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Our picks for August, including ‘The Chair,’ ‘The L Word’ and ‘Annette’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for August. More
Our streaming picks for July, including ‘Fear Street,’ ‘The Comeback Trail’ and ‘The Tomorrow War’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for July. More
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
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
Our streaming picks for May, including ‘Puberty Blues,’ ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race: Down Under’ and ‘The Underground Railroad’ More
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
#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
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in MarchOur streaming picks for March, including ‘Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell,’ ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ and ‘Coming 2 America’‘Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell’Credit…NetflixMarch 2, 2021, 12:05 a.m. ETEvery month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for March.New to NetflixMARCH 1‘Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell’, Director Emmett Malloy draws on a wealth of rare home videos and in-depth interviews in this revealing documentary, finding some fresh angles on rapper Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls and the Notorious B.I.G.). “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell” devotes a lot of its running time to Wallace’s teenage years in Brooklyn, where he made money as a crack dealer while honing his musical style. Malloy doesn’t focus as much on Wallace’s tragic murder, except to frame his story as a case study in wasted potential.MARCH 3‘Moxie’Unlike the typical Netflix adaptation of a Young Adult novel, the movie “Moxie” isn’t so much about relationships and romance (though there’s plenty of both) as it is about high school girls standing up for themselves. Based on Jennifer Mathieu’s book, “Moxie” stars Amy Poehler (who also directed) as the divorced mother of Vivian (Hadley Robinson), who discovers her mom used to be a feminist punk rocker in the ’90s. Frustrated with her sexist male peers, Vivian channels her mother’s spirit and starts an anonymously authored ‘zine in hopes of starting a revolution.MARCH 5‘City of Ghosts’In this odd and charming children’s show, a band of young Angelenos investigate paranormal activity around the city by interviewing friendly ghosts and the people they haunt. The episodes aren’t exactly plot-driven; they’re more like mini documentaries, teaching kids about the history and residents of L.A.’s neighborhoods. Animation fans should note that the series was created by Elizabeth Ito, who previously worked on “Phineas and Ferb” and “Adventure Time.” Here she’s come up with something visually striking, combining simplified characters with photographed backgrounds.MARCH 12‘The One’ Season 1In our era of advanced genetic testing, DNA can reveal everything from people’s ancestry to their criminal culpability. But can it connect soul mates? That’s the question posed by the John Marrs novel “The One,” now adapted by the writer-producer Howard Overman into a TV series. The show features multiple interwoven story lines, following both the troubles faced by the CEO of a DNA-matched dating service and the problems her customers encounter as they get to know their scientifically determined true loves.MARCH 17‘Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal’The documentary filmmaker Chris Smith should be well-known to Netflix subscribers as the director of “Fyre,” a fascinating expose of what went wrong at an infamous music festival. Smith now turns his attention to another tale of hubris and privilege with “Operation Varsity Blues,” an examination of the 2019 scandal in which several wealthy Americans were caught trying to buy their kids’ way into elite colleges. The documentary details the nuts and bolts of a scheme that involved expensive tutors, cheating on exams and bribing university staff.‘The Irregulars’Credit…NetflixMARCH 26‘The Irregulars’Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mythology gets a radical reimagining in this crime series, which focuses on the gang of streetwise youngsters known as “the Baker Street Irregulars.” Created by Tom Bidwell, “The Irregulars” imagines an irreverent version of the Holmes saga in which the detective stays in a constant drugged-out fog while his disreputable assistants do all the actual mystery-solving. Bidwell also adds some supernatural elements to the story.Also arriving: “Murder Among the Mormons” (March 3), “Pacific Rim: The Black” (March 4), “Sentinelle” (March 5), “Bombay Rose” (March 8), “The Houseboat” (March 9), “Dealer” (March 10), “Last Chance U: Basketball” (March 10), “Marriage or Mortgage” (March 10), “Paper Lives” (March 12), “Yes Day” (March 12) “The Lost Pirate Kingdom” (March 15), “Zero Chill” (March 15), “RebellComedy: Straight Outta the Zoo” (March 16), ‘Waffles + Mochi” (March 16), “Under Suspicion: Uncovering the Wesphael Case” (March 17), “Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American” (March 18), “Country Comfort” (March 19), “Sky Rojo” (March 19), “Navillera” (March 22), “Who Killed Sara?” (March 24), “Bad Trip” (March 26), “Nailed It!: Double Trouble” (March 26), “A Week Away” (March 26).New to Stan‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’Credit…StanMARCH 2‘My First Summer’Katie Found wrote and directed this film about the bond between two teenage girls, who find each other right when they’re on the precipice of emotional maturity and caught between love and friendship. The accomplished young Australian actresses Markella Kavenagh and Maiah