{"id":221063,"date":"2025-10-18T01:07:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T01:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221063\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T01:07:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T01:07:04","slug":"best-movies-and-tv-oct-17-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221063\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Movies and TV (Oct. 17-19)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n Want more TV and movie picks? Subscribe to our weekly Streamliner newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Clockwise from top: Black Phone 2, After the Hunt, Mr. Scorsese, and Hal & Harper.
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Everett Collection (Sabrina Lantos\/Universal Pictures, Amazon MGM Studios), MUBI, Apple TV+\n <\/p>\n

Imagine being haunted by a guy called the Grabber? How about you figure out what to watch from the Recommender? Here we go: We\u2019ve got that Blumhouse sequel that\u2019ll hopefully fare better than M3GAN 2.0<\/a>. (I am personally invested in its success for my MFL<\/a> lineup.) Then there\u2019s Keanu Reeves playing an angel who might not be that great at his job in the new Aziz Ansari flick. And there\u2019s Mark Ruffalo starring in Mubi and HBO TV series that are premiering and ending, respectively, this Sunday.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Streamliner<\/p>\n

A weekly newsletter with the latest TV and movie recommendations, curated by Vulture writers.<\/p>\n

Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Notice<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The villain with the worst name is back to scare children to death, but this time, the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) is taking on a more Freddie Krueger\u2013style<\/a> role. In Black Phone 2<\/a>, the survivor of the Grabber\u2019s kidnapping in the last film, Finn\u2019s (Mason Thames) sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), is the object of the villain\u2019s obsession. He haunts her dreams, giving her violent nightmares of children in trouble.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Keanu Reeves plays an angel named Gabriel who loses his wings in Aziz Ansari\u2019s feature directorial debut. Call it a reverse It\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u2013type situation. All Gabriel wanted to do was show Aziz\u2019s character that money isn\u2019t everything, body-swapping him with his rich boss (Seth Rogen). He should not have done this. \u2014James Grebey<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Your tolerance for indie wiz-kid Cooper Raiff may vary: He\u2019s either just earnest enough or too much. He\u2019s the creator and star of this eight-part limited series about the codependent titular siblings (Raiff as Hal, Lili Reinhart as Harper) in L.A. Their closeness is tested when their father (Mark Ruffalo) announces he\u2019s having a baby with his girlfriend. It\u2019s Garden State crossed with Skeleton Twins<\/a>. \u2014Roxana Hadadi\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Director Rebeeca Miller\u2019s five-part docuseries gives Martin Scorsese, who has won but a single Oscar, the thorough portrait he deserves. It meticulously traces the director\u2019s decades of influencing cinema worldwide with his explorations of America\u2019s deadly and competitive nature, and includes interviews with an array of his collaborators, from actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio to creative partners Thelma Schoonmaker and Robbie Robertson. \u2014R.H. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Hunt is absorbing and well acted, and Guadagnino ladles on the Ivy League atmosphere (the locations are very accurate to New Haven and Yale, although the film was shot in London, which is a CGI devilry I have trouble wrapping my head around), but despite its deliberate pacing and talky script, it\u2019s not quite the heady intellectual drama it wants to be.\u201d (Read more of Ebiri\u2019s review here<\/a>; In theaters now<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\u27bd\u00a0After you watch, hunt down After the Hunt in our ranking of every Julia Roberts performance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A new season of The Diplomat returns with Allison Janney\u2019s former vice-president Grace Penn being promoted to president of the United States after the death of William Rayburn (Michael McKean). The change in administration puts additional tension onto Kate and Hal Wyler\u2019s (Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell, respectively) lives as the two navigate Grace\u2019s rise to power and their relationship with her.<\/p>\n

\u27bd\u00a0\u201dLike a \u2026 like a fresh focaccia<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Coming 27 years after the last Last Summer movie, the new slasher stars Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders alongside returning vets Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt. It\u2019s now streaming on Netflix, though not on the ad-supported plan. \u2014J.G.<\/p>\n

\u27bd\u00a0Plus, Guillermo del Toro\u2019s take on Frankenstein is being released in limited theaters<\/a> this weekend before it hits Netflix next month, and R.L. Stine\u2019s Pumpkinhead is on Tubi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The last time Netflix adapted Roald Dahl, it was Wes Anderson\u2019s beautiful take on The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar<\/a> and three other shorts. The Twits is not beautiful \u2014 and that\u2019s kind of the point, since the story is about a gross, mean, and spiteful couple who pull all sorts of nasty pranks on each other and everyone else. Margo Martindale and Johnny Vegas voice Mrs. and Mr. Twit, respectively, with Natalie Portman and Emilia Clarke also having voice roles. \u2014J.G.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Brad Ingelsby\u2019s follow-up to Mare of Easttown is reaching its conclusion this week, after the explosive events of its penultimate episode<\/a>. Task, as critic Roxana Hadadi put it<\/a>, has been a real test of patience for audiences as the cat-and-mouse game between the FBI task force and the Dark Hearts biker gang simmered for most of the season. But the finale is this Sunday, and as we alluded to earlier, there\u2019s a lot of fallout to cover from last week\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, Keaton became the rare female star whose name could reliably open a movie \u2014 not just when she was young, but well into her 60s. Women of her generation were arguably as loyal to her as men of Clint Eastwood\u2019s, turning out to see Something\u2019s Gotta Give (her first fully nude appearance, at 57) as well as Because I Said So, Mama\u2019s Boy, Morning Glory, Love the Coopers, and three Book Club movies (part of a 21st century wave of ensemble comedies teaming up female stars from earlier eras). One characteristic of beauty is that it draws and holds attention regardless of the social taboos or aesthetic standards of the moment. Keaton\u2019s radiance was living proof.\u201d \u2014 Matt Zoller Seitz on the beauty of Diane Keaton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more of Keaton\u2019s works, here are 10 great recommendations<\/a>, including:
\u27bd\u00a0Annie Hall, on Tubi (for free), Prime Video, and MGM+
\ufeff\u27bd\u00a0Marvin\u2019s Room, on PlutoTV (for free) and Kanopy
\ufeff\u27bd\u00a0Father of the Bride, on Hulu and Disney+<\/p>\n

Want more? Read our recommendations from the\u00a0weekend of October 10<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want more TV and movie picks? Subscribe to our weekly Streamliner newsletter\u00a0here. Clockwise from top: Black Phone 2,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,337,23783,7084,40898,348,23784,46104,46105],"class_list":["post-221063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-now-streaming","tag-streaming-services","tag-streamliner","tag-tv","tag-vulture-lists","tag-vulture-picks","tag-weekend-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}