Trainwreck: Woodstock ‘99, all episodes streaming on Netflix

Netflix seems to be carving out a new niche documentary drama all of its own: When Music Festivals Go Horribly Wrong.

In 2019, it brought us Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened – the story of the doomed influencer-plugged luxury festival on a Bahamian island.

Now, in three-parter Trainwreck: Woodstock ‘99, it tells the jaw-dropping story of how an attempt to recreate the legendary festival 30 years on descended into an orgy of violence.

Each episode follows a day of the festival, which unfolds like a disaster movie as terrible decision after terrible decision creates the perfect conditions for it to descend into mob rule.

A countdown clock adds to the tension, ticking down the hours and minutes to catastrophe.

The seeds were sown early on in the planning. Clear that the event was about profits (whatever happened to those hippy ideals?) the venue chosen was a soul-less decommissioned air base.

To deter fence jumpers, as has happened at a previous revival, an eight-mile perimeter fence was put up around the site.

To cut costs, infrastructure and security was cheaply outsourced and food and drink vendors could charge as much as they liked.

As soon as the 250,000 revellers started to arrive on the site things began to unravel.

It was a macho crowd, with a boozy, misogynistic ‘frat boy’ mentality and a bill of bands largely made up of ‘nu metal’ acts, who stirred things up.

Teenage girls in the crowd reported being molested – and later, it transpired, devastatingly worse – including in the moshpit while they watched bands.

Female performers were heckled.

The weather was baking hot, there was hardly anywhere to seek shade, and if you needed water, the choice was paying an inflated price or taking your chances with the free supply, which turned out to be horribly contaminated (if you’d never heard of ‘trench mouth’ you have now).

By Saturday night the violence was ramping up and a truck was driven into the middle of a hangar packed with thousands of ravers during a DJ set by Fatboy Slim.

Yet despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, recorded by journalists and film crews who were on site, at their daily press conference the organisers maintained that they were isolated incidents, the actions of a ‘few bad apples’.

In the present-day testimony there is buck passing and finger pointing.

Then just when you think things can’t get any worse, on the final night 10,000 candles are handed out to the by now dangerously volatile crowd during the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ set for a vigil marking the Columbine school shooting tragedy.

What is meant to be a poignant statement against violence lights the fuse for a night of rioting.

The next morning, the site is a smouldering wasteland. So much for peace and love.

Emma Lee

Uncoupled, streaming now on Netflix

The Sex and the City reboot (And Just Like That) fizzled for me. Stashing it in the ‘just OK’ category, it lacked the sparkle and froth that oozed from the 90s smash hit.

Granted, there’s nothing ‘jazzy’ about menopause, death or troubled marriages, but my God it was depressing wasn’t it? It gave the impression there’s nothing to look forward to in mid to later life bar sagging jawlines, hot flushes, and digestive problems.

But I think creator Darren Star has rather redeemed himself with Uncoupled, following the antics of a closeknit group of middle-aged gay men in New York.

Viewers will pick up character similarities between this and SATC. Billy (Emerson Brooks) is the archetypal ‘Samantha’ - a successful playboy putting it out about town.

Colin (Tuc Watkins) is the analytical ‘Miranda’.

Michael (Neil Patrick Harris) is ‘Charlotte’. And Stanley (Brooks Ashmanska) is, well, ‘Stanley’. There’s no definitive ‘Carrie’, but we’ll let Suzanne (Tisha Campbell), who's just fabulous, wear that crown.

Like Sex and the City, Uncoupled gives a front seat to the lifestyles of NYCs yuppies, who spend more time drinking Champagne at art galleries, and picking through fancy dinners than doing any actual work.

Realtor Michael is living the dream - sharing a swanky apartment with his financial bigwig life partner Colin, surrounded by friends he loves and cherishes.

All good things, though, must come to an end, with Michael is left reeling, and completely blindsided, when Colin announces, at his surprise 50th birthday party, that he’s leaving.

So follow the highs and lows of being a man in his late 40s on the City’s dating scene. There’s plenty of heart (I may have had a little cry in episode one), but also bags of fun in the series, which ended with so many cliffhangers there’ll surely be a second series?

Charlotte Smith-Jarvis

Thirteen Lives, streaming now on Amazon Prime

Hollywood heavyweight Ron Howard has gone for the lighter touch in this portrayal of the incredible true story of the rescue of 12 boys and their football coach from a Thai cave.

That’s not to say it’s without thrills...but in the case of Thirteen Lives, the less is more approach has worked sensationally in the director’s favour.

Gone are the explosions and fast-paced sequences of his past work, replaced by an eerie, inhospitable underwater nightmare, and a soundtrack underpinned by the clinking of oxygen tanks against rocks, of heavy breathing, equipment scraping on the underbelly of the cave wall.

It’s summer 2018. The World Cup’s in full swing. And a young football team in Thailand’s Ban Chong play the beautiful game in the foothills of a lush valley on the border of Myanmar.

One of the boys is celebrating his birthday, with the whole team invited to a barbecue that evening...but not before they’ve swung by the Tham Luang caves to explore, taking their football coach with them.

A serenity lingers. In the music, the scenery, the way the boys say a prayer to the sleeping goddess at the cave mouth before disappearing into the dark. It seems impossible something bad could happen.

Little could their parents, agitated by their sons’ tardiness, comprehend what would happen next. And as news of a flash monsoon rolls in, the unimaginable becomes reality.

When it becomes clear the entire team is lurking somewhere in the back of the cave system, the Thai authorities leap to the rescue under the guidance of their governor. But even the Thai navy seals are ill-prepared to deal with the challenges ahead – a series of chambers interconnected by narrow tunnels and deep dives, swelling further with water in every passing minute.

Over the coming days the rescue site will consume the village, becoming an enclave of 5,000 volunteers from 17 countries. Amongst them Illinois resident (Thai native) Thanet Natisri, a water engineer who pleas with the government and local farmers to let him divert downpours away from the mountain towards nearby land. And expert volunteer rescue divers, the stoic Ricky Stanton (Viggo Mortensen) and John Volanthen (Colin Farrell).

At first the seasoned experts are cast aside as old-timers and hobbyists. But when they find the boys hours into their first attempt, it becomes apparent these guys are the ones for the job.

Aided by hundreds of Thai locals the duo, alongside friends Richard ‘Harry’ Harris (Joel Edgerton), Chris Jewell (Tom Bateman), and Jason Mallinson (Paul Gleeson) pull off what has to be one of the greatest, most deadly escapes of all time.

Thirteen Lives is claustrophobic, compelling, and completely inspiring. It’s dedicated to navy seal diver Saman Kunan, who lost his life delivering oxygen tanks during the rescue.

Charlotte Smith-Jarvis