Television | Boston Herald

A chilling Colorado tale of buffalo slaughter jumps from page to screen in Nicholas Cage’s latest movie

John Wenzel — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 23:50:23 +0000

When John Williams penned the gritty, Colorado-set novel “Butcher’s Crossing” in 1960, he faced a herd of Western writers stampeding in the other direction.

Seminal novelists of the genre such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour had already idealized the American Frontier in hundreds of best-selling books and stories. But Williams, a University of Denver professor for 30 years, took a darker view of U.S. expansion, one that dissected the heroic myths of archetypal cowboys, ranch hands and outlaws.

(New York Review of Books Classics)

Director Gabe Polsky, who fought for more than a decade to turn “Butcher’s Crossing” into a movie, said he “never really connected with the genre.”

“Never. I tried to watch (Westerns) a little bit and just kind of disconnected because it was about searching for the Indians and bank robberies and revenge and all of that.”

In 2022, Polsky’s cinematic version, which stars Nicholas Cage, debuted on the film festival circuit, and is now in theaters.

As a novel, the coming-of-age story was arguably the first Western to subvert the genre’s morally certain, decades-old formulas. Williams preceded giants of the revisionist and anti-Western such as Cormac McCarthy (“No Country for Old Men”) and Larry McMurtry (“Lonesome Dove”), although his influence is only lately appreciated by critics and readers.

Williams, who also wrote 1965’s literary masterpiece “Stoner,” invests in the emotional lives of his characters as “Butcher’s Crossing” depicts a thrilling, stomach-churning buffalo hunt. Harvard dropout — and naive Ralph Waldo Emerson devotee — William Andrews trades Boston for the Kansas frontier in an effort to expand his horizons. There he joins buffalo hunter Miller (just one name), whose epic, money-making quest involves finding and skinning a legendary herd of Colorado buffalo to secure his biggest payout yet.

Like the book, the film — which stars Fred Hechinger (“The White Lotus”) as Andrews, and a fearsome Cage as Miller — is set in the early 1870s when Colorado was still a territory riven by murderous land grabs and precious-metal rushes.

“They’re hunting buffalo, but they’re also going out on this crazy sort of ‘Moby Dick’ search,” Polsky said of the movie, which was shot in the Blackfoot Nation in Northwest Montana due to the size and availability of the tribe’s buffalo herd.

In addition to Moby Dick, reviews have likened it to “Apocalypse Now” as it traces Miller’s mental unraveling on the cursed trek to claim and offload more buffalo hides than anyone actually wanted. “It’s an American tragedy, almost like ‘Death of a Salesman’ in a way,” Polsky said.

The movie hit theaters on Oct. 20, less than a week after the release of the new Ken Burns documentary, “The American Buffalo.” They cover roughly the time period in U.S. history, when the American bison population plummeted from about 60 million in 1860 to fewer than 300 in the span of just 20 years, Polsky said. The movie doesn’t shy from the horror, eschewing special effects and showing real animal skinning on screen.

“It was shot on Blackfeet land near Glacier National Park, and we promised we’d show them the movie before it came out,” said Polsky, whose team made good on the promise. “To do it with them really made a lot of sense because of their history with the animal and how important the animal is to them. We did a lot of ceremony with them before we shot, and they gave us lessons on skinning. Everything was real.”

Blackfeet representatives “loved the movie and were profusely thankful and talked a lot about it,” added Polsky, who pointed out that there are no Indigenous people on screen. “They understood right away you don’t need Native Americans to have these clichéd scenes in there with them. It says everything you need to say with what the hunters did. The (Indigenous people) are lurking. They’re watching. These hunters are self-destructive. Nature will correct you.”

The movie adaptation of “Butcher’s Crossing” was shot in Montana, doubling for Colorado. (Provided by Meteorite PR)

Like Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a historically based feature about the racist savagery and murder of Indigenous people (in this case, 1920s Osage people whose land contained oil), it’s part of a re-examination of the evil wrought by ambitious men.

Despite its Montana shooting location, Polsky said the film remains rooted in Colorado.

“Montana had better (production) incentives, but the story is based here and I wrote it here,” he said. “I rented an apartment and mainly wrote the film at the Basalt Library. It was the first draft, so I took the book and started page by page trying to mold it into something cinematic. The novel has so much detail.”

Securing Cage to star afforded it Hollywood appeal. Polsky and his brother/business partner Alan first met Cage while producing 2009’s wild “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” which starred Cage as an amoral police officer with severe substance use disorders.

Nicholas Cage, as Miller in “Butcher’s Crossing,” was so intense on set that many crew members avoided him during the production, director Gabe Polsky said. (Provided by Meteorite PR)

“I don’t know many A-list people on a first-name basis, but (Cage) was the first guy I thought of,” Polsky said. “He’s got that mysterious intensity, and believe me, on set he was even more intense. No one wanted to get near him. I don’t want to say he was a dark force, but he had electricity going through him at all times and everyone was just like ‘Ah! I don’t want to get shot.’”

Cage’s version of Method acting paid off in his performance, but he was also a consummate professional whose deep knowledge of the script and creative ideas during filming helped Polsky see it in a different way.

“He actually brought that buffalo coat he’s wearing on screen,” Polsky said. “He got it online. The glasses, the shaving-his-head thing — those were his ideas, too. He understands that the drive and ambition that created this country were also very destructive. It’s not a happy story all the time, and these real-life guys were individual forces of nature themselves.”

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A chilling Colorado tale of buffalo slaughter jumps from page to screen in Nicholas Cage’s latest movie

John Wenzel — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 23:50:23 +0000

When John Williams penned the gritty, Colorado-set novel “Butcher’s Crossing” in 1960, he faced a herd of Western writers stampeding in the other direction.

(New York Review of Books Classics)

Director Gabe Polsky, who fought for more than a decade to turn “Butcher’s Crossing” into a movie, said he “never really connected with the genre.”

“Never. I tried to watch (Westerns) a little bit and just kind of disconnected because it was about searching for the Indians and bank robberies and revenge and all of that.”

In 2022, Polsky’s cinematic version, which stars Nicholas Cage, debuted on the film festival circuit, and is now in theaters.

The movie adaptation of “Butcher’s Crossing” was shot in Montana, doubling for Colorado. (Provided by Meteorite PR)

Despite its Montana shooting location, Polsky said the film remains rooted in Colorado.

Nicholas Cage, as Miller in “Butcher’s Crossing,” was so intense on set that many crew members avoided him during the production, director Gabe Polsky said. (Provided by Meteorite PR)

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Demons, killer sloths, analog terror: The 13 best new horror movies to stream this Halloween

Tribune News Service — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 20:13:52 +0000

Jen Yamato | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

Fire up the Ghoul Log and get ready to scare yourself silly: Spooky season has arrived.

This year has seen no shortage of horror as Hollywood dug deeper into the fright business, reanimating the “Saw,” “Scream” “Evil Dead” and “The Exorcist” franchises while indie chillers like “Talk to Me” and the microbudget “Skinamarink” helped fuel the fear. (Wanna feel old? “M3GAN” came out nine months ago.)

Now, in time for Halloween, there’s a candy cornucopia of new horror fare at your fingertips.

Hungry for shows to binge? Mike Flanagan’s gothic “The Fall of the House of Usher” (Netflix), R.L. Stine adaptation “Goosebumps” (Disney+ and Hulu) and “Living for the Dead” (Hulu), in which queer ghost hunters visit haunted places for narrator-producer Kristen Stewart, are among a new crop of horror and thriller series.

But if you’re just a ghoul, standing in front of your screen, thirsting for a good old-fashioned scary movie to watch, you’re in luck: This Halloween, there’s something for every kind of horror lover to discover. Skin-crawling supernatural scares, bloodthirsty creatures both hilarious and haunting, and scream-worthy horror icons in the making are just the start.

Read on for the 13 best new horror films to stream and where to find them.

‘When Evil Lurks’

Running time: 1:39

Rating: Not rated

Streaming: Shudder

A grotesque evil is festering in the countryside where brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodriguez) and Jaime (Demián Salomon) live, but the moment they think they’ve disposed of it is when the real nightmare begins in “When Evil Lurks.” Writer-director Demián Rugna (“Terrified”) serves up some of the best jolts of the year in this Argentinian gem that cranks up the dread and takes no prisoners as its rural terrors unfold. Lauded by some as the scariest horror movie of 2023, its viscerally effective set pieces will set your nerves on edge, but it’s Rugna’s commitment to leaving no one in his bleak world safe that makes it one of the best new titles genre streamer Shudder has on tap this month beginning Oct. 27.

‘Dark Harvest’

Running time: 1:33

Rating: R (for strong horror violence and gore, language throughout and brief drug use)

Streaming: Rent/buy on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu

Of all the intriguingly odd bits “Dark Harvest” throws into its genre blender — a heightened 1960s Americana setting, a contest with a cash prize, the Pumpkinhead-esque creature that emerges to hunt and be hunted once a year in a “Purge“-like frenzy — the weirdest is that it all somehow works. Credit genre vet David Slade (“30 Days of Night,” “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”), directing a Michael Gilio script adapted from Norman Partridge’s 2006 novel, for crafting a stylized, splattery fantasy tale that feels at once like the hazy memory of a B-movie VHS you stumbled on as a kid and also a new horror franchise in the making. Luke Kirby, Jeremy Davies and “Twilight” alum Elizabeth Reaser bring heft to a cast that also features newcomers Casey Likes and E’myri Crutchfield as teens trying to escape their town’s darkest secrets. But it’s the razor-fingered creature that crawls out of the cornfields with a belly full of candy and a putrid gourd for a head that’s the star of the show.

Literally anything on Criterion right now

Streaming: Criterion Channel

This one’s a bit of a cheat, but you’re welcome in advance: Run, don’t walk, to the Criterion Channel for arguably the best curated streaming horror offerings this season. In the 14-film “’90s Horror” collection, find cult gems like Frank Henenlotter’s “Frankenhooker” (1990), Eric Red’s “Body Parts” (1991), Ernest R. Dickerson’s “Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight” (1995) and Michael Tolkin’s “The Rapture” (1991). More delights await in the 30-film “Art House Horror” slate of genre classics spanning nearly a century, from the 1922 Swedish silent witchcraft pic “Häxan” and Carl Th. Dreyer’s nightmarish 1932 film “Vampyr” to Kaneto Shindo’s “Onibaba” (1964) and “Kuroneko” (1968) and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s trippy fantasia “Hausu.” And find rare offerings in the 13-title collection of “Pre-Code Horror,” from Tod Browning’s 1932 classic “Freaks” to Michael Curtiz’s 1933 film “Mystery of the Wax Museum,” long thought lost and restored in 2019 to behold in its two-color Technicolor glory.

‘The Oldest View’

Running time: 46 minutes

Rating: Not rated

Streaming: YouTube

The most-talked-about new horror film of the season isn’t in theaters or on a streamer, but on YouTube. Which is why you should turn off the lights and get lost in the viral CG nightmare “The Oldest View,” the latest cinematic brain-melter from 18-year-old prodigy Kane Parsons. Last year, his liminal creepypasta horrorscape “The Backrooms” racked up more than 53 million views and earned the attention of A24 and James Wan’s production company Atomic Monster, with whom the director and VFX whiz is now making a feature version. “The Oldest View” is so far told in three parts, the latest of which (“The Rolling Giant“) runs 46 minutes and notched 1.2 million views in just two weeks. (Watch Parts 1 and 2 here.)

In it, a YouTuber descends into the inexplicable underground staircase he found in the middle of a remote park, leading to somewhere eerily familiar yet utterly, terribly wrong. As for what happens next, suffice to say Parsons has built another uncanny immersive analog nightmare that drags you in deeper with each impossible second — and confirms his rep as a major talent to watch.

‘V/H/S/85’

Running time: 1:56

Rating: Not rated

Streaming: Shudder, AMC+

Another “V/H/S” (six feature-length entries have been unleashed since the horror anthology franchise debuted in 2012), another stab at mining the found-footage genre for new angles. The conceit here still feels a tad random; the last two took place in 1994 and 1999 and now here we are in 1985, a setting best exemplified by David Bruckner‘s entry “Total Copy,” a standalone wraparound mimicking a TV documentary taped off the nightly news concerning a mysterious child and a doomed scientific experiment. Bright spots include Gigi Saul Guerrero‘s kinetic “God of Death,” in which practical charms and true-event inspiration collide in a sobering tether to real history, and Mike P. Nelson’s two-fer shorts “No Wake” and “Ambrosia,” which throw back to totally ’80s summer slashers and home videos only to upend expectations. Natasha Kermani’s VR-gone wrong “TKNOGD” and Scott Derrickson‘s gruesome serial-killer short round out the affair, even as plodding pacing and a lack of cohesion too often make this sequel more chore than delight. Hit “play” and see which bits rattle your bones.

