Clockwise from top: The Muppet Show, the Olympics, The ‘Burbs, and The Moment.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Mitch Haaseth/Disney, A24/Everett Collection, Elizabeth Morris/PEACOCK, Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
It’s time to bump that. It’s time to strobe the lights. It’s time to see The Moment at your local theater tonight. I’m pretty sure that’s basically what the Muppets sing before a show. But thankfully, there’s a new Muppets special out to verify that. I’d like to think this ushers in a new era of Muppets that actually sticks, but the newly appointed Disney CEO, Josh D’Amaro, was the parks guy in charge during the closure of Muppet*Vision 3D, so … moving right along.
Every few years, there’s another attempt to make the Muppets mainstream, which is silly because they’re a cornerstone of American pop culture. But if it means more Muppets, why not? This time, that attempt is a special, one-shot return of this sketch-comedy show, starring Sabrina Carpenter, filmed at the original Muppet Theatre. —Roxana Hadadi
To commemorate the end of Brat, Charli XCX and director Aidan Zamiri teamed up to produce a strange part-mockumentary, part-satire on an alternate reality of the singer throughout Brat’s success. Charli plays herself as she deals with her upcoming tour as her label and management all suggest suffocating ways to keep brat summer going, which includes hiring an overbearing and eccentric filmmaker, Johannes (Alexander Skarsgård), for a concert film. The Moment feels more like a thought experiment than a movie, but there are bright spots — a scene between a frazzled Charli and a collected Kylie Jenner is a standout — for Angels to chew on.
With her podcast, music, and movie work, Keke Palmer is basically everywhere at all times, but it’s been years since she starred in a TV series. She gets that opportunity in this satire about a couple who move to a pleasant town whose citizens boast about it being the safest in America. But what’s up with that abandoned mansion in Samira’s neighborhood, and why is her husband (Jack Whitehall) acting so weird? —R.H.
Netflix’s procedural about a lawyer riding around in his Lincoln is still going strong. In its fourth season, The Lincoln Lawyer is picking up the pieces from its season three finale with Mickey Haller having to defend himself this time. Neve Campbell and Cobie Smulders also co-star this season.
Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz’s cinematic style and worldview are meant to challenge his viewers, both in terms of how his movies play out (long takes, minimal camera movement, run times that count as an investment) and the themes they address (the American Dream as a myth, the impact of 2006’s Super Typhoon Durian on a village and a family, the corruptness and moral vacuity of the elite). His 2004 opus Evolution of a Filipino Family was more than ten hours long! Compared with that, Magellan is a breeze at 164 minutes, and it’s also one of the most clear-eyed and disturbing anti-colonial films to come out in years. Starring a fantastic Gael García Bernal as the Portuguese explorer, Magellan subverts the idea that he was inspired by any kind of respectable ambition. He was a soldier, a murderer, a zealot, and a maniac, and García Bernal conveys all that with a weary, exhausted performance that drives home the soul-decaying nature of international conquest. Some of Diaz’s most stunning images hold Magellan to account, like a group of women, all dressed in black, swarming him for updates about their husbands and sons (all dead because of him), and another group of men, despondent and defeated, trapped in cages by Christian slavers. As a portrait of imperial folly and destruction, it’s thorough, poetic, ruthless, and the kind of timeless that ends up feeling timely. Men who seize power and insist that God chose them, and only them, to rule in a way that oppresses and harms others … Where have I heard that before? ➽ In theaters now
Psssst! If you don’t have Peacock, an antenna might help.
Don’t let your newfound interest in ice hockey go to waste. This year’s games are in Northern Italy, where the U.S. will presumably be competitive in the various figure-skating and skiing events. Maybe curling? The opening ceremony kicks off today, and we plan on following the games closely. —Nicholas Quah
Bad Bunny is coming into his Super Bowl halftime performance high off a historic Grammy win. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS became the first Spanish-language album to win Album of the Year, he spoke out against ICE, and now, he’ll perform on one of the larger stages in the country. Oh, yeah, and the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks will be playing football before and after.
➽ Don’t forget to make time for the adorable Puppy Bowl XXII on HBO Max, either.
The second season of Fallout, after starting somewhat promisingly, morphed into Westworld 2.0 with its frustrating season finale, “The Strip.” It’s yet another puzzle-box show that ends each season with a tease that actually, next season, we’ll understand what the series is really about. Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Kyle MacLachlan are doing solid work, though, and for devoted fans of the games, maybe Fallout will continue to deliver some disparate charms. There’s a new kind of power armor teased in a post-credits scene, if that’s a thing you care about. For people only watching to see Goggins’s exceptional performance, well, there are other ways to get that in your life. May I suggest Justified? —R.H.
You can host the ultimate double feature this weekend with two comedies of varying quality. There’s Splitsville, a hilarious feature on two deteriorating marriages starring Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, Kyle Marvin, and Michael Angelo Covino. And then there’s James L. Brooks’s head-scratcher, Ella McCay, which critic Alison Willmore dubbed “pure gas-leak cinema.” Its story of a 30-something governor from an unspecified state didn’t make much of an impact in theaters, but it did on social media.
➽ Best Picture nominees Hamnet and The Secret Agent arrive on digital platforms alongside Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney’s twisty thriller The Housemaid.
Want more? Read our recommendations from the weekend of January 30.
Savannah Salazar
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