The Curse (TV Program)

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      ‘The Curse’ Makes for Some of the Creepiest Horror of the Year

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      “The Curse” has been described as cringe, but look closely and you’ll see it plays with the classic tropes of horror like jump scares.There’s telling a bad joke. There’s bombing. And then there’s what happens to Nathan Fielder’s character, Asher Siegel, at the end of the fourth episode of “The Curse,” near the halfway point of a series that goes to disorienting extremes.Siegel and his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone, in a remarkable comic performance), are making an HGTV show about eco-friendly renovations. After a focus group takes issue with Asher’s sense of humor in the show’s pilot, he finds himself in a comedy class where an instructor assigns an exercise: Get laughs without saying a word.In the episode, which premiered last weekend on Showtime and Paramount+, the camera swirls around a circle of students mugging for chuckles until it focuses on Asher, looking nervous in anticipation of his turn. You feel for him. In his finest performance to date, Fielder plays a guy who prides himself on being funny but deep down has doubts. Suddenly, in a quick flourish, he grabs his ears and flaps them while emitting a piercing squeak that could be described as unholy. No one laughs. But this face is more than unfunny. It’s unsettling, almost feral, working like a jump scare more than a punchline. It’s a gesture gone so wrong, it’s destined to become a meme.The year began with hit movies like “M3gan” and “Cocaine Bear” that pushed horror into camp comedy. It’s ending with a nervy television series that moves in reverse. It’s been called cringe comedy, and there are funny moments, but they set up something darker and dread-filled, potentially supernatural. Fielder has always toyed with genre, elevating prank comedy and using reality television to make unexpectedly moving drama. He’s leaning on the tools of horror here. With “The Curse,” the jangly sound design, manipulative cinematography and periodic bursts of oddball monstrousness offer a few of the creepiest moments of the year.While the plot is involved, with several threads, its engine is a classic horror trope: Is this supernatural-seeming thing of the title for real?Action commonly takes place through windows in “The Curse.”John Paul Lopez/A24, Paramount+ and Showtime“Rosemary’s Baby” and “Get Out,” among other movies, both invite the viewer to ask this question along with their paranoid protagonists.Asher possibly enters the realm of the fantastical after balking at the criticism that his plan to “consciously rejuvenate distressed homes” is gentrification. “We don’t believe the G word has to be a game of winners and losers,” he tells a journalist. Rattled by this exchange and concerned about his image, he summons his camera crew to film his giving a $100 bill to a small Black girl. Then when the camera stops rolling, he asks for it back. She responds by saying she is putting a curse on him, which he initially brushes off but gradually becomes obsessed with. Whether Asher is actually cursed hovers over the entire 10 episodes until a twist in the final episode that should polarize the audience.In “Psycho,” Alfred Hitchcock proves that the easiest way to make us empathize with a killer is to keep the camera on him. Even when Norman Bates is trying to cover up a murder, audience members will eventually, if managed right, find themselves gravitating to his side. Fielder has always been preoccupied with this emotional power, the distorting impact of the camera, not only on its subjects but on viewers, too. It’s easy to sympathize with Asher’s struggles as he navigates a skeptical press, his troubled new marriage and a bullying father-in-law as well as his craven producer, played by Benny Safdie. “The Curse” keeps complicating this identification, subverting and questioning it.In Episode 3, Asher’s stern face is cast in a shadow at an auction as he buys a home he didn’t realize is housing the girl who cursed him. A scene in which he uses a drill to open her door is played for terror, focused on her cowering inside. The rumbling power tool and the fear on her face cast this as a classic home invasion scene with Asher as the terrifying intruder. His stated good intentions are repeatedly mocked in the ominous way his scenes are shot.This draws attention to the Siegels as privileged outsiders casually entering and destroying a new neighborhood in the guise of liberal do-gooder assistance. The focus doesn’t just hit the theme of gentrification, but also, in a subplot involving an Indigenous artist, the genocide and exploitation that built this country.Fielder in “The Curse.” By filming frequently from outside windows and doors, the show creates an alienating effect, as if we’re only seeing part of the picture.Richard Foreman Jr./A24, Paramount+ and ShowtimeIt’s heavy stuff but not always on the surface. “The Curse” has many long, mundane set pieces that double as metaphors. Take the physical comedy of Asher helping Whitney to take off her sweater as they fall over each other. They try to recreate the funny moment for the cameras. But it doesn’t work, so they try again, emphasizing more strain and resistance. It’s a sharp satire of how people fake struggle for clout and approval.The show is full of goofy humor about tragic subjects, a cartoon about oppression, a Holocaust joke. The main plot is just the old story of vain fools trying to make a show, but grim subtext comes through in the formal qualities of the show.For instance, shots are commonly filmed through a window from the outside looking in. Instead of bringing us into a vehicle where Fielder and Stone are talking, the camera is placed beyond the closed car window, in traffic. Most of a scene in a hospital room is viewed through the door or window. So much of “The Curse” takes place outside planes of glass that the mirrored glare is a signature of its aesthetic.This has an alienating effect, giving the sense that we’re only seeing part of the picture, a distorted one at that. But there’s also something creepily voyeuristic about the shot, a cool detachment, the sense that everyone is under a microscope. It evokes the most famous shot in all of horror: The classic slasher point of view, used most famously in “Halloween,” where we share the perspective of the serial killer looking through a home’s window.But there’s something about a peeping-tom perspective that adds authenticity. It comes off as less staged and slick than most television and thus more real. Does that make it more fake or less? Fielder has always loved exploring this question. “The Curse,” his most scripted show yet, is continually shifting between comedy and horror as well as naturalism and the fantastical. The lines are much blurrier than we think, but on this show, that’s where the action is.After his monstrous face in class, Asher looks humiliated. But also taken aback, as if he revealed more than he wanted or knew was there. More

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      The Creepiest Moment Onscreen This Year Occurred in a Comedy