‘Sister Death’

Running time: 1:30

Rating: Not rated

Streaming: Netflix

Spanish supernatural horror “Sister Death” is to the 2017 Ouija-board frightmare “Veronica” as “The Nun” is to “The Conjuring 2“: a prequel that rewinds decades to locate insidious evils in the seemingly safe confines of the church. Director Paco Plaza tells the origin story of the titular nun, a pivotal figure in “Verónica” (also on Netflix) whom we meet as a young novitiate in a Spain still reeling from the civil war as she arrives at a new convent to teach girls. Plaza conjures chilling scenes of creeping dread out of shadow play and religious iconography, torment writ large in star Aria Bedmar’s expressive face, as “Sister Death” escalates toward an ending that brings its historical setting into focus. Less lore-building expansion than character piece, it could stand on its own without the prequel ties and still be one of the more compelling supernatural-psychological horror films of late.

‘No One Will Save You’

Running time: 1:33

Rating: PG-13 (for violent content and terror)

Streaming: Hulu

Her mother may be dearly departed, but Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) is fine, perfectly fine, spending her days sewing and building model-toy home replicas of her idyllic little town as she writes letters to her BFF, Maude. Right? Well, maybe not. Maybe there’s a reason no one seems to want to talk to her, or give her a hand when telekinetic aliens keep trying to invade her house at night, forcing her to fight for her life. Writer-director Brian Duffield’s “No One Will Save You” dares to veer from the well-trod paths of the alien-abduction subgenre while engineering smashing set pieces, even if a mostly dialogue-free gimmick means a lot of heavy sighing by the tenacious Dever. It’s also one of the only science-fiction-horror films (among a glut of slashers and supernatural scares) this year, and earned endorsements from Guillermo del Toro and Stephen King.

Lizzy Caplan in the movie “Cobweb.” (Vlad Cioplea/Lionsgate/TNS)

‘Cobweb’

Running time: 1:28

Rating: R

Streaming: Hulu; rent buy on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu

The No. 1 reason to watch “Cobweb,” from first-time director Samuel Bodin? An unhinged Lizzy Caplan, giving it her “Mommie Dearest” best. (Plus, it’s set during Halloween.) Caplan teeters on a knife’s edge as Carol, mother to Peter (Woody Norman), a bullied 8-year-old who befriends the voice he starts hearing from behind his bedroom wall one night. With Cleopatra Coleman as Peter’s sympathetic teacher and Antony Starr as his scary daddy Mark, “Cobweb” spins familiar frights and a reveal you might see coming a mile away. But, again: Lizzy Caplan baking demented cupcakes. Lizzy Caplan massacreing poor, unsuspecting pumpkins. Lizzy Caplan whispering, “We’re doing this because we love you,” as she locks you — I mean, her son — in the basement. These are the morsels of delight everyone deserves on Halloween.

‘Night of the Hunted’

Running time: 1:35

Rating: Not rated

Streaming: Shudder

A woman is cornered by an unknown sniper inside a remote gas station in the middle of the night in the latest from Franck Khalfoun (“P2,” “Maniac”). But how Alice (Camille Rowe) adapts is far more interesting than the reasons why her preachy tormentor (Stasa Stanic), who berates her with pseudo-conservative, toxic-masculine nonsense over a walkie talkie during the ordeal, is perched atop a nearby billboard with her in his sights. Produced by Khalfoun’s sometimes collaborator Alexandre Aja, this English-language remake of David R.L.’s “Night of the Rat” (2015) works best when Alice starts raiding the shelves for convenience products to MacGyver into tools of survival. Watch it as a genre exercise in single-location horror.

‘Totally Killer’

Running time: 1:45

Rating: R (for bloody violence, language, sexual material, and teen drug/alcohol use)

Streaming: Amazon Prime

Horror comedy that actually works is woefully rare, so enjoy the tongue-in-cheek ride “Totally Killer” takes you on. Kiernan Shipka understands the assignment as Jamie, a sardonic Gen Z teen who time-travels back to the ’80s to stop the masked killer set to slay her parents’ high school social circle. It’s a rare horror outing for Nahnatchka Khan (“Fresh Off the Boat”), directing from a script by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo that balances teen slasher riffs with head-spinning sci-fi lore that owes a debt (and pays repeated homage) to “Back to the Future.” And yes, this Blumhouse Television/Amazon Studios collab takes place in the days before Oct. 31, making it another actual Halloween movie to get you in a festive mood.

‘Slotherhouse’

Running time: 1:33

Rating: PG-13 (for violence, bloody images and language)

Streaming: Hulu; rent/buy on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu

Did you miss this horror comedy about a killer sloth on the loose in a sorority house earlier this summer? Fear not, your chances to catch “Slotherhouse,” the deranged brainchild of writers Bradley Fowler and Cady Lanigan, directed by Matthew Goodhue, just multiplied with VOD streaming options and a Hulu debut. Just as ridiculous as its title promises — and, importantly, not trying to be anything but — this is the only movie you may ever see in which a raging three-toed sloth named Alpha, played with surprising range by an obvious puppet, stalks its coed prey on social media, steals a car and takes selfies with its terrified victims. Double-feature it with the public domain sleeper-slasher “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” which arrived on Peacock this month.

‘Suitable Flesh’

Running time: 1:39

Rating: Not rated

Streaming: VOD

Joe Lynch (“Mayhem”) directs Heather Graham in this body-swapping tale with a touch of cosmic horror that takes its pleasures in the hyper-stylized sensory spiral of Elizabeth Derby, a shrink on the brink after she’s seduced by a young client (a magnetic Judah Lewis). Developed for years as a project by the late, great master of horror Stuart Gordon with frequent collaborator Dennis Paoli (“From Beyond,” “Re-Animator”) and adapted by Paoli, “Suitable Flesh” updates H.P. Lovecraft’s 1937 short story “The Thing on the Doorstep” with a gender-flipped twist, gesturing at perusals of power play even if light on transgressive erotic thrills. Barbara Crampton (also a producer), Bruce Davison and Johnathan Schaech co-star.

‘Pet Sematary: Bloodlines’

Running time: 1:24

Rating: R (for horror violence, gore and language)

Streaming: Paramount+

Yes, they made another “Pet Sematary.” This one’s a mostly unnecessary prequel to the 2019 reboot, one that dives into the backstory of a major character from the films and Stephen King’s original novel: Jud Crandall. If that whets your appetite, give this 1969-set origin story a whirl to learn what made poor Jud (Jackson White), then an idealistic young dreamer keen to get the heck out of Ludlow, Maine, remain in a cursed town with supernatural burial grounds that corpses keep finding their way into. Despite a talented cast that includes genre fan catnip in David Duchovny and Pam Grier and a Vietnam War plot thread that diverges from the book, “Bloodlines” struggles to justify its narrative existence. On the other hand, we haven’t gotten many memorable new entries to the Stephen King Cinematic Universe in a minute. And sometimes meh is better than nothing at all.

‘The Gilded Age’ takes bigger strides in Season 2

Stephen Schaefer — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 04:21:35 +0000

Julian Fellowes, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who created and scripts HBO MAX’s “The Gilded Age” series, knew that for the second season of this period drama about baronial excess, the question was simple: How do you get bigger?

With its large ensemble led by Carrie Coon, Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski, “Gilded” accurately (if fictionally) chronicles the booming 1880s period in New York City that gives the show its name.

“For Season 2 we wanted to open it up a little, give more of the context, that kind of thing,” Fellowes, 74, said during a virtual Zoom press conference. “After the first series I knew I didn’t have to be nervous writing anything.”

One of the surprises in Season 1 was that alongside the wealthy elite of white robber barons and industrial giants, there was a Black upper class.

This season, Fellowes and his co-writer Sonja Warfield have taken Peggy Scott (Denée Benton), the young, ambitious Black secretary to Baranski’s dowager Agnes van Rhijn, down South to the newly opened Black Tuskegee University in Alabama.

“We are in 1884 and Sonia and I were advised that the Tuskegee University was open at this most unpropitious time with this extraordinary chapter in the middle of the South, which was very different from the North,” Fellowes said.

“Also, it was getting worse with the un-picking of the freedom — of the voting and rights. The unpicking went on for years, right into the middle of the 20th century.

“But in the middle of this was this college to open young Black men’s horizons. It seems extraordinary – and to do it there. We felt that was historical material worth mining.

“In the first series,” Fellowes noted, “we surprised people with the Black elite — and that is true! They did exist and that was a surprise for a lot of people.

“Now we felt to show the world in context, a whole chunk of racism and horror was going on simultaneously — and that’s what the Tuskegee story gave us to illustrate with Peggy.”

“Peggy,” Warfield pointed out, “has only known the North and her mother really has to give her a harsh warning” about the daily danger of going into this hostile landscape for any Black person.

“In conceiving that scene, my dad was the same age of Emmett Till” – who was 14 when he was tortured and murdered on a visit to the South in 1955 – “and although my dad was born in the North, his father was from the South.

“And that warning her mother gives Peggy was what my father heard. So I was drawing from my family’s story.”

“The Gilded Age,” Season 2 begins Sunday on HBO MAX.

TV Q&A: Is Tom Hanks producing new WWII show?

Rich Heldenfels — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 04:10:00 +0000

You have questions. I have some answers.

Q: I thought Tom Hanks was producing a World War II series about the Allied air forces, similar to “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” Did this fall by the wayside?

A: It’s coming. “Masters of the Air,” a nine-part drama, will arrive on Apple TV+ on Jan. 26, 2024, with two episodes, followed by weekly episodes through March 15. Coming from Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, who also produced “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” the series “follows the men of the 100th Bomb Group (the ‘Bloody Hundredth’) as they conduct perilous bombing raids over Nazi Germany and grapple with the frigid conditions, lack of oxygen and sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the air.” It’s based on the book by Donald L. Miller.

Q: I was watching, and immensely enjoying, the “Yellowstone” prequel “1923.” There looked (to me) to be eight episodes in the series. As I watched Episode 8, the end seemed premature, as there was no resolution to several stories. Any idea how I might be able to see the conclusion?

A: The eight episodes of “1923” constituted a first season, with the sort of cliffhanger viewers often encounter. A second season of eight episodes has been ordered, stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren are expected back and those episodes will reportedly end the series. Right now, there’s no air date for Season 2, which has been delayed by the now-settled writers’ strike and the ongoing actors’ strike.

The “Yellowstone” universe’s mastermind Taylor Sheridan told Deadline.com that the second season of “1923” is “really the second half of the (first) season.” Instead of doing one 10-episode season, as he did with “1883,” Sheridan realized “I need to make more episodes to finish this story. I need to do this in two blocks. An eight-episode block and a second eight-episode block to wrap this up.”

Q: I seem to remember a supernatural serial that ran concurrently with “Dark Shadows” in the late ‘60s named “Strange Paradise.” Do you know about this series or if it might be available on DVD?

A: “Strange Paradise” was a syndicated, daytime drama in 1969-70, and sold to stations as a companion to the ABC series “Dark Shadows” (1966-71). The book “Total Television” directly calls it “an imitation of ‘Dark Shadows,’” with storylines about “voodoo, communication with spirits, and family curses.” While I do not know of an authorized release on DVD, I did find many episodes on YouTube.

Q: I watched eight seasons of “Suits” on Netflix and discovered there is a ninth season. I had to go to another streaming service to watch it. Please inform your readers of this information. Season 9 is a must watch that ties things up.

A: When I wrote about “Suits” recently, I should have clarified its streaming locations. Most likely for rights-related reasons, eight seasons are on Netflix, but nine seasons are on Peacock. (The nine are also on Prime Video.) By the way, Peacock also has the single season of the “Suits” spinoff “Pearson.”

Tribune News Service

Matthew Perry, Emmy-nominated ‘Friends’ star, dead at 54

Associated Press — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 01:21:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Friends” star Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic, but lovable Chandler Bing was among television’s most famous and most quotable characters, has died at 54.

