Reviews - page 23

New Apple TV+ movie Tetris is part of a trend I hope goes away — making movies about advances in capitalist innovation. Perhaps the least-interesting subject possible, it’s been done justice precisely once in David Fincher’s The Social Network, because it understood that behind every “genius” is a shell game played by a feckless coward. And trust me, Tetris never reaches the highs of that particular example.

A movie too interested in the destination to enjoy the journey, Tetris tells the tale of the sale of the world’s most ubiquitous video game. The movie, which premieres today on Apple’s streaming service, possesses some small virtues but suffers from big problems.

New Apple TV+ children’s show Eva the Owlet is a typically cute entry into the streaming service’s very respectable collection of kiddie fare. Eva and her friends, her family and her pet bat, Baxter, get into one misadventure after another in the little village of Treetopington.

The animated show, which premiered Friday, is about creative problem-solving and making room in your heart for everyone. Memorably animated and earnestly performed, this one’s an easy recommendation for kids.

Hello Tomorrow!, the Apple TV+ show about a Space Age con man and the hapless people stuck in his whirlwind, makes a fateful stop at a baseball game this week.

Lunar real-estate salesman Jack Billings goes deeper into his deception now that he’s found a financier with even fewer scruples than he has about cheating people out of their money. And his son Joey, desperate to get through to his dad, decides to finally start trying to put Jack away for his crimes.

Meanwhile, Shirley and Eddie are in deep money trouble and have nowhere nice to turn. And Herb is left picking up after everyone. The episode, entitled “Certain Forces Once Unleashed,” delivers a bracing half-hour of television.

The mophie powerstation pro AC includes a three-prong power socket, making this external battery right for anyone who has a range of devices they need to charge on the go, not just phones and tablets. The 27,000mAh power bank also includes a mix of three of USB ports.

I put this hefty battery to the test. Here are its strengths and drawbacks.

Ted Lasso wrangles with a fresh face — and even bigger ego — this week. There’s a new player stealing the spotlight from everyone else on the pitch in the Apple TV+ hit comedy about the little football club that could. And star striker Jamie Tartt isn’t happy about the new guy’s arrival at all.

Plus, Ted endures his own crisis when he calls home at the wrong moment and finds another man’s voice on the phone. And Rebecca gets an eerie prediction. The episode, entitled “4 5 1,” is a fairly standard edition of the show about how positive thinking can change everything (except maybe my attitude toward Ted Lasso).

New Apple TV+ high-concept sci-fi comedy The Big Door Prize stars perennial sad sack Chris O’Dowd as a man whose little world is rocked when a strange machine appears in the general store of his small town. Suddenly, friends and neighbors are changing their lives — and he feels out of step.

Funny, thought-provoking and sad, The Big Door Prize makes an interesting addition to the Apple TV+ lineup.

The beauty of a portable power bank becomes apparent when it gets you out of jams as your gadgets run out of power without an electrical outlet in sight. And if the bank can juice up a few devices at once, all the better. That’s what makes the Momax AirBox Go so great.

Momax recently sent me the three-in-one portable MagSafe charger to test. I took it on a weekend trip and found it performed well, keeping my iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods Pro going.

Sneaky Sasquatch is a delightful game on Apple Arcade. It lets players live the life of a Sasquatch doing regular, everyday things this mysterious forest dweller does: sneak around campgrounds stealing picnic baskets, play golf, ski, learn to drive. That sort of thing.

If you haven’t discovered it yet, here are six reason why it’s worth playing.

Apple TV+ spy thriller Liaison hits a few snags this week on its way to justice and catharsis. A mostly great episode finds Alison, Gabriel, Dumas and Sophie Saint Roche making deals with unlikely allies on their mad scramble to prevent a private war against the whole of Europe.

Didier is desperate, Sabine is growing hopeless, Alison’s father is in critical condition, and Dumas grows a conscience. There’s blood in the water in this episode, entitled “Family Album.” Who will make it out alive?

Apple TV+ series Dear Edward brings its tedious first season to a close this week. Edward winds up lost in the big city, sending his adoptive mom Lacey into hysterics. Plus, Dee Dee’s feeling very unappreciated, Shay and Edward get a second chance, Steve and Amanda have a choice to make, and there’s a party on the horizon.

The Dear Edward season finale, entitled “Shelter,” is a whiff of an ending to a whiff of a season. This show, supposedly about grief in the wake of a catastrophic plane crash, turns out to be largely about nothing at all.

Hello Tomorrow! returns for more Space Age shenanigans — and a brutal comeuppance for one of Earth’s biggest liars. The Apple TV+ show about a guy selling bunk timeshares on the moon finally hits the pause button on momentum to allow a devastating realization to sink in.

Salesman/con artist Jack Billings may be more doomed than he thinks, even as he succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. Shirley and Joey have had enough, Myrtle gets the sign she’s been searching for, Herb makes good, and Jack has to save an old hero in this stellar episode, entitled “The Gargon Mothership.”

Apple TV+ limited series Extrapolations steeps itself in sci-fi wonkery this week as members of a tech billionaire family find themselves on opposing sides of a terrorist action meant to move the needle on climate change.

Novelist Dave Eggers joins the show’s writing team this week, and Edward Norton, Indira Varma and Michael Gandolfini lead the cast.

While this isn’t a bad version of what Extrapolations set out to do, the show’s sprawling mission statement remains blinkered.

It’s wedding time this week on the season finale of Shrinking, the Apple TV+ comedy where no one has problems — and everyone has to solve them anyway.