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      “The Curse” has been described as cringe, but look closely and you’ll see it plays with the classic tropes of horror like jump scares.There’s telling a bad joke. There’s bombing. And then there’s what happens to Nathan Fielder’s character, Asher Siegel, at the end of the fourth episode of “The Curse,” near the halfway point of a series that goes to disorienting extremes.Siegel and his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone, in a remarkable comic performance), are making an HGTV show about eco-friendly renovations. After a focus group takes issue with Asher’s sense of humor in the show’s pilot, he finds himself in a comedy class where an instructor assigns an exercise: Get laughs without saying a word.In the episode, which premiered last weekend on Showtime and Paramount+, the camera swirls around a circle of students mugging for chuckles until it focuses on Asher, looking nervous in anticipation of his turn. You feel for him. In his finest performance to date, Fielder plays a guy who prides himself on being funny but deep down has doubts. Suddenly, in a quick flourish, he grabs his ears and flaps them while emitting a piercing squeak that could be described as unholy. No one laughs. But this face is more than unfunny. It’s unsettling, almost feral, working like a jump scare more than a punchline. It’s a gesture gone so wrong, it’s destined to become a meme.The year began with hit movies like “M3gan” and “Cocaine Bear” that pushed horror into camp comedy. It’s ending with a nervy television series that moves in reverse. It’s been called cringe comedy, and there are funny moments, but they set up something darker and dread-filled, potentially supernatural. Fielder has always toyed with genre, elevating prank comedy and using reality television to make unexpectedly moving drama. He’s leaning on the tools of horror here. With “The Curse,” the jangly sound design, manipulative cinematography and periodic bursts of oddball monstrousness offer a few of the creepiest moments of the year.While the plot is involved, with several threads, its engine is a classic horror trope: Is this supernatural-seeming thing of the title for real?Action commonly takes place through windows in “The Curse.”John Paul Lopez/A24, Paramount+ and Showtime“Rosemary’s Baby” and “Get Out,” among other movies, both invite the viewer to ask this question along with their paranoid protagonists.Asher possibly enters the realm of the fantastical after balking at the criticism that his plan to “consciously rejuvenate distressed homes” is gentrification. “We don’t believe the G word has to be a game of winners and losers,” he tells a journalist. Rattled by this exchange and concerned about his image, he summons his camera crew to film his giving a $100 bill to a small Black girl. Then when the camera stops rolling, he asks for it back. She responds by saying she is putting a curse on him, which he initially brushes off but gradually becomes obsessed with. Whether Asher is actually cursed hovers over the entire 10 episodes until a twist in the final episode that should polarize the audience.In “Psycho,” Alfred Hitchcock proves that the easiest way to make us empathize with a killer is to keep the camera on him. Even when Norman Bates is trying to cover up a murder, audience members will eventually, if managed right, find themselves gravitating to his side. Fielder has always been preoccupied with this emotional power, the distorting impact of the camera, not only on its subjects but on viewers, too. It’s easy to sympathize with Asher’s struggles as he navigates a skeptical press, his troubled new marriage and a bullying father-in-law as well as his craven producer, played by Benny Safdie. “The Curse” keeps complicating this identification, subverting and questioning it.In Episode 3, Asher’s stern face is cast in a shadow at an auction as he buys a home he didn’t realize is housing the girl who cursed him. A scene in which he uses a drill to open her door is played for terror, focused on her cowering inside. The rumbling power tool and the fear on her face cast this as a classic home invasion scene with Asher as the terrifying intruder. His stated good intentions are repeatedly mocked in the ominous way his scenes are shot.This draws attention to the Siegels as privileged outsiders casually entering and destroying a new neighborhood in the guise of liberal do-gooder assistance. The focus doesn’t just hit the theme of gentrification, but also, in a subplot involving an Indigenous artist, the genocide and exploitation that built this country.Fielder in “The Curse.” By filming frequently from outside windows and doors, the show creates an alienating effect, as if we’re only seeing part of the picture.Richard Foreman Jr./A24, Paramount+ and ShowtimeIt’s heavy stuff but not always on the surface. “The Curse” has many long, mundane set pieces that double as metaphors. Take the physical comedy of Asher helping Whitney to take off her sweater as they fall over each other. They try to recreate the funny moment for the cameras. But it doesn’t work, so they try again, emphasizing more strain and resistance. It’s a sharp satire of how people fake struggle for clout and approval.The show is full of goofy humor about tragic subjects, a cartoon about oppression, a Holocaust joke. The main plot is just the old story of vain fools trying to make a show, but grim subtext comes through in the formal qualities of the show.For instance, shots are commonly filmed through a window from the outside looking in. Instead of bringing us into a vehicle where Fielder and Stone are talking, the camera is placed beyond the closed car window, in traffic. Most of a scene in a hospital room is viewed through the door or window. So much of “The Curse” takes place outside planes of glass that the mirrored glare is a signature of its aesthetic.This has an alienating effect, giving the sense that we’re only seeing part of the picture, a distorted one at that. But there’s also something creepily voyeuristic about the shot, a cool detachment, the sense that everyone is under a microscope. It evokes the most famous shot in all of horror: The classic slasher point of view, used most famously in “Halloween,” where we share the perspective of the serial killer looking through a home’s window.But there’s something about a peeping-tom perspective that adds authenticity. It comes off as less staged and slick than most television and thus more real. Does that make it more fake or less? Fielder has always loved exploring this question. “The Curse,” his most scripted show yet, is continually shifting between comedy and horror as well as naturalism and the fantastical. The lines are much blurrier than we think, but on this show, that’s where the action is.After his monstrous face in class, Asher looks humiliated. But also taken aback, as if he revealed more than he wanted or knew was there. More

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      in Television

      Best TV Shows of 2023