The actor was found dead at his Los Angeles home, according to coroner’s records. An investigation into how Perry died is ongoing, and it may take weeks before his cause of death is determined.

Perry’s body was found in a hot tub at his home, according to unnamed sources cited by the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which was the first to report the news. LAPD Officer Drake Madison told The Associated Press on Saturday that officers had gone to that block “for a death investigation of a male in his 50s.”

“This truly is The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken, ”Friends” co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and executive producer Kevin Bright, said in a statement. “We will always cherish the joy, the light, the blinding intelligence he brought to every moment – not just to his work, but in life as well. He was always the funniest person in the room. More than that, he was the sweetest, with a giving and selfless heart.”

Perry’s 10 seasons on “Friends” made him one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors, starring opposite Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer as a friend group in New York.

As Chandler, he played the quick-witted, insecure and neurotic roommate of LeBlanc’s Joey and a close friend of Schwimmer’s Ross. During the show’s hijinks, he could be counted on to chime in with a line like “Could this BE any more awkward?” or another well-timed quip.

Perry was open about his long and public struggle with addiction, writing at the beginning of his 2022 million-selling memoir: “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”

“Friends” ran from 1994 until 2004, winning one best comedy series Emmy Award in 2002. The cast notably banded together for later seasons to obtain a salary of $1 million per episode for each.

Some of his “Friends” guest stars paid tribute on social media, posting photos, GIFS and bloopers from their favorite episodes.

“What a loss,” actress Maggie Wheeler, who played Perry’s on-again, off-again girlfriend Janice, wrote on Instagram. “The joy you brought to so many in your too short lifetime will live on.”

Actress Morgan Fairchild, who played Perry’s mother on the show, said the loss of a “brilliant young actor” was a shock.

“I’m heartbroken about the untimely death of my ‘son,’” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

By the “Friends” finale, Chandler is married to Cox’s Monica and they have a family, reflecting the journey of the core cast from single New Yorkers trying to figure their lives out to several of them married and starting families.

The series was one of television’s biggest hits and has taken on a new life — and found surprising popularity with younger fans — in recent years on streaming services.

Perry described reading the “Friends” script for the first time in his memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”

“It was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life. One character in particular stood out to me: it wasn’t that I thought I could ‘play’ Chandler. I ‘was’ Chandler.”

On Sunday, Perry’s book was ranked No. 1 on Amazon, supplanting Britney Spears’ memoir.

Unknown at the time was the struggle Perry had with addiction and an intense desire to please audiences.

“’Friends’ was huge. I couldn’t jeopardize that. I loved the script. I loved my co-actors. I loved the scripts. I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions which only added to my sense of shame,” he wrote in his memoir. “I had a secret and no one could know.”

“I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn’t laugh, and that’s not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions,” Perry wrote. “If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.”

He recalled in his memoir that Aniston confronted him about being inebriated while filming.

“I know you’re drinking,” he remembered her telling him once. “We can smell it,” she said, in what Perry called a “kind of weird but loving way, and the plural ‘we’ hit me like a sledgehammer.”

In the foreword to Perry’s memoir, Lisa Kudrow described him as “whip smart, charming, sweet, sensitive, very reasonable, and rational.” She added, “That guy, with everything he was battling, was still there.”

An HBO Max reunion special in 2021 was hosted by James Corden and fed into huge interest in seeing the cast together again, although the program consisted of the actors discussing the show and was not a continuation of their characters’ storylines.

Perry received one Emmy nomination for his “Friends” role and two more for appearances as an associate White House counsel on “The West Wing.”

Perry also had several notable film roles, starring opposite Salma Hayek in the rom-com “Fools Rush In” and Bruce Willis in the the crime comedy “The Whole Nine Yards.”

He worked consistently after “Friends,” though never in a role that brought him as much attention or acclaim.

In 2015, he played Oscar for a CBS reboot of “The Odd Couple” that aired for two seasons. He told the AP that playing Oscar Madison, the character originally made famous by Walter Matthau in the 1968 movie, was a “dream role.” He also said he was surprised how much he enjoyed being filmed again in front of a live audience.

“I didn’t realize I missed it really until it actually happened, til we actually shot the pilot and there was a studio audience there and I realized, ‘Wow, I really like this. This is nice,’” he said. “You kind of ham up for the people in the audience. My performance never got better than when there was an audience there.”

Perry was born Aug. 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father is actor John Bennett Perry and his mother, Suzanne, served as press secretary of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and is married to “Dateline” correspondent Keith Morrison.

___

Associated Press writers Alicia Rancilio, Janie Har, Hillel Italie, Lindsey Bahr, Ryan Pearson and Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

Matthew Perry, ‘Friends’ star, dead of apparent drowning: reports

Boston Herald staff — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 01:08:46 +0000

One of the “Friends” stars Matthew Perry has died of an apparent drowning, according to multiple reports.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting tonight Perry was found at his LA home in a hot tub. Perry was 54.

The LA Police told the Herald Saturday night any official word of a death would need to come from the coroner’s office. But they did tell the Associated Press that officers had gone to Perry’s home “for a death investigation of a male in his 50s.”

The Associated Press is posting photos of Perry under the headline “Matthew Perry Has Passed Away” and is now also saying he died.

Perry was born on Aug. 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Mass., to his mother, Canadian journalist Suzanne Marie Morrison, and father, actor and former model John Bennett Perry.

Perry is best know for his character “Chandler” on the hit TV show “Friends” that premiered on NBC in 1994. The show and its young cast — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc — all became marquee names.

“There’s nothing better than a world where everybody’s just trying to make each other laugh,” Perry was once quoted as saying.

The show ran for 10 years and Perry’s character, somewhat unhinged, fit in with the theme of the show where young New Yorkers shared love and life as they coped with the big city.

TMZ, People, the New York Post, and Variety — to name just a few — are all also reporting Perry’s death tonight.

Perry received one Emmy nomination for his “Friends” role and two more for appearances as an associate White House counsel on “The West Wing,” the AP reported.

Perry, the AP added, also had several notable film roles, starring opposite Salma Hayek in the rom-com “Fools Rush In” and opposite Bruce Willis in the the crime comedy “The Whole Nine Yards.”

‘Fellow Travelers’ makes way through Scare-driven D.C.

Stephen Schaefer — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 04:44:28 +0000

There’s real history in this week’s fictional gay “Fellow Travelers” series that highlights the political horrors of queer life in 1950s Washington, D.C., and the horrors of the ‘80s AIDS plague.

“Fellow Travelers,” beginning on Paramount+ Friday and Showtime Sunday, is adapted from Thomas Mallon’s book by the Oscar-nominated “Philadelphia” screenwriter Ron Nyswaner. He held the rights for a decade before making this eight-part series.

“I fell in love with the two lovers at the center of Mallon’s novel,” Nyswaner, 67, said in a Zoom press conference of Hawkins Fuller (played by Matt Bomer), a slick if closeted D.C. insider, and the very Catholic, closeted Tim Laughlin (England’s Jonathan Bailey).

“It was the kind of relationship I find compelling: A relationship of opposites. They’re not meant to be together but are powerfully drawn to each other. I was immediately taken with that — and then this is a drama with high stakes. I know about that! I did three seasons of ‘Homeland.’

“In the ‘50s everything — your life, your career, your future — could be destroyed if people discovered you were queer.”

Casting was a no-brainer. Bomer, Nyswaner revealed, “was onboard for three years before we got to make the thing. Matt is so good at what he’s thinking and feeling — without saying what he is thinking and feeling.”

As for Bailey, who like Bomer is an out gay actor, “As soon as we had our greenlight Jonathan was at the top of our list. The only problem was he was busy shooting ‘Bridgerton’ in London” and they needed to coordinate filming schedules.

“Fellow Travelers” highlights the now-infamous Red Scare, led by Senator Joe McCarthy of Minnesota and his assistant, the now notorious Roy Cohn, to ferret out Communists in government. It soon transmuted into the Lavender Scare, a witch hunt for “perverts,” gays and lesbians, in the State Department.

The series is an expansion of the book, including the creation of two major Black characters. Explained Nyswaner, “There are two major changes. We go through several decades, from the ‘50s to the ‘70s and ‘80s — and the book is entirely in the ‘50s.

“To air a show in 2023,” he continued, “with no Black characters didn’t feel right to me. So we went to research. There were a lot of ‘Black newspapers’ and lot of representations of those in Washington. A couple of people came from Black journalism who went to white newspapers and we modeled the character of Marcus (Jelani Alladin) on that. He had to protect his Black identity and therefore has to hide his homosexuality at the same time. We’re proud we made our Black characters as complex as our white characters.”

“Fellow Travelers” streams on Paramount+ Friday and on Showtime Sunday

7 new food-centric shows you should be watching right now

John Metcalfe, Kate Bradshaw — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 19:18:17 +0000

Next spring – that’s how long fans will likely have to wait to see the estimable Kristen Kish take over hosting duty from Padma on the next season of “Top Chef.” (Filmed in… Wisconsin?)

But in the meantime, the TV landscape is hardly a desert. There are new shows about Iron Chef-quality sushi, José Andrés and his family touring Spain, a five-star luxury hotel’s fancy kitchen and so much more.

In no particular order, here are seven shows about food you might want to start watching tonight.

Searching for Soul Food, Hulu

There’s no tireder food trope than calling soul food simple. It’s a complicated cuisine with a history spanning generations and continents. Here to unravel it is Alisa Reynolds, a classically trained chef from L.A. on a quest to investigate the “trauma and drama” of soul food.

The results are more upbeat than that sounds, thanks to Reynolds’ effervescent personality and comedic timing. The first season starts in Mississippi, where we learn how slaves transformed “elevated pet food, the scraps” into scrumptious recipes that persist to this day. The show’s interspersed with interviews, animations and historical reenactments – we meet James Hemings, Thomas Jefferson’s ex-slave chef, who put French fries on the American menu. And things literally take off when Reynolds gets in a jet to hunt for international soul food such as pizza in Naples, jerk in Jamaica and native-Japanese fusion Nikkei in Peru.

Morimoto’s Sushi Master, Roku

Do you have what it takes to serve delicious sushi to the Iron Chef himself? That’s the challenge on this new show in which Masaharu Morimoto, writer and chef Kenji López-Alt and Top Chef’s Dakota Weiss judge the sushi mastery of contestants vying for a $25,000 prize. (Tip: When serving raw fish, remove the scales first.)

Knives fly and sweat pours as contestants butcher fish, season rice and arrange plates of oceanic delights, all under Morimoto’s clucking supervision. Viewers might pick up handy tips – like how to open a live urchin with scissors – or recipes for kelp-cured kampachi and chirashi with hay-smoked aji.

“Sushi Master” is a visual delight for those who love Japanese cuisine. At one point, a chef holds a fat hunk of fish to his cheek and announces, “I love ahi tuna!” After watching all the close-up shots of glistening, artfully cut sushi, you will, too.

Lessons in Chemistry, Apple TV+

Brie Larson stars as a 1950s-’60s scientist who becomes a cooking show host in “Lessons in Chemistry” (Apple TV+)

Oh, the indignity of being a female chemist in the 1950s. When your male colleagues aren’t calling you “sweetie” or mistaking you for a secretary, they’re suggesting you drop your life’s work to enter a beauty pageant. But scientist Elizabeth Zott has another future in store – one in which she’ll use her knowledge of amino acids and the Maillard reaction to helm a TV-cooking show, in this adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’ popular 2022 novel.

To say that “Lessons in Chemistry” takes a turn after its initial setup is an extreme understatement. There’s a descending stairway of head-spinning twists — and to go any farther would be spoiler territory. Let’s just say, Brie Larson nails her character of a quirky savant fighting the patriarchy, one who at home puts 70-plus experimental trials into baking the perfect lasagna. Oh, and there’s also a tear-jerker episode told from the perspective of the family dog, played by B.J. Novak. (You read that right.)

The Great British Baking Show, Netflix

Now in its fourteenth season, “The Great British Baking Show” isn’t new. But it does have a new host this season – Alison Hammond. A presenter on the UK’s “This Morning,” Hammond is the first person of color to host or judge the show. She replaces former host and comedian Matt Lucas.

