Oct 06 2023
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Books, Movies, Music, Photography, Pop Culture, TV

The Entertainment Forecast

Oct. 6 – Oct. 12

‘The Caine Mutiny’ goes to court, ‘The Price is Right’ Meets ‘Amazing Race’ & Edgar Allen Poe gets a modern spin

Keifer Sutherland digs into the case at the heart of ‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.’

FRIDAY, Oct. 6
VHS/85
New fright flick from the director of Hellraiser about a “found footage” videotape that takes a group of viewers back to terrifying horrors of a former era (Shudder).

Shark Tank
The investment “sharks” hear pitches about reusable sandbags, leggings for men and a new twist on Latin American food (8 p.m., ABC).

SATURDAY, Oct. 7
Buying Back My Daughter
Vanderkpump Rules star Adriana Maddox plays a cop trying to track down a trafficked teen in this ripped-from-the-headlines movie also featuring Meagan Good (Lifetime)

Svengoolie’s Halloween BOOnanza
Kick off a month-long celebration of all things ghoul-y with TV’s iconic host, who ushers in a marathon of retro TV chills and thrills (above) beginning with a Bugs Bunny Halloween special, then galloping through episodes of classic TV westerns haunted by all sort of stranger things (9 p.m., MeTV).

NOW HEAR THIS

Get ready for the holidays with Now That’s What I Call Christmas a Most Wonderful Christmas (Sony), with 16 holiday tunes, including classics from the musical vault by artists Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Brenda Lee and Andy Williams, and more recent ho-ho-hummables from Carrie Underwood, Sam Smith, Thomas Rhett and Camila Cabello.

SUNDAY, Oct. 8
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
William (The Exorcist) Friedkin directs this riveting courtroom drama based on the Pulitizer Prize-winning novel by Howard Wouk, with an all-star cast (Jason Clarke, Jake Lacy, Keifer Sullivan, Monica Raymund) in a tense tale of naval officer standing trail for orchestrating a mutiny (9 p.m., Showtime).

The Circus
Political junkies, here’s the next dose of your fix. The award-winning, dirt-digging news series returns for season eight, with hosts John Heilemann, Mark McKinnon and Jennifer Palmeri (below) pulling back the curtain on the high-stakes drama of the emerging race for the White House (7 p.m., Showtime). 

MONDAY, Oct. 9
The Matthew Shepard Story
Subtitled “An American Hate Crime,” this two-hour documentary special examines the legacy of the torture and murder of a gay graduate student 25 years ago that continues to resonate today as a horrific example of the discrimination, danger and violence faced by many in the LGBTQ+ community (9 p.m., ID).

Harry Wild
The Irish mystery thriller series returns tonight for season two, with Jane Seymour as a retiree sleuth with a young PI partner (Rohan Nedd) as they pursue a deepening puzzle involving a long-missing mom who suddenly turns up (Acorn TV).

The Price is Right
On tonight’s new primetime edition of the iconic daytime game show, Phil Keoghan (host of TV’s The Amazing Race and Tough as Nails) invites fans of The Amazing Race to “come on down” and compete for prizes and trips (8 p.m., CBS).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Lee Miller: Photographs (Thames & Hudson) is a new collection of more than 100 shots taken by the former Vogue fashion photographer turned war correspondent. The foreword is by Kate Winslet, who will portray Miller—real name: Elizabeth “Lee” Miller—in the upcoming movie about her amazing, ahead-of-its-time life.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 11
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Jim Carrey is so Jim-Carrey-ish as an over-the-top sleuth specializing in missing animals in this 1994 comedy costarring Sean Young, Courtney Cox and rapper Tone Loc (10 p.m., TruTV).

The Simpsons
TV’s longest running primetime scripted series returns to the streaming service for season 34 and more shenanigans, with all-star guest voices this time around by Fred Armisen, Anna Faris, Rob Lowe, Melissa McCarthy, Aubrey Plaza and more (Disney+)

The Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Jule
Documentary about how the vaping company, at one time the fastest growing enterprise in the world, went down in flames as a cautionary tale (Netflix).

Awareness
Mind-tripping movie from Spain about a teen who uses his special ability—making people “see” things that aren’t really there—to con them…but then one of his scams hits a snag, and he becomes the target of people who want to exploit him (Amazon Prime).

THURSDAY, Oct. 12
Little Bird
Celebrated Canadian drama (below) is a six-part dramatic series featuring a cast of indigenous actors is set on a reserve in Saskatchewan and follows a young woman, Bezhig Little Bird (Darla Contois) on a search to find the truth about her birth parents, her adoption and her slblings (10 p.m., PBS).

Keke Wyatt’s World
She’s been in the music game for more than three decades, and now she’s ready to take her career to another level. Learn all about the R&B artist and how she juggles her career, home life and 11 kids! (WEtv).

BRING IT HOME

Who let the dogs out? In the riotously raunchy comedy Strays (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment) a couple of canines (voiced by Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx) who rebel against a negligent owner (Will Forte). It’s filthy, but it fetches a dog pound full of naughty laughs.

The Fall of the House of Usher
Bruce Greenwood, Carla Gugino, Mary McDonnell and Mark Hamill star in this new horror anthology series (below), which puts a contemporary spin on the Edgar Allen Poe classic about wealth, power and privilege—and dangerous family secrets (Netflix).

