What’s new in film, television and music
CHRIS LACKNER Movies Big releases on Sept. 29: American Made; Flatliners.
Big picture: American Made is Netflix’s Narcos meets Top Gun meets Blow. Tom Cruise plays a 1980s pilot who pulls triple duty working for the CIA, DEA and a Columbia drug cartel. It’s based on a true story. Even when Cruise’s fly boy evades capture and lands his plane in a subdivision, and emerges from the semi-wreckage covered in cocaine, and then proceeds to hand out cash to cover the damage (and pay a local kid for his bike as getaway wheels). The title American Made could also double as Cruise’s bio.
Meanwhile, Flatliners is a revamp of the 1990 sci-fi classic about medical students who begin a series of self-experiments on near-death experience in order to explore the afterlife. Unfortunately, unwelcome forces begin following them back to the world of the living. Cue the horror movie tropes.
Forecast: Cruise is at his best when he breaks bad, and here he plays a charming gun and drug smuggler and occasional money launderer. As for Flatliners, it probably didn’t need to a second life. TV Big events: Ghosted (Oct. 1, CBS/City); Me, Myself & I (Sept. 25, CBS/CTV); Young Sheldon (Sept. 25).
Big picture: Ghosted is a comic take on the X-Files/Supernatural formula starring the requisite skeptic (Craig Robinson) paired with a hardcore true believer (Adam Scott) as they investigate paranormal cases. (The casting alone makes me smile).
Meanwhile, Me, Myself & I is a promising single-camera comedy about a man in three different time periods. John Larroquette plays him at 65; Saturday Night Live’s Bobby Moynihan stars as the 40-year-old version, and Jack Dylan Grazer portrays him as a 14-year-old. (Finally, a time travel series we can actually understand).
Of course, Young Sheldon, the The Big Bang Theory spinoff, also goes back in time and bows on the same night. Chuck Lorre’s first single-camera comedy centres on that show’s Sheldon Cooper back when he was a child prodigy (Jim Parsons narrates). It’s like Big Bang meets The Wonder Years.
Forecast: Finally, fall network TV pilots that prompt actual laughter. Music Big releases on Sept. 29: Shania Twain (Now); Miley Cyrus (Younger Now).
Big picture: The two superstar musicians had to be in co-hoots on these album titles, right?
Forecast: One week after being announced as a judge on the new Canadian music reality series, The Launch, the Queen of Country’s comeback is complete.
This effort arrives 15 years after her last studio full-length, titled Up! (Twain shouldn’t enter a Scrabble competition any time soon).
Meanwhile, Miley will continue to prove naysayers wrong, and separate herself from the popstar pack.
Real talent will do that for you. Her country-infused title track alone proves she’s no one-trick pony.