The streaming timetable: "Barbarians", "We Are Now", "On The Rocks"

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Jeanne Gourseaud as Tusndelda: This "barbarian" definitely doesn't speak Latin

Photo: Katalin Vermes / Netflix

"Barbarians", Netflix

Time budget:

six episodes of 50 minutes each (don't watch it)

"The Fall of the Roman Empire"

Do the Romans actually speak Latin in this series?

That's daring.

Seriously.

Is it really for German television, or can you imagine that for ARD and ZDF?

In the case of "barbarians", this would-be series highlight about the fight between Teutons and Roman occupiers, it was also in terms of innovation.

The big advantage of the dialogues in Latin is that they at least sound nice - and not as wooden as those performed in razor high German.

So far as to pamper the viewer with the most beautiful primitive Germanic, the will to authenticity does not go with Netflix.

It would have been better, but also difficult, as we hardly know anything about this Cheruscan prince Arminius, who first served the Romans, then switched sides and started the battle in the Teutoburg Forest.

So the "barbarian" makers paint the world of antiquity as they please.

The result is a Germanic soap in which Arminius, his future wife Tusnelda and an invented Germanic warrior form a love triangle that gets the story rolling.

Roles also do plenty of heads.

Men with funny pigtail hairstyles and in pretty clothes swear vengeance with a grunt, there is also room for a lot of pathos - as befits a series that obviously emulates role models like "Vikings" and "The Last Kingdom".

Unfortunately, "barbarians" sometimes looks like an amateur playgroup is rehearsing in the open-air museum, which gives the matter of pathos an involuntary comedy.

That has at least the advantage that you don't have to take the fluffy finale, crammed with stupid war rhetoric, seriously.

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"We are now": Laura and her friends want to celebrate life

Photo: TVNOW

"We Are Now," Season 2, TVNow

Time budget:

four episodes of 45 minutes each

"Druck", "Euphoria"

The most difficult special effect in filmmaking is not a computer-generated battle tableau, but rather creating the feeling of intimacy and naturalness.

What "barbarians" fail on, "We are now" manages in a remarkably light-handed manner.

Director Christian Klandt already showed with his film "Little Thirteen" how to approach teens cinematically without making them a victim of curiosity.

Now it's about 17-year-old Laura, played fearlessly and emotionally by a mature Lisa-Marie Koroll from "Bibi and Tina".

The first season was characterized by a courageous break in mood and dramaturgy, Laura had to cope with a tragic death.

The sequel now takes place a month later on a sun-drenched campsite, the mood is lighter, it's about teen things like love, friendship and drive removal.

But the courage to feel great has remained.

And adults are still as good as absent, which is why the desperate struggle of the kids for their place in the world is all the more poignant.

The first season started off with bad ratings, but this series definitely deserved viewers.

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Bill Murray in another Sofia Coppola film: Comedy for New York Lovers

Photo: Apple TV +

"On The Rocks", Apple TV +

Time budget:

90 minutes

"Lost in Translation", "Manhattan"

At the beginning of October, Sofia Coppola's new film ran almost unnoticed in a few cinemas.

Unfortunately, this has not been so unusual since the pandemic began, but here it is also due to the fact that the film was made for Apple's streaming service.

There you can see the comedy about a woman who spies on her possibly unfaithful husband with Dad's help.

Bill Murray fans in particular shouldn't miss this - it is Coppola's second with him after "Lost in Translation".

New York lovers will also get their money's worth here, as my colleague Wolfgang Höbel wrote in his extensive cinema review.

According to him, it is also about interesting questions such as: "Why do people who love one another and swear eternal loyalty to one another still have sex with other people so often?"

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Olaf, the snowman: does this nose make him the real Olaf?

Photo: Disney +

"Once Upon a Snowman," Disney +

Time budget:

eight minutes

Anna and Elsa, Sigmund Freud

Disney has an uncomfortable habit of selling self-promotion as a creative effort.

The group's own streaming platform is constantly being looked behind the scenes in series such as "A Day at Disney" or "The Imagineering Story".

The group always celebrates itself. The short film "Once upon a time there was a snowman" is actually nothing more than PR, of course it is supposed to advertise the two "Frozen" films.

But in this case, great art has actually emerged from it.

In the second movie in particular, Olaf makes great appearances as a snowman in the identity crisis, and here too he keeps asking himself: Who am I actually?

Of course, the search for a suitable nose helps.

Although "Once upon a time there was a snowman" is nothing more than a sketch, it shows the real magic that animation films can contain: asking great human questions in the form of intoxicating slapstick.

And the criticism of the new "crime scene"?

You'll find here.

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