Stewardson play Claudia and Grace, who try to keep their relationship hidden away from anxious adults and their prying questions for as long as possible. With its striking visual style and its rich performances, “My First Summer” captures the beautiful fragility of adolescent romance.MARCH 4‘Shirley’Elisabeth Moss plays the reclusive author Shirley Jackson in the disturbing and moving period drama “Shirley.” The story is told largely from the perspective of a young faculty wife named Rose (Odessa Young), who becomes an aide and confidant to the acerbic and depressive Jackson, slowly becoming overwhelmed by the writer’s cynicism. The director Josephine Decker and the screenwriter Sarah Gubbins adapt a Susan Scarf Merrell novel, which is mostly fictional yet heavily influenced by Jackson’s life and work — capturing her sour, soulful take on human weakness.MARCH 9‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’The long-awaited third movie in the “Bill & Ted” series re-teams Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter — for the first time since 1991 — as the fun-loving, dimwitted, time-traveling best buds Theodore Logan and William Preston. In “Face the Music,” the boys have grown into middle-aged men, but still believe they’ll one day change the world through rock ’n’ roll. When they hear reality itself will be destroyed if they don’t get their act together immediately, Bill and Ted (and their daughters, Thea and Billie) have another adventure across the timeline, with the help of some of humankind’s greatest musicians.MARCH 10‘She Dies Tomorrow’Written and directed by Amy Seimetz, this arty horror film takes an unusual approach to a post-apocalyptic story, dramatizing the eerie premonitions that herald the end of everything. Kate Lyn Shell plays an ordinary woman who becomes convinced she’s living through her last day on Earth. Her strange behavior proves infectious, passing from friend to friend, leaving them either devastated, agitated or oddly calm. “She Dies Tomorrow” has the quality of a dream, but it’s a disturbingly realistic one.‘The Legend of Baron To’a’Credit…AmazonMARCH 14‘The Legend of Baron To’a’In the energetic action-comedy “The Legend of Baron To’a,” Uli Latukefu plays a Tongan New Zealander named Fritz who found his fortune in Australia but has returned home to defend his family’s legacy. The movie’s title refers to Fritz’s father: a former pro wrestler who also served as his neighborhood’s unofficial protector. When gangsters start bullying the locals, Fritz has to learn the fundamentals of combat in order to finish the job his dad started.MARCH 19‘Save Me Too’In the sequel to the thrilling crime drama “Save Me,” the British actor Lennie James returns to a role he wrote for himself, playing a luckless lad named Nelly who has a habit of being accused of crimes he didn’t commit. “Save Me Too” picks up about a year after the events of the first series and sees Nelly tying up some loose ends from old mysteries, while also trying to prove that he’s innocent of a murder. Part procedural and part character sketch, James digs deep into the soul of a stubborn individualist.MARCH 29‘City on a Hill’ Season 2The first season of this Boston-set crime series told a complete story, about an ambitious attorney (Aldis Hodge) and a corrupt FBI agent (Kevin Bacon), reluctantly working together and navigating the choppy waters of local politics to take down a local gang in the early 1990s. In season two the two lawmen are back to being rivals, but their paths cross again when trouble erupts at a drug-plagued housing project. Though the show takes place nearly 30 years ago, the issues it raises — about policing, race relations and institutional rot — remain timely.Also arriving: “The Affair” Season 5 (March 1),“The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 3 (March 1), “Sick of It” Season 2 (March 2),“Secret Safari: Into the Wild” (March 3), “Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable” (March 4), “A Murder of Crows” (March 4),“Manhunt: Deadly Games” (March 5), “Bloods” (March 11), “Cryptid” (March 11), “Black Hands” Season 1 (March 17), “Close to the Enemy” Season 1 (March 18), “The Disappearance” (March 18), “Safe House” Seasons 1 & 2 (March 25), “Between Black and Blue” (March 26), “Outback” (March 29).New to Amazon‘Coming 2 America’Credit…AmazonMARCH 5‘Coming 2 America’Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall reprise their roles from the hit 1988 comedy “Coming to America” in this sequel, which picks up the story of an African ruler and his trusty aide decades later. Like the original, “Coming 2 America” is filled with comic situations that allow Murphy and Hall to play multiple roles that riff on Black culture from the perspective of insiders and outsiders. The film also features appearances by some very funny comics — like Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan — who have followed in the footsteps of Murphy and Hall.MARCH 26‘Invincible’The superhero cartoon “Invincible” looks charmingly retro, like something that would’ve aired on TV in the 1990s. But the series has a much more adult vibe than the likes of “X-Men” and “Superman.” Based on a long-running comic book written by Robert Kirkman (who also cocreated “The Walking Dead”), “Invincible” has Steven Yeun voicing a famous superhero’s teenage son, who’s enlisted into a series of fights to save the world almost as soon as he starts developing superpowers of his own. Like the comic, the show is fast-paced, colorful and clever — and also incredibly violent and shockingly bloody.Also arriving: “Honest Thief” (March 12), “Making Their Mark” (March 12), “Words on Bathroom Walls” (March 19), “La Templanza (The Vineyard)” (March 26).AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
