Entertainment

A trio of new TV thrillers can provide some action and escapism this Thanksgiving

Published

1 month ago

November 28, 2024

A trio of new TV thrillers can provide some action and escapism this Thanksgiving

It seems like only the week before last that I was reviewing two thrillers — “Cross” and “Day of the Jackal” — in a single review. (Because it was.) And now I’m going to review three more, similarly grouped. I guess it’s a thing! And there are more on the way.

Why so popular? Thrillers promise … thrills. Even the less good ones can sustain interest over several episodes, if they throw in enough red herrings, amazing reversals, a modicum of action and suspense and an amazing revelation held back to the end of the series like a carrot on a stick. You may be disappointed when you get there, but you will get there.

Doing everything right is “Get Millie Black” (HBO at 9 p.m. PT Mondays, first episode now streaming on Max) — the echo of “Get Christie Love!,” the mid-’70s Teresa Graves detective show, a rare series with a Black woman in the lead, doesn’t seem a complete coincidence — is set primarily in the humbler precincts of Kingston, Jamaica; Tamara Lawrance plays Millie, who was sent away as a girl to live in England, where she becomes a Scotland Yard detective. After her mother’s death, she learns that her brother, Orville, whom she believed dead, is alive.

Suddenly, it’s one year later; Millie is working for the Kingston Police, and brother Orville has become sister Hibiscus (Chyna McQueen), living with a tribe of gay and transgender outcasts in the system of storm drains called the Gully. “Most people would call this place a sewer,” Millie says. “My sister calls it home.” The Gully is a real place; Jamaica is notoriously homophobic — “The most homophobic place on Earth?” Time magazine asked in 2006 — with anti-gay laws still on the books, which keeps Millie’s partner, Curtis (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr) in the closet.

As in most — all? — detective fiction, one case reveals another; suspense springs from never knowing exactly where we’re headed. Millie’s search for Janet Fenton (Shernet Swearine), a missing teenager, is complicated by Luke Holborn (Joe Dempsie), a (white) British detective who arrives from London looking for (white) rich kid Freddie Summerville (Peter John Thwaites). Freddie, he says, is needed in England to help take down a major gang; but he’s a person of interest to Millie, as well. As these storylines collide and various factions jockey for advantage in the wreckage, there will be murders and attempted murders and more murders.

The characters are vivid, unpredictable in a human way and perfectly played. The five-part series feels original, not quite like anything we’ve seen before. Created by the Booker Prize-winning Jamaican novelist Marlon James, it registers as authentic to its place and people, while being true to the noir tradition — tropical Raymond Chandler.

In Netflix’s “The Madness,” Colman Domingo stars as Muncie Daniels, a media pundit who finds himself at the center of a mystery.

(Amanda Matlovich/Netflix)

Created by Stephen Belber, the old-school conspiracy thriller “The Madness” (Netflix, premiering Thursday), proceeds from the Hitchcockian device of a regular Joe who finds himself at the center of, and a suspect in, a mystery, and goes on the run to clear himself, like Robert Donat in “The 39 Steps” or Cary Grant in “North by Northwest.” Alfred Hitchcock kept these stories down to a couple of hours, and I do believe that given the opportunity to stretch out over several episodes, he’d have stuck to two. “The Madness” does its work over eight, which strictly speaking is more than it needs. But there’s a lot to like about it.

Colman Domingo plays Muncie Daniels, a Black, Philadelphia-based CNN pundit and fill-in anchor, who in the series’ opening moments is attacked by a guest for no longer being involved in “the fight,” limiting himself to Harper’s magazine or an Ivy league lecture, when he once ran a non-profit “that took on racist landlords.” The implication, which subsequent comments will make explicit, is that he has lost himself — as one friend says, “going with your career, your ambition, your whims, then lying to yourself about it the whole while.” People are not shy about telling Muncie where they think he’s failing.

A distracted father to teenage son Demetrius (Thaddeus J. Mixson) and adult daughter Kallie (Gabrielle Graham), he’s dragging his feet on a divorce from Elena (Marsha Stephanie Blake). Looking to get away, Muncie repairs to a borrowed cabin in the Poconos, where, almost immediately he finds the body of a neighbor chopped up in a sauna — so much for relaxing. After escaping a pair of masked assailants, he brings the police around; the sauna, you will have guessed, is clean as a whistle. Meanwhile, evidence is being planted to frame him.

