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      The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in September

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      Our picks for September, including ‘Billions,’ ‘Goliath’ and ‘Worth’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for September.New to NetflixSEPT. 2‘Q-Force’ Season 1The animated series “Q-Force” is both a campy social satire and a parody of over-the-top action-adventure movies. It follows the exploits of a team of secret agents who are frequently undervalued by their government handlers, because many of these superspies are openly gay. Sean Hayes cocreated the show and also voices the main character, Agent Steve Maryweather (dubbed “Agent Mary” by his dubious bosses). Wanda Sykes, Matt Rogers and Patti Harrison voice some of the hero’s colleagues, who have to fight both the nation’s enemies and their peer’s prejudices.SEPT. 3‘Worth’Kenneth Feinberg was the attorney assigned by the U.S. government to help manage its 9/11 compensation fund, intended to get the terrorist attacks’ survivors and the victims’ families paid quickly — while saving American businesses from potentially devastating lawsuits. In the provocative drama “Worth,” Michael Keaton plays Feinberg as a well-meaning pragmatist, who changes his way of thinking about the project after many of his potential payees take offense at the idea of putting dollar values on human lives. Sara Colangelo directed and Max Borenstein wrote this film, which has a unique take on the true cost of 9/11.‘Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali’NetflixSEPT. 9‘Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali’The boxer Muhammad Ali and the activist Malcolm X were close friends for a few years in the early 1960s, leaning on each other for advice and support at a time when they were each defying an establishment determined to silence them. The director Marcus A. Clarke’s documentary “Blood Brothers” — based on a book by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith — uses new interviews and vintage footage to tell the story of how these two men urged each other on, while also examining the circumstances that eventually drove them apart.SEPT. 10‘Kate’In this gritty thriller, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the title character: a skilled assassin who gets dosed with a deadly poison, leaving her with 24 hours to find out who is trying to kill her. As she races through Tokyo, Kate seeks the guidance of her longtime handler, Varrick (Woody Harrelson), while also trying to protect a teenager, Ani (Miku Martineau), who is related to one of her former targets. This story of violence and redemption puts an all-too-rare spotlight on Winstead, a fine actress and a compelling action heroine.‘Chicago Party Aunt’NetflixSEPT. 17‘Chicago Party Aunt’ Season 1The actor and comedian Chris Witaske is probably best-known as part of the cast of the Netflix series “Love,” but for several years Witaske has also run a Twitter account called “Chicago Party Aunt,” writing in the voice of a fictional Windy City long-timer who has spent some wild nights with nearly every famous Chicagoan. That Twitter feed has now been adapted into an animated series, with Lauren Ash voicing the legendary libertine Diane Dunbrowski, who knows how to find a good time in every neighborhood dive from Wrigleyville to Armour Square.SEPT. 22‘Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan’In the late 1970s, an Ohio man named Billy Milligan was accused of being a serial rapist. He was ultimately committed to a mental hospital instead of a prison term, after a team of psychiatrists determined that Milligan suffered from multiple personality disorder, and thus had no conscious awareness of having committed his crimes. The four-part docu-series “Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan” looks back at a trial and verdict which still raise a lot of questions today about mental health and justice.SEPT. 24‘Midnight Mass’The writer-director Mike Flanagan — the creator of Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” — combines supernatural horror with small-town melodrama in this mini-series about a floundering fishing community which sees its fortunes start to change with the arrival of a mysterious new Catholic priest, Father Paul (Hamish Linklater). The increasingly strange and possibly dangerous phenomena that sweep across this tiny island cause the locals to face their past mistakes and regrets. Particularly shaken up is Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), an ex-con hoping to repair his broken life without the aid of any shady miracles.Also arriving: “Afterlife of the Party” (Sept. 2), “Money Heist” Season 5, Part 1 (Sept. 3), “Kid Cosmic” Season 2 (Sept. 7), “Into the Night” Season 2 (Sept. 8), “JJ+E” (Sept. 8), “Lucifer” Season 6 (Sept. 10), “Metal Shop Masters” (Sept. 10), “Pokémon Master Journey: The Series” Part 1 (Sept. 10), “Prey” (Sept. 10), “Nailed It!” Season 6 (Sept. 15), “Schumacher” (Sept. 15), “Too Hot to Handle: Latino” (Sept. 15), “Sex Education” Season 3 (Sept. 17), “Confessions of an Invisible Girl” (Sept. 22), “Dear White People” Season 4 (Sept. 22), “My Little Pony: A New Generation” (Sept. 24), “Ada Twist, Scientist” (Sept. 28), “Sounds Like Love” (Sept. 29), “Love 101” Season 2 (Sept. 30).New to Stan‘Minari’StanSEPT. 