review

Leave it to slow cinema auteur Lav Diaz (2013’s four-hour “Norte, The End of History”) to serve you colonialism in real time, in all its stark ugliness and mind-curdling greed, but also alongside a sense of wonderment. The Filipino filmmaker’s 163-minute epic “Magellan,” starring Gael García Bernal as the 16th century Portuguese explorer, is a regimen and a cure simultaneously, correcting a conqueror narrative that has too often centered on excitement and unfettered might over the madness of such endeavors.

With a breathtaking eye for one-shot scenes and unwavering confidence in the demands he makes on our monkey-brained attention spans, Diaz has crafted a stunning piece of time travel, its languidness and exquisitely hued imagery working in perfect sync. As arthouse fare goes, “Magellan” counts as accessible if you’re familiar with Diaz’s stately, intimate work, but also serves as an ideal introduction to his uncompromising vision.

A nude Indigenous woman rummages in a picturesque rainforest river, then collapses in shock at something witnessed off camera. “I saw a white man!” she warns her people. Shortly after, we see horrific tableaux of slaughtered bodies on the bloodied, gently lapping shores and verdant inland of the Malaysian peninsula, which was conquered by the Portuguese in 1511.

Ferdinand Magellan (Bernal) was then only a cog in his country’s subjugation machinery, but this crewman has ambitions for future campaigns. They’re not necessarily aligned with his superiors’ venal greed, expressed feverishly in a victory speech by a hammered conquistador: “We will suffocate the entire world! Islam will finally disappear!” (Then he passes out.) But as we’ll eventually see, the need to dominate does things to men’s souls.

A few years later, scorned by the king, Magellan is limping around Lisbon like a scruffy, taskless animal. He eventually finds favor with Spain for his grand journey, mapping an uncharted route to the East’s spice islands, which means leaving behind his pregnant wife, Beatriz (Angela Azevedo). That legendary multiyear circumnavigation, a 45-minute sequence marked by paranoia, hallucinations, death, disease, starvation, groaning silence and crushing despair, makes for one of the most casually brutal depictions of transoceanic voyaging ever committed to film. Mesmerizingly severe yet still streaked with glimpses of natural beauty, the sequence practically trains you to listen for the seabirds that spark the eventual scream of “Land!” Devoid of music or melodrama, this is slow cinema at its most viscerally rigorous and patient.

It also sets up the acute psychology that drives Magellan: obsessive curiosity warping into enforced Christian conversion, a consequential folly to which the filmmaker adds his own historical take. Up till then, Bernal, without the conventional assistance of close-ups, registers this feature-length change with brilliant subtlety across Diaz’s and co-cinematographer Artur Tort’s captivating, distanced long takes, often marked by angled perspectives.

Magellan’s occupier’s mentality is pointedly contrasted with the movie’s other key figure, Enrique (Arjay Babon), whose journey from purchased Malay slave to assimilated translator is a harrowing portrait of unrooted ache. Spiritual wailing is common in “Magellan,” whether from Enrique in his moments alone or from the invaded Indigenous pleading for help, or back in Portugal, from the black-clad wives who line the beach, waiting for word of their husbands’ fate. Time stretches punishingly throughout this masterful “Magellan,” foregrounding the painful legacy of colonialism and prioritizing a raw splendor that can never truly be conquered.

One chimpanzee with a typewriter could pound out the script for “Primate” in an hour. Some pretty young things throw a pool party at an Oahu home and — yikes! — the family’s rabid pet chimp bashes in their skulls. That’s it, that’s the plot. Any tease that the movie could possibly be about anything more — a love triangle, a recently deceased mother, a vet’s puzzlement that Hawaii doesn’t even have rabies — is nothing but a banana peel tripping the audience into expecting a narrative.

I’m not foaming at the mouth over the death of cinema or what have you. Honestly, “Primate’s” kills are great. The problem is the dead space between them when we realize we’re bored sick.

The set-up is thus: Our heroine, Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), who goes to school somewhere to study something, has flown home for an indefinite amount of time with her best friend, Kate (Victoria Wyant), and a classmate she loathes, vivacious sexpot Hannah (Jess Alexander), who doesn’t inform her host that she’s tagging along until they’re on the plane. Already, you’re wondering if this is a monkey’s take on mammalian behavior, but it’s just the actual screenwriters, Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera (the former of whom also directs), clueing us in that bringing a brain to this humid adventure is as futile as packing a snowsuit. (They previously teamed up for the 2017 Mandy Moore shark movie “47 Meters Down.”)

Lucy’s father, Adam (Troy Kotsur of “CODA”), and her younger sister, Erin (Gia Hunter), have been rattling around their cliffside estate grieving for her mother, a primatologist who passed away from cancer the year before. They’re both lonely, but at least mom left behind her research chimpanzee, Ben (performed by Miguel Torres Umba), who uses a talking touch pad to communicate.

“Lucy back, Ben miss,” the chimp says, pressing a few keys. This is more or less how all the dialogue goes even when the humans are speaking — which, when it comes to a pair of frat guys that the girls picked up on the plane, is part of the joke. Brad and Drew (Charlie Mann and Tienne Simon) enter the house like two gorillas, belching and high-fiving, expecting to seduce the girls with verbal skills that stopped around preschool. “Me no hurt, OK?” Mann’s hilarious Brad says to Ben, grinning nervously and clapping his hands in an attempt to make friends. For a tender moment, you think these apes might be soulmates.

“Primate” is gleefully unevolved. The fatalities are gruesomely entertaining, the opening murder splattering the audience with such brutality that my theater howled in delight. In just two minutes, the movie had delivered everything it promised: a snorting monkey, a sucker in a flowered shirt, a shot of an ominous tire swing and a closeup of a peeled cheekbone.

If the pace had stayed that breakneck, my fellow schlock-lovers and I would have merrily pounded our chests. But at a hair’s breadth under an hour and a half, “Primate” is mostly draggy scenes of victims hiding in closets and trying not to scream as Ben roams the property acting like a hungover, steroidal toddler. Anything screechy sends him into a violent fit.

Umba, the movement specialist underneath the simian special effects, is convincing. But the movie treats his character like a generic slasher baddie checking off the standard tropes: the jump-scare surprise, the out-of-focus loom, the beat when the villain appears bested yet somehow staggers to his prehensile feet. Roberts doesn’t offer much empathy for the poor, diseased critter other than a pause when Ben momentarily ponders his reflection in a pool as Adrian Johnston’s eerie synth-piano score tinkles.

Let me give the film some credit: the performances are pretty good. Recent Oscar winner Kotsur has a casual nonchalance that makes you buy into his character right up until the moment he starts punching a monkey in the face. While Mann’s doomed meathead is only in the movie to raise the body count, the young actor brings a goofy, kinetic charisma to his too-few scenes — and, as a reward, Roberts grants him the longest and best death. Set in a romantic bedroom, it plays like a morbid joke about consent. (We’re meant to assume that at some time in this horny jock’s past, he’s done something to deserve it.)

Likewise, Alexander’s Hannah is the naughty girl who deserves to be punished for rudely moving in on Lucy’s crush, Nick (Benjamin Cheng). But she’s so magnetic that we root for her survival anyway. Just as Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey somehow managed to have careers after starring in the fourth “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Alexander is a performer with promise: a screen presence with that extra twinkle.

The script has an anthropologist’s curiosity about the mating habits of Homo sapiens collegiate. Alas, humanity appears to be a species in decline. Faced with an angry monkey, these kids can’t think of much else to do other than run around hunting for their smartphones. An overreliance on tools weakens our civilization (and saps the film’s dramatic thrills). When Ben smashes a television set, perhaps Roberts is even making some sort of societal point.

Chimpanzees and humans share 98.4% of the same DNA and if you want to double-check that stat, so much blood gets smeared around this house that you can easily test a sample. Presumably, the character of Lucy was given her name as a nod to our earliest known ancestor, a 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis who stood about the same height as Ben. Our closest relative, the bonobo, shares 98.7% of our genes and has been known to dispatch each other by bursting a male’s testicles, a nature fact that Roberts must be saving for the sequel.

Mystifyingly, “Primate” blames Ben’s terrible temper on rabies, not the more interesting causes of chimpanzee aggression like depression, psychological confusion and over-medication. Neither does it dig deep into the emotional horror of an owner realizing their best buddy is capable of ripping off a human face — let alone the guilt and agony of failing to stop an attack. When a Connecticut woman was forced to stab her beloved pet after he maimed a female friend, she lamented that sticking the blade in him “was like putting one in myself.” (She later adopted a replacement chimp.)