Domingo is required to spend a lot of time looking worried or otherwise pained; his stress wears on you after a bit, and so it’s a relief to find him (briefly) at a backyard barbecue, in relative safety. (And the whole megillah does seem to have a positive on his marriage, which is nice.) Also lifting the mood are John Ortiz as an FBI agent, Deon Cole as Muncie’s friend and lawyer and Stephen McKinley Henderson (appearing currently in “A Man on the Inside,” having a season at 75) as a wise old family friend and cigar store proprietor.

The action sweeps through some colorful locations — a chase in an empty theater, a meeting in a colonial recreation village, reconnaissance at a suburban swingers bar — that would not be out of place in a Hitchcock film, if he’d worked into the age of suburban swingers bars. The plot brings in white supremacists, militant anarchists (“basically Antifa on meth with Uzis”) and a couple of gazillionaires, one played by Bradley Whitford, as the trail leads, as it must, higher and deeper, into the dark heart of capitalist America. (“Maybe this is all a bit bigger than you thought,” someone suggests to Muncie.) Of course, these days, the (real) conspiracies seem to be all out in the open, making “The Madness” feel sort of quaint.

A man in a black suit stands and looks toward a woman in a yellow dress and headwrap seated on a blue couch.

Premiering Friday on Paramount+ with Showtime (Showtime at 9 p.m. PT Sunday) is “The Agency,” as in Central Intelligence. Based on a French series, “Le Bureau,” and set largely in London, it has been “created for American television” by Jez Butterworth, a Tony-winning British playwright, and his brother John-Henry Butterworth, who earlier collaborated on the screenplays for “Ford v Ferrari,” the James Brown biopic “Get on Up” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” It is the least thrilling of these thrillers.

Michael Fassbender plays Martian, the code name his colleagues address him by (he’s got a couple of other names as well, used as convenient); as the series begins he’s ordered back, with only two days notice, from Ethiopia, where he has been undercover for some time, to the agency’s London station — which necessitates telling new lies to his already lied-to married lover, Samia (Jodie Turner-Smith). Samia, after some time, will arrive in London, where they will covertly take up again. Coincidence?

Back in London, Martian connects with handler Naomi (Katherine Waterston), whom he has only ever met over Zoom, boss Henry (Jeffrey Wright) and bigger boss Bosko (Richard Gere). It’s not a seamless transition. His agency-provided apartment comes bugged and his movements are tracked. (The scruffy agents assigned to follow him represent the series’ only real attempt at humor.)

Dr. Blake (Harriet Sansom Harris), one of the series more centered characters, arrives from Langley “to evaluate mental health across the department,” and though this seems particularly, if not exclusively, for Martian’s benefit, it’s true that nearly all these folks seem unhappy — with the notable exceptions of Blake, Naomi and Owen (John Magaro), another handler — as a result, they’re the people you’re the happiest to see. Martian is especially a pill, at work, at home with his teenage daughter, Poppy (India Fowler), and even with Samia. We do understand that he’s good at his job and a person of some authority, and torn between love and work, but when has that ever been an excuse?

The series has the strange quality of being under- and overwritten; people don’t talk much, and when they do, they don’t necessarily talk like people: “There are 170,000 words in the English language,” says Bosko. “Each year 2,000 of them become obsolete; they enter the great verbal bathtub of our collective being. Presently circling around that open drain are these words: stoicism, fortitude, duty, honor, sacrifice.”

Of 10 promised episodes, as of this writing only three were made available for review, at the end of which things are only beginning to come together. One assumes — hopes, anyway — that something compelling is going to happen in those remaining seven hours, but the direction is so thick with style and the characters so little developed, that it’s hard to work up more than a cursory interest in anyone’s fate.

That might change, of course. Disparate plotlines will presumably converge. There’s a compromised double agent on the run in Eastern Europe, leading to some skippably torturous scenes of torture, and a new recruit, Danny (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) being sent on her first assignment with what feels like little to no preparation.

“There’s a cost for doing this work,” she’s told. “A price. Are you sure you want to pay it?” (The price is “surviving totally alone forever.”) Run away, I want to say. There are so many other series you could be in.

Movie Reviews

‘Better Man’ movie review: Robbie Williams is a chimp. (Just go with it.)

