Latest news with #JussiAdlerOlsen
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Dept. Q,' ‘Mountainhead,' Alfred Hitchcock on Netflix, and the best to stream this weekend
Welcome to , your VIP guide to the best of pop culture for the weekend ahead, curated by the Gold Derby team of experts. (May 30-June 1) From a genre perspective, Scott Frank's latest project for Netflix has little in common with his previous two shows for the streaming service, the Emmy-winning limited series The Queen's Gambit and Godless. But like them, Dept. Q is must-see TV. More from GoldDerby Patti Lupone goes scorched-earth, inside the troubled Michael Jackson biopic, and what to read this weekend: May 30, 2025 Loretta Swit holds this Emmy record that may never be broken Directors open up about identity, risk and emotional storytelling at Disney's FYC fest Adapted from the best-selling Department Q crime novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, the nine-episode series (now streaming) stars Matthew Goode as DCI Carl Morck, an acerbic detective returning to work months after a routine welfare check leaves a young cop dead, his best friend and partner paralyzed from the waist down, and him with a bullet wound to the neck and mandated therapy. When his embattled Edinburgh police station needs a PR win, Morck is assigned to a newly created department of one, charged with investigating cold cases, starting with the four-year-old disappearance of a one-time prominent civil servant (Chloe Pirrie). What no one expects is that Morck, a lost cause with his own little band of rejects à la Slow Horses, might actually be successful in his endeavor. Dept. Q is the awards contender to watch this weekend. However, there is a lot going on this week as the TV season comes to a close ahead of the first phase of Emmy voting in June. Other contenders include: Hacks: Recently renewed for a fifth season, Max's Emmy-winning comedy closes out its excellent fourth season with a coda that finds Deborah (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) taking a trip to decompress after the life-changing events of the penultimate episode… and the news that Deborah can't perform stand-up for 18 months due to the contract she'd signed for Late Night. It's a fascinating, if somewhat unexpected end to a season about creating art and comedy with the confines of traditional media. The finale is now streaming on Max. Adults: It's a truth universally acknowledged that adults don't actually know what they're doing. FX's newest comedy puts Gen Z at the forefront of the latest version of this all too familiar story, as a group of five messy twentysomethings fumble their way through the early days of adulthood in New York City. Across eight episodes, the show tackles the fears and anxieties of being in charge of one's life and having no idea what to do about it. In an unconventional rollout, the series airs new episodes Wednesdays on FX, but the entire first season is already streaming on Hulu. The Better Sister: Based on the 2019 book by Alafair Burke and directed by Craig Gillespie, Amazon's newest limited series follows Chloe (Jessica Biel) and Nicky (Elizabeth Banks), two estranged sisters who could not be more different. While Chloe lives an idyllic life with her husband and son, Nicky is a recovering addict who struggles to make ends meet. But when Chloe's husband is brutally murdered, the two siblings reunite, uncovering a complicated family history as they attempt to find out what happened. All eight episodes are now streaming on Prime Video. Streaming services emphasize the new over the classic, and Netflix does this most of all. It's estimated that only about 2 percent of Netflix's movie library consists of films made before 1980. This is very bad for cinema history, as viewers are not exposed to classic films on the dominant streaming platform. So it's important to watch classic movies when they pop up on Netflix. Which means our top movie pick this weekend isn't a new release, but a bunch of old ones from the Master of Suspense that are coming to Netflix for the first time. On June 1, Netflix is adding a collection of six Alfred Hitchcock films: Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), The Birds (1963), and the final two of his career, Frenzy (1972) and Family Plot (1976). Also joining the collection are the 2012 biopic Hitchcock starring Anthony Hopkins and two horror films that bear a heavy Hitchcock influence, 2019's Us and 2022's Barbarian. The films' addition coincides with a six-week Hitchcock retrospective at Netflix's Paris Theater in New York. More Hitchcock films are expected to be added throughout the month. Psycho, Hitchcock's most famous film (though not his best; that's generally considered to be Vertigo, which topped the Sight & Sound poll in 2012), is already available on Netflix. It's a great opportunity to reconnect with the work of arguably the most influential filmmaker of all time. If you're looking for something new, here are some other recommendations: : For his first post-Succession project, creator Jesse Armstrong returns to HBO — and the world of billionaires — for the satire film Mountainhead. Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, Jason Schwartzman, and Cory Michael Smith star as tech billionaires gathered for a ski trip at a mountain retreat when a financial meltdown occurs, and it's mostly their fault. The made-for-TV movie was shot in March, and made an astonishingly tight turnaround to premiere on May 31 at 8 p.m. on HBO and Max, just under the wire for Emmys eligibility. : This animated kids' comedy from DreamWorks is a spinoff of Captain Underpants that takes the form of a very silly story-within-a-story. It's about a police officer and his K-9 who get fused together to become Dog Man: half man, half dog, all cop. Dog Man goes up against Petey, 'the world's most evilest cat,' to save Ohkay City from the orange kitty's (voiced by Pete Davidson) reign of terror. It topped the box office for a few weeks earlier this year, with kids (and parents) enjoying its energetic humor. It's now streaming on Peacock. : U2 singer Bono gives an unusual take on the musician memoir in this filmed version of his stage show, which features the man born Paul Hewson telling stories from his life interspersed with new versions of some of his iconic songs, like 'Beautiful Day' and 'Where the Streets Have No Name.' It's an immersive show — literally so, if you have an Apple Vision Pro headset, which Stories of Surrender is the first film specifically made for — shot in striking black-and-white by Academy Award-winning Mank cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt and directed by Andrew Dominik (Blonde). If for some reason you don't have an Apple Vision Pro, don't worry; you can watch the film in 2D on Apple TV+. : This Christian cartoon is an interesting take on the Charles Dickens' children's story The Life of Our Lord, a version of the story of Jesus Christ that Dickens wrote for his own children. Kenneth Branagh voices Dickens, who narrates the frame story while his son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) gets transported into it, and experiences the life of Jesus (Oscar Isaac) from a disciple's point of view. The film comes from leading faith-based studio Angel Studios, and features a star-studded voice cast that includes Uma Thurman, Mark Hamill, Pierce Brosnan, Forest Whitaker, and Ben Kingsley. It's now available on-demand on Apple TV and Fandango at Home. Speaking of Bono's Stories of Surrender, the U2 frontman released a three-song EP to accompany the streaming special featuring new live solo versions of the band's classics "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Desire," along with lesser-known track "The Showman." Give a listen below. Finally, with the sad news of the passing of composer Alf Clausen, whose Emmy-winning music helped define the best years of The Simpsons, we offer the playlist from Songs in the Key of Springfield. The compilation album, released in 1997, features such Clausen classics as "The Monorail Song," "Flaming Moe's," "Oh, Streetcar," and "We Do (The Stonecutters' Song)." After Clausen was unceremoniously fired in 2017, the show was never the same. Best of GoldDerby 'I cried a lot': Rob Delaney on the heart and humor in FX's 'Dying for Sex' — and Neighbor Guy's kick in the 'zone' TV directors roundtable: 'American Primeval,' 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,' 'Paradise' 'Paradise' directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra on the 'chaos' of crafting 'the world coming to an end' Click here to read the full article.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Matthew Goode is both good and bad cop in Netflix's 'Dept. Q'
Being a leading man? Matthew Goode quite likes it. He's the star of 'Dept. Q,' based on the books by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen and set in the cold case division of an Edinburgh police station. From 'The Queen's Gambit' showrunner Scott Frank, the nine-part miniseries launches Thursday and sees Goode playing a one-man combination of good cop/bad cop. While Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck is a brilliant investigator, he is equally successful at annoying people — even begrudging respect for his talent quickly turns into intense dislike. It's not that Goode hasn't been No. 1 on the call sheet before, it's just that he didn't enjoy it. 