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      Series like “The Bear,” “Beef,” “Happy Valley,” “Reservation Dogs” and “Succession” dazzled in a year when much of the TV business was in disarray.Best Shows of 2023 | Best International | Best Shows That EndedJames PoniewozikBest Shows of 2023TV in 2023 was like synchronized swimming. Below the surface, there was roiling and churn. The writers’ and actors’ strikes wiped out much of the production year. The hangover from the corporate binge on streaming platforms led to cancellations and cutbacks. A number of hall-of-fame series left the air, with no clear plan of, as it were, succession.But above the waterline, the dance went on. As usual, it was challenging to whittle down my year-end list to 10. (So I picked 11.) As usual, I am listing it in alphabetical, not ranked order. As usual, I made it a rule not to repeat shows from the previous year, and as usual, I broke that rule. (I couldn’t not include “Reservation Dogs.”)And as usual, I probably missed stuff: I have the same number of hours in the day as you, even if I spend more of them in front of a screen. Herewith, the best of what I did see, for your catching-up pleasure. Even if Peak TV is dead, Off-Peak TV should keep us plenty busy.‘The Bear’ (FX)When “The Americans” was on the air, I used to say that it was good it came first on my list alphabetically, because it was probably the series I would rank No. 1 if pushed. Now “The Bear” has that pride of place (at least until “Abbott Elementary” makes it back on my list). After a much-hyped 2022 premiere, the restaurant dramedy leveled up, exploring the volcanic dysfunction of its central family and celebrating the care and feeding of guests as a quasi-spiritual calling. This show is cooking with gas. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘Beef’ (Netflix)Steven Yeun in “Beef,” which used a road rage incident to explore many different modern tensions.Andrew Cooper/Netflix“Beef” was a good story about people getting mad: Amy Lau (Ali Wong) and Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), whose road-rage encounter descends into a quagmire of terrible choices. But it was a great story about why people get mad. It unpeeled the blazing onion of their conflict to expose class differences, family resentments and inter- and intragroup tensions among its Asian American characters, in an unsparing but empathetic telling. A big enough collection of last straws, “Beef” said, can build a highly flammable house. (Streaming on Netflix.)‘The Curse’ (Showtime)Like the mirrored eco-houses that its two lead characters build, “The Curse” is a polarizing creation. The collaboration between Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, with a stunning performance by Emma Stone, is deeply uncomfortable. It is also an entrancing, original, astute, creepy — and funny! — study of guilt, marriage and benighted altruism. Enter this haunted house if you dare, but watch your step. (Streaming on Paramount+.)‘Dead Ringers’ (Amazon Prime Video)We’d have been just fine without so many remakes, reboots and adaptations in 2023. “Dead Ringers” was a bloody, brilliant exception. Rachel Weisz — playing twin gynecologists in a gender-swapped version of the Jeremy Irons film role — and the writer Alice Birch delivered a truly distinctive reimagining of this story that kept the body horror while adding a contemporary take on scientific hubris and big-money medicine. (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)‘I’m a Virgo’ (Amazon Prime Video)Boots Riley’s Brobdingnagian satire was both fabulistic and fabulous. Through the misadventures and explorations of Cootie (a marvelous Jharrel Jerome), a 13-foot-tall teen in Oakland, Riley personified the idea of the young Black man as threat, while spinning a wild, political and relentlessly entertaining tale that incorporated superhero mythology and anticapitalist critique. The series strained to control its outsized ambitions, but it was proof that you can never aim too big. (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)‘Jury Duty’ (Amazon Freevee)Like a jury summons, this innovative reality-comedy was a surprise. But in this case, it was a pleasant one. An unsuspecting citizen, Ronald Gladden, was called to serve on a fictional case, joining a jury of his fake peers played by actors (as well as the actor James Marsden, playing himself). Miraculously, the production pulled off the elaborate “trial” without blowing its cover. And marvelously, what might have sounded like a cruel joke turned out to be a feel-good, hilarious test of decency, in which Gladden, er, acquitted himself with charm and integrity. (Streaming on Amazon Freevee.)‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Somebody Somewhere’ (HBO)You might think that a thriller about a fungal zombie apocalypse has nothing in common with a slice-of-life account of friendships, queer life and cabaret music. But these very different HBO series showcased two of 2023’s great duos. (Each of them involving a Joel!) In “Last of Us,” Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey starred as Joel and Ellie, an odd couple forced to consider what they would sacrifice for endangered humanity. Season 2 of “Somewhere” tested the bond of Sam (Bridget Everett) and Joel (Jeff Hiller) in an endearing story of heartland eccentrics. One series splattered more guts than the other, but each had heart to spare. (Streaming on Max.)‘Reservation Dogs’ (FX)From left, Paulina Alexis, Devery Jacobs, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Lane Factor and Elva Guerra in “Reservation Dogs,” which ended this year.Shane Brown/FXIt is fitting that the final season of this comedy, set on a Native reservation in Oklahoma, had a story line involving extraterrestrial life. This was a story of a small community that, over its three seasons, managed to fill an entire universe. A rare coming-of-age story that does as well by its elder characters as its young leads, it left me with my heart brimming and my eyes wanting more. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘South Side’ (Max)What is a “year,” really? Yes, eagle-eyed readers will note that the final season of this comedy aired at the end of 2022, but it arrived too late for my previous list. Over a too-short, three-season run, “South Side” expanded a workplace comedy about a Chicago rent-to-own shop into a fantastical universe of eccentrics, scammers and hapless police and pols, and the final season packed years’ worth of ideas into a final blaze of surreal world-building. This was one for the ages, even if it lived on borrowed — or rented — time. (Streaming on Max.)‘Succession’ (HBO)Like the Roy family empire, the final season of this corporate saga dominated all available media. But the saturation coverage was deserved. The drama followed its dark instincts to the end, giving a send-off for the ages to the patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and living up to its title in his heirs fight for his legacy. The C-suite brawl — in which American democracy was collateral damage — managed to be cynically satisfying and deeply emotional. Money could not buy the Roys happiness, but their misery was priceless. (Streaming on Max.)Honorable mention: “Barry” (HBO); “Blue Eye Samurai” (Netflix); “Dave” (FXX); “Happy Valley” (BBC America); “How To With John Wilson” (HBO); “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson” (Netflix); “Killing It” (Peacock); “Minx” (Starz); “Mrs. Davis” (Peacock); “Party Down” (Starz); “Scavengers Reign” (Max); “The Traitors” (Peacock).Flawed but fascinating: “Foundation” (Apple TV+); “Hello Tomorrow!” (Apple TV+); “Three-Body” (Rakuten Viki); “The Wheel of Time” (Amazon Prime Video).MIKE HALEBest International ShowsIt cannot be overemphasized: The wild proliferation of series, especially imported ones, makes the word “best” at the top of any list a hazy approximation at, you know, best. Here are 10 shows from outside the United States, in alphabetical order, that I particularly enjoyed in 2023.