★★★☆☆
Depressive drama Causeway, which stars Jennifer Lawrence as a recovering Afghanistan war veteran trapped in her hometown, marks the latest collaboration between indie film company A24 and Apple TV+.
Lawrence, dipping her toe back into being a movie star following last year’s Don’t Look Up, returns to her roots in the film, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+. Causeway hits a lot of expected Sundance/indie movie beats but finds grace notes in quieter, less empathic scenes.
Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me premiers Friday on Apple TV+, and to be sure her fans can watch it, Apple is offering a free two-month trial of its streaming video service.
That’s much longer than the usual 7-day trial.
Fans of the hit Apple TV+ series Severance can rejoice that production on season 2 started this week. More of what Stephen Colbert called a “dystopian workplace sci-fi mystery black comedy psychological thriller” is on the way.
Upcoming episodes of the Emmy-winning – and very creepy – series will feature the original stars as well as eight new ones.
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences named the nominees for the new Children’s & Family Emmys on Monday, and Apple TV+ earned 17 nominations. That includes shows in two of the top categories.
While Apple is in there swinging, the real competition will be between Disney and Netflix, both of which earned dozens of nominations.
If you were a kid, wouldn’t you like to use a remote control to just “turn off” your parents for a while? But what if you couldn’t figure out how to turn them back on?
That’s one of many scenarios that flash past in the trailer for Circuit Breakers Apple TV+ released Monday. It’s a science-fiction series about middle-schoolers set in the near future. It premieres November 11.
★★★☆☆
On this week’s installment of the Apple TV+ limited series Shantaram, Lin must take stock of where he is, what good fortune means and whether it’s his to truly celebrate.
The people of Bombay are getting used to the impostor doctor, but at every turn, Lin faces potential threats to his freedom and his place among his newfound community of outsiders. It’s a typically engaging outing of the Charlie Hunnam drama.
★★★★☆
New Apple TV+ documentary Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues takes a lively and appropriately soulful look at the man who invented popular music in America as we know it today.
The film, which premieres today on Apple’s streaming service, brims with expert testimony from witnesses, fans, friends, and family of the incredibly influential jazz musician. It’s bolstered by a cornucopia of rare archival footage and photographs that root Armstrong firmly in history.
Louis Armstrong is too big a subject to think you could ever fully capture him, so director Sacha Jenkins treats this project as just one man’s look at another man. It’s remarkably successful.
Apple TV+ received five nominations for the 32nd Annual Gotham Awards Tuesday, including two nominations apiece for the series Pachinko and Severance and one for the film Causeway.
This comes after Apple took two wins in the 2021 Gotham Awards, which recognize visionary work in indie film and TV. This year’s awards ceremony takes place November 28.
Apple plans to raise the prices of some of its subscription services by $1 to $3 each, reports indicated Monday. The services include Apple TV+, Apple Music price increase and the Apple One subscription bundle.
Users should see the price increases, listed below, with their next subscription renewal.
★★☆☆☆
Bilingual Apple TV+ comedy series Acapulco returns this week for a second season of bright colors and frothy hijinx narrated by Eugenio Derbez. The Mexican resort is an ’80s uproar, young Maximo’s life is crumbling (though he won’t admit it), and his family is at a crossroads. And everyone, as usual, needs a favor.
The second season so far seems exactly like the first, which is to be expected, so if you like the softest possible jokes, you’re in luck. The show is fleetingly charming and expertly designed — the art direction remains Acapulco‘s greatest virtue — and little by little, it’s relaxing into a funnier groove.
★★★☆☆
This week on new Apple TV+ limited series Shantaram, based on the best-selling book by Gregory David Roberts, Lin stares a new life in the face — but fate has other plans.
The escaped con is starting up a practice in a Bombay slum with help from his reluctant and besotted friend Prabhu. A need for penicillin puts him right where the local underworld chiefs want him, in thrall to them and in need of supplies only they can gift him.
Meanwhile, local politics are heating up, Lisa’s kicking junk, and Karla’s feeling left out. It’s a perfectly respectable episode of the drama.
★★☆☆☆
In aimless new dramedy Raymond & Ray, Ethan Hawke and Ewen McGregor play half-brothers who must bury their father — and decades of trauma — over the course of a long, late-summer day.
Directed by Rodrigo García, and produced by Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Roma), the film is never believable for even a second. Inessential by design and pleasant enough, this one’s built to go in one ear/eye and out the other just as quickly.
It looks like something big and bad is about to happen to London, and it may fall to a team of remedial MI5 back-benchers to step up and stop it.
