What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ 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

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ iMordecai, Unrated

Our AARP Movies for Grownups best supporting actor award winner Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans) gets the star treatment as the curmudgeonly Mordecai Samel in this Florida senior community dramedy. When his nudgy son Marvin (Sean Astin) buys his old dad an iPhone, the Holocaust survivor resists, kvetches and ultimately surrenders to the community of tech, gradually becoming proud of his new skills and connections in the iEra. In the title role, Hirsch schmears it on a little thick and schticky, while Astin largely looks irritated. In an underwritten part, Carol Kane (Taxi, Hunters) maximizes every half-smile and gesture, bringing warmth and sly humor to the family as Fela, Mordecai’s increasingly forgetful and jealous wife. Kane, bless her, never phones it in. —T.M.A.

Watch it: iMordecai, in limited theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Marlowe, R

Did you love Bogart’s Philip Marlowe in the 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep? Try this twisty tale, adapted by director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) from the 2014 novel about the private detective. This suave, beautifully designed, gorgeously costumed 1930s-set noir takes you back to corrupt Bay City, where the sun shines brightly over disgraced cop-turned-private-investigator Marlowe. In his 100th movie, Liam Neeson is spot on as the flatfoot, just when it seemed like the Irish star’s career had devolved into one violent revenge fantasy after the next. Neeson is sly and sexy here, his voice rumbling, as his Marlowe contends with an unreliable heiress (a perfectly chilly Diane Kruger), her untrustworthy movie-star mother (Jessica Lange, squeezing the part for all its worth), a slippery kingpin (Alan Cumming) and an MIA gigolo (François Arnaud) — while stylishly solving a mystery that Chandler would have appreciated. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Marlowe, in theaters and on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ 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+

Night Court 

John Larroquette returns as a sardonic prosecutor turned defense attorney in the reboot of the classic show that made him famous, with Melissa Rauch as Judge Stone (playing the daughter of Harry Anderson’s original Judge Stone character).

Watch it: Night Court, Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, on NBC

​Don’t miss this: How (and Why) John Larroquette Landed Back in ‘Night Court’

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 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

Watch it: Avatar: The Way of Water, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ 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. —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

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Tár, R

Masterful Cate Blanchett, 53, plucks our heartstrings as the fictional Leonard Bernstein protégé Lydia Tár, the ruthless, passionate superstar conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. At the pinnacle of an international career, she meets her Waterloo in the cancel culture she disdains, thanks to her woman problem. She grooms talented young musicians, like her long-suffering assistant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Noémie Merlant), and callously abuses them emotionally and/or sexually. For her, it’s all about the music, not the morals. It’s an epic character study that got a six-minute standing ovation at its Cannes premiere, though it lacks a final movement that delivers a crescendo of feeling. Maestro or monster? Tár’s both. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Tár, in theaters, on Peacock and on Prime Video