The Fall of the House of Usher. (L to R) Sauriyan Sapkota as Prospero Usher, Kate Siegel as Camille L’Espanaye, Rahul Kohli as Napoleon Usher, Matt Biedel as Bill-T Wilson, Samantha Sloyan as Tamerlane Usher, Mark Hamill as Arthur Pym in episode 101 of The Fall of the House of Usher. Cr. Eike Schroter/Netflix © 2023
Oct 05 2023
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Movie Reviews, Movies

The Devil Made Me Do It

New ‘Exorcist’ is a schlocky retread of shocks we’ve seen before, with diminishing returns of disturbia

The Exorcist: Believer
Starring Leslie Odom Jr., Jennifer Nettles & Ann Dowd
Directed by David Gordon Green
Rated R

In theaters Friday, Oct. 6

Fifty years ago, people all over the place were freaking out about director William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. I saw it in a downtown Nashville theater with one of my high school friends and her mom, who was progressive enough to take a couple of 16-year-old kids to a movie swirling with buzz about how deeply disturbing it was, and that anyone who saw it might be opening themselves up to dark, satanic forces.

Well, my friend, her mom and I and survived it, just fine. And The Exorcist went on to claim a rightful place as a horror classic, the gold standard of movies about the ancient belief in demonic possession. It became a brand name, a franchise of five films spread over as many decades.

Now there’s a sixth, and even though it’s an Exorcist movie, it’s no Exorcist. The new fright flick is a schlocky, hyperventilating return to the basics of the first movie, transplanting the original setting of D.C.’s leafy Georgetown neighborhood to the modern-day South (everything, it seems, is filmed in Georgia these days) with all-new characters joined by a couple of old ones, including Ellen Burstyn reprising her role from 1973. There’s someone else, too, but I won’t spoil it.

As Charlie Daniels once sang, the Devil went down to Georgia, and here he does, indeed. Hey, that must mean all the demonic scourge has been purged from Washington, right?

When a couple of young school chums (Lidya Jewett and Olivia Marcum) go missing for several days in their tight-knit, church-going community, their parents (Leslie Odom Jr., Jennifer Nettles) are understandably distraught, then overjoyed when the two little girls are found, disoriented and a bit worse for wear after their three-day trek in the woods. After a battery of medical procedures and psychological testing, their moms and dads—and a devout next-door-neighbor (Ann Dowd)—realize what the audience already knows: Some kind of demon has hitched a ride home inside the two little sweetums.

Norbert Leo Butz and Jennifer Nettles play parents of a real problem child (Olivia O’Neill)

Both girls get progressively weirder in this devilish two-fer before going head-spinning, feral-batshit crazy. The Exorcist: Believer retreads most of the shock-value stuff of the original film—writhing young bodies, blood-stained nightgowns, spooky levitation, a vicious act with a crucifix and droning incantations of religious mumbo jumbo. One of the girls has slash marks on her back spelling out a message that viewers of the 1973 movie will certainly recognize. “The body and the blood!” screams the other, stomping down the aisle of a church service in a ranting reference to the Christian ritual of communion. A character compares what the girls have been through with the sacred mythos of Christ descending into hell for three days between his crucifixion and resurrection.

Eventually, a Catholic priest is called in, but this exorcism becomes a grassroots all-in affair, with two little girls strapped into chairs, hissing and writing and spewing black bile as parents, friends and neighbors intone Bible verses and splash on “holy” water.

Only here, 50 years later, it’s not very frightening, and it’s certainly not terribly shocking anymore. This retread into familiar territory doesn’t do much of anything new, especially when it comes to deeply disturbing viewers, and it crowns it all with a tidy little bow of suggestion that the powers of demons and darkness can only be countered by being a “believer.”

Director David Gordon Green also steered three Halloween sequels, and he collaborated with Danny McBride on the gonzo pothead movie comedy Pineapple Express and TV’s East Bound and Down, Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones. McBride is also one of this film’s cowriters and producers, and this project was hatched during breaks in production of Gemstones, the profanely hilarious HBO comedy series in which he plays a comedically corrupt televangelist.

McBride doesn’t appear in this Exorcist, though, and that’s too bad. Having Jesse Gemstone do battle with a double-dipping demon—now that, I believe, would make for one fine holy hell of a movie.  

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Sep 29 2023
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Books, DVDs, Movies, Music, Pop Culture, Television, TV

The Entertainment Forecast

September 29 – October 5

Emma is ‘Cruella,’ Brits rock, ‘Family Guy’ turns 22 & Milla fights monsters!

Emma Stone stars in Cruella on Disney+.

FRIDAY, Sept. 29
Gen V
What happens at a college especially for young adults who want to become superheroes? Find out in this zingy new series (below) connected to The Boys and starring Jensen Ackles, Patrick Schwarznegger and Lizzie Broadway (Prime).

The New York Times Presents: How to Fix a Pageant
Investigative docuseries digs into the Miss USA and Miss Universe organizations, a recent scandal, and how the “beauty pageants” are struggling to remain successful, relevant and significant in the modern world (10 p.m., FX). 

Brits Rock!
Cool! This block of programming celebrates the music and legacies three iconic British rock artists: The Beatles, Adele and David Bowie (All Arts TV).

Reptile
Benicio del Toro, Justin Timberlake (above) and Alicia Siverstone star in this new network original movie about the brutal murder of a young real estate executive and a hardened detective who attempts to uncover the truth in a case where nothing is as it seems (Netflix).

