Monthly Archives: January 2023

Jan 27 2023
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DVDs, Pop Culture, Television

The Entertainment Forecast

Jan. 27 – Feb. 4

Top picks to watch & more!

Buffy’s back, Jason Segel’s a shrink & Ryan Seacrest’s scary nanny tale

Sarah Michelle Gellar returns to TV in ‘Wolf Pack.’

All times Eastern.

FRIDAY, Jan. 27
Wolf Pack
Buffy’s back! Kinda. A teenage boy and girl find their lives changed forever when a raging California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature. The new series stars Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sarah Michelle Gellar, plus Rodrigo Santoro, Armani Jackson and Bella Shepard (Paramount+).

You People
Jonah Hill, David Duchovny, Nia Long, Rhea Pearlman, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Eddie Murphy and Elliott Gould star in this new comedy flick about culture clashes and intergenerational differences between a new couple and their families (Netflix).

Shrinking
A grieving therapist (Jason Segel) starts to break the rules when he tells his clients exactly what he’s thinking, making tumultuous changes in their lives as well as his own. With Harrison Ford and Jessica Williams (Apple TV+).

SATURDAY, Jan. 28
Frozen Planet II
Brrrrrrrrr! Venture into some of the Earth’s coldest, most remote places in this sequel series to the original, more than a decade ago, to observe (and learn from) the amazing species that live and thrive there. Narrated, of course, by David Attenborough, the “voice” of BBC nature docs…who else? (8 p.m., BBC America and AMC+).

NOW HEAR THIS

The sweet, soulful, socially conscious sound of one of America’s most celebrated singer-songwriters travels through time in Marvin Gaye’s Greatest Hits Live in 1976 (Mercury). The remastered release, available on vinyl and CD and originally recorded in Amsterdam, features more than 20 tracks, including performance of “What’s Going On,” “Save the Children,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “It Takes Two.”

The iconic poet of a generation is now 81, but his music is still going strong in Bob Dylan’s Fragments (Sony). The five-disc collection from the acclaimed Dylan Bootleg Series features songs-in-progress and other tracks that were eventually recorded for his mid-career masterpiece, Time Out of Mind, including “Make You Feel My Love.”  

SUNDAY, Jan. 29
Fire Country
Is it getting hot in here? Or is it just this new drama series, starring Seal Team’s Max Thierot as a hunky young ex-con seeking redemption (and early release) by joining a prison firefighting program in Northern California? (10 p.m., CBS).

MONDAY, Jan. 30
Watchful Eye
Ryan Seacrest is one of the producers of this new series about a young woman (Mariel Molino) who takes a job as a nanny for an affluent family, soon discovering that everyone in the building has dark secrets and ulterior motives (9 p.m., Freeform)

Bake It Till You Make It
Contestants enter their cakes in one of the biggest events on the competitive-cooking calendar, Atlanta’s Ultimate Sugar Show (9 p.m., Food Network).

TUESDAY, Jan. 31
Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World
Everything stars somewhere, and this insightful four-part documentary series recounts the origins of the bold and revolutionary musical format that became a cultural phenomenon, featuring interviews with rap icons Chuck D, Ice-T, Run DMC, will.i.am, Cypress Hill and many more (check listings, PBS).

Pamela: A Love Story
New documentary humanizes Pamela Anderson, above, who became one entertainment world’s most famous blonde bombshells—the actress, model and Baywatch star whose marriage to rock drummer Tommy Lee didn’t last…but their stolen sex tape sure did (Netflix).  

BRING IT HOME

They’re young, they’re in love and they eat people. The acclaimed Bones And All (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment) is a road movie, a love story and a tale of two young outcasts (Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell) on the move for their next meal, served extremely rare. Who’s hungry?

THURSDAY, Feb. 2
The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder
Second season of the dramatic/comedy series about the Black experience begins tonight, with Gabrielle Union, Chance the Rapper, Leslie Odom Jr., Anthony Anderson, Holly Robinson Peete, Maury Povich and more (Disney +)

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
The hit movie comes to streaming tonight, starring Angela Bassett, left, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, and emotional flashback scenes with the late Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman (Disney+).

18 ½
New Watergate-themed real-life dramedy—a companion of sorts to the limited series Gaslit—follows a young woman (Willa Fitzgerald) in the Nixon White House who tries to leak the president’s notoriously incriminating tape to a reporter. With Bruce Campbell as Nixon, plus Richard Kind, Jon Cryer and John Magaro (5:11 p.m., Starz).

