New this week: ‘Riches,’ Robert Downey Sr. and BTS’ RM
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.
— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle
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 mixtapes, 2018’s “Mono” and 2015’s “RM,” but “Indigo” has been described as his first full-length effort. The seven-member K-pop supergroup 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, California. 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.
— AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy
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.