But it’s silly to expect actual social science from a movie that expands rabies’ ancient name — hydrophobia, or a fear of water — into the nonsensical idea that the only safe hideout from Ben is the swimming pool. That said, in case anyone from the Department of Health and Human Services watches “Primate” on an airplane, I feel compelled to mention that the rabies vaccine is 100% effective. The last thing we need is a government decree that every American should surround their house with a moat.

The problem with musicals spun from popular books and movies is that too often all they’re trying to do is re-create the experience of fans in a new medium. The result is an inferior copy of the original. But what can anyone expect when the ultimate goal is to cash in on a valuable IP?

The artistic challenge, of course, is transformation, not cloning. A musical operates in a different mode from a literary or cinematic work and therefore can’t help but tell a unique version of the story.

I didn’t see “The Notebook” when it premiered on Broadway in 2024 to mixed reviews. I also confess to never having read Nicholas Sparks’ bestselling novel, on which the musical is based. And only recently did I catch up with Nick Cassavetes’ 2004 film starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, and then I must admit only to prepare for the musical’s Los Angeles premiere at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

With Gosling and McAdams in captivating flight on screen, it’s easy to buy into the mythic love of Noah and Allie, the couple at the center of the shameless and (yes, I’ll admit it) shamelessly enjoyable romantic fantasy. Gosling has a way of retreating into a silence more emotionally eloquent than the film’s occasionally clunky dialogue. McAdams, by contrast, makes a giddy racket that betrays feelings her characters can neither fully understand nor contain.

Beau Gravitte (Older Noah) and Sharon Catherine Brown (Older Allie).

(Roger Mastroianni)

I wasn’t expecting the actors cast in these roles at the Pantages, where the musical opened Wednesday, to compare in magnetism or intensity to their movie star predecessors. Fortunately, the way the musical is written by Ingrid Michaelson (music and lyrics) and Bekah Brunstetter (book), they don’t really have to.

Three actors play Noah and three play Allie at different times in the couple’s lives. Younger Noah (Kyle Mangold) and younger Allie (Chloë Cheers) are the teenagers who fall heedlessly in love despite the differences in their background. Allie’s wealthy parents (played by a piquant Anne Tolpegin and Jerome Harmann-Hardeman) don’t want their college-bound daughter to throw her life away on a lumberyard Romeo with no educational or financial prospects.

Middle Noah (the role was played by Jesse Corbin at the reviewed performance) and middle Allie (Alysha Deslorieux) reunite after years of separation to see if their adolescent passion still burns. Allie is on the brink of marrying another man, but she returns to find Noah living in the historic house that he promised one day would be their home. He’s restored the place in the hope that she would come back to him, doubling the stakes with a gorgeous piece of real estate that she can no more resist than his dreamy devotion.

The exact relationship between Older Noah (Beau Gravitte) and Older Allie (Sharon Catherine Brown) is withheld for a bit. Allie, suffering from dementia, is in a care center. Noah, who has his own health issues, visits her to read from a notebook the story that she set down on paper to prevent her from forgetting the love that illuminated her life. He believes that what’s recorded in the notebook will bring her back to him, if only flickeringly, before time runs out for both of them.

As Noah reads to Allie, their younger selves emerge on stage to enact the depicted scenes. The musical’s handling of the romance is condensed in the early going. The younger versions of Noah and Allie, callow and skittish, are laid out in broad strokes. Mangold has a showy falsetto that heightens Noah’s vulnerable longing, but the duets with Cheers’ Allie aren’t lyrically sophisticated enough to provide the relationship with much depth.

There’s a generic quality both to singer-songwriter Michaelson’s score (a combination of folk and Broadway pop) and to a romance that seems almost mystically predestined.

Corbin’s Noah is the strong, silent, sexy type; Deslorieux’s Allie is as delicate as she is willful. One hopes that they will make the right choice and choose each other, but lyrics such as “Sometimes I feel like I lost my only voice./But then I realized, only I can choose my choice” don’t give Deslorieux all that much to work with in the big second act number “My Days.”

Sharon Catherine Brown (Older Allie) and “The Notebook” North American tour company.

(Roger Mastroianni)

The connection between Middle Noah and Middle Allie is steamy, sometimes comically so, as when Allie caresses the table that Noah admits he made by hand. Their love scene in the rain, while obviously less visually spectacular than in the film, plunges headlong into romantic cliches that manage to get the job done despite their obviousness.

The direction of Michael Greif and Schele Williams valiantly tries to contain the material’s hokiness without undercutting the wishfulness that lies at the heart of the story’s broad emotional appeal. They succeed in limiting the amount of audience eye-rolling, but they can’t supply the texture and novelty that are absent from the musical.

The one notable area of improvement on the movie is in the handling of the older Noah and Allie storyline. Brunstetter (a successful TV writer whose hot-topic play “The Cake” made the rounds a few years ago) mitigates some of the sentimental excesses that fly in the face of medical reality.

Not all the changes are to the musical’s advantage. The setting is now a coastal town in the Mid-Atlantic where the film has a more explicit Southern charm. The period, too, has been revised. Noah now serves in the Vietnam War instead of World War II. These historical alterations may have been to allow for cross-racial casting. But the characters don’t really seem rooted to any particular time and place. They’ve just been re-slotted into a Broadway limbo.

But the musical does manage to pull off one genuine transformation. The authors have structured the work as a triple helix, and some of the most powerful moments occur when all three incarnations of the characters are on stage at the same time.

“The Notebook” on screen injected new life into a formulaic love story. Brunstetter and Michaelson refocus the work to be more about time. The bond between Noah and Allie is a prism through which to experience both the transience and the permanence of what matters most to us in life. In the face of disappearance, something mysterious endures.

In between such pistol-packing antiheroes as Bonnie Parker and Luigi Mangione, financially-squeezed Americans rooted for Tony Kiritsis, a working stiff who took his mortgage lender hostage in 1977 Indianapolis, claiming that the loan company cheated him out of his land. “Dead Man’s Wire,” the title of Gus Van Sant’s wonky true crime caper, comes from Kiritsis’ weapon: a shotgun tied to a noose looped around the neck of his prisoner, Richard Hall. His hair-trigger homemade contraption pressured all three major networks into giving Kiritsis airtime to explain his grievances to the public. Pressing a sawed-off barrel to Hall’s head, the hot-tempered chatterbox told the cameras, “I am sorry I humiliated this man this way, even though he must’ve surely had it coming.”

To the establishment’s horror, many viewers sided with Kiritsis. “How about some Tony Kiritsis t-shirts, some Tony Kiritsis badges, a Tony Kiritsis fan club?” one supporter wrote to the local paper, the Indianapolis News.

Or how about a biopic that fires blanks?

Van Sant has long taken aim at the intersection of violence and mass media culture. Over his career, he’s attacked it from several angles, including the fame-seeking satire of “To Die For,” his elegy for the publicly out politician of “Milk” and the clinical ennui of “Elephant,” his take on the Columbine massacre, in which his pair of teen killers numb themselves with grisly entertainment. Kiritsis’ story is an irresistible target: an ignored man thrilled to have the attention of the spanking new Action News squads who barge onto the scene unprepared for the risk they might broadcast an on-air murder.

But this time, Van Sant seems more interested in the period-piece décor and the aesthetics of early video footage (the cinematography is by Arnaud Potier) than he is in the bleak humor of Kiritsis’ televised tirade cutting to a burger commercial. The result is a faintly comic curio that hurtles along without much impact.

The mishaps start when Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) storms Meridian Mortgage’s office only to discover his intended captive, the ruthless M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), is away vacationing in Florida. Hall’s cowed and coddled son Richard (Dacre Montgomery) will have to do, even though the real estate scion is so passive that he barely bothers to fight for his life. If you’ve seen the original footage of the bizarre press conference where Hall, a twitch from assassination, stares blankly past the flashbulbs, then you know that Van Sant and Montgomery (the “Stranger Things” bully cast against type) get their victim exactly right while robbing Kiritsis, and the audience, of a worthy adversary. In one cold yet weightless moment, the boy-man realizes his own dad might not care whether he survives.

At least the younger Hall’s dull demeanor — then coded as dignity, now as soullessness — makes Kiritsis seem more alive. The real Kiritsis was short-statured with a car salesman’s sideburns; he had the kind of face you only see onscreen during competitive bowling. Lanky, hunched and fragile, Skarsgård’s version isn’t quite as salt-of the-earth, although he’s captured his rapid patter and the burning menace in his eyes. He plays the role somewhere between a soapbox preacher and a “Scooby-Doo” episode that imagines Shaggy unmasking a money-grubbing bad guy and threatening to beat him to death.

