A Bunch of Amateurs; National Treasure; The Traitors

When a documentary starts with a Susan Sontag quote — “If cinephilia is dead, then movies are dead too” — you might be forgiven for expecting something a touch pretentious. Yet Storyville: A Bunch of Amateurs couldn’t have been further from it. Instead, this was a warm, funny-sad celebration of community and friendship as it followed a group of northern friends chasing their quixotic dreams of making (very cheap) movies.
James Jackson, The Times

“An affectionate portrait of the group, filmed over several years, as they struggled to keep the club going. A gala screening didn’t go well — even people who’d bought tickets at £5 a head didn’t bother turning up. Harry in particular was bereft: he saw his dream of starring in his own remake of Oklahoma slipping away. The 90-minute documentary could easily have been trimmed to half an hour, and aired in one of BBC1’s We Are England slots. But it was worth waiting the length of a feature film, just to get a happy ending. The club was saved … by a £10,000 government Covid grant. Now there’s a twist nobody saw coming.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Like the films, it’s an Indiana Jones meets The Mummy (which I suppose was Indiana Jones meets … a mummy – never mind) meets The Da Vinci Code affair that does nobody any harm whatsoever. If you don’t like the quiet puzzle-y bits, another noisy bit will be along ever so soon, and vice versa. Bruckheimer was an algorithm before Zuckerberg was a twinkle in his robot father’s eye, or Amazon a glint in Bezos’s own, and he knows exactly what he is doing.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“There’s never been a show quite like this. It’s the anti-Bake Off, the opposite of all those telly competitions where taking part and making friends matters more than winning. Netflix has something similar lined up for next year, a gameshow called Cheat — a quiz game where players are encouraged to bluff and trick their way to the jackpot when they don’t know the answer. Danny Dyer and Ellie Taylor, the East End geezer and the lightning fast comedian, will be the hosts. Part of the genius of The Traitors is that the producers haven’t gone for an obvious presenter, a Cruella De Vil. Scatty Claudia Winkleman always seemed like the sort of person who’d give you her last licorice allsort and then apologise for not having brought more. But she’s relishing the nastiness here.
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail