TV tonight: the hilarious spin-off from Sharon Horgan's Motherland
9pm, BBC One
It is the hilarious Motherland spin-off fans have been waiting for from Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe, Bad Sisters). The comedy follows the unbearable snob Amanda (Lucy Punch), who has had to downsize after her divorce. She is struggling to fit in with the mums at her kids' new school, but luckily her mother, Felicity (Joanna Lumley), won't leave her house and her old minion, Anne (Philippa Dunne), is still around. What a hoot! Hollie Richardson
9pm, ITV1
Are the longsuffering women of Grantchester about to rise up against the patriarchy? Maybe not quite yet, but Geordie's latest murder case forces a reckoning at the new workplace of Esme (Skye Lucia Degruttola), while Cathy (Kacey Ainsworth) reassesses her relationship with their eldest daughter, and Mrs C (Tessa Peake-Jones) has some sharp words for Rev Alph. Ellen E Jones
9pm, Channel 4
A heartstring-tugging addition to Channel 4's already extensive property empire, this series sees George Clarke following builds and conversions with hefty emotional resonance. We begin with Chris and Ellie, who are attempting to construct a new home in the Ribble Valley after Chris's diagnosis with stage-four cancer. Phil Harrison
9.30pm, BBC One
Daisy May Cooper's dark comedy returns (with the wonderful Lenny Rush) and, although there is still too much happening at once, it is even funnier than before. The story picks up with the messy aftermath of Nic (Cooper) revealing her affair with her dead brother-in-law – the one she also, erm, killed. But will she get away with murder? HR
10pm, Channel 4
Money may not be able to buy you taste but it can certainly secure you a needlessly extravagant mansion with a roof shaped like a Viking helmet. This gaudy but addictive new reality series follows the zealous sales staff of deluxe Dubai property specialists Betterhomes as they try to flog jaw-dropping villas. Graeme Virtue
12.05am, Channel 4
With the rental market in such a desperate state, it is no surprise that a growing number of young renters are being conned into putting down deposits on places that don't even exist. Harleen Nottay investigates these scams and how social media plays its part. HR
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘Predator: Killer of Killers' Review: Hulu's Awesomely Violent Animated Death Match Highlights the Full Potential of the Franchise
An awesomely violent and artfully staged piece of animated pulp, 'Predator: Killer of Killers' feels like a movie that was dreamed up by a couple of stoned teenage boys in a suburban basement one night during the summer of 1987, but this is the rare case where that feels like a good thing. A very good thing, even. Close your eyes and you can practically hear Dan Trachtenberg — whose impressive 'Prey' made him the de facto thought leader of the 'Predator' franchise — passing a miserable blunt to screenwriter and co-director Micho Robert Rutare as one of them asks 'Who would win in a fight: a Predator or a ninja? What about a Predator or a Viking?' These are some of the great questions of our time, and 'Killer of Killers' answers them with enough style and savagery to share a sweet little contact high with everyone who streams it. More from IndieWire Does 'Materialists' Satisfy as a Romance? Screen Talk Debates Celine Song's Film, Shares 'F1' First Reactions 'I Don't Understand You' Review: Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells Kill It in Grisly Destination Rom-Com The project's charm lies in the fact that it doesn't try to do anything else. An anthology-like collection of death matches in which cinema's most toxically militaristic alien species hunts the greatest human warriors across our planet's history, 'Killer of Killers' is so mission-driven and self-possessed that it never feels the least bit like an elaborate teaser for Trachtenberg's forthcoming 'Badlands' (a theatrical release that will determine the continued viability of the 'Predator' franchise), even if it does a phenomenal job of convincing people to give a shit about the 'Yautja' again — or for the first time. All red meat and no gristle, 'Killer of Killers' leapfrogs through the centuries — with occasional flash-forwards into sci-fi territory — as if it were using the 'Assassin's Creed' games like a treasure map. The action starts on the shores of Valhalla circa 841 A.D., where a vengeance-obsessed valkyrie named Ursa (voiced by Lindsay LaVanchy) leads her son Anders on a raid to kill the barbarian king who ransacked her village when she was a child. 'Why do we fight?,' she asks the boy. 