Kiritsis is so convinced of his righteousness that he genuinely believes the mortgage company’s manipulations, not his own murder threat, to be the big story. When Hall proves too mute to debate, Kiritsis vents to a radio disc jockey named Fred (Colman Domingo), even though Fred is more interested in smooth tunes than hard news. (Springboarding from this and his perky TV host role in “The Running Man,” Domingo needs to star in his own comedy stat.) Won’t someone, even an inessential young reporter played by Myha’la, poke into the alleged scam?

Yet despite how often Austin Kolodney’s script has Kiritsis say he just wants to be heard, the soured mortgage deal is so impossible to follow that even the movie itself deems it unnecessary. Our attention pivots to the futility of this self-described “little guy” trying to get someone with clout to take him seriously. In this period, criminal psychology was just starting to go mainstream. An FBI agent (Neil Mulac) instructs the Indianapolis cops to think deeper about Kiritsis’ motivations, wielding chalk to illustrate how anger is rooted in humiliation and disrespect. Kiritsis is screaming mad and the police’s yawns aren’t helping.

Today, Kiritsis would have a podcast. But cranks like him seem especially at home in the 1970s — the mad-as-hell decade — when their polyester button-downs make them look extra itchy around the collar. It’s easy to picture Kiritsis exiting a double-feature of “Network” and “Dog Day Afternoon” and vowing that he, too, isn’t going to take it anymore.

Van Sant sees the parallels between Kiritsis and “Dog Day Afternoon’s” populist bank robber Sonny Wortzik — heck, he’s even stunt-cast Pacino as the fat-cat financier — but the film doesn’t appear to have the budget to examine how Kiritsis’ anger fires up the cash-strapped masses. It certainly can’t afford to include the real-life scene at an Indianapolis Pacers game where an arena of basketball fans cheered for his not-guilty verdict, although I would have settled for even a bit player who helps us understand why a jury of his peers let him off the hook.

Instead, the movie inexplicably squanders its energy on needle drops that act against the mood: the watery irony of Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” cooing over an image of Hall handcuffed in a bathtub. Better is Danny Elfman’s spartan and fraught score, particularly the dyspeptic drums.

Was Kiritsis a narcissistic madman or a schmuck who’d put too much trust in the American ideals of hard work and fair treatment? Van Sant alludes to the latter when the televisions keep showing John Wayne on other channels, the gunslinging Duke setting things right in a classic western or winning the 1977 People’s Choice statuette for best actor.

It’s no wonder that Kiritsis figured he’d be a hero, too — and that, in real life, many of the people watching at home agreed — although as obvious as that point is, it would have been nice if Van Sant explored it. At least we get Kiritsis’ sentimental, expletive-laden version of an awards speech which devolves into him thanking his family, Hall’s family and even the police academy before he gets hustled offstage. Kiritsis is certain he’s accomplished something great. We’re glumly aware of how many others are waiting their turn in the wings.

Our writer Ben Whisson visited Haven’s Devon Cliffs Holiday Park in November and discovered that off-season breaks offer brilliant family fun

As I embarked on a three-night getaway to Haven’s Devon Cliffs site in November, I was slightly apprehensive about what an off-season UK holiday park might have in store. However, as my wife, young son and I pulled up to the park’s entrance, any worries were quickly laid to rest.

Upon check-in, we navigated through the expansive grounds to find our lodge, which would serve as our base for a weekend packed with thrilling activities and lively entertainment.

READ MORE: Where to go on holiday in 2026 – from surprising EU foodie hotspot to ‘cheaper Cotswolds’

READ MORE: Beautiful European holiday destination three hours from UK and still 17ºC in December

What to do at a Haven Holiday Park

The handy Haven app allowed us to manage our booking and plan activities before even setting foot in the park. Despite visiting during the quieter season, there was no shortage of things to do – from a ‘Make A Bear’ party and an Aerial Adventure to their Football Fun Factory and Ranger Activities.

With a mix of complimentary and paid activities, there’s truly something for everyone. Moreover, a Haven PlayPass grants you 14 sessions at the site’s indoor pool throughout your stay, reports OK!. We specifically chose this site for its swimming facilities, and it certainly didn’t disappoint.

Entertainment at Haven Devon Cliffs Holiday Park

Given the timing of our visit, I expected the entertainment offerings to be somewhat limited – but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. The park boasted two entertainment venues, each offering a plethora of options from morning till night. With full-scale pantomimes, karaoke, and a host of fun and games for both children and adults, I was thoroughly impressed by the variety on offer.

The entertainment team were the absolute highlight of the park – and our holiday. This gifted bunch put on fantastic shows, interacted with the kiddies and made it a memorable trip for us and numerous other families.

Food and drink at Haven Devon Cliffs Holiday Park

Our caravan was well kitted out for whipping up home-cooked meals (which we did) – but we also had the opportunity to try the broad range of food options at the park. With Slim Chickens, Chopstix and Papa Johns among the outlets on site, we were spoilt for choice. The entertainment venues boast bars, plus there’s a sports bar and even a Wetherspoons.

Accommodation at Haven Devon Cliffs Holiday Park

We lodged in a spotless Emerald grade lodge, which was beautifully presented, featuring two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a cosy lounge/kitchen area. It had parking for two cars and was just a short stroll from the centre of activity on the site. The icing on the cake was the outdoor decking that encircled the lodge, which – during the fleeting moments of sunshine – allowed us to fully appreciate the view of the Devon coast.

With a beach accessible from the park, a snug lodge and everything you could need for an action-packed break – whenever you decide to visit – Haven’s Devon Cliffs park surpassed our expectations. Despite a typically rainy November weekend, the multi-skilled entertainment team and staff brought the sunshine for us and our little lad – and we’ll definitely be returning for more.

How much does it cost to stay at Haven Devon Cliffs Holiday Park?

Four-night breaks off-peak in March and April at Haven Devon Cliffs Holiday Park start from £99 staying in a Saver grade caravan. The park reopens in March 2026.

For alternative caravan holidays, have a look at Parkdean Resorts and Hoseasons.

It’s nothing new or extraordinary to remake a foreign TV show for a different country.

“All in the Family” was modeled on the British series “Till Death Us Do Part,” as “Steptoe and Son” became “Sanford and Son.” The popular CBS sitcom “Ghosts” comes from the show you can find retitled as “U.K. Ghosts” on American Netflix. The British mysteries “Professor T” and “Patience” (from Belgian and Franco-Belgian productions, respectively), have been successful on PBS. And there is, of course, “The Office,” which outlasted its original by many, many seasons and nearly 200 episodes. It doesn’t always work out (“Life on Mars”; “Viva Laughlin,” from “Blackpool,” which lasted a single episode despite starring Hugh Jackman; “Payne” and “Amanda’s,” two failed stabs at adapting “Fawlty Towers”), but there’s nothing inherently wrong with the practice.

The new Fox series “Best Medicine,” arriving Sunday as an advance premiere before its time slot premiere on Tuesdays, remakes the U.K. “Doc Martin,” previously adapted in France, Germany, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. For better or worse, I have a long, admiring relationship with the original, having signed on early and attended every season in turn — and interviewed star Martin Clunes three times across the run of the series (10 seasons from 2004 to 2022). And I am surely not alone. Unlike with most such remakes, whose models may be relatively obscure to the local audience, “Doc Martin” has long been widely available here; you can find it currently on PBS, Acorn TV and Prime Video, among other platforms — and I recommend that you do.

In “Doc Martin,” Clunes played a brilliant London surgeon who develops a blood phobia and becomes a general practitioner in the Cornwall fishing village where he spent summers as a child. He’s a terse, stiff, antisocial — or, more precisely, nonsocial — person who doesn’t stand on ceremony or suffer fools gladly, but who time and again saves the people of Portwenn from life-threatening conditions and accidents or, often, their own foolishness. A slow-developing, on-again, off-again love-and-marriage arc with schoolteacher Louisa Glasson, played by the divine Caroline Catz, made every season finale a cliffhanger.

Obviously, the fair thing would be to take “Best Medicine” as completely new. But assuming that some reading this will want to know how it follows, differs from or compares to the original — which was certainly the first thing on my mind — let us count the ways.

Josh Segarra, Josh Charles and Abigail Spencer in “Best Medicine.”

(Francisco Roman / Fox)

The names have mostly not been changed. For no clear reason — numerology, maybe? — Martin Ellingham is now Martin Best (Josh Charles); Aunt Joan is Aunt Sarah (Annie Potts), a fisherwoman instead of a farmer. Sally Tishell, the pharmacist in a neck brace, has become Sally Mylow (Clea Lewis); and distracted receptionist Elaine Denham has been rechristened Elaine Denton (Cree). Keeping their full names are Louisa Gavin (Abigail Spencer), father and son handymen Bert (John DiMaggio) and Al Large (Carter Shimp), and peace officer Mark Mylow (Josh Segarra). Portwenn has become Port Wenn, Maine. (Lobsters are once again on the menu.)

