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This post contains spoilers for episode 6 of season 2 of “Landman,” “Dark Night of the Soul,” which premiered on Sunday, December 21 on Paramount+. Well, “Landman” fans, a lot happened in this episode. T.L. (Sam Elliott) punched a man who disrespected his wife; Rebecca (Kayla Wallace) realized that a man she slept with was her subordinate; and Cami (Demi Moore) seems to no longer trust Tommy (Billy Bob Thornton) at all. The power dynamics are shifting rapidly! Creators: Taylor Sheridan, Christian Wallace Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Jacob Lofland There are two series that coexist somewhat awkwardly within Landman, almost as if they were designed for different audiences and genres. The first—and arguably the more compelling—is a corporate drama with elements of thriller, crime, and behind-the-scenes intrigue, set in the West Texas oil and gas world. In this series, Billy Bob Thornton shines as Tommy Norris, a kind of fixer in the oil industry, a man who works for one of the bi...

 Jake Paul knew the odds were stacked against him in his fight against Anthony “AJ” Joshua, a two-time unified world heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist. Paul, the YouTube content creator turned professional boxer, lasted six rounds before Joshua knocked him out, breaking his jaw in two places. The Paul-Joshua bout was the main event Friday at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, with Netflix live-streaming the fight card. In their fight, Joshua knocked Paul down in the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds, ultimately securing the victory with a knockout at 1:31 of the sixth round. Stars: Jake Paul, Anthony Joshua, Michael James Nuells In a post on X after the fight, Paul wrote, “Broken jaw. Heart and guts intact. Time to rest, recover, and move back down to cruiserweight.” He also posted an X-ray of his “double broken jaw” and added, “I want to fight Canelo in 10 days.” At a post-fight press conference, Joshua said, “Jake did well while it lasted… I wish I would have knocked...

Directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, the series unfolds with a deliberate dryness that often feels too convenient and unoriginal. A middle-aged woman lives like a veteran in prison, where cooking is her specialty. When we meet her, it's hard not to wonder what she's hiding behind her seemingly innocent face. She's the first to wake up in the morning, and we see her exercising almost robotically with the first rays of sunlight streaming through a nearby window. The inmates know her as Zeenat, but her real name will soon be revealed when she flashes a cunning smile. She is Mrs. Deshpande. We know her as Madhuri Dixit. Stars: Umakant Patil, Pradeep Velankar, Sulakshana Joglekar Co-writer and director Nagesh Kukunoor discreetly introduces the queen of Bollywood dance in his mystery thriller series, Mrs. Deshpande. Stylishly titled, the six-episode series is refreshingly unpretentious. It's narrated with a deliberate dryness that often feels too convenient and unoriginal, especially...

The film follows a psychoanalyst sentenced to community service who must work with a police officer suffering the consequences of a personal betrayal. This unlikely duo finds themselves embroiled in a dangerous situation that forces them both to confront fear, responsibility, and their own emotional blind spots. I've seen enough Netflix originals to know when one is going to be a waste of my time. An Hour for Courage seemed like it was going to be exactly that: a safe, predictable action-comedy with emotional undertones and a title that sounds like it came straight off a motivational poster. And yet, surprisingly, it turned out to be far more entertaining than expected. It's not perfect, nor groundbreaking, but it has witty moments, well-executed humor, and enough self-awareness to know when to stop pretending to be deeper than it actually is. Director: Ariel Winograd Stars: Luis Gerardo Méndez, Memo Villegas, Christian Tappan The premise is simple but surprisingly effective. M...

Animation is the art of the impossible, though it often settles for the ordinary. Much of adult animation simply translates into drawings what could be shown in live action: humans in human environments. Which is fine. Some great series fit this description, like "King of the Hill" and "Bob's Burgers," for example. Still, there are endless possibilities to explore, so it's good that Adult Swim, the network that once produced a series whose protagonists were a meatball, a milkshake, and a bag of potato chips, continues to innovate aesthetically. "The Elephant," which premieres Friday on the network and Saturday on HBO Max along with a documentary about its creation, "Behind the Elephant," is an animated version of the exquisite corpse, the old surrealist game in which three artists contribute the head, torso, or legs of a single figure, folding the paper so they can't see what the others have drawn.  Directors: Ian Jones-Quartey, Mike ...

