Happy New Year! Please oh please oh please. |
Have a safe and beautiful weekend. |
This weekend I have … a half-hour, and I love ‘Bob’s Burgers’ |
 | | Judy, voiced by Jenny Slate, and Alanis Morissette, voiced by Alanis Morissette, in the premiere of “The Great North.”Fox |
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When to watch: Sunday at 8:30 p.m., on Fox. |
This new comedy by some of the folks from “Bob’s Burgers” isn’t technically a spinoff, but it might as well be — in a good way! We could all use an extra dose of emotional warmth and goofy songs. “North” follows the offbeat Tobin family of Alaska, which includes a teen daughter, Judy, whose imaginary friend and trusted adviser is a celestial version of Alanis Morissette. Fox is airing the pilot this weekend, but the show starts in earnest this February; like many comedies, it gets funnier as it goes along, but it has a silly sweetness from the start. |
… several hours, and there’s meaning in repetition |
 | | Ralph Macchio and William Zabka in Season 3 of “Cobra Kai.”Curtis Bonds Baker/Netflix |
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Season 3 of this surprisingly robust revival continues to bring familiar faces back to the “Karate Kid” arena, this time drawing mostly from “The Karate Kid Part II.” The show is obsessed with absent fathers and the dangerous ways men seek validation, and it can be a little heavy on predictable back story. But it’s also bright and punchy, and the ongoing rivalry and psychodrama between Daniel and Johnny (Ralph Macchio and William Zabka) somehow still has legs. I’ll warn you that the show can be shockingly violent. Be prepared to watch children savagely beat the living daylights out of each other on multiple occasions. |
Your newly available movies |
 | | Chloë Grace Moretz in “Shadow in the Cloud,” directed by Roseanne Liang.Vertical Entertainment |
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A noble crook takes on crooked cops in “Honest Thief,” but it isn’t up to the usual bone-crushing standards of a Liam Neeson thriller. Our critics were lukewarm or worse on the rest of this week’s fare, too, but “Shadow in the Cloud,” a World War II adventure starring Chloë Grace Moretz, at least leans into its schlocky excess. |
Some independent films are available via “virtual cinemas,” which share the rental fees between distributors and theaters. Unless otherwise noted, other titles can generally be rented on the usual platforms, including Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. — Scott Tobias |
A defiant, generically unclassifiable film that dares viewers to question its sensitivity. — Ben Kenigsberg (Read the full review here.) |
Even when the plot twists, viewers won’t be surprised, having already been warned of winding roads ahead. It’s an inoffensive movie, full of such familiar tropes, it hardly matters if you can keep your eyes open to the end. — Teo Bugbee (Read the full review here.) |
Put kindly, the director Ron Vignone shoots this straightforward film in a utilitarian style. Put less kindly, the images appear flat and washed out. Though the characters squabble over a beautiful plot of land, the majority of the drama transpires in over-lit, under-designed living rooms. — Teo Bugbee (Read the full review here.) |
The twists come rapidly in the movie’s first half; in the second, the narrative dissolves into a zigzag of flying bodies and explosions that bend the laws of space-time. But the implausibility of it all is a perk: There’s never a moment in this rollicking film when you can tell what’s coming next. — Devika Girish (Read the full review here.) |
The movie keeps edging from compressed into sketchy, with Zama King oddly remaining a blank. But having also sat through two and a half hours of “Wonder Woman 1984,” I found myself daydreaming that the superhero’s time could be magically yielded to [the director Philippe Lacôte] to flesh out his evocative mythmaking. — Nicolas Rapold (Read the full review here.) |
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