Nicole Kidman, Zoey King & Zac Efron star in ‘A Family Affair.’
FRIDAY, June 28 Fancy Dance Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone leads the cast of this new original movie drama about the complexities of being Indigenous women in a colonized world—at the at the mercy of a failed judicial system (Apple TV+)
A Family Affair Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron and Joey King star in this new romcom about the comic consequences of a new romance for a young woman and her mom and her movie-star boss (Netflix).
SATURDAY, June 29 Pirates: Behind the Legends The series about the great plunderers of the ocean wraps up tonight with two episodes, about Blackbeard (above) and Bartholomew Roberts, a Welshman who became the greatest pirate of the so-called “golden age” in the early 1700s (9 p.m., National Geographic).
SUNDAY, June 30 The Great Food Truck Race: Games on the Beach Food truck operators from all over America compete in a series of challenges in seaside locations on the Gulf Coast from Houston, Texas, to Miami (8 p.m., Food Network).
MONDAY, July 1 The Wall Contestants in this new competition battle trivia questions and a 40-foot wall for a chance to win millions of dollars, spurred on by host Chris Hardwick (NBC).
No Scope: The Story of FaZe Clan If you play e-sports, you probably know about the FaZe Clan. This doc looks at the organization and how it became one of the defining stories of entertainment…but not without its costs to its founders (7 p.m., ESPN).
TUESDAY, July 2 Sprint On your mark, get set….go! Watch elite runners train and navigate intense media scrutiny in this reality series about what drives them to want to become the world’s fastest humans (Netflix).
WEDNESDAY, July 3 Bluey Minisodes If you love the little cartoon doggie, you’ll gobble up these bite-size, one-to-three-minute morsels of funny and sweet moments with Bluey and Bingo and the world of the hit animated series (Disney Jr. and Disney+).
Beavis and Butthead Do the Universe The 2022 animated comedy—about creator Mike Judge’s irreverently lowbrow duo that began in the ‘90s on MTV—makes its broadcast premiere tonight as Beavis and Butthead fall into a black hole that sucks them (heh-heh) into the future (10 p.m., Comedy Central).
THURSDAY, July 4 A Capitol Fourth Watch all-star musical acts perform, plus awesome fireworks, at this year’s live red-white-and-blue show from the heart of Washington D.C. (8 p.m., PBS)
Space Cadet Emma Roberts stars as a wannabe astronaut who scams her way into NASA’s space program—and becomes its only hope for a dire circumstance (Prime Video).
Alien invaders descend on New York. So, what else is new?
Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn traverse the mean streets of a decimated Big Apple.
A Quiet Place: Day One Starring Lupita Nyong’o & Joseph Quinn Directed by Michael Sarnoski Rated PG-13
In theaters Friday, June 28
Shhhhhh! Be very quiet—I’m hunting wabbits.” Maybe you recognize that line from Elmer Fudd in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, decades before this horror franchise launched in 2018 with its scarifying tale of space aliens using supersonic hearing to gobble up humans who made any sound.
There aren’t any “wascally wabbits” in this prequel spinoff about the fateful day the aliens arrived, turning New York City into smoky piles of flaming rubble. But there is a calm little feline—Frodo—and a terminal cancer patient determined to make her way through the decimated core of the Big Apple. Because all Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) wants—all she’s living for—is one more slice of pie from the Harlem pizzeria near her childhood home.
Well, alrighty then—New Yorkers must really love them some pizza, even when under attack by space monsters.
Day One doesn’t have the sheer, pee-your-pants terror of the first movie, or its 2020 follow-up—mainly because we now know what we’re dealing with, the aliens’ ravenous M.O. and how steep the odds are stacked against humanity. “We’re all gonna die!!!!” screams one guy on a rooftop, and well, he’s not entirely wrong. A lot of people do perish, although we never really see them meet their messy ends; we just assume that’s what happens when they’re standing there one second, then—whoosh—an alien swoops in and they’re gone. Like hunting wabbits.
But the handfuls of survivors who somehow avoid becoming alien grub never seem very shell-shocked or shaken about the terrors they’ve been through, or the very dire possibility than any wheezy breath they take could be their last. Ah, those stoic, seen-it-all urbanites, jadedly shuffling off to their doom…or the pizza parlor.
Indie director Michael Sarnoski takes over the reins from John Krasinski, who also starred in the first two films. The former actor from TV’s The Office sits this one out on the sidelines, as a producer, and the movie really misses his touch and the star power he brought with his wife, actress Emily Blunt, to the other films. This movie’s secondary cast (Alex Wolff, Djimon Hounsu) is way secondary to the convoluted story of Sam, her jazz-loving late father and the young British man (Joseph Quinn) who becomes her tagalong. But most of the characters, even the main ones, don’t invite much connection or empathy, unlike the imperiled “family members” of the previous films. And transplanting the story from the rural countryside to the hustle-bustle-y Big Apple…meh. We get it: New York’s a noisy place, a cacophony of chaotic sound, a melting pot that now includes aliens from another world. So, what else is new?