The Reading
New thriller produced by Lee Daniels stars Mo’Nique Hicks as a recent widow who stirs up an evil spirit with her book about her family’s loss (BET+).

Jan 20 2023
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Television

The Entertainment Forecast

Jan. 20 – Jan. 26

Top picks to watch on broadcast TV and streaming

The origins of Iron Man, suspicious Playboy murders & Natasha Lyonne knows when you’re lying!

See how it all began with ‘Iron Man’ on The Wonderful World of Disney Sunday night, Jan. 22.

All times Eastern.

FRIDAY, Jan. 20
Truth Be Told
Octavia Spencer returns to the role of investigative reporter-turned-true-crime podcaster Poppy Scoville to take on a new case in season three of the acclaimed, NAACP award-winning drama. With Gabrielle Union (Apple TV+).

Real Time with Bill Maher
The talk-show host/comedian begins his 21st season with more guests, panelists and prickly topics (10 p.m., HBO).

SATURDAY, Jan. 21
Love & Marriage: DC
A new power couple joins the group of the reality show in season two, from producer Oprah Winfrey, exploring romance in Washington (8 p.m., Own).

BRING IT HOME

Santa opens up a big bag of holiday whoopass in Violent Night (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment). Stranger Things‘ David Harbour stars as a St. Nick pushed way past cookies and milk when he finds himself in the middle of a violent home invasion. It’s rollicking, naughty-nice fun.

SUNDAY, Jan. 22
Accused
Collection of stories of crime and punishment is based on a hit BBC series, with each tale presented from the defendant’s point of view—and you watch as the wheels of justice spin. (9 p.m., Fox).

The Wonderful World of Disney: Iron Man
Well, it’s a few thousand pop-cultural miles away from Peter Pan, Snow White and The Jungle Book, but tonight’s franchise-launching superhero saga (from 2008) is a slam-bang comic-book fairy tale sprung to big-screen life as a billionaire-genius industrialist (Robert Downey Jr.) builds a metal suit and becomes a global crime-fighter (8 p.m., ABC).

MONDAY, Jan. 23
The Lazarus Project
Imagine a secret organization, one that has figured out to turn back the hands of time whenever humanity is threatened with extinction. This eight-episode drama series ponders the existential question: If you had the power to change the past, would you? Should you? (9 p.m., TNT). 

Judy Justice
Manhattain’s honorable Judy Sheindlin—formerly known as simply Judge Judy, who began her TV sessions way back in 1996—arbitrates a new slate of small-claim cases with wisdom-tempered wit, candor and honesty (Amazon Freevee).


The Playboy Murders
Former Playboy bunny Holly Madison hosts this true-crime anthology series probing the dark side of the popular men’s magazine—and a series of murders and mysteries that intersected with it (ID and Discovery+). 

TUESDAY, Jan. 24
How I Met Your Father
Comedy series returns for a second season with Hilary Duff (left) recounting to her son how she met his papa in her younger years. With Kim Cattrall, Ashley Reyes and Josh Peck (Hulu).

American Masters: Roberta Flack
An intimate look at the music icon following her career from a piano lounge to the top of the charts, with such hits as “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly.” Features interviews from Flack, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Peabo Bryson and more (9 p.m., PBS).

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 25
Grown-ish
Junior isn’t making enough money, so he starts up a new stock market side hustle, while Lauryn stops singing to focus on finding more substantial work (10:30 p.m., Freeform).

THURSDAY, Jan. 26
The 1619 Project
Six-part streaming docuseries looks at the institution of slavery and traces its historical consequences in the development of America (Hulu).


She knows when you’re not telling the truth!

Poker Face
Natasha Lyonne stars in this new streaming series as a young woman with an uncanny ability tell when someone is lying, who becomes a crime-solver in different places and scenarios for each episode. Guest appearances by Tim Blake Nelson, Adrien Brody, Nick Nolte and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Peacock).

—Neil Pond

Jan 13 2023
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Television

The Entertainment Forecast

Jan. 13 – Jan. 19

Top picks to watch & more!

All times Eastern.

Dog Gone. Rob Lowe as John in Dog Gone. Cr. Bob Mahoney/Netflix © 2022.