Whether or not you enjoy screenwriter and director Dylan Southern’s new film, THE THING WITH FEATHERS, will likely depend on how much you’re convinced by his visual representation of the central concept of the beautiful book on which it’s based.  Novelist Max Porter chooses to tell the story of a grieving widower and his two young sons by imagining their grief as a large black crow that harasses them, nudges them, and even physically assaults them into accepting their devastating loss. What works on the page often falls flat or becomes ridiculous on screen, and I was very worried that seeing a man-sized crow with a thick Northern accent wouldn’t work. But I’m happy to say that, at least for me, it worked perfectly. Director: Dylan Southern Writers: Dylan Southern, Max Porter Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Spruell, David Thewlis I was deeply moved by this small family in their brutal struggle for survival. Benedict Cumberbatch is in almost every scene and perfectly embodies a fath...

Currently, the stories told by Bollywood can be broadly divided into two categories: on the one hand, there are those that promote a very toxic form of majoritarianism, and on the other, those that are so far removed from the reality we live in that their setting could be on Mars and it wouldn't make any difference.  Everything that exists between these two extremes and that attempts to reflect the times we live in is either not allowed to see the light of day or is censored so drastically that it makes artists regret choosing this profession. Don't believe me? Ask Honey Trehan. After working as a casting director, second unit director, and producer in the Hindi film industry for several decades, Trehan made his directorial debut with Raat Akeli Hai, where he tackled themes such as misogyny, the caste system, and pedophilia.  Director: Honey Trehan Writer: Smita Singh Stars: Radhika ApteIla,  Arun, Aarushi Bajaj He then went on to make Panjab '95, which still has no relea...

Ah, that time of year has arrived when we get to enjoy the best K-dramas, and even if this one premieres on a weekday, we're going to enjoy it like our lives depend on it, because finally, after what feels like months of dark and gritty dramas, we have something fun and original, a true romantic comedy. Dynamite Kiss definitely falls into the rich man, poor girl cliché, but it manages to subvert many of our expectations about the kind of people these two characters are.  Plus, this is basically the perfect pairing, and whoever cast these two actors for this drama, thank you, because the chemistry is explosive! I had forgotten how much I missed Jang Ki-Young, but seeing Ahn Eun-Jin as the lead is great! I think between her and Kim Min-Ha, we have two unconventional leading actresses who are showing us that the industry can change. Anyway, before this just becomes a lovefest for Dynamite Kiss, let's get straight to episodes 1 and 2. Stars: Jung Ga-hee, Park Jin-woo, Shin Joo-Hyup...

 It's no secret that South Korea's declining birth rate could leave the country without a population in a short time. The country that produces K-pop groups as if it were delivering milk bottles door-to-door every morning has recently been looking outward, even when it comes to its most popular musical genre, and one might wonder why this shift in such a self-sufficient culture. Well, because they're not having children. This worrying situation has led the country and its older generation to desperately seek a solution; the best one? The media, of course. And that's where films like The Great Flood come in.   At first glance, The Great Flood is an apocalyptic science fiction film where we are so shocked and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the flood that we realize too late that it's actually a film about a mother and her son. Korea has always been fantastic at this kind of emotionally charged commentary in apocalyptic films, the greatest example being Train to Busan...

Defying conventions at every turn—not just for fun, but to exemplify its central thesis—the latest New Mexico-set drama from the creator of "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" may be intermittently satisfying scene by scene, but it wrangles its numerous ambitious ideas into a potent season with enormous potential. This review cannot tell you what happens in "Pluribus." Not the plot twists, of course, but not even the basic premise. Apple's list of restrictions is so extensive that answering the most common question from prospective viewers—"What is the show about?"—is practically impossible. Creator: Vince Gilligan Stars: Rhea Seehorn, Karolina Wydra, Carlos-Manuel Vesga While this isn't uncommon these days—many episodes sent to critics come with episode-by-episode spoiler lists, or non-disclosure agreements that require us to watch a Spider-Man cartoon "out of sight or earshot of anyone else"—the increasing control exerted by...

Patton Oswalt, Martin Scorsese, Seth Rogen, and others analyze 1975 as a key cultural and historical turning point. In the opening minutes of Netflix's Breakdown: 1975, Oliver Stone pulls out a piece of lined paper and enthusiastically begins reading a list of his favorite films, presumably from 1975, given the title of Morgan Neville's documentary and the themes already established by Jodie Foster's narration. Director: Morgan Neville Stars: Jodie Foster, Wesley Morris, Todd Boyd All goes well for a while, until he gets to All the President's Men and Network. It's here that film scholars and those with an obsessive attention to detail will notice a very, very obvious problem: both All the President's Men and Network were released in 1976. This inaccuracy will not dissipate over the next hour and a half. Breakdown: 1975 is full of excellent snippets and peppered with insightful observations, but it's a truly strange documentary, likely appealing to viewers w...

