What should you watch this weekend? It might not be the eternal question, but it is an old one.
There are too many choices on streaming and faced with them, it’s easy to fall into a comfort watch. But even the most comfortable things can wear thin after a while.
So I’ve done the work of sorting through what’s new and by giving you less to choose from, the more likely you might be to watch one of them.
The Boroughs (Netflix)
What if “Stranger Things,” but older? That’s how the pitch must have gone for “The Boroughs,” the latest show from the Duffer Brothers that takes place at a retirement community. Death lurks and not just because it waits for us all. There are monsters afoot and while the residents (Ed Begley Jr., Geena Davis, Alfred Molina, Clarke Peters, Bill Pullman, Dee Wallace and Alfre Woodard) might not hop on their bikes to do it, they do pursue them. The show takes place in the present day but because of the age of the cast, the soundtrack is filled with 70s and 80s hits.
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (Apple TV)
Tatiana Maslany is so good that she’s proved that people will obsess over a show made up primarily of multiple Maslanys. Here she plays just one person, albeit one who is unraveling: a divorced mom who has to balance the dangerous repercussions of witnessing the killing of a cam boy with the stress of coaching her daughter’s soccer team.
Josh Johnson: Symphony (HBO Max)
It’s unreal how fast and funny Josh Johnson is. He can spin a news item you saw in the morning into an incredibly funny five-minute bit that will immediately stop your scrolling that night. Now after social media stardom, he finally gets the HBO special he deserves and in it, he wears something other than his trademark gray hoodie and jeans.
One Battle After Another (Prime Video)
The biggest battle “One Battle After Another” faced was at the Oscars and it came out on top. Now, it comes out on Prime Video. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a former revolutionary who spends his days mostly being stoned out of his mind but who is also fiercely protective of his daughter. There’s good reason for the latter because a white supremacist sets out to kill her, though it doesn’t take long to discover she can do a pretty good job of taking care of herself.
Ladies First (Netflix)
“Ladies First” is a remake of the French film “I Am Not an Easy Man.” As in its inspiration, a chauvinist finds himself in a world where the gender dynamics are flipped. Sacha Baron Cohen is the man who has to face challenges unlike anything else he’s ever experienced and Rosamund Pike is the woman he now works for in this new reality.