FRIDAY, Jan. 13
Dog Gone
Rob Lowe and Kimberly Williams star in this network movie about a father’s desperate search for his son and his canine when they become lost hiking the Appalachian trail (Netflix).

Super League: The War for Football
Documentary documents the high-stakes battle put into play when plans for a breakaway league emerges and the fate and future of European football hangs in the balance (Apple TV+).

SATURDAY, Jan. 14
Six Minutes to Glory: The HBCU Band Experience
Documentary series spotlights Black marching bands of HBCU (Historically Black Colleges & Universities) in a high-stakes halftime competition in Atlanta, Ga. (8 p.m., Aspire TV).

SUNDAY, Jan. 15
The Critics Choice Awards
Chelsea Handler hosts this freewheeling movie-awards event, voted by print and broadcast critics, which has become a bellwether for the Oscars. And actor Jeff Bridges will receive the org’s Lifetime Achievement Award (7 p.m., The CW). 


The Last of Us
Twenty years after civilization has been destroyed, a hardened survivor (Pedro Pascal) embarks on a brutal journey with a teenage girl (Bella Ramsey) in this apocalyptic-adventure series (9 p.m., HBO).


Meet the (older) women looking for love in ‘Milf Manor’!

Milf Manor
Here’s a new twist on dating shows: A group of 40-to-60-year-old women compete for hot young(er) hunks at a posh beachside resort in Mexico. Hubba hubba! (10 p.m., TLC).

Your Honor
Bryan Cranston returns for season two of the taut crime drama, as his character (a former federal judge) faces new complications with an old nemesis, crime boss Jimmy Baxter (Michael Stuhlbarg), and the arrival of a prosecutor (Rosie Perez) determined to get to the bottom of things (9 p.m., Showtime).  0tfc

MONDAY, Jan. 16
The Price of Glee
Discover the harsh downside of the fame—endless scandals, tabloid gossip and fatal tragedies—that came with the hit musical series Glee in this three-part limited series (9 p.m., ID).


The Miracle Workers: End Times
It’s a miracle. Well, maybe, not exactly. But it is the newest installment of the caustically witty series in which the same actors (Daniel Radcliffe, Steve Buscemi, Geraldine Viswanathan and Karan Soni) return each season, but as all-new characters in brand-new scenarios. This one is set in a dystopian future overrun with radioactive mutants, killer robots and a tyrannical homeowner’s association with outrageous fees (10 p.m., TBS).

TUESDAY, Jan. 17
9-1-1: Lone Star
Join the emergency response units of Austin, Texas, in season four of this drama-series spinoff of the hit L.A.-based 9-1-1 (8 p.m., Fox).


The Hammer
Reba McEntire reunites in this network original movie with her former TV costar Melissa Peterman to play an outspoken, no-nonsense lawyer appointed as a traveling judge in Nevada—based on a real character, and a true story (8 p.m., Lifetime).

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 18
The Cupcake Guys
Find out how a pair of NFL football stars (former Tennessee Titans teammates Brian Griffin and Brian Orakpo) became bakery kings, owning and operating their own franchise of Gigi’s Cupcakes in Austin, Texas (Roku Channel).


Grown-ish
Zoey and Aaron have an unexpected run-in at the San Francisco airport, making them re-evaluate the pros and cons of long-distance relationships (10:30 p.m., Freeform).

THURSDAY, Jan. 19
Are You the One?
Kamie Crawford hosts season two of this big-budget dating competition series, which offers a houseful of recently single men and women from all over the world opportunities to find their soulmates—and split a massive cash prize (Paramont+).

New faces reboot ‘That 70s Show’ two decades later: Mace Coronel, Callie Haverda, Ashley Aufderheide, Reyn Doi, Maxwell Acee Donovan and Sam Morelos

That 90s Show
It’s back! Sort of. This spinoff (of the teen sitcom That ‘70s Show) returns now 15 years later, a bit older and wiser, but just as wildly funny. Starring anew generation of “kids” in the setting of Point Place, Wisc. (Netflix).

Jan 06 2023
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Books, DVDs, Television

The Entertainment Forecast

Jan. 6 – 12

The week’s top picks for TV, books and home entertainment

Dan Rather interviews Trisha Yearwood as part of an all-day programming block about country music’s most acclaimed female artists.

