In the absence of broadly appealing new films and TV series (no Oscar hopefuls this month, I’m afraid), Netflix appears to be looking to the podcast market to figure out how to keep its massive subscriber base happy. Its new offerings in March include a host of documentary series and specials that I would totally listen to, were they podcasts. Will I watch? Well, I will not. (I haven’t even seen Ted Lasso yet.) But you might. Operation: Varsity Blues (March 17) is sure to draw eyeballs, fascinated as we all were by the college admissions scandal that toppled such titans of culture as Felicity Huffman, Aunt Becky from Full House, and the fashion mogul who once designed a paper towel holder I bought at Target. Everyone is still pissed at the way these already-hads manipulated a system already weighted in their favor to get their kids into “good” colleges, and with good cause. The documentary feature comes from some of the same team that produced early pandemic sensation Tiger King. Murder Among the Mormons (March 3) is the kind of lightly exploitative true-crime story that seems like it already was a podcast you subscribed to last year but forgot to listen to. It delves into a rash of bombings that terrorized Salt Lake City in the mid-1980s. And an inspiring story of perseverance in the Hoop Dreams mold, Last Chance U: Basketball (March 10) is a spinoff from Netflix’s long-running series Last Chance U. It shifts the focus from football to collegiate basketball players who have struggled in their lives and studies and must play at the junior college level if they hope to get back into Division play. If you prefer some more fiction in your TV viewing diet, I’m personally excited to see how well the Pacific Rim film series translates to anime in Pacific Rim: The Black, launching March 4 (giant robots in anime? It just might work!). The Irregulars (March 26) has great Buffy/Sabrina potential: a series about young paranormal crime fighters based on Sherlock Holmes’ famed “Baker Street Irregulars.”And then there’s Moxie (March 3), a dramedy film about a girl who launches a ‘zine to expose the sexism at her high school, which sounds pretty culturally relevant and is also the directorial debut of one Amy Poehler.
Discovery is Fun!