July 25, 2024
Elizabeth Fisher/Paramount+
Need a new show to watch? Stream 'Evil,' the Paramount+ show in the middle of its fourth season.
The TV event of the summer arrives Friday, when the 2024 Olympics commence in Paris. But before you get sucked into hours of swimming, gymnastics and horse dancing (more formally known as dressage), there are a few movies and shows that deserve your attention.
In the second half of July, streamers have added movies fresh from the multiplex and less-recent cult comedies. The best show you've never heard of is also airing its latest season on Paramount+, while its earlier episodes have landed on Netflix. If you're looking for something a little truer to life, a documentary on Hulu offers an intimate look at a Holocaust survivor and sex therapist who recently passed.
A psychologist, a scientist and a priest walk into a bar and try to solve the supernatural. That's basically the premise of "Evil," the wonderfully weird show now in its fourth season on Paramount+. (Its first two seasons also recently hit Netflix.) Each episode, Father David Acosta (Mike Colter), Dr. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) and skeptical tech whiz Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) take on a bizarre case that could be explained away by mental illness, science or something more sinister. But "Evil" is much more than a monster-of-the-week series. The show is, at this point, operating with a complex mythology furthered by unforgettable side characters working in the background. Those include a clairvoyant nun (Andrea Martin), a scheming satanist (Michael Emerson), Kristen's wild card mother (Christine Lahti) and useless husband (Patrick Brammall) who, despite having four daughters, is usually off climbing a mountain.
If you want to get film nerds going, ask them to define film noir. Scholars have been debating what makes a noir — those shadowy crime dramas with femme fatales and hapless men — a noir since the genre emerged in the 1940s. But Philadelphia roaster David Lynch might've put it best: "There’s a beguiling and magnetic mood. There’s so much darkness, and there’s so much room to dream. They’re mysteries and there are people in trouble, and uneasiness."
"Love Lies Bleeding," a neo-noir that just arrived on Max, definitely fits that bill. When Jackie (Katy O'Brian), an amateur bodybuilder hoping to go pro, blows into town, gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) is immediately smitten. But the couple soon gets tangled up in the seedy dealings of a local crime family, jeopardizing Jackie's shot at a Las Vegas competition. The resulting movie is stylish, a touch surrealist and a nail-bitter with a sense of humor. If you missed it in theaters earlier this year, catch it now streaming.
A "Spinal Tap" for our time, "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" is 90 minutes of nonstop jokes and surprisingly catchy songs about Osama bin Laden. The mockumentary follows the lead singer of Style Boyz, a trio of dorky white rappers beloved by Questlove and Nas, as he prepares to release his second solo album. Written by and starring Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer — aka the Lonely Island comedy team that dominated "SNL" in the 2000s — "Popstar" is a supremely silly yet effective satire of celebrity culture. And unfortunately the soundtrack is full of earworms, so good luck getting "Turn Up the Beef" out of your head. Stream it on Peacock.
Admittedly, this one is cheating a little. "Ask Dr. Ruth" is a Hulu movie, so it's been on the platform for years. But given the recent death of sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the documentary has taken on new relevance and poignancy. Its tiny, blunt subject is a joy to watch, whether she's playing chess with her grandkids or asking Alexa for help finding a boyfriend. The documentary also delves into Westheimer's harrowing past through animation and excerpts from the diary she kept at a Swiss orphanage during World War II. Her Jewish parents sent her aboard as the Nazis came to power in Germany, ultimately saving their daughter's life but losing theirs. Westheimer's kids speculate that she dealt with the trauma by staying busy as a prolific host on radio and television, where she dispensed nonjudgmental advice to audiences about STDs, kinks and relationships.
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