FRIDAY, Jan. 6


All the Single Ladies
Taking its title from the Beyonce hit, this new unscripted reality series features Black women across the nation discussing intimacy, dating, sex and love in the modern world (9 p.m., Own).

Rose (left) is one of the “Single Ladies” in the new series taking its title from the Beyonce hit.

Boys in Blue
Docuseries follows a high school football team coached by officers in Minneapolis following the police killing of George Floyd (8 p.m., Showtime). The Pale Blue Eye
Christian Bale stars as a detective investigating a savage murder at an 1830s military academy (Netflix)

SATURDAY, Jan. 7
Svengoolie Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie
The classic kooky spooky-movie series expands tonight to two and a half hours, with more corny jokes, fan mail, interviews, special guests and surprises. Tonight’s film is the Vincent Price/Boris Karloff classic The Raven, which includes in its cast a very young Jack Nicholson! (8 p.m., MeTV).

The Women of Country
Shania Twain, Dolly Parton, Trisha Yearwood, Wynonna Judd, Lady A, Tanya Tucker and more are featured this all-day programming “stack” of specials, interviews and concert events from country music’s top female artists (begins 12 p.m., AXS TV).

Alert
New police procedural set in the Philadelphia PD’s Missing Persons department stars Hawaii Five-O’s Scott Caan and Diana Ramirez (right) from Devious Maids (8 p.m., Fox).

SUNDAY, Jan. 8
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches
This new series in the “Anne Rice Immortal Universe” is based on the best-selling author’s best-selling trilogy, Lives of Mayfair Witches, focusing on a young neurosurgeon (Alexandra Daddario) who discovers she’s the unlikely heir to a supernaturally gifted family (9 p.m., AMC and AMC+).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Singing legend Roberta Flack details the beginning of her love of music (and the roots of her tremendous talent) in The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music (Anne Schwartz Books). About how she started with a beat-up piano her father found in a junkyard, it’s written and illustrated for young kids, but the testimony is ageless: Music can change lives. It certainly did for the “Killing Me Softly with His Song” superstar.

MONDAY, Jan. 9
NCIS Crossover
If you can’t get enough of crime procedurals, well, tonight’s your night. Tune for this three-hour TV event in which the casts and plotlines of NCIS, NCIS: Hawali and NCIS Los Angeles intersect and overlap (8 p.m., CBS).

I Didn’t See You There
Acclaimed documentary takes viewers inside the life of a disabled person, using only footage shot from his personal perspective in a wheelchair, often “invisible” to those around him. It’s moving and mesmerizing (10 p.m., PBS).

TUESDAY, Jan. 10
The Rookie
The search for a missing boy leads the team into the middle of a dangerous drug war between two rival gangs. With Nathan Fillion and Alyssa Diaz (8 p.m., ABC).

NEW ON DVD

Get reacquainted with country star Tanya Tucker in The Return of Tanya Tucker (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), an insightful documentary about the “Delta Dawn” singer on her recent comeback trail, aided by Americana singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile.

Dwayne Johnson brings a new superhero to the screen in Black Adam (Warner Bros Home Entertainment), based on a character that originally appeared in the 1940s and reappeared in the 1970s as a bad guy, an archenemy to Captain Marvel and other Marvel superheroes. Pssssst: He’s still a badass, just not so bad anymore.

She Said (Universal Home Entertainment) is the riveting true-life story of two intrepid New York Times reporters (Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan) broke open the story of Hollywood’s biggest sexual abuser, Harvey Weinstein.

WEDNESDAY, June 11
Celebrity Name That Tune
Star contestants test their musical knowledge in a new season of this one-hour game show hosted by Jane Krakowski (9 p.m., Fox).

Superkitties
If your kid’s a cat person, they’ll love this new animated series about four cute and cuddly kittens—with superpowers! Mee-oww, it sounds marvelous! (10.30 a.m., Disney Channel).

The Traitors
Actor Alan Cumming hosts this new streaming competition in which a group of 20 contestants vie for a sizeable cash prize. The catch, though—three of them are “traitors” trying to devise a deceitful plan to cheat and steal their way to victory (Peacock).

THURSDAY, June 12

The Vikings are coming…back!

Vikings: Valhalla
The gritty hit series returns for a second season of 11th century Scandinavian raids, sword-rattling and ice-covered adventure. Sam Corlett stars as legendary explore Leif Eriksson (Netflix).