'Because our enemy still lives,' he replies. Locked into the siege like Timothée Chalamet at a Knicks playoff game in Indiana, the invisibility-cloaked Predator who's watching from the sidelines may have traveled hundreds of light years for a front-row seat to the carnage, but that sort of zero-sum ethos surely reminds him of home. The alien's plan is the same across the first three of the movie's four segments: Let the humans slaughter each other, and then ambush the last — and presumably strongest — warrior standing as a test of its own skill as a hunter. One second Ursa is standing triumphant over the corpse of her enemy, and the next her minions are screaming 'Grendel!' as the Predator starts ripping their spinal cords out of their backs and/or pulverizing their bodies into red mush. While those combat tests have a tendency to be wildly unfair (I'm not sure what a Predator would prove to itself by using a space-age shockwave gun to obliterate a guy holding a wooden spear, but maybe a red-blooded American man who shoots forest animals for sport could explain it to me), the Yautja also have a tendency of failing them in spectacular fashion, as it quickly becomes clear that people are still the most dangerous game. Contextualized as a duel between two different breeds of 'monster' (one being Ursa's bloodlust, and the other a demon from outer space), the battle that comprises much of the opening chapter is nothing less than nerd-ass shit par excellence. As in subsequent episodes, the movie's 'violence is unevolved' moral framing doesn't stop Rutare and Trachtenberg from choreographing the Viking vs. E.T. fight with fetishistic grace, particularly because the CG animation — stilted in its faux-rotoscoped movement, but soaked with the detail and lush ferity of a classic graphic novel — allows them to stage action that would be impossible to sell (or afford) in live-action. Moving away from green screen, the Volume, and other sources of sludgy-looking FX also gives the filmmakers license to make fantastic use of their characters' environments. A good time for its gore alone, the Ursa brawl is made all the more satisfying because of how cleverly she weaponizes Viking ships against against the Predator, in much the same way as the Japan-set episode that comes next takes full advantage of Tokugawa period architecture as a shinobi hops around a 17th century fortress with a Yautja on his tail (no spoilers, but let's just say the Predators are ill-prepared to fight on the Kawara tiles that lined every 17th castle from Edo on out). If 'The Sword' maxes out all of the cultural tenets you'd expect an American cartoon like this to exploit, Rutare and Trachtenberg solve the triteness of its story — two brothers, raised by their father as bitter rivals, fight to the death in order to prove their supremacy — by embracing its basicness. Almost entirely wordless from start to finish, the segment pares the sibling rivalry down to its purest level so that it can distill what its characters might be capable of achieving together if they ever fought as one… a theme that 'Killer of Killers' will return to with a vengeance in its out-of-this-world fourth segment. But in order to reach those heights, the movie first has to take to the skies, which it does in a 1942-set chapter about a wide-eyed Navy mechanic (voiced by Rick Gonzalez) who steals a rickety old plane and flies into battle against the Nazi fleet after he becomes convinced that something else has been hiding in the clouds and shooting down all his friends. This episode is slow to take off, as it starts by doubling down on the film's recurring fixation with children proving themselves to their parents (a relevant motif in a franchise preoccupied with self-worth, but one that 'Killer of Killers' can only glance at between grudge matches), and its chatty protagonist grows tiresome in a hurry. But once he's airborne, Rutare and Trachtenberg delight in orchestrating some ultra-graphic aerial mayhem, as our hero tries to outfox a heat-seeking alien jet from the cockpit of a busted tin can. Tom Cruise might have a slight edge when it comes to realism, but Rutare and Trachtenberg giddily compensate for that with stratospheric nose-dives and hailstorms full of disembodied limbs. The gore never quite reaches 'Ninja Scroll' levels or anything like that, but 'Killer of Killers' is able to maintain a rock-hard R without ever lowering itself to the level of empty titillation. By that point in the movie, there's little mystery left as to what Rutare and Trachtenberg are building toward for a grand finale: A melee that will somehow blend Ursa's ambivalent revenge with the ninja's regretful lonerism and the flyboy's inextinguishable resourcefulness. This final segment is a bit sillier and more cartoonish than the ones before it, as 'Killer of Killers' is suddenly forced to juggle a variety of (very) different personalities on a hostile alien world whose rules and physics are as rooted in fiction as the film's previous settings were rooted in fact, but there's a satisfying concision to how the script pulls all of its various stories together, and — for a project that could have felt like nothing but fan service — I appreciated that Rutare and Trachtenberg save their movie's only explicit allusion to the rest of the 'Predator' franchise until the end credits. Running a very tight 80 minutes or so between titles, 'Killer of Killers' doesn't pretend to be a blockbuster-sized entry in a series that has always struggled to find the right scale for itself, but it even more adamantly refuses to be the sort of throwaway junk that we've been conditioned to expect from straight-to-streaming spinoffs, remakes, sequels, and the like. Fantastic as this film would be to see on the big screen, I'd go so far as to say that this is what streaming should be for: Immaculately crafted bonus treats that stand on their own two feet and demand to be watched with both eyes at the same time as they serve to reinforce the primacy of the theatrical releases that prop them up. In a bottomless content abyss where only the strongest material survives, 'Killer of Killers' should have no trouble slaying the rest of its competition on your Hulu home page. 'Predator: Killer of Killers' will be available to stream on Hulu starting Friday, June 6. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
