Our top 10 weekly selection of DSTV Now | Showmax | YouTube | Netflix | Amazon Prime
It is that time of the year again – not going to Oppikoppi. And although a lot of people are pretending that COVID-19 is to blame, the festival never really was on the cards for 2020 anyway. Come to think of it, the grim reality is that you probably have a better chance of contracting COVID-19 than ever attending an Oppikoppi festival on the Oppikoppi farm again. Seeing that you’re already safe at home this weekend, why not build a fort with some mattresses, beer cases and duvets and get comfy and cozy with some music? We’ve made a selection of a combination of 9 movies, series and music documentaries to chill out to. No dust. No drunk people shouting in your ears and no-one trying to pick a fight with you. Unless that is of course the weekend routine in your household.
Jammer om van jou kak te hoor.
The Festival
Nick is dumped at graduation and his best tjommie, Shane knows how to cheer him up: three days of music, mayhem and mud at an epic music festival. Sound familiar? Almost to the T, bar the mud. Mind you, that one year at Koppi we did have a fuckload of rain…
Yesterday
There is a mysterious blackout and a a struggling and frustrated musician is run over by a bus. Upon waking up he discovers that he’s the only one person ever who’s heard of The Beatles. You can just imagine what you would do in this situation yourself? Of course you’re going to play the music and pretend it is your own! Money!!! It pays off quickly but… (dramatic music sting) at what price??
Johnny Clegg Tribute
The Spirit of The Great Heart himself, mr Johhny Clegg sadly passed away from cancer just over a year ago. In this special 50 minute Republiek Van Zoid Afrika tribute, he talks about his struggle with cancer with Karen Zoid. It was filmed roughly 3 years ago.
Nashville
Country music and story line aside, just for a moment, imagine the amount of work that had to go into this series? Creating a back catalog for the two rival country stars, Rayna James (Connie Britton) and Juliette Barnes (Hayden Panettiere) to support their character arcs. Not only does the story require a back catalog but it needs a believable one at that. And what about the supporting characters, Deacon Claybourne’s music? What about the harmonic duets of characters Scarlett O’Connor and Gunnar Scott? Music fokken galore! And really, country music is actually totally befok lekker.
Rocketman
Not that Elton John needs any introduction but this musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of his breakthrough years is top class entertainment. Taron Egerton bagged the Best Actor Golden Globe for his portrayal of pop icon Elton John in this musical biopic about the singer’s rise to fame.
Britney Ever After
Who really knows what the fuck is going on with Britney Spears? This is a chronicle of the life and career of singer Britney Spears, from her humble beginnings on the Mickey Mouse Club to super stardom, the overly publicized fall from grace, and what some refer to as a monumental comeback. I’m still not really clear on all of what is transpiring, but I would LOVE to see a follow-up doccie in around 5 years from know when the truth hopefully would have surfaced.
Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B
Another sad story, this time of music and video star Aaliyah, whose life ended tragically in a 2001 plane crash in the Bahamas. Maybe don’t watch this one too close to Carte Blanche on Sunday?
Whitney
Jissis, three phenomenal women in a row? The late singing sensation Whitney Houston’s journey to mega stardom is laid bare in this documentary that chronicles her rise to fame and rocky relationship with Bobby Brown. Can we please get a comedy into this mix of tragedy?
School of Rock
And with that, enter Jack Black. Look, we know you’ve seen this a few times, but give it another kyk. Recently fired from his rock band, Dewey Finn (Jack Black) kind of illegally takes a job as a 4th grade teacher at an uptight private school. His way of doing things and his free-spirited attitude rubs the other teacher up the wrong way but the kak he stirs, on the other side causes the students to discover other sides of themselves.
Need more? Check out our top 10 list of movies and TV series picks from the Plumlist. It is my to-go-to website when I’m stuck for streaming ideas:
| #Life With Kelly Khumalo: “I want people to see me for who I am” A household name by 21, Kelly is one of South Africa’s biggest music stars, who’s been named Best Female Artist at the South African Music Awards, sold millions of albums, opened for Grammy winner Missy Elliott, and has over 1.7m followers on Instagram alone. |
On Showmax (read more) |
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| # 9 Six rising stars we’re keeping our eyes on in 2020 August is Women’s Month in South Africa, and so we’re celebrating the young women stars who are making their mark in these unmissable series and movies, all available to stream right now on Showmax. |
On Showmax (read more) |
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| #8 Marmite shows: you’ll either love or hate these picks Hands up if your mother ever forbade you from leaving the dinner table until you’d finished your Brussels sprouts, peas, porridge, or whatever? Battle lines were drawn, and it would come down to who cracked first. |
On Netflix & Showmax (read more) |
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| #7 Eleven series that put a new spin on a classics If you think that coming up with a new show from scratch is tough, you ain’t seen nothing. Rebooting a franchise that did well decades ago and pulling it off is often trickier thanks to nostalgia and ultra-fans not being happy with their “precious” being meddled with. But sometimes the rebooted version is just as good as the original. |
On DStv Now, Netflix & Showmax (read more) |
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| #6 Watch the M-Net Sunday Night Movies online in August 2020 If you miss these blockbusters the first time they air on Sunday nights, simply stream them from the following day on DStv Now. |
On DStv (read more) |
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| #5 Ten shows featuring our favourite female cops Wow. Type “women crime fighters on TV” into Google and the first result is “TV’s sexiest crime fighters”. There’s also a link for the “hottest”. Not quite what I had in mind, Google. Objectifying much, there? |
On Amazon Prime, Netflix & Showmax (read more) |
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| 4# Why critics adore this little Mexican-American drama about sisterhood The left-of-centre drama series Vida (Seasons 1 to 3 are now on Showmax) follows two Mexican-American sisters from the Eastside of Los Angeles, who couldn’t be more different, or distanced, from each other. |
On Showmax (read more) |
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| #3 Reliving The Walking Dead, season by season The grim, gory series about the sheriff who wakes up from a coma to find his town taken over by zombies, aka the Walkers, has arrived on internet TV in South Africa, with every single episode of every single season (so far) available on Showmax, from Seasons 1 through to 10. |
On Showmax (read more) |
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| #2 Six shows that went from the web to the small screen Web series have blown up over the past decade – and not just on video services like YouTube and Vimeo. Cleverly written, filmed and produced 10-minute webisode shows are no longer limited to the net. |
On Amazon Prime, Netflix & Showmax (read more) |
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| #1 Watchmen leads the pack of Emmy nominations in 2020 It’s interesting to observe how we have changed the way we consume “television” series over recent years; the evolution is starkly apparent with the announcement of 2020’s Emmy nominees, which are significantly skewed towards streaming and on-demand pay platforms |
On DStv Now, Netflix & Showmax (read more) |
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Our randomized trailer pick of the week
Each week we take a number from 1 to 10 from our list of suggestions and put it through a randomizer to choose a trailer to show you. This week it landed on our number 7 spot, “Eleven series that put a new spin on a classics” and from that list we chose Perry Mason!
In 1932, Los Angeles is prospering while the rest of the U.S. is recovering from the grip of the Great Depression. Down-and-out private investigator Perry Mason is struggling with his trauma from The Great War and being divorced. He’s hired for a sensational child kidnapping trial and his investigation portends major consequences for Mason, his client, and the city itself. Starring Matthew Rhys, this legal drama series from HBO looks at the origin story of famed defense lawyer Perry Mason.