Michael Dorman is an undercover intelligence officer in the new Amazon Original series Patriot, a comic thriller co-starring Terry O’Quinn and Kurtwood Smith.
“[I]t’s less an action drama than a droll, often gleefully random comedy about deception, family, and the complexity of the human personality. It sets a distinct narrative path for itself but then departs from it early and often,” writes Matt Zoller Seitz for Vulture. “Over time the digressions don’t just subsume the show’s main plot, they become the main source of its specialness.”
10 episodes.
Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand
The Academy Awards will be announced on Sunday, February 26 and many of the nominated films are now available to watch home.
Moonlight, a poetic and provocative story of a gay black child growing up in a hostile world, is nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali) and Actress (Naomie Harris) (R).
Manchester by the Sea, a powerful drama of loss and grief and family, is nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and Actor (Casey Affleck) (R).
Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, a violent World War II drama about a pacifist (Andrew Garfield) who served courageously in combat, is nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, and Actor (R).
The dark thriller Nocturnal Animals earned a nomination for supporting actor Michael Shannon (R) and Arrival, nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture (PG-13), and Loving, nominated for Best Actress (PG-13), arrived earlier this month.
You can see a complete guide to what nominated films are available and where on Stream On Demand here.
Also new: bad behavior comedy Bad Santa 2 with Billy Bob Thornton and Kathy Bates (R), World War II homefront drama Sophie and the Rising Sun with Julianne Nicholson and Margo Martindale (R), and French comedy The Student and Mister Henri (not rated, with subtitles).
Available same day as select theaters nationwide are the science fiction thriller The Girl with All the Gifts with Gemma Arterton and Paddy Considine (R) and the documentary Dying Laughing on the lives of stand-up comedians, featuring interviews with Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Amy Schumer, Kevin Hart, Jamie Foxx, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Lewis, Steve Coogan, and the late Garry Shandling (not rated).
Netflix
Sausage Party (2016), a comedy about singing supermarket groceries discovering their position on the food chain, is an R-rated animated movie with a juvenile sense of humor, profane language, and colorfully crude innuendo. Co-writer Seth Rogan is joined by Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, James Franco, Salma Hayek, and friends in the voice cast. Did I mention this is not for kids? Reviewed on Stream On Demand here.
Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood become amateur detectives in the indie crime thriller I Don’t Feel At Home in This World Anymore (2017, not rated).
Streaming TV: Netflix launches the extreme sports competition shows Ultimate Beastmaster and Ultimate Beastmaster Mexico and adds the Hallmark romantic drama When Calls the Heart: Season 3. For kids there’s the new animated series VeggieTales in the City and Disney’s Girl Meets World: Season 3.
Non-fiction: The Lovers and the Despot (2016) tells the story of a South Korean actress and her director husband kidnapped by North Korea to make movies produced by the Kim Jung-il, and their escape (not rated).
Also new are a collection of Ken Burns documentary series, from his landmark The Civil War (1990) to the fascinating Prohibition (2011) and the epic The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (2014).
Stand-up: Trevor Noah: Afraid of the Dark takes “The Daily Show” host out from behind the desk and back on stage.
Amazon Prime
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) was a stealth success when it came out of nowhere in early 2016, a claustrophobic psychodrama in a locked underground bunker during what may be the end of the world. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the bunker’s newest tenant, trying to piece limited clues together to understand what really going on, and John Goodman is unnerving as the survivalist with control issues and a fantasy of a cozy family life under his strict rules. It’s not quite a sequel to the 2008 Cloverfield but it does occupy another quadrant of its world (PG-13). Reviewed on Stream On Demand here.
The Tunnel: Season 1 teams up police detectives from the U.K. (Stephen Dillane) and France (Clémence Poésy) when a murder victim is found on the border of the two countries. It’s the latest adaptation of the Swedish series The Bridge and it originally played in the U.S. on Masterpiece Mystery.
Hulu
The Boondocks: Complete Series from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block (51 episodes) and the coming-of-age comedy As Cool as I Am (2013) with Sarah Bolger, Claire Danes, and James Marsden (R).
Classic anime fans have a chance to revisit select series of the Gundam franchise, from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (49 episodes, dubbed and subtitled versions) (1990) and Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team (12 episodes, dubbed and subtitled versions) (1996-1999) to Mobile Suit Gundam the Origin (4 episodes, dubbed and subtitled versions) (2015).
HBO Now
Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Shailene Woodley star in Big Little Lies, a limited series directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. The first episode is now available, new episodes arrive every Sunday.
The documentary Unlocking the Cage (2016) profiles the legal fight to give simians, elephants, and cetaceans the same protections as humans. Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker direc (not rated).
Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie are Tarzan and Jane in The Legend of Tarzan, the latest take on the classic story (PG-13)
Also new: premieres of the comedy series Crashing and the fifth season of the news program Vice.
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