Watch List Weekly Recap 6/1/23
A vanishing Netflix movie, a five-alarm fire at Turner Classics, a new podcast, and a visionary Icelandic saga.
This is the Friday recap of Ty Burr’s Watch List postings for the week. If you’d like to cut down on in-box clutter and receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “Weekly Digest.” If you’d prefer to not receive it at all, uncheck just “Weekly Digest.”
Note: The Watch List will be on hiatus next week while the author recharges his batteries someplace beach-ish.
Good Movies 📽
One Good Film (While It Lasts): "Lingua Franca"
Ty Burr • Jun 20, 2023
(2019, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐) Transgender actress Isabel Sandoval (above) is a quietly charismatic triple threat as the writer-director-star of this drama set in the Russian enclave of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. The film's leaving Netflix this summer, maybe by the end of June, and it's not on DVD, so catch it now.
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Psst. Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav's email address is david.zaslav@wbd.com. You know what to do.
Classics 🎞
The TCM Doomsday Clock is Ticking.
Ty Burr • Jun 21, 2023
What does Turner Classic Movies mean to you? What would you do if it disappeared? It hasn’t — not yet, anyway — but the braintrust has been canned that made the channel the rare outpost of the past in a media landscape slavishly addicted to the present. Laid off yesterday were TCM general manager (and 25-year vet) Pola Chagnon, senior vice president of …
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Ty Burr's Watchcast
Classics of the New Millennium: "Burning" (2018) with Justin Chang
Ty Burr • Jun 22, 2023
Listen now (53 min) | Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times and NPR’s “Fresh Air” chose South Korean director Lee Chang-dong’s “Burning” as his pick for a great film of the 21st century. It's a powerfully ambiguous tale of love, eros, innocence, and simmering violence that has the bones of a thriller but the air of a cautionary existential fable.
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Good Movies 📽
What to Watch: "Godland," "After Love," "No Hard Feelings."
Ty Burr • Jun 23, 2023
For your weekend viewing pleasure: Two excellent new films available on demand and one Jennifer Lawrence raunch-com in theaters.
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