Judging by the first several episodes of the season aired so far, Hammond is a supportive and calming presence in the notoriously stressful bakers’ tent. She appears to have restored the show’s hallmark friendliness and warmth, which has been noticeably absent in recent seasons. Last season drew widespread criticism on points that ranged from non-baking challenges to tone-deaf episodes such as last year’s controversial “Mexico Week.” Showrunners have announced they’re dropping nation-themed episodes and going back to basics.

Three episodes in, the bakers — who include early leaders Tasha Stones, the show’s first deaf baker, and engineer Dan Cazador — have baked cakes shaped like animals, illusion biscuits and complex braided breads for their showstopper challenges.

Five Star Chef, Netflix

The Langham is a five-star luxury hotel in London and, by George, guests must have the fanciest of foodstuffs! Enter seven contestants vying for head chef at the hotel’s Palm Court restaurant – but first they must impress Michel Roux, a two Michelin-starred chef. He’s a stickler for classical technique and prone to ding a bad dish by lamenting, “It pains me.”

Sometimes, he’s right to be pained. Each chef has a unique vision for the restaurant, whether it be Caribbean, Nordic or “Theatrical Dining Experience.” The latter chef serves things like Bondage Lobster (with tied-up claws and seaweed blindfolds) accompanied by gesticulating circus performers, mortifying every judge at the table.

The show’s a bit like “Top Chef,” but the focus is luxury food. Americans will learn a lot about British food and dining traditions, and by the end might agree with one judge that “this is not a Battenberg!”

Restaurants at the End of the World, National Geographic/Disney+

Maria Izabel, Chef Kristen Kish and Chef Gisela Schmitt sample the Brazilian spirit Cachaca at Maria Izabel’s distillery to determine what might go best with their meal. Cachaca is a liquor produced from sugarcane in Brazil. (Courtesy Autumn Sonnichsen/National Geographic for Disney)

Want to learn more about Kristen Kish, the new “Top Chef”‘ judge? Check out “Restaurants at the End of the World,” a four-part series hosted by Kish that’s part adventure travel and part culinary spotlight with all the gorgeous visuals you expect from NatGeo. Each episode highlights a different restaurant and the remarkable lengths their chefs must go to as they source local ingredients in very remote locations.

How remote? The restaurants include Panama’s Hacienda Mamecillo, a hike-up restaurant which sits high atop a mountain in a cloud forest. Svalbard’s Isfjord Radio is perched on an island in the Arctic reaches northwest of Norway. Maine’s Turner Farm sits in the middle of Penobscot Bay, reachable only by boat. And Brazil’s Sem Pressa is a boat.

Kish rappels down a waterfall in Panama to source fresh watercress and digs in Brazilian mangrove muck for sururu, a bivalve mollusk, to make the perfect seafood meal. In Svalbard, she snorkels in freezing water for sea urchins and snags fresh ice from a glacier, before getting to work in the chefs’ kitchen making reindeer tongue and melon appetizers and passion fruit-kimchi sorbet.

José Andrés and Family in Spain, Discovery Plus, Max and weekly on CNN

Philanthropist Chef José Andrés and his daughters explore the historic Hotel Emblemático La Casa de los Naranjos in Lanzarote, Spain in their travels shown on the Discovery Plus show, José Andrés and Family in Spain. (Courtesy Pedro Walter/Discovery Plus)

You may know José Andrés as the visionary chef who popularized Spanish cuisine in the U.S. through restaurants like Zaytinya (which is expected to open a location in Palo Alto in 2024), or perhaps as the philanthropist whose nonprofit World Central Kitchen provides meals to people amid global disasters.

What the six-part “José Andrés in Spain with Family” shows is that he’s also a pretty goofy dad, whose knowledge and enthusiasm for Spain and its food is infectious even to his toughest critics: his daughters. As he gushes over each bite at the world-class eateries the trio visits – many at establishments operated by his friends – Andrés’ adult daughters, Inés and Carlota, respond with the occasional good-natured eye roll or “OK, Dad,” although they’re clearly having fun, too.

Seeing how this family travels together is almost as inspirational as the meals themselves. The Andres family seems to float seamlessly from one stop to the next, powered by tapas and Cava.

Each episode highlights regional dishes, including Pastas del Consejo, cookies invented for a young prince at a royal bakery in Madrid; a fine-dining spread for the ages at Disfrutar, a restaurant by chefs who, like Andrés, previously worked at El Bulli; and a calcot (a vegetable that’s a mix between a spring onion and a leek) barbecue at a vineyard belonging to one of Andrés’ friends. Father and daughters also explore local nonfood traditions on their travels, from human tower-building in Catalonia to flamenco dancing in Andalusia.

This show might just make you want to eat your way through Spain alongside family, too.

Bill Burr’s ‘Old Dads’ has lots of bark, little bite

Neal Justin — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 04:40:45 +0000

Bill Burr’s comedy comes from the perspective of a middle-age dude unwilling — or unable — to keep up with the progressives.

“Old Dads,” streaming on Netflix, mirrors his stand-up act. He plays a small-business owner on the verge of being canceled for “sins” like sharing a joke about Caitlyn Jenner during a work trip and telling off a snooty principal at his son’s school. His main gripe: Politically correct people don’t really care about the plight of others; they’re just trying to stay out of trouble.

Burr recruited some top talent for his directorial debut (he also co-wrote the script with Ben Tishler). Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine play his hapless business partners. Bruce Dern pops up as a cranky Uber driver.

Burr unleashes some memorable rants, like when he lights into a motel owner who scolds him for smoking a cigar. But he ultimately pulls his punches. Just when the film is poised to rake the far left over the coals, he ends up throwing his own character onto the fire. All will be fine, he concludes, as long as you take a few anger management courses and listen to your level-headed wife.

Burr was much more daring in his animated series, “F Is for Family,” also available on Netflix. “Old Dads” is missing that show’s spunk.

Also this week

‘Peter and the Wolf’

Those who can’t afford to see U2’s groundbreaking show at the Sphere in Las Vegas can get a taste of Bono’s artistry in the latest adaptation of Sergei Prokofiev’s symphonic fairy tale. This 30-minute trifle has animation based on Bono’s illustrations and narration from fellow rocker Gavin Friday. The pair contribute some cute touches to modernize the story, but Prokofiev’s music remains the most compelling draw. Thursday, Max

‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’

For a more stupendous animated adventure, check out the newly restored version of the 1937 classic that changed cinema forever. The project’s release is timed to Walt Disney Company’s 100th anniversary. Those who want the party to continue should also stream “Once Upon a Studio” with more than 540 beloved characters gathering for the ultimate group portrait. Disney+

‘The Burial’

Jamie Foxx plays a flashy, chest-pounding attorney who gets in over his inflated head while defending a funeral home operator (Tommy Lee Jones) struggling to keep his business alive. The film sneaks in some messages about race but they get shouted down by theatrical moments that would make even Judge Judy wince. Courtroom proceedings go out the window so that Foxx can deliver “this place is out of order” monologues without interruptions. Prime Video

Tribune News Service

TV Q&A: Will more ‘Suits’ episodes get tailored?

Rich Heldenfels — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 04:30:03 +0000

You have questions. I have some answers.

Q: I recently finished watching all of “Suits” on Netflix. I know it ended, but is there a chance of new episodes? I really enjoyed it.

A: As you may know, “Suits” became a sensation this summer, four years after its original nine-season run ended, when it spent three months at the top of the ratings for streaming shows. That, of course, led to fans’ hopes for more — and hesitation from “Suits” creator Aaron Korsh, who said “it’s really hard work to come up with plots for a show that you love and care about and want to be great.” But not long ago, the Hollywood Reporter said Korsh “is in the early stages of developing a show set in the world of (“Suits”) … but it’s not a reboot or sequel. Instead, the potential series would feature new characters and a new setting, similar to other multi-show franchises.” The report added that any return of the original shows’ characters “is a question for much further down the road.”

Q: When I was a young kid in parochial school, we watched a movie about a young boy who lived at a monastery. I believe the setting was in Spain. He went to a place in the monastery and saw Jesus on the cross. Not sure if the boy was ill and I think he talked with Jesus and in the end died in his arms. Any chance of finding this?

A: That is “The Miracle of Marcelino,” a 1955 movie. Places to find it include Tubi, YouTube and on DVD.

Q: Several months ago, I saw an announcement about a new series coming soon, “Matlock,” starring Kathy Bates. I know that the Hollywood strikes have affected production schedules, but I was hoping you could assure me the series is still planned.

A: CBS still has the series on its consumer website, with the optimistic declaration it is “coming soon.” Soon, of course, depends on when the actors’ strike might be settled.

For those of you tuning in late, the new series is said to be “inspired by” the Andy Griffith legal drama from the 1980s and ‘90s. According to the network, Bates plays “Madeline ‘Matty’ Matlock, a brilliant septuagenarian who achieved success in her younger years and decides to rejoin the workforce at a prestigious law firm where she uses her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases.”

Q: I recently rewatched all of “Grimm” on Comet. I seem to recall that when it originally ended, there was talk about making a continuation series featuring the grown children of Nick and Adalind. Was that ever a thing, or just a dream of mine?

A: I haven’t found reference to that specific kind of series, but there has been talk for years about reviving the supernatural drama, which originally aired on NBC from 2011-2017. There was a burst of excitement in 2018 when NBC reportedly began planning a spinoff focusing on a different, female Grimm but with some of the characters from the old show. Unfortunately, that plan went nowhere.

Tribune News Service

Love bytes on new season of ‘Upload’

Stephen Schaefer — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 04:38:48 +0000

Greg Daniels’ job on Prime Video’s “Upload,” the sexy sci-fi series he created whose third season streams Friday, is one that’s never listed in the credits.

“I’m the showrunner, which means that’s the equivalent of the director of a movie. In the sense that I approve all the scripts, all the cuts, all the visual effects. You know, I hire everybody. So I’m very involved in the show.”

A hit from the start – “It’s the number one, most viewed half-hour on Prime Video,” Daniels, 60, noted in a Zoom interview – “Upload” slots as a one of a kind original. Clever, satirical, romantic, mysterious, it’s set in 2033 where when humans die they can “upload” themselves into a virtual digital afterlife.

Computer programmer Nathan (Robbie Amell), just 27 and too young to die, finds himself uploaded to the ritzy Lakeview afterlife. His handler Nora (Andy Allo) finds herself falling in love with him.

“It’s a very fruitful concept — and it’s really fun because of the two worlds,” Daniels said. “Between the digital world of someone who has died and the real life world of people wearing the VR goggles to interact with them, a really strong romance can develop. I love writing romance stories and trying to find weird obstacles for them. There’s opportunity to do satire — because it’s the future — and I’ve always wanted to do a murder mystery. So I added that.

“But at the base is this romance and the poignancy of it.”

As the series progresses, complications – and complicated characters – ensue.

“We’re in Season Three now and I love Season Threes in general for TV shows,” he said, speaking from experience with “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office.”

“It’s just like everything’s hitting on all cylinders and some of the other characters are coming to the fore with their own storylines like, of course, Ingrid.”

That’s Ingrid Kannerman, Nathan’s girlfriend, who many might see as the “Upload” villain, rich and demanding, she’s played with both vulnerability and imperiousness by Allegra Edwards.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of negative qualities,” Daniels allowed. “She has this desire to end up with this guy — that’s her dream. And it pulls her into doing things that she probably shouldn’t be doing.

“But when you think about what’s motivating her — it is this intense love for Nathan, who’s a likable guy. And now that he’s a digital version of himself of course, he falls in love with Nora. And a triangle is born!

“So I don’t necessarily approve of everything she’s up to, but I understand her.”

“Upload Season 3” streams on Prime Video Friday

Hulu’s new LGBTQ+ ghost-hunting show investigates haunted US landmarks

The Baltimore Sun — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 18:25:21 +0000

Abigail Gruskin | Baltimore Sun (TNS)

When Baltimore native Juju Bae finally submitted an application to star in a new ghost-hunting docuseries on Hulu, after weeks of mulling over the casting call, she took an extra step: She consulted her dead relatives.

“I was like, ‘Ancestors’ — because I talk to my ancestors all the time, I talk to dead people all the time — I was like, ‘Ancestors, if this is for me, make it easy,’” said Bae, a 31-year-old spiritualist born in Beechfield, who now lives near Patterson Park and works as a psychic.

A few minutes after her plea to those who have crossed over into a different realm, someone from the show’s casting team called Bae to express interest in having her audition, she said.