'It's something I shied away from after the beginning of my career where I was there for a bit and then I had some sort of bad things … things weren't necessarily positive at that point, after that. And I just went, I just want to be, you know, not the lead anymore,' he says. Goode also acknowledges that actors don't get to choose if a main part is 'bestowed' on them and notes that Frank fought to cast him in 'Dept. Q.' The pair first worked together on 'The Lookout' (2007) with the English actor portraying an American thief, a long way from the period dramas Goode has been recently known for, playing suave Brits in 'The Crown,' 'Downton Abbey' and 'Freud's Last Session.' Goode and Frank talked and teased each other in an interview with The Associated Press about working together, cast bonding and breaking Goode out of his period drama groove. The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. AP: To start with, can I get you to describe your relationship? GOODE: Father and son. FRANK: Taxing, toxic, troubling. GOODE: Well, he's the genius and I just do what he says, basically. FRANK: I wish. We go way back. We made a film together, the first film I ever directed, in fact. And I was lucky that I had Matthew because he was outstanding and made it easier for me at that point. And I think we both just really know one another and I love this man — I would work with him in everything I ever did, but he's a pain in the ass. GOODE: Well, you know. There has to be some cost! FRANK: He is Carl Morck, in many ways. To know him is to want to strangle him. Does that sum it up? GOODE: OK, so now you see what I'm working with. This is the second time he's given me a character that I genuinely don't think that many other people would have taken that chance, because I don't really scream Kansas City bank robber (in 'The Lookout'). And I think this is a part that some people would have kind of gone, it's a bit more sort of Tom Hardy-ish, perhaps. But that's what we are, we're actors, but you don't necessarily get to be versatile a lot of the time, so I feel very indebted to you. AP: And did you write this with Matthew in mind? FRANK: I had always thought he would be terrific for this, and I didn't know if we would end up doing it together, but from the minute I started thinking about it, doing it here, I really thought, oh, and I knew he would love it. I think a lot of times people only see actors in one way or a particular way, is because they don't really see them, they just see the roles they've already played, they're not really paying attention to what else is happening. AP: It's not a period drama. GOODE: There you go, that's a prime example, yeah. AP: So is that part of the appeal? GOODE: I mean a career is, for want of a better way of explaining it, is a bit like a river where essentially you can go, there's the main channel in it, but there's eddies and you get caught in certain things and you get cast in certain ways. So you're not really ever particularly in control of it. Certainly unless you have your own production company or you become a massive star where you actually sort of have the keys to Hollywood and then you have a bit more of a sphere of influence and you can dip your toes in different waters. And he had to fight for me a little bit for this one. He had to go bat for me to actually do the part. AP: Have you played a detective before? GOODE: No, this is my first time, I think. I've got a memory like a sieve now; I've got three kids, that's the only thing I really think about. But no, I think this is my first time. FRANK: I don't think you have. GOODE: Only with my wife with some dress up, but that's about it. AP: Carl seems to wind everybody up. FRANK: A lot of people he winds up are people you want him to wind up and then a lot of times he's shooting down. But then, the people he's shooting down at surprise you by coming straight back at him. They don't necessarily let him get away with Carl being Carl. AP: And he's not a posh character. GOODE: No because (Frank) transposed it from the original Danish setting, Copenhagen, and it works brilliantly, obviously, in Edinburgh, and it becomes this amazing character. But he made the character English. But we haven't given too much detail yet as to as to his past, which I love the fact, because we're aiming to be able to keep doing this because there's 10 books. AP: I spoke to Leah Byrne and Alexej Manvelov, who both had first day nerves and are so good in this. Did it surprise you that they needed reassurance? FRANK: We all need reassurance. Including me. GOODE: Every actor I've ever met. FRANK: Your first day is really scary. There are all these people ... and acting, as I like to say, is the most difficult job in all of this because you're making yourself so vulnerable in front of a hundred strangers. So Day 1 is even worse. AP: And Matthew went out with Alexej for a long lunch? GOODE: I know it sounds a bit unprofessional, but actually, it's really, for me, that's the way that I like to work is to give myself to the other people that I've got major relationships in the show with, because I'm not competitive as an actor. I really want to share the screen. I find it weird when it doesn't happen the other way toward me. And so that's a really important relationship ... and I wanted us to have a great friendship. FRANK: The one thing you can't fix in post-production is casting if you've not cast well. And there were a lot of different relationships happening here, so they all had to work together. And they were all terrific. I would be surprised every day by something one of these actors would do. And, what was really fun for me too, is how much Matthew appreciated the skill on the other side. He was never like threatened or felt he was being shown up, it was like this delight. GOODE: Probably was being shown up.
