Things you should finally get around to watching this lockdown

I’m in the thick of Sydney’s lockdown, losing my damn mind! I’m teetering dangerously close to the edge of sending regrettable and embarrassing DMs to boys I think are cute. I don’t want to debase myself flame reacting to stories. Instead, I’m going to incoherently ramble about TV shows and movies to watch should you find yourself in a similar predicament.

These are all shows and films that you’ve definitely told yourself “you’ll get around to watching one day.” I got news for you buster, that day has come.

The Sopranos

Watch on Binge

If you’ve put off watching The Sopranos because you feel like you know enough about it through cultural osmosis, I am here to tell you that you are a fucking idiot. It is the single most satisfying viewing experience you will undergo in your lifetime. There is nothing that compares to it. The hill I am willing to die on is that The Sopranos is the best in the Italian-American mobster genre. It takes a ginormous dump on The Godfather and Goodfellas — both canon classics that I hold in high esteem.

James Gandolfini is the fucking don. The Many Saints of Newark is just around the corner. You don’t want to be the fucking loser left out of the discourse. Tick it off you’re god damn list. Maronnneeee.

Mad Men

Watch on Stan

If you’re thinking, “this bitch is literally rattling off the most popular TV shows of all time” just know that I know. I’m also a zoomer and most of these shows stopped airing at an age where I was still watching The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Many of my zoomer brothers in arms have retrospective viewing that needs to be done. Mad Men is an essentially perfect show. Don Draper may just be the sexiest main character of all time (it’s what matters!)

The only bone I have to pick with Mad Men is that it’s probably to blame for inflated prices on coveted mid-century modern furniture. What the fuck do I have to do to get an Eames dining chair set around here?

Twin Peaks

I don’t know where you can watch this, maybe you can spend lockdown figuring out how to torrent.

I know! I know! I think most of us have plunged headfirst into the surreal, campy woods of David Lynch’s opus, but for those who haven’t, do so this lockdown. I first watched Twin Peaks when I was fourteen, and it’s left a lasting impression. Go into it with zero context, an open mind and total patience. Don’t dare google anything about it — it’ll ruin the mystique of it all. There is a strange magic in the woods of Twin Peaks, one that’ll haunt you forever.

Whilst you’re at it, it’s worth delving into the bizarre world of David Lynch: start with The Elephant Man (his most accessible, and frankly moving work), then Blue Velvet (erotic and demented!), if those have you hook line and sinker, choose your own adventure afterwards.

Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World

Watch on Youtube

Adam Curtis’ six-part BBC documentary is a long, rewarding schlep — one that I promise you will not come out of the same. Pandemic art has been… mostly bad. This also isn’t pandemic art. It’s just the perfect documentary to watch during lockdown. Adam Curtis has diagnosed our shared strange, unreachable anxiety. He offers little answers, but he does provide a fucking corker soundtrack. You will probably spend more time Shazaming songs than you will actually watching the doco.

Fanny and Alexander

Watch on The Criterion Channel

Everyday life provides so few opportunities to watch a 5-hour Christmastime Swedish period drama. However, this is isn’t regular life so suck eggs you have no excuse. Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander is a dazzling, sumptuous, dreamlike masterpiece.

Living the classics…

I put off watching anything made before the 1950s for so long because I’m a lazy piece of shit that “didn’t want to watch anything black and white where the people talk with a weird transatlantic affectation.” A fucking MORONIC move on my behalf. The classics go so hard.

Seriously, they’re all so glamorous and romantic and will have you YEARNING for a bygone era. Just don’t do what I did and go hell for leather on Vestaire Collective buying mink coats because this is Australia and you will literally never have the chance to wear them (save perhaps for languidly and dramatically collapsing around your bedroom listening to Lana Del Rey.) Anyway, here are some classics worth watching.

Casablanca

I think I torrented this one 

Here’s looking at you kid! Bold journalistic move putting one of the most popular and critically-lauded films of all time in an article about good movies. Whatevvvvever this movie is totally dizzying and gorgeous and I hadn’t watched it until this year, maybe you haven’t seen it either.

The Third Man 

This one is on The Criterion Channel

You should watch this film for Orson Welles scorching zinger on Switzerland and the cuckoo clock.

Brief Encounter

The Criterion Channel again

My favourite film of all time. David Lean’s paen to a love unrealised. God, it’s so fucking painful and beautiful. Is there any emotion worth indulging more than yearning?

Lawrence of Arabia

Amazon Prime time

Three hours of Peter O’Toole’s baby blues and Omar Sharif looking macho as hell. Hell yeah, baby.

Other classics to consider

At this point, I’m literally just adding new headlines in bold because I am tired and I have sweet potatoes in the oven and lockdown has stripped me of my ability to string a sentence together. Hitchcock! You could draw any Hitchcock film out of a hat and feel safe in the knowledge that you’ll spend the next hour or so watching something totally brilliant. My absolute favourite Hitchock film is the Notorious (Ingrid Bergman, again!) if sexual obsession is more your cup of rosy lee you can’t go past Vertigo, perhaps a taste of violence with Psycho. I refuse to watch The Birds because I’m afraid of those wretched little beasts. Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2 are also obviously perfect. Ummmm what else? omg BRANDO! old Brando’s… god he just exuded this brute masculinity that makes me want to commit heinous, sinful atrocities, A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront are smashing. Oh and if you want to see deranged women acting deranged Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Kubrick!!

Damn this guy was really mad for making a 3 hour plus flick, huh? There’s a Kubrick film for every mood. Insatiable horniness? watch Eyes Wide Shut. Craving for your blood to run cold? The Shining or A Clockwork Orange. Desire to watch people ponce around in ridiculous wigs? Barry Lyndon. Cool sets in space? 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Okay, my sweet potatoes are burning. That’s all for now. I’ll probably add to this list when I’m feeling less insane. Happy lockdown viewing.

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