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Tag: Cosmo Jarvis

  • What to Watch on Streaming This Week: February 23-29

    What to Watch on Streaming This Week: February 23-29

    Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal in All of Us Strangers. Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh, Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

    From a major Oscar winner to one of this year’s biggest awards snubs, this week is filled with some recent quality content. Plus, a fun new spin-off of The Good Wife, FX’s newest blockbuster series, and some animated fun are all premiering.

    What to watch on Netflix

    Everything Everywhere All at Once 

    With the Oscars now less than a month away, why not refresh your awards season memory by watching last year’s undeniable winner? Everything Everywhere All at Once all but swept the season, taking home seven Oscars (including Best Picture). In this genre-bending exercise in action and absurdism, Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn, a middle-aged Chinese immigrant who’s struggling to hold her life together: her business is getting audited by the IRS (represented by Jamie Lee Curtis), her husband (Ke Huy Quan) feels like their marriage is a mess, and her daughter (Stephanie Hsu) is tired of her mom not accepting her. Everything Everywhere All at Once streams Friday, February 23rd. Read Observer’s review.

    The Tourist

    A British export recently picked up by Netflix, The Tourist is a thrilling ride. Jamie Dornan stars as a man who, in Season 1, woke up alone and amnesiac in the Australian Outback. With a bevy of people out to get him, he had to act fast to try to piece together his true identity. Now, in Season 2, Dornan’s Elliot has an idea of who he is, and it’s not pretty. He ventures back to his native Ireland with Constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald), where plenty of surprises await. Season 2 of The Tourist premieres Thursday, February 29th.

    What to watch on Hulu

    All of Us Strangers 

    A moving, heartbreaking, devastatingly relatable drama, All of Us Strangers takes a fantastical conceit and makes it into one of last year’s most human films. Andrew Scott stars as a lonely writer, dealing with unresolved guilt from his parents’ sudden passing several decades ago. But after a chance encounter with one of his apartment block’s few other residents (Paul Mescal), he ventures to his childhood home and finds his parents, exactly as they were all those years earlier. It’s a difficult needle to thread, but writer-director Andrew Haigh does it with a deep sense of sympathy. All of Us Strangers premiered Thursday, February 22nd. Read Observer’s review.

    Shōgun 

    Based on the novel of the same name, Shōgun is a new historical epic on FX. The series take place in feudal Japan, where three people’s paths intertwine. First, there’s the shipwrecked English sailor, John Blackstone (Cosmo Jarvis); second, there’s Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), who’s contending with his keen political rivals; lastly, there’s the Lady Moriko (Anna Sawai), whose necessary skills belie her mysterious past. It’s a sprawling drama filled with political intrigue, richly realized medieval battles, and fascinating characters, all coming together to make a spectacle of a show. Shōgun will be available to stream Tuesday, February 27th.

    What to watch on Amazon Prime

    The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy 

    Following Hazbin Hotel, Amazon is looking to further bulk up its adult animated slate with The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy. The series follows Dr. Sleech (Stephanie Hsu) and Dr. Klak (Keke Palmer), a pair of brilliant besties with expertise in all sorts of intergalactic injuries and illnesses. But when a new patient presents a new possibility to cure a universal ill, they decide to take the opportunity—even if they may lose their lives (or their licenses) in the process. The rest of the talented voice cast includes Kieran Culkin, Maya Rudolph, Natasha Lyonne, and Sam Smith. The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy premieres Friday, February 23rd.

    The Green Knight 

    An Arthurian legend stunningly brought to life by filmmaker David Lowery, A24’s The Green Knight stars Dev Patel as Gawain. Taking cues from the 14th century poem, the film follows Gawain as he strikes down the mystical Green Knight for glory—in exchange for an equal blow bestowed by the knight the following year. It’s a medieval fantasy movie that feels decidedly out of place in the ‘20s, but that’s a good thing. The supporting cast of Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Barry Keoghan, and Sarita Choudhury help instill things with dread and mystery in equal measure, and Patel makes for quite the convincing knight. The Green Knight streams until Thursday, February 29th. Read Observer’s review.