And for a prequel, we never learn anything about the aliens that we didn’t already know, or not know. They’re still an enigmatic invading force from out there somewhere, scampering about like CGI spider monkeys, making a mega mess of things and apparently intent on wiping out humanity. There are a lot of jolt-y scares and some inventive sequences, like a life-or-death chase in a submerged subway. But the “suspension of disbelief” is really stretched, not by the armada of alien invaders, but by wondering how anyone could ever get a cat to be in or under water without having it totally freak out.
And maybe you won’t question how, in a city with no electricity, no running water, and almost everything alien-blasted to smithereens, can you still get pizza?
Early in the film, Sam watches a creepy marionette puppet show in a New York theater, just moments before all hell breaks loose on the streets outside. What did that scene have to do with anything? I’m clueless, except maybe it’s because, when it’s all over, a lot of viewers are going to feel like this Quiet Place was really just pulling their strings, drawing them into a franchise that feels like it’s already whispered all there was to say.
Gatlinburg’s Mysterious Mansion reigns as the area’s top haunted house…and it might really be haunted!
If you love getting down with some nitty-gritty haunted-house heebie-jeebies, there’s only one place you need to go in the tourist mecca of Gatlinburg, Tenn.
The Mysterious Mansion is not only the scariest place in town, it’s also one of the oldest, most established attractions in the area. It’s a family-owned business that opened back in 1980, and it continues today as a classic “old-fashioned walk-through haunt,” according to general manager Kenneth Counahan. “We have a dedicated staff that absolutely loves what they do.”
By “staff,” he’s talking about all the Mansion’s employees, but particularly the “characters,” who dress like something out of your horror-movie nightmares and lurk throughout the three-story structure, built and detailed to resemble a decrepit and intensely forbidding Victorian manor. They appear and disappear from the maze-like halls and pitch-black passageways, creep up quietly behind you or suddenly confront you around dark corners. When I went through recently, there was a hyperkinetic young woman who looked like she popped out of The Ring, a tattooed and dreadlocked slaughterhouse butcher wearing a mask resembling human flesh, and a hulking “executioner” who might have been taking a smoke break from working the guillotine. It’s like friends of Jason from Friday the 13th, Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Freddy Krueger moved in together—and made plans to scare the bejeesus out of anyone nervy enough to crash their party. “They’re always present, whether you see them or not,” says Counahan. “My guys are ‘on’ you from the moment you step into the house until the moment you leave, ready to give you that excitement you came looking for.”
There’s plenty of gory disturbia, like a blood-spattered bathroom and a double sink filled with very realistic severed body-part props and viscera. There are spooky stairwells and a fog-filled space where you can’t see where your next step is taking you. You make your way blindly through a closet packed with old clothes and other places where your eyes really aren’t much use. The scare factor is considerably heightened by not knowing what, or who, might be beside you, behind you, or just inches away from your face. There are flashing lights, strange noises, voices, and a lot of jolty gotchas.
“It’s not just walking through and looking at stuff,” Counahan says. “You’re totally immersed in the environment to the point you might question if you’re gonna make it out OK.” And if you get completely freaked in the middle of your “visit,” there are a couple of “emergency exit” doors that will end your tour pronto.
The Mansion is designed as an actual house, a multi-level, many-roomed manor from a long-ago time—and perhaps still inhabited by the spirits of its former owners. Maybe there’s also some honest-to-gosh ghosts, hints Counahan, who points out the house’s location beside a seven-story hotel, where many years ago a young woman fell from one of the balconies to her death. Sometimes, he says, “people tell us they’ve seen a little girl running around the house, laughing and giggling.” Hmmmm… Then there’s the story (perhaps also true) that the Mansion’s current owner, when she was a little girl, remembers a medium coming to the house to “open a portal between this realm and the next, to invite spirits to come and pass freely inside,” and never closed the door.
Most of the staff have experienced things even they can’t explain—footsteps, voices, laughter, shadows darker than the darkness, and a strange “energy” they feel when walking inside. So, the Mansion not only depicts a haunted house, it might really be a haunted house.
“There’s always that question of the paranormal, what happens after we leave our bodies here and what happens to us after our time here is done,” Counahan says. “It’s that unknown, and the excitement of wanting to know, that keeps bringing people back.”