‘A Spy Among Friends’ (MGM+)“A Spy Among Friends,” with Guy Pearce, left, and Damian Lewis, was based on actual events.Adi Marineci/Sony Pictures TelevisionThis languorous yet nail-biting variation on the espionage thriller dramatized the end of the friendship between Kim Philby, the British spy who was a double agent for the Soviets, and Nicholas Elliott, the fellow spy sent to bring Philby home and then suspected of treason himself when Philby escaped. Written by Alex Cary (“Homeland”) based on Ben Macintyre’s book, it was a smart and complicated puzzle play and an icy dissection of the British class system; most of all, it was a tour de force for Guy Pearce as Philby, Damian Lewis as Elliott and Anna Maxwell Martin as a fictional agent caught in the middle. (Streaming on MGM+.)‘C.B. Strike’ (Max)The rapport between Tom Burke, as the gruff British private eye Cormoran Strike, and Holliday Grainger, as his assistant and then fellow investigator Robin Ellacott, has always been more than enough reason to watch this series based on J.K. Rowling’s Strike mystery novels (written under the name Robert Galbraith). The show’s balance of detection and thorny, soulful friendship-cum-romance is close to ideal; the fifth season, based on Rowling’s book “Troubled Blood,” combined a cluster of family crises with a deft, surprising mystery involving the 40-year-old case of a missing doctor. (Streaming on Max.)‘Happy Valley’ (BBC America)Siobhan Finneran, left, and Sarah Lancashire in “Happy Valley,” which wrapped up this year. Matt Squire/AMCSally Wainwright’s intimate, everyday epic about the life-or-death struggle between a Yorkshire police officer and her nemesis, the blandly brutal sociopath who was also the father of her grandson, reached its reckoning in its third and final season. Sarah Lancashire and James Norton were terrific to the end, along with Siobhan Finneran as the cop’s ruinously, redemptively softhearted sister. (Streaming on AMC+ and Acorn TV.)‘Oshi no Ko’ (Hidive)From idol singing groups to TV dramas, reality-dating shows, anime musicals, modeling, YouTube stardom, performing-arts high schools, celebrity journalism and online trolling, this animated series offers an almost documentary-style account of the wages of success in the Japanese entertainment industry. Because it is a sprightly, goofy anime, its darkly earnest accounts of struggle and exploitation share space with teenage romance and a murder mystery, and its hero and heroine are a young doctor and his teenage patient reincarnated as the twin babies of a pop singer they both idolized. (Streaming on Hidive.)‘Paris Police 1905’ (MHz Choice)The latest winner from the French network Canal+ (progenitor of “Spiral” and “The Bureau”) is a police procedural that doubles as a panorama of French society at a time when overwhelming change barrels into ossified conservatism and privilege. (The first season was titled “Paris Police 1900.”) The plot of the new season of this highly entertaining melodrama, which matches a grisly sang-froid with the driest humor, is driven by syphilis, homophobia and a deadly new menace, the automobile. (Streaming on MHz Choice.)‘Slow Horses’ (Apple TV+)“Slow Horses” had even more twists in its second season. With Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Gary Oldman.Apple TV+The second season of this wonderfully sardonic British series about a cadre of misfit, career-stalled MI5 agents (which premiered on Dec. 2, 2022, after last year’s edition of these lists appeared) was, if anything, better than the first — its mystery twistier, its action more tense and shocking. Season 3, premiering Wednesday, is a slight step back — the bullet count goes way up, which is always a bad sign — but the average of the two seasons is still awfully high. (Streaming on Apple TV+.)‘Somewhere Boy’ (Hulu)In its flashbacks, this compact drama is a dark fable: a bereaved Welsh husband, terrified of also losing his young son, keeps the boy captive by telling him that the world outside their isolated home is populated by monsters. In the present, it’s an astringent coming-of-age story, as Danny (Lewis Gribben), now nearly an adult, emerges into the confusing, disappointing, equally frightening real world. Gribben and Samuel Bottomley, as the cousin suddenly saddled with being Danny’s protector, are excellent. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘30 Coins’ (Max)“It’s all quite incomprehensible,” a character says of events in the second season of Álex de la Iglesia’s apocalyptic theological thriller. “But life is incomprehensible, too.” That’s the correct spirit in which to watch de la Iglesia’s rococo riot of a series about a handful of ordinary, though in some cases extraordinarily attractive people — a small-town mayor, a veterinarian, a lapsed cop, a YouTube ghostbuster — battling Satan, the Vatican, Paul Giamatti (as an L. Ron Hubbard-style cult leader) and possibly God over the fate of the world. (Streaming on Max.)‘Wolf Like Me’ (Peacock)Abe Forsythe’s charming, sometimes extremely bloody Australian dramedy is a moving and tartly comic account of a blended family in which part of the blend is a werewolf. Isla Fisher is enormously appealing as the no-nonsense, highly suspicious wolf, Mary, who spent the second season pregnant by her lumpenly human boyfriend (Josh Gad); the season-ending cliffhanger promises to radically change the show. (Streaming on Peacock.)‘Yosi, the Regretful Spy’ (Amazon Prime Video)The Argentine writer and director Daniel Burman based this absorbing drama on the true story of a government agent who infiltrated the Jewish community of Buenos Aires in the years leading up to the horrific terrorist bombings that targeted that community in the early 1990s. Through two seasons, its depiction of the automatic, paranoiac anti-Semitism of the country’s establishment is all the more chilling for being utterly matter-of-fact. (Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.)Margaret LyonsBest Shows That EndedThis year brought a few banner finales and a few shows unjustly cut off in their primes, some slow fades and some purposeful but (to a fan) premature endings. So goes my lament each year.To qualify for my list, arranged below in alphabetical order, shows had to air in 2023 (or just about) and also officially end; renewal limbo is the enemy of the fan and the list-maker alike. Miniseries and limited series did not count (God bless, though), and I considered shows in toto, not just their final runs.‘Barry’ (HBO)“Barry,” cocreated by and starring Bill Hader, was by turns both brooding and snappy.Merrick Morton/HBOBill Hader cocreated, starred in and directed most of this assassin black comedy, which was among television’s most brooding and violent shows but still bubbled over with snappy one-liners and zippy satire. The show’s virtuosic action sequences and fight choreography were only part of its appeal, though. Barry discovering a love of and aptitude for acting; his relationship with his grandiose mentor, Gene (Henry Winkler); his abusive romance with Sally (Sarah Goldberg) — all of these marvelous facets refracted light through a dark gem. (Streaming on Max.)