‘Al Davis vs. NFL’ pushes boundaries
“30 for 30” (9 p.m., ESPN) examines one of football’s most consequential rivalries. “Al Davis vs. the NFL” recalls the decades-long personal feud between Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis and NFL league commissioner Pete Rozelle. Davis was instrumental in creating his team’s outlaw image and would eventually become embroiled in lawsuits with the league because of his desire to move the franchise to a bigger and more lucrative market.
Davis died in 2011, and Rozelle in 1996. While there is a wealth of archival footage of each man, the makers of “Davis” have hired actors and employed “deep fake,” digital technology to give the impression that both subjects are speaking in first-person while contributing to the film. Given the current digital assault on the nature of “what’s real,” this may be hard for some to take.
› Discovery+ begins streaming “Mary McCartney
Serves It Up.” A photographer and cookbook author, McCartney will showcase vegetarian recipes and some of the stories behind their origins over the course of six half-hour episodes.
Some may remember Mary as the infant poking out of her father’s coat on the back cover of the 1970 “McCartney” LP, Paul’s first solo album.
In 1995, Mary’s parents, Paul and Linda McCartney, appeared as their animated selves on an episode of “The Simpsons,” where they discussed vegetarianism with Lisa. Linda McCartney died in 1998.
Over the course of its first season, McCartney will welcome Cameron Diaz, Dave Grohl, Kate Hudson, Gayle King, Nicole Richie, Mark Ronson and Liv Tyler.
› Shudder, the streaming service devoted to horror, debuts “A Nightmare Awakes,” a period literary costume drama about Mary Shelley (Alix Wilton Regan) and her circle of friends, including poet Percy Shelley (Giullian Yao Gioiello) and Lord Byron (Philippe Bowgen). A night of story-telling leads Mary to put words to paper, developing what would become “Frankenstein”
and leading the author through a labyrinth of hallucinations and hints of madness, or worse.
This is hardly the first cinematic crack at this tale. Elle Fanning starred in the 2017 biopic “Mary Shelley.” Lizzy McInnerny played the troubled author in the 1988 drama “Rowing With the Wind,” co-starring Hugh Grant as Lord Byron. Ken Russell directed the 1986 drama “Gothic,” starring Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Shelley and Natasha Richardson as Mary
Shelley. The story would also inspire the 1988 drama “Haunted Summer,” starring Alice Krige as Mary, and Eric Stoltz as Percy Shelley.
› After accidentally contributing to her partner’s death, a rookie officer (Jessica Lucas, “Melrose Place”) seeks redemption in the Vancouver-based detective series “The Murders,” streaming its entire first season on Sundance Now.