It all adds up to a supremely scarifying experience, unlike anything you’ll encounter elsewhere in the area…and one that keeps visitors to the Smoky Mountains returning for hefty new haunted-house doses of thrills, chills and good ol’ fright-night fun. It’s open year-round, and the staff continually updates the scares and surprises. But be warned: It’s probably too intense for younger kids, even though none of the characters can touch or make any physical contact with guests. And if you’re mobility challenged, all the stairs and narrow passageways aren’t for you.
The Mansion is a particularly busy during October, when people flock to the Smokies to see the fall colors—and get in the trick-or-treat spirit. During the week of Halloween, the Mysterious Mansion may see upward of 800 visitors a day. But any time is a great time to be spooked at Gatlinburg’s original spookhouse, where the hauntings might be real, the ghouls are always lurking, and the staff really enjoys their work…scaring you. “For us,” says Counahan with a grin, “every day is Halloween.”
The Bear roars back, Jessica Alba fights back & Tom Petty comes back (sorta) for a Florida homecoming
All times Eastern.
FRIDAY, June 21 The Speedway Murders True-crime series about the unsolved 1978 mystery of four teens who vanished while working the graveyard shift at a local Burger Chef in Speedway, Ind., and the later discovery of their bodies in the nearby woods (Apple TV and Prime Video).
Trigger Warning Jessica Alba stars as a Special Forces commando who finds herself at violent odds with a hometown gang and a powerful senator (Anthony Michael Hall) in this tense drama (below), which has been knocking around in various stages for almost a decade. Now you can see if it was worth the wait! (Netflix).
SATURDAY, June 22 Tom Petty: Live from Gatorville Concert special captures the late Florida-native rocker’s 2006 performance in his hometown with his Heartbreakers band, his first “homecoming” show in more than a decade (1 p.m., AXS).
Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple Bruce Springsteen’s longtime guitarist gets the spotlight in this doc featuring interviews from Paul McCartney, Eddie Veder, Bono, Joan Jett, Peter Gabriel and more…including his boss, The Boss! (8 p.m., HBO).
SUNDAY, June 23 Orphan Black: Echoes Take a deep dive into the exploration of the scientific manipulation of human existence in this new sci-fi series following a group of women as they unravel the mystery of their identity. With Krysten Ritter, Keeley Hawes, Amanda Fix and Avan Jogia (10 p.m., AMC, plus AMC+ and BBC America).
MONDAY, June 24 Out of Darkness A desperate band of Stone Age humans is hunted by a malevolent, mysterious being in this 2022 horror-thriller parable (below) about our enduring existential urge to destroy what we don’t understand (Paramount+).
TUESDAY, June 25 I Am: Celine Dion Documentary about the Canadian superstar singer, her music and how she deals with a rare neurological condition known as stiff person syndrome (Prime).
Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge Learn all about the iconic designer and her 50-year career as a female pioneer in a male-dominated fashion field (Hulu).
WEDNESDAY, June 26 Land of Women Six-episode drama (above) stars Eva Longoria (who also produced) as a New York empty nester whose life is turned upside down when her husband implicates the family in financial improprieties, and she’s forced to flee the city with her aging mother and teenage daughter (AppleTV+).
Fear Thy Neighbor New season offers more real-life cases of conflicts between neighbors that escalate into all-out warfare and end in shocking violence. As Commodus asked the crowd in Gladiator: Are you not entertained? (9 p.m., ID).
THURSDAY, June 27 The Bear Roll up your sleeves and get back in the kitchen for season three of The Bear, the hit workplace drama about frazzled workers at a Chicago restaurant starring Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bacharach (Hulu).
Presidential Debate President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump face off in their first of two planned debates ahead of the 2025 election. Are you ready to rumble? (9 p.m., CNN).
BRING IT HOME
The new Collector’s Edition 4K restoration of director Joe Dante’s gleefully gizmo-ed 1990s classic Matinee—about a master movie showman (John Goodman) who truly believes in giving audiences of his schlocky ‘60s sci-fi flicks their money’s worth—arrives with a bunch of fun bonus features, including commentary, interviews with the cast, and behind-the-scenes docs.
Director George Clooney’s The Boys in the Boat is a feel-good true story about how in the 1930s an underdog team from the University of Washington went on row, row, row their boat at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Starring Joel Edgerton, Callum Turner and James Wolk.
I once wrote a magazine’s cover story on film noir, what it is, how it began and why it’s still a thing. Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema (Kino Lorber) is an excellent tour of the dark alleys, lonely streets and troubled souls that populated the genre in post-WWII America, with three newly restored classics: Dark City (featuring the movie debut of Charlton Heston!), No Man of Her Own (with Barbara Stanwyck), and Beware, My Lovely (starring Ida Lupino). The collection also features trailers and commentary.
