What’s new on Netflix, Prime, Crave and Criterion this week

As I mentioned last week, it’s getting increasingly hard to predict what will and won’t hit on streaming platforms these days. Would Tiger King have attracted nearly as much attention if we weren’t all just sitting around begging to fill our heads with eight hours of easily memeable content? Would something like Tigertail have gained perhaps more momentum if we were, as a global population, somewhat more open to enduring downers during what is almost certainly a top-level downer for all of us?

New on Netflix

With that in mind, I have to imagine that Sergio will have just as much impact in self-isolation as it would’ve without it. This biopic of UN diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello stars Wagner Moura (Narcos) and Ana de Armas (Knives Out) and seems, to be as bluntly honest as possible, like an HBO film from 2002. 

What’s most likely to get your little horny hearts pumping during confinement is almost certainly Too Hot to Handle, a reality show about 10 hot singles who are dropped on a tropical island and informed that they will be automatically eliminated if they do anything “sensual,” which the description says ranges from kissing and masturbation to sex. It sounds very stupid, but what else are we gonna do? Looking forward to the memes. The rest of Netflix’s output this Friday is of variable interest with the exception of #blackAF, a new sitcom from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris in which he stars as a fictionalized version of himself. (Rashida Jones stars as his wife.)

Early next week, you can catch season four of Life in Pieces, an extremely whatever sitcom that I have somehow seen nearly every episode of (it stars Colin Hanks, James Brolin and Dianne Wiest); the first season of the hit documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, which first aired on Lifetime a little over a year ago; Cooked With Cannabis, which is (exactly as it sounds) a cooking show about cooking with cannabis hosted by Kelis; The Midnight Gospel, a trippy new animated show from the creator of Adventure Time; Middleditch & Schwartz, the first of apparently many fully-improvised two-man comedy specials from Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley) and Ben Schwartz (Sonic the Hedgehog, I guess); and finally The Willoughbys, an animated adaptation of the novel of the same name by Lois Lowry with the voices of Will Forte, Alessia Cara and Maya Rudolph.

New on Amazon Prime

There’s also a fairly uneventful slate over at Amazon. Dads of all stars and stripes (remember, all you need to be a true dad is the attitude) will be happy to see the return of Bosch, the detective series based on the long-running novel series by Michael Connelly, on April 17. Montreal’s favourite son is the subject of Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love, a documentary chronicling the relationship between Cohen and his muse, Marianne Ihlen. Kim’s Convenience hits the service of April 23 — though, to be perfectly honest, Canadians who really wanted the show have had access to it via CBC Gem for some time already.

New on Crave

Over at Crave, you and the rest of the world can catch up with Stuber, the Kumail Nanjiani / Dave Bautista action-comedy that is, ultimately, probably better than it has any right to be. Also hitting the streaming service on April 17 is Lucky Day, the newest film from Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary. His first film since 2002 following some legal trouble, Lucky Day is a crime thriller starring Nina Dobrev and Crispin Glover that was positively savaged upon release — but if I’m to be perfectly honest, this kind of thing is catnip to me, good or not. On April 19, you can watch The Longest War, a documentary about the war in Afghanistan from Greg Barker — who coincidentally directed the aforementioned Sergio on Netflix.

New on Criterion Channel

Over at Criterion, celebrate the works of French filmmaker Maurice Pialat with a retrospective that’s extensive, though not quite complete — his last film, Le Garçu, does not feature. Among the films that are included is his Palme d’Or-winning Sous le soleil de Satan from 1987. On April 23, the channel drops another retrospective: Early Sirk, which, as you may have guessed, concerns itself with the early works of American melodrama master Douglas Sirk. ■

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See what’s new on Criterion Channel here.

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