How I Caught My Killer
New true-crime docuseries highlight real-life stories of unique homicides and the crucial clues that help crack each case (Hulu).

The Climb
Actor Jason Momoa and legendary rock climber Chris Sharma host this new climbing competition series, as contestants scale some of the most daunting summits in the world in hopes of clinching a $100,000 prize (HBO and HBO Max).

—Neil Pond

Jan 06 2023
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Books, DVDs, Television

The Entertainment Forecast

Jan. 6 – 12

The week’s top picks for TV, books and home entertainment

Dan Rather interviews Trisha Yearwood as part of an all-day programming block about country music’s most acclaimed female artists.

FRIDAY, Jan. 6


All the Single Ladies
Taking its title from the Beyonce hit, this new unscripted reality series features Black women across the nation discussing intimacy, dating, sex and love in the modern world (9 p.m., Own).

Rose (left) is one of the “Single Ladies” in the new series taking its title from the Beyonce hit.

Boys in Blue
Docuseries follows a high school football team coached by officers in Minneapolis following the police killing of George Floyd (8 p.m., Showtime). The Pale Blue Eye
Christian Bale stars as a detective investigating a savage murder at an 1830s military academy (Netflix)

SATURDAY, Jan. 7
Svengoolie Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie
The classic kooky spooky-movie series expands tonight to two and a half hours, with more corny jokes, fan mail, interviews, special guests and surprises. Tonight’s film is the Vincent Price/Boris Karloff classic The Raven, which includes in its cast a very young Jack Nicholson! (8 p.m., MeTV).

The Women of Country
Shania Twain, Dolly Parton, Trisha Yearwood, Wynonna Judd, Lady A, Tanya Tucker and more are featured this all-day programming “stack” of specials, interviews and concert events from country music’s top female artists (begins 12 p.m., AXS TV).

Alert
New police procedural set in the Philadelphia PD’s Missing Persons department stars Hawaii Five-O’s Scott Caan and Diana Ramirez (right) from Devious Maids (8 p.m., Fox).

SUNDAY, Jan. 8
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches
This new series in the “Anne Rice Immortal Universe” is based on the best-selling author’s best-selling trilogy, Lives of Mayfair Witches, focusing on a young neurosurgeon (Alexandra Daddario) who discovers she’s the unlikely heir to a supernaturally gifted family (9 p.m., AMC and AMC+).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Singing legend Roberta Flack details the beginning of her love of music (and the roots of her tremendous talent) in The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music (Anne Schwartz Books). About how she started with a beat-up piano her father found in a junkyard, it’s written and illustrated for young kids, but the testimony is ageless: Music can change lives. It certainly did for the “Killing Me Softly with His Song” superstar.

MONDAY, Jan. 9
NCIS Crossover
If you can’t get enough of crime procedurals, well, tonight’s your night. Tune for this three-hour TV event in which the casts and plotlines of NCIS, NCIS: Hawali and NCIS Los Angeles intersect and overlap (8 p.m., CBS).

I Didn’t See You There
Acclaimed documentary takes viewers inside the life of a disabled person, using only footage shot from his personal perspective in a wheelchair, often “invisible” to those around him. It’s moving and mesmerizing (10 p.m., PBS).

TUESDAY, Jan. 10
The Rookie
The search for a missing boy leads the team into the middle of a dangerous drug war between two rival gangs. With Nathan Fillion and Alyssa Diaz (8 p.m., ABC).

NEW ON DVD

Get reacquainted with country star Tanya Tucker in The Return of Tanya Tucker (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), an insightful documentary about the “Delta Dawn” singer on her recent comeback trail, aided by Americana singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile.

Dwayne Johnson brings a new superhero to the screen in Black Adam (Warner Bros Home Entertainment), based on a character that originally appeared in the 1940s and reappeared in the 1970s as a bad guy, an archenemy to Captain Marvel and other Marvel superheroes. Pssssst: He’s still a badass, just not so bad anymore.

WEDNESDAY, June 11
Celebrity Name That Tune
Star contestants test their musical knowledge in a new season of this one-hour game show hosted by Jane Krakowski (9 p.m., Fox).

Superkitties
If your kid’s a cat person, they’ll love this new animated series about four cute and cuddly kittens—with superpowers! Mee-oww, it sounds marvelous! (10.30 a.m., Disney Channel).

