What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!

Starting 5

Get ready for the return of hoops season this week with Netflix’s latest sports documentary series. It follows five big NBA stars through the 2023-2024 season, from the court and the locker room to home with their families. Superstar LeBron James (also a producer) leads the lineup, which includes Jimmy Butler (with the Miami Heat that season), the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards, Domantas Sabonis of the Sacramento Kings and Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics. 

Watch it: Starting 5, Oct. 16 on Netflix

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Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!

Lazarus, Season 1

Best-selling thriller-meister Harlan Coben, 63, has conceived a six-part series about a forensic psychologist (Sam Claflin, Daisy Jones & the Six) returning home after the sudden suicide of his father (the always great Bill Nighy, 75). Then Dad appears to him as a ghost. Soon our befuddled hero is seeing people who died under suspicious circumstances, with the killer still on the loose. Is he losing his mind, or is he the one person who can solve a series of cold-case murders that span decades?

Watch it: Lazarus, Oct. 22 on Prime Video

Don’t miss this: The Best Things Coming to Prime Video this Month

New at the movies this week

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ☆ After the Hunt, R

Julia Roberts, 57, excels when her character has a dark, damaged streak that contrasts with her megawatt smile. In this psychological drama, she leaps into an academic snake pit as Alma, a swaggering tenure-track professor in Yale’s philosophy department. While some may find the setting obscure (mentions of French philosopher Michel Foucault, for example), this is essentially a survivor story. To get the brass ring of tenure, the ambitious Alma has to suppress her murky secrets. This becomes increasingly challenging when her mini-me — her devoted mentee, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) — lobs accusations of sexual misconduct at Alma’s closest colleague, Hank (Andrew Garfield). Add in Alma’s deliciously passive-aggressive psychoanalyst husband, Frederik (a scene-stealing Michael Stuhlbarg, 57), with his color commentary from outside the ivory tower, and there’s no shortage of tension. Will Alma be derailed on the tenure track? Or will she sacrifice everything, everybody around her and her soul for the win? —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: After the Hunt, Oct. 17 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ☆ Blue Moon, R

Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon is a portrait of a great American alcoholic artist circling the drain. Lyricist Lorenz Hart –– 5 feet tall, balding and gay –– was a lion of American musical theater. Playing against type, Ethan Hawke, 54, pours himself into a role bound for Oscar buzz. Hawke’s Hart embodies a genius confronting his career self-sabotage with wit and bile. Set largely at New York City’s restaurant Sardi’s following the 1943 Broadway premiere of Oklahoma!, the dramedy finds Hart an unwelcome guest at the celebration of the first collaboration between his longtime creative partner Richard Rodgers (a brilliant Andrew Scott) and the composer’s new lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney, 55). The tense, bittersweet exchange between Rodgers and Hart played out in a stairwell with the joyous after-party is a counterpoint that devastates, as it should. Meanwhile, Hart’s scenes of kibitzing with the bartender (an anchoring Bobby Cannavale, 55) and chatting with erudite author E. B. White (a wry Patrick Kennedy) delight. Less savory is Hart’s flirtation with younger protégé Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley). Perhaps being cringey is the point. Free of sentimentality, dipped in regret, Blue Moon is a sophisticated love song to a bygone era. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Blue Moon, Oct. 17 in theaters

Go behind the scenes of Blue Moon with Ethan Hawke in his new interview with AARP

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ☆ Frankenstein, R

Even if Dr. Frankenstein were the last doctor on my medical plan, I’d be inclined to skip our appointment. That said, anything that The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro, 61, delivers piques my curiosity. A stunning set piece launches Frankenstein: A Victorian explorer’s ship stuck in the Arctic ice with the crew on the verge of mutiny encounters a near-death traveler, Victor Frankenstein (a scenery chomping Oscar Isaac), and the undead monster of his making, the Creature (uglied-up heartthrob Jacob Elordi). As Victor tells the crew his story, we flash back to the familiar touchpoints: a renegade doctor with no bedside manner harnessing electricity to animate disparate body parts. The resulting creation becomes sentient and tormented, craving a partner in the otherwise betrothed Elizabeth (MaXXXine’s Mia Goth). Once abandoned by his creator, the Creature goes rogue. Inevitably, the doctor’s lack of compassion contrasts with the monster’s innate humanity. Gorgeous costumes, imaginative world building and dynamic cinematography combine as Del Toro connects the familiar dots, dipping into the monster’s POV. As much as I appreciate the craftsmanship, this version is not quite the electrifying new vision I’d need to justify the exhumation of the patchwork monster. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Frankenstein, Oct. 17 in theaters

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⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ Kiss of the Spider Woman, R

Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel is a heady mixture of high and low culture, politics and pulp. The 1985 movie (with the late William Hurt and Raul Julia) followed. Then the musical. And now, that musical’s movie version. What the song-filled saga gets right is the charismatic central pair: sexy Diego Luna and standout Tonatiuh as cellmates in an Argentine prison, one a tortured political prisoner, the other a gay man. The latter, like a jailbird Scheherazade, passes the time and lubricates the relationship by telling the story of an old Hollywood movie. In the fantasy sequences, Jennifer Lopez, 56, plays three roles: Ingrid Luna, a film star; Aurora, a character Luna plays in the movies; and finally, the mythical, venomous Spider Woman. Like someone balancing plates, Lopez performs all the dance steps and hits every note but can’t marry them to any deep emotion. While her singing isn’t flat, her performance is. The result is a showy, uneven musical that fails to hit the novel’s high notes or convey its bite.  — Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Kiss of the Spider Woman, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ☆ Roofman , R

A tender love story emerges at the heart of this American true-crime caper. Veteran Jeffrey Manchester (a winning turn from charmer Channing Tatum), in a last-ditch effort to generate cash to lure back his wife and kids, starts robbing McDonald’s franchises. Ever polite, his moneymaking scheme lands him in prison, costing him his family. With the same agility and ingenuity that makes him an expert “roofman,” an agile thief who enters buildings from the top, the con breaks out of confinement. While hiding in a nearby Toys “R” Us during the ensuing manhunt, the congenial thief meets and woos forthright church lady and salesclerk Leigh (a delightful, down-to-earth Kirsten Dunst). Peter Dinklage, 56, adds dark humor as the bitter store manager, while Ben Mendelsohn, 56, stands out as a singing reverend in a movie crafted to entertain audiences while stealing their hearts. — Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Roofman, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ A House of Dynamite , R

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, 73, returns with an intense ticking-clock nuclear drama. As our military tracks an unidentified nuclear warhead seemingly destined for Chicago, those charged with preserving the nation’s (and the globe’s) safety step through the procedures. It’s a stellar crew: Rebecca Ferguson as a captain on the front lines, plus Tracy Letts, 60, Jared Harris, 64, and Jason Clarke, 56. The characters pull the audience into a state of dread: These professionals have the whole world in their hands — as well as their individual families’ survival. Meanwhile, for two-thirds of the movie, the president is largely AWOL. Then, in a narrative trick that resets the clock at the two-thirds mark, the commander in chief played by the wonderful Idris Elba, 53, ambles in to take center stage. This dramatic third-act choice oddly dampens rather than heightens the suspense. From that moment, A House of Dynamite fizzles, choosing to end on a “huh?” note more suitable for The Twilight Zone than the prestige Oscar bait it’s intended to be. — Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: A House of Dynamite, in theaters