Brian’s dad has a short time to make his son’s day by agreeing to be his best man, even if the idea of a gay wedding makes him uncomfortable. Jimmy helps Alice get over her latest round of depression about her deceased mom. Sean and Liz head into business together. And Gaby looks for a second job with a little help from Paul.

It’s truly one half of an hour of TV — you can’t take that away from it.

Eva’s been shot and might be dying on this week’s season three finale of Truth Be Told, the Apple TV+ show about a true crime podcaster.

After last week’s shooting, podcaster Poppy goes looking for the truth behind the recent grim series of events. Trini blames herself for Eva’s fate, and Markus has only one more chance to redeem himself. Can they catch the person responsible for all this misery before it’s too late?

The episode, entitled “A Kiss Not Mine Alone,” brings a nicely plotted, excellently performed close to a very fine season.

New Apple TV+ competition show My Kind of Country gives three celebrity judges a chance to train burgeoning country musicians in an attempt to turn them into superstars.

The talent is unconventional and the stakes are high in the show, which is executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Kacey Musgraves (and underwritten by Apple Music). Nashville better get ready. (And judge Orville Peck better take that thing off his face.)

Ted Lasso, the Apple TV+ show about an American soccer coach killin’ em with kindness in London, finds a new player in the mix and new hurdles at work this week. AFC Richmond is being watched by an old adversary, Roy’s got big feelings for the first time in a while, and everybody’s buzzing about what happens next.

The episode, entitled “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” is an above-average outing for the mawkish football comedy. (It’s anyone’s guess if the upward trend will continue.)

OtterBox’s new OtterGrip Symmetry Series case protects your iPhone, plus it includes a pop-up handle. What sets it apart from the competition is the handle doesn’t interfere with MagSafe wireless charging.

I wrapped my own iPhone 14 Plus in an OtterGrip. I found a lot to like.

The RiotPWR RP1950 Cloud Gaming Controller solves a problem for iPhone gamers: the controller plugs into the Lightning port in today’s models, but also into the USB-C port that will be in the iPhone 15. In the mean time, the controller can also be used with the many iPad models that use USB-C.

I field-tested RiotPWR’s latest controller and its removable iPhone mount. I understand why Apple likes it enough to put in the online Apple Store.

Monster Factory, a surprisingly inventive docuseries about wannabe pro wrestlers, is Apple TV+’s best sports docuseries yet. Over the course of its six breezy and beautiful episodes, set at a wrestling farm school in New Jersey, we meet a cast of eccentrics who share a common dream: to throw people around for a living.

They want to become stars, to go down in pro wrestling history. And with cantankerous Danny Cage as their coach, these ne’er-do-wells learn everything there is to know about wrestling — and they teach us, too.

Apple TV+ international espionage thriller Liaison recovers from a few body blows this week, in an episode appropriately entitled “Carnage.”

Mark Bolton is dead and Alison might be next, but she won’t roll over for anyone, even with boyfriend and mercenary Gabriel trying to get her to see sense. Sabine wants out, Didier’s in the hot seat, Dumas is getting nervous, and London is still in danger. Liaisons pleasures are major even if it does feel deliberately minor in a lot of important ways.

The search for a mayoral hopeful’s killer takes center stage on this week’s Truth Be Told, the Apple TV+ crime series told through the lens of podcaster Poppy.

Eva’s on the hunt for a killer, but is it a smokescreen for her own guilt? Poppy can’t decide. Markus is still acting out, and it’s getting in the way of his parenting. Plus, Poppy has some secrets of her own to spill. And fate has one last curveball to throw this crew before the season’s final inning.

It’s all about splitting and coming back this week on Dear Edward, the Apple TV+ series about the tangled web of grief in the wake of a plane crash.

In the episode, entitled “Paper Covers Rock,” Edward acts out at school and is rewarded with a crisis or two he wasn’t aware were coming his way. Plus, Linda goes into labor, Lacey is clueless, Dee Dee doesn’t want group to end, Adriana and Kojo don’t want their time together to end, and Steve and Amanda don’t want their affair to end.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, your Apple TV+ reviewer is anxious for this dreadful series to end. (The good news is, the end is nigh.)

Shrinking is all about reconciliation this week. The Apple TV+ show about the social circle of a manic pixie dream therapist sees Jimmy Laird trying to mend the rift between his hero, Paul, and his family.

Meanwhile, as Brian prepares for his wedding, he meets with nothing but disappointments and potential catastrophes. Gaby is caught between her rock and a hard place. And Alice makes a fateful mistake.

Everything comes out in the end in “Moving Forward,” this week’s whatever installment of the hit show that could have been an email.

Hello Tomorrow!, the Apple TV+ show about a salesman running out of ways to talk himself out of damnation, flies into a panic this week. Jack’s celebrity spokesman goes missing, and if he’s found by the wrong people, it could blow his entire operation.

At the same time, Shirley’s starting to wonder about Jack’s lies, and Joey has just stopped believing him entirely. And when Herb gets a brief moment to shine, he blows it immediately. The episode, entitled “Another Day, Another Apocalypse,” delivers another great half-hour of the show with the most verve and wit of anything on the Apple TV+ lineup.

Astonishingly overwritten and mega-ambitious sci-fi parable Extrapolations, which premiered today on Apple TV+, has a cast of thousands and more than a few things on its mind. None of what show creator Scott Z. Burns (who wrote Contagion and The Bourne Ultimatum) is saying in this show about the impact of climate change can be argued with. But the messages aren’t easily swallowed, either.

Rather than leave room for viewers to draw their own conclusions, Extrapolations sits you down and yells at you for 10 hours of dreary cli-fi drama. It’s certainly distinctive — but that’s not always a good thing.