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      Stream These 11 Titles Before They Leave Netflix in October

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      A slew of TV shows and movies are leaving for U.S. subscribers this month. Here’s a roundup of the ones worth catching, including a few great horror picks for the season.October’s departing titles from Netflix in the United States include bubbly rom-coms, action thrillers, killer comedies and plenty of thrills and chills — it is the spooky season, after all. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ (Oct. 2)Stream it here.Like most of the output of Illumination Entertainment (the folks behind the Minions), this animated adaptation of the durable Nintendo video game is not exactly Pixar quality, in terms of family entertainment excellence. But kids will love it, especially the little gamers, and adults will find amusements here and there — primarily the rip-roaring gonzo vocal performance of Jack Black, clearly having a ball as the lovelorn supervillain Bowser.‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (Oct. 5)Stream it here.Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the best-selling novel by Kevin Kwan is a sleek, shimmering, fast-paced examination of the haves and have-nots (but mostly the haves). It follows the charming Queens-born N.Y.U. professor Rachel (Constance Wu) and her boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding) to a wedding in Singapore, where the conspicuous wealth of his family threatens to upend their seemingly bulletproof relationship. Chu juggles quotable dialogue, gorgeous cinematography and a sprawling cast — most notably Michelle Yeoh as Nick’s stern and judgmental mother, a woman who Rachel quickly finds is not to be trifled with.‘It Follows’ (Oct. 10)Stream it here.Maika Monroe, so haunted and compelling in the recent movie “Longlegs,” made her big-screen breakthrough in this 2015 horror hit from the writer and director David Robert Mitchell. She stars as Jay, a 19-year-old girl who is stalked by a mysterious force after she sleeps with her boyfriend — who informs her, after the fact, that the only way to rid oneself of this particular evil is to pass it on, via sex, to its next victim. Such a setup lends itself to the crassest of genre exploitation devices, but Mitchell is too much of a stylist for that; he lingers on dread and mood rather than skin or blood, and he creates one of the more unshakable indie thrillers in recent memory.‘Bride of Chucky’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.The “Child’s Play” franchise, in which the talking Chucky doll is possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, had lain dormant for seven years (an eternity in the world of slasher movies) after the series low of “Child’s Play 3” when the screenwriter Don Mancini revitalized his series in 1998. He did so by infusing the mostly serious thrillers with a heavy dose of campy comedy, and with the invaluable addition of the Oscar nominee Jennifer Tilly as Chucky’s love interest, Tiffany Valentine. The Hong Kong genre master Ronny Yu directs with visual flair and good humor. (Netflix is also streaming several other films in the series, which will also depart after Halloween night.)‘Dark Waters’ (Oct. 31)Stream it here.On first glance, this 2019 corporate thriller seemed to signal that the indie legend Todd Haynes was trying to go mainstream. But a closer examination reveals a film very much consistent with his preoccupations, pairing his formal ingenuity with a story of environmental illness and creeping paranoia that pairs nicely with his 1995 breakout film, “Safe.” Based on a 2016 article by Nathaniel Rich (published in The New York Times Magazine), it stars Mark Ruffalo as Rob Bilott, a corporate lawyer who typically defends corporate clients. Here, though, he takes on the giant DuPont corporation with a yearslong investigation that tested his sanity, resolve and personal safety. Haynes orchestrates the events with a masterly hand while Ruffalo reminds us of the exceptional actor lurking under the Hulk persona.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Real Housewives’ and the Vice-Presidential Debate

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      The Bravo franchise will air two different premieres. And on Tuesday is the first debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz.For those who still enjoy a cable subscription, here is a selection of cable and network TV shows, movies and specials that broadcast this week, Sept. 30-Oct. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayALL AMERICAN: HOMECOMING 8 p.m. on The CW. This college-focused series is wrapping up its third season. The show follows a group of athletes as they juggle training, socializing and interpersonal relationships. This finale will hopefully tie up lose ends because the show, now canceled, won’t be coming back for a fourth season.TuesdayVICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 9 p.m. on various networks. For anyone counting, or bracing themselves, the election is under 40 days away. This will be the first debate between Senator JD Vance of Ohio and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. So far, the rules are pretty similar to those implemented at the presidential debate last month, but the candidates will likely be standing, a departure from the past couple of V.P. debates.REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK CITY 9 p.m. on Bravo. The New York City gals are back on small screens, this time with the addition of the fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff and the art curator Racquel Chevremont. Lots of fights, glamour shots and not-so-subtle sharing are on the docket.WednesdayChad Michael Murray and Morgan Kohan in “Sullivan’s Crossing.”Chris Reardon/Freemantle, via CWSULLIVAN’S CROSSING 8 p.m. on the CW. It is officially fall a.k.a. “Gilmore Girls” rewatch season. But if you have already memorized all seven seasons of that show, then this series, coming back for its second season, is a great way to have Scott Patterson (Luke Danes in “Gilmore”) back on your screen. Patterson plays the father to Morgan Kohan’s Maggie Sullivan, who moves back home to get her life back together. Chad Michael Murray (“One Tree Hill”) is also there because what’s small-town charm without a mysterious and emotionally distant hunk?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Days of Our Lives’ Actor, Drake Hogestyn, Dies at 70

