What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Moving On, PG-13

Never in a million years would I have seen Barbarella and thought, “That Jane Fonda will someday meet Lily Tomlin and become half of one of the most enduring comic duos on screens big and small!” Moving On is an extension of their seven-season run of Grace and Frankie. They play estranged college pals Claire (Fonda) and Evelyn (Tomlin), who reunite in Los Angeles for their third friend’s funeral. The event shakes them both up in different ways. Long-festering wounds have Claire seeking revenge on the dead woman’s husband (a blustering Malcolm McDowell), while softening to the affection of the ex she left behind (Richard Roundtree). Tomlin brings out Fonda’s best, rounding out those brittle edges, as their characters continue to have wild adventures and evolve — letting go and moving on — long past their eligibility for Social Security. —T.M.A.

​Watch it: Moving On, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Champions, PG-13

In 1996, Woody Harrelson and the Farrelly brothers created Kingpin, one of the funniest sports comedies about bowling ever.

In Champions, a shaggy, mildly entertaining comedy directed by Bobby Farrelly, Harrelson plays a minor-league basketball coach with poor impulse control. After a DUI charge, he’s handed 90 days of community service coaching the “Friends,” an Iowa youth team with developmental disabilities. After a rough start, the exuberant athletes have a lot to teach the flailing coach. Is it formulaic? Yes. Does it reach Kingpin heights? No. But Champion’s an engaging watch, and the ensemble of developmentally challenged actors upstages the pros. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Champions, in theaters

​⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Scream VI, R

Call it Ghostface Takes Manhattan. The latest entry in the 27-year-old horror franchise opens with the signature ominous phone call answered by someone whose screen time is soon over (Samara Weaving). After traumatically battling the slasher with the big open mouth in the past, two sisters (Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega) hope to start over in the Big Apple. Unfortunately, so does Ghostface. So far, so scary. But it’s the arrival of Scream legacy actors — Courteney Cox as TV reporter Gale Weathers and Hayden Panettiere as an FBI agent — who whip up the most audience frenzy. Come for the carnage, stay for the witty meta dialogue. —Dana Kennedy (D.K.)

Watch it: Scream VI, in theaters

​​Join AARP Members Only Access and watch a free WWII documentary

​Journey to Royal: A WWII Rescue Mission follows the story of Lt. Royal Stratton, a World War II pilot who died while saving nine downed airmen in the South Pacific. Stratton’s great-nephew, filmmaker Christopher Johnson, embarks on an international quest to reveal the circumstances of that fateful event with recreations of epic proportions. Immersive cinematography and gripping action mixed with firsthand accounts and historical images showcase the valor of this squadron, which faced overwhelming odds to bring their brothers home. (The full documentary is available to AARP members through June 8, 2023.)

Watch it: Journey to Royal, on AARP Members Only Access

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Creed III, PG-13

First-time director/star Michael B. Jordan smartly flips the script on the Rocky saga with this forceful if fanciful melodrama. Sylvester Stallone rooted Rocky’s strength and resilience in gritty, unpretentious Philadelphia neighborhoods. Jordan roots Adonis Creed’s in the loving, creative life he builds in Bel-Air with his brilliant rock composer wife (Tessa Thompson) and feisty 9-year-old daughter (Mila Davis-Kent). When Creed’s bitter South L.A. bestie (Jonathan Majors) emerges from 18 years in the slammer to claim the heavyweight title for himself — by any means necessary — Creed must honor this street bond while proving that a supercivilized man can be as dangerous in the ring as any jail-hardened bruiser. Jordan and Majors set off sparks the way Chadwick Boseman and Jordan did in Black Panther (Jordan was the badass there). Their interplay recalls classic anti-buddy films like Angels With Dirty Faces. Call this one Angels With Bloody Noses. —Michael Sragow (M.S.)

Watch it: Creed III, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Triangle of Sadness

Brace yourself for a scathing comedy by director Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure) that takes aim at the wealthy and the beautiful — and tosses all decorum overboard. On a yacht captained by a Marxist alcoholic (the wily Woody Harrelson, 61), we encounter a luxury ship of fools, from the Russian capitalist (Zlatco Burić, 69) to cleaning staff member Abigail (scene-stealer Dolly de Leon). When they shipwreck on a desert island, wealth and beauty surrender to those with survival skills. It earned the top prize at Cannes Film Festival and three Oscar nominations, including best picture.

Watch it: Triangle of Sadness, on Hulu

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Cocaine Bear, R

As director Elizabeth Banks acknowledged, the premise of Cocaine Bear (which is indeed and alas based on true events) isn’t funny on a real-life level. But as a crass grind-house picture, the notion of a bear on a rampage after ingesting accidentally air-dropped cocaine (of 1985 grade, yet!) is solid. This is a studio picture with A-list names, and it does deliver goods. The not-utterly-convincing CGI bear dismembers and otherwise traumatizes a large percentage of the cast while Keri Russell enacts a hero-mom journey and Alden Ehrenreich solves his daddy issues. Dear departed Ray Liotta, in his final role as a vexed drug lord, triumphs by playing the whole goofy, gory thing totally straight. —Glenn Kenny (G.K.)

Watch it: Cocaine Bear, in theaters and on demand

​​The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy

Schitt’s Creek creator and star Eugene Levy is a homebody who never really wanted to go ice fishing in the Arctic, feed rhinos in Africa, drive a dogsled in Finland or visit Italy, Japan, the Maldives and Portugal. But he’s funny when he does. When he glimpses an eyelash viper, he says, “Talk about luck! I guess it is thrilling to see a snake on a branch that could probably kill you in 45 minutes!”