1‘Animaniacs’ Season 1Aimed primarily at the ’90s kids who grew up watching the original “Animaniacs,” this revival mostly sticks with what fans loved the first time: zany irreverence, a blizzard of pop-culture references, and an animation style that is broadly cartoony and un-slick. The new series features the same core characters: the kooky siblings Yakko, Wakko and Dot, and the would-be world-dominating mice Pinky and the Brain. The show features a lot of the same entertaining schtick, balancing third-wall-breaking, “Looney Tunes”-style slapstick adventures with some cleverly snarky songs.SEPT. 2‘The Dissident’Bryan Fogel’s documentary “The Dissident” is an illuminating piece of investigative journalism, digging into both the scandalous murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the rise of tech-savvy authoritarian regimes around the world. The film is about how Khashoggi and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — who has been accused of ordering the reporter’s assassination — each used the media to shape the international community’s opinions about the future of the Arab world. Fogel asks his audience to consider what becomes of society if the powerful decide which voices are heard and which crimes go unpunished.‘Billions’StanSEPT. 6‘Billions’ Season 5, Part 2This popular drama about the rivalries of the mega-rich was in the middle of another great season last year when COVID-19 shut down production. The creative team was finally able to reassemble to shoot the last five episodes, continuing a story which has seen the venture capitalist Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) try to buy respectability by founding his own bank, while the ruthless U.S. attorney Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) is using every quasi-legal method at his disposal to bring Bobby down. “Billions” fans have been waiting for over a year to see how the season ends; they should savor every juicy plot twist still to come.SEPT. 16‘Minari’Youn Yuh-jung won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the writer-director Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical dramedy “Minari,” about a Korean immigrant named Jacob (Steven Yeun) and his wife Monica (Yeri Han), who move to rural Arkansas to establish a produce farm. Youn plays Monica’s mother, who joins the family and urges them to preserve their cultural traditions as they pursue their American dream. Chung surrounds his leads with vivid detail, placing the humor, the anxiety and the hope of this family in the context of the sometimes welcoming and sometimes alienating Southern state where they try to make a home.SEPT. 26‘Black Mafia Family’The producing team of Randy Huggins and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (best-known for the “Power” franchise) turn to the true crime genre for their latest series, which begins in Detroit in the late 1980s. Demetrius “Lil Meech” Flenory Jr. plays his own father, “Big Meech,” who alongside his brother Terry “Southwest T” Flenory (Da’Vinchi) rose from low-level drug trafficking to become nationwide gang bosses and players in the hip-hop industry. As with Huggins’ and Jackson’s other shows, expect “Black Mafia Family” to be frank about what it takes to get ahead in the criminal underworld — and about the toll it takes on those who succeed.Also arriving: “The Zhu Zhus” Season 1 (Sept. 1), “Code 404” Season 2 (Sept. 2), “Les Misérables” Season 1 (Sept. 2), “A.P. Bio” Season 4 (Sept. 3), “Jamie’s American Road Trip” Season 1 (Sept. 3), “Scaredy Squirrel” Season 1 (Sept. 3), “Dead Pixels” Season 2 (Sept. 7), “Where the Wild Men Are” Season 1 (Sept. 8), “Wu-Tang: An American Saga” Season 2 (Sept. 9), “Spliced” Season 1 (Sept. 10), “Love, Inevitably” (Sept. 10), “The Remarkable Mr. King” Season 1 (Sept. 10), “The Departed” (Sept. 12), “Liar” Season 2 (Sept. 15), “Storks” (Sept. 15), “The Fear” Season 1 (Sept. 16), “Streamline” (Sept. 16), “They Call Me Dr. Miami” (Sept. 19), “Pacific Rim” (Sept. 21), “New Amsterdam” Season 4 (Sept. 22), “Home Economics” Season 2 (Sept. 23), “Trigonometry” Season 1 (Sept. 23), “The Town” (Sept. 26), “Supernova” (Sept. 28), “Silk Road” (Sept. 30).New to Amazon‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’AmazonSEPT. 17‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’The title character in the hit British stage musical “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” is a teenage boy who challenges the bullies at his school and ultimately wins over his classmates when he opens up about his dream of becoming a drag performer. In the movie version, Max Harwood plays Jamie, while Richard E. Grant plays one of his drag mentors and Sharon Horgan plays a teacher who urges the youngster to get back into the closet. The show’s writer Tom MacRae also wrote the lyrics to its songs, set to upbeat and crowd-pleasing music by Dan Gillespie Sells.SEPT. 24‘Goliath’ Season 4In the fourth and final season of this moody, noir-influenced legal drama, the underdog attorney Billy McBride (played by Billy Bob Thornton, in peak form) tackles the big opioid companies, joining his ambitious colleague Patty (Nina Arianda) at a high-class San Francisco firm. “Goliath” has quietly been one of TV’s best crime shows since its 2016 debut; and while it’s too bad it’s coming to an end, at least it’s going out with another season of tense confrontations, big surprises, and stellar performances.Also arriving: “Cinderella” (Sept. 3), “LuLaRich” (Sept. 10), “Pretty Hard Cases” (Sept. 10), “The Voyeurs” (Sept. 10), “Do, Re & Mi” (Sept. 17), “The Mad Women’s Ball” (Sept. 17). More

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      Hollywood Take on Christchurch Massacre Provokes Anger in New Zealand

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      Members of the Muslim community denounced as “white saviorism” the director’s decision to focus on the response by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.AUCKLAND, New Zealand — A planned Hollywood film about the Christchurch mosque massacre has drawn a sharp backlash in New Zealand, with Muslims denouncing the director’s decision to focus not on the community’s pain and resilience, but instead on the response by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.More than 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for the movie to be shut down. Ms. Ardern released a statement distancing herself from the film, which she said she had not been consulted on. The mayor of Christchurch said that the movie’s crews would not be welcome in her city, and one New Zealand producer dropped out of the production on Monday.Some Muslims said the film, as proposed, would exploit their trauma and engage in “white saviorism” by making Ms. Ardern the central character.“It’s really intensely hurtful,” said Guled Mire, a Fulbright scholar at Cornell University who is a member of New Zealand’s Muslim community. He added that he and others had learned of the movie only through social media. “The grief is still very raw for a lot of the victims, their families and for the community as a whole.”The film, announced on Thursday, is called “They Are Us,” taking its title from Ms. Ardern’s comments about the Muslim community after the 2019 shootings at two mosques, in which more than 50 people died. It would star the Australian actress Rose Byrne as a grieving Ms. Ardern.The film’s director, the New Zealand screenwriter Andrew Niccol, told Deadline that “the film addresses our common humanity, which is why I think it will speak to people around the world.” He added, “It is an example of how we should respond when there’s an attack on our fellow human beings.”While Ms. Ardern has been praised globally for her compassionate response to the massacre, Muslims in New Zealand said the movie’s focus on her was part of a long pattern in Hollywood of marginalizing minority populations.“It was quite shocking to see that, in 2021, we are still making these films which you would probably see in the 1920s or ’30s in Hollywood, where white saviors go into the desert,” said Ghazaleh Golbakhsh, an Iranian-New Zealand writer, academic and filmmaker. “It all kind of harks back to this kind of colonialist and Orientalist fantasy.”Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, released a statement distancing herself from the movie.Nick Perry/Associated PressThough reports in the American news media suggested that the Muslim community had consulted on the film, multiple members said that they did not know of anyone who had been involved in the project.