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Matthew Goode is both good and bad cop in Netflix's 'Dept. Q'
LONDON (AP) — Being a leading man? Matthew Goode quite likes it. He's the star of 'Dept. Q,' based on the books by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen and set in the cold case division of an Edinburgh police station. From 'The Queen's Gambit' showrunner Scott Frank, the nine-part miniseries launches Thursday and sees Goode playing a one-man combination of good cop/bad cop. While Detective Chief Inspector Carl Morck is a brilliant investigator, he is equally successful at annoying people — even begrudging respect for his talent quickly turns into intense dislike. It's not that Goode hasn't been No. 1 on the call sheet before, it's just that he didn't enjoy it. 'It's something I shied away from after the beginning of my career where I was there for a bit and then I had some sort of bad things … things weren't necessarily positive at that point, after that. And I just went, I just want to be, you know, not the lead anymore,' he says. Goode also acknowledges that actors don't get to choose if a main part is 'bestowed' on them and notes that Frank fought to cast him in 'Dept. Q.' The pair first worked together on 'The Lookout' (2007) with the English actor portraying an American thief, a long way from the period dramas Goode has been recently known for, playing suave Brits in 'The Crown,' 'Downton Abbey' and 'Freud's Last Session.' Goode and Frank talked and teased each other in an interview with The Associated Press about working together, cast bonding and breaking Goode out of his period drama groove. The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. AP: To start with, can I get you to describe your relationship? GOODE: Father and son. FRANK: Taxing, toxic, troubling. GOODE: Well, he's the genius and I just do what he says, basically. FRANK: I wish. We go way back. We made a film together, the first film I ever directed, in fact. And I was lucky that I had Matthew because he was outstanding and made it easier for me at that point. And I think we both just really know one another and I love this man — I would work with him in everything I ever did, but he's a pain in the ass. GOODE: Well, you know. There has to be some cost! FRANK: He is Carl Morck, in many ways. To know him is to want to strangle him. Does that sum it up? GOODE: OK, so now you see what I'm working with. This is the second time he's given me a character that I genuinely don't think that many other people would have taken that chance, because I don't really scream Kansas City bank robber (in 'The Lookout'). And I think this is a part that some people would have kind of gone, it's a bit more sort of Tom Hardy-ish, perhaps. But that's what we are, we're actors, but you don't necessarily get to be versatile a lot of the time, so I feel very indebted to you. AP: And did you write this with Matthew in mind? FRANK: I had always thought he would be terrific for this, and I didn't know if we would end up doing it together, but from the minute I started thinking about it, doing it here, I really thought, oh, and I knew he would love it. I think a lot of times people only see actors in one way or a particular way, is because they don't really see them, they just see the roles they've already played, they're not really paying attention to what else is happening. AP: It's not a period drama. GOODE: There you go, that's a prime example, yeah. AP: So is that part of the appeal? GOODE: I mean a career is, for want of a better way of explaining it, is a bit like a river where essentially you can go, there's the main channel in it, but there's eddies and you get caught in certain things and you get cast in certain ways. So you're not really ever particularly in control of it. Certainly unless you have your own production company or you become a massive star where you actually sort of have the keys to Hollywood and then you have a bit more of a sphere of influence and you can dip your toes in different waters. And he had to fight for me a little bit for this one. He had to go bat for me to actually do the part. AP: Have you played a detective before? GOODE: No, this is my first time, I think. I've got a memory like a sieve now; I've got three kids, that's the only thing I really think about. But no, I think this is my first time. FRANK: I don't think you have. GOODE: Only with my wife with some dress up, but that's about it. AP: Carl seems to wind everybody up. FRANK: A lot of people he winds up are people you want him to wind up and then a lot of times he's shooting down. But then, the people he's shooting down at surprise you by coming straight back at him. They don't necessarily let him get away with Carl being Carl. AP: And he's not a posh character. GOODE: No because (Frank) transposed it from