What’s on TV
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND 10 p.m. on HBO. Elena and Lila began their lives in the same poor neighborhood of Naples but over the course of two seasons of television their paths have diverged significantly. Elena (Margherita Mazzucco) has put some distance between herself and her humble origins by successfully pursuing education while Lila (Gaia Girace), despite her intelligence and will, remains largely stuck. The distance between the two has complicated but not diminished their deep connection. This season they traveled together to the island of Ischia for vacation. The time away was supposed to help Lila relax enough to get pregnant by her husband but during the sojourn she connected with Nino, a young man that Elena was drawn to first. After the summer, Elena departed Naples for university and Lila eventually returned to her husband.
BULL 10 p.m. on CBS. As the legal drama genre has evolved, producers and writers have started looking beyond lawyers, judges and law enforcement officers for stories. This series focuses on Jason Bull (Michael Weatherly), a psychologist whose firm helps lawyers manipulate the jury selection process and concoct appealing arguments. During the fourth season, which wraps tonight, Bull became a father with his ex-wife, Isabella (Yara Martinez), and rebuilt his relationship with Benny (Freddy Rodríguez), Isabella’s brother and Bull’s colleague.
What’s Streaming
Cane River (1982) Stream on the Criterion Channel. When a negative of this film by Horace B. Jenkins was discovered several years ago, many cineastes rejoiced. The movie was Jenkins’s only fictional feature and it had hardly been seen since it debuted in 1982. Since then, it has been screened in theaters to critical acclaim. In his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott described the film, which he designated a Critic’s Pick, as “relaxed, reflective and sweet, a romance shadowed by the complexities of history, race and politics that manages to be both modest and ambitious.” The couple at the center of the film, Peter (Richard Romain) and Maria (Tommye Myrick), are African-Americans whose different backgrounds give “their relationship a Romeo-and-Juliet quality,” Scott wrote.
Song of the Sea (2014) Stream on Netflix. Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YoutTube. The director Tomm Moore mines a Celtic folk tale for this story about an Irish family reckoning with a painful loss. The main characters, Ben and Saoirse, are siblings living on an island with their widowed father. Ben resents his younger sister because he holds her responsible for the apparent death of their mother. But when they’re taken by their grandmother to live in the city and Saoirse falls ill, Ben resolves to save her by bringing her home. On their journey back, he learns that Saoirse is a selkie, an aquatic shape shifter that can temporarily assume human form. To regain her health, she must be reunited with a magic heirloom that she inherited from their mother.
Source: Television - nytimes.com