Published

6 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

‘Better Man’ movie review: Robbie Williams is a chimp. (Just go with it.)

Music biopics are too often predictable, formulaic and, let’s face it, dull. One way to liven them up, however, is to venture way outside the box and make the central subject an anthropomorphic animal. And while an alligator Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” or a sloth Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” might have been bridges too far, a chimpanzee Robbie Williams defies logic and somehow works in “Better Man.”

Director Michael Gracey’s admirably eccentric biopic/jukebox musical (★★★ out of four; rated R; in select theaters now, nationwide Friday) still boasts the signature tropes of its ilk and the career-tanking vices of many a “Behind the Music” episode. Yet the fact that the ultra-cheeky Williams is inexplicably presented as a bawdy CG ape man (given cool moves and voice via performance capture by Jonno Davies) matches the fantastical nature of the British pop star’s bananas rise-and-fall-and-rise-again tale.

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The movie also has a lot in common with Gracey’s most famous effort, “The Greatest Showman,” featuring well-crafted, effervescent musical numbers doing what they can to make up for oversentimentality and an unfocused narrative.

Narrated by Williams himself, “Better Man” chronicles his life starting as a little simian dude playing soccer in the streets with his mates – and failing to impress his peers. Like his father Peter (Steve Pemberton), Robbie wants to be somebody and slowly he begins to embrace a charismatic, wild-child personality that wins him a spot in the boy band Take That. His brazen and outrageous personality wins over some like pop-star girlfriend Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) – and his many fans – but irks many others, from his bandmates and manager (Damon Herriman) to members of Oasis.

The middle of the movie is where “Better Man” finds its groove. Robbie sings “Rock DJ” and his group pogo-sticks through London’s busy Regent Street in the film’s most spectacular sequence. And as the insecure Robbie goes down a bad path, he’s forced to literally fight the conflicting parts of his pop-star persona. Drugs and being a selfish jerk threaten everything, of course, and seeing a chimp go through the out-of-control partying instead of a normal dude is a bit different. The family drama peppered through the film leans too earnest, leading to an ending that pours on the schmaltz way too hard. Brash simian Robbie is a lot more fun to watch than soppy simian Robbie.

No one’s ever going to play a primate like the brilliant Andy Serkis in his “Planet of the Apes” films. Davies does a good job at moving in such a way that’s human but also a little bit wild, which adds to the hyperrealism of a proudly oddball movie. It doesn’t completely explain why exactly Williams is a chimp in the biopic – he’s said he feels “less evolved” than others, and Nicole calls Robbie an “animal” during a fight – but it makes that bizarre choice a little less head-scratching.

Interestingly, the best part of “Better Man” is Williams. He sings the songs throughout the movie – including nifty new tune “Forbidden Road” – and his fabulous narration hilariously slings jabs and adds an emotional gravitas to his screen counterpart’s struggles. When the film goes most over the top, Williams’ commentary keeps it grounded.

“Better Man” isn’t perfect – as a straightforward effort, it doesn’t hold a candle to, say, “A Complete Unknown.” But it’s never boring, either. And the film is easily the most idiosyncratic of its kind, at least until that inevitable Barry Manilow biopic featuring a yeti.

Entertainment

Among tens of thousands of displaced Angelenos, celebrities face the same devastating losses

Published

7 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Among tens of thousands of displaced Angelenos, celebrities face the same devastating losses

The historic wildfires blazing across Los Angeles County this week have wiped out more than 2,000 structures, killed at least five people and left countless residents reeling in heartbreak. Given the fabric of the communities in and around L.A., celebrities are among those facing loss.

In one of the most destructive firestorms to hit the region in recent memory, at least 130,000 Angelenos have fled for safety as fires — stoked by worse-than-usual “life-threatening and destructive” winds — rampaged in the Pacific Palisades, Hollywood Hills and Altadena.

“We are absolutely not out of the danger yet,” Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said Wednesday.

From Mandy Moore to Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, stars have have been speaking out about their evacuation efforts, loss of property and efforts to help fire victims. While they, like so many Angelenos, remain displaced, firefighters continue to battle the blazes that have erupted since Tuesday.

Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton said she watched her Malibu home burn on television.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“Heartbroken beyond words. … Sitting with my family, watching the news, and seeing our home in Malibu burn to the ground on live TV is something no one should ever have to experience,” the deejay, reality TV star and heiress wrote Wednesday on Instagram as the 0% contained Palisades fire continued to burn. “This home was where we built so many precious memories. It’s where Phoenix took his first steps and where we dreamed of building a lifetime of memories with London.

“While the loss is overwhelming, I’m holding onto gratitude that my family and pets are safe. My heart and prayers are going out to every family affected by these fires. To all the people who have lost their homes, their memories, and their beloved pets. My heartaches for those still in harm’s way or mourning greater losses. The devastation is unimaginable. To know so many are waking up today without the place they called home is truly heartbreaking. … Please, everyone, stay safe and follow evacuation orders. Let’s protect one another and hold onto hope that these fires will soon be contained.🙏 Sending so much love and strength to all of you. We’re in this together, LA. … Hug your loved ones a little tighter tonight. You never know when everything could change.”

Mandy Moore

“I love you, Altadena,” the “This Is Us” star wrote Wednesday on Instagram as she drove through her community, which was struck by the Eaton fire. “Grateful for my family and pets getting out last night before it was too late (and endless gratitude to friends for taking us in and bringing us clothes and blankets). Honestly, I’m in shock and feeling numb for all so many have lost, including my family. My children’s school is gone. Our favorite restaurants, leveled. So many friends and loved ones have lost everything too. Our community is broken but we will be here to rebuild together. Sending love to all affected and on the front lines trying to get this under control.”

Billy Crystal

“Words cannot describe the enormity of the devastation we are witnessing and experiencing,” Billy Crystal and his wife, Janice, said in a joint statement to the Associated Press about their Pacific Palisades home. “We ache for our friends and neighbors who have also lost their homes and businesses in this tragedy. Janice and I lived in our home since 1979. We raised our children and grandchildren here. Every inch of our house was filled with love. Beautiful memories that can’t be taken away. We are heartbroken of course but with the love of our children and friends we will get through this.”

Steve Guttenberg

In what might be the most viral celebrity interview of the fire news cycle, the “Police Academy” star told a KTLA reporter on Tuesday that he had been working to clear abandoned cars on Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive in his neighborhood to make a path for fire trucks and emergency vehicles. He did not indicate the condition of his home, but said later on the “Today” show that he would go back soon to see what was left.

“What’s happening is people take their keys with them as if they’re in a parking lot. This is not a parking lot. We really need people to move their cars,” the longtime Pacific Palisades resident said. “If you leave your car behind, leave the key in there so a guy like me can move your car so that these fire trucks can get up there.”

Cameron Mathison

“General Hospital” star Mathison shared footage from his street showing the destruction that overtook his block in the Pacific Palisades, noting on Instagram stories that “the last property is where our house was.” Mathison said he and his family are safe but showed footage of “what’s left of our beautiful home.”

In an appearance on “Cuomo,” the soap star said his family is safe but the losses have been devastating.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it. It just doesn’t feel real and I know I’m not alone. I know there’s hundreds, if not thousands of people out there and getting affected by these fires, and it’s very cool to see you kind of touching base with a lot of them to share their stories too,” Mathison said, adding, “That video was taken early in the morning … we’d been up, we’d been watching the news, and then I got up around 5, and they were reporting from our block, and I could see houses going down, and it looked insane, but I couldn’t see if our house was OK, and I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I got my car, and I just kind of drove in through the streets. … I kind of made my way up almost in the dark, and the cloud, like, it was, it was an insane scene. And as I came around the corner, you know what used to be, my house, our house was, was no longer and it is, it doesn’t, doesn’t seem real.”

Diane Warren

“This is the last pic I took of Leah’s rock from my beach house,” the Grammy-winning songwriter wrote Wednesday on Instagram, sharing a photo from a Malibu beach amid the Palisades fire. “I’ve had this house for almost 30 years. It looks like it was lost in the fire last nite. There’s a rainbow shining on it which I’m taking as a sign of hope for all creatures who have been affected by this tragedy. The animals and the rescue ranch are OK tho which is the most important thing. Stay safe everyone.”

Melissa Rivers

Rivers, a TV personality and the daughter of famed comic Joan Rivers, told CNN that she fled her Palisades-area home on Wednesday and took whatever she could, including her mother’s Daytime Emmy Award for “The Joan Rivers Show.”