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of its theatrical, the new Blu-ray release of Purple Rain (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment) reminds us of Prince’s smashing acting debut, and it includes commentary and music videos for the flick’s hit songs, including “Jungle Love,” “The Bird,” “Sex Shooter,” “When Doves Cry,” “Take Me with U,” “I Would Die for You” and, of course, “Purple Rain.”
The new Blu-ray edition of director Martin Scorsese’s 1976 classic Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro and a young Jodie Foster, gets spiffed with hi-def remastering and bonus features including commentary from Scorsese, a Q&A with the cast and more new featurettes. (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Groove like it was yesteryear with Revival 69: The Concert That Rocked the World (Kino Lorber), a rock doc about the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival. The all-star concert featured Alice Cooper, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Geddy Lee…and John Lennon with wife Yoko Ono, making his first public appearance with the Plastic Ono Band, and sealing his decision to leave the Beatles.
Is it getting cold in here, or is that just Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)? Now on DVD, the latest in the franchise features a threat that could turn the Big Apple into a giant icebox. Can Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Patton Oswalt and the original GB OGs (Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd) warm up this chilly ghost fest?
Motorcycle gang roars through the Midwest in gritty drama with ring of ’70s authenticity
Austin Butler leaves ‘Elvis’ in the dust on his Harley.
The Bikeriders Starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer & Tom Hardy Directed by Jeff Nichols Rated R
In theaters Friday, June 21
“I’ve never felt so out of place in my whole life,” says a doe-eyed young Chicago woman in this tale of rip-roaring greasy riders in the Midwest, recalling her first time being around a bunch of grungy, wild-ass, hog-straddlin’, born-to-be-wild biker-bar dudes.
Since the odds are that you don’t hang with a motorcycle gang, you might feel a bit out of place too, on the outside looking in at this burly subculture of bikes, brawls and broken bones based on a book by Danny Lyons, a gonzo photographer and journalist who rode with Chicago’s Outlaws Motorcycle Club—the oldest in the world, founded in the 1930s—for nearly five years in the 1960s. Lyons’ book, published in 1968, is now considered a bona fide classic of photojournalistic documentation.
The movie revolves around the relationship of brooding bad-boy biker Benny (Elvis’ Austin Butler) and a romantically smitten local gal, Kathy (Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer), as their lives become more entrenched and entangled in a gang called the Vandals, a fictional group but clearly based on the Outlaws. When the club progresses beyond the margins of society into real crime, Kathy wants Benny to leave.
But for biker clubs, loyalty is a big deal. In the opening scene, we watch Benny get a brutal beatdown because he won’t take off his Vandals jacket, his “colors,” in the presence of hostile non-riders. Later, another Vandal member is harshly disciplined when he expresses his plan to leave the group. There’s a code, rules and an unspoken expectation of lifelong fealty. Staying might not be easy, but quitting is even harder.
Motorcycle riders have long been romanticized and iconized as roguish delinquents, freedom-loving rovers and nonconformist brothers of the road, in movies like The Wild One (1953) with Marlon Brando, the countercultural classic Easy Rider (1969) and even the dopey comedy Wild Hogs (2007). But in the real world, Chicago’s Outlaws and the California-based Hell’s Angels competed in an escalating competition for biker supremacy and notoriety, leading to a “war” with bombs and guns in Canada. The Bikeriders doesn’t go that far, but it does allude to other clubs and rivalries. With an almost tactile ‘70s aesthetic enhanced by an overlay of deep-cut soundtrack tunes from the era (like Gary U.S. Bonds’ “New Orleans,” the Animals’ “Talkin ‘Bout You” and Johnny Soul’s “Come and Get It”), its depictions of the Vandals’ increasingly dirty work sometimes give it the look and feel of a Goodfellas for gearheads, even down to the closing image.
Tom Hardy (left) plays Johnny, the mentor of Sonny.
It’s a scrappy, scruffy world, where baths and dental floss seem to have been long ago replaced by testosterone and booze, and disagreements are settled with fists, knives and guns. The Victors proudly sport the colorful nicknames that fit their personalities and status, like Cockroach, Wahoo, Big Jack and Corky. There’s Tom Hardy as Johnny, the club’s founder and leader, worried about the changes brought by the influx of younger, more volatile members. Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead is Funny Sonny, a hulking hippie biker from California grinning through a mouthful of rotting teeth. And Michael Shannon—who has so far been in every movie ever made by director Jeff Nichols, including Mud, MidnightSpecial and Loving—is the melancholy Zipco, lamenting how the Army once deemed him too “undesirable” to join.