As in the original, Martin is hounded by dogs (no pun intended, seriously), to his displeasure; teenagers are rude to him, because they are rude teenagers. Mark Mylow is now Louisa’s recently jilted ex-fiance. Liz Tuccillo, who developed the adaptation, has added a gay couple, George (Jason Veasey) and Greg (Stephen Spinella), who run the local eatery and inn and have a pet pig named Brisket (sensitive of them not to name it Back Ribs); and Glendon Ross (Patch Darragh), a well-to-do blowhard who bullied Martin in his youth. Apart from the leads Charles and Spencer, few have much to do other than strike a quirky pose, though Segarra, recently familiar as school district representative Manny Rivera on “Abbott Elementary,” makes a meal of Mark’s every line, and Cree, who gets a lot of scenes and a personal plotline, makes a charming impression. Spencer is good company; Potts, whom I am always happy to see, is more an instrument of exposition than a full-blown character, and it feels a little unfair.

The first episode is modeled closely on the “Doc Martin” pilot, from Martin and Louisa’s antagonistic meet cute — in which he offends her, leaning in unannounced to examine her eye — to the episode’s main medical mystery (gynecomastia), a punch in the nose for our hero. Other details and plotlines will arrive, but there has been an attempt to give “Best Medicine” its own identity and original stories.

On the whole, it’s cuter, milder, more cuddly (multiple vomit jokes notwithstanding), more obvious and more whimsical, but less real, less intense and less sharply written than “Doc Martin.” The edges and angles have been sanded down and polished; tonally, it resembles “Northern Exposure” more than the show it’s adapting. Port Wenn (represented by the coincidentally named Cornwall, N.Y., with a wide part of the Hudson River subbing for the Atlantic Ocean) itself comes across as comparatively upscale; the doctor’s office and quarters are here plushly appointed, rather than spare, functional and a little shopworn.

As Martin, Charles stiffens himself and keeps his facial expressions generally between neutral and annoyed, though he’s softer than Clunes, less a prisoner of his own body, less abrasive, less otherworldly. Where Dr. Ellingham remained to a large degree inexplicable — the series expressly refused to diagnose him — Tuccillo has given Dr. Best a quickly revealed childhood trauma to account for his blood phobia and make him more conventionally sympathetic.

I freely admit that in judging “Best Medicine,” my familiarity with “Doc Martin” puts me at a disadvantage — or an advantage, I suppose, depending on how you look at it. But taken on its own merits it strikes me as a rather obvious, perfectly ordinary example of a sort of show we’ve often seen before, a feel-good celebration of small-town values and traditions and togetherness that will presumably improve the personality of its oddball new resident, as the townspeople come to accept or tolerate him anyway in turn. In the first four episodes, we get a celebration of baked beans, a town-consuming baseball championship and a once-a-year day when the women of Port Wenn doll themselves up and go out into the woods to meet a jacked, shirtless, off-the-grid he-man, right off the cover of a romance novel, who steps out of the forest, ostensibly to provide wilderness training. It’s like that.

All in all, “Best Medicine” lives very much in a television reality, rather than creating a reality that just happens to be on television. To be sure, some will prefer the former to the latter.

Has the new series of BBC’s The Traitors got you yearning for a Scottish staycation? We took a history-filled trip to Edinburgh and found a surprisingly affordable hotel

Looming over the city from up high and lit up in dramatic red lights at night, Edinburgh Castle looks like it could be straight out of a Traitors scene. Tickets (£21.50 for adults) get you access to all parts of the 900-year-old site, including the Scottish crown jewels, St Margaret’s Chapel (the oldest building in Edinburgh, dating back to 1130) and the Prisons of War exhibit.

It’s off The Royal Mile, however, that we found our favourite tourist attraction in Edinburgh: The Real Mary King’s Close. This guided tour takes you back in time through some of the city’s former residential streets, which were built over in 1753 to construct the Royal Exchange above them. Interesting for adults and older children alike, the guides are engaging and it’s fascinating to see how people lived here over 400 years ago, including through devastating plague years.

Where to eat in Edinburgh

When it was time to rest weary feet – and Edinburgh’s streets are notoriously steep – and fill up rumbling stomachs, we loved Ka Pao for its delicious Southeast Asian sharing dishes (don’t skip over the fried Brussels sprouts, which even had our party’s sprout-hater converted). Booking is essential, as there was a two-hour wait for walk-ins on the Friday night we visited.

For traditional pubs, head to the historic Grassmarket area and nearby Rose Street. For fancier cocktails served with flair, we loved Commons Club (part of the Virgin Hotel), Panda & Co, a cool, speakeasy-style establishment posing as a barber shop, and The Last Word, a romantic, candle-lit gem with an impressive whiskey list in Edinburgh’s upmarket Stockbridge area.

Where to stay in Edinburgh

We stayed at The Bruntsfield, about half an hour’s walk from the city centre, or a cheap taxi ride. Although the hotel could do with a bit of an update (we’re told there are plans for this), the rooms are very big for an affordable city hotel, and come with a complimentary dram of whiskey and square of crumbly Scottish fudge. There’s also a bar and kitchen downstairs serving casual pub-style dishes.

Perhaps the highlight of our stay, however, was the warm and friendly reception staff that welcomed us, pointing out a bowl of help-yourself Tunnock’s Teacakes, handing us a map of the city and, later, helping us successfully locate a bag we’d left in the back of a taxi.

The Bruntsfield Hotel

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From £90 a night

Booking.com

Book here

An excellent value hotel near to Edinburgh’s city centre with spacious rooms and friendly staff.

How much does it cost to stay at The Bruntsfield?

Rooms at The Bruntsfield start from £90 per night.

Has the new series of BBC’s The Traitors got you yearning for a Scottish staycation? We took a history-filled trip to Edinburgh and found a surprisingly affordable hotel

Looming over the city from up high and lit up in dramatic red lights at night, Edinburgh Castle looks like it could be straight out of a Traitors scene. Tickets (£21.50 for adults) get you access to all parts of the 900-year-old site, including the Scottish crown jewels, St Margaret’s Chapel (the oldest building in Edinburgh, dating back to 1130) and the Prisons of War exhibit.

It’s off The Royal Mile, however, that we found our favourite tourist attraction in Edinburgh: The Real Mary King’s Close. This guided tour takes you back in time through some of the city’s former residential streets, which were built over in 1753 to construct the Royal Exchange above them. Interesting for adults and older children alike, the guides are engaging and it’s fascinating to see how people lived here over 400 years ago, including through devastating plague years.

Where to eat in Edinburgh

When it was time to rest weary feet – and Edinburgh’s streets are notoriously steep – and fill up rumbling stomachs, we loved Ka Pao for its delicious Southeast Asian sharing dishes (don’t skip over the fried Brussels sprouts, which even had our party’s sprout-hater converted). Booking is essential, as there was a two-hour wait for walk-ins on the Friday night we visited.

For traditional pubs, head to the historic Grassmarket area and nearby Rose Street. For fancier cocktails served with flair, we loved Commons Club (part of the Virgin Hotel), Panda & Co, a cool, speakeasy-style establishment posing as a barber shop, and The Last Word, a romantic, candle-lit gem with an impressive whiskey list in Edinburgh’s upmarket Stockbridge area.

Where to stay in Edinburgh

We stayed at The Bruntsfield, about half an hour’s walk from the city centre, or a cheap taxi ride. Although the hotel could do with a bit of an update (we’re told there are plans for this), the rooms are very big for an affordable city hotel, and come with a complimentary dram of whiskey and square of crumbly Scottish fudge. There’s also a bar and kitchen downstairs serving casual pub-style dishes.

Perhaps the highlight of our stay, however, was the warm and friendly reception staff that welcomed us, pointing out a bowl of help-yourself Tunnock’s Teacakes, handing us a map of the city and, later, helping us successfully locate a bag we’d left in the back of a taxi.

The Bruntsfield Hotel

This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more

From £90 a night

Booking.com

Book here

An excellent value hotel near to Edinburgh’s city centre with spacious rooms and friendly staff.

How much does it cost to stay at The Bruntsfield?

Rooms at The Bruntsfield start from £90 per night.

If the new season of The Traitors has got you planning a Scotland escape, this stunning hotel in Glasgow city centre is a real treat, says Laura Mulley

A 10-minute walk from Glasgow’s Central Station in quiet, townhouse-lined Blythswood Square, you’ll find the Kimpton hotel. Here a cheery doorman welcomes you into a grand foyer complete with ornate pillars, plush seating and a glittering chandelier stretching up several floors, giving glam but elegant first impressions.