“Living for the Dead,” Hulu’s new series narrated by actor Kristen Stewart, who also served as an executive producer of the show, puts an LGBTQ+ spin on the supernatural and follows five queer ghost hunters as they investigate haunted landmarks across the country. Bae joined the cast as the team’s resident “witch” and spiritual healer, leading seances and communicating with the deceased in the eight-episode show premiering Wednesday.

“It started as a bit of a hypothetical silly pipe dream and now I am so proud to have shepherded something that is as moving and meaningful as it is truly a gay old time,” Stewart said in a statement announcing the docuseries. “Our cast makes me laugh and cry and they had the courage and heart to take us places I wouldn’t go by myself.”

Traveling together in an RV, Bae, ghost hunter Alex LeMay, tarot card reader Ken Boggle, psychic Logan Taylor and paranormal researcher Roz Hernandez visit attractions, including a clown-themed motel in Nevada, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Kentucky and a former funeral home in Ohio.

During overnight stays in the spooky destinations, taped on hand-held video cameras and by a professional film crew, there’s plenty of supposedly paranormal activity. People representing the haunted locales report being grabbed and scratched by ghosts, in addition to experiencing other eerie sensations.

There’s also no shortage of screaming — and laughing — from the show’s living personalities, as they use ghost-detecting technology and spiritual intuition to communicate with the dead.

“We all were able to play on each other’s strengths,” Bae said, noting that the team approached ghost-hunting “with a more open heart … not trying to bother or pester the spirits, or irritate the spirits.”

Stewart, who teamed up with the creators of “Queer Eye” to craft the show, checked in frequently via FaceTime and text when she wasn’t on set and helped the cast feel more comfortable in front of the camera during their two months of filming earlier this year, Bae said.

Bae was a naturally inclined singer, dancer and performer growing up, said her mother, Liz Mack, who lives in Baltimore County. “She was quiet, but she was adventurous.”

Bae attended Catholic schools, graduating from the now-closed Seton Keough High School in 2010, and though she had “a belief in God, in higher power,” Mack, 58, said of her daughter, “there were things that she questioned” about the way organized religion operated.

Over the past three or four years, Bae leaned deeper into her spirituality and began identifying as a witch, she said, after talking with others who claimed the identity.

Those suspected of being witches have historically been persecuted and misunderstood — and it’s a term that still carries a lot of baggage, Bae said — but for her, “being a witch … is just being connected to what is happening around you, and realizing and owning the power that you have within your circumstances, and the power to manipulate some of those circumstances around you.”

From Baltimore, she meets with clients virtually to offer psychic readings, during which she delivers messages from the dead “for clarity and often peace and healing.” Her practice is “rooted in Black American and also African spirituality,” Bae said, and nearly all of her clients are Black.

Doing readings at local events, Bae is “very compassionate and really genuine with people, and really just trying to connect with them,” Mack said.

But it’s not easy work.

“As a queer person and also as, like, a self-proclaimed witch, you constantly are coming out,” Bae, who is bisexual, says in the third episode of “Living for the Dead,” seated with her castmates around a table as she leads a seance in a haunted Arizona mansion.

The Hulu show brings a bigger spotlight to LGBTQ+ ghost hunters — and emphasizes the compassion that they bring to the job.

“The dead, just like queer folks, just like a lot of different communities, can easily be cast away or disregarded,” Bae said. “We have a certain outlook on what it means to be ostracized, but also what it means to be celebrated.”

With the show’s premiere, she wants to inspire others — especially those who look like her — to get in touch with their spiritual side.

For supernatural enthusiasts looking to try their own hand at ghost-hunting in Baltimore, Bae recommended paying serious attention to the stories told about spooky places.

“There’s so much spiritual activity, especially in Baltimore, this is such a haunted place,” in part because the city is so old and has such a rich history, she said.

“Baltimore has a very intimate relationship with death, and when you grow up in a place that has that kind of intimacy, you start to think about and are often in communication with what it means to die.”

Bae encourages skepticism, but said it’s not a reason to skip the new Hulu show.

“It’s funny, it’s filled with heart and it’s about so much more,” she said, than ghost-sensing gadgets and creepy encounters with the dead.

‘Bosch: Legacy’ Season 2 starts with a bang

Stephen Schaefer — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 04:42:46 +0000

There’s no slow build as the Freevee series “Bosch: Legacy” begins its second season Friday with two incredibly intense episodes that make for one wild and wildly nerve-jangling ride.

The first season ended with the discovery that a sadistic serial rapist on the loose was targeting Bosch’s daughter Maddie (Madison Lintz), a rookie cop. Season 2 begins as she’s kidnapped and buried in a box with limited air. A desperate if determined Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) will move heaven and earth trying to rescue her.

That unrelenting pace is why these first two episodes will be released in 180 markets as a movie.

“I know some audience members were frustrated, I hope in a really good, delicious way, with our cliffhanger at the end of Season 1. So we wanted to immediately get into that,” explained Tom Bernardo, the series’ showrunner.

“And do it in a way that we haven’t done before, which was treat our first two episodes structurally and dramatically as if they were a compressed story. A movie right unto itself. We wanted it to feel nightmarish, intense, impossible.

While “Legacy” continues the series inspired by Michael Connelly’s bestselling Bosch books it’s become its own thing.

“The heartbeat of this series is this relationship between a father and his daughter, and how it evolves because their life changes,” Bernardo said. “This is the most intense, horrifying thing that has ever happened to Bosch in the life of our series.

“So, what are the consequences as his daughter survives? People who survive something like that are different afterwards, and they carry something with them. What does that mean? And mean now with their relationship?

“What does it mean as a father who has to wake up and whose worst nightmare almost happened? And now he has to see his daughter go out there, back onto the streets of LA in law enforcement where he knows the dangers.

“Those questions were really interesting for us to talk about dramatically.”

The series third star, Mimi Rogers’ lawyer Honey “Give me the Money” Chandler. A key element in “Legacy,” Chandler was featured in just one of the 24 Bosch books – and killed off.

“At this point, the great thing — and the challenge — is these characters have naturally become something different in our story world,” Bernardo acknowledged. “So it’s fun to figure out what’s going to happen. Which books can we do — if any?

“And to be clear, these first two hours’ situation that includes Bosch going to the morgue secretly to see what’s going on, that’s all been invented for the series. That is not Michael Connelly. We invented all of it.”

“Bosch: Legacy S2” streams on Freevee Friday

Ken Burns turns his camera on ‘The American Buffalo’

Stephen Schaefer — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 04:50:01 +0000

Although its focus is, for the first time, on an animal and not a person, Ken Burns doesn’t see his new four-hour series “The American Buffalo” as a “departure.”

Like the many acclaimed biographies he’s made over the past 30-plus years, “American Buffalo,” he said in a phone interview, “By focusing on an animal gave us an opportunity to really touch on all quarters of American history in the 19th century and engage in a new and, we think, different way.

“You have Native American people who, as it is pointed out in the film, have a 600-year generational relationship with the buffalo. And the people who took over their land had decimated the buffalo almost to the brink of extinction.

“That is a huge tragedy but also suggests down the line reasons for hope and inspiration. I mean, it’s no accident that the buffalo was recently named as the national mammal. It has captured people’s imagination from the first time they’ve seen one. I think it was a way to tell a complex story.”

Here is also a parallel biography of another magnificent animal that defined the West: The horse.

“I think that this is a pretty unknown thing,” Burns, 70, said. “At least I’ve found since we finished the film and I’ve been sharing clips of it with audiences around the country, that people are super surprised to learn that there had been an earlier primitive version of the horse that had gone extinct.

“And that it was — how should we put it? – the ‘accidental’ release of horses from Spanish conquerors in a battle they had with the Pueblo Indians in Santa Fe in the late 1600s that they lost. As a result, lots of horses were released and within a few generations had converted many of the nomadic but also agricultural tribes to become, as we say in the film, among the greatest equestrians in the world. It changed the dynamics with subsistence.

“That is to say, if you only have dogs pulling you over these long, vast distances in the Great Plains, your focus for your tribe or your group is to just feed yourself. Everybody’s energies are devoted for that almost full time.

“But when you’ve got a horse, a couple of men can go and get enough food for a month almost instantly. That changes the dynamics. It actually converts some agricultural tribes to becoming stationary villages or towns. It’s a pretty amazing story.”

Burns breaks another boundary with his next project: “We’re finishing a film on our first non-American topic, Leonardo da Vinci, which will be next November. And then in 2025 a big mammoth series on the American Revolution — six episodes and 12-plus hours which is the 250th anniversary of Lexington and Concord. The beginning of the Revolution.”

“The American Buffalo” airs on PBS Monday and Tuesday at 8 p.m. and simultaneously is available to stream on the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel and PBS Passport.

TV Q&A: Will ‘Will Trent’ return for another season?

Rich Heldenfels — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 04:25:57 +0000

You have questions. I have some answers.

Q: I really liked “Will Trent.” Will they be making more?

A: Yes. A second season has been ordered of the fine drama starring Ramon Rodriguez and inspired by the books by Karin Slaughter. With the actors’ strike ongoing at this point, a return date for the series is not set. And even if the strike is settled soon, this and other shows may not be ready for telecast until 2024.

Q: We enjoyed watching the movie “Salt” again recently and have always wondered what happened after she escaped. Was a “Salt 2” ever proposed?

A: The 2010 spy thriller with Angelina Jolie was a box-office hit which many saw as the setup for a whole series of “Salt” movies.

Deadline.com reported in 2011 that Sony Pictures “is moving forward” with a sequel, and that Jolie wanted to do one “if it comes together right.” There were reports about the hiring of a director and a screenwriter, but — according to many reports — Jolie was not happy with the script and decided to pass. In 2016, the focus appeared to shift to a television series — airing first in Europe, ScreenDaily.com reported, since the film had been especially successful overseas. But as far as I can tell, nothing has come of that, or any other concrete project, aside from more talk.

Q: We were watching a Hallmark film set in Italy, and I recalled to my wife that I had seen a wonderful film with Laurence Olivier and a young Diane Lane that was titled ( I believe) “A Little Romance.” Couldn’t find it anywhere. Do you know if it’s still available?

A: The 1979 film, which was directed by George Roy Hill (“The Sting,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and other features), did charm a lot of people. The best results of my search for it were releases on DVD and Blu-ray; I have seen copies for sale on Amazon.com and MoviesUnlimited.com, or you may find it at your local library.

Q: Do you know where one might find Erich von Stroheim’s classic silent film “Greed” for TV viewing? I believe there is a version consisting of what remains of the movie combined with still shots and commentary.

A: “Greed” is a 1924 film written and directed by Stroheim, famous for his extravagance (and in later years for his acting in films like “Sunset Boulevard”). Based on a novel by Frank Norris, its first cut ran around 10 hours, according to “The Oxford Companion to Film.” (The time varies some in other sources.) Stroheim, who had seen other movies taken out of his hands, was faced with demands for cut after cut of “Greed,” reducing it finally to about two-and-a-half hours. While even that truncated version has its admirers, those few hours “give only an outline of Stroheim’s conception,” says the Oxford book. But that was also the only known cut for many years, and it was said that the removed footage had been destroyed. Then, the Turner Classic Movies website says, filmmaker Rick Schmidlin “used more than 650 stills and the continuity script to fill in the gaps in the narrative.” This version, released in 1999, runs about four hours — and you can find it for sale and rent on Prime Video.

Tribune News Service

Oliver Dench checks into new season of ‘Hotel Portofino’

Stephen Schaefer — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 04:15:09 +0000

A lush Mediterranean melodrama set against Fascist Italy’s tumultuous 1920s, “Hotel Portofino” introduces American audiences to Oliver Dench.

As Season 2 begins Sunday night on PBS, Dench’s Lucian Ainsworth is struggling in a doomed marriage, completely alienated from his father and extremely close to his mother, the beautiful Bella (the series’ top-billed star Natascha McElhone) who runs the luxury Italian Riviera resort hotel of the title.

“It is absolutely a troubled marriage. It’s tragic,” Dench, 30, began in a Zoom interview from his London flat. “because there’s not really any wrongdoing in either party.

“They’re just two people who shouldn’t be married, who clearly aren’t in love with each other. The first time we see them in Series 2, they’re trying their best to rub along in some small way.

