Staying Fit
What’s on this week? Whether it’s what’s on cable, streaming on Prime Video or Netflix, or opening at your local movie theater, we’ve got your must-watch list. Start with TV and scroll down for movies. It’s all right here.
On TV this week …
Bridgerton, Season 3 (Netflix)
Arriving about 780 days after the release of Season 2 of the hit about early 19th-century London aristocrats in love, the new season focuses on the show’s most interesting character, Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), who’s secretly the anonymous gossip columnist Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews, 88). Scandalous! She acquires a coach in man-catching, Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), this year’s hunk. But she’s crushing on him — when will they leave the friend zone for choppier waters?
Watch it: Bridgerton, May 16 on Netflix
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59th Academy of Country Music Awards (Prime Video)
Reba McEntire, 69, hosts the show for the 17th time — two more and she’ll beat Bob Hope’s record for hosting an awards show (19 Oscar host gigs). McEntire also performs, as will Post Malone, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani (54), Nate Smith and Avril Lavigne, Miranda Lambert, Jelly Roll, Cody Johnson and Jason Aldean (nominated for Performer of the Year).
Watch it: 59th Academy of Country Music Awards, May 16, 8 p.m. ET on Prime Video (red carpet begins 7 p.m. ET). Prime membership is not required to watch the live stream on Prime Video; it will be available May 17 for free on Amazon Freevee and the Amazon Music app.
Outer Range, Season 2 (Prime Video)
If you liked Yellowstone and Lost, try this time-trippy series about Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin, 56), who jumped into a hole on a Wyoming ranch in 1886, popped out in 1968, was adopted by the Abbotts, and became a John Dutton–like patriarch. You think Dutton had problems? Besides scheming rivals, Royal sometimes has to dodge buffalo stampedes erupting from the time hole.
Watch it: Outer Range, May 16 on Prime Video
STAX: Soulsville, U.S.A. (Max)
If you came of age loving soul music from the likes of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.’s and the Staple Singers, then you have this groundbreaking underdog Memphis record label to thank for helping those great artists find their audiences. This four-part HBO Original Documentary Series, directed by Jamila Wignot (Ailey), uses rare and never-before-seen archive material to explore how race, geography, musical traditions and the vagaries of the recording industry made Stax the legend it remains today. Turn up the volume.
Watch it: STAX: Soulsville U.S.A., May 20, 9 p.m. ET on Max
The Big Cigar (Apple TV+)
Like Ben Affleck’s 2012 Oscar winner Argo, The Big Cigar is a fictionalized adaptation of an unbelievable true event. In 1974, Oscar-winning producer Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola) staged a fake movie (as happens in Argo), funded by the fortune he made from The Monkees TV show, to help Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton (André Holland) escape to Cuba to elude an FBI manhunt. It was a bizarre bromance, and Schneider introduced Newton to Hollywood biggies like Richard Pryor (Inny Clemons) and Candice Bergen, now 78, Schneider’s girlfriend, who wrote in her memoir, “It gave him, as a member of the over-privileged class, political credibility, a means to live out political fantasies."
Watch it: The Big Cigar, May 17 on Apple TV+
Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars, Season 2 (Fox)
Crankypants MasterChef celeb Ramsay, 57, teams with Janine Allis, 59, who’s been a stewardess on David Bowie’s yacht, a contestant on Australian Survivor, and a shark on Shark Tank, for a competition show in which 14 entrepreneurs vie to become the final Food Star and win $250,000.
Watch it: Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars, May 22, 9 p.m. ET on Fox
Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!
Baby Reindeer
Why has comedian Richard Gadd’s not-funny series based on his traumatic life been the No. 1 Netflix hit for three weeks, with almost 60 million viewers? It’s an addictive, eye-popping tale about the victimization of a fictionalized version of himself, Donny Dunn (played by Gadd), who gets stalked by a woman who sends him over 41,000 emails and 350 hours of voicemails and harasses him and his loved ones. Gadd told The Guardian that it’s “tweaked slightly to create dramatic climaxes.” Its popularity got a boost when the woman who says she inspired the harasser told Piers Morgan that it’s a “work of fiction” and “hyperbole” and threatened legal action. You’ve got to see it to believe it — or not.
Watch it: Baby Reindeer on Netflix
Don’t miss this: The 12 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now
And don’t miss this: The 12 Best Things Coming to Netflix in May
Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!
American Fiction, PG-13
In a barbed comedy that’s also a heartwarming drama, curmudgeonly professor and author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright, 58) writes a book satirizing every urban gangsta stereotype he hates. He’s aghast when it becomes a bestseller with a zillion-dollar movie deal, as he struggles to find a nursing home for his mom (Leslie Uggams, 80), who has dementia. —Tim Appelo (T.A.)
Watch it: American Fiction on Prime Video
Don’t miss this: The 10 Best Things Coming to Prime Video in May
What’s new at the movies …
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Back to Black, R
Back to Black traces the late Grammy winner Amy Winehouse’s rise and downward spiral. It opens with joy, centering on her Jewish family — including her grandma (superb Lesley Manville, 68) and dad Mitch (nonpareil Eddie Marsan, 55) — singing around the family piano in Yiddish, as Winehouse does jazz duets. Marisa Abela (who controversially sings rather than lip-syncing to Winehouse’s recordings) plays Winehouse as a good-time girl who, while she can belt with raw emotion, has both a soft spot for bad guys (Jack O’Connell as her codependent husband Blake) and the addiction gene that killed her at 27 (like Hendrix, Joplin and Cobain). It’s an irresistible narrative that captures the spirit of a song stylist equally talented at self-sabotage. —Thelma M. Adams (T.M.A.)
Watch it: Back to Black, May 17 in theaters
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