Our spacious Premier King room featured an original fireplace and bath that could be opened to look out into the bedroom, should you so wish. Complimentary soft drinks in the minibar were a nice touch, as were the little bottles of Glaswegian gin and tonic waiting on ice.

A few other unique services make the Kimpton Blythswood Square feel more like a home away from home: they’ll provide essentials such as toothbrushes and phone chargers if you’ve forgotten yours, and you can rent a handbag from Scottish luxury leather brand Strathberry for free. One new feature is the hotel’s Stay Well offering, allowing guests to borrow state-of-the-art wellness tools such as LED masks and Therabody muscle pummellers.

Where to eat in Glasgow

Kimpton Blythswood Square’s restaurant is called iasg (from the Gaelic word for ‘fish’), and as its name suggests, the fish and seafood on the menu is a real highlight. The BBQ monkfish came highly recommended and did not disappoint, while the fish and chips were the chunkiest we’d ever seen, and cooked to perfection.

Breakfast is served here too and offers an excellent continental buffet plus hearty hot dishes, including full Scottish breakfast favourites.

Outside of the hotel, we received a few recommendations from locals that are well worth checking out: Ardnamurchan for elevated Scottish classics (we loved the veggie haggis, neeps and tatties), popular pasta joint Sugo (worth the queue), and little authentic Italian cafe Sarti for delicious coffee and friendly service.

Kimpton Blythswood Square

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From £190 per night

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A stylish five-star hotel in Glasgow’s city centre with an impressive spa, top restaurant and luxury items fashion and wellness items available to borrow.

What to do in Glasgow

If you’re new to Glasgow it’s worth just spending some time wandering around its streets, admiring the striking architecture and colourful mural trail before heading up the hill to the imposing Gothic-style Necropolis. It’s no surprise that Glasgow is regularly used as a Hollywood filming location; apparently we’d just missed Tom Holland here filming scenes for the new Spider-Man movie.

Back at the hotel, Kimpton’s spa features various different hot rooms and pools, including a few even us seasoned spa-goers had never seen before: a snow room (Scotland’s first), and a cave-like dark pool, lit only by tiny LED lights in the ceiling.

Five months pregnant at the time, my therapist expertly worked into my tight muscles using oil from Scottish spa brand Ishga while still keeping me comfortable – even my bump got a gentle massage.

How much does it cost to stay at Kimpton Blythswood Square?

Rooms at Kimpton Blythswood Square start from £190 per night.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice has expanded its review of documents related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to 5.2 million as it also increases the number of attorneys trying to comply with a law mandating release of the files, according to a person briefed on a letter sent to U.S. attorneys.

The figure is the latest estimate in the expanding review of case files on Epstein and his longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell that has run more than a week past a deadline set in law by Congress.

The Justice Department has more than 400 attorneys working on the review, but does not expect to release more documents until Jan. 20 or 21, according to the person briefed on the letter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.

The White House did not dispute the figures laid out in the email, and pointed to a statement from Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who said the administration’s review was an “all-hands-on-deck approach.”

Blanche said Wednesday that lawyers from the Justice Department in Washington, the FBI, the Southern District of Florida and the Southern District of New York are working “around the clock” to review the files. The additional documents and lawyers related to the case were first reported by the New York Times.

“We’re asking as many lawyers as possible to commit their time to review the documents that remain,” Blanche said. “Required redactions to protect victims take time but they will not stop these materials from being released.”

Still, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi is facing pressure from Congress after the Justice Department’s rollout of information has lagged behind the Dec. 19 deadline to release the information.

“Should Attorney General Pam Bondi be impeached?” Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who helped lead the effort to pass the law mandating the document release, asked on social media this week.

Democrats also are reviewing their legal options as they continue to seize on an issue that has caused cracks in the Republican Party and at times flummoxed President Trump’s administration.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on social media that the latest figures from the Department of Justice “shows Bondi, Blanche, and others at the DOJ have been lying to the American people about the Epstein files since day one” and pointed out that the documents released so far represent a fraction of the total.

Groves and Kim write for the Associated Press.

Dec. 31 (UPI) — The Department of Justice is reviewing 5.2 million more pages of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which are to be made public in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The DOJ said it is assigning 400 attorneys to go through the files to review them and make required redactions before they are made available to the general public, NBC News reported. The review likely will run from Monday through Jan. 20.

“It is truly an all-hands-on-deck approach, and we’re asking as many lawyers as possible to commit their time to review the documents that remain,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday in a post on X.

“Required redactions to protect victims take time, but they will not stop these materials from being released,” Blanche said. “The attorney general’s and this administration’s goal is simple: transparency and protecting victims.”

The DOJ is assigning its attorneys and those from the FBI, the Southern District of Florida and the Southern District of New York to review the files ahead of their release, according to The Hill.

Three batches of files totaling hundreds of thousands of pages have been released and can be searched and downloaded online at the DOJ’s Epstein Library.

The DOJ cautions library visitors that some of the contents contain descriptions of sexual assault and might not be appropriate for everyone.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the DOJ to make all files in the federal case against financier Jeffrey Epstein publicly available no later than Dec. 19, but the volume of materials and the need to review each for content and redactions delayed the full posting.

DOJ officials on Dec. 24 announced its attorneys were “working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims,” but the number of files was underestimated.

The resulting delay is further complicated by the discovery of the 5.2 million files yet to be reviewed and redacted.

Delays in posting all files by the federally required deadline have Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., considering holding Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt.

Khanna and Massie co-sponsored the bill that became the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Epstein was a convicted sex offender who hung himself while jailed in Manhattan and awaiting trial on federal charges accusing him of the sex trafficking of minors.

His assistant and former longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted on related federal charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison.

She was convicted of sex trafficking of a minor, transporting a minor for illegal sexual activity and three counts of conspiracy.

After the eye strain, the greatest occupational hazard of being a TV critic is people asking what’s good on television. It’s a question I typically find impossible to answer on the spur of the moment, as a show will run out of my head as soon as a review is filed in order to make room for the next one. (I buy time by responding, “What do you like?”) It is only at this reflective season of the year that I can stop, look back and list them.

Our picks for this year’s best in arts and entertainment.

Every year, television has its ups and downs, its ebb and flow, depending on a host of reasons I will only ever vaguely understand. I will take this opportunity to say that there are way too many psychological thrillers on way too many platforms nowadays, but there are always more than enough shows to praise — and as always, I include only series that are new this year. Some are here because they deliver real surprises — not just plot twists and sudden revelations, but new directions and original formats. Others are here by dint of good old-fashioned storytelling, memorable characters and terrific performances — or just because they made me laugh.

Here they are, in no special order.

‘Hal & Harper’ (Mubi)

Lili Reinhart and Cooper Raiff in Mubi’s “Hal & Harper.”

(Mubi)

Writer-director Cooper Raiff’s delicate drama looks at a brother and a sister — played by Raiff and Lili Reinhart both as adults and children, with no sacrifice of reality — made close by the early loss of their mother and the grief of their father (Mark Ruffalo, identified only as Dad). The sale of their old house and the prospect of a new sibling — Dad’s girlfriend (Betty Gilpin, going from strength to strength) — sets things in motion. The dialogue avoids exposition, the silences say much. (Read the review.)

‘The Lowdown’ (FX)

Ethan Hawke and Ryan Kiera Armstrong in FX’s “The Lowdown.”

(Shane Brown / FX)

In Sterlin Harjo’s shaggy dog follow-up to “Reservation Dogs,” the ever-evolving Ethan Hawke plays Lee Raybon, a raggedy Tulsa “truthstorian,” citizen journalist and used-book dealer, looking into the apparent suicide of the oddball member of a powerful family. The series pays homage to noir film and fiction, even as it’s too bright, mischievous and full of love to qualify as noir itself (though Lee does get beat up a lot). Politicians, land developers, white supremacists and Natives collide. The cast also includes Kyle MacLachlan, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Peter Dinklage, Keith David, Kaniehtiio Horn (the Deer Lady in “Reservation Dogs”) as Ray’s ex-wife and the marvelous Ryan Kiera Armstrong as his teenage daughter and eager accomplice. Look for X’s John Doe as a purveyor of bootleg caviar. (Read the review.)

‘Women Wearing Shoulder Pads’ (Adult Swim), ‘Common Side Effects’ (Adult Swim), ‘Oh My God … Yes!’ (Adult Swim), ‘Long Story Short’ (Netflix)

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1. “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” on Adult Swim. (Warner Bros) 2. “Common Side Effects” on Adult Swim. (Adult Swim) 3. “Oh My God … Yes!” on Adult Swim. (Warner Bros. Discovery) 4. “Long Story Short” on Netflix. (Netflix)

Animation! “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” is a queer Spanish-language stop-motion comedy melodrama, set in the aesthetic world of a 1980s Pedro Almodóvar film, involving the fate of the cuy, a South American guinea pig (pets? food?), and a struggle between two powerful women. (Read the review.)