Flora and Son
Eve Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star in this original drama about a mom, her rebellious teenage son (Orén Kinlan) and how the transformative power of music brings them together in newfound harmony (AppleTV+).

SATURDAY, Sept. 30
Hot Dish with Franco
World-class chef Franco Noriega puts his Peruvian and Italian roots down in the kitchen for some hot-stuff, flavorful dishes in this new culinary series (12 p.m., Food Network).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

It’s never too early to think about Christmas! The Christmas Book (Phaidon) is a treasure trove of the traditions, lore, rituals and spirituality of “the most wonderful time of the year” with photographs, paintings and other pop-cultural artifacts. Santa, Scrooge, snow, nutcrackers, silent nights, nativity scenes—it’s all here, and more!

Fans of ‘80s rock will groove to Police Diaries (Rocket88), drummer Stewart Copeland’s firsthand account of the early days of The Police, the British trio that took over the charts with “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” and many more hits. Packed with photos from Copeland’s deep personal archive, “it’s a big, noisy book about one heckuva ride.”

We know the ocean is big, it’s deep and it’s the stuff of folklore and legend. But Helen Czerski’s The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works (WW Norton) reminds us how the vast sea is a massive aquatic engine, constantly churning with energy, life and raw materials. Read it and marvel anew—and raise your awareness of how this ancient, gravity-defying feature of the Earth’s topography, now faces new, modern environmental threats.

Take an armchair trip to some of the world’s most scenic getaways in The Alps (Phaidon), with hundreds of photos of winter-playground places in France, Switzerland, Italy, AAustria and Germany. Here, you don’t have to be a celebrity—or a wealthy international traveler—to enjoy the views.

SUNDAY, Oct. 1
Family Guy
Seth McFarlane’s classic animated sitcom for grownups returns for season 22 tonight. Meg’s having a baby, Peter takes flight and Stewie gets his rock-star on! (9:30 p.m., Fox).

Jack Osborne’s Night of Terror
Ozzy’s son launches another season of spine-tingling paranormal investigations (below), kicking off with a trip to a haunted hotel in Santa Paula, Calif., accompanied by his mom, Sharon (10 p.m., Travel Channel).

MONDAY, Oct. 2
Spin’s 100 Greatest Rock Stars Since That Was a Thing
You wanna rock? Then tune in for this new docuseries, spotlighting all the greats—Elvis, Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Grace Slick, and many more, with commentary from Dee Snider, Stewart Copeland, Carnie Wilson and other musical icons. Rock on! (8 p.m., AXS).

The Partridge Family
C’mon, get happy! All 96 episodes of the classic ‘70s TV musical sitcom series (below), about a peppy “family band” of rock musicians (led by Shirley Jones and David Cassidy), return to TV beginning today as part of the network’s new “Retro Binge,” which also includes The Monkees (9 p.m., AXS).

TUESDAY, Oct. 3
The Found
Shanola Hampton—she played Veronica Fisher in Shameless—now stars in this new weekly series as a foster care professional searching for a missing 14-year-old, but the case becomes much more complicated than she first imagined (10 p.m., NBC). 

Cruella
Emma Stone plays a young villainess-in-making (who’d grow up to be Cruella Deville of 101 Dalmatians) in this feisty, fab-fashion live-action 2021 remake of the Disney classic (7:50 p.m., Freeform).

BRING IT HOME

Get ready for Halloween with some of the greatest ghouls of all time: Universal Classic Monsters (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment), the new eight-disc set of restored, 4K versions of The Invisible Man, The Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera and The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Plus, an accompanying book is filled with rare pix, and trivia.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 4
Monster Hunter
Not many people saw it when it was released theatrically in the early days of the COVID pandemic. Not you can watch it twice, back to back, as model-turned-sci-fi-actress Milla Jovovich kicks some serious monster butt in a futuristic, apocalyptic world, all based on a popular video game (7:20 p.m., FXM).

Quantum Leap
Season two of the sequel series to the 1989-93 TV drama stars Raymond Lee as a physicist who discovers many wrongs to right after his “unauthorized” leap into the past. Plus, he has a sweetie (Caitlin Bassett) he left behind (9 p.m., NBC).

THURSDAY, Oct. 5
Our Flag Means Death
Season two of the high-seas pirate comedy sets sail tonight, with filmmaker/actor Taika Waititi in the lead role of this swashbuckling tongue-in-cheek tale loosely based on real-life 18th century would-be buccaneer Stede Bonnet (Max).

Accused: Guilty of Innocent
What happens when someone is formally charged with a crime and sent to the courtroom? New season of the true-crime series picks up tonight with more inside stories of people facing the wheels of justice for serious crimes they are alleged to have committed. But did they?  (10 p.m., A&E).

Sep 27 2023
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Movie Reviews, Movies

Meet Your Maker

John David Washington stars in a sprawling sci-fi drama with a mega-message about AI

The Creator
Starring John David Washington, Allison Janey & Madeleine Yuna Voyles
Directed by Gareth Edwards
PG-13

In theaters Friday, Sept. 29

Concerned about robots crashing your car, taking your job, or maybe even ruling the world? In this epic-scale sci-fi war parable, we’re a few bleak decades beyond concern—it’s already happened, and the humans are fighting back against the rising tide of AI. Robots deliver babies, quell riots and work as cops and security guards. But maybe they also set off atomic bombs, and rumor has it they’re making plans to wipe us out completely…

So now, in 2065, the dogs of war are howling and robots are the enemy. When a brassy U.S. Army commander (Allison Janney) gets wind of a super-secret mega-weapon being developed by artificial intelligence, she sends a war-weary special-ops soldier (John David Washington) on a covert mission to find and destroy it, along with its creator.