Los Angeles Times
3 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
The live-action adaptation of ‘How to Train Your Dragon' sure is Toothless
How to train your dragon? As we learned back in 2010, it takes patience and fish. Why train your dragon again? That's harder for filmmaker Dean DeBlois to answer. His original animated 'How to Train Your Dragon,' made in collaboration with Chris Sanders, is a 21st-century kiddie classic, a spry and delightful adventure about interspecies empathy. In the 15 years since, DeBlois has helmed its sequel, its three-quel and now this live-action version, which goes back to the beginning and repeats the same plot essentially word for word. Can you even call DeBlois' latest one a reboot when he hasn't stopped making them? At least it's a good yarn. Once more, we are regaled by the high-flying friendship between a Viking outcast named Hiccup and a so-called ferocious Night Fury named Toothless, who turns out to have the playfulness of a Bengal kitten and the loyalty of the Black Stallion. Both come from societies that see tiny acts of mercy as a terrifying risk. For decades, Hiccup's village of Berk has been looted by sheep-stealing dragons — and the dragons in turn have been captured and used as training dummies for future dragon-killers. Together, the young pariah-turned-lizard-rider and his spunky pet prove there's strength in pacifism. I'll never understand why Hollywood remakes good movies. At least the bad ones have things worth fixing. But having stuck the landing once (and a few more times), DeBlois doesn't leave himself much runway to do something new and improved. This 'How to Train Your Dragon' is merely longer. That said, its message is still necessary: A boy grows up thinking that murdering stuff is awesome and then starts to question his town's assumption that every outsider is a threat. Hiccup, played this time with game and gawky charm by Mason Thames, has been raised to think the only solution to violence is more violence. Turns out only some dragons are bad. It's #NotAllDragons. 'Give me something to shoot at,' Hiccup whines, scanning the sky for a target. He wants to fit in with Berk's other barbarian berserkers, all under the command of his father, Stoic the Vast (Gerard Butler, who also voiced the original character). Despite his son's aggressive posturing, Stoic fears he's spawned a waste of DNA. One small modern-era update DeBlois has made to his script is that this Nordic hamlet has cut back on the number of blondes. It's now an international coalition of fighters. Hiccup's crush Astrid (Nico Parker) hails from somewhere else — she's battled just to immigrate to Berk — causing her to cast an even deadlier side eye at this scrawny scion of privilege. She's more aligned with the movie's mild antagonist, a bully named Snotlout Jorgenson (Gabriel Howell), who gets to recycle one of the first film's great zingers: 'Why would I read words when I could just kill the stuff the words tell me about?' Honing the ranks hasn't helped Berk defeat the dragons. When DeBlois pans around Berk's gathering hall, each citizen seems more busted up and exhausted than the last. He's nudged the franchise a tiny half-step toward turning it into Oliver Stone for grade-schoolers — 'Bjorn on the Fjords of July.' Stoic evens kicks off one of his pro-war pep talks with 'So what if you've lost a leg?' Hiccup's dragon-fighting coach, Gobber the Belch (Nick Frost), has lost an arm and a leg. A blacksmith, Gobber forged himself a nifty set of swappable appendages: a sledgehammer, a hook, even a thumbs up and thumbs down for the scene when he has to gauge which of his pupils is the best new fighter. Frost and Butler are formidable screen presences when they're simply wearing sneakers. Here, rampaging around in heavy pelts that double their girth, they're clearly having a blast. Their beards alone are masterworks of virility. Butler makes the only genuinely compelling case to let an actor do a cartoon's job. In the second half of the film, he gives two searing looks — one to Hiccup, one to Toothless — that remind you of the power he can wield when inhabiting the right role. I also enjoyed Julian Dennison's chipper and bookwormy Fishlegs Ingerman, a classmate of Hiccup's who's been padded to look as wide as he is tall. Still, little is gained by transforming actual cartoons into human cartoons. Seeing dirt under their fingernails is simply a