FRIDAY
SEPTEMBER 4
2020

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Amazon Prime Video, 3:00 a.m. ET

SEASON PREMIERE: The first three episodes of this new Season 2 were sneaked onto Amazon as a surprise to fans yesterday – but its official relaunch is today, when one new Season 2 episode will be added every Friday. As with last season, The Boys does something other than the usual costumed heroes vs. costumed villains approach to comic-book series. It has heroes who secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) act as villains, opposed only by renegade paranormals who are branded as bad guys – but who actually are the real heroes of the piece. The Boys ask what can superpowered mutants do not only with their individual gifts, but with the lack of ethics required to bend the media, and the country, to support their squad of costumed “protectors” no matter what?
 
  
 
 

Disney+, 3:00 a.m. ET

MOVIE PREMIERE: This live-action Disney film was supposed to be released in March, but was pulled from theaters just as the coronavirus started to force shutdowns of many social activities across the country, and the world. It’s being released today as a streaming offering today, but at a hefty price: It’s available to Disney+ subscribers, but at an additional a la carte price of $29.99. The promos, though, are exciting enough to make that expensive option worth considering, especially to parents who are seeking strong positive role models for their daughters (and hey, for their sons, too). Mulan is taken from a Chinese fable about a young girl who seeks to protect her ailing father from being called up to war because he has no sons to send to battle. The young woman, Mulan, takes his place by disguising herself as a young man, and becoming a distinguished soldier and, eventually, an inspirational female warrior. In the 1999 Disney animated version, Mulan’s voice was provided by Ming-Na Wen, who played all three dimensions of a female warrior as the fierce Melinda May on ABC’s recently concluded Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (she also co-starred, as far back as 1995, on NBC’s ER.) In this new version, which not only is expensive to watch but looks lavishly expensive on screen, Mulan is played by Yifei Liu, with such familiar and popular Asian co-stars as Jason Scott Lee, Rosalind Chao, and Jet Li.
 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

SERIES PREMIERE: This new sci-fi drama series comes from creator Andrew Hinderacker, a staff writer on the original incarnation of Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, and its executive producers include Jason Katims (of TV’s Friday Night Lights and Parenthood fame) and Edward Zwick (TV’s My So-Called Life, thirtysomething and the movie Glory). Another executive producer is Million Dollar Baby and Boys Don’t Cry star Hilary Swank, who stars in Away as astronaut Emma Green, who goes on a dangerous mission to Mars while worrying about leaving her husband (Josh Charles) and daughter (Talitha Eliana Bateman) behind. The participants would suggest a work of quality, subtlety and intelligence – and what I’ve seen of Away thus far delivers on that promise. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower
 
  
 
 

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

MOVIE PREMIERE: The title of Charlie Kaufman’s new movie, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, comes from the quietly spoken first line of narration, emanating from the character of the young woman played by Jessie Buckley. She’s agreed to go on a trip with her new boyfriend Jake, played by Jesse Plemons, to introduce her to his parents, played by David Thewlis and Toni Collette. It’s a powerhouse cast – Buckley is a standout in the upcoming season of FX’s Fargo, and was a star of HBO’s Chernobyl, while Collette played many dynamic roles in Showtime’s The United States of Tara and Thewlis was unforgettable in the most recent season of Fargo as villainous V.M. Varga. And speaking of TV’s Fargo – Plemons co-starred in an earlier season of Fargo, as a small-town butcher. And Plemons, I’d like to take a moment to point out, has to be one of this new generation’s actors with the very best, most impressive resumes, racking up appearances in one amazing production after another. Since co-starring as Landry in Jason Katims’ TV series Friday Night Lights, he’s been prominently featured in Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad and El Camino, a season of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, the amazing “U.S.S. Callister” episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror – and now he’s co-starring in a moody and mercurial new movie written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, whose famously unusual and intricate screenplays include Anomalisa; Synecdoche, New York; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; Adaptation; and Being John Malkovich. The more of those you’ve seen, the more original you know his work is.
 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

In October 1964, just eight months after The Beatles invaded America on The Ed Sullivan Show, a live stage show was organized in Santa Monica, CA, that was sort of a prototypical rock festival, gathering veterans and newcomers from various branches of rock, pop and soul. It was called the Teenage American Music International show – and was billed, in advance (see poster), as the First Annual T.A.M.I. show. Which isn’t correct, technically, because you can’t claim something is an annual tradition when you’ve held only one. But why get grammatical, when you can get fanatical? Check out just part of this roster: The Beach Boys. Chuck Berry. James Brown. Marvin Gaye. Lesley Gore. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The Supremes.The Rolling Stones. That list is alphabetical as well as partial, but be forewarned: James Brown steals this show – and is reason enough to watch this 1964 concert film.
 
  
 
 
 
 
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2683 Comments
 
 
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Dave Bianculli
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Dave
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Dave Bianculli
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.