This wildly ambitious, extravagantly staged dystopian drama depicts a grungy futurarama that doesn’t feel too far removed from the present, just considerably more battle-scarred and damaged by America’s war against the machines—fully mechanized humanoids as well as “simulants,” hybrids that look, walk and talk like humans, but with big, hollow holes through their heads.

And the search for the doomsday device yields some surprises—in the guise of a little simulant girl (Madeleine Yuna Voyles, making her acting debut).Does she hold the key to the world’s destruction, or its path to reconciliation?

Director Gareth Edwards, who also cowrote the original screenplay, also directed the romping, stomping Godzilla reboot (2014), created space-alien creepy-crawlies in Monsters (2010) and put his creative stamp on Rogue One: A Star War Story (2016). He likes big, expansive movie playing fields, and The Creator certainly gives him one. Visually and thematically, it’s a golly-whopper, filmed in awe-inspiring locations around the globe and tackling big mega-themes of war and peace, American imperialism, colonialism, slavery, freedom, terrorism, the weaponization of misinformation and the double-edge sword of technology.

And, oh, the sights you’ll see—robot soldiers, military mega-machines, and squatty, sprinting suicide-bomber bots, like exploding trash cans with arms and legs.

It’s also, at its core, a love story.

You’ll have to wait until the end to see where and how everything ends up, but in the meantime, just sit back and enjoy the show. There are echoes of other visionary movies, sure, from Tenent, District 9 and Blade Runner, to even Wall-E. But The Creator makes its own bold claim to high ground as a meaty, immersive sci-fi spectacle with bountiful bang…and a message about how the key to survival might be simply learning to get along…even when some of us act like we have holes in our heads. 

—Neil Pond

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Sep 25 2023
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Movie Reviews

In the Shark Tank

Edgy erotic thriller puts a relationship in jeopardy in the cutthroat world of Wall Street

Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor star in director Chloe Domont’s dynamite film debut

Fair Play
Starring Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich & Eddie Marsan
Directed by Chloe Domont
R

Opening for one week in limited theaters Friday, Sept. 29 (and on Netflix Friday, Oct. 6)

A tight, terrifically edgy erotic thriller, Fair Play is about a pair of young lovers whose lives are turned inside out when one of them gets a big promotion, just after they’ve become engaged to be married. Luke (Alden Ehrenreich—he was young Han Solo in Solo and singing cowboy Hobie Doyle in Hail, Caesar!) and Erin (Phoebe Dyneovor, who played Daphne on TV’s Bridgerton) are both drone-bee, grunt-work analysts at a cutthroat, high-pressure Wall Street hedge fund.

When she’s unexpectedly bumped into a coveted spot of portfolio manager, glass-walled office and all, Luke’s resentment festers and grows—especially since he was expecting to get the job for himself. He feels entitled to it, mainly because he’s always wanted it. He accuses Erin of dressing like a “cupcake” and sleeping her way to the top. Love becomes loathing, and their relationship gets pushed to frightening extremes.

It only adds to the pressure of them already having to keep their romance a secret, as it violates their company’s ban on workplace dalliances. And as Erin ascends into the company’s elite “boy’s club” of billion-dollar deals, locker-room jokes and strip clubs, she holds her own on the playing field of misogynistic sexual dynamics and office power plays while Luke sits and simmers on the sidelines.

Director Chloe Dumont, who honed her craft on TV series like Billions, Ballers and Suits, makes a terrifically impressive feature-film debut behind the camera, torquing up the wickedly smart tension as Luke and Erin’s unbridled romantic passion (wild, messy bar-bathroom sex!) turns toxic. With both competing to curry favor of the firm’s ruthless boss (veteran British actor Eddie Marsan), their shared apartment becomes a psycho-sexual battlefield. And their second bathroom-sex tryst, late in the film, takes a dynamically different turn from the first.

Eddie Marsan

The movie effectively makes us feel that Luke and Erin do, on some primal level, really love each other, and demonstrates one way love can devolve into lust, emotional assault, raging arguments, sexual battery and even worse. Ehrenreich is always adroit and watchable, but it’s Dumont who grounds the film in a performance so hot it leaves blisters, smoldering like the burning ends of the cigarettes Erin puffs when she’s nervous, sharper than the pointed heels of the stiletto pumps she wears with her power suits. Eventually, you know something’s gotta give—and something’s bound to break. All’s fair, as the saying goes, in love and war, and Fair Play paints a searing picture of lovers on an uncharted collision course in a relationship going madly off the rails.

The abrupt, ambiguous, cut-to-black ending might not satisfy everyone, but this is a movie that certainly gets in your head with thorny issues of sex, gender roles, burning jealousy, greed and the caustically competitive world of work. It’s steamy and sexy as hell, as jagged as shards of broken glass…and as pointed as the tip of a stiletto heel.

