Chapter 1: What highlights from TV and cinema are discussed this week?
Brendan O'Connor on RTE Radio 1. Listen back on the RTE Radio Player app.
Colin in Lusk says, convertibles, my, nothing beats straddling a cabless Massey Ferguson 135 tractor bouncing down a boring of a sunny day. Mary in Clantarf says, we rented a convertible on a trip to Corsica many years ago. It was so hot with the sun beating down on us. Soon we realised we were the only drivers with the roof down.
All the other local convertible drivers had the roof up and the AC on. I would say, Mary, you can get a very, an unexpected tan very quickly when you're driving a convertible. OK, time now for the watch list, our guide to the best film and TV for the week ahead.
And I'm joined today by host of the Bellissimo Files podcast, Serena Bellissimo, and host of the Here and Back Again podcast, Dave O'Callaghan. Welcome, guys.
Thank you.
OK, so Serena, Sharon Horgan's Amanda Land is back for a second series on BBC One. So people who have missed episode one, it's Wednesdays at nine o'clock. This is better than Motherland, if you ask me.
Do you think it's better than Motherland? Oh, wow.
Because it doesn't have that annoying main character from Motherland.
Everybody is saying that, and I love her. I love her because isn't it scary that I see a lot of myself in the annoying main character? But the reason why I want to tell everyone about this is because we also don't have the BBC iPlayer here. So I want you to actually go and press series link on whatever device you have at home because if you do miss, it's Wednesday 9 o'clock. It's season two.
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Chapter 2: Why is 'Amandaland' recommended for viewers?
So the last two seasons have been... Still better than most shows, but not as good as the first two. And everybody's like, oh God, it's all gone off a cliff. This will give you faith that they may pull it off and come back to former glories. It is a beautiful episode. It's stressful, obviously, because it's the bear. The two lads are just absolutely amazing.
And again, the soundtrack is brilliant. It's one hour of pure joy and immediately I'm like back on the boat and I'm like, yeah, season five is going amazing. Highly, highly recommend it.
Okay, can't wait. Okay, that's the one-off episode. It's called Gary and it's on Disney Plus now. So Serena, the people who did Formula One Drive to Survive, they've now done rugby, golf, tennis, cycling, etc. They've turned their attention to your parish, to Aussie Rules. Yeah. Final siren inside the AFL on Prime. Is any good?
This is a bit self-indulgent of me, and I probably am going to like it more than the average person watching this. People probably aren't going to seek this out, but I quite enjoyed it. If you're into Aussie rules, if you want to see how it works, I think you will enjoy this. It's all about last year's run-up to the final season, whether the...
Brisbane Lions, who had won in 2024, whether they could come back and do back-to-back premierships, which is not very common. So you're looking at that, but then you're also looking at about five or six different players as well, and they've all got different issues. Like one's the number one draft pick. How does he deal with that pressure? Another one's the oldest player.
Another one has a lot of family problems going on. Another one has anger issues. And it's just really interesting to be in there and seeing how it's not just about the game.
So for the rest of us, it's kind of like... Aussie mullet porn kind of thing. We've seen these people in their natural environment. Aussie mullet porn. Yeah, yeah.
Let's go with that. I don't know if that's what the producers were going for, but let's go with that. If you have a slight interest in AFL, this might be interesting for you. It's only four episodes.
Okay, final siren inside the AFL on Prime now. Dave, tell me about A Traveller Family, which is the name of it, A Traveller Family, on RT1 tomorrow night at 9.35pm.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the surprise episode of 'The Bear' called 'Gary'?
But see, I love Sally Field. And I think she's brilliant in anything she does. And you will shed a tear, but you may find this twee. And if you don't want twee, stay away.
Remarkably Buried Creatures on Netflix. Dave, The Dark Wizard, Anything But Twee. So this is about this guy, Dean Potter, a free climber. I watched the trailer and I nearly puked.
It is unbelievable. I am terrified of heights and I am apt. This is gripping. This is fascinating. Dean Potter is so, if you remember Free Solo, the documentary from years ago, won the Oscars. The guy who did that was Alex Honnold, who was very robust.
He's the guy who climbed
Yeah, he did the Dubai climb recently on Netflix. And he's very robotic. He's like Data from Star Trek. He's just like... This guy is rock and roll. He's punk rock. He hangs out with a group of stoners. They're all just kind of doing all sorts. So he's pre-solo. Obviously, they're climbing rocks without ropes so they can fall.
Then he got bored of that, so he starts jumping off cliffs with a parachute. Then he got bored of that, so he starts climbing again while wearing a parachute. And it's absolutely mad. It's four episodes. He's... Since the 90s, he was being filmed. Since he was 16, he was climbing. So it's all footage of him talking to camera, all his journals.
And it's very dark and actually prophetic of what happened in the end. And it is beautiful, but tragic. And you can't explain this guy. He's just invented something. I loved it. Four episodes. I'm afraid of heights. I watched it. So everybody else should.
OK, The Dark Wizard, that's on HBO Max, Sky and Now TV now. Serena, Hulk Hogan, Real America on Netflix is promising The Man Behind the Legend.
Yeah, this is a strange watch because he, Hulk Hogan, was, well, Terry Bollea is his real name, and he was fully involved in this. This is like the Beckhams, all those sort of documentaries. So when the protagonist is involved, you're obviously only going to get one side of the story, but unfortunately he died while this was being made. So you then also get his family telling us what he was like.
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Chapter 4: How does 'Final Siren Inside the AFL' explore the Aussie Rules football?
He's got PTSD from something that happened during the war, and he's kind of trying to look after this girl whose colleague, something happened with her family, and it's basically set in Brazil, and it's Seven episodes of absolutely tense thriller, gang warfare, sneaky covert operations. Fantastic.
Wild ride. And Bobby Cannavale. Him or his wife, I'm in. So a bit of cinema then before we go. Serena, we've had talking octopuses. The sheep detectives in cinema now. This is either amazing or it's awful.
The kids I brought, I brought 9, 10, 11-year-old. Their response was, this is absolutely amazing. We loved trying to solve the mystery. We loved the quirkiness of the sheep. They loved Hugh Jackman. He's basically a shepherd who dies. They find out that, oh, no, he's actually been murdered. The bumbling cop who is played brilliantly by Nicholas Braun, who's in Succession. Yeah.
um he plays cousin greg um he can't figure stuff out so of course the sheep have to help him out one thing i will say is i think as an adult you have to be in the frame of mind to really enjoy dave loved this i was like yeah i will say if you are bringing younger kids who you haven't spoken to about death and the concept of death there is a like it gets really dark and really deep
In this one section, I'm like, oh, if I hadn't had the conversation with my kids, I don't know if I'd want them to be thinking about that at the cinema for the first time.
OK, so in a word, if you're Dave or if you're a kid.
Go see this. You are going to absolutely love it.
It's basically Babe meets the Tourism Order Club. OK, all right. And we're out of time. Just to let you know, by the way, that Ireland's government jet is due to collect the two Irish passengers that were on that cruise ship. They're flying them to Baldonnell Air Base in Dublin later today. The couple will then face five weeks.
at a HSE facility due to the eight-week incubation period of the Hantavirus. Serena Bellissimo and Dave O'Callaghan, on that bombshell, thank you both very much. That's it for today. Remember that we will chop everything up and put it out in podcast in the next few hours so you can listen back to all the conversations from today's show. They'll be on the RT radio app.
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