 I’ve never been enthusiastic about the term “religious film,” or at least the idea that it should only apply to PG-rated Sunday school melodramas, centered on calamity and redemption, aimed specifically at evangelicals. “Song Sung Blue,” in almost every way, is a religious film, though its religion is the sacred dream of Neil Diamond church devotion. It’s based on the true story of Mike and Claire Sardina (played by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson), who in the late ’80s and early ’90s formed a Neil Diamond tribute band, performing as Lightning & Thunder (he’s Lightning, she’s Thunder). At first, the film may seem more kitsch than religious parable. The two meet at a performance at the Wisconsin State Fair, where various amateurs take the stage to impersonate legends like Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Barbra Streisand. She’s dressed as Patsy Cline and gives a pretty good rendition of “Walkin’ After Midnight.” He was supposed to perform as Don Ho and sing the 1966 hit “Tiny Bubbles,” but...

 Greetings again from the darkness. The latest installment of the HBO Music Box documentary series, directed by Amy Scott, offers a perfect example of what can happen when a band achieves overnight success. It’s not always pretty, and sometimes it’s downright uncomfortable. Counting Crows’ popularity skyrocketed with the release of their 1993 debut album, "August and Everything After." The hit single "Mr. Jones" was everywhere on the radio, followed by an even better song, "Round Here." The band and their music were ubiquitous. Director Scott allows the band's frontman, vocalist, and songwriter, Adam Duritz, ample time to explain what happened after the band's second album, "Recovering the Satellites," was a huge success... though not quite as big as the first. Adulation was mixed with fierce criticism. Duritz confesses his struggles with mental health and the delay in receiving a proper diagnosis.  Director: Amy Scott Stars: Adam Duritz,...

 10 Dance, Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the popular Japanese BL (boys’ love) manga by Inouesatoh, has arrived on Netflix with excellent choreography, the same level of yearning, slightly less racism, and a story just as incomplete as the manga. Because yes, this movie is called 10 Dance. No, we don’t actually get to the 10 Dance competition. Netflix is ​​obviously banking on a sequel, because the decision to end the film at what feels like the beginning is a clear strategy to make us beg for more. And we are begging. We want more. More dancing, yes, but also more yearning. More romance. In fact, the only thing we don’t want more of is the stereotypes! They can keep those. Director: Keishi Otomo Writers: Satoh Inoue, Keishi Otomo, Tomoko Yoshida Stars: Ryoma Takeuchi, Keita Machida, Shiori Doi Let’s start there. The biggest problem with 10 Dance is that, as a Latina, I felt insulted every time Cuba was mentioned and Latino stereotypes were reinforced, whether in Japanese or t...

 The streaming landscape is currently saturated with crime thrillers and murder mysteries. However, this isn't a new phenomenon on the small screen. Even before the advent of OTT platforms, some of the most popular television series belonged to these subgenres. But I suppose budget limitations and the freedom to follow a set of characters and explore a world over several seasons gave these productions a sense of simplicity and intimacy.  Nowadays, with the threat of projects being canceled if they don't reach a certain number of views within 24 hours, creators are forced to cram too much into their shows in an attempt to impress everyone, from viewers to producers. Therefore, most of these narratives are filled with unexpected twists, elaborate commentary on social issues, and much more.  Stars: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Somegorô Ichikawa, Rie Miyazawa However, in this endeavor, they forget to focus on the one thing that will make a series truly memorable: the characters. Yes,...

 Prime Video's post-apocalyptic drama, “Fallout,” has returned for its second season, and it's even bigger and more explosive than the first. Inspired by the acclaimed video game, the first season saw creators Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner follow the naive vault dweller Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) as she left her luxurious underground home to venture into the dangerous outside world in search of her father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan).  On her quest, Lucy encountered the Brotherhood of Steel soldier, Maximus (Aaron Moten), who has lived a very different life than hers. She also crossed paths with the infamous Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a ruthless bounty hunter armed to the teeth, determined to uncover what happened to his family. In a sprawling and terrifying second season that unearths long-buried secrets, Lucy grapples with her identity, her morality, and how to survive in this desolate wasteland. Creators: Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Graham Wagner Stars: Ella Purnell, Aaro...