“The issue is that the film is about Jacinda Ardern, but it’s not her story to tell,” said Adibah Khan, a spokeswoman for New Zealand’s National Islamic Youth Association, which organized the petition. “It’s the story of the victims and their victim community, and the truth is, they haven’t been consulted at all.”Mohamed Mostafa, whose father was killed in the attacks, said he felt taken advantage of by the film project. “Someone’s trying to exploit my pain and agony and suffering — and for what benefit?” he said.He added that white saviorism was a false narrative. “There’s no saviors here, because we have 51 victims in the story,” he said. “If we had a savior, we wouldn’t have any victims.”Ms. Golbakhsh compared the proposed movie to “Green Book,” the Oscar-winning film that was dismissed by its detractors as a “racial reconciliation fantasy.”“It is kind of encouraging the idea that anyone nonwhite is either too weak, or not as interesting, and therefore just kind of pushes them to the background, as not a three-dimensional character,” she said.A report from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released last week found that Muslims, who make up nearly a quarter of the global population, represented less than 2 percent of speaking characters in top-grossing films made between 2017 and 2019. Nearly 20 percent of the Muslim characters who did appear were killed by the end of the film, often in a violent death.“I sincerely hope that this project gets canceled and we don’t ever hear about it ever again,” Mr. Mostafa said. “When we’re ready to tell the story, we might do it, one day. And it’s going to be our story to tell.” More

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      Peek at Broadway Comeback: Times Event With “Me and the Sky”

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      When The Times staged a musical number for its live event series, the performance served as a sneak preview of a theater world preparing for takeoff.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.In March, Zoe Gertz, an Australian actress, was asked by The New York Times if she would be interested in singing the soaring anthem “Me and the Sky” for an episode of its Offstage event series, which examines the theater industry during its pandemic hiatus. The number is from the Australian touring production of the 9/11 musical “Come From Away.”After teams worked on in-house music and stage direction, Ms. Gertz belted the ebullient anthem to the rafters of a simple stage at Her Majesty’s Theater in Melbourne, sans audience but backed by six musicians and five castmates of the production’s female ensemble. And it all came together in just over two weeks.“I am suddenly aliiiiiive,” Ms. Gertz sang with an irrepressible smile as she told of her character’s love for flying.The sentiment seems to be spreading. Broadway’s reopening will now occur in August. In Australia, “Frozen,” “Hamilton” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” were running at or near full capacity in Sydney and Melbourne for months (though masks were still required) until a recent lockdown in Melbourne put shows in that city on hold again. The performance for the Times event served as both a reminder of theater’s vitality during the pandemic and a preview of the energy to come.The musical number began to take shape in early March after The Times’s theater reporter, Michael Paulson, suggested recording a special video of the inspirational song for the Offstage series, which streamed live on April 29 and is still viewable by Times subscribers.“We wanted a song that was both good and would make sense out of context for people who hadn’t seen the show,” Mr. Paulson said. “It’s also a song that works without a very elaborate band or orchestra and is essentially a solo number.”The four-and-a-half-minute track chronicles the tale of the real-life American Airlines pilot Beverley Bass, who was among the pilots with planes full of passengers who were diverted to Newfoundland on Sept. 11, 2001.“One of the many emotions captured in this song is Beverley having to come to terms with the job she loves being put on hold, and not knowing when she might fly again,” said Rachel Karpf, the director of programming at The Times who helped plan the event with Beth Weinstein and Rachel Czipo. “We saw some parallels to the experience of theater workers in Australia and around the world this past year, as their industry was brought to a near-total standstill by the pandemic.”Ms. Karpf said the Events team began discussing ideas for the episode in early January with Mr. Paulson; Scott Heller, then The Times’s theater editor; and Damien Cave, the Sydney bureau chief. Mr. Cave and Mr. Paulson were working on a story about the return of Broadway shows in Australia, which has been much more successful at containing the virus than the United States. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in April