“But they are two characters who suffered from different mental health ailments, so it’s nigh on impossible and just breaks my little heart to imagine people in that circumstance.”

Lucian, Dench knows, “still suffers from PTSD from World War One. He has night terrors, all kinds of things that have exhibited themselves. I’ve always interpreted it as some quite serious depression. But there’s all sorts of allusions to him finally getting himself out of a hole at the time we start the series.

“I can only imagine countless people who fought in World War One and would have experienced the stories you can read of people in their survivor’s guilt. Especially people in Lucian’s position, people who are in charge of other men, other boys. Countless boys you suppose who lost their lives.

“It sounds like a terrible situation to me — and my own struggles with mental health are quite close to my interest. That’s something that I’ve always thought was quite a big part of Lucian’s character. Fleeing from that is where we first see him at the beginning of Season 2.”

Dench’s own mental health issues? Do they afford a comradeship with Lucian? A particular insight?

“I’ve never fought in World War One fortunately, because I don’t know if I would have survived. I don’t have PTSD. But I’ve had my bouts with less than perfect mental health.

“Maybe that’s why it’s something that I identify with so strongly. It’s never very easy.”

What was easy for Dench was following in his great-aunt Dame Judi Dench’s footsteps. “My granddad” – Dench’s older brother – “was an actor and I think my parents were more open to my acting because they knew people like my granddad who worked in this world.

“I was just lucky,” he added, “to find that this is what I wanted to do.”

“Hotel Portofino” airs on PBS Sundays at 8pm and simultaneously is available to stream on the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel and PBS Passport.

Shonda Rhimes to bring ‘Black Barbie’ documentary to Netflix

New York Daily News — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 18:30:51 +0000

Karu F. Daniels | New York Daily News (TNS)

Netflix uber-producer Shonda Rhimes has snapped up the rights for “Black Barbie: A Documentary,” which chronicles Mattel’s 1980 introduction of the first Black doll, bringing some much-needed diversity to the iconic brand.

The film, first shown at SXSW earlier this year, was written and directed by filmmaker Lagueria Davis, whose aunt Beulah Mae Mitchell worked at Mattel and was one of three Black women who advocated for the groundbreaking toy.

According to the documentary’s logline, “Black Barbie” examines “the importance of representation and how dolls can be crucial to the formation of identity and imagination.”

Cultural commentators, historians and consumers also weigh in on the impact of the doll. Mitchell and other Black women share their own stories of not seeing themselves represented, and how Black Barbie’s arrival affected them.

“Telling Black Barbie’s story has been such a personal journey and it warms my heart to celebrate the legacy of my aunt Beulah Mae Mitchell, Kitty Black Perkins and Stacey McBride Irby in our film,” Davis said in a statement about the documentary’s acquisition. “We couldn’t have asked for better collaborators than Shondaland and Netflix to bring this story to the world.”

During its 2022 International Women’s Day celebration, Mattel released a Barbie doll in Rhimes’ likeness — dressed in a replica of the outfit she wore for a Variety magazine cover story months before.

Netflix’s “Black Barbie” announcement comes on the heels of Greta Gerwig’s history-making, billion-dollar-plus feature film starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as her anatomically correct male counterpart Ken. The all-star cast also features Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, Simu Liu and Academy Award winner Helen Mirren.

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On Netflix: Four short Roald Dahl tales adapted by Wes Anderson add up, splendidly

Michael Phillips — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 20:18:30 +0000

Michael Phillips | Chicago Tribune (TNS)

The new Wes Anderson adaptations of Roald Dahl stories, now streaming on Netflix, outpace and out-satisfy so many of Anderson’s feature-length projects, the question simply is this: Why? What is it about Anderson’s visual, narrative, emotional and adaptive approach to this material — his second Dahl effort, following the stop-motion-animated “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — that works so well?

A few guesses. For one, I think, the short form flatters and crystallizes Anderson’s every decision, and even the multilayered framing devices and nesting-doll stories within stories deepen our enjoyment. The longest of the quartet, “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” runs 41 minutes. The others run about 17 minutes apiece: “The Swan,” “The Rat Catcher” and “Poison” — and that’s probably the ideal order for viewing, if you begin with “Henry Sugar.”

Beyond that, there’s a more vital level of comic invention afoot here than I’ve seen since my favorite Anderson feature, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” nearly a decade ago. Much of that vitality must be credited to Ralph Fiennes, a key member of this four-story anthology’s quite perfect ensemble.

Often, critics settle for the word “deadpan” to describe many, or most, of the performances in an Anderson film, and for Anderson’s geometrically precise framing. Sometimes the deadpan part is true; more often, though, the best Anderson performances get up to many things at once. The voice subtly delineates the emotions not immediately clear on the surface, or on the actor’s face. Other times it’s the other way: The face tells all, while the comparatively flat affect of the verbal component suggests someone struggling, almost invisibly, to maintain control amid an emotional crisis.

Benedict Cumberbatch, left, and Ralph Fiennes in the movie “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.” (Netflix/TNS)

Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Rupert Friend, Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade make up the bulk of this Dahl company, and they are on it. The stories come from different parts of Dahl’s life, spanning the 1940s to the 1970s. In “Henry Sugar,” a wealthy English layabout and occasional and dishonest gambler (Cumberbatch) happens on the story of a yogi (Kingsley) who has mastered the art of seeing with his eyes closed. This story ends quite happily; “The Swan,” the cruelest of the four — Dahl appears to have drawn painful inspiration from his physically abused boarding-school days — concerns a sensitive young boy bullied, in ghastly and potentially murderous fashion, by a pair of older boys. That one ends not happily, but not without a glimmer of just desserts. (Dahl was surely one of the bleakest fantasists since Hans Christian Andersen, though funnier.)

Fiennes dines out, with beautiful wit and careful gradations of black humor, on “The Rat Catcher,” in which he takes the title role with a nice pair of pointy false choppers. He’s sent to deal with a rat problem that proves more difficult than expected. The final story, “Poison,” likewise deals with questions of two species forced to accommodate each other’s lives. In “The Rat Catcher” it’s human vs. rodent; in “Poison,” a British officer stationed in India (Cumberbatch) lies still, sweating, in his bed, while another officer (Patel) strategies how to save this man from a deadly snake that has curled up asleep on the officer’s stomach.

If you save “Poison” for last, the cumulative 90 or so minutes follows a path toward unavoidable and slyly damning assessments of British colonialism and insidious classism. Not that Dahl was any sort of liberal. As has been verified by plenty of letters, interviews and, indeed, much of his fiction, the author acknowledged his bigotry, antisemitism, racism and misogyny. To some that makes him persona non grata, for good. As for Anderson, he has provoked some lesser but notable charges regarding his own work — primarily that some films of his betray a blithe colonialist sampling of different cultures. “The Darjeeling Limited” (Americans in India) and “Isle of Dogs” (dogs in Japan) come up most often for debate.

Even with Dahl’s reputation swirling in the background, the magical rightness of Anderson’s adaptations for Netflix is all the sweeter. They stay very close to Dahl’s source material, so the literary component remains ever-present and, with these actors, ever-appreciated. There’s also a delightful theatricality at work every minute on screen, with stagehands taking Ben Kingsley’s hairpiece and mustache off in full camera view one minute, and painted backdrops relocating the action the next. This is nothing new for Anderson, who has played around, often brilliantly, with the artifice of set pieces moving in and out of frame, setting up the next shot, sometimes with digital assistance, sometimes not. But here the entire enterprise comes off without any hitches, or self-consciousness.

Fiennes also takes on the Dahl role, popping in here and there, in his writing shed, presiding over the omnibus quartet. And let us not forget that Anderson and his peerless design colleagues, starting with production designer Adam Stockhausen (”Grand Budapest,” “Asteroid City” and others), invest fully in the business of making cinema. Presto: literary, theatrical, cinematic. A tri-modal success. In the end, both Dahl’s stories and Anderson’s movies require a few common but difficult skill sets of the actors. Wit. Technical precision. Verbal facility. Adroit timing. And some fun, even if it’s tightly prescribed and carefully confined to a certain place in a fastidiously arranged, ever-shifting picture frame.

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‘THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF HENRY SUGAR’ AND OTHER STORIES

4 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG (for thematic elements, peril, brief language and smoking)

Approx. running time: 1:30

How to watch: Netflix

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Disney+ gives ‘Goosebumps’ to a new generation

Stephen Schaefer — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 04:25:00 +0000

Since they were first published from 1992 through 1997, R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” has sold 400 million books in 32 countries.

While the Scholastic series was aimed at middle schoolers, the new, elaborately mounted Disney+ (and Hulu and Freeform) series that debuts, naturally, on Friday the 13th, aims for a broader audience as five high schoolers go on a very scary quest.

The are investigating a 30-years-earlier tragedy — the terrible passing of teenager Harold Biddle. It’s a search that will reveal their parents’ dark secrets.

“Our approach was we wanted the show to appeal to everyone. We wanted to have adults as well as young teens,” said director and co-writer Rob Letterman in a joint Zoom interview. “We wanted to appeal to deep ‘Goosebumps’ fans from the ’90s as well as people uninitiated with ‘Goosebumps.’

“Ultimately, the show is about teenagers going through very relatable, very universal, teenage things.

“And without giving anything away,” he noted, “their parents are also going through some things.”

But how “universal” is demonic danger for teenagers?

“Well, the truth is,” Letterman said, “supernatural demonic stuff is scary. And there’s nothing scarier than being a teenager in high school though. Just in general. That’s why the show works on multiple levels.

“Yes, it’s couched in supernatural stuff. But really, at its heart, it’s just a grounded show about these high schoolers going through all the trials and tribulations of being a teenager.

“And not everything is perfect. Family dynamics aren’t always easy. It’s hard to deal with those things. That’s why we’re really proud of how relatable the show is.”

Co-writer and executive producer Nicholas Stoller sees this “Goosebumps” similar to classic John Hughes movies.

Is “Goosebumps” perhaps “Stranger Things” — before there was a “Stranger Things”?

“I can see something like that,” Stoller allowed. “There’s certainly a lot of the DNA. I mean, all kinds of stories refer to older stories.”

“The ‘Goosebumps’ books themselves,” Letterman enthused, “were similar to Stephen King books of the ‘80s. In a way that would be more accessible for a younger reader.”

This “Goosebumps” introduces each teen in their own episode.

“The first five episodes are really origin stories for each of the five characters. You see the characters crisscross in each episode,” Letterman explained.

“So the first is the origin of Isaiah’s character (Zack Morris). Episode 2 becomes Isabella’s story (Ana Yi Puig) and then Episode 3 becomes James’s (Miles McKenna) episode.

“By the end of the fifth episode these characters have intersected so much they come together. Then they start in the back five figuring out what’s behind everything that’s happened.”

The first 5 episodes of “Goosebumps” debut Friday as part of Disney+’s “Hallowstream” and Hulu’s “Huluween” celebrations. And first 2 episodes are on Freeform Friday as part of its “31 Nights of Halloween” programming.

Chloe Domont flips script on battle of sexes in ‘Fair Play’

Stephen Schaefer — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 04:49:11 +0000

Can a man and a woman work in the same firm, secretly violate the rules concerning personal relationships, and be happy?

Especially if, writer-director Chloe Domont asks in her film “Fair Play,” she does better in the workplace than he?

Her couple, Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), are super stressed at their Wall Street hedge fund. When his expected promotion goes to Emily, Luke finds he’s fine – until he’s not. Then he begins spinning out of control – and he rapidly becomes a threat to her.

“The real kernel of inspiration for this film was when my career started to take off. It was this feeling as I was having a certain period where my success didn’t feel like a total win,” Domont, 36, said in a Zoom press conference from London.

“It felt like a loss on some level — because of the kinds of relationships I was in. These were relationships with men who adored me for my ambition, adored me for my talent, adored me for my strengths.

“But at the same time, there was still this feeling — an unspoken feeling — that me being big on some level made them feel small. So, I started to undermine my excitement for these opportunities I was getting and normalize that.

“And that made me realize how much hold these ingrained power dynamics still have over us. The biggest thing is that we’re all afraid to talk about it. Because no one really wants to admit or acknowledge that that’s what’s going on.

“Even I didn’t want to admit that that’s what was really going on ’cause I felt like it was a poor reflection of me and my choice of partner.”

She added, “These are progressive men who I was with, who didn’t want to admit that these were feelings they were having because what would it say about them?