the original Danish setting, Copenhagen, and it works brilliantly, obviously, in Edinburgh, and it becomes this amazing character. But he made the character English. But we haven't given too much detail yet as to as to his past, which I love the fact, because we're aiming to be able to keep doing this because there's 10 books. AP: I spoke to Leah Byrne and Alexej Manvelov, who both had first day nerves and are so good in this. Did it surprise you that they needed reassurance? FRANK: We all need reassurance. Including me. GOODE: Every actor I've ever met. FRANK: Your first day is really scary. There are all these people ... and acting, as I like to say, is the most difficult job in all of this because you're making yourself so vulnerable in front of a hundred strangers. So Day 1 is even worse. AP: And Matthew went out with Alexej for a long lunch? GOODE: I know it sounds a bit unprofessional, but actually, it's really, for me, that's the way that I like to work is to give myself to the other people that I've got major relationships in the show with, because I'm not competitive as an actor. I really want to share the screen. I find it weird when it doesn't happen the other way toward me. And so that's a really important relationship ... and I wanted us to have a great friendship. FRANK: The one thing you can't fix in post-production is casting if you've not cast well. And there were a lot of different relationships happening here, so they all had to work together. And they were all terrific. I would be surprised every day by something one of these actors would do. And, what was really fun for me too, is how much Matthew appreciated the skill on the other side. He was never like threatened or felt he was being shown up, it was like this delight. GOODE: Probably was being shown up. FRANK: Oh, you were, trust me, they all steal it from you.
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Dept. Q, review: Netflix's Edinburgh-set answer to Slow Horses
New crime drama Dept. Q (Netflix), is based on a series of novels by the Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen. Except it's not, not really. You don't have to watch more than about two minutes of it to realise that the TV adaptation is based, or at least heavily influenced by, Apple TV+'s Slow Horses. The Dept. Q of the title is a new cold case unit in the Edinburgh police force that is really a PR exercise to drum up some funding for the real police there. It's not a department, it's a place to secrete washed-up misanthropes like DCI Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) in a literal grimy basement where no one has to look at them. For Dept. Q, read Slough House, the dumping ground for threadbare spies in Slow Horses. For Carl Morck, read Jackson Lamb. Both are the epitome of damaged goods. In Morck's case, the damage appears to have come from being shot in the face, in an incident that claimed the life of a young sergeant and the legs of his friend and partner. His response has been to double down on his general loathing for all mankind. Morck hates everyone, and everyone hates Morck. But not for long. The narrative path for both a Jackson Lamb and a Carl Morck involves a softening. Over nine hours and one really nasty case, and thanks to a mordant wit, we do, of course, come round to Morck as we learn why he is as he is and what happened in the past to make him so. Naturally, he's also kind of brilliant at what he does. In all of the above, therefore, Dept. Q offers little that's new, but it has two things in its favour. Firstly, I'm still not sure how many people have seen Slow Horses, because it's on Apple TV+ and no one knows how many people watch that. There's every chance that Carl Morck and his team of ne'er-do-wells fighting evil, as well as a system that has cast them aside, will seem like the best idea ever committed to telly. Secondly, and more importantly, Dept. Q is very well done. Goode, more often seen as a buttoned-up toff (in Downton Abbey and The Crown), plays wonderfully well against type as an unbuttoned scruff. His team of misfits are well cast and well-used, with Alexej Manvelov as Akram Malik particularly impressive – he's a former Syrian policeman who fled to the UK and somehow wends his way from the IT department to Morck's sidekick. And then there's the case that runs throughout the series, or rather the multiple cases. There's the mystery of the missing prosecutor, the mystery of who shot Morck and his buddy, and the mystery of why police departments have such large, unused basements going spare for office space. As you'd expect, writer Scott Frank, who made The Queen's Gambit for Netflix, marshals the whole thing like a maestro, zooming in on dabs of Morck's home life (not good), jumping over to his PTSD sessions with a psychiatrist played by Kelly Macdonald, then coming back to warm up the show's central cold case. If you'd been wondering what happened to Scandi noir, all brutal and gloomy, well, here it is – it just went away, popped into Slough House for some tips and was next seen alive and well in Scotland.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Dept Q review – this excellent crime drama is a grimy, gothic treat