‘Doom Patrol’ (Max)The first two seasons of this show are much better than the second two, but, man, they are a ton of fun. While a lot of comic book fare is trite, didactic and redundant, “Doom” was raucous, silly, arch — but with a fairy-tale wistfulness and a real, beating heart. It was filthy and funny, and not particularly attached to always making sense, full of a vibrant strangeness that allowed for both immature humor and richly depicted sorrow and longing. (Streaming on Max.)‘The Great’ (Hulu)Nicholas Hoult and Elle Fanning starred as Peter III and Catherine the Great in “The Great.”Christian Black/HuluFew shows, if any, wring as much from each fiber of their existence as “The Great” did: Every line, every gesture, every hat, every plate conveyed something rich and thrilling, a ballerina telling an entire tragedy through the tilt of her pinkie. Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult cultivated an electrified sense of menace and then a real but twisted love between Catherine the Great and Peter III. So many period dramas just feel like inert, expensive Wikipedia entries, but “The Great,” through its irreverence and artistry, was alive at every turn. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘Happy Valley’ (BBC America)“Happy Valley” debuted in 2014, when the bleak foreign crime show was more in fashion, but it was never strictly a misery-murder show. Sarah Lancashire starred as Catherine Cawood, a police sergeant in West Yorkshire still tormented by her daughter’s suicide and raising her grandson in the shadow of that grief. Where lots of sad cop shows flatten their characters, “Valley” always sought depth and fullness — characters make jokes, the relationships have texture, choices have emotional heft. (Streaming on AMC+ and Acorn TV.)‘How To With John Wilson’ (HBO)This mesmerizing collage series always felt maybe a little too fragile for this harsh world, its tender musings and awkward but reverential curiosity leading to moments of human resonance that were so lovely they were almost painful. John Wilson reassembled his obsessive catalogs of New York City (and occasionally elsewhere) into poems about yearning, growing, belonging, changing — all these snippets of minutiae that would add up to a beautiful, illuminating gut punch. The end of this show stings harder than most because there won’t ever be anything else quite like it. (Streaming on Max.)‘The Other Two’ (Max)Drew Tarver and Heléne Yorke in “The Other Two,” which mocked both fame and its characters’ thirst for it. Greg Endries/MaxOver its three seasons, “The Other Two” was thrillingly catty and cynical while keeping a tiny ember of sweetness burning all the way through. Heléne Yorke and Drew Tarver starred as the older siblings to a teeny-bopper idol who each crave the spotlight in their own ways, too. The show loved mocking their thirst for fame and especially ridiculing the hollowness of much of the entertainment industry and media. The Season 3 episode about a play called “8 Gay Men with AIDS: A Poem in Many Hours” is a particular treat. (Streaming on Max.)‘Reservation Dogs’ (FX)“Reservation Dogs” was so suffused with death and absence, maybe I shouldn’t feel so aggrieved that it is ending after just three seasons. Maybe I should internalize one of the central ideas of the show, that the end of a life is not the end of a relationship. Maybe someday I will be that sanguine, but for now, I’m still bummed out! In its short run, this coming-of-age series about Native American teens in Oklahoma was as gorgeous, surprising and nimble as TV gets — funny and whimsical, daring and important. (Streaming on Hulu.)‘Single Drunk Female’ (Freeform)This is one of our unjustly canceled specimens this year, a show cut off mid-blossom. In Season 1, we met Sam (Sofia Black-D’Elia) as she hit rock bottom, moved home with her difficult mother, joined Alcoholics Anonymous and tried to crawl out of her despair. In Season 2, the show, like Sam, found its footing, and its warm approach made grim themes accessible to Freeform’s younger audience and to anyone drained by sad-coms who still wanted something with depth. Adding insult to injury, Disney, which owns Freeform, also pulled the show off its streaming platforms. (Buy it on Amazon Prime Video.)‘South Side’ (Max)This is our asterisk entry this year — “South Side” did not air in 2023, but its third and final season aired in December 2022, after last year’s list went to print, and its cancellation wasn’t official until February of this year. So it is sneaking through on multiple technicalities. Also because it was so dang funny, with among the highest jokes-per-minute rate of any contemporary show. The show, set on the South Side of Chicago, had one of the most fully developed worlds on television, where characters who were onscreen for only a line or two still felt woven in. (Streaming on Max.)‘Succession’ (HBO)From left, Fisher Stevens, Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong and Sarah Snook in the final season of “Succession.”Macall B. Polay/HBOI mean … it’s “Succession.” Bury me in its fine textiles and viciousness, its fascinating ability to depict its characters as piñatas filled with more emptiness, its filthy rejoinders and knack for detail. A show this grand had to go out big, too, and killing off Logan not as its denouement but rather as its 11 o’clock number gave its final batch of episodes a swirling urgency. (Streaming on Max.)Honorable mention: “A Black Lady Sketch Show” (HBO); “Miracle Workers” (TBS); “Painting With John” (HBO); “Sex Education” (Netflix); “Summer Camp Island” (Cartoon Network). More

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      ‘The Curse’ Season 1, Episode 3 Recap: Missing Chicken

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      This week, Asher and Whitney inflict their chaos upon people who never asked for their charity but are now reliant on it.Season 1, Episode 3: ‘Questa Lane’Near the beginning of this week’s episode of “The Curse,” a scene opens in an elementary school classroom. At the center of the frame is a boy we have never seen before. He is white and attentive, and the camera zooms in on him. He raises his hand, and gets permission to seemingly go to the bathroom.When he stands we realize he was never the focus of this shot. Behind him sits Nala (Hikmah Warsame), the girl from the parking lot. She has been relegated to the “calm corner,” an area designated by bright colored paper. The teacher comes over: “Nala, do you think you’re feeling better and you’re ready to join the class?” She nods her head.It is a bit of staging on the part of directors David and Nathan Zellner that is meant to both surprise and challenge the viewer. By lingering a beat too long on the boy, they push you to wonder whether you’re supposed to know him, only to reveal that a character you’ve already met has been there all along. When Dougie encouraged Asher to give money to Nala in the series premiere, she was supposed to be a prop for their HGTV show. But she’s not going to fade into the background of this story anymore.Titled “Questa Lane,” the episode thrusts Asher and Whitney back into the orbit of Nala, her sister, Hani (Dahabo Ahmed), and their father, Abshir (Barkhad Abdi). While Asher is still unclear whether there is any sort of real “curse” going on, fate has brought them back together.Asher buys what he