Particularly great are Martin Lawrence, in one of his first screen appearances, and an uproarious turn by the great stand-up comic Robin Harris, who transcends the clichés of his strict father role with his offhand warmth and inimitable delivery.
What could have been a throwaway jukebox movie instead plays as a vibrant, evocative slice of early-90s life, thanks to the Hudlins’ energetic filmmaking, the easy chemistry of their leads and a sturdy cast of comic supporting performers. The hip-hop duo Kid ‘n’ Play star as high school buddies who want nothing more than to give a party and have some fun in this joyous blast of musical comedy from the filmmaking brothers Reginald and Warrington Hudlin. The leisurely pace may put off those looking for a slam-bang action movie, but Scott’s handling of the give-and-take relationship between his leads is gripping, and his reproduction of New York in the ’70s is remarkable. Washington is electrifying as Frank Lucas, the real-life 1970s-era Harlem drug kingpin Crowe balances Washington’s furious energy with reactive repose as the lawman who convinces Lucas to inform on his associates. The director Ridley Scott teamed his brother Tony’s favorite leading man, Denzel Washington, with his own frequent collaborator Russell Crowe for this 2007 crime epic and watched the spark fly. ‘The Underground Railroad’: Barry Jenkins’s transfixing adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel is fabulistic yet grittily real.‘Succession’: In the cutthroat HBO drama about a family of media billionaires, being rich is nothing like it used to be.
Here are some of the highlights selected by The Times’s TV critics: Television this year offered ingenuity, humor, defiance and hope. Through the eyes of the slightly unhinged Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), we meet vainglorious movie stars, shameless hangers-on, grifter gurus and more the ensemble cast (which includes Robert Pattinson, John Cusack and Olivia Williams) is stellar, with Julianne Moore standing out as the story’s Norma Desmond figure. 15)ĭavid Cronenberg has never been one for predictability, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the filmmaker best known for brainy sci-fi and body horror would spend the 2010s making a psychological drama, a Don DeLillo adaptation and finally, this tart Hollywood satire in the “Day of the Locust” mold.
Yet, over the course of its four seasons, the show founds its own voice, exploring its (somewhat metatextual) themes of failure and reinvention tinkering with the conventions of the male genius antihero (played here to perfection by Lee Pace) and thoughtfully exploring the arcs and relationships of its central characters, brought to vivid life by Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis, and Kerry Bishé. When “Halt and Catch Fire” premiered on AMC in the summer of 2014, it was sold as a computerized riff on the network’s hit “Mad Men” - to its ultimate detriment, as viewers and critics found a show much pricklier and harder to grapple with than that. That culture shock provides the humor for many early episodes of this TBS comedy, created for Morgan by Jordan Peele and John Carcieri, but it finds its groove, and its heart, in Tray’s bittersweet attempts to prove his worth to his ex-girlfriend (Tiffany Haddish) and their two children.
But it’s not at all what he remembers, with his old stamping grounds completely transformed by gentrification and suburbanization. Tracy Morgan bounced back from a near-death experience by, appropriately enough, playing a survivor: Tray, an ex-convict returning to his Brooklyn neighborhood after a decade and a half behind bars. Watch them while you can! (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.) ‘The Last O.G.’: Seasons 1-2 (Dec.
So this month’s list of movies and shows leaving Netflix in the United States is something of a blood bath, with everything from period epics to quirky competition shows heading for the exit.
Yes, those agreements that subscription services use to stream movies and television shows always have an expiration date, and that date frequently falls at the end of the calendar year. December means it’s time for holiday shopping, hot cocoa, cheerful carols - and expiring licenses.