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      Mr. Hogestyn was best known for playing John Black on the daytime soap opera and appeared in more than 4,200 episodes over 38 years.Drake Hogestyn, who played John Black, the sturdy and fiercely loyal character who by turns was a spy, private investigator and mercenary, for nearly 40 years on the long-running soap opera “Days of Our Lives,” died on Saturday, a day shy of his 71st birthday.Mr. Hogestyn had pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from his family shared by the show. He died in Los Angeles, according to a publicist for the show, Andrea McKinnon.In 1986, Mr. Hogestyn first appeared on “Days of Our Lives,” which premiered in 1965 on NBC and follows various characters in the fictional Midwestern town of Salem. For a few years, he played another character, Roman Brady, but came to be known best for his role as John Black.Mr. Hogestyn appeared in more than 4,200 episodes of the soap opera and became a fan favorite for his portrayal as the rugged, raspy-voiced and often heroic character who had the skills of an intelligence agent, a police officer and a private investigator.The character was also known for being married to Dr. Marlena Evans, a psychiatrist and the town’s de facto matriarch, played by Deidre Hall. In 2005, the actors won a Soap Opera Digest Award for Favorite Couple.“It’s, like, I’ll always love her,” Mr. Hogestyn said, at a gathering for the show’s fans in 2004, of the characters’ enduring romance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Aubrey Plaza Goes for Broke in ‘Megalopolis’ and ‘Agatha All Along’

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      “I bleed for movies,” Aubrey Plaza told me on an August morning, just seconds before the ground began to tremble.We had met for brunch at Little Dom’s, a hip Italian restaurant in Los Angeles that was unusually quiet until that low rumble began. Frozen, we stared at each other as the windows rattled — bum-bum-BAM — and then quieted. It was quick and violent, as though someone had seized the place and given it a brisk, get-yourself-together shake.Plaza’s eyes, already open and avid, got even wider. “I think that was an earthquake,” she said. A Google search revealed it to have been a 4.7 temblor out of nearby Pasadena, which prompted us to wonder: If something more severe were to occur, would we know what to do instead of just sitting there blankly?“What if it’s the small one before the big one?” she asked.These days, only a natural disaster could force Plaza to pause. She has spent the last decade working at a nearly nonstop pace, determined to show there’s more to her than April Ludgate, the disaffected intern she played on six seasons of the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation.” Though Plaza’s point has by now been proved — in particular, the 2022 double-header of “The White Lotus” and “Emily the Criminal” amply demonstrated her range — that drive has not yet abated.In fact, Plaza has stayed so prolific that her three newest projects have all come out within days of each other. The first was the charming time-travel comedy “My Old Ass” on Sept. 13, followed by the Marvel series “Agatha All Along,” in which she plays the romantic antagonist to Kathryn Hahn’s “WandaVision” witch. Friday saw the long-awaited release of “Megalopolis,” from the 85-year-old director Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather”), which features Plaza in a grabby role unlike anything she’s played before.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Perfect Couple’ Offers Signe Sejlund’s Take on Nantucket Style

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      Scrutinizing the costumes in Netflix’s “The Perfect Couple.”“It’s not a documentary,” said Signe Sejlund, the costume designer for the Netflix limited series “The Perfect Couple.” “It’s a murder mystery.”Yet the compulsively watchable show is not merely a murder mystery. Set on Nantucket, a glorified sand dune 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts — where superyachts bottleneck in the harbor every summer; the median home price has surpassed $3 million; and the guy in line at Something Natural, a favorite local sandwich stand, could well be a billionaire — the show is in some sense a travelogue offering a worm’s-eye view of rich people behaving appallingly. It is also a statement on our cultural fascination with the folkways of people with too much money to count.The series, adapted from a novel by Elin Hilderbrand, is a tale of “them” and “us.”Embodying “them” in this case is the fractious Winbury family: patriarch Tag (Liev Schreiber), matriarch Greer (Nicole Kidman) and their three sons. Everyone else is “us.”The Winburys have for generations vacationed at an oceanside mansion — putatively located in Monomoy, an enclave with some of Nantucket’s costliest real estate — among peers who attended the same private schools, belonged to the same country clubs and adopted the same form of garb that was once a tell for quiet wealth. Think modest A-line dresses; knotted-rope sailors’ bracelets; boat shoes so weathered they are patched together with duct tape; polos and T-shirts worn almost to transparency; and stiff Nantucket basket purses whose lids are topped with bone medallions incised like sailor’s scrimshaw.Signe Sejlund, the show’s costume designer, treated characters like Thomas Winbury (Jack Reynor) as “peacocks.”NetflixTag Winbury (Liev Schreiber) is from an old-money family that has for generations vacationed at an oceanside mansion on Nantucket.NetflixWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘S.N.L.’ Recap: Maya Rudolph Returns to Play Kamala Harris

