New this Week: ‘Kung Fu,’ ‘Rebel’ and ‘Thunder Force’
MOVIES
1 Against the odds, Melissa McCarthy and her husband, filmmaker Ben Falcone, have managed to put out two movies during the pandemic. This time, in “Thunder Force,” McCarthy is again thrust into saving the planet. In the Netflix film, McCarthy and Octavia Spencer play women given superpowers to defend Chicago from supervillains (Bobby Cannavale, Jason Bateman). It debuts Friday.
1 In “Mayor,” director David Osit profiles local government in a land typically seen through a national lens. Osit trails Musa Hadid, the charismatic and mustachioed mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah. It’s a funnier film than you’d imagine, as Osit observes the sometimes farcical, sometimes painful plight of a beset community that proves that, at least in Ramallah, not all politics are local. “Mayor” began streaming Monday on the Criterion Channel.
1 “Two Distant Strangers” lands on Netflix on Friday. In it, directors Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe use a “Groundhog Day”-style time loop to dramatize the repetitive trauma of police brutality. Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ plays a New Yorker who awakes happily again and again in a woman’s apartment. But every time he leaves to go home to feed his dog, an altercation with a police officer is unavoidable and tragic.
MUSIC
1 Taylor Swift’s defining 2008 album, “Fearless,” helped her break through onto the pop charts with successes like “You Belong with Me” and “Love Story.” The album went on to win four Grammys, including her first album of the year honor. So it’s fitting that “Fearless,” though it was her sophomore release, is the first project she has re-recorded after her masters were sold off. “Fearless: Taylor’s Version” will be released Friday and includes 27 songs, including 13 from the original album.
1 On Friday, the legendary Merry Clayton is releasing her first album in more than 25 years. Aptly titled “Beautiful Scars,” the album arrives seven years after Clayton had both her legs amputated following a car accident.
TELEVISION
1 “Hemingway,” airing Monday through Wednesday, delves into the famed novelist’s works and life to reveal the “complicated man behind the myth.” Friday brings “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life,” airing on PBS’ “American Masters.” Ric Burns interviewed Sacks shortly after he was diagnosed with the cancer that claimed his life in 2015, and spoke to many who knew him. (Check local listings for times.)
1 Olivia Liang stars in CW’s “Kung Fu,” a reimagining of the 1970s series in which David Carradine played a Shaolin monk in the Old West. In the reboot debuting 8 p.m.
Wednesday, Liang plays Nicky, a contemporary Chinese American who traded college for education at a monastery in China. Returning to her San Francisco hometown, she discovers it and her parents are at the mercy of a gang. Joining her to fight them are her sister (played by Shannon Dang), an ex-boyfriend (Gavin Stenhouse) and new love interest (Eddie Liu). Oh, and the assassin who killed Nicky’s Shaolin mentor is after her.
1 Katey Sagal is a woman on a mission, or missions, in “Rebel,” an ABC drama series debuting 10 p.m. Thursday. Sagal plays Annie “Rebel” Bello, a legal advocate who lacks a law degree, but has an abundance of passion for causes and people in need of a champion. John Corbett plays her husband, with Andy Garcia as the lawyer Rebel is teamed with.