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      Our streaming picks for April, including ‘Concrete Cowboy,’ ‘Made for Love’ and ‘Them’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for April.New to NetflixAPRIL 1‘Worn Stories’ Season 1Based on the Times columnist Emily Spivack’s book of the same name, the docu-series “Worn Stories” features short vignettes about what people wear and why. The show’s crew has assembled slice-of-life footage and thoughtful comments from a wide variety of people, who talk about how clothing — or the lack thereof, in the case of one segment about nudism — connects them to history, to their families, and to the communities they love. “Worn Stories” is comforting TV, designed to leave viewers feeling more optimistic about humanity.APRIL 2‘Concrete Cowboy’The “Stranger Things” actor Caleb McLaughlin plays a troubled teen named Cole in this coming-of-age drama, set in a Philadelphia neighborhood where the predominately Black residents defy the local authorities by maintaining a stable of horses. Idris Elba plays Cole’s father Harp, who tries to steer him away from the local drug trade by teaching him to cherish the responsibility of caring for a large animal. Based on a Greg Neri novel, “Concrete Cowboy” is an earnest and often lyrical look at an unusual urban subculture.‘The Serpent’In the mid-1970s, the con man Charles Sobhraj embarked on a crime spree across eastern Asia, at first swindling and then murdering a succession of tourists, with the help of a handful of loyal followers. Tahar Rahim plays Sobhraj in the British crime drama “The Serpent.” The show features a timeline-hopping structure, meant to compare and contrast the killer’s rampage with the work of the Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle), who investigated the deaths of a young couple from his country. This eight-part mini-series is both a character sketch and a portrait of a wild and sometimes dangerous decade.‘Shadow and Bone’NetflixAPRIL 23‘Shadow and Bone’ Season 1Fans of big, sweeping Netflix fantasy series — like “The Witcher” and “The Umbrella Academy” — are the ideal audience for “Shadow and Bone.” This adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s popular series of supernatural adventure novels is set in a world where unstoppable giant monsters terrorize a society governed by a rigid military and unscrupulous outlaws. Jessie Mei Li plays Alina Starkov, an ordinary soldier who surprises her comrades by exhibiting extraordinary superpowers — perhaps strong enough to change their lives. APRIL 29‘Yasuke’ Season 1In this animated action-adventure series, LaKeith Stanfield voices the title character, very loosely based on the historical records of an African-born samurai who fought in 16th century Japan. Created by the writer/producer LaSean Thomas (who previously worked on “Black Dynamite” and “Cannon Busters”), “Yasuke” follows this masterless swordsman as he reluctantly agrees to escort a superpowered girl on a dangerous quest. The story jumps back in forth in time, showing how Yasuke fights for his own nobility after a lifetime of bad breaks.Also arriving: “Prank Encounters” Season 2 (April 1), “Just Say Yes” (April 2), “Madame Claude” (April 2), “Family Reunion” Season 3 (April 5), “Snabba Cash” Season 1 (April 7), “This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist” (April 7), “The Wedding Coach” Season 1 (April 7), “The Way of the Househusband” Season 1 (April 8), “Night in Paradise” (April 9), “Thunder Force” (April 9), “My Love: Six Stories of True Love” (April 13), “Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!” (April 14), “Law School” (April 14), “Love and Monsters” (April 14), “The Soul” (April 14), “Arlo the Alligator Boy” (April 16), “Fast & Furious: Spy Racers” Season 4 (April 16), “Into the Beat” (April 16), “Ride or Die” (April 16), “Zero” Season 1 (April 21), “Stowaway” (April 22), “Fatima” (April 27), “Sexify” (April 28), “And Tomorrow the Entire World” (April 30), “The Innocent” (April 30), “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” (April 30), “Things Heard and Seen” (April 30).New to Stan‘Made for Love’StanAPRIL 1‘Made for Love’ Season 1The terrific comic actress Cristin Milioti takes the lead in this offbeat science-fiction dramedy, based on an Alissa Nutting novel. Milioti plays Hazel, who gets fed up with her controlling tech billionaire husband Byron (Billy Magnussen) and flees to the middle of nowhere to spend time with her relatively low-maintenance dad (Ray Romano). Unfortunately, Hazel soon finds she can’t flee modernity — not with her father’s synthetic girlfriend taking up space around the house, and not with Byron’s cutting-edge surveillance equipment tracking her every move and mood.APRIL 8‘No Activity’ Season 4The American version of the Australian series “No Activity” features a new approach for its fourth season, necessitated by the pandemic. The show is still mostly about lawmen dealing with the tedium of waiting for something to happen while investigating