assumes is a dilapidated house, planning to wait for the land’s value to increase. But when he drills open the door, Nala and Hani are inside. This is where they have been living.Asher’s entrance into their home plays like a horror sequence from the perspective of the girls. They are bickering and doing their homework they hear a knock at the door. They freeze. When they don’t answer, a drilling noise starts. Nala looks petrified. As soon as Asher enters they start to run. Asher is a threat invading their space, a weapon in hand in the form of the drill.As he follows them out into the street, he is the one who looks suspicious: A strange white man chasing two young Black girls. A neighbor restrains him, but when the police arrive, Asher regains his position of power. While the officer is willing to evict the girls and their father immediately, Asher allows them to stay.This apparent act of compassion finally gives Asher some credibility with Whitney, who dives into the project of assisting the family, suggesting that they renovate the house. When they return with a new lock, Whitney wants to play the perfect altruist but she constantly tells on herself, allowing her prejudices to seep through in small ways.She asks what Abshir is cooking and when he simply replies hot dogs, she wonders if he’s serving them with rice — assuming because of his foreignness that might be the case. He replies that he’s just putting them in buns. Nala asks if her name is Whitney and she is taken aback, seemingly thinking the girl who cursed Asher might be some sort of clairvoyant. Nala replies that Asher mentioned her name when she walked in.Whitney’s cringeworthy attempts at buddying up to the girls, however, reveal crucial information. She learns that Nala’s “curse” was actually a “tiny curse,” part of a TikTok trend where kids put “tiny curses” on people. Nothing major, just ostensibly inflicting little inconveniences upon their enemies.This should be a comfort to Asher and Whitney. All their (completely unjustified) fears could be explained away by social media. Instead, the specificity of what Nala wished on Asher sends him spiraling. She cursed him so that his dinner wouldn’t have chicken — specifically his chicken spaghetti. And the night of the curse Asher discovered there was no chicken in his chicken penne.Hikmah Warsame, left, and Emma Stone in “The Curse.”A24/Paramount+ with ShowtimeAsher refuses to write this off as mere coincidence, and keeps dwelling on it even as, back home, Whitney tries to orchestrate a cute moment for Instagram. He thinks the girls might have somehow been spying on him or going through the garbage and mentioned the missing chicken to mess with him. Whitney charges him with thinking that “that every disadvantaged person is just like a wild animal going through our garbage,” which sets off a screaming match in which they both accuse the other of making racist assumptions.It is Asher who is more furious, however, shouting about Whitney’s refusal to “validate” him. In the middle of the fight, they realize her phone is still recording. This is the real version of Asher and Whitney — a broken couple who invoke who I assume is a therapist named Lisa during their battles.But now their messy lives are intertwined with the lives of Nala, Hani and Abshir. They have inflicted their own chaos upon people who never asked for their charity but are now reliant on it, because Asher and Whitney literally own their home. And while Asher is suspicious of Nala and her “tiny curse,” Nala has far more reason to be suspicious of this man who can put her out on the street if he feels like it.Notes from EspañolaI wonder how much fun was had coming up with the insults directed toward Asher for the focus group. I would guess a ton.Asher discussing Whitney’s menstrual cycle with her doctor while she is in the room is him at his ickiest.Dougie is absolutely obnoxious — eating frozen blueberries on a white couch — but I feel terrible for him. All he wants to do is hang out, and when Asher rejects him he just cries.Whitney, once again trying to prove her Jewish bona fides, confuses “mitzvah” and “mishegas.”The episode ends on a freeze frame of Fernando, gun on his back, settling into his new job as a nighttime security guard at Whitney and Asher’s plaza. It is almost as if he’s staring down the audience, and I’m curious as to what it portends. More

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      ‘The Curse’ Season 1, Episode 2 Recap: Alone Together

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      In some ways Whitney and Asher are a team, though in others they are distant from one another.Season 1, Episode 2: ‘Pressure’s Looking Good So Far’There are multiple moments in the second episode of “The Curse” when the camera lingers on the desperation behind a character’s eyes. While last week’s premiere established that these people are often despicable, the follow up plunges deeper into their loneliness and sadness.The most striking example comes when Dougie is out with a woman at a Chinese restaurant. Dougie has so far been presented as a smooth operator, a kind of central-casting jerk. He is almost a parody of a reality TV show producer, with his hunger for conflict and propensity for massaging reality to suit his purposes.But eating opposite this woman, another facet of his persona emerges. We arrive in media res, and it takes a beat to understand that Dougie is talking about breathalyzer tests and blood alcohol levels. Slowly it becomes clear he was involved in a horrific crash, and while he says he bears no responsibility for it — he just happened to be intoxicated over the legal limit — he obviously feels guilt. Then comes the gruesome reveal: His wife was killed in the accident.Dougie is cast in a new light, his brashness now tinged with sorrow. It’s grimly funny when he offers to drive his date home — she is reluctant, naturally — but then there’s a deadness to his gaze as he stares at the road ahead of him. His invitation seemed to imply he had learned nothing from his previous crash, a realization that has just seemed to dawn on him. When he administers a breathalyzer on himself and realizes he’s, once again, drunk behind the wheel, he pulls over and suggests they walk the mile home. He tries to spin the situation, saying he likes to walk in a new city, but it’s a tragic stroll.It is hard to see Dougie the same after this sequence. He has no one in the world, a detail which becomes even clearer when Asher finds him at the Whistling River casino playing blackjack. Asher is surprised he is still in town — there’s nothing for him to do while they wait for the network’s response. But Dougie has nowhere else to go.Whitney may have Asher and people she thinks are friends, but she is just as isolated. And as with Dougie, that’s at least partly her own fault. Emma Stone plays Whitney as a woman so anxious to make a good impression, she’s oblivious to how off-putting she is. She brags about her friendship with the Native artist Cara Durand (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin) to James Toledo (Gary Farmer), governor of the San Pedro Pueblo, as a way to demonstrate her Indigenous ally credibility. But when we see her actually with Cara, it is clear the fondness is one-sided.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): What Is Going on With the Grammy Nominations?