lateral move. This half-hearted interest in naturalism hurts more than helps. The nighttime and interior shots are so dark that you begin to pray, for Odin's sake: Can someone please turn on the lights? Yes, the Vikings didn't use electric bulbs. But they didn't have dragons, either. So it would at least be nice to see them. Likewise, for every gorgeous shot of a tornado of dragons whirling though a crack in a cave, a dozen other potential stunners have been given a dull dusting of 'authentic' dirt and fog. Hiccup and Toothless soar above a landscape so littered with distracting details — rocks and sun-dappled waves and scraps of mist — that we long for the simple beauty of a stark black dragon in the sky. The flying shots feel oddly windless. Hiccup and Astrid look like kids with fake IDs at the Saddle Ranch waiting for someone to turn on the mechanical bull. Despite the technological advancement, Toothless' velocity is less convincing than 'The NeverEnding Story's' Falkor the Luck Dragon over four decades ago. I thought Parker was decent in last year's teen drama 'Suncoast,' where she played a girl whose brother is dying of brain cancer. Here, her Astrid tough and pretty — and pretty flat. The character is somehow more lifeless in three dimensions than in 2D. The irony is, animation is a medium of empathy. Our brains know a cartoon isn't real — be it a rascally rabbit, a culinary rat or a dragon with the same sheen as salt licorice — and yet our hearts gift it with life. That's why pretty much all of these live-action redos feel cold at their core. They're not just inessential, they're insulting. They don't trust us barbarians to care about a world that doesn't look like our own. They hold our hearts back.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Race Across the World stars reunite including eliminated Yin and Gaz
Race Across the World's cast are reunited in full for the first time since the BBC show ended. Fun first look pictures reveal the friends enjoying a catch up six months after undertaking the race of a lifetime. Race Across the World was filmed over eight weeks from October until December last year, with the winners of £20,000 kept secret. It has played out on our screens over eight one-hour episodes. Six months later a one-hour catch up was filmed, including behind-the-scenes insights and unseen moments from the BBC show. Race Across the World: The Reunion will air on BBC One at 9pm on Wednesday, 18 June. It captures the first time the five teams — including eliminated pair Yin and Gaz — have had the chance to get together again. The eliminated couple find out how the rest of the teams — sisters Elizabeth and Letitia, mother and son Caroline and Tom, brothers Melvyn and Brian as well as couple Fin and Sioned — have done in the race for the first time. The Reunion is a celebration of their Race Across the World journeys where all the contestants have the chance to reflect on the race. They covered ground across China before the final four teams went onto travel into Nepal and India. There is plenty for the stars to catch up on. Regardless of the £20,000 prize money, the race has changed the lives of the stars. Yin tells Yahoo UK she has had the chance to move out of Gaz's house. Sioned and Fin tell Yahoo UK that they had the chance to travel to Australia while Elizabeth and Letitia say they have been to Kenya. Brian and Melvyn tell Yahoo UK that they talk everyday now. Caroline and Tom tell Yahoo UK of their plans to do a mini Race Across the World in Kazakhstan with only the rucksacks on their backs. In the reunion show, the stars look back on their journeys and how they were forced out of their comfort zones. They reminisce too over the beauty of the landscapes they witnessed as well as the harsh realities of being on the road. Race Across the World: The Reunion will allow viewers one last intimate look at the epic journey and how it's impacted their lives as well as their relationships. From behind the scenes, Brian revealed how all the teams speak on their Whatsapp group. Before having the chance to film the reunion, he told Yahoo UK: "Yeah [we have a] big WhatsApp group, we speak daily. We are trying to meet up if we can but it's quite difficult to get everybody together. It is tough." In a stark contrast to the BBC show being filmed across Asia's three most diverse nations, the contestants made the journey to London to film the reunion. It's still a big journey for some of the contestants like Fin and Sioned who have to travel from Nantgaredig, a small village in Carmarthenshire, Wales to the capital. That's a six-hour train journey, although nowhere near as tough as some of the travels they faced on Race Across the World. Of course, for the reunion, the teams left their heavy rucksacks at home (and Melvyn's wheelie case too). The contestants all met at a fancy hotel, not unlike some of the impressive checkpoint hotels they visit along the way on Race Across the World. The table was set for their visit and decorated with beautiful blooms in white, apricot and fuchsia pink. Race Across the World is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
