what to see this weekend?

The movie: “White Noise” on Netflix

In a small American town in the 80s, Jack (Adam Driver) lives with Babette (Greta Gerwig), his wife and a host of children from their respective marriages. She is a stay-at-home mother, he is a university teacher specializing in Hitler. Their life seems routine, and yet, when a toxic gas escapes from a pile-up, threatening the entire population of the city, this family will face their greatest anxieties, Jack first…

Adaptation of a novel by Don DeLillo published in 1985 (and available in France under the title Background noise), White Noise, directed by Noah Baumbach, risks confusing the uninformed viewer, who is expecting a kind of disaster film. And if there is a bit of that (especially in the middle of the film), it’s mainly to parody the family productions of this decade.

The real subject of the film is the characters’ relationship to death. Babette and (especially) Jack will develop panics, and do anything and everything to explain the incomprehensible, even if it means losing themselves. Among their refuges, there is the local supermarket (criticism of consumerism is also very present) or the headlong rush through discussions bordering on the absurd, where each character goes from cock to donkey in a instant.

White Noise is confusing, and yet we cling to put the pieces of this strange puzzle together. It is surely due to the performance of the actors who are unleashed in this nonsensical ocean. Greta Gerwig (director of the future film Barbie, co-written with Noah Baumbach – the two being married) perfectly embodies the stay-at-home mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown; while Adam Driver plays with his body and his voice to give life to an anguished quadra, as well able to verbally joust on the historical impact of Hitler in the face of a colleague defending Elvis Presley (the colleague in question being played by a Don Hilarious Cheadle) than moping about the depths of the soul.

An organized bazaar, but a damn well acted bazaar.

The concert: “Encanto live” on Disney+

Who wants to take a dose ofEncanto ? The Disney cartoon, which marked Christmas 2021, left a deep mark on the landscape of pop culture, in particular musical: the song « We Don’t Talk About Bruno » (« Let’s not talk about Bruno » in French version ) was one of the most played songs on Spotify in 2022, surpassing the number of plays of Disney hits such as « Liberated delivered » (« Let it Go » in VO) by Snow Queen or « This blue dream » ofAladdin. The soundtrack ofEncanto topped the album sales chart for nine weeks in the United States (and went gold in France), while all of its original songs were in the US Top 100 singles.

In short, a box that Disney could not let gather dust. While waiting for a potential sequel, the cartoon continues to live in the form of concerts. Encanto live offers to relive the songs of the film in live version, recorded in the legendary arena of the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with an orchestra of 80 musicians, 50 dancers and spectacular visual effects.

The opportunity to see firsthand the original voices of Adassa (Dolores), Carolina Gaitán (Pepa), Jessica Darrow (Luisa), Diane Guerrero (Isabela), Mauro Castillo (Félix), Angie Cepeda (Julieta) and Olga Merediz ( Alma, the grandmother) as well as special guests, Colombian superstars Carlos Vives and Andrés Cepeda.

It is especially the opportunity to see Stephanie Beatriz, the interpreter of Mirabel, sing on stage in an almost exact costume of the film. “For me, dubbing this film was an extraordinary experience. The role of Mirabel changed my life. I am absolutely delighted to perform these songs on stage, with all the actors of the film, in one of the most prestigious concert halls”, she explains. Quite a shift for the spectators who knew the actress as the interpreter of the formidable detective Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn 99…

The series: “Peacemaker” on Amazon Prime video

Since this fall, screenwriter and director James Gunn has been at the helm of DC Studios (with producer Peter Safran), a division of Warner Bros. Discovery responsible for revitalizing and reorganizing all productions, films and series, around DC superheroes. It must be said that James Gunn has put on the front of the stage with Guardians of the Galaxy at Marvel for a decade. In 2021, he had succeeded in the rehash of The Suicide Squad (at least at the artistic level), and it is from this last film that the series came from Peacemaker.

Peacemaker is Christopher Smith (John Cena). Left for dead after the mission on the island of Corto Maltese during The Suicide SquadPeacemaker finds himself this time in a new team mixing spies and third-class superheroes to counter a new threat, the Butterflies.

Series Peacemaker is to the right of James Gunn’s work on superheroes, turning the attraction on magnificent losers, revealing themselves in adversity, coming as much from supervillains as from a toxic entourage (as part of Peacemaker, it’s about his racist father, played by Robert Patrick), all set to 80s pop music – here hard rock and glam rock. And it still works just as well, thanks in particular to a credits with ideally offbeat choreography.

In France, Peacemaker also marks a change in the broadcast channels for Warner Bros. series. Discovery (including the DC series, but also HBO), since this one, broadcast in the spring on HBO Max across the Atlantic, arrives on Amazon Prime video in France instead of OCS. This also marks the end of the contract linking Warner Bros to OCS, and the vagueness concerning future tricolor platforms for the distribution of series such as House of Dragons, Game Of Thrones Where The Last of Us.