“It was a dynamic I needed to put onscreen. At that time I was having these experiences over and over again. It was burning inside of me and I wanted to write a story about it and just go crazy with it.”

Domont is proud that this gender-inflicted warfare has shading. “I’m not interested in creating characters where there’s a clear villain or a clear hero. Emily’s not a hero. She’s a human. She’s messy and ugly at times.

“Also, what’s important for Luke is he represents a generation of men caught in the middle — between wanting to adhere to a modern feminist society but still having been raised on traditional ideas of masculinity. That doesn’t make him a bad guy.”

“Fair Play” streams on Netflix Friday.

Doc spotlights DeSantis’ Martha’s Vineyard migrant move

Stephen Schaefer — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 04:44:41 +0000

MSNBC documentary “Martha’s Vineyard v. DeSantis” puts a shocking political stunt front and center.

When 49 immigrants were flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in September last year, courtesy of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, it grabbed international headlines.

The directing duo of David Heilbroner and Kate Davis, themselves Martha’s Vineyard residents, took a closer look at the incident in their MSNBC documentary “Martha’s Vineyard v. DeSantis,” airing on MSNBC Sunday and Peacock Monday.

Fox News and DeSantis wanted to paint Martha’s Vineyard as this “white, liberal, ultra wealthy island, which it certainly is for two months in summer,” Davis said in a joint Zoom interview. “We spend the winters here as well and have a feeling for the diversity of the island. This is not the little white place that Tucker Carlson portrayed.”

The film notes the island’s diversity: A quarter of the population’s language is Brazilian Portuguese, who’ve long lived alongside a Black and Native American population.

“We felt that we could go deeper with this story in the headlines. We’d met the four immigrants (spotlighted) because they were moving into a friend’s house and we thought that their personal story would cast a different light on the entire political picture.

“Because after all, each one of these 49 migrants, along with thousands across the country, each one of them is a human being and it’s easy to reduce them in one’s mind as part of a mass of people who can be devalued for political purposes by people who want a disruption here.

“I hope it drives home for audiences that what might look like an entertaining prank from the outside is actually an extremely calculated, complicated operation, using taxpayer money questionably on the part of government officials.”

Heilbroner pointed to, “The emotional toll that this took on them. They were really duped. After crossing through six countries in life-threatening conditions to arrive in United States a government-funded operation sent them a bill of goods to come along on this trip to Martha’s Vineyard.

“To get them on these private planes they were told they were coming to Washington state or Oregon to get jobs and housing. Then they were completely left to their own devices.”

A sign of the meticulous planning that went into this was that all 49 were legal. As Heilbroner noted, “At that time because the United States had an open border policy with a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, they were legal.

“And it is illegal to move so-called undocumented aliens because of federal trafficking laws. DeSantis declined or didn’t respond to requests for interviews or comments.”

A man, who is part of a group of immigrants that had just arrived, flashes a thumbs up Sept. 14, 2022, in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew two planes of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. (Ray Ewing/Vineyard Gazette via AP)

Mark J. Terrill/ The Associated Press

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His move last year to fly migrants to Martha’s Vineyard is the subject of an MSNBC documentary “Martha’s Vineyard vs. DeSantis.” (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

TV Q&A: Where’s Hulu’s ‘Conversations with Friends?’

Rich Heldenfels — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 04:21:37 +0000

You have questions. I have some answers.

Q: Where has “Conversations with Friends” on Hulu gone? Will it be back?

A: The series ended after a single, 12-episode season. Hulu removed it along with many other shows, reportedly as a cost-cutting measure. While streamers have often removed and added shows from time to time, removals have been more noticeable at Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Max, Discovery+ and other streamers. CNBC.com noted earlier this year that “after the initial bloom of new platforms and subscriber growth, aided by pandemic lockdowns and a surge of fresh content, the digital streaming industry has cooled. And Wall Street has turned up the heat on media companies, now focusing on if and when streaming will be profitable versus if those providers are putting up big subscriber numbers. … Removing content from platforms is a way for streamers to avoid residual payments and licensing fees.”

Q: When will “The Good Doctor” begin again?

A: That, like so many things, depends on when the actors’ strike ends. We have seen some programs return with the ending of the writers’ strike, but at this writing the actors’ walkout continues. As I mentioned some time back, we have seen some new scripted programs, but those were made before the strike.

Q: Vincent Price starred in a series of excellent comic/horror movies, including “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” and (I think) “The Return of the Abominable Dr. Phibes.” I’ve never been able to see or even find these movies on TV. Can you assist?

A: Price starred in “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” (1971) and “Dr. Phibes Rises Again” (1972). The authoritative “The Movie Guide” calls the first film “delightfully goofy” and the second “equally entertaining.” (Price would follow them in 1973 with the similar “Theatre of Blood,” a favorite of mine.) Both Phibes films have been released on DVD and Blu-ray, and are available to rent on Prime Video. The second film is also streaming on Tubi and Freevee; the first is on the subscription streaming channel Horror Drive-In. (There may be other places, but those offer some options.)

Q: Back in the late ’60s or early ’70s there was a series about women in a prison camp during World War II. They were held prisoner by the Japanese, I believe. It might have been on PBS and was a very good depiction of their survival efforts and put a female face to the war. I’m not sure if these women were nurses, military, or diplomat wives but I’d like to find it and can’t remember the name.

A: After we traded some information, it was clear you were thinking of “Tenko.” That series, which originally aired in the early 1980s, involved a group of women held in a Japanese prison camp after the invasion of Singapore. There were three 10-episode seasons, and I have found episodes online at DailyMotion.com. There is also a DVD set, which can be expensive; you may want to see if your local library has it.

Tribune News Service

What to stream: New horror movies and more to ring in October

Tribune News Service — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 18:25:28 +0000

Katie Walsh | Tribune News Service

October means spooky season, which means there’s a new slate of streaming movies this week to set the mood — whatever mood might help you get into the Halloween mindset. Here’s a rundown of what to look forward to on your favorite streaming sites.

Launching on Prime Video on Friday, Oct. 6, is the totally fun horror comedy “Totally Killer,” which is a mashup of “Scream” and “Back to the Future.” Kiernan Shipka stars as Jamie, a teenage girl in 2023 who time travels back to the ‘80s to stop the Sweet Sixteen Killer in order to prevent her mother’s death 35 years later. The most horrifying thing she discovers in her journey? 1980s culture (smoking, sexism, insensitivity). This slasher riff is directed by Nahnatchka Khan, the brains behind the TV comedy favorites “Fresh Off the Boat” and “Young Rock.” Stream it starting Friday on Prime Video.

The popular horror anthology movie series “V/H/S” has a new installment arriving Friday, Oct. 6, on Shudder. “V/H/S/85” is a found footage feature, a snuff film mixtape of sorts, blending newscasts and home videos with five different segments directed by David Bruckner, Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani and Mike P. Nelson. Stream it on Shudder, which is your one-stop shop for all things horror this October.

There’s a new “Exorcist” film out in theaters this weekend, but the original “Exorcist” auteur, the late, great William Friedkin, has his last film “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime this weekend after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Starring Kiefer Sutherland, the late (great) Lance Reddick, Jason Clarke, Lewis Pullman, Monica Raymund and Jake Lacy, the naval courtroom drama is adapted from the 1953 Herman Wouk play based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1952 novel “The Caine Mutiny.” Honor the memory of Hurricane Billy and stream his last film starting this Friday on Paramount+ with Showtime.

Alden Ehrenreich, left, as Luke and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in “Fair Play.” (Sergej Radovic/Netflix/TNS)

Streaming on Netflix this weekend is a daring debut from Chloe Domont. “Fair Play,” starring Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich, is a high-stakes workplace melodrama set in the world of New York hedge funds and high finance. Dynevor and Ehrenreich play Emily and Luke, a young couple, secretly engaged, working as analysts at the same fund. Their relationship becomes increasingly strained as one of them moves up the cutthroat ladder and the power dynamic yawns between them. Stream it this Friday, Oct. 6, on Netflix.

And this Sunday on Max, check out the quirky true-crime doc “Last Stop Larrimah,” directed by Thomas Tancred and produced by the Duplass brothers. The documentary dives into the 2017 disappearance of Paddy Moriarty, which rocked the town of Larrimah, which boasts only 11 residents in the remote Northern Territory of Australia. But as filmmakers uncover the mystery, it becomes an exploration of the unique relationships between the residents of this quirky town: their long-standing relationships and their long-standing feuds. Using current interviews and archival video footage, Tancred weaves together a fascinating yarn. Stream it starting Sunday, Oct. 8, on Max.

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(Katie Walsh is the Tribune News Service film critic and co-host of the “Miami Nice” podcast.)

Season 2 takes a deep dive into more ‘Loki’ lore

Stephen Schaefer — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 04:55:52 +0000

For newcomers to Disney+, what must they know to enjoy Season 2 of “Loki,” Marvel’s latest miniseries?

Do they hit Marvel history books? Binge watch every Loki appearance since his debut in the 2011 “Thor”?

“I would say the only prerequisite to enjoying ‘Loki’ Season 2 is to watch ‘Loki’ Season 1,” laughed Marvel Creative Exec Kevin Wright in a Zoom interview.

The series, he noted, was always planned to be told in two seasons, each with 6-episode stories.

“We’ve told so many stories and they reached a lot of people but I’m sure there were people going, ‘How do I pick up in this?’ We wanted to give a new entry in that first episode of Season 1 where we catch up with Loki — with the past 10 years of movies at that point.

“You can come in, watch ‘Loki’ Season 1 and go straight into Season 2 and you will really enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, you can go even deeper by diving into the past movies. But they certainly are not a prerequisite to enjoying this.”

What’s really remarkable is how Loki has transformed from a villain to his current heroic stature.

“That speaks to the power of this character. Not just in Marvel but in large part to Tom Hiddleston and what he has put into this character in this role over the 12 years he’s been living with this.

“It’s really cool and it’s exciting that audiences have gone along. That there is this character that can live in the gray area and bounce between the poles. So much of our show is about that.

“There was a line in Season 1 that’s been the mantra for the two seasons of the show: ‘No one ever bad is ever truly bad. And no one ever good is ever fully good.’ We all live in the gray area and Loki is the embodiment of that.”

Season 2 begins in the immediate aftermath of the fiery finale that concluded Season 1.

“We took a lot of swings in Season 1. They’re not a lot of giant action scenes. We’re talking about philosophy. We have an alligator version of Loki! There’s some weird stuff in there — and audiences largely really enjoyed it.

“So for us there was a freedom of going and just keep telling our story. We didn’t want to come back and play ‘the hits.’ We wanted to deepen and further this world and these characters in the way that second seasons can dive deeper into these characters and see those through to their natural conclusions.”

‘The Changeling’ not your average fairy tale

Stephen Schaefer — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 04:35:43 +0000

Is “The Changeling” a fairy tale? A horror story? Or maybe both?

“It’s taking the oldest form of storytelling in many respects, you know, the fairy tale, the story you tell around the fire, and adapting that to contemporary New York,” answered the AppleTV+ series’ producer and frequent director Jonathan van Tulleken.

“Changeling” is from Victor LaValle’s 2017 novel, adapted by Kelly Marcel. We follow Lakeith Stanfield’s Apollo Kagwa, a used book dealer, as he searches for his wife as we see his mother, father and child. LaValle, who was on set, narrates the story.

“In terms of adapting it to TV,” van Tulleken said in a joint Zoom interview with director Michael Francis Williams, “it’s a really bold bit of television. Kelly really went out there to try and bring this fairytale quality to the screen, to capture all the nuance and get it all down visually.”

“It’s also addressing some really interesting, pertinent themes,” noted Williams. “Tough things on race, postpartum depression and what it is to be a new father, a new mother. Kelly made sure she stayed faithful to the book and also expanded it, working through her own demons on motherhood and being a woman.”

Williams, who directed the series’ intense seventh episode, describes himself as a queer, Black British artist whose focus is on marginalized characters.

“I would say on the landscape of television there are very few shows with predominantly Black casts of this premium level and singular points of view,” he said. “My episode specifically gets to look at Apollo’s mission. There are very few pieces of premium drama TV that focus on the interiority of a Black woman, an older Black woman in this case, and tell her first-generation immigrant story.