“Common Side Effects” is a semicomical thriller with heart, centered on a mushroom with curative properties and pitting its discoverer against the pharmaceutical-industrial complex; Martha Kelly fans will be happy to find her here as a DEA agent. (Read the review.)

“Oh My God … Yes!” is an Afro-futurist, surrealist, girlfriends-in-the-city superhero comedy — like the Powerpuff Girls, grown up, earthy and Black — featuring humanoid robots, anthropomorphic animals and gayliens (the preferred term for gay aliens). (Read the review.)

And “Long Story Short,” from “Bojack Horseman” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg is the sweet, melancholy, satirical, silly, poignant, hopeful, sometimes slapstick cartoon tale of a normal middle-class Jewish family; the world it portrays is (mostly) ordinary, but the drawings make it extra-special. (Read the review.)

‘Demascus’ (Tubi)

Okieriete Onaodowan in Tubi’s “Demascus.”

(Jace Downs / AMC Networks)

In this Black science-fiction comedy about the search for identity and purpose, Okieriete Onaodowan plays the title character, propelled into alternative visions of his life and self by an experimental virtual reality gizmo that “follows the path of your conscious and subconscious impulses.” The settings change along with him — into a relationship reality show, a “sad Thanksgiving” domestic comedy, a setting out of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” — as supporting actors (Martin Lawrence among them) become different people around him. (Read the review.)

‘Pluribus’ (Apple TV)

Rhea Seehorn in Apple TV’s “Pluribus.”

(Anna Kooris / Apple TV)

I find Vince Gilligan’s take on “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” in which a virus from outer space turns nearly all of humanity into one giant, contented, cultish hive mind, more interesting than compelling, but it’s interesting enough, and comes with a great performance by Rhea Seehorn as one of a dozen earthlings immune to the bug — jealous of her discontent, standing up for her right to be angry. This is a slow series, yet never a boring one, and Seehorn, in a kind of one-woman-versus-everyone show, is electric even when nothing much is happening. (Read the review.)

‘The Studio’ (Apple TV)

Clockwise from left: Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn, Chase Sui Wonders and Seth Rogen in Apple TV’s “The Studio.”

(Apple TV+)

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s breakneck farcical ode to the motion picture business (in which they do very well). Rogen stars as a new studio head, promoted from below, dealing with bad ideas (a Kool-Aid movie), big egos, and his own insecurities and need to feel appreciated. Episodes take place at the Golden Globes, a fundraising dinner and a Las Vegas trade show, with Ike Barinholtz and Kathryn Hahn on his team, Bryan Cranston as his boss — reminding you he was on “Seinfeld” and “Malcolm in the Middle” before he became Walter White — and Catherine O’Hara (brilliant, naturally) as the woman Rogen replaced. (Read the review.)

‘North of North’ (Netflix)

Anna Lambe in Netflix’s “North of North.”

(Netflix)

A sweet small-town romantic comedy, set (and filmed) in Canada’s northernmost territory among the Indigenous Inuit people. A luminous Anna Lambe stars as the 26-year-old mother of a rambunctious 7-year-old, tied to a narcissistic husband and resentful of her mother, a reformed alcoholic and former bad girl; she dreams of something more, even if it just means hauling large items to the dump. Mary Lynn Rajskub plays the cheerful, credit-grabbing town manager whose assistant she becomes. Love and a family secret will arrive from the south. The beaded parkas are gorgeous. (Read the review.)

‘The Pitt’ (HBO Max), ‘Adolescence’ (Netflix)

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1. Noah Wyle and Tracy Ifeachor in HBO Max’s “The Pitt.” (John Johnson/HBO) 2. Owen Cooper and Stephen Graham in Netflix’s “Adolescence.” (Netflix)

These two series do their work in real time, making space for naturalistic acting and a special kind of pressure. “The Pitt,” whose 15 episodes are set in a hectic Pittsburgh ER over a 15-hour shift puts Noah Wyle back in scrubs, herding (with Tracy Ifeachor) a large cast of doctors, nurses and student doctors. Cases include electrocution, drowning, overdose, scurvy, sickle cell anemia, a nail in the chest, a fastball in the eye and gallstones, with all the personal drama one expects from a hospital show. (Read the review.)

The tightly focused, brutally intimate “Adolescence,” surrounding the arrest of a 13-year-old boy (Owen Cooper) for murder, unveils its unconventional mystery in four discrete episodes, each executed in a single tracking shot. A field day for actors, it earned Emmys for Cooper, co-creator Stephen Graham as his father and Erin Doherty as a child psychologist. (Read the review.)

‘Dope Thief’ (Apple TV), ‘Deli Boys’ (Hulu)

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1. Brian Tyree Henry, left, and Wagner Moura in Apple TV’s “Dope Thief.” (Apple) 2. Saagar Shaikh, left, and Asif Ali in Hulu’s “Deli Boys.” (James Washington/Disney)

Drugs are bad, but they fuel a lot of television. (I mean the plots; I wouldn’t know about the productions.) These two very different series feature heroes in over their heads, caught between cops and a cartel. “Dope Thief” gives Brian Tyree Henry (Paper Boi on “Atlanta”), as a man robbing low-level drug dealers dressed as a DEA agent, his first starring role, which would be sufficient for me to recommend it sight unseen — but it is excellent, seen. (Read the review.)

In “Deli Boys,” an old-fashioned comedy of Idiots in Danger, Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh play temperamentally opposite Pakistani American brothers who inherit what they believed to be a chain of convenience stores but turn out to be the front for their father’s cocaine empire. Poorna Jagannathan is marvelous as their beloved, fearsome Lucky Auntie, who knows the score. (Read the review.)

‘Ludwig’ (Britbox)

David Mitchell in Britbox’s “Ludwig.”

(Colin Hutton)

In this Cambridge-set dramatic comedy-mystery, irascible David Mitchell, of “Peep Show,” “Upstart Crow” and “Would I Lie to You?” fame, plays an awkward, isolated genius with little practical experience of the world, drawn right into it when he winds up impersonating his missing twin brother, a police detective. A professional puzzle-maker, he’ll turn out to be good at the job, though he calls a medical examiner’s report a “how-did-they-die test,” and, moving in with his sister-in-law, he’ll learn something about the benefits of family. Properly moving, and very funny. (Read the review.)

A ping-pong ball at top speed travels over 70 miles an hour — so fast it could zip across Manhattan in less than two minutes. Director Josh Safdie’s hyperactive, head-spinning “Marty Supreme” keeps pace. Set in 1952 New York, this deranged caper races after a money-grubbing table tennis hustler (he prefers “professional athlete”) named Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) who argues like he plays, swatting away protests and annoying his adversaries to exhaustion.

Hounding his shoe-store co-worker to give him $700 from the safe, Marty hammers the poor sap with every trick he’s got — emotional pressure, physical violence, bribery, humiliation, revenge — until he hits one that wins. The high-strung kid is pure nerve and he looks like one, too; he’s the embodiment of a twitch. But with a paddle in his hands, Marty turns into Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain.” He could win a match swinging an umbrella.

The character’s inspiration is Marty Reisman, one of the so-called “bad boys of ping-pong,” according to a U.S. Table Tennis Assn. official in 1972, explaining why the rascal wasn’t invited to the USA versus China exhibition games referred to as “ping-pong diplomacy.” You may remember those matches from “Forrest Gump,” but Tom Hanks’ guileless sweetheart would never use the sport to smuggle gold bars out of Hong Kong, as the real Reisman once did.

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Reisman’s exploits, immortalized in his 1974 memoir “The Money Player,” are too outrageous to squeeze into one film, even for a chaos-feeding filmmaker such as Safdie, going solo after co-directing “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems” with his brother Benny. (A trilogy, maybe.) Reisman’s biography opened with him fleeing French-occupied Hanoi, Vietnam, the day before it fell to the Viet Minh and detoured to a meeting with the Pope in Rome before drunkenly landing a plane in Brazil. The book was optioned shortly after publication. He felt it should star Robert De Niro.

That movie never happened and Reisman died in 2012 at the age of 82, still insisting he deserved to bask in the spotlight. He’d be happy to see Safdie’s “Marty Supreme,” which time-travels audiences back seven decades to when American table tennis players were certain bright days were ahead.

