Weekend Watch: November 3, 2023
From page-turners to the big screen + Meg Ryan in a new rom-com + a weekend of binging L.A. Law...
Hey there, TueNighters! As you all know, the TueNight team compiles a fantastic list of movie releases, series drops, and TV shows in our weekly TueDo List newsletter.
Here in the Weekend Watch, we get to dive even deeper into our recommendations and chat about what we're watching — ready? Let's do this!
Here are this week’s picks:
Black Cake | Season 1 (Hulu): Based on The New York Times-bestselling book by Charmaine Wilkerson. In the late 1960s, a runaway bride named Covey (Mia Isaac) disappears into the surf off the coast of Jamaica and is feared drowned or a fugitive on the run for her husband’s murder. Fifty years later in California, a widow named Eleanor Bennett (Chipo Chung), loses her battle with cancer, leaving her two estranged children, Byron (Ashley Thomas) and Benny (Adrienne Warren), a flash drive that holds previously untold stories of her journey from the Caribbean to America. These stories, narrated by Eleanor, shock her children and challenge everything they thought they knew about their family’s origin.
All The Light We Cannot See | Miniseries (Netflix): Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, tells the story of Marie-Laure Leblanc (Aria Mia Loberti), a blind French girl taking refuge with her father and reclusive uncle (Mark Ruffalo) in St. Malo, France and Werner (Louis Hofmann), a brilliant teenager enlisted by Hitler’s regime with expertise in radio repair. Together they share a secret connection that will become a beacon of light that leads them through the harrowing backdrop of WWII.
What Happens Later (Theaters): Two ex-lovers, Bill (David Duchovny) and Willa (Meg Ryan) get snowed in at a regional airport overnight. Indefinitely delayed, Willa, a magical thinker, and Bill, a catastrophic one, find themselves just as attracted to and annoyed by one another as they did decades earlier. But as they unpack the riddle of their mutual past and compare their lives to the dreams they once shared, they begin to wonder if their reunion is mere coincidence, or something more enchanted.
Priscilla (Theaters): Based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley (who serves as an executive producer), when teenage Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) meets Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a gentle best friend. Through Priscilla’s eyes, Sofia Coppola tells the unseen side of a great American myth in Elvis and Priscilla's long courtship and turbulent marriage, from a German army base to his dream-world estate at Graceland, in this deeply felt and ravishingly detailed portrait of love, fantasy, and fame.
The Marsh King’s Daughter (Theaters): Based on Karen Dionne’s novel, a woman with a secret past will venture into the wilderness she left behind to confront the most dangerous man she’s ever met: her father. In the film, Helena’s (Daisy Ridley) seemingly ordinary life hides a dark and dangerous truth: her estranged father is the infamous Marsh King (Ben Mendelsohn), the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. When her father escapes from prison, Helena will need to confront her past. Knowing that he will hunt for her and her family, Helena must find the strength to face her demons and outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the wild.
Lost Women of Highway 20 (Investigation Discovery): When a local journalist uncovers a sealed court document, she discovers a trail of missing and murdered women in the wilderness of Oregon and a killer who used a desolate stretch of highway to hide dark secrets. Narrated and produced by Octavia Spencer about the obstacles women face in getting justice.
Newly remastered, you can now stream all 172 episodes of L.A. Law on Hulu!
Disclaimer: While we *think* these shows and movies might be worth checking out, there are no guarantees they'll all be your jam. It's always best to trust your own instincts.
The new Frasier reboot is surprisingly more charming than expected! Lots of solid nods to the original in structure, form, and joke constructs. The non-famous ensemble cast is remarkable cohesive with good chemistry. So far just a warm, fuzzy comedic, classical sitcom diversion.