Watch it: The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy, on Apple TV+

Don’t miss this on AARP Members Only Access: 10 Quick Questions for Eugene Levy

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ 80 for Brady, PG-13

You had me at Sally Field, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, the cast of this tribute to women of a certain age and the athlete they revere. Tom Brady, who also produced the film, plays himself. This glossy sports-spectator comedy has the four besties, unified by their love for Brady — among the oldest quarterbacks in NFL history, at 45 — trying to make it to the Super Bowl to cheer him on for the win. There are obstacles, including Tomlin’s character’s cancer recurrence and Field’s clingy husband, played by the always delightful Bob Balaban. But there’s never any doubt that the golden girls are going to be all right. The star-studded affair is the kind of boisterous comedy that makes for a super girls’ night out, and that’s the not-so-subtle plan here: to bring groups of IRL girlfriends back to the theater for giggles. —T.M.A.

Watch it: 80 for Brady, in theaters

Don’t miss this: Sally Field, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda Dish About Their New Super Bowl Comedy

Shrinking

Harrison Ford made his historic leap to TV drama last year in the Yellowstone prequel 1923. Now he plays his greatest-ever comedic role, one with emotional depth, as a gruff but kindly psychotherapist recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s. He’s like a wise father-figure boss to his younger therapist colleague (Jason Segel, also a master of comedy that accommodates sorrow). Created by several Ted Lasso alums, Shrinking may well lasso your heart.

Watch it: Shrinking, on Apple TV+

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Top Gun: Maverick, PG-13

Feel the need for speed? Tom Cruise’s greatest hit, the sequel to his 1986 flyboy epic, is now streaming.

Watch it: Top Gun: Maverick, on Paramount+, on Prime Video and on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Living, PG-13

Bill Nighy is at his very best, unflinching, unflagging, as heartbreakingly useful, very proper British bureaucrat Mr. Williams. His life has been an homage to dutiful respectability. As his doctor gives him a terminal prognosis, he realizes that for all his proper behavior from birth to near retirement, he forgot to live, to give and receive joy, to risk and rise. Based on a simple yet elegant screenplay adapted by Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day) from the 1952 Japanese masterpiece Ikiru, this wise and moving drama is an existential journey that celebrates learning how to live life, in all its fleeting beauty — and a reminder not to wait until the last minute to celebrate the wonders of existence on this lonely planet. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Living, in theaters and on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ The Whale, R

After decades off Hollywood’s radar, Brendan Fraser leaps back into the spotlight as a front-runner for the best actor Oscar, playing Charlie, an online college writing teacher who left his wife for a man. His lover died, and he treated his grief by overeating to the point of dangerous obesity. His late lover’s sister (Hong Chau) visits to harangue and take care of him. His enraged ex-wife (formidable Samantha Morton) gives him bad vibes, as does his neglected, remarkably nasty teen daughter (Sadie Sink). A young missionary from a local cult (Ty Simpkins) tries to redeem Charlie, or rather himself. It’s as grueling and overwrought as director Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan but not excruciating like his notorious Jennifer Lawrence film Mother! What makes it a must-see is Fraser’s daring, difficult, deeply moving performance as an infinitely kind and regretful man at the end of his rapidly fraying rope. —Tim Appelo (T.A.)

Watch it: The Whale, in limited theaters and on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ The Fabelmans, PG-13

​In the front-runner for the best picture Oscar, boy meets camera — hilarity and pathos ensue. That’s the good part of Steven Spielberg’s wobbly autobiopic about movie nut Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel Labelle) growing up absurd (and Jewish) in white-bread suburbia 60 years ago. As electronics genius Bert Fabelman (Paul Dano) drags his wife (Michelle Williams), three daughters and Sammy from South Jersey to points west, Spielberg studs the film with inspired household slapstick but falls short on revelation or epiphany. He and cowriter Tony Kushner diagram rather than dramatize the temperamental clash between an orderly scientific dad and a disorderly artistic mom; the couple forms a fraught emotional triangle with a ubiquitous best friend (Seth Rogen). Judd Hirsch, Jeannie Berlin and David Lynch steal scenes, but Spielberg’s film sense (sort of) saves the day, especially when Sammy stages mini epics with his Boy Scout troop and uncovers family secrets in home movies. If you’re Sammy, or Steven, movie love conquers all. —M.S.

​Watch it: The Fabelmans, on digital and on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Banshees of Inisherin, R

King Kong vs. Godzilla is a pipsqueak squabble compared to the titanic acting duel of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in this fable set in a spectacularly quaint 1923 village off Ireland’s coast. It’s an Oscar magnet with a perfect 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score. Sweet, dim farmer Pádraic (Farrell) demands that bright, gloomy composer Colm (Gleeson) explain why he’s abruptly ended their best friendship. The “feckin’ nutbag” won’t, and threatens violence if Pádraic won’t let him be. A black comedy with more than a wee bit o’ green, it makes you feel resident in the way director Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri took you to that feisty town. The locals couldn’t be more feckin’ perfect, from the village “eejit” (Barry Keoghan) to Pádraic’s bookishly brilliant sister (Kerry Condon) to Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton), the Inisherin version of a Macbeth witch. In a way, the irresistible dialogue is the main character. See it and you’ll speak Irish for a week. —T.A.

Watch it: The Banshees of Inisherin, on HBO Max

Don’t miss this: The 10 Best Movies Set in Ireland