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The nominations for the 2024 Grammy Awards, which include multiple nods for the true pop stars Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, but also for the R&B sensualist SZA, as well as the loose-knit indie rock supergroup boygenius and the former talk-show bandleader and exuberant border-crosser Jon Batiste.“The Curse,” the new show on Showtime from Nathan Fielder that continues his philosophical and moral experimentation with the tropes of reality television.New songs from Dua Lipa and Jack HarlowSnack of the weekConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in November: ‘Invincible,’ ‘Fargo’ and More

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      The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony will be live-streamed, and “Julia,” “Fargo” and more return. “The Buccaneers” is among the new series out this month.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of November’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Invincible’ Season 2, Part 1Starts streaming: Nov. 3Season 1 of this ultraviolent superhero cartoon (based on a comic book series by “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman) introduced the title character: a teenager still developing and honing the superpowers he inherited from his space-alien father. Steven Yeun voices Invincible, a.k.a. Mark Grayson, who at the end of last season learned that his dad, Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), had been serving as one of the Earth’s protectors while secretly paving the way for a future invasion by his own planet’s people. Season 2 picks up in the aftermath of that revelation, as Mark and his fellow heroes face a series of new supervillains while also strategizing for Omni-Man’s possible return. Though “Invincible” has dark moments, the show’s overall vibe is bright and entertaining, with enough nods to classic superhero tropes to please devoted comics readers.Also arriving:Nov. 10“007: Road to a Million” Season 1“Dina Hashem: Dark Little Whispers”Nov. 14“Trevor Wallace: Pterodactyl”Nov. 17“Ex-mas”“Maxine’s Baby: The Tyler Perry Story”“Twin Love” Season 1Nov. 21“Bye Bye Barry”Nov. 29“Pretty Hard Cases”Anna Sawai in “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.”Diyah Pera/Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘The Buccaneers’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 8Based on Edith Wharton’s final novel — left unfinished when she died in 1937 — “The Buccaneers” explores the flowering of the late-19th-century American aristocracy. Like the book, the series is about a group of wealthy young women who go to London to take part in the debutante season, invited by some established British families who want to lure these ladies (and their money) into marriages with cash-poor dukes and lords. Kristine Froseth takes the series’ lead as Nan St. George, the brightest of the Americans, who is supposed to be waiting in line for a husband behind her sister, Jinny (Imogen Waterhouse), but who instead finds herself courted by two men — Guy (Matthew Broome) and Theo (Guy Remmers) — who find her independence refreshing.‘For All Mankind’ Season 4Starts streaming: Nov. 10This terrific alternate-history science-fiction TV series had an uncharacteristically shaky third season, with its thrilling outer-space action — set mostly on Mars — butting up against some much drearier relationship melodrama. Season 4 resets “For All Mankind” a bit, introducing new characters and kicking off a new story, set in the 2000s. These episodes see multiple private and government space agencies working together on ambitious areas of exploration, including tapping asteroids for their mineral resources. At the same time, issues with the existing infrastructures on the Moon and Mars create a fresh set of practical problems for our heroes to solve. Newcomers to the cast include Toby Kebbel as a former oil-rigger looking for work away from Earth and Daniel Stern as a former corporate chief executive trying to bring efficiency to NASA.‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 17This first live-action TV series set in the recent “Godzilla” and “King Kong” movies’ “MonsterVerse” divides its action between two eras: the 1950s, when the existence of giant creatures is still a closely guarded secret, and the present, where some cities have built underground shelters to withstand Godzilla attacks. Anna Sawai plays Cate, who goes looking for the truth about her father’s connection to the mysterious monster-studying Monarch agency. Wyatt Russell and Kurt Russell both play Lee Shaw, who became involved with Monarch as a U.S. soldier in the 1950s — and who a half-century later may be the only one who can help Cate. The creator Chris Black, who developed the show with the writer Matt Fraction, uses footage from the MonsterVerse films to add a sense of scope and awe to a series that is as much about the humans than it is about the big beasts looking to stomp them.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Fingernails”Nov. 22“The Velveteen Rabbit”Disney+New to Disney+‘The 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony’Starts streaming: Nov. 3After years of HBO airing a recorded and edited version of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s annual induction ceremony, this year Disney+ has the rights to the event, and will be broadcasting it live and uncut. The 2023 inductees, some of whom will be performing, include Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, Chaka Khan, Willie Nelson and Rage Against the Machine. Presenters include Carrie Underwood, Common, Ice-T, Queen Latifah and Sia. These ceremonies do last a while, but they also tend to be full of emotional moments and genuine surprises, so for pop music buffs who can’t see the show in person, this is a rare chance to watch the action unfold as it happens — and then to watch it again later, in the Disney+ catalog.Also arriving:Nov. 1“Behind the Attraction” Season 2“The