The Traitors
Actor Alan Cumming hosts this new streaming competition in which a group of 20 contestants vie for a sizeable cash prize. The catch, though—three of them are “traitors” trying to devise a deceitful plan to cheat and steal their way to victory (Peacock).

THURSDAY, June 12

The Vikings are coming…back!

Vikings: Valhalla
The gritty hit series returns for a second season of 11th century Scandinavian raids, sword-rattling and ice-covered adventure. Sam Corlett stars as legendary explore Leif Eriksson (Netflix).

How I Caught My Killer
New true-crime docuseries highlight real-life stories of unique homicides and the crucial clues that help crack each case (Hulu).

The Climb
Actor Jason Momoa and legendary rock climber Chris Sharma host this new climbing competition series, as contestants scale some of the most daunting summits in the world in hopes of clinching a $100,000 prize (HBO and HBO Max).

—Neil Pond

Jan 05 2023
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Movie Reviews

Bot Life

A super-smart android doll makes life interesting—and then dangerous—in this spunky horror comedy

M3GAN
Starring Alison Williams & Violet McGraw
Directed by Gerard Johnstone
R

In theaters Friday, Jan. 6

Back in 1963, Telly Savalas starred in an episode of The Twilight Zone called “Living Doll,” playing a father who buys a talking doll for his daughter. But the chatty plaything becomes a pest, then a threat, telling him, “My name is Talky Tina—and I’m going to kill you.”

“Artificial intelligence” wasn’t such a hot topic in the early 1960s, an era long before smartphones, computerized appliances, interactive toys, Siri searches and self-driving cars. Today we’re surrounded by things that “think,” processing information much, much faster than the human brain.

In M3GAN, a high-tech robotic doll takes over the lives of a young girl and her aunt. Alison Williams stars as Gemma, a computerized toy designer in Seattle who brings her latest prototype home as a companion to her niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), whose parents have died in a tragic road accident. Now Gemma is Cady’s official guardian, and she’s stretched thin with her demanding job and the overwhelming duties of being a new parent. M3GAN (it stands for Model 3 Generative Android) can do a lot of things, for golly-gee sure—but can she take the place of a loving mother?

M3GAN and Cady bond almost instantly. “She’s not a toy!” Cady insists, and indeed, the lifelike doll becomes Cady’s companion, best friend and playmate. She sings, she dances, she reads storybooks in the voices of the characters. She can “read” a room like, well, like a computerized android who knows what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.

And she becomes a fierce protector. Bullying schoolboys, vicious dogs, meddlesome next-door neighbors, corporate males who want to control her—well, M3GAN’s got your number.

This spry, supple horror comedy nimbly slices into our ever-increasing reliance on things that aren’t human but that have become “essential” parts of everyday living. It’s tense and intense and scary without being gory, and its well-placed humor helps lighten the mood of eventual, inevitable murder and mayhem as M3GAN stands up for Cady, and for herself.

M3GAN becomes a sensation and makes Gemma, her creator, a superstar. She’s constructed of titanium and circuitry, with a rubbery silicone coating, but she’s made of pure gold, a sure contender to corner and crush the market for the toy company that commissioned her. (Even though we’re told she’ll retail for “less than a Tesla.”) But M3GAN has other ideas. And when things turn dark and ominous, as you know they will, the movie becomes a gleefully freakish joyride as we wait for her make her next maliciously nasty move, whether it’s bolting on all fours like a wild animal, weaponizing a nail gun or calmly pursuing a soon-to-be victim down a blood-red hallway, wielding a machete.

The film’s stylish horror-show cred is impressive. Williams, a former star of the TV series Girls, made a splash in Jordan Peele’s acclaimed terror parable Get Out, and young McGraw got her start in the streaming series The Haunting of Hill House. One of the producers is Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse franchise gave us Saw, The Conjuring, Insidious and Malignant.

There are respectful nods to the bountiful lineage of other scarifying movies that have come before, from Frankenstein to Chucky and Ex Machina, with touches of Stephen King and even The Evil Dead. As M3GAN mounts her reign of monstrously fun movie terror, the film raises some serious existential issues, most notably mortality itself as M3GAN comforts Cady over the loss of her parents. What is death, exactly? What happens after you die? And, in M3GAN’s case, how can you possibly “kill” something that was never alive to begin with?