The Bikeriders shows how a group of weekend dirt-bike off-roaders became a bigger, much more diverse and unruly cult, and ultimately devolved into a violent hierarchy of organized trafficking in drugs, gambling, prostitution and murder. But even outside the law, we see how the Vandals are bound by the ties to their community of like-minded outliers, like when they respectfully show up en masse (and unwanted) to a funeral of one of their own.
It’s ain’t always pretty, but it always feels pretty real—and feels true to the book by Lyons, who’s even a character in this film, interviewing and photographing these white guys on their loud bikes and the women who love them, in bars and pool halls, partying, chilling and brawling. Comer, from Britain, drives much of the movie’s narrative structure (through Kathy’s “flashback” interviews) and does a terrific job nailing a Midwestern accent and the brassy ‘tude of a true-blue Chicagoan. So does Hardy, also from England, who deftly wields all the “deez” and “doze” and “disses” and “dats” as handily as a switchblade. Butler, who most recently played a diabolical, ghostly white villain in Dune Part Two, seems to be distancing himself as far away as possible from the sanctifications of Elvis, this time zooming past stop signs, cops and corn fields on a noisy Harley.
Ready to get your motor runnin’ and head out on the highway? This ruggedly authentic immersion into a boisterous biker-verse of yesteryear might not be everyone’s cup of genteel movie tea. But if you’re curious about life in a rough-and-ready motorcycle club, well, hop on with the Vandals. Just bring your own switchblade—and, oh yeah, a toothbrush and some soap.
Get to know Poison’s Bret Michaels, go house-hunting with Reese Witherspoon, & hold on to your car when you visit Las Vegas!
Find all about Bret Michaels of the band Poison in this week’s episode of ‘Biography.’
All times Eastern.
FRIDAY, June 14 The Boys The “boys” are back for season four of the satirical superhero series, dishing out more wallops of vigilante justice to so-called do-gooders doing bad things (Prime Video).
Mama June: Family Crisis Who would have thought Honey Boo Boo would have such a lasting cultural impact? New episodes of the spinoff, about Boo Boo’s mother, spin around issues of declining health, college and legal woes, below (9 p.m., WE tv).
SATURDAY, June 15 Find My Country House Leave the city life behind in this new series from Reese Witherspoon’s production company, in which couples search for their dreams of rural paradise, from high-tech farmhouses to seclued ranches and cute hideaway cottages (12 p.m., A&E).
Yoga Teacher Killer: The Kaitlin Armstrong Story A love triangle turns deadly and leads to a manhunt in this real-life drama starring Caity Lotz, Kyle Schmid and Larissa Dias (8 p.m., Lifetime).
SUNDAY, June 16 Biography Get a backstage pass into the lives and music of some of rock’s biggest superstars in this new series of specials kicked off tonight by Bret Michaels, and followed in coming weeks by Dee Snider, Alice Cooper, Sammy Hagar and more (9 p.m., A&E).
House of the Dragon Season two begins of the Game of Thrones spinoff series (below), a prequel taking place 200 years earlier, starring Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy and Rhys Ifans (9 p.m., HBO).
Sin City Tow If you park your car while you party in Las Vegas but lose track of time, Sin City Tow may take it away. This new reality series looks at the often hot-tempered towing scene in a city where people go to win big, but usually end up losing their shirts…or their cars! (9 p.m., Discovery).
MONDAY, June 17 My Life is Murder Lucy Lawless returns for season four as the fearless Aussie investigator Alexa Crowe as she digs into eight new mysteries and a fresh batch of diabolical killers (Acorn TV).
The Great American Recipe Home cooks from across the country showcase their culinary talents as they compete in this taste-tempting celebration of multiculturism (9 p.m., PBS).
Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown How did the idealistic religious organization led by the infamous Jim Jones go horribly wrong, leaving almost a thousand followers dead in Guyana? This new doc looks at the story behind some of the most horrendous headlines of the 1970s (Hulu).
TUESDAY, June 18 Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution Three-part docuseries puts the spotlight on disco music, its groovy beginnings and its top artists and icons—like Donna Summer, below— and how it became a major musical liberation movement in the 1970s representing female empowerment and LGBTQ+ identity (9 p.m., PBS).
Here to Climb Follow pro climber Sasha DiGiulian (below) on her rise from child prodigy to champion sport climber, scaling the biggest, scariest walls on the planet—charting her own vertical course where pathways don’t exist (9 p.m., HBO).
Hope in the Water Travel the globe in this documentary featuring Shailene Woodley and Martha Stewart as they explore creative solutions and breakthroughs that might be our future of sustainable “blue food” from the oceans (9 p.m., PBS).
