THE SMALL SCREEN
New movies to stream this week:
“Uncle Frank”: Set mostly in 1973, “Uncle Frank” centers on the relationship between 18-year-old Beth Bledsoe (Sophia Lillis of “It”), a naive but intellectually curious freshman at New York University, and her favorite uncle, the titular Frank (Paul Bettany), who is a professor at the same school. The death of the emotionally abusive family patriarch (Stephen Root) — Frank’s father and Beth’s grandfather — precipitates a road trip back to their repressive South Carolina hometown for the funeral, with Walid (Paul Macdissi), Frank’s partner of 10 years, along for the ride, despite Frank’s wishes. (Frank, who has only just come out to his niece, is still closeted to most of his family. To make things even more interesting, Walid is Muslim.) Despite some moments of nicely unforced comedy and just a pinch of melodrama — especially in the overly contrived reading-of-the-will scene — this is a deeply poignant and beautifully acted drama of self-acceptance. R. Available on Amazon Prime Video. Contains strong language, some sexual references and drug use. 1 hour, 35 minutes.
“The Christmas Chronicles: Part 2”: Kurt Russell reprises his role as Santa Claus — now joined by Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Claus — in this sequel.
Variety calls the film a “harmless piece of hokum,” where the plots ruptures are all “healed by Christmas, and you get to hang out with a Santa who’s traditional but nearly cool.” PG. Available on Netflix. Contains mild action, violence, and brief strong language. 1 hour, 55 minutes.
“Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker”: Produced by Shonda Rhimes’s Shondaland, this documentary goes behind the scenes at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy to offer a peek at preparations for Allen’s annual award-winning holiday version of “The Nutcracker.” TV-G. Available on Netflix. 1 hour, 20 minutes.
“Mosul”: This thriller tells the story of the campaign to reclaim the titular Iraqi city from ISIS. Variety calls the film “a well-made but troublingly generic war-is-hell pulsepounder that inevitably prompts the question: How recent is too recent when it comes to turning a theater of war into pure theater, pure Hollywood spectacle?” TV-MA. Available on Netflix. 1 hour, 42 minutes.
“The Mystery of D.B. Cooper”: Explores the myth that has arisen around Cooper, a hijacker who is believed to have parachuted from a plane with $200,000 before disappearing in 1971. According to IndieWire, somewhere beneath the surface of the film is an “illuminating meditation on the relationship between the banality of modern living and the fantasies that people sell to the masses to help them cope with it.” TV-14. Available on HBO. 1 hour, 27 minutes.