Weekly Screen: Week of April 6
For our lovely readers, you may know that “The Weekly Scene” is a regular fixture of the Thresher’s print A&E section that promotes local arts events both on campus and throughout Houston every week. However, due to campus and citywide restrictions on public gatherings due to the COVID-19 outbreak and our subsequent inability to print issues for the remainder of the semester, the Weekly Scene is sadly obsolete at the moment. Thus, to fill the gap in my heart left by my beloved little column, I’d like to present the Weekly Screen: a short list of TV, movies and videos to check out from the socially-distanced comfort of your home.
Tell us what YOU’RE loving at the moment by submitting a recommendation here and check our email newsletter every week to find out what your fellow Owls are filling their non-Zoom screen time with. Happy watching!
- Katelyn Landry, A&E editor
Richard Linklater’s ‘Before’ trilogy: ‘Before Sunrise,’ ‘Before Sunset,’ ‘Before Midnight’
Remember when we could ride trains? And make eyes at cute strangers? And move within six feet of them to make spontaneous conversation? “Before Sunrise” lets you live that fantasy vicariously through Jesse and Celine, who spend an incredible night in Vienna together after a chance encounter on a train. Linklater revisits their relationship twice more in “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight,” “Boyhood” style — nine years pass between each movie, for both the characters and the real life actors. The movies are romantic and nuanced and increasingly require tissues.
Recommended by Ella Feldman, Features editor
Available for rent on Amazon Prime Video
‘Ozark’
If you’re a fan of AMC’s gritty “Breaking Bad,” you’ll love Netflix’s new take on white collar crime drama. “Ozark” follows Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), a financial advisor who moves his family to the Missouri Ozarks where he must launder $500 million to appease a cartel drug boss. As you might expect, the once straight-and-narrow Byrde family discover their penchant for navigating the fatal twists and turns of the criminal underworld.
Now available for streaming on Netflix
‘Unorthodox’
This Netflix original series is based on the riveting true story of Deborah Feldman, whose 2012 memoir “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots” detailed her escape from an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Satmar community in Brooklyn after being trapped in an arranged marriage at the age of 17 and chafing at the community’s extreme interpretations of Jewish law. Feldman is the inspiration for the show’s protagonist Esther Shapiro (Shira Haas), who then seeks to lead an independent, secular life in Berlin.
Now available for streaming on Netflix
More from The Rice Thresher
Review: ‘Malignant’ continually disappoints
“Malignant” has given me trust issues with director James Wan. With “The Conjuring,” “Insidious” and even “Aquaman,” I assumed any movie directed by Wan would be at least enjoyable to watch. Well, “Malignant” was the opposite of that. Filled with a storyline that drags on, predictable twists and a contrived plot, “Malignant” is a movie to stay far away from.
Rice returns to in-person theater
From canceled shows to Zoom rehearsals and socially distanced performances, theatre students and faculty at Rice have spent the past year adapting to the shifting restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. When COVID-19 forced students back home during Cole Thompson’s freshman year, they had the chance to witness first-hand some of the initial attempts at remote theater at Rice. Thompson, a Martel College junior, said that the student-written show they were involved in got converted into a radio play, and that they continued to participate in remote theater productions the following year.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication by The Rice Thresher.