New this week: ‘Lost Daughter,’ NYE in Nashville, Boba Fett
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
Movies
■ Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feature directing debut, “The Lost Daughter,” scintillatingly adapts the 2008 Elena Ferrante novel about maternal ambivalence and a holiday in Greece. The film, which began streaming Friday on Netflix, stars Olivia Colman as a vacationing professor whose interactions with a boisterous, distracting clan (including a young mother in their midst played by Dakota Johnson), recall her own parenting history, seen in flashbacks with Jessie Buckley. “The Lost Daughter” cleaned up last month at the Gotham Awards, which honor independent film, and topped AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr’s best-of list for 2021. In her review, the AP’s Jocelyn Noveck praised Colman’s “blazing” performance as “a veritable onion shedding layers as she plays Leda, a prickly yet exceedingly vulnerable 48-year-old academic.”
■ In the year-end rush of new movies, it’s been easy to miss Mike Mills’ tender, shaggy indie gem “C’mon C’mon.” The film, which became available Dec. 23 for digital rental and video-on-demand, stars Joaquin Phoenix as a radio journalist who temporarily takes care of his 9-year-old nephew (Woody Norman). Shot in black-and-white and featuring interviews with real kids peppered throughout, “C’mon C’mon” is an open-hearted movie about parenting with personal resonances for Mills, Phoenix and Norman. In her review, Bahr wrote that Mills “has a unique way of blending everyday banalities with cosmic questions and ideas to create lovely symphonies of humanity.”
■ Holiday festivity might call for a favorite cocktail or a warm fire, but it can, and should, also mean a Technicolor movie. Thankfully, the Criterion Channel collects titles made with this lush color process so you can run through a glittering array of options to fill some of the darkest days of winter. Drink in “Vertigo,” bathe in “The River” or sink into “The Red Shoes.” Your eyes will thank you.
— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle
Music
■ CBS’s New Year’s Eve telecast will have a distinctive twang to this year with the five-hour special being hosted in Nashville, Tennessee with 50 performances from country’s biggest names. Dierks Bentley, Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, Gabby Barrett, Kelsea Ballerini, Zac Brown Band, Miranda Lambert and more will perform on the CBS special, also airing on Paramount+. Bentley, Hunt and Zac Brown Band will co-headline a free show in Nashville’s Bicentennial Mall, while other performances will be shot at the city’s honky tonks and clubs. The show will be hosted by radio and TV personality Bobby Bones and “Entertainment Tonight” correspondent Rachel Smith.
— Entertainment Writer Kristin M. Hall
Television
■ The book is closing on “Dickinson,” the Peabody Award-winning series starring Hailee Steinfeld in a reimagination of Emily Dickinson’s youth. In the series finale streaming now on Apple TV+, the poet’s work is flourishing but there’s strife in her family and across Civil War-torn America. For viewers playing catch-up on the concluding 10-episode third season, its new and returning guest stars include Ziwe as Sojourner Truth; Billy Eichner as Walt Whitman; Chloe Fineman as Sylvia Plath; Zosia Mamet as Louisa May Alcott and, as Death, Wiz Khalifa.
■ A looming figure in the “Star Wars” canon is coming into his own. “The Book of Boba Fett,” on Disney+, tracks the bounty hunter and mercenary Fennec Shand as they attempt to claim Tatooine land once controlled by Jabba the Hutt and his criminal syndicate. Temuera Morrison stars as Fett opposite Ming-Na Wen’s Shand, with Jon Favreau and Robert Rodriguez among the seven-episode series’ producers and directors. A trailer offers insight into Fett’s viewpoint: Declaring he will rule with respect, he makes an offer to Jabba’s former captains that has a “The Godfather” ring to it. Episodes are out weekly on Wednesdays.
■ Richard Gere is the narrator for “Earth Emergency,” about a less-prominent aspect of climate change. According to scientists interviewed for the documentary, humancaused global warming activates a natural response from the Earth that releases further greenhouse gases — and makes the planet even hotter. Activist Greta Thunberg and the Dalai Lama are among those featured in the film, which uses illustrations, graphics and video to examine what’s termed a “crucial piece of the climate puzzle” and the urgency of addressing it. The hour-long documentary debuted Wednesday on PBS (check local stations for times) and on PBS.org.