As an athlete, Chalamet seems to have lost muscle for the role. Yet as funny as it is to see a guy this scrawny carry himself like Hercules, he leaps and strikes with conviction. His Marty yearns for prestige. Safdie even concocts a subplot in which he invents his signature orange ball solely so he can wear all-white like the posh jocks of Wimbledon. He starts the film desperate to fly to a tournament in London, in part to escape the walk-up apartment where he’s always squabbling with his mother (Fran Drescher) and uncle (Larry “Ratso” Sloman) and a nosy neighbor (Sandra Bernhard). Perilously, Marty’s secret lover (a simmering Odessa A’zion) lives with her jealous husband (Emory Cohen) in an apartment one floor below.

Marty and A’zion’s Rachel belong together, if only to quarantine their equally manipulative genes from the general population. Before the opening credits, the couple improvises a lie to get some privacy to mate. Cinematographer Darius Khondji sends the camera inside her body to see Marty’s most aggressive sperm wriggle to the finish line. Rachel’s egg becomes the moon; the moon becomes a ping-pong ball. Game on.

From this scene forward, Marty will dash around the city and the globe, chasing his dreams and out-running his parental responsibilities. Along the way, he trips over a gun-toting gangster named Ezra (Abel Ferrara), a faded movie star, Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow, sullen and aloof), and her callous husband Milton (“Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary), the chief executive of a pen corporation who thinks Marty can make him a mint in ping-pong-crazed Asia. O’Leary, a first-time actor, easily embodies the face of capitalism.

Flaunting that he can turn anyone into an actor, Safdie crowds his New York with bit parts played by big personalities: magician Penn Jillette, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, basketball player George “The Iceman” Gervin, highwire artist Philippe Petit, playwright David Mamet, journalist Naomi Fry and grocery tycoon John Catsimatidis. The musician Tyler Okonma, better known as the Tyler, the Creator, is great in his feature film acting debut as Willy, Marty’s gambling wingman. He was previously seen onscreen getting electrocuted by a piano in “Jackass Forever.” Okonma brings that same energy here and it’s perfect.

Marty’s main foe — and personality opposite — is a Japanese player named Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) who lost his hearing in the Tokyo airstrikes that happened seven years before and uses a deadly quiet foam-backed paddle. Marty’s friendliest rival, Béla (Géza Röhrig), survived Auschwitz, and in a jaw-dropper of a scene, shares a story of endurance that actually happened to the Polish player Alex Ehrlich. Imprisoned in the camps shortly after winning silver at the World Championships in 1939, Ehrlich was renowned for a record-breaking competitive volley that lasted over two hours, a back-and-forth so relentless that the referee quit with a sore neck. The rhythm of it could be a metronome for this movie’s plot — it whips us around to the point of delighted collapse.

The soundtrack is an unexpected backbeat of synth hits by Tears for Fears and New Order that bleeds into a Tangerine Dream-esque score by Daniel Lopatin — a startling choice for an era where people act like World War II happened yesterday. But to our modern ears, the music has its own vintage: It’s the sound of the greed-is-good 1980s, when movies rooted for ruthless strivers such as “Risky Business’” Tom Cruise, who opened a brothel in his parents’ bedroom.

Safdie’s script, co-written by Ronald Bronstein, is even structured like an ’80s movie that builds up to the big showdown, be it a ski race, a car-washing competition or a frat house decathlon à la “Revenge of the Nerds.” The catch is that Marty — not Endo — may be the bully who deserves to lose. How loudly are we willing to cheer for a callow guy who thinks of WWII as an opportunity for trash talk, boasting he’ll “drop a third bomb” on Endo’s fans? (In fairness, Tokyo promotes their rematch with a poster of Marty that looks uncomfortably close to antisemitic Nazi propaganda, a pointed choice by Safdie and the production designer Jack Fisk.)

Marty is convinced he’s a self-made success who doesn’t need anyone’s help; the people we see him squeeze and squash would disagree. He’s similar to Adam Sandler’s rapacious jeweler in “Uncut Gems,” except that scoundrel contained his damage to the Diamond District and people as shady as him. Safdie sends Marty out to bedevil the world, shipping him to Paris where he gets snippy with a maître d’ who doesn’t speak English and then to Cairo where he steals a chunk of the Great Pyramids.

Listening to a Japanese newsreel describe him as a villain referred to only as “the American,” you realize that “Marty Supreme” is more than a caricature of Reisman. It’s a biography of our national ego, with Marty brashly lecturing the British head of the International Table Tennis Assn. that a champion from the United States would boost the sport’s global reputation. After the commissioner makes this conceited Yank grovel, Marty simply replies: “It’s every man for himself where I come from.”

Like Marty, Chalamet was raised in New York City, and since he arrived on the scene, there’s never been a doubt he’ll win an Oscar. The only question is, when? To Chalamet’s credit, he’s doing it the hard way, avoiding sentimental pictures for pricklier roles about his own naked ambitions. For “A Complete Unknown,” he taught himself to play guitar like Bob Dylan while revealing that the bard was a rat, and in the even-better “Dune: Part Two,” played a naif radicalized into a galaxy-destroying messiah.

Here, Chalamet again fuses his personal drive into his performance, claiming that he spent seven years training to play ping-pong like Reisman, and unlike Tom Hanks in “Gump,” he’s doing his own stunts. Voters seem content to let the young talent dangle, trusting that he’ll continue flogging himself to make more great pictures like this.

The movie’s moxie makes it impossible not to get caught up in Marty’s crusade. We’re giddy even when he’s miserable. Performing with the Harlem Globetrotters in some of the most war-scarred, joy-desperate corners of the planet, his own shame prevents him from appreciating how much he’s entertaining the crowd. When you weigh his selfish desires against any other character’s needs, Marty is as hollow as a ping-pong ball. It really is all about his balls. Their embossing reads: “Marty Supreme — Made in America.”

Dec. 26 (Asia Today) — President Lee Jae-myung has ordered a formal review of lowering the age threshold for juvenile offenders exempt from criminal punishment, reviving a long-running debate amid growing public concern over youth crime. Legal experts broadly support the intent but caution that the move may have only limited deterrent effects.

During a policy briefing with the Ministry of Justice on Dec. 19, Lee instructed officials to place the issue of lowering the minimum age for criminal responsibility on the Cabinet agenda, according to officials.

Under South Korea’s Criminal Act, established in 1953, children aged 10 to under 14 are classified as juvenile offenders and are exempt from criminal punishment, instead receiving protective measures focused on education and rehabilitation. The system was designed to prioritize the reformability of minors over punitive sanctions.

Critics argue, however, that crimes committed by juvenile offenders have risen sharply in both number and severity. According to the Supreme Court’s Judicial Yearbook 2025, 7,294 juvenile offenders received protective dispositions in 2024, more than double the 3,465 recorded in 2020.

Serious offenses, including sexual crimes and acts of extreme violence, have also increased. Police data show that between Jan. 1 and Sept. 10, 2024, juveniles under 14 accounted for about 20 percent – 63 out of 318 suspects – arrested in deepfake-related sexual crimes, highlighting concerns over new forms of digital abuse.

Many in the legal community agree that the age standard should reflect changes in adolescents’ physical and mental maturity as well as the social environment. Kim Ji-yeon, an attorney with Lawyers for a New Future for Youth, said the widespread perception that offenders under 14 cannot be criminally punished has been exploited. “Some youths commit serious crimes like deepfake offenses believing authorities cannot punish them,” she said, noting that the non-disclosure of juvenile criminal records has also been abused.

Kim added that lowering the age by about one year could help address these problems, even if it partially conflicts with the system’s rehabilitative purpose. “In reality, victims are often even younger, and protecting minor victims must be a priority,” she said.

Shin Hye-sung, a lawyer at Yulwoo Law Firm and a former juvenile court judge, also voiced support for lowering the age in cases involving sexual crimes. “Many 13-year-olds today are far more mature than in the past and capable of committing serious offenses,” he said. “Allowing the possibility of criminal trials could have a necessary deterrent effect.”

Still, Shin stressed the limits of such a reform. “Lowering the age will not bring dramatic change,” he said, noting that the rise in juvenile cases is largely driven by school violence. “Contrary to public perception, it is extremely rare for children under 14 to commit crimes serious enough to warrant criminal trials. Since such cases are uncommon, the overall impact of an age cut would likely be modest.”

As the issue returns to the National Assembly agenda, attention is focused on whether the proposal – which has repeatedly stalled in the past – can gain enough consensus to move forward this time.

–Copyright by Asiatoday

Most things in this world have their good points and their not-so-good points, and this is certainly true of “The Copenhagen Test,” a science-fiction spy story about a man whose brain has been hacked. Without his knowing it, everything he sees and hears is uploaded to an unknown party, in an unknown place, as if he were a living pair of smart glasses. Created by Thomas Brandon and premiering Saturday on Peacock, its conceit is dramatically clever, if, of course, impossible. What do you watch when you learn that what you’re watching is being watched?

