New Israeli comedy show to hit Netflix, Taylor Swift: Eras Tour hits Disney+

The boys – Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir  – are back, in a new series, Bros, that premieres on Netflix on April 18. Savyon and Amir are among Israel’s movie and television comedy kings and made the hit movies Maktub and Forgiveness, both available on Netflix. In Bros, they play different characters but essentially are always these two schlubby guys who hatch schemes and get into trouble. In Bros, they are bar owners and die-hard Beitar Jerusalem fans who go on an adventure when they travel abroad to watch the team play an important match. For those who like this brand of slapstick comedy, it looks like it will be a lot of fun. 

TWO SERIES are currently running on Israeli networks, The Best Worst Thing on Keshet and The Deer on Kan. The Best Worst Thing, about a control-freak oncologist (Ayelet Zurer) who is diagnosed with breast cancer and meets and falls for a top politician (Amos Tamam) who is diagnosed with the same kind of cancer around the same time isn’t exactly groundbreaking but it’s perfect escapism from the news headlines. Even though it features almost every cliché of the doctor-gets-sick genre (she’s a terrible patient, she won’t admit she isn’t fit to operate after chemo, etc.) it’s just soapy enough to keep you waiting for the next episode, and Zurer and Tamam make for a nice screen couple. 

THE DEER, the fictionalized story of a young woman (Suzanna Papian) who immigrates from Russia to Jerusalem with her family in the 1880s and finds herself working as a typesetter and reporter for Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s newspaper, The Deer, took a strange turn in the second episode. While every detail of the series seems thoughtfully researched and accurate to the period, something odd happened during a scene dealing with one of the subplots, in which her sisters both fall for the same young Russian guy. When he seems to favor one of them and starts talking to her, the rejected sister (Neta Roth), has what seems to be a fantasy of dancing out her frustration and anger, but it’s set to – The Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams are Made of This.” The dance she performs is also an anachronism and looks as if it were choreographed by Martha Graham or Ohad Naharin. I would love to hear a tape of the meeting in which this sequence was decided on. Is an 80s pop song that I imagine most young people today don’t know and a modern dance routine supposed to appeal to 20-somethings? 

I always find these movies that combine period drama with modern pop hits annoying, such as Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, which used songs by The Cure, New Order, and other contemporary artists as the background music to that French queen’s story. It’s a distraction and gives the feeling that the creators didn’t have confidence in the power of their story. I hope further episodes of The Deer – which is otherwise absolutely riveting – don’t resort to this gimmick. But even if there are occasional moments like this in upcoming episodes, it’s still worth watching. 

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour hits Disney+

MAYBE IF The Deer really wanted to attract young viewers, it should have used a Taylor Swift song, and the good news for Israeli Swifties is that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour has just become available here on the Disney+ channel (Disney+ is also available through Yes). 

The nearly three-hour movie, which was one of the first films to open in theaters here after October 7, is a filmed concert that Swift performed last year in Los Angeles as part of her worldwide tour, dedicated to all the different eras in her 17-year career, hence the title. It features Swift singing her hits, with her trademark mix of charisma, sexiness, and vulnerability which made her into a superstar when she was still a teenager.

Now in her mid-30s, she has taken control of her career and created this tour, in which each appearance is a theatrical experience geared toward her loyal fans. The tour and the resulting movie, probably the most successful concert film of all time, have turned her into a billionaire.

Like most beloved performers, she sings each line as though she had just thought of it this second, as though it were an immediate expression of the thoughts passing through her mind.

More than perhaps any other female performer since Barbra Streisand, Swift has shaped her own style and image, and she speaks strongly in her own voice, not allowing herself to be packaged, as so many young women performers are, by record executives. 

Millions around the world love her for her emotionally honest lyrics, often about romantic turmoil. The film includes many of her biggest hits, such as “Karma,” “Shake It Off,” “Look What You Made Me Do,” “Fearless,” “Lover,” “Blank Space,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Love Story,” and “I Knew You Were Trouble When You Walked In.”

But it isn’t only the songs that are a treat. The show features sets linked to the themes of her albums, with a log cabin for “Folklore” and a piano covered in vines for some numbers. Even bigger attractions for many fans are Swift’s costumes, which she changes every few songs, including several ball gowns, sparkly minidresses, T-shirts and shorts, glittering bodysuits in several colors, and a white gown that looks like a bohemian wedding dress. And for those who like Swift in smaller doses, you can always pause or fast forward when she gets to an era that isn’t your cup of tea.

THERE’S SOMETHING about attractive, well-to-do families that seem to have everything but are actually in turmoil that is so satisfying to watch, which is why they are often the center of dramas, and Apples Never Fall, which is playing on Hot VOD and Yes VOD and Yes TV Drama and on Hot HBO on Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m., starting on March 20, is another one of these. 

Based on a novel by Liane Moriarty, who also wrote Big Little Lies, it’s about the Delaneys, a family whose parents were competitive tennis players and who recently retired from running a tennis academy in the Miami area. 

Joy (Annette Bening, who was just nominated for an Oscar for Nyad) and Stan (Sam Neill of the Jurassic Park series) are lost without their academy, and tensions begin to surface in their marriage. All their children have problems and secrets of their own. Amy (Alison Brie of GLOW) can’t figure out how to make a living but somehow feels she can become a life coach; Brooke (Essie Randles), is a failing physical therapist; Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner), is a yoga teacher who repairs boats and can’t face leaving the family and moving away with his girlfriend, who has a new job across the country; and Troy (Jake Lacy of The White Lotus) is a successful financial executive who has a grudge against their father for hitting him when he was a child. What gets the story going is Joy’s sudden disappearance, which happens right away, and the rest of the show is a combination of a present-day detective story and flashbacks to the recent past as the children try to figure out what happened and whether their easy-to-anger father is the culprit. 

It reminded me a little of Bloodline, another series about a great-looking but miserable family who ran a business together in Florida and what happens when one of them suddenly disappears. Interestingly, Apples Never Fall was filmed in Australia, not Florida, but you’d never guess. It’s all extremely well done and if you enjoy this kind of thing, you’ll get hooked.