HBO Max announced today that the reboot of "Gossip Girl" will arrive on July 8. There's a teaser and everything. |
Have a wonderful weekend. |
This weekend I have … a half-hour, and I miss 'Downton Abbey' |
 | | Mercy, Fly, Laika, Pandi, Epsilon, Beauwolf, Bones and Brea, as seen on "Meerkat Manor."Caroline Hawkins/BBCA |
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'Meerkat Manor: Rise of the Dynasty' |
When to watch: Arrives Friday, on AMC+. |
Meerkats are having a perky little moment right now: "Meerkat Manor," narrated by Bill Nighy, ran for four seasons starting in 2005 and is back for a revival; and Discovery+ has "Meet the Meerkats," narrated by Rob Delaney, which is more or less the same. The meerkats on this season of "Manor" are descendants of Flower, the queenpin of the original, and the delicate social hierarchies and guiding tribalism are as intense and engrossing as ever. Think "Game of Thrones"-level fraught sagas of familial responsibility and the scamps that subvert it, but without the drudgery. (The show debuts in earnest next weekend on BBC America but lands on AMC+ a week early.) |
… an afternoon, and I never developed a quar hobby |
 | | A Lane Acclaim table mid-restoration, as seen on Dashner Design & Restoration.YouTube |
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Dashner Design & Restoration |
We're approaching one of the busiest moving days of the year, which is Christmas for second-hand-furniture enthusiasts. If there's a refinishing project in your future — or if you just wish there were, or if you like patient competence with a Midwestern flair — try this blissfully laid-back YouTube channel about restoring thrift-store finds. So much of YouTube is quick editing and garish screeching, a monstrosity formed in an algorithm's image. But this is the opposite: quiet, pleasant, educational. If you like the rhythms of "Joe Pera Talks With You" but want to commiserate about the dearth of effective paint strippers, watch this. |
… seven hours, and what's all the fuss? |
 | | Kate Winslet in "Mare of Easttown."Michele K. Short/HBO |
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When to watch: Now, on HBO Max; the finale airs Sunday at 10 p.m., on HBO. |
I resisted this bleak Kate Winslet mini-series — accurately parodied as "Murder Durdur" on a recent "Saturday Night Live" — for several reasons, including having already seen the similar, superior "Happy Valley" and feeling mostly maxed out on dead-girl shows. And after a pandemic year in which planning became the enemy of pleasure, committing to a weekly release schedule for a whodunit felt like deciding what to have for dinner six weeks from now. Luckily, "Mare" works great as a binge, a mode that smooths over the show's clunkier elements, highlights its fabulous performances and energizes the story. |
Your newly available movies |
 | | From left, Victoria Moroles and Kuhoo Verma in "Plan B."Brett Roedel/Hulu |
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The movie landscape may be starting to shift again for living-room viewers, with two of the week's biggest films, "A Quiet Place Part II" and "Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue," debuting in theaters only. But not all is lost in the realm of at-home viewing this Memorial Day weekend: Our critics made no Critic's Picks this week, but Natalie Morales's Hulu comedy "Plan B," about two girls tracking down a morning-after pill, definitely has its raunchy pleasures. SCOTT TOBIAS |
The film combines vivid archival footage from war reporters with the accounts of an array of veterans. Its project is to immerse us in the horrors of warfare, and to convey the ways its witnesses cope with war's psychic toll. — Natalia Winkelman (Read the full review here.) |
The metaphors and what we'll call the noise-to-signal ratio aside, "Chaos Walking" is standard issue roughing-it-in-a-dystopia stuff. Players in differing grades of vintage costuming and varied beard lengths chase the younger characters through rugged terrain and commit mayhem with weaponry both futuristic and crude. — Glenn Kenny (Read the full review here.) |
This revisionist supervillain origin story, directed by Craig Gillespie ("I, Tonya"), doesn't offer much that is genuinely new, but it nonetheless feels fresher than most recent Disney live-action efforts. There's some visual wit and pop sparkle in the mildly Dickensian tale of how Cruella DeVil, the notorious pooch-hater of "One Hundred and One Dalmations," came to be that way. — A.O. Scott (Read the full review here.) |
What Moby leaves out of his account is as revealing as the tales of homelessness and addiction he puts in. Sampling is a hallmark of electronic dance music, and many songs on his blockbuster album "Play" were constructed around bits lifted from the work of African American musicians. You'd be hard pressed to learn much about that from this documentary. — Glenn Kenny (Read the full review here.) |
This buddy comedy was directed by the actress Natalie Morales, and her filmmaking demonstrates the same easy confidence she has shown as a performer in movies like "Battle of the Sexes" and TV series like "Dead To Me." The pace isn't rushed, the punch lines are casually underplayed and the performances are relaxed and charismatic. — Teo Bugbee (Read the full review here.) |
 | | From left, Dennis Haysbert, Tom Ellis and DB Woodside in a scene from "Lucifer."John P. Fleenor/Netflix |
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- "Lucifer" is back for the second half of its fifth season, on Netflix. If you've ever wanted to see God and the Devil sing a karaoke duet, there's a musical episode this season.
- The third and final season of "The Kominsky Method" is now on Netflix.
- The season finale of "The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers" is now on Disney+.
- The season finale of "A Black Lady Sketch Show" airs Friday at 11 p.m. on HBO. The show has been renewed for a third season.
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