cases, but the format has now switched from live action to animation — which also allows for an all-star team of guest stars, including Kevin Bacon, Elle Fanning, Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden. Patrick Brammall (who cocreated the original show with the writer-director Trent O’Donnell) returns as a cop who dreams of tackling major crimes but who keeps getting assigned much duller duties.APRIL 16‘Younger’ Season 7The seventh season is the last for this beloved sitcom, created by the “Sex and the City” producer Darren Star. “Younger” started out as a shrewd and cynical take on the modern New York publishing business, with Sutton Foster playing a middle-aged divorcee pretending to be a hip 20-something in order to get a job. But over the course of its run, the series has dealt with more than just the generation gap, as Star and his team have explored the fragile state of modern media. Throughout, the heroine’s big lie has remained the main hook, and the foundation for the cliffhanger setting up this final run.‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’StanAPRIL 19‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’ Season 2One of 2020s most entertaining and emotionally engaging new comedies returns for a second season. Josh Thomas plays Nicholas, a formerly carefree Australian now saddled with the guardianship of his two American half sisters: the high-functioning autistic savant Matilda (Kayla Cromer) and the social misfit Genevieve (Maeve Press). While the show is mostly about the girls — both lovable characters, wonderfully played — it’s also about how Nicholas struggles with whether he should be more of a “dad” to these emotionally fragile teens, as they navigate upper middle-class Los Angeles.APRIL 20‘Godfather of Harlem’ Season 2The first season of this period crime drama introduced Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker), an aging crime boss trying to reestablish his dominance in early 1960s New York after a decade in prison. The initial ten episodes covered the rapid changes in politics and pop culture, in an era when African-Americans were wielding power more publicly — even in the drug trade. Season two will add even more real-life (and fictional) gangsters, activists and celebrities, and should further the show’s reputation as one of TV’s best-acted and most ambitious crime dramas.APRIL 23‘Rutherford Falls’ Season 1The latest project for the writer-producer Michael Schur — one of the creators who brought “Parks and Recreation” and “The Good Place” to the small screen — is a sitcom about the complex and sometimes combative relationship between the residents of a Native American reservation and a nearby community in upstate New York. Ed Helms (another of the show’s creators) stars as the descendant of a local historical figure. The “Rutherford Falls” head writer Sierra Teller Ornelas leads a staff that is primarily made up of Indigenous people, lending authenticity — as well as some wryly self-aware humor — to these stories of small town life.APRIL 24‘Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Boy’Based on Jimmy Barnes’ frank memoir, this documentary tells the story of how the Scottish-born singer-songwriter overcame a rough childhood to become one of the most popular musicians in Australia. The film isn’t a comprehensive look at Barnes or his band Cold Chisel. Instead the director Mark Joffe lets his subject talk at length about his formative years, while cutting occasionally to some new performance footage in an intimate setting, in which Barnes strips his music — and his life — down to its soulful core.‘The Dressmaker’StanAPRIL 25‘The Dressmaker’Kate Winslet won Best Actress at the AACTA Awards — and her co-stars Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving won Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor — for this darkly comic melodrama, about a talented tailor who returns to her inhospitable hometown with vengeance on her mind. Winslet plays the title character, who was driven away by her neighbors as a little girl because of a crime she’s pretty sure she didn’t commit. Directed and co-written by Jocelyn Moorhouse (adapting a Rosalie Ham novel), “The Dressmaker” is stylish, dynamic and shockingly — and wonderfully — dark in places. Also arriving: “Cheat” Season 1 (April 1), “Dinner with Friends” (April 1), “I Used to Go Here” (April 1), “Jiu Jitsu” (April 1), “Recoil” (April 1), “Tyson” (April 1), “The Capture” Season 1 (April 2), “The Moodys” Season 2 (April 2), “Pitch Perfect” (April 7), “Pitch Perfect 2” (April 7), “Home Economics” Season 1 (April 14), “Grow” (April 8), “Reservoir Dogs” (April 10), “Van Der Walk” Season 1 (April 16), “Confronting a Serial Killer” (April 18), “Baby Done” (April 20), “Gold Diggers” (April 