style of humour, but also features comedy legend Chevy Chase as an irascibly asocial millionaire.
The Prestige
Director Christopher Nolan barely needs an introduction, having helmed taut, cerebral blockbusters such as Inception and The Dark Knight. The Prestige charts the rivalry between two stage magicians at the end of the 19th Century as their constant game of one-upmanship starts to spiral out of their control. Nolan deftly weaves his cinematic magic with the aid of the late, great David Bowie portraying a fictionalised version of inventor Nikola Tesla.
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