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      The 50th season began with several surprise guests and alumni — including Dana Carvey, Jim Gaffigan and Andy Samberg — playing figures in the 2024 election.“Saturday Night Live” dug deep into its contact list of celebrity alumni and friends in the comedy world as it kicked off its 50th season with an opening sketch that featured Maya Rudolph’s anticipated return as Vice President Kamala Harris.The sketch, for which the cast member James Austin Johnson returned in his recurring role as former President Donald Trump, also saw the debuts of the comedian Jim Gaffigan as Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Bowen Yang, another “S.N.L.” performer, as Senator JD Vance of Ohio.And for good measure, the segment included appearances from “S.N.L.” alums Andy Samberg as Douglas Emhoff, the Second Gentleman, and Dana Carvey as President Joe Biden.Speculation had swirled all summer about who would play these roles on “S.N.L.,” which tends to receive increased attention during presidential election seasons. That curiosity was intensified by the reshuffling of the Democratic ticket in July, when President Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the 2024 race.In early August, when Harris chose Walz as her running mate, many fans wondered if Steve Martin, a frequent “S.N.L.” host and friend of the show, would be cast as the Minnesota governor and vice-presidential hopeful.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘S.N.L.’ Picks Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan to Play Kamala Harris and Tim Walz

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      The casting ended months of speculation after President Biden, played on Saturday by Dana Carvey, withdrew from the race. James Austin Johnson continued as Donald Trump.“Saturday Night Live” dug deep into its contact list of celebrity alumni and friends in the comedy world as it kicked off its 50th season with an opening sketch that featured Maya Rudolph’s anticipated return as Vice President Kamala Harris.The sketch, for which the cast member James Austin Johnson returned in his recurring role as former President Donald Trump, also saw the debuts of the comedian Jim Gaffigan as Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Bowen Yang, another “S.N.L.” performer, as Senator JD Vance of Ohio.And for good measure, the segment included appearances from “S.N.L.” alums Andy Samberg as Douglas Emhoff, the Second Gentleman, and Dana Carvey as President Joe Biden.Speculation had swirled all summer about who would play these roles on “S.N.L.,” which tends to receive increased attention during presidential election seasons. That curiosity was intensified by the reshuffling of the Democratic ticket in July, when President Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the 2024 race.In early August, when Harris chose Walz as her running mate, many fans wondered if Steve Martin, a frequent “S.N.L.” host and friend of the show, would be cast as the Minnesota governor and vice-presidential hopeful.But Martin himself quickly nixed that, telling the Los Angeles Times that he did not consider himself an impressionist. “They’re going to find somebody really, really good,” Martin said at the time. “I’d be struggling.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On ‘Downton Abbey,’ Maggie Smith Made an Icy Aristocrat Irresistible

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      The hit melodrama brought Smith the kind of fame she never wanted, but it is easy to understand why it happened.In retrospect, Maggie Smith’s brilliant, high-wire career can be seen as a protest against celebrity.As an actor, Smith, who died on Friday at 89, favored characters into which she could disappear, and the rare interviews she agreed to were awkward, unrevealing, sometimes deliberately uningratiating. In a 2013 “60 Minutes” profile, she seems almost physically racked by the journalist’s curiosity. There was one personal detail, though, that she had no problem sharing in her final years: how much she despised the fame that her most recognized part had brought down on her.“It’s ridiculous,” she told one reporter. “I was able to live a somewhat normal life until I started doing ‘Downton Abbey.’ I know that sounds funny, but I am serious. Before that I could go to all the places I wanted and see all of the things that I like, but now I can’t, which I find incredibly awful.”“Flattering,” she added, “but awful.”Did she protest too much? Or was it the peculiar nature of the attention that afflicted her? As someone who began following her from my first viewing of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), her Oscar-winning drama, I can say I would have recognized Maggie Smith on any street anywhere. (Among other mass-cultural acts, she guest-starred on “The Carol Burnett Show.”) But would I have hailed her? What was it about “Downton Abbey” that inspired perfect strangers to lay claim to her?We can start with the show itself. From the beginning, “Downton Abbey” was conceived as a Tory fantasy — a make-believe past in which aristocrats take a searching interest in their servants’ personal lives and subsidize their eye surgery — but it came to us through the democratic medium of broadcast television. To watch it in the United States, you had only to fire up your local PBS station, where it played every Sunday night at the same time, leaving you instantly positioned to spill tea the second it was over. (As The New York Times’s “Downton” recapper, I can attest to this.)Few TV shows achieve that kind of instant saturation, so we might all be excused for thinking that these characters were ours. But how exactly did we warm to Violet Crawley, the wary and imperious dowager who despises any intrusion of democracy (America, Ireland) or modernity (telephones, swivel chairs) and who sincerely wants to know what a weekend is?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More