—Neil Pond

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Sep 22 2023
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Books, Movies, Pop Culture, Television, TV

The Entertainment Forecst

Friday, Sept. 22 – Thursday, Sept. 28

Benedict Cumberbatch sees a future in gambling, a new book of fun Beatles facts & a visit to John Wick’s favorite hotel

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Wednesday).

FRIDAY, Sept. 22
The Continental: From the World of John Wick
Much-anticipated “prequel” series to the action-packed John Wick movie series (below) drops on streaming tonight, with a three-part series about the characters and the origin of the safe-space hotel for the underworld. No Keanu, sorry. But hey, there’s Mel Gibson (Peacock).

Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court
Four-part series tells the history of America’s highest level of the judiciary system, tracing its history from the turbulent 1950s into the controversial present (8 p.m., Showtime).

SATURDAY, Sept. 23
Stolen Baby: The Murder of Heidi Broussand
A baby was stolen, a murder was committed, and a woman named Helen Broussand was killed. So, what else you need to know about this ripped-from-the-headlines tale of a friendship gone bad (way bad) starring Emily Osment and Anna Hopkins? (8 p.m., Lifetime).

SUNDAY, Sept. 24
Disappeared
Tonight’s episode of the true-crime series focuses on a woman who, in 2019, headed home to Chicago after visiting Iowa to care for her ailing mother—and was never heard from again. As her friends search for her, the case becomes even more mysterious. (10 p.m., ID).

MONDAY, Sept. 25
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test
Do you laugh at the fun and games of American Ninja Warrior, giggle at the naughty-bits contrivance of Naked and Afraid, or scoff at the tedious blue-collar tasks of Tough as Nails? Then you’re ready for this new reality competition (above), in which some sorta-famous people (Savannah Chrisley, Brian Austin Greene, Jack Osborne, Tara Reid, JoJo Siwa, to name a handful) put themselves through some of the world’s most rigorous training exercises (9 p.m., Fox)

The Irrational
Jessie L. Martin (he was Det. Green on Law & Order) stars in this new series as a behavioral science professor called in to investigate the murder of a fashion influencer, leading to a maze of government, law enforcement and corporate misdeeds (10 p.m., NBC). 

TUESDAY, Sept. 26
Savior Complex
Three-part docuseries unfolds the controversial story of Renee Bach, a young American missionary who felt called by God to set up a charity for malnourished children in Uganda—and later faced allegations that she, with no medical qualifications, was treating the children herself. It’s a parable about “white saviorism” and the questionable ethics of foreign aid work done in the name of religious ideals. (9 p.m., HBO).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

There has been a lot written about the Fab Four, but in Wait! What? The Beatles Couldn’t Read Music? (Norton Young Readers) author Dan Gutman offers a Yellow Submarine full of unusual and surprising facts you probably didn’t know about the lads from Liverpool—like John Lennon’s nickname of “Stinker” (because he farted so much), and how Ringo’s grandma thought he was possessed! It’s hip, humorous and geared for kids. 

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 27
Welcome to Fairhope
New docuseries goes small—into small-town America—following a multi-generational group of friends and neighbors in the community of Fairhope, Ala., where everyone knows everybody else…and usually knows their business, too (Hulu).

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Director Wes Anderson puts his whimsical, quirky touches on this beloved story by Roald Dahl about a rich man who learns he can “see” without using his eyes, then sets out to master the skill to cheat at gambling. With Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley (Netflix).

Snake Oil
Can contestants tell the difference between “real” products and fake ones? Host David Spade challenges them to sort out the real stuff from the snake oil, guided by the opinions and expertise of celebs, athletes and other famous folk (Brad Paisley and Will Arnett, above)? (9 p.m., Fox).

THURSDAY, Sept. 28
The Kardashians
Can we ever get enough of them? (Answer: Yes, we can.). But for those who are remain fascinated by the cosmetic-surgery train wreck of this reality-show family, well, here you go. Season four starts tonight (Hulu).

Lego Masters
Will Arnett (him again!) returns to host season four of the competition series, in which Lego architects will face a new battery of challenges, including constructing an explosive volcano and a kitty-cat palace (9 p.m., Fox).

Sep 15 2023
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Books, Movies, Photography, Pop Culture, Sports, Television, TV

The Entertainment Forecast

Friday, Sept. 15 – Thursday, Sept. 21

Married life takes a murderous turn, Batman wings it all day, and Kim Kardashian’s ‘Horror Story’

Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Jenna Coleman in ‘Wilderness’

FRIDAY, Sept. 15
El Conde
Well, here’s something you don’t see every day: A dark comedy set in Chile about a fascist ruler who happens to be vampire and decides the undead life isn’t for him. Think What We Do in the Shadows with a South American twist (Netflix).

Wilderness
A cross-country dream trip turns into a domestic dilemma in this British TV-series thriller as a young wife (Jenna Coleman) stews over the infidelity of her unfaithful husband (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) as marital bliss turns into fury and revenge, with an opening song by Taylor Swift (Prime).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Game geeks, get ready! The first videogame was created about 70 years ago, but now that “novelty” has become a worldwide phenomenon. Game Changers (Phaidon) is the definitive illustrated compendium of some 300 of pop culture’s most influential and iconic games, consoles and more.

