Just in time for the weekend, and better late than never, here are our viewing highlights for Disney+ in August. While it’s only arriving early next month, a heads-up now is that the delightful live-action Lilo & Stitch is landing on the streamer on 3 September.
Eyes of Wakanda (Limited Animated Series)
You can file this one alongside the excellent animated Predator movie Killer of Killers (also on Disney+), although this animated anthology series is substantially less gory. Four-part Eyes of Wakanda is the latest from Marvel Animation, with input from Black Panther filmmaker Ryan Coogler. The series, in fact, expands on that part of the MCU, zeroing in on brave Wakandans across history who have been recruited for secret organisation the Hatut Zera, and ventured forth from their isolationist homeland as War Dogs to retrieve lost Vibranium artifacts.
Having launched on 1 August, watch all of Eyes of Wakanda right now on Disney+.
P.S. Our review drops soon.
Summer of 69 (Film)
R-rated teen comedies have tended to be dominated by male lead characters, but raunchy and raucous Summer of 69 sets out to give the girls a turn. Saturday Night Live veteran Jillian Bell co-writes and directs this contemporary-set tale of an awkward high school senior (Sam Morelos) who hires an exotic dancer (Chloe Fineman) to be her sex coach, and help her seduce her longtime crush before graduation. The result is unexpected friendship and lessons in self-confidence, acceptance and adulthood. If you loved Booksmart, you definitely want to line up this one.
Summer of 69 is streaming from today, 8 August.
Alien: Earth (Series)
The first-ever series set in the horror/sci-fi universe of Alien is here. Coming to FX, and by extension Disney+, is Alien: Earth, from Noah Hawley, the creator of Fargo and Legion. Serving as a prequel to the original films, the series is set in 2120, when the Earth is governed by five corporations: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold; and three technologies are vying for dominance: cyborgs (tech-enhanced humans), synthetics (sentient humanoid robots) and hybrids (human consciousnesses transplanted into synthetic bodies). The action kicks off when a Weyland-Yutani deep space research vessel crash-lands on Earth, slap bang in Prodigy territory.
The eight-part Alien: Earth launches on 13 August with 2 episodes, after which the other episodes will release weekly.
Look out for our Alien: Earth review and exclusive interview content here soon.
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox (Limited Series)
Here’s something for the True Crime girlies. Eight-episode limited series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox revisits the harrowing real-life story of American college student Amanda Knox (Grace Van Patten), whose study abroad stint in Italy during 2007 led to her being imprisoned for the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, mere weeks later. The series traces Amanda’s relentless fight to prove her innocence and reclaim her freedom in the face of unsympathetic authorities and public consensus that she was guilty.
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox debuts on 20 August with two episodes.