“She is a woman very much marginalized and speaks about finding her place within New York and how she overcame that and what she dealt with, reckoned with, remembered. These are really rare things to put on such a platform.

“As a director who gets to tell their stories,” Williams added, “it’s really important to be able to do that and pour everything into the show.”

How important is it to have a star like Stanfield, the first actor to join the project?

“I think more importantly,” van Telleken said, “how important is it having the right person if I’m honest. There’s no doubt having a name is important. What’s great about Keith is his name is associated with just him being a phenomenal leading actor. That’s where it’s really useful.”

“The Changeling” airs on AppleTV+

‘Ringleader’ turns spotlight back on Bling Ring thefts

Stephen Schaefer — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 04:34:12 +0000

With “The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring,” Sunday night’s documentary on HBO MAX, Erin Lee Carr takes another look at the notorious California “Bling Ring” burglars of celebrity homes.

“I was in college when it was happening, and I just marveled at the insanity it would take for somebody around my age to break into somebody’s home,” Carr, 35, began in a Zoom interview.

“It’s one of those cases that stuck with me and as somebody who is largely in the criminal justice space as a film director” — 2021’s “Britney vs Spears” – “it was like, ‘Oh yeah! I want to get involved and see if I can uncover new things and talk to people who have never spoken.”

Which is exactly what she did with the first-ever testimony of Rachel Lee, the so-called ringleader of seven celebrity-obsessed teenage and young adult Calabasas kids who used social media to track when they could burgle $3 million in jewels, clothes and accessories from Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox and others in 2008-2009.

Carr also has the two prosecutors and the reporter who revealed that a Hollywood precinct cop, instrumental in the case, was being paid as a consultant on Sofia Coppola’s take with her 2013 “The Bling Ring” film. That compromised sentencing of several burglars.

“It was really hard to get Rachel to agree to go on the record,” Carr recalled. “Originally, she wanted to do a semi-anonymized podcast so that she could keep her privacy because it’s been a long time since the Bling Ring. You know, she got out (of maximum security prison after 16 months) in 2013, so there’s been a lot of healing and a lot of life that’s happened that has nothing to do with Bling Ring.”

Getting Lee was never assured – until Carr actually got her.

“There was this one moment where I was about to shoot this huge chunk with her that was going to basically be the basis of the entire documentary. The spine of it. And she almost backed out. All the way it was always really difficult.

“But that big block of interview in the film is somebody who has let their guard down and is talking about their own reality with self-deception. Talking about that she was potentially a sociopath before.

“To me it was about breaking that wall down of being careful and for her to feel like she could truly be herself.

“She knows to say that she is responsible for what she did. But that’s the bare minimum when you’ve committed a crime. I think that she always will feel guilty.”

“The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring” streams on HBO Max Sunday.

As Hollywood strikes roll on, are shows premiering this fall

Nina Metz Chicago Tribune — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 13:12:52 +0000

Hollywood has been in limbo these last few months. It’s been especially tough for everyone who earns their living making TV and film. But it also means viewers will start seeing just how that is impacting the fall network lineup. A prolonged strike — still ongoing — will inevitably have that effect and the work stoppage has reshaped prime time in significant ways.

If the studios are unable to resolve the strikes soon, their streaming pipeline will slow to a trickle. We’ll know more when we see just how many (or few) premieres there are this winter. Until then, here’s a look at some offerings in the first few weeks of the fall TV season, in order of their premieres

“The Changeling” (Sept. 8 on Apple TV+): The eight-part drama stars LaKeith Stanfield as a new father who finds his life spinning out of control. It’s adapted from a novel that has been described as a “punchy cocktail of modern parenting and ancient magic” wherein the “anxieties of fatherhood, race and money are dwarfed by otherworldly peril.”

“The Other Black Girl” (Sept. 13 on Hulu): Nella is a Black editorial assistant at a New York publishing house who is struggling to work her way up the corporate ladder and retain her dignity along the way. When the all-white company hires another Black employee, she’s initially thrilled. But is this newcomer friend or foe? A surreal thriller about microaggressions, office politics and taking over the world (or at least a small corner of it), the series is based on the bestseller by Zakiya Dalila Harris, who also has a writing credit on the show.

“The Super Models” (Sept. 20 on Apple TV+): The supermodel era was defined by Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington, who captured the public’s imagination in a way that hasn’t been replicated since. The women sit for new interviews in this docuseries. “Donyale Luna: Supermodel” (Sept. 13 on Max) premieres a week earlier as a documentary about the life and career of the first Black model featured on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue.

“Young Love” (Sept. 21 on Max): Created by Matthew Cherry, the warmly comedic animated series expands upon Cherry’s Oscar-winning short “Hair Love,” about a Black father who learns the ins and outs of styling his young daughter’s hair. Kid Cudi and Issa Rae voice the parents.

“The Continental: From the World of John Wick” (Sept. 22 on Peacock): The crime series is a prequel spinoff to the ultraviolent “John Wick” movie franchise and focuses on the Continental hotel chain, which serves as a safe haven for assassins. The show is set in the ‘70s.

“Gen V” (Sept. 29 on Amazon): A spinoff of Amazon’s popular and very satirical superhero series “The Boys,” the new show takes place at superhero college where powers are injected rather than inherited.

“Lupin” (Oct. 5 on Netflix): As a character, the gentleman thief known as Lupin falls somewhere between Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood. As played with broad-shouldered grace by French actor Omar Sy, he has charisma to spare.

“Frasier” (Oct. 12 on Paramount+): They have revived my beloved “Frasier” and I wish I could say this was good news. Alas, Kelsey Grammer is the only cast member returning. RIP John Mahoney. But also: RIP the erudite ludicrousness that was the Brothers Crane, aka Frasier and Niles. The new series (10 episodes in all) has Frasier returning to Boston and living with Freddy, his now-adult son. (The first two episodes of the season will also air Oct. 17 on CBS.)

“Lessons in Chemistry” (Oct. 13 on Apple TV+): Brie Larson stars as a frustrated 1960s scientist who lands a gig hosting a TV cooking show, which she uses as a platform to educate viewers about chemistry. Adapted from the zippy 2022 novel of the same name. Beau Bridges also stars.

“Fellow Travelers” (Oct. 29 on Showtime): Part epic love story, part political thriller, the limited series is about the “clandestine romance of two very different men who meet in McCarthy-era Washington,” and follows the pair over the next four decades. Starring Matt Bomer (“White Collar”) and Jonathan Bailey (“Bridgerton”).

Tribune News Service

Column: The Hollywood writers’ strike is over. What happens now?

Chicago Tribune — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 18:22:24 +0000

By Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune

Now that the strike by the Writers Guild of America, which began in May, appears to be over, what happens now?

The WGA’s nearly 12,000 members have until Oct. 9 to ratify the contract. Here are some of the details, as outlined on the WGA website:

Baseline minimum wages will go up 5% once the contract is ratified. They will go up an additional 4% in the spring of 2024 and 3.5% the following year.
Artificial intelligence was a major sticking point and here’s what both sides agreed to: “AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material under the (contract), meaning that AI-generated material can’t be used to undermine a writer’s credit or separated rights.”
There will be a new viewership-based streaming pay bonus applied to TV shows and movies “that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release.”
That also means streamers have agreed to provide to the WGA, “subject to a confidentiality agreement, the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high budget streaming programs (e.g., a Netflix original series).” That’s a relatively limited slice data (streamers use all kinds of metrics to assess value, including things like completion rate) but it is the first time any amount of streaming transparency has been codified in a contract. For the rest of us who won’t be privy to this confidential information, the data may still be murky.

Up next is getting a contract for actors, represented by SAG-AFTRA, who remain on strike. WGA members are likely to continue picketing with them, though it is unclear whether or not writers will return to work even if actors are still on strike.

Striking WGA (Writers Guild of America) members picket with striking SAG-AFTRA members outside Netflix studios on September 22, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Chances are, a deal with actors will happen quickly as well. Everyone wants to get back to work and if the studios were motivated enough to agree to a mutually agreeable contract with writers after all this time, it’s probably safe to assume they’re ready to wrap this up with actors too.

Once that happens, that means crew members — who have also been out of work during much of the strike — will be back on the job again. So this is good news for everyone working in the film industry, including exhibitors who are probably breathing a sigh of relief as well.

Talk shows — late-night and daytime — will likely be back on TV first. “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” returns with new episodes Monday, Oct. 2. One has to wonder what the atmosphere will be like for returning staff at “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” after allegations of a toxic workplace were reported earlier this month, and at “The Drew Barrymore Show,” after the host initially planned to move forward with her show earlier this month despite the strike, only to change her mind after the decision personally garnered her bad press and pushback from the WGA.

As for scripted series, it will take a little time for things to ramp back up. On network TV, we probably won’t see new episodes of weekly shows returning until sometime in the new year. Instead of a typical 22-episode season for shows such as “Chicago Fire” and the like, expect a 13-episode season starting in the winter. In terms of writers getting the season mapped out and those first scripts polished and ready to shoot, the numbers I’m hearing are in the 8 to 10-week neighborhood.

On the streaming side, it means every show that has halted production — including “Stranger Things” — will resume once actors are also free to return to work. Shows that were in development but paused during the strike are also back in the game. Streaming is a precarious business and there’s always the chance that executives will decide to simply move on from any number of projects that were in various stages of development when the strikes began. Then again, streamers also have a pipeline problem: They don’t have an endless backlog of new shows, which they’re going to need in 2024, even if that number will be significantly lower than in years past.

What to stream: A grab bag of new releases and returning reality shows

Tribune News Service — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 18:39:36 +0000

Katie Walsh | Tribune News Service

Thankfully, the Writers Guild of America and major Hollywood studios reached a tentative agreement over the weekend, ending 146 days of picketing. While pencils are not back up again for the TV and film writers in the guild, it’s a great sign for progress, and new productions will likely begin soon.

There’s still an interesting grab bag of new stuff to stream this week, from spinoff miniseries to long-standing reality TV favorites, to other curios available on streamers. So let’s check out what’s new this week.

First up, the “John Wick” prequel “The Continental: From the World of John Wick” is a three-part miniseries that premiered last week on Peacock, with Episodes 2 and 3 dropping Friday, Sept. 29, and Friday, Oct. 6, respectively. The miniseries focuses on the mysterious hotel for assassins that features in the Wick movie franchise, and takes place in the 1970s, offering ample opportunity to play in the styles of kung fu and blaxploitation. Colin Woodell of “The Flight Attendant” and “Ambulance” stars as a young Winston Scott (played by Ian McShane in the movies). The only hang-up? No Keanu Reeves, and franchise director Chad Stahelski is also not behind the camera. But if you’re jonesing for the kind of shoot-em-ups that “John Wick” provides, check it out on Peacock, or stream the first three “John Wick” movies there.

Rose Matafeo in a scene from “Starstruck,” which returns this week for its third season. (Mark Johnson/HBO Max/TNS)

On Thursday, Sept. 28, the third season of Rose Matafeo’s charming rom-com “Starstruck” streams on Max. The series stars Matafeo as a nanny who finds out she’s had a one-night stand with a famous actor, Tom Kapoor (Nikesh Patel). In the third season, Jessie has to part ways with Tom but finds love in some other interesting places. This screwball comedy will scratch that rom-com itch so tune in on Thursday for the new season on Max.

Wes Anderson may have had the delightful “Asteroid City” in theaters this summer but on Wednesday, Sept. 27, another film that he wrote and directed streams on Netflix. “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is a 37-minute short film based on the book by Roald Dahl, and it stars an insane lineup of storied English actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes and Dev Patel. This is not one to be missed, and it’s a delightfully bite-sized serving of Anderson. Stream it on Wednesday.

But for the more reality-minded among us, there are some new seasons of long-running favorites to tune into as well. First up, the new season of “Love is Blind” on Netflix, casts singles from Houston for the addictive dating experiment hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey. Tune in to see if love is truly blind once the couples emerge from the pods. The first four episodes of the new season are already streaming.

Finally, on Wednesday, Sept. 27, one of the original blockbuster reality series is still going strong with its 45th season. That’s right, there’s a new season of “Survivor” on CBS. Yes, they are still in Fiji, but the game is now shorter, faster and more complex than ever. Tune in to CBS or on Paramount+ to check out the ever-evolving survival series. It’s worth it.

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(Katie Walsh is the Tribune News Service film critic and co-host of the “Miami Nice” podcast.)