22), “Anzacs” Season 1 (April 23).New to Amazon‘Them’AmazonAPRIL 9‘Them’ Season 1“The Chi” creator Lena Waithe is one of the producers of this socially conscious horror anthology, from the mind of the writer Little Marvin. In season one — subtitled “Covenant” — Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas play the Emorys, a pair of married Black parents from North Carolina who move to a white middle-class neighborhood in Los Angeles in the early 1950s. Alison Pill plays the block’s bigoted tastemaker, who persuades her girlfriends and their husbands to make the Emorys feel unwelcome. The story eventually takes a turn toward the supernatural, although it’s plenty terrifying when it’s just about discrimination.Also arriving: “Frank of Ireland” (April 16), “Without Remorse” (April 30). More

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      In Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Found an Escape From the Virus. Who’s Jealous?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyIn Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Found an Escape From the Virus. Who’s Jealous?Dozens of international film productions have been lured to the country, where cases of the coronavirus are few. In turn, actors have found almost paradise.Chris Hemsworth is filming “Thor: Love and Thunder” in Australia.Credit…Getty Images for The Critics Choice AssociationMarch 10, 2021Updated 4:52 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — In the photo posted to Instagram, the actors Chris Hemsworth, Idris Elba and Matt Damon, all wearing 1980s-style sweats, embrace. They are maskless. Touching. Happy, even. The caption reads: “A little 80s themed party never did any harm!”Their fans, indignant, peppered the post with comments. What of the pandemic? Social distancing? Masks? We are still, after all, suffering through a pandemic that has all but crippled the travel industry and blocked most people from casually taking off for vacation in paradise.But the Hollywood brigade was in Australia, a country that has effectively stamped out the coronavirus, allowing officials to ease restrictions for most gatherings, including parties (with dancing and finger food). As a result of the near-absence of the virus, plus generous subsidies from the Australian government, the country’s film industry has been humming along at an enviable pace for months compared to other locales.Australia has managed to lure several Hollywood directors and actors to continue film production. In effect, many celebrities, including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa McCarthy, have found freedom from the pandemic there.As one person wrote on Mr. Hemsworth’s Instagram post: “Before you comment, remember that not everyone lives in America.”Though the quickened pace of vaccinations in the United States has raised hope of returning to some semblance of normalcy by the summer, the country still leads the world in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths. Movie theaters reopened only last week in New York City. Some fans are cautiously creeping back, while others are still wary of contracting the virus.But thousands of miles away, many stars who appear on the big screens can be seen frolicking, or filming, on location in Australia. (Mr. Hemsworth is himself a permanent fixture — he moved back to Australia in 2017 after several years of living in Los Angeles.) In the United States, where hundreds are still dying every day, some fans have looked on with envy.“These Hollywood stars have been transported to another world where the problems of this world aren’t,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York. He added that the temporary exodus from the United States revealed a further crumbling of the myth that Hollywood was the endgame for celebrities.Village Roadshow Studios in Gold Coast, Australia.Credit…Bradley Kanaris/Getty ImagesAustralia has become the “hip place” where “fabulous people want to go,” Professor Thompson said. “When you’re trying to be a star, you’ve got to go out to the West Coast to make your bones.” When you become “a really big star,” you buy property somewhere exotic, like Australia, he added.“It definitely feels like a time machine,” Ms. Portman, calling in from Sydney, told the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in December. “It’s so different, all the animals are different, all the trees are different, I mean even the birds, like, there’s like multicolored parrots flying around like pigeons,” she added. “It’s wild.”A spokeswoman said the government had helped 22 international productions inject hundreds of millions into the local economy. Paul Fletcher, the federal minister for communications, said, “There’s no doubt it’s a very significant spike on previous levels of activity.”But even as celebrities preen and pose on social media, some Australians grumble that the country’s strategy for stamping out the virus has left tens of thousands of citizens stranded overseas. Several tennis players and 2021 Australian Open staff were allowed into the country for the tournament. And now, they say, Hollywood’s rich and famous are turning up during the pandemic, angering critics who see a clear bending of the rules for those with money and power.