WEDNESDAY, June 19 Triumph: Jesse Owens and the Berlin Olympics Two-hour documentary showcases Owens’ historic triumph over Nazi Germany during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. LeBron James is one of the producers (8 p.m., History).
Dynamic Planet Four-part series filmed over three years explores the effects of climate change on all seven continents and their inhabitants, and how science, nature, and Indigenous knowledge can prepare us for the future (8 p.m., PBS)
THURSDAY, June 20 Rear Window Director Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic—about an apartment resident with a broken leg who helplessly witnesses what he thinks is a murder out his window—stars Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly…and Raymond Burr as a very bad guy (9 p.m., TCM).
Slave Play. Not a Movie Provocative documentary takes viewers inside the buzzy Broadway play about race, sex and interracial relationships (9 p.m., HBO).
READ ALL ABOUT IT
When I was a kid, I was fascinated with volcanos—mountains that spewed rocks and fire. My interest was generated primarily by seeing them in the background of illustrations of dinosaurs. Adventures in Volcanoland (Hanover Square Press) is a deeper, far much more fascinating and fact-filled look at these monstrously magnificent mountains, with acclaimed geochemist Dr. Tasmin Mather as your guide to volcanos in history, the science of eruptions, and how volcanos drive our planet’s “constant cycles of ebb and flow, destruction and renewal.”
So you think you know Paris? Not the international Euro destination city, but the Hilton Hotel heiress who became a pop-culture marquee name? Find out all about the life and times of Paris Hiltonin Paris: The Memoir (William Morrow), her autobio now in paperback. From rebellious teen to wilderness camps and sexual abuse, and becoming a queen of celebrity culture, I’m betting there’s a lot you didn’t know about Paris.
Sci-fi lovers will love The First Geeks (McFarland) and its spotlight on the lives and careers of writer Ray Bradbury, monster-mag man Forrest J. Ackerman and effects genius Ray Harryhausen, back from when they were comic-book nerds and buddies in the 1930s…and long before they were household names in filmdom. Ackerman became the editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland; Bradbury was an author highly sought by Hollywood for his novels and screenplays; and Harryhausen went on to become a pioneer of stop-motion animation.
BRING IT HOME
Jeffrey Wright was nominated for multiple awards, including an Oscar, for his starring role in American Fiction as an erudite Black man who confronts racist stereotypes head-on, with a pen instead of a sword. With Tracee Ellis Ross,Leslie Uggams, Issa Rae and Sterling K. Brown. Highly recommended!
Up your nose with a rubber hose! Relive all the heartwarming humor and hijinks of the beloved 1970s sitcom series Welcome Back, Kotter, starring Gabe Kaplan as a grownup graduate of a tough Brooklyn high school now returning to teach there and tame an unruly class of troublemakers, including a young John Travolta as Vinnie Barbarino. The handsome boxed set of DVDs includes all 95 episodes.
Disney/Pixar inventively goes inside the mind of a girl going into puberty, and it’s a wonderfully wild ride
Joy (Amy Poehler) and Anxiety (Maya Hawke) compete for the controls of consciousness in this sequel to the 2015 hit.
Inside Out 2 With the voices of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Maya Hawke & Ayo Edebiri Directed by Kelsey Mann Rated G
In theaters Friday, June 14
Almost a decade ago, Inside Out plunged us into the noggin of a young girl named Riley and a dedicated team of cartoonish characters—representing her emotions—helping her navigate childhood with a healthy balance of appropriate feelings.
In this disarmingly creative coming-of-age sequel, the emotions in Riley’s head are once again led by Amy Poehler as the voice of Joy, the perky, blue-haired leader of a front-lobe squadron of Sadness (Phyllis Smith, from The Office), Fear (Tony Hale), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (The Equalizer’s Liza Lapira). Things are running smoothly; Riley, now 13 and on the cusp of high school, has become a good student, a great friend, a loving daughter and a promising hockey player.
But when a flashing red Puberty alarm suddenly goes off in command central, everything changes. A demolition crew barges in to radically reorganize the control room in Riley’s cranium to make way for the erratic tides of hormonal turbulence—and a new crew of feelings. And Joy suddenly finds herself contending with the newcomers for control of Riley’s consciousness.
As Riley tries out for a spot on the high school hockey team, the new flood of emotions responds to her uncertainties, confusion and awkwardness, charting her chaotic trajectory into a new phase of adolescence. Will she abandon her former friends and hockey mates to hang with the older, cooler players? Will she let her sense of competitiveness prevail over her natural kindness and empathy? Will she keep her cute, little-girl crush on boy bands and videogame heroes, or forge ahead into the more grownup tastes of her future?