Screen Style (Lawrence King) by film fashionista media consultant Marnie Fogg lets you eyeball some of the most colorful, iconic and wowza wardrobe items from iconic TV shows and movies, including Bridgerton, Empire, Downtown Abbey, The Deuce, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Euphoria, Schitt’s Creek, The Crown and much more. And it’s packed with hundreds of full-color pics, helping exoplain how clothes “make” the man (and the woman!) by establishing time and place and character traits, and setting the tone in subtle, distinctive and absolutely integral ways.

Lovers of language (and how it sometimes gets mauled) will love Damp Squids and Card Sharks (Hardie Grant) by Robert Anwood. This lively little volume is a treat for anyone who appreciates mangled phrases, mixed metaphors, mispelling mishaps and other interesting mis-uses and outright abuses of English. 

SATURDAY, Sept. 16
WOW-Women of Wresting
Pull up your ringside seat for season two of this series about the fabulous female grapplers who it duke it out on the mat…if that’s your jam (syndicated).

Batman
Take wing with the Cape Crusader (above) and a full day of movies, include director Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed trilogy with Christian Bale (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises), plus Justice League and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (begins 10 a.m., TNT).

SUNDAY, Sept. 17
Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein
True-crime fans will flip over this new docuseries, about the serial killer and grave robber whose twisted mind and heinous acts of real-life horror inspired the movies Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (MGM+).

The Gold
Hugh Bonneville and Dominic Cooper lead the cast of this new drama (below), based on a true 1983 story about how a group of men inadvertently stumbled across some $34 million in gold bullion during a London robbery (Paramount+).

MONDAY, Sept. 18
Neighbors
New season of the Australian drama series begins tonight, following the lives, loves and challenges of residents on the fictional Ramsay Street in a suburb of Melbourne (Freevee).

The Academy of Country Music Honors
This annual all-star fete, which was held in August at Nashville’s historic auditorium, will salute country hitmakers including Chris Stapleton, Clint Black, K.T. Oslin, Tim McGraw and Mary Chapin Carpenter (8 p.m., Fox).

Superpowers
Sean Penn directed this documentary about Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky and the country’s ongoing fight for its freedom against Russia (Paramount+).

NOW HEAR THIS

Ready for some hard-charging, guitar-slinging retro rockbilly? Brian Setzer’s new The Devil Always Collects (Surfgod Records) is a hip-cat trip to rockville with a new collection of tunes from the former Stray Cats frontman—including a blisteringly groovy take on the old Del Reeves country truckin’ anthem, “Girl on the Billboard.”

TUESDAY, Sept. 19
Celebrity Name That Tune
How well do the stars know music? Find out as more famous folks come aboard for season three and try to win big bugs for their charities. Randy Fox and Jane Krakowski return as hosts (8 p.m., Fox).

The Mask
See the 1994 superhero comedy which began Jim Carrey’s trajectory as a gonzo breakout star, established Cameron Diaz as a leading lady, and made swing music hip again. And oh, yeah, it made more moolah (at the time) than any other film ever based on a comic book (10 p.m., TruTV).

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 20

American Horror Story: Delicate
Kim Kardashian, Emma Roberts and Cara Delevingne are among the cast for the latest installment of the award-winning anthology horror series, which will feature episodes about witches, a traveling freak show, a haunted hotel and the apocalypse itself. It’s scary good! (10 p.m., FX).

The Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal
On March 2, 2023, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of the murder of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. The world watched with bated breath as a verdict was announced. The people of South Carolina’s Lowcountry had been waiting the better part of two years to understand what happened the night of June 7, 2021. Now you can find out more in season two of the documentary delving into that fateful night (Netflix).  

THURSDAY, Sept. 21
Bill Murray Moviefest
He’s done some semi-serious stuff, but Murray will always be known for making us laugh. Settle in tonight for a back-to-back mini-fest of his funniest films, including Caddyshack, Scrooged, Meatballs and Stripes (5 p.m., Pluto).

The Prank Panel In the season finale, the practical-joker pranksters (Johnny Knoxville, Eric Andre and Gabourey Sidibe) help pull off an elaborate practical joke involving a new bride and an allergic reaction (9 p.m., ABC).

Sep 13 2023
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Movie Reviews

Crappy Halloween

The latest Agatha Christie murder mystery is more tricks than treat

Kenneth Branagh returns as detective Hercule Peroit.

A Haunting in Venice
Starring Kenneth Branagh, Michelle Yeoh & Kelly Riley
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
PG-13

In theaters Friday, Sept. 15, 2023

Here’s an early Halloween trick-or-treat for fans of the late, great queen of murder mysteries, Agatha Christie.

A Haunting in Venice brings famed detective Hercule Peroit out of retirement in Italy, pried from piddling in his rooftop garden and nibbling on breakfast cannoli. He’s been coerced—by his visiting American author acquaintance (Tina Fey)—to a local Halloween bash followed by a séance, where things take a decidedly deathly turn. Based on Christie’s 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party, it puts an otherworldly twist on the typical murder-mystery whodunnit and transplants the tale from the novel’s setting of England to the Mediterranean’s iconic “City of Water.” 

Tina Fey plays an American mystery writer who bases her books on Peroit’s cases.

Peroit (Kenneth Branagh) is skeptical about anything supernatural—like the supposed spiritualism of the medium (Michelle Yeoh) who arrives for the séance at the creepy old Venetian palazzo, the site of a former orphanage. She’s there to contact the spirit of a young girl who died on the premises, plunging out of a window and into the canal below. Was it suicide, was she insane, or was she murdered?

