Antelope Valley Press

‘Riches,’ Robert Downey Sr. and BTS’ RM

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Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainm­ent journalist­s of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music and video game platforms this week.

Movies

• Robert Downey Jr. affectiona­tely pays tribute to this late father, Robert Downey Sr. in “Sr.,” an intimate documentar­y the younger Downey spent three years filming with his dad before his death, in 2021, at 85. Downey Sr. was a noted cult filmmaker in the ‘60s and ‘70s. His freewheeli­ng movies also featured his son’s first steps into acting, and had a profound influence on him. “Sr.,” which debuts, Friday, on Netflix, lovingly celebrates their on and off screen life together.

• Joanna Hogg, the British filmmaker of the stunning two-part memory piece “The Souvenir,” reteams with longtime collaborat­or Tilda Swinton in “The Eternal Daughter.” The film, which opens in theaters and on video on demand, Friday, is a ghost story. Swinton plays a middle-aged filmmaker on a cozy and quiet holiday with her elderly mother, who is also played by Swinton. “The Eternal Daughter,” which premiered earlier this fall at the Venice Film Festival, hauntingly digs into the joy and guilt that can come from mining one’s family for fiction.

• Little is as festive as a good screwball comedy. Thankfully, for the holiday season, the Criterion Collection has gathered together some of the best for a series of pure cinematic bliss, beginning, Thursday. Many of the classics are here — Howard Hawks’ “His Girl Friday,” Preston Sturges’ “The Palm Beach Story,” Ernst Lubitsch’s “To Be or Not to Be.” If they have for any reason passed you by, seek out “The Awful Truth” (1937), with Cary Grant and Irene Dunn as a divorcing couple sharing custody of a Wire Fox Terrier; and Mitchell Leisen’s “Midnight” (1939), with Claudette Colbert, John Barrymore and a taxi-driving Don Ameche.

Music

• Just in time for Christmas, BTS’ RM will release his debut solo album, “Indigo,” on Friday. In a statement, the singer said he worked on the collection for four years and “it will be very different from my past projects, and a lot of fun friends are gathered in it.” RM has previously released a pair of mix-tapes, 2018’s “Mono” and 2015’s “RM,” but “Indigo” has been described as his first full-length effort. The seven-member K-pop super group BTS announced a hiatus for members to pursue individual music releases. In October, Jin debuted his first solo single “The Astronaut.”

• Half Alive deserve to get your full attention. The trio’s “Conditions of a Punk” arrives, Friday, with their unique brand of R&B, Funk, Indie Pop, Alternativ­e Rock, Soul and Disco, which some compare to Twenty One Pilots, a band they have opened for on the road. Half Alive is composed of lead vocalist Josh Taylor, drummer Brett Kramer and bassist J. Tyler Johnson and was formed, in 2016, in Long Beach, Calif. New singles include the lushly pop “Did I Make You Up?” and “High Up,” which goes from Mumford & Sons to Coldplay in under 4 minutes.

Television

• Family secrets, betrayal and power struggles are abundant in the new Amazon Prime Video series “Riches.” When a self-made cosmetics king and the patriarch of an affluent Black family in London suffers a stroke, his surviving relatives from two sets of families swoop in to take control of his empire. The stakes are high and so is the level of drama. All six-episodes of the show featuring a cast that includes Deborah Ayorinde, Hugh Quarshie, and Sarah Niles, drop, on Friday. Show creator and writer Abby Ajayi worked previously on ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder” and the Netflix series “Inventing Anna.”

• You don’t have to be Clark Griswold to appreciate — or judge — a home’s outdoor holiday display. “The Great Christmas Light Fight” returns to ABC, on Monday, with two episodes beginning at 8 p.m. Now in its 10th season, each episode follows four families across the US as they trick out the front of their homes with holiday cheer. Carter Oosterhous­e and Taniya Nayak choose a winning display and the winning family is awarded a Light Fight trophy and a cash prize of $50,000.

Video games

• “Marvel’s Midnight Suns” adds a dash of strategy to the usual superhero slug fest. You are the Hunter, a demon-slayer who’s invited to join more familiar names like Wolverine, Scarlet Witch and Blade in a campaign to stop a terrifying threat from the supernatur­al side of the Marvel Universe. It’s not a test of your reflexes — instead, you need to figure out when and where to play cards to unleash your most effective attacks. “Midnight Suns” comes from 2K Games’ Firaxis studio, known for brainier challenges like “Civilizati­on” and “XCOM.” It arrives, Friday, on PlayStatio­n 5, PlayStatio­n 4, Xbox X/S. Xbox One and PC.

• Fans of “Dead Space,” the beloved 2008 science fiction thriller, should check out Krafton’s “The Callisto Protocol.” It’s the debut game from Striking Distance, a studio launched by “Dead Space” co-creator Glen Schofield. The protagonis­t, Jacob Lee, is an inmate of a maximum-security penitentia­ry on one of Jupiter’s moons — and if that’s not bad enough, most of the other prisoners are turning into monsters. At least Jacob has a high-tech arsenal, including a weapon that warps gravity itself. Blast off for Callisto, on Friday, for PlayStatio­n 5, PlayStatio­n 4, Xbox X/S. Xbox One and PC.

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