Three Detectives”Nov. 8“Daddies on Request” Season 2“The Santa Clauses” Season 2Nov. 17“Dashing Through the Snow”Nov. 23“The Naughty Nine”Emma Corrin and Harris Dickinson in “A Murder at the End of the World.”Christopher Saunders/FXNew to Hulu‘A Murder at the End of the World’Starts streaming: Nov. 14The writer-director-producer team of Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling are best-known for their Netflix supernatural mystery series “The OA,” which was canceled before Batmanglij and Marling could finish the story. They are staying in the same genre for this mini-series, which puts the duo’s usual spacey spin on the “country house murder mystery” plot. Clive Owen plays an eccentric tech billionaire who invites a group of influential thought leaders to his magnificent resort hotel in an icy wasteland. The one guest who does not seem to fit in with the rest is Darby Hart (Emma Corrin), a skilled hacker and amateur detective who wrote a popular true crime book. When someone on the property turns up dead, Darby has to find the killer and also convince her fellow partygoers that something strange is going on — all while she reckons with some secrets from her own past.‘Fargo’ Season 5Starts streaming: Nov. 22After a long layoff, Noah Hawley’s offbeat crime series “Fargo” is back, with 10 more episodes set (very loosely) in the same blood-spattered “Minnesota nice” reality as Joel and Ethan Coen’s Oscar-winning 1996 movie. Previous seasons took place in 1950, 1979, 2006 and 2010. The fifth season takes place in 2019, and stars Juno Temple as Dot, a seemingly ordinary housewife who gets in trouble with the law and sees her shady past catching up to her, in the form of an authoritarian right-wing sheriff (Jon Hamm) determined to catch her. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Dot’s mother-in-law, an icy collection agency magnate who usually leans on her lawyer (Dave Foley) to get her family members out of trouble — but who has no idea what she is dealing with in the sweet but deadly Dot.Also arriving:Nov. 1“Arthdal Chronicles: The Sword of Aramun”“Black Cake”“A Christmas Frequency”“Reporting for Christmas”Nov. 2“Pam’s Garden of Eden” Season 2“Magic Mike’s Last Dance”Nov. 3“L.A. Law” Seasons 1-8“Quiz Lady”Nov. 6“JFK: One Day in America”Nov. 8“Vigilante” Season 1Nov. 9“The Croods: Family Tree” Season 8“The League”Nov. 13“The Lady Bird Diaries”Nov. 15“Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story”Nov. 16“Black Ice”“Drive with Swiss Beatz”“The Secret Life of Dancing Dogs”Nov. 20“Incredible Animal Journeys”“The Last Rider”“My Hero Academia” Season 6, Part 2Nov. 21“Obituary” Season 1Nov. 26“Faraway Downs”Nov. 29“The Artful Dodger” Season 1Nov. 30“A Compassionate Spy”“Wild Crime” Season 3Sarah Lancashire and David Hyde Pierce in Season 2 of “Julia.”Sebastein Gonon/MaxNew to Max‘Julia’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 16Season 1 of this delightful biographical dramedy was one of last year’s unexpected TV gems, thanks in large part to Sarah Lancashire’s luminous performance as the boisterous, can-do cooking instructor Julia Child, coupled with David Hyde Pierce’s warm, wry take on her supportive husband, Paul. The first season was all about how the Childs committed their time, energy and money toward realizing their dream of creating a public television show that could demystify and popularize French food. In Season 2, Julia has become an unlikely celebrity, and she and Paul have to fight to maintain the quality of their show while all the people who doubted them before come running to cash in on their success.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Scent of Time”Nov. 7“Stand Up & Shout: Songs from a Philly High School”Nov. 8“You Were My First Boyfriend”Nov. 11“Albert Brooks: Defending My Life”Nov. 13“Love Has Won”Nov. 14“How We Get Free”Nov. 28“South to Black Power”Nov. 30“Bookie” Season 1David Oyelowo in “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.”Emerson Miller/Paramount+New to Paramount+ with Showtime‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’Starts streaming: Nov. 5The first installment of a new true crime anthology series — with each season telling the story of some famous cop or crook — “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” stars David Oyelowo as Reeves, the western hero who in his life went from being enslaved on a Texas plantation to serving with distinction as a U.S. Marshal. Oyelowo is also an executive producer (as is the “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan) on this historical drama that stretches across decades, covering an eventful life that overlapped with some of the biggest social changes in America: from the end of the Civil War to the expansion of the frontier. Created by the writer-producer Chad Feehan, this first season of “Lawmen” looks at classic Western mythology through different eyes, considering what ideals like freedom and justice mean to someone born in chains.‘The Curse’Starts streaming: Nov. 10The comedian Nathan Fielder has spoofed reality TV throughout his career, and especially in his series “Nathan for You” and “The Rehearsal.” His latest project — cocreated with the filmmaker Benny Safdie — takes a different approach to the genre, via a fictional story with a serrated satirical edge. Fielder plays Asher Siegel, who alongside his wife, Whitney (Emma Stone), is shooting an HGTV show called “Flipanthropy,” in which the couple helps the struggling residents of a small New Mexico town move into cutting-edge eco-friendly houses. When a young street peddler puts a curse on the stingy Asher, the Siegels’ marriage and television collaboration both begin to suffer. A commentary on the contrived rosiness of home improvement shows, “The Curse” also touches on gentrification, xenophobia, and the deep need of some do-gooder types to be lauded for their largess, even when their efforts hurt more than help.Also arriving:Nov. 1“Ink Master” Season 15Nov. 7“De La Calle”Nov. 9“Colin from Accounts”Nov. 22“Good Burger 2” More