Clooney comes home, Dempsey is back and Taylor thrills

'Catch-22' will be broadcast in Israel on YES in 2019, although no release date has been set yet.

By HANNAH BROWN
Catch-22 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Catch-22
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Although the 1970 movie adaptation of Joseph Heller’s classic anti-war novel, Catch-22, was directed by Mike Nichols and had a stellar cast that included Alan Arkin, Art Garfunkel and Orson Welles, it wasn’t a hit. Now, it’s being brought to the screen again, this time as a six-part miniseries produced by and starring George Clooney, who also directed some of the episodes. Clooney plays Scheisskopf and Christopher Abbott is Yossarian. This is the first time that Clooney, who became famous playing Dr. Doug Ross on ER, has chosen to return to the small screen since he became a movie star. 
The series will be broadcast in Israel on YES in 2019, although no release date has been set yet.
January is a good time to catch up on some of the movies you’ve missed in the previous year. Spike Lee has had a career filled with highs and lows, but he’s back at his best with BlacKkKlansman, an odd, fact-based story about a police detective who posed – by phone – as a white nationalist and helped infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s in Colorado. It starts running on HOT VOD Movies on January 8, and on YES VOD on January 23. John David Washington stars as the cop, with Adam Driver (Girls) as a Jewish detective who manages to infiltrate the Klan in person.
Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot is also based on a true story. It’s an offbeat film by Gus Van Sant about John Callahan, an alcoholic who found his calling as a cartoonist after he was injured in a car accident and was confined to a wheelchair. It stars Joaquin Phoenix and also features Jonah Hill and Jack Black. It starts running on YES VOD on January 3 and on HOT VOD movies on January 4.
The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair – which starts on YES Edge on January 6 at 10 p.m. and runs on Sundays, and will also be available on YES Binge and YES VOD – stars Patrick Dempsey, aka McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy. Based on a novel by Joel Dicker, it tells the story of an acclaimed novelist who is accused of the murder of a woman whose remains are found buried on this property, and a young writer who gets involved in the case. It was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, the latest movie director to move to the small screen. He’s best known for such films as Quest for Fire and The Name of the Rose.
If that doesn’t sound dark enough for you, you could try Ozark on Netflix. This series stars Jason Bateman as a Chicago money manager who gets roped into laundering cash for a Mexican drug cartel in the Ozarks with his family. Laura Linney plays his wife and the show features some great character actors, including Harris Yulan and Peter Mullan. Julia Garner, whose mother is Israeli, is a standout as the tough-as-nails local teen who becomes Bateman’s accomplice. 
If you’re looking for something to watch with your children (or grandchildren?) you might want to check out Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour on Netflix, which has been offering a lot of musical content recently. True, you are not the target audience for this concert film, but if you like pop music, it’s solid entertainment. This film includes her newest songs, big production numbers with dancers, lots of costume changes, a couple of songs with just Swift and her guitar, and some of her biggest hits, including “Bad Blood,” “Should’ve Said No” and “Shake It Off.”
If you’re looking for some fun anime, Netflix has a few offerings. Aggretsuko is a particularly charming series, about a young woman in Tokyo with a tedious office job who lets out her frustrations by singing death metal at a karaoke bar. All the characters are drawn as animals. It’s really fun and doesn’t fit the stereotypes of anime as being weird, violent and dark. Other anime that could ease you into the genre include the two suspenseful, mildly supernatural series, Erased and Charlotte.