It’s a superbly inventive depiction of puberty—how it’s messy, moody and often funny—with a small army of voices behind its characters, like Envy (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), Disgust (Liza Lapira from The Equalizer), Ennui (French actress Adele Exarchopoulos), and Riley’s mom and dad (Diane Lane and Kyle McLauglin). Even John Ratzenberg makes a voice appearance, as he’s done in a host of other Pixar films, as a blue-hued construction foreman. June Squibb is Nostalgia, and the musician Flea is a cop.
But Maya Hawke—yes, the daughter of actor Ethan Hawke—all but steals the show as the hyper, wide-eyed, ever-fretful Anxiety, vying with Joy for the upper hand in Riley’s personality. And if you’re curious about the person behind young Riley, you can catch Kensington Tallman in the recent Max comedy series Home Sweet Rome!
Ayo Edebiri from TV’s “The Bear” provides the voice of Envy.
It’s masterfully clever, charmingly warmhearted and emotionally resonant as Riley’s emotions encounter all sorts of cerebral obstacles, including a literal Stream of Consciousness, a turbulent Brainstorm, deep rifts of Sar-Chasm, mountains of memories and a dark vault of secrets and discarded mental clutter. It’s an immensely enjoyable ride through the mind of a young girl going through some quantum changes as she emerges from the cocoon of tweendom. The Disney/Pixar imagineers have scored another triumph, making Riley’s swirling cocktail of hormones into something terrifically ingenious and totally relatable.
Wee little ones might be challenged to keep up with the frantic pace, the spewing fountain of ideas, the cascade of wit and the generous dollops of wisdom. But older kids and their parents will love this touching, vibrantly entertaining spin on a familiar phase of childhood that tosses us to and fro before setting us on the pathway to adulthood.
This brilliantly zany puberty parable may take place in the head, but it ultimately lands squarely on the heart.
Kelly Clarkson’s a contender, Jake Gyllenhaal’s ‘Presumed Innocent,’ & the Brat Pack is back!
Will Kelly Clarkson reign for daytime show queen at this year’s Daytime Emmys?
All times Eastern.
FRIDAY, June 7 Queenie Dionne Brown stars in this new drama series as a young Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and not feeling like she belongs in either. Based on a best-selling novel by Candice Carty-Williams (Hulu).
The Daytime Emmy Awards It’ll be more than soap suds at tonight’s 51st annual awarding of honors to all kinds of programming—daytime dramas, talk shows, instructional programming, hosting, culinary and legal/courtroom programs—that air during daylight hours. But the show’s at night. Go figure (8 p.m., CBS).
Hit Man Confusion and comedy ensue when a straight-laced professor pretends to be a professional assassin (above). Starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, and directed by Richard Linklater (Netflix).
SATURDAY, June 8 Snowpiercer The final season of the post-apocalyptic thriller series begins tonight, with Jennifer Connelly, Sean Bean and others returning to the remnants of humanity on a perpetually moving train across a frozen wasteland (9 p.m., AMC).
SUNDAY, June 9 Gaslit By My Husband: The Morgan Metzer Story Based on a true story, this lurid tale stars Jana Kramer and Austin Nichols as former childhood sweethearts whose marriage goes on the rocks when his circumstances take a suspicious turn (9 p.m., Lifetime).
MONDAY, June 10 Six Schizophrenic Brothers An all-American family in Colorado is torn apart in this new docuseries when six of 12 siblings develop schizophrenia. It’s a heart-wrenching true story that made medical history (8 p.m., Discovery).
TUESDAY, June 11 How Music Got Free Remember how you used to have to buy music? This docuseries shows how tech-driven disruption and file sharing created the means and the motive for a new generation of young people to participate in outright theft…and be celebrated for it (Paramount+).
Love Island TV personality Ariana Madix from Vanderpump Rules hosts the new season of this hedonistic competition with sexy singles giving off pheromones on a tropical island oasis (Peacock).
Deadliest Catch It ain’t exactly Spongebob stuff as the new season of the docuseries about risk-taking crab fisherman on the Bering Sea begins tonight (8 p.m., Discovery).
WEDNESDAY, June 12 Presumed Innocent Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this eight-episode sexy thriller (above), a remake of the 1990 movie starring Harrison Ford about a legal-eagle attorney accused of killing his mistress. Remember, he’s presumed innocent… With Ruth Negga, Bill Camp, Peter Sarsgaard and Elizabeth Marvel (Apple TV+).
Can’t Cancel Pride Ben Platt, Billy Porter, Melissa Etheridge and others join forces to recognize the impact of music and the contributions of LGBTQ+ organizations and artists in the entertainment community (Hulu).
