SCREEN TIME
‘DEEP WATER’ WITH BEN AFFLECK AND REGINA HALL’S ‘MASTER’
Here’s a collection of the best of what’s arriving on TV and streaming services this week.
‘Deep Water’
Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas play a picture-perfect couple prone to playing mind games in “Deep Water,” an adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel directed by Adrian Lyne. The film has been a subject of much intrigue and anticipation thanks in part to its stars’ short-lived relationship that was feverishly covered in the tabloids as well as its rocky release plans. Originally intended as a theatrical release, “Deep Water” starts streaming on Hulu on Friday. But beyond the off-screen gossip, a film directed by the man behind “Fatal Attraction” and “Unfaithful” that’s based on a story from the author of “The Talented
Mr. Ripley” and “Strangers on a Train” at a time when the so-called “erotic thriller” has all but disappeared from mainstream movies is not a hard sell.
‘Master’
Before Regina Hall takes to the Oscars stage at the end of the month as one of the three co-hosts, she has a new film,
“Master,’ coming to Amazon Prime Video on Friday. Hall’s character is the head of students at an elite New England school built on a Salem-era lot. She and two other women, a Black professor and student, start experiencing visions of its haunted past. “Master” is the directorial debut of Mariama Diallo, who also wrote the script, and explores topics like
race at a supposedly enlightened liberal arts school within a genre construct.
‘Windfall’
Jason Segel plays a desperate man who breaks into the supposedly empty vacation house of a tech billionaire in the new Netflix film “Windfall,” coming to the streamer on
Friday. But he gets a surprise when the owners, played by Jesse Plemons and Lily Collins, appear at the house and he has no choice but to kidnap them. The film is directed by Charlie McDowell, the son of Mary Steenburgen and Malcolm McDowell, who made a name for himself as a director with the
2014 relationship mind-bender “The One I Love.” Offscreen he’s also married to Collins.
‘WeCrashed’
Series about high-flying businesses that fail to sustain their promise are all the rage (Hulu’s “The Dropout” among them), and here comes another. Apple TV+’s “WeCrashed,” starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway, is based on the podcast “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork,” which promoted the concept of shared workspaces. The company grew into a multibillion-dollar global sensation over a decade, with a love story to boot, until, suddenly, its value plunged. Kyle Marvin, America Ferrera and O-T Fagbenle also star in the eight-episode series, with the first three episodes out Friday and the rest arriving weekly.
‘The Julia Child Challenge’
The great Julia Child has inspired movies, books, a classic “Saturday Night Live” sketch — and now a TV competition series. “The Julia Child Challenge” gives eight home cooks and fans of the late cookbook author and TV host the chance to prove their skills. They’ll work in a kitchen that replicates Child’s, with the addition of an oversized TV screen showing clips of her in action. Rotating judges including Dorie Greenspan, Francis Lam and Jacques Pepin will decide who gets a trip to France to study at Le Cordon Bleu. The series debuts Monday on Food Network and streams on discovery+.
‘Welcome to Flatch’
Sure, you can get your mockumentary series fix by watching reruns of “The Office” or “Parks and Recreation.” But how about giving “Welcome to Flatch” a try? The series, debuting Thursday on FOX, has the right pedigree, produced by Jenny Bicks (“Sex and the City”) and Paul Feig (“The Office”). The premise: A film crew intent on digging into the lives of young, small-town Americans lands in Flatch, where eccentricity is the norm. That includes cousins Kelly (newcomer Holmes) and Shrub Mallet (Sam Straley). Seann William Scott co-stars as Father Joe, who’s looking for love.