Peroit says he doesn’t believe in “God or ghosts,” but an unnerving night in this mysterious mansion may change his mind, especially when more bodies begin to drop—literally.

Venice marks Branagh’s third turn as Christie’s famous Belgian sleuth, following Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and Death on the Nile (2022). He’s joined by an international ensemble cast that includes London native Kelly Riley (she’s Beth Sutton on Yellowstone), Ireland’s Jude Hill (the young actor who starred in Branagh’s Oscar-nominated coming-of-age tale Belfast) and French actress Camille Cottin (who played Hélèn on Killing Eve).

Kelly Reilly also stars on TV’s ‘Yellowstone.’

As an esteemed Shakespearean-molded actor himself, and an accomplished director, Branagh certainly knows his way around both sides of the camera. He’s appeared in more than 40 films and directed nearly two dozen, including his two previous Agatha Christie outings, Disney’s live-action Cinderella, a Thor and even a Frankenstein.

The real mystery of A Haunting in Venice is why such an experienced, Oscar-winning, actor-director feels the need to trot out just about every trick in the filmmaking 101 playbook—odd camera angles, fisheye-lens views, 360-degree circular shots; jerky, jarring edits; abrupt jump-scare “gotcha” jolts every few minutes. There are a lot of ways to tell a scary story, and Branagh was apparently determined to use them all. The movie seems more interested in spooking the audience than in making its characters act and behave like they’re spending a long night with the realization they might be the next victim.

Set in 1947 and partially filmed in Venice, the movie is, however, rich in mood and atmosphere and does stir up some serious issues about the lingering traumas of war. Peroit and a young doctor (Jamie Dornan, the Irish actor who also starred in Belfast) grapple with unseen scars from the WWII battlefield. A young French sister and brother (Emma Laird, making her film debut after a role in the Paramount+ series Mayor of Eastown, and Ali Kahn), uprooted by the war, dream of a better life in faraway peacetime America. They’re all haunted by “ghosts” of a different kind, scarred by the things they’ve seen and done.  

Everyone’s a suspect, of course. So…whodunnit? You’ll have to wait for the end when “the world’s greatest detective” reveals how he solved the case, and then it’s arrivederci. But by that time, you’ll likely have figured out on your own that this overstuffed, gimmicky mystery movie is more trick than treat.

—Neil Pond

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Sep 08 2023
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Books, History, Movies, Music, Pop Culture, TV

The Entertainment Forecast

Sept. 8 – Sept. 14, 2023

The return of ‘The Morning Show,’ the ugly history of busing & a triple slab of Adam Sandler yuks

FRIDAY, Sept. 8
Bella! This Woman’s Place is in the House
Saluting the life and work of firebrand lawyer, social activist, politician and leader of the ‘60s women’s movement Bella Abzug (9 p.m., PBS).

The Changeling
LaKeith Stanfield produces and stars in this new drama series, a grown-up fairytale with a horror-story twist, about a man searching for the love of his life, who has mysteriously vanished somewhere into a New York City he didn’t even know existed… (Apple TV+)

NOW HEAR THIS

What was it like to go to a Fleetwood Mac concert back in the band’s 1970s heyday? Well, you can find out with Rumours Live (Rhino), a time-capsule recording of the band performing all their hits (“Say You Love Me,” “Dreams,” “Rhiannon,” “Landslide,” “Over My Head” and many more) for a “hometown” crowd at the Forum in Los Angeles.

SATURDAY, Sept. 9

Adam Sandler
Chill with some comedy gold from the movie funnyman with a triple-play slate of Little Nicky, Anger Management and The Longest Yard (below) (begins 8 p.m., Pluto).

Back to the Future Trilogy
Hmmm….what to do on a Saturday? Well, how about time-traveling to your couch and watching all three BTTF films in a row? (12 p.m., TBS).

SUNDAY, Sept. 10
The Masked Singer
The landmark 10th season of the popular “disguised vocalist” completion kicks off tonight with a bang, and “unmasked” performance pair-ups by Michelle Williams and Rumer Willis, Joey Fatone and Bow Wow, and Victor Oladipo and Barry Zito (8 p.m., Fox).

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
Latest spinoff of the fan-favorite franchise centers around the character of Reedus (Dixon) as he washes ashore in France and starts to find—and fight—his way back home (9 p.m., AMC).

MONDAY, Sept. 11
The Busing Battleground
Documentary (above) explores the turbulent legacy of efforts to integrate public schools—and the wave of “white flight” that followed—in the 1970s (9 p.m., PBS).

48 Hours
The popular true-crime and justice series goes wide tonight in a new weekday best-of syndication on stations nationwide (CBS and other affiliate networks).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Music lovers will love This is What It Sounds Like (RB Mecia), author Susan Rogers’ fascinating rundown of brain science, how our musical tastes and preferences are shaped, and the way music can set our mood, reawaken old memories and shape our social (tribal) identities.

TUESDAY, Sept. 12
The Swarm
New dystopian drama series taking place several years of unrestrained pollution and relentless climate change, as a mysterious force of the deep starts using the creatures of the ocean as hostile hosts and declares war on humanity (9 p.m., The CW).

Welcome to Wrexham
The reality series—about actors Ryan Gosling and Rob McElhenney’s soccer team in North Wales, the third oldest football team in the world—returns tonight (10 p.m, FX). 