“Everyone knows there’s a separate set of rules, it seems, for everyone that’s a celebrity or has money,” said Daniel Tusia, an Australian who was stuck overseas with his family for several months last year. “There are still plenty of people who haven’t been able to get home, who don’t fall into that category, who are still stranded,” he added.In an emailed statement, the Australian Border Force said that travel exemptions for film and television productions were “considered where there is evidence of the economic benefit the production will bring to Australia and support from the relevant state authority.”A year ago, Tom Hanks, Hollywood’s everyman, made all-too-real the threat of the pandemic when he and his wife, Rita Wilson, tested positive for the coronavirus in Queensland, Australia, while he was filming an unnamed Elvis biopic. Their illness made personal a threat whose seriousness was only beginning to become crystallized at the time.The actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles last year. They tested positive for the coronavirus in Queensland, Australia, about a month later.Credit…Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut by May, Australia appeared to be on track to quashing the first wave of the virus, and the soap opera “Neighbors” became one of the world’s first scripted TV series to resume production. The federal government has committed more than $400 million to international productions, which, together with existing subsidies, provides film and television producers with a rebate of up to 30 percent to shoot in the country.More than 20 international productions, including “Thor: Love and Thunder,” a Marvel film starring Mr. Hemsworth, Mr. Damon, Ms. Portman, Taika Waititi, Tessa Thompson and Mr. Bale; “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” a fantasy romance starring Mr. Elba and Tilda Swinton; and “Joe Exotic,” a spinoff of the podcast made following the popular Netflix series “Tiger King,” starring the “Saturday Night Live” actress Kate McKinnon as the big-cat enthusiast Carole Baskin, are all either in production or set to be filmed in the coming year.Ron Howard is directing “Thirteen Lives,” a dramatization of the 2018 Thai rescue of a soccer team from a cave, in Queensland (the coast of Australia makes a good stand-in for the tropics). And later this year, Julia Roberts and George Clooney are set to arrive in the same state to shoot “Ticket to Paradise,” a romantic comedy.Though a number of American stars have landed in the country for temporary work, some like Ms. McCarthy, originally in Australia to work on “Nine Perfect Strangers,” have decided to stay on to shoot other projects, said those in the industry. “Oh, the birds!” she gushed in a YouTube video. “I love that I’ve seen a spider the size of my head.”Others, like Zac Efron, appear to have settled here permanently.Zac Efron has been spotted all over Australia.Credit…Lucy Nicholson/ReutersHis Instagram is flush with Australiana: Here he is in a hammock, in the red-earth desert, appearing to participate in an Indigenous ceremony or wearing the Australian cowboy hat, an Akubra. Last year, Mr. Efron even got what an Adelaide hairdresser described as a “mullet,” a much-maligned hairstyle popular in Australia.“Home sweet home,” he captioned one image of himself in front of a camper worth more than $100,000.Chances are the stars will keep showing up. They’ve been spotted camping under the stars, heading out to dinner sans masks, and partying (yes, like it’s 1989). Mr. Damon said in January that Australia was definitely a “lucky country.”But locals in Byron Bay — the seaside town that in recent years has been transformed from hippie to glittering — have complained that the influx of stars in the past year has irreparably changed the town.“The actors and the famous people are the tip of the iceberg,” said James McMillan, a local artist and the director of the Byron Bay Surf Festival. He added that the large cohort of production crew member from Melbourne and Sydney was pricing locals out of real estate.“It’s definitely changed more than I’ve ever seen it change in the past 12 months,” Mr. McMillan, who has lived in Byron Bay for two decades, added. “People have got stars in their eyes.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More