THURSDAY, June 13 Alone In tonight’s beginning of its new season, this high-stakes competition puts ten seasoned survivalists in the freezing northlands of Canada, equipped with only basic tools to face bone-chilling cold, ice all around and an assortment of predators, including bears, wolves and moose. At the end: A half a million dollars to the last person standing (9:30 p.m., History).
Brats New documentary feature about the iconic, generation-defining “brat pack” movies of the 1980s was directed by Andrew McCarthy, who should know—he starred in many of them, including St. Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero and Weekend at Bernies (Hulu).
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How does Darth Vader keep his Death Star warm? With a space heater! Why do Wookies have so much hair? Fur protection! These and many, many more galactically funny ha-has can be found in Stars Wars Dad Jokes (Chronicle Books), a perfect Father’s Day gift for the pop who has everything…except a ready arsenal of so-bad-they’re good Stars Wars jokes!
BRING IT HOME
Its a classic combo in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment) as the two former foes unite against a formidable threat to monsters as well as men. Starring Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens.
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return for another blast of slam-bang action and ha-ha hinjinks
Bad Boys: Ride or Die Starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Directed by Adil El Arbi & Bilail Fallah Rated R
In theaters Friday, June 7
Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? If you’re these bad boys, you make another movie. Ride or Die is the fourth in the Will Smith and Martin Lawrence action-comedy franchise, which began almost 30 years ago. So predictably, the nostalgia factor is sky-high, with two familiar characters recalling their past as crime-fighting bros while getting pulled into a new adventure involving cartel and cop cross-contamination on the mean streets of Miami.
Quips and bullets continue to fly as the jam-packed plot bulges with a buddy-cop buffet of f-bombs and crude jokes about below-the-belt body parts. It’s often genuinely funny, but the humor coexists in this Bad Boys movie-verse alongside episodes of explosive violence and high-body-count action, making for some jarring tonal shifts. A former cop recalls getting his fingernails pried off as a gruesome cartel torture—but wait, there’s Martin Lawrence in a hospital gown on a balcony, showing off his erection to downtown Miami. Ha-ha, right?
Smith is police detective Mike Lowrey, who mostly plays serious straight man to the frantic goofball antics of his partner, Marcus Burnett (Lawrence). Mike is settling into new married life with his wife (Melanie Liburd, from Ghost: Power Book II), while Marcus fights an addiction to junk food and embraces a new spiritual transcendence after his near-death experience—claiming that, in a previous incarnation, Lowrey was his lowly donkey. And that’s not the movie’s only ass joke.
It gets a bit overcrowded with supporting players, including franchise alum and newbies. There’s Vanessa Hudgens, Eric Dane, DJ Khaled and even Michael Bay, who directed the first two Bad Boys films. Eric Dane (who played Dr. Mark Sloan on Grey’s Anatomy) makes a chilling villain, and Tiffany Haddish gets a couple of naughty chuckles as a randy strip-club proprietor. Joe Pantoliano’spolice captain was murdered in a previous film, but hey, he’s back too, in flashbacks and dream sequences.
It’s a feature film, but the movie’s rhythm and “beats” make if feel like a big-screen sitcom, where the stars are never really in danger and everything can be laughed off by the audience, if not the characters. Country superstar Reba McEntire might even laugh at a scene in which Mike and Marcus—held at gunpoint by a couple of hillbilly yahoos— struggle to recall any of her songs. There’s even a scene that gives a whimsical nod to the 2022 Oscars incident in which Smith slapped host Chris Rock.
And lest you forget the movie is based in Miami, you’ll be reminded by numerous scenic skyline shots, including repeated background nighttime appearances by the massive Observation Wheel on the shores of Biscayne Bay. That’s perfect backdrop mojo, apparently, for planning stealthy counterattacks, making phone calls full of plot exposition and having some serious buddy bonding.
Fans of the franchise will likely lap it up, but anyone not already baptized in Bad Boys will probably sense the sequel fatigue seeping in, as it invariably does to most flicks that try to extend their shelf life across multiple decades. Smith and Lawrence gamely embrace the older versions of their characters, talking about this new phase of their lives while dodging gunfire or arguing about who’s grilling the chicken at a family picnic. But the novelty—of smack-talking buddy cops—has certainly worn off.
They may have once been bad boys, but now they’re older dudes. “Just refuse to die,” Marcus tells Mike, espousing his newfound invincibility after momentarily expiring on a hospital bed. Bad Boys may not ride forever, but Smith and Lawrence certainly seem up for at least one more blast of slam-bang action and ha-ha hijinks.
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