It must be so galling for an actor to be blessed with just the right face for one kind of part. Galling for good actors anyway. Pretty sweet for the others – 'You need a face someone would definitely kill for? Put this useless hunk/babe in there and just move the scenery round them.' Matthew Goode is, nomenclaturally and otherwise, one of the former, but cursed with a face best described as 'modern patrician' and has therefore been the first port of call for just about every period drama there has been for the last 20 years. He's been in everything from Brideshead Revisited (as Charles Ryder) on the big screen, to Downton Abbey (Henry Talbot) and The Crown (where at least he got to play that bounder Lord Snowdon) on the small one. Judging by the relish with which he seizes the chance to play contemporary and ignoble in his new outing, the psychological thriller Dept Q, he must have been going quietly mad with frustration throughout. Goode takes the part of detective Carl Morck in this excellent adaptation by Scott Frank (The Queen's Gambit, plus innumerable hit films as a credited writer or uncredited rewriter) of the Danish crime novelist Jussi Adler-Olsen's bestselling series of the same name. Morck may have a flair for the job, but he is a terrible man and colleague. After his ceaseless arrogance gets a young uniformed officer killed, and his own partner paralysed by a bullet that then passes through Morck's own neck, he is put on long-term leave and must wrestle, possibly for the first time in his egocentric life, with the idea of his mortality. This is accompanied with a rising guilt that he fights every step of the way; watching the latter perfuse his soul as the nine episodes unfold is at least as compelling as the dense, twisty, cleverly structured and hideous plot playing out above it. When Morck returns unwelcomed to work, he is assigned to head a new department (the Q of the title). It is set up to investigate cold cases, in the hope of providing good optics for the troubled Edinburgh police force (granite and gothic are subbed in for snowy Nordic bleakness, which works a treat) while they work on unyielding new ones, including the search for Morck's attacker. His new office is located in the dank, grimy basement beneath the station, so that's Morck told. Oh, and he also turns out to be the entire department, as his boss allocates its supposed funds to the cash-strapped officers above ground. Gradually, he assembles a motley crew to help him. It includes: cadet Rose (Leah Byrne), recovering from a breakdown and hoping get away from the desk duty she has been given; Morck's partner DI James Hardy (Jamie Sives), operating from his hospital bed; and Syrian refugee and former police officer Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), who picks their first case – the disappearance four years ago of ambitious young advocate Merritt Linguard (Chloe Pirrie). For the audience, her story – which I think stays the right side of voyeuristic, though it is occasionally a close call – runs in parallel to the main, though the claustrophobic may have to watch some of it through their fingers. It is all fantastically well, and rigorously, done. The pacing has a leisurely confidence that some may find a touch slow, but allows for a character-first approach, creating a richness that amply rewards initial patience. Soon, we are immersed in a narrative that involves a missing necklace, a brutal historic beating, the perils of isolated village life, urban horrors and institutional failings ranging from simple incompetence to outright corruption. Plus a plentiful dash of the mental, emotional and physical suffering human beings are capable of inflicting on one another, in the name of love, revenge or just for the sheer fun of it. The performances – which also include Mark Bonnar as Linguard's unsettling boss and Kelly Macdonald as Morck's unfortunate but mandated police therapist, Dr Irving – are all first rate. (Goode, as the bearded, gaunt, increasingly haunted detective, is the blackly shining centrepiece.) The script is sharp and lean, and especially good at channelling Morck's spitting sarcasm. Writers Chandni Lakhani and Stephen Greenhorn enable the audience to thrill to his keen and ever-whetted edge while also making us sympathise with the colleagues who would rejoice to see him head over the side of the same ferry from which Linguard supposedly fell. A slightly harrowing treat, but a treat all the same. Dept Q is on Netflix