It may make you think about what, exactly, Alexia is doing in your home when you’re away. Or if your smartphone is smarter than you are. Just how much do Google and Facebook and Amazon, or your Mac or PC, really know about what you’re doing online?

But if you see Telly Savalas stomping through your house and heading into the basement with a blowtorch…run!

—Neil Pond

Jan 02 2023
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Movie Reviews, Movies

Loud & Clear

All-star cast presents a searing drama about a homespun #MeToo movement

Women Talking
Starring Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy & Ben Whitshaw
Directed by Sarah Polley
Rated PG-13

In theaters Friday, Jan. 6, 2023

An all-star ensemble cast tackles a thorny subject in director Sarah Polley’s powerful presentation of a 2018 novel about the traumatic aftermath of horrific sexual abuse. 

The book was based on actual events that happened in Bolivia, when men in an ultraconservative religious community were arrested and eventually imprisoned for raping women and young girls after drugging them with animal tranquilizers. The film imports the story to America, as a small group of the victimized women—Mennonites in the book, but not noted in the film—meet in a barn during a tense two-day period to decide their fateful course of action for when the men return, out on bail.

There are indelibly potent performances by Roonie Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy and others as the besieged women huddling on haybales to debate faith, forgiveness, justice, morality and mortality, and craft their dreams for a better future. Suffering for years under the heels of a repressive patriarchy that has kept them apart from the “civilized” world and denied them access to education and technology, the women are barely literate. But, with the clock ticking and their attackers returning, they realize the importance of choosing one of the three options before them—staying and resisting, leaving forever, or simply doing nothing.

Ben Whitshaw plays a mild-mannered, college-educated Mennonite who has returned to the colony as a schoolteacher; he’s the only male the women trust, and he’s been asked to take the minutes of the meetings, to create a record. Significantly, he’s the only adult male in the movie that we ever fully see, or whose voice we hear—the lone sympathetic soul in a seemingly soulless place where the other males are either faceless sexual predators, abusive beasts, or enablers of a male-dominated culture that has fostered such toxic, repressive masculinity.

Ben Whishaw, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy star in ‘Women Talking.’

The discussions are fraught with weighty consequences. In this authoritarian religious microcosm, male leaders have told the women that the horrors they’ve experienced are only the fertile stuff of dreams and nightmares, the results of the hyper-active female imagination—and those pregnancies, well, they’re the work of ghosts, or even Satan. And if they ever, for whatever reason, deign to leave the colony, women will forever forfeit their ticket to all heavenly afterlife rewards.

It’s stylish and solidly theatrical, intimately small and intently focused in both scope and setting; it’s filmed in muted, monochromatic colors to underline the somber overtones and the seriousness of the situation. These are women at a breaking point, pushed to life-altering choices about what to do with their lives, how to move forward to ensure the safety of their daughters. As they grapple with the details of their homespun #MeToo movement to move out from underneath a gaslight toward true light, viewers are compelled to consider the wider, larger real-world connections—to women everywhere, anywhere, anytime, who bravely confront injustice and abuse.

Although there’s little action, in a conventional movie sense, there’s plenty of drama as the women do what the title suggests: They talk. They also sing hymns, quote Scripture, shout, and sometimes laugh—and let fly an f-word or two. A familiar Monkees hit, blaring from a car, is a bittersweet intrusion of the “forbidden” outside real world popping—for just a moment—their insular little bubble. There’s even a shoutout to gender fluidity, represented by a young female character who decides—after her rape and miscarriage—that she simply doesn’t want to be a girl anymore.  

It’s not Top Gun or Avatar, by any stretch. Nothing blows up, no one gets shot, and the only high-velocity moment is when a horse-drawn buggy veers off into a field. But Women Talking is explosive in other ways, including how it presents a group of women facing choices that could very well blow up the only world they’ve ever known. As the rest of America is being “counted,” against the film’s backdrop of the 2010 national census, these women are also making their presence known.

A late entry as a contender for one of the year’s best movies, it’s a monumentally consequential, timelessly important film. How important? Frances McDormand (who has a small role as one of the women) and Brad Pitt (who doesn’t) are among the producers, believing in the film enough to put their movie muscles into it.

It quietly, vividly, simply and surely sears its way into your soul, a bold, thought-provoking testament to the revolutionary power that can start with women talking, then mapping the way for themselves and future generations to navigate the world.