    What to watch on Paramount+

    Elsbeth 

    The Good Wife has already spawned a successful spin-off in The Good Fight, and now Elsbeth is ready to join the proceedings. Carrie Preston returns as fan-favorite Elsbeth Tascioni, the brilliant but unusual attorney. This new series sees her uprooting her successful Chicago career and bringing her unique talents to New York, where she works with NYPD Captain Wagner (Wendell Pierce) and Officer Blanke (Carra Patterson) to solve a litany of legal cases. For a character that’s existed in the background of shows for over a decade, it’s sure to be an interesting adventure for Elsbeth. Elsbeth will be available to stream starting Thursday, February 29th.

    What to Watch is a regular endorsement of movies and TV worth your streaming time.

    What to Watch on Streaming This Week: February 23-29

    Laura Babiak

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  • ‘Shōgun’ Stars on the Challenges of Acting in Seven Layers of Clothing and Adopting Sailor Accents: ‘All the Detail Is So Important’

    ‘Shōgun’ Stars on the Challenges of Acting in Seven Layers of Clothing and Adopting Sailor Accents: ‘All the Detail Is So Important’

    Amidst the chaos of a fire alarm going off and security ordering (and later calling off) evacuations on the red carpet of the “Shōgun” premiere on Wednesday night in Los Angeles, the stars of the new FX series still found the time to share their experiences working on the most recent adaptation of James Clavell’s 1,200-page novel.

    Acting in a show like “Shōgun” — which features numerous fight sequences and tense dramatic scenes — would not be considered a relaxing task to most. But for Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays the lead role and serves as a producer, being in front of the camera was a “simple” task compared to his producing duties.

    “As a producer, I prepared everything before I go to set, so when I was acting in front of the camera, it was so relaxing … It was so fun. I felt like it’s a reward,” he said.

    Sanada found producing to be a much more stressful task but said that making these small adjustments made all the difference when it came to achieving authenticity: “All the detail is so important to introduce our culture correctly. The words, movement, position of the teacup, position of the sword — every movement or every detail changes a lot.”

    Rooted in real history, “Shōgun” follows Sanada’s Yoshii Toranaga on his quest to become the shōgun, the military leader of the nation, joined by his translator Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai) and English ally John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis).

    To accurately reflect the time period, the actors had to not only do historical research — with some studying their characters’ real-life counterparts — but also engage in physical training. Though the series includes a number of action scenes, physical training wasn’t just about combat. Sawai said one of the biggest challenges for her was learning to walk while wearing her character’s costumes. For 10 months, she wore up to seven layers of clothing at times, in addition to having a wig on with a thick ribbon on it: “I remember coming out of it and having to get treatment on my shoulders because they were so buffed up.”

    To get into his character, Jarvis attempted to research how his character would have spoke English during that time period. He first looked into historical linguistics, and then looked for audio recordings of sailors from as early as he could find. After modeling his voice after one of the sailors, he found it did not fit the archetype outlined for Blackthorne in the script, and co-creator Rachel Kondo suggested he make his voice lower.

    “I started again, and I modeled him on my father because my father was a merchant sailor. I figured maybe there’d be something in common,” he said.

    Of working with the primarily Japanese cast — a rare occurrence for an American production — Jarvis said, “It was nice to be around such pride in the telling of this story because these people are based on real people from their history. That set the bar of the level of of care that had to be taken and the level of effort that had to be given to try to maximize what this could be together.”

    Sawai said that she was used to seeing portrayals of Japanese women in Western media and thinking, “That’s not me. That’s not us.” However, she said Kondo and co-creator Justin Marks did not want to “fantasize anything”: “They showed everything in a way that as a Japanese viewer, I can relate to.”

    “This is the first thing that I’m probably going to be able to talk to my friends about and not make any excuses that we did something a little off,” she added.

    Sanada said he wants “Shōgun” to serve as an example to Hollywood of how to tell stories from another culture authentically.

    “That’s why I am hoping this 2024 version of ‘Shōgun’ will be a big footstep to the future. I hope it’s gonna be a new normal style to create another culture’s story,” he said.

    Caroline Brew

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