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 13
America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston
The best-selling author and avid outdoor enthusiast continues his trek across the country to further discover how nature shapes the way we work, play and interact with each other (10 p.m., PBS).

The Morning Show
Time to wake up and tune in for the third season with more juicy drama about the New York City TV show still roiling in the aftermath of a sex scandal. With Jennifer Aniston, Reece Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Juliana Marguiles and Jon Hamm (Apple TV+). 

The Other Black Girl
New original series about Nella (Sinclair Daniel), the only Black employee at a New York publishing firm, who comes to suspect that something sinister is going on—and it is! (Hulu)

THURSDAY, Sept. 14
Southern Charm
Pack up and get ready to go south with a new season of this reality series (below) about good-lookin’ young’uns down in Charlotte, S.C., pursuing romance, friendship and careers (9 p.m., Bravo).

Remembering William Friedkin
The iconic director, who died last month, is celebrated with a section of his classic 1970s and ’80s films—The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A. and The Boys in the Band (8 p.m., TCM).

Sep 01 2023
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Books, DVDs, Movies, Pop Culture, Sports, Television, TV

The Entertainment Forecast

Friday, Sept. 1 – Thursday, Sept. 7

‘The Little Mermaid,’ love in the Smoky Mountains & a sordid scouting scandal

Disney’s live-action ‘Little Mermaid’ comes ashore for streaming this week.

FRIDAY, Sept. 1
The Wheel of Time
Season two begins tonight, about a farm boy who may destroy the world and a group of sorceresses fighting his power and madness (below). With Rosamund Pike (Prime Video).

Power Book IV: Force
The hit franchise returns tonight, as Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) charts new territory, capitalizes on his competitors’ weaknesses and makes a play at becoming Chicago’s top drug dealer (8 p.m., Starz).

SATURDAY, Sept. 2
Unforgotten
No, it’s not the Clint Eastwood Western, which was Unforgiven—but rather season five of the British crime series in which London detectives solve a new variety of cold-case disappearances and murder (9 p.m., PBS)

SUNDAY, Sept. 3
Love in the Great Smoky Mountains
Arielle Kebbell and Zach Roerig (above) star as a pair of former sweethearts who rediscover romance while working together on a project in the nation’s most-visited national park (8 p.m., Hallmark).

READ ALL ABOUT IT

You’ll get the “feels” with Motherhood (Tate Publishing), a heartwarming collection of visual representations of motherhood as depicted by artists over the centuries.

A host of vocalist all-stars tell what it’s like to do what they do in The Singers Talk (Permuted Press), featuring more than 70 revealing, wide-ranging interviews, including Tony Bennett, Emmylou Harris, Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, Willie Nelson, Stevie Nicks, Ozzie Osborne and many more!

Fans of everything royal will delight at Queen Elizabeth II: A Photographic Portrait (Thames & Hudson), a splendid collection (and reflection) on the royal highness and her 70 years on the throne, from her first official baby portrait to her Platinum Jubilee last year. More than 200 images, from acclaimed photographers, trace her life and reign, with essays by bestselling historian and author Philip Ziegler.

MONDAY, Sept. 4
Secrets of Penthouse
Four-episode series tells the true story of the rise and fall of Bob Guccione, who made millions as the founder of Penthouse magazine, which challenged Playboy for the girlie-mag market—and pushed the envelope of adult publishing further than it had ever been before (9 p.m., A&E)

Ancient Empires
Three-night event explores the legacies of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra (8 p.m., History).

While We Watched
Strong-stuff documentary offers an unfiltered looks at NDTV, once the bastion of information within India’s TV networks, now spiraling downward in waves of fake news, financial setbacks, creeping nationalism and extremist attacks on truth. It’s a snapshot of a world in crisis, told through the microcosm of one television network that stands as a representative of modern journalism (10 p.m., PBS). 

TUESDAY, Sept. 5

BRING IT HOME

Worlds collide in the acclaimed Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), in which multiple versions of the character intersect in a dazzling spectacle of animated adventure. With Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Jake Johnson, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Karan Soni, Daniel Kaluuya, Mahershala Ali and Oscar Isaac.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City
The reality series returns for a new season (below) with frigid family dynamics, red hot international travel and a shocking betrayal that none of the women saw coming (9 p.m., Bravo).

One Shot: Overtime Elite
Six-part sports documentary series follows the new generation of NBA top draft-pick rookies, led by Amen and Ausar Thompson, Jakhi Howard, Rob Dillingham and Eli Ellis (Prime).

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 6
Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America
How did the Scouts try to cover up one of history’s most horrific sexual abuse scandals? Find out in this documentary, which talks to whistleblowers, survivors and former BSA employees (Netflix).

The Little Mermaid
Disney’s recent live-action re-imagining of its “under the sea” music-filled classic comes today to streaming, with Halle Bailey as Ariel, Javier Bardem as King Triton and Melissa McCarthy as the evil Ursula (Disney+).

THURSDAY, Sept. 7
The Dead Files
Season three of the spooky reality series finds psychic medium Cindy Kaza and homicide detective Steve DiSchiavia teaming up again for more investigations of the paranormal (10 p.m., Travel).

Virgin River
Alexandra Breckinridge (above) returns as midwife “Mel” Monroe for season five of the romantic drama series as the characters face a shocking breakup, a wrenching court trial and a wildfire that threatens their northern California town (Netflix). 

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