March is going to be a good Netflix month. You’ve got a cornucopia of entertaining TV, movies, and documentaries to choose from to get you through the last days of winter. You’ll have to wait a little longer for some of this month's picks — like the one with the shirtless Oscar Isaac — but for now, I’m giving you some solid options featuring fully clothed actors who are not Oscar Isaac. I promise they are still worth your time. After a week of snowstorms (shout out Southern Ontario!), political scandals, and Oscars aftermath, you deserve the escape. Here are my five picks for what to watch on Netflix this weekend.
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La La Land may forever be remembered as the movie that didn’t win Best Picture, but aside from the infamous envelope snafu that still makes me sad for Moonlight, this movie-musical starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is actually pretty good. Gosling plays Sebastian, a white dude who thinks he can save jazz, and Stone plays Mia, a struggling actress. Their chemistry is electric, and their commitment makes up for some mostly lackluster songs. I know what you’re thinking: Don’t you need great music to make a great musical? Once I got over the fact that there would be no belting ballads or get-off-your-couch dance tracks, La La Land won me over. It’s a beautiful love story with two of this generation’s bona fide movie stars in their prime. Plus, Ryan Gosling singing gives us an excuse to revisit this.
The tagline for Netflix’s new sports docu-series called Loser is, “In a ‘winning is everything’ society, how do we handle failure?” The chance of triumph in the face of defeat is what makes sports so enthralling. There’s nothing better than an underdog athlete overcoming the odds to ultimately prevail, especially after confronting an embarrassing loss. It’s the thrill that the Rocky franchise was built on. My dog’s name is Apollo Creed, so that tells you all you need to know about how important those movies are to me. Losers starts with the incredible story of a world champion boxer who was forced into the sport by his abusive father. Other episodes highlight a down-and-out English soccer club, a Black figure skater, and Canadian curling legend Pat Ryan. Just make sure “Eye of the Tiger” is playing in the background, and you’ve got your next inspirational watch.
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This film is based on a real-life all-female skate collective in New York City. The Instagram page of one of the skaters, Rachelle Vinberg, inspired director Crystal Moselle to approach her on a train to ask her for permission to make a film based on her life, and to have her star in it. Vinberg stars as Camille, a shy teen from Long Island who joins an NYC skate crew and falls for a bad boy, played by Jaden Smith. Vice called it a “sun-drenched love letter to skateboarding.” It’s a coming-of-age film with teenage girls at the centre that is empowering for girls who skate, yes, but it also just sounds like a beautiful little indie drama about friendship and finding yourself.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is one of the most underrated actors in the game. I just had to Google to remember if he won an Oscar for playing Solomon Northup in 12 Years A Slave. He did not. That was his first and only Oscar nomination and since then, he’s flown pretty under the radar. I’m still mad no one paid attention to the criminally unappreciated Z for Zachariah. I would watch Ejiofor in anything but I’ll be watching his directorial debut, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, not just for his performance; I’ll be watching it because of the true story it’s based on. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is about William Kamkwamba, a student in Malawi in 2001 who saved his village from famine by building a windmill. Ejiofor plays his dad and also wrote the film based on the book by Kamkwamba himself.
I’ve already shared my unhealthy affinity for Michiel Huisman. I blame that affinity for the four times I’ve watched The Age of Adaline. It’s not a great movie, and it stars Blake Lively. Those are usually two things that deter me from watching a film. But Michiel Huisman is in it! Lively plays Adaline, a woman who stops aging at 29 after an accident. Lively looks stunning throughout and Huisman falls in love with her, which makes you fall in love with him, and then you forget about the corny premise and flimsy script. It’s everything you could want from a lazy Saturday watch: romance, beautiful gowns, and MICHIEL HUISMAN.