“Luckily, my office which is in — was in — my home… [I grabbed] whatever was there,” Melissa Rivers said. “In my personal situation, that’s it, that’s the end of everything that belonged to my family and the history of it. To be 100% honest, I grabbed my mom’s Emmy, a photo of my dad, and a drawing that my mother had done of me and my son … It’s amazing what you grab, it’s amazing what you take. I went for a drawing of my mother’s rather than a photo because I know I can find the photos. [But a drawing of hers] I can’t replace.”

Cary Elwes

“Update from the fire. Firstly, myself and my family are all safe, thank God,” “The Princess Bride” star wrote Wednesday on Instagram after the Palisades fire broke out. “Sadly we did lose our home but we are grateful to have survived this truly devastating fire. Our hearts go out to all the families impacted by this tragic event and we also wish to extend our gratitude to all the firefighters, first responders and law enforcement who worked so tirelessly through the night and are still at it. We want to thank everyone for the incredible outpouring of support. It really means a great deal to us.”

Ricki Lake

“It’s all gone. I can’t believe I am typing these words,” the former talk-show host wrote Wednesday on Instagram, sharing the loss of her “dream home.” “After a valiant and brave effort by our friend and hero @kirbykotler_ Ross and I lost our dream home. This description ‘dream home’ doesn’t suffice. It was our heaven on earth. The place where we planned to grow old together. We never took our heavenly spot on the bluff overlooking our beloved malibu for granted, not even for one second. I shared our sunset views almost daily with all of you.

“This loss is immeasurable. It’s the spot where we got married 3 years ago. I grieve along with all of those suffering during this apocalyptic event. Praying for all of my neighbors, my friends, my community, the animals, the firefighters and first responders. More to share soon of how we escaped with Dolly and not much else. For now I grieve.”

James Woods

The Emmy-winning actor fought back tears on air with CNN while discussing his newly renovated Pacific Palisades home and its evacuation during the Palisades fire. He said he and his wife, Sara Miller-Woods, had returned to the home last month after fixing up the property,

“I took this from the deck of our beautiful and much beloved home in the Palisades last night,” Woods wrote Wednesday on Instagram. “Now all the fire and smoke alarms are going off on our iPhones. It’s truly heartbreaking.”

Leighton Meester and Adam Brody

Leighton Meester, left, and Adam Brody reportedly lost their Pacific Palisades home.

The “Gossip Girl” alumna, who is married to the “Nobody Wants This” actor, reportedly lost the Pacific Palisades home that they purchased in 2019, according to TMZ and the Daily Mail. The couple has not yet commented publicly on the fires.

Anthony Hopkins

Hopkins lost his $6-million Pacific Palisades home, the Daily Mail reported. The Oscar winner bought the home in 2001, and photos showed the four-bedroom, five-bath property reduced to rubble.

Evacuations

John Legend and Chrissy Teigen

Chrissy Teigen and John Legend left smile and pose in cocktail attire

“This is surreal. I’m very scared now. packing,” Teigen wrote on Instagram stories as the Sunset fire erupted late Wednesday in the Hollywood Hills. “4 dogs. 4 kids and a bearded dragon walk into a hotel,” she added.

Mark Hamill

“Star Wars” star Mark Hamill said on social media that his area was being evacuated.

(Rich Fury / Getty Images)

“Personal Fire Update: 7pm-Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH. 8:15 pm- Marilou, Trixie & I arrive at Chelsea’s house in Hollywood Most horrific fire since ‘93 … STAY SAFE! … ” the “Star Wars” star wrote Tuesday on Bluesky, later clarifying that “there ‘were’ small fires (gimme a break- we were fleeing for our lives).”

Movie Reviews

Research: How Top Reviewers Skew Online Ratings

Published

14 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Research: How Top Reviewers Skew Online Ratings

Online platforms from Amazon to Goodreads to IMDb tap into the so-called “wisdom of the crowd” to rate products and experiences. But recent research suggests that more experienced buyers tend to select better products and therefore expect higher quality, which leads them to rate more stringently. This means that higher-quality products could paradoxically receive lower average ratings than their less-sophisticated competitors. Researchers used data from IMDb, a leading movie platform, to document this bias, and propose an easy-to-implement algorithm to adjust ratings to better align with external proxies of quality.