That’s at least according to the season 2 trailer of the darkly comedic Apple TV+ espionage thriller Slow Horses, which dropped Wednesday. The series resumes December 2. Watch the trailer below.
When a young American scientist goes missing on the Columbia-Venezuela border, all hell breaks loose. You can get a taste of the madness and mayhem, and the intense political overtones, in the Echo 3 trailer Apple TV+ released Tuesday.
The 10-episode action series, starring Luke Evans and Michiel Huisman, debuts November 23 on Apple TV+.
★★★☆☆
Post-apocalyptic Apple TV+ series See comes to its thrilling conclusion this week, sending off Baba Voss and his family in high bloody fashion.
With the whole of civilization in a tunnel to freedom, Haniwa, Maghra and Kofun must decide whether to let Baba go to his death by himself or stay with their people in their hour of need. Can Baba stop deposed queen Sibeth Kane before she destroys everything, or before he gets caught and killed?
It took three seasons, but See is finally worth seeing. And wouldn’t you know it? It’s over.
★★★★★
Bad Sisters, the Apple TV+ black comedy about the murder of a bad man and the five women who stood to gain from it, draws its delicious first season to a close this week.
John Paul’s dead. Matthew’s closer than ever to finding the killer, but red herrings abound. John Paul’s widow Grace tells a tale to her sisters. The magnificent show comes to a gripping close in typically brilliant fashion.
★★★☆☆
In new Apple TV+ limited series Shantaram, Charlie Hunnam headlines as a man on the run from Australian authorities who starts over in Bombay — only to fall into still more trouble.
The ambitious drama, based on the best-selling book by Gregory David Roberts (which in turn was partly based on the author’s own experiences), charts a man’s new life in a hotbed of sin and all-but-sanctioned crime. Along the way, he discovers himself at long last in the least likely of settings.
Louis Armstrong is one of the most important jazz musicians ever, as both a trumpet player and a singer. Apple TV+ promises to introduce a definitive documentary of his life based on never-before-heard home recordings and personal conversations.
Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues premieres worldwide at the end of October.
Although Apple TV+ is one of the few streaming services without commercials, the company is reportedly talking to media agencies about adding adverts to its shows.
If true, Apple is likely considering a cheaper ad-supported tier for TV+, not forcing all subscribers to watch commercials.
How many times have you watched the many-and-varied film-and-TV versions of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol? You know, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, bad dreams, redemption. Well, if you haven’t heard, the story has once again clawed its way out of the grave.
Apple TV+ dropped a teaser trailer Wednesday for its new version, the comedy-musical Spirited set for release in theaters November 11 and on the streaming service November 18.
This time it looks like a contemporary take, with Ghost of Christmas Present Will Ferrell trying to drag corporate-executive-looking Ryan Reynolds into a vision that includes big dance numbers.
Mythic Quest season three is just weeks away, and Apple TV+ ramped up fan excitement on Tuesday with a trailer for the new season. The new episodes will pit the gaming company newly formed by Ian and Poppy against David and Mythic Quest.
Watch the trailer now.
At first glance, Selena Gomez is a fabulously successful actress and singer. But she has had her share of troubles, including medical and mental health problems.
Upcoming Apple TV+ documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me looks at her struggles to overcome these challenges. And the first trailer, released Monday by Apple, gives us a sense of what to expect.
★★★☆☆
The sky is falling this week on See, Apple TV+’s fantasy epic about a world with no sight. In the penultimate episode of the series, Baba Voss and Maghra have precious few resources left at hand to defend themselves from Sibeth Kane and Tormada’s explosives.
Harlan has one last gift to give Maghra. And Tormada learns what governing next to Sibeth really looks like. Plus, we get flashbacks to Baba and Maghra’s courtship. All in all, it’s a pretty good episode of a very silly show.
Apple TV+ unveiled the first trailer Friday for its upcoming drama Causeway, starring and produced by Oscar-winning actor Jennifer Lawrence. In the film, she portrays a wounded soldier struggling to adjust to life upon returning home to New Orleans.
Causeway premieres in theaters and on Apple TV+ on November 4.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+’s Bad Sisters has one last twist of fate in store for the Garvey girls and their target, dastardly brother-in-law John Paul.
This week, Roger finds out who’s the architect of his misfortune, Ursula swears it’s over with Ben, Theresa’s in the hospital, Matthew’s dripping with determination, Becka’s a liability, and Eva makes a choice.
The best part? Nothing, somehow, is at all what it seems. It’s another magnificent installment of the delectable dark comedy.