Australian Lockdown Comedy Festival
7pm Saturday, Stan
With comedy festivals cancelled nation-wide, Stan has rounded up 20 Aussie comedians for this four-part showcase of established jokers and rising stand-ups cracking wise from the comfort and clutter of their own homes. Each week's new show features at least six different comedians performing short comedy bits on cameras specially delivered to their homes. This week's second instalment includes Nazeem Hussain, Zoe Coombs Marr, Dilruk Jayasinha and Nath Valvo. Rated MA.
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The Half of It
Netflix
Ellie Chu is a small-town Cyrano with a twist, in what could well be the most literary high school movie to come along in the short lives of its adolescent audience - and not just because writer-director Alice Wu was loosely inspired by a late-19th-century French play that most teens won't have read. The Half of It qualifies as literary because it loves language; it relishes reading, respects writing and believes in the power of words to make skeptics fall in love. Rated PG.
Defending Jacob
Apple TV
Chris Evans (Captain America) stars in this eight-part drama as an assistant district attorney in Boston whose 14-year-old son is accused of killing a classmate. He investigates the crime, risking his career as his marriage is shaken and both parents learn they really know little about their son. The show raises questions about genetics, family secrets and trust. Rated M
High Town
Stan
Created by Rebecca Cutter (Gotham) and executively produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, this gritty eight-episode crime series follows a US National Marine Fisheries officer (Monica Raymund, from The Good Wife) who becomes entangled in a criminal investigation when she discovers a body on the beach. Her free-wheeling, hard-partying life is thrown into disarray as she takes the first steps toward sobriety while trying to help an abrasive narcotics cop (James Badge Dale, from Only the Brave) solve the murder. Rated MA.
A Secret Love
Netflix
Doris Day's Oscar-winning chart-topper Secret Love billows wistfully through the opening credits of Chris Bolan's adoring documentary portrait of a lesbian partnership entering its twilight years, and it's an apt choice. Just as the song's lyrical subtext didn't prevent it being heard by the mainstream as a standard heterosexual love song, so did Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel pass for decades in general society as "friends" or "cousins," the supposedly platonic nature of their relationship unquestioned even by some close family members. Rated M.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Disney+
The third instalment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy is long but entertaining for fans as Kylo Ren is sent by evil Emperor Palpatine to kill Jedi-in-training Rey. If that means nothing to you, you need to start watching the series from the beginning. Rated M.