In a preamble, we meet our hero, Andrew Hale (Simu Liu, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”), a first-generation Chinese American Green Beret, rescuing hostages in Belarus. A voice in his headset instructs him that there is enough room for one on a departing helicopter and that he must prioritize an American citizen. Instead he picks a foreign child. This, we will learn, is the less-preferred choice.

Three years later, Hale is working for the Orphanage, a shadowy American intelligence agency that spies on all the less-shadowy American intelligence agencies — watching the watchers. (So much watching!) Its proud boast is that, since its inception in the Bush I administration, it has never been compromised. (Until someone started looking through Hale’s eyes, that is.) There is a secret entrance to their giant complex, accessed by locking eyes with a statue in a library — it’s thematically appropriate, but also very “Get Smart!” That is a compliment, obviously.

The lower floor is where the analysts toil; entry to the upper floor, where the action is, is by the sort of fancy key that might have been used to open an executive washroom in 1895. (The decor is better there, too, with something of the air of an 1895 executive washroom.) Hale, who has been been listening to and translating Korean and Chinese chatter, dreams of moving upstairs, which will come with the discovery that his head is not entirely his own.

Meanwhile, he has been suffering migraines, seizures and panic attacks. Ex-fiancée Rachel (Hannah Cruz), a doctor, has been giving him pills under the table. Other characters of continuing interest include Michelle (Melissa Barrera), a bartender who will spy on Hale from the vantage point of a girlfriend, sort of; Parker (Sinclair Daniel), a newly promoted “predictive analyst” with a gift for reading people and situations; Victor (Saul Rubinek), an ex-spook who runs a high-end restaurant and has known Hale forever; Cobb (Mark O’Brien), a rivalrous colleague whose Ivy League persona has been drawn in contrast to Hale’s; and Cobb’s uncle, Schiff (Adam Godley), who also has spy knowledge. Peter Moira (Brian d’Arcy James) runs the shop, and St. George (Kathleen Chalfant) floats above Moira.

As parties unknown look through Hale’s eyes, the Orphanage is watching Hale with the usual access to the world’s security cameras. (That bit of movie spycraft always strikes me as far-fetched; however, a conversation in the privacy of my kitchen will somehow translate into ads on my social feeds, so, who knows?) “The Copenhagen Test” isn’t selling a surveillance state metaphor, in any case; this is just one of those “Who Can You Trust?” stories, one that keeps flipping characters to keep the show going, somewhat past the point of profitability.

Like most eight-hour dramas, it’s too long — “Slow Horses,” the best of this breed, sticks to six — and over the course of the show, things grow muddied with MacGuffins and subplots. While it’s easy enough to enjoy what’s happening in the moment, it can be easy to lose the plot and harder to tell just who’s on what side, or even how many sides there are. (It doesn’t help that nearly everyone is ready to kill Hale.) I can’t go into details without crossing the dreaded spoiler line, but even accepting the impossible tech, much of “The Copenhagen Test” makes little practical sense, including the eponymous test. (Why “Copenhagen?” Det ved jeg ikke. Danish for “I don’t know.”) I spent so much time untwisting knots and keeping threads straight that, though I continued to root in a detached way for Hale, I ceased to care entirely about the fate of the Orphanage and the supposedly free world.

The show is well cast. While the characters on paper are pretty much types, each actor projects the essence of the part, adding enough extra personality to suggest a real person. (And they’re all nice to look at.) When not keeling over from pain, or engaged in a shootout or hand-to-hand combat, Liu is an even-keeled, quiet sort of protagonist — rather in the Keanu Reeves vein — and as a Chinese Canadian actor, still a novelty among American television action heroes. He does have a kind of chemistry with Barrera, who has screen chemistry all on her own, though it’s somewhat limited by the demands of the plot.

The ending, including a diminished-chord twist, is pretty pat, if happier than one might imagine given the ruckus that’s gone before. Neat bows are tied — though at least one has been left loose in hopes, according to my own predictive analysis, of a second season. And though releasing a series in the last week of the year doesn’t exactly betoken confidence, I can predict with some confidence that there might be one.

You won’t see a movie with better music and worse dialogue this holiday season than the bizarrely charming “Song Sung Blue,” a biopic about a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond cover band who were a fleeting sensation in 1990s Milwaukee.

If that plot synopsis isn’t a hook, the soundtrack is packed with them, as stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson belt over a dozen Diamond hits including “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “I Am…I Said,” and “Holly Holy.” Of course the couple they’re playing, Mike and Claire Sardina, a.k.a. Lightning & Thunder, also do “Sweet Caroline,” although they disagree over where it belongs in the set list. Mike prefers last, allowing them to showcase his idol’s range beforehand. Claire insists it come first after an incident when withholding it triggers a biker brawl.

Written and directed by Craig Brewer (“Hustle & Flow”), the movie is itself a cover of Greg Kohs’ 2008 documentary on the Sardinas, also titled “Song Sung Blue.” The original is a quirky little indie that reveals truth to be weirder than fiction. What happens to Mike and Claire is so outlandish that you’d roll your eyes if Brewer also included the facts that their real-life wedding climaxed with a concert for a thousand people at the Wisconsin State Fair and that the groomsmen wore tuxedo T-shirts.

Both films are love stories, even if the new version compresses Mike and Claire’s decade and a half marriage into two years. He’s a divorced auto mechanic and recovering alcoholic with a surly-but-sweet distant daughter named Angela (King Princess) and a bit of local renown. She’s a single mom to son Dayna (Hudson Hensley) and her own daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson), when Mike struts into her life wearing lightning bolts on his jacket and tooth. His manager, Dave (Fisher Stevens), is also his dentist.

This is a script that shows and tells. If Mike jokes that Dave deserves a free oil change for missing out on a $10 commission, then you better believe the movie will cut to him under the car doing the job. Every character blurts out exactly what they want with the gusto of belting out ba-ba-baaaah at a certain Neil Diamond chorus.

“I gotta be Neil but I gotta be me too,” Mike says urgently. A couple scenes later, Hudson’s Claire turns to Rachel and pleads, “I just want to sing and feel happy and be loved!” Likewise, as soon as their kids are thrust together on an awkward playdate, the girls get stoned, trauma-bonding about their unstable parents, a cute and corny moment that ensures the audience knows the risks if Lightning & Thunder are forced to hang up their spangles.

The twosome are backed by a tour booker, Tom (Jim Belushi), who dreams of getting them a residency in Vegas, and a motley crew of fellow mimics including a Buddy Holly (Michael Imperioli) and a James Brown (Mustafa Shakir). Shyaporn Theerakulstit, Chacha Tahng and Faye Tamasa have some nice moments as Thai restaurateurs who welcome the Sardinas’ family into their own. Often though, you find yourself watching Anderson as the anxious Rachel who seems most in tune with reality. Can her mom and stepdad’s fantasies of fame actually pay their rent?

There’s a spoiler in the trailer that I recommend avoiding if you can. The argument for it must have been that no one wants to see a musical about two Midwesterners in rhinestones unless something bad happens to them. Most rock biopics have a similar rise-and-fall-and-rise arc; it’s a cliché that works, like plugging “Sweet Caroline” into a bar’s jukebox. But what gives “Song Sung Blue” a wonky kind of depth is that there’s only so high Mike and Claire can rise. When the real-life couple was fired from a steady booking, the club owner justified his actions by saying, “Especially being in Neil Diamond impersonation, your limits are Neil Diamond.”

Fans will counter that the songwriter’s gifts are so ceaseless that younger generations might not even connect each hit with his name. Bopping along to the movie feels like being at a pub trivia night where the answer is always Neil Diamond: That’s right, he also wrote The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.” Begrudgingly, you half-buy into one of the script’s more ludicrous set-ups, that Lightning & Thunder will play their biggest show on the night Diamond is headlining at another venue in town. The greater metro population of Milwaukee is just shy of one and half million people. Sure, why not.

Grinding plot gears aside, the duo’s actual biggest gig is pretty awesome: In 1995, Eddie Vedder invited Lightning & Thunder to open for Pearl Jam. (“What’s a Pearl Jam?” Mike asks.) The quirky mash-up of sequins and flannel gets reenacted here, but this would be a richer movie if it explored why a Seattle grunge band rocketing toward mega-stardom would whisk this act along for the ride. Appreciation for Diamond’s lyrical craft? Respect for the Sardinas’ genuine talents? Or just kitsch?

That Lightning & Thunder peaked when Gen Xers were ascendant makes you yearn for Brewer to grapple with how much of their fan base was ironic. That question, along with Diamond’s ear worms, won’t stop wriggling in my brain. The closest answer I’ve found is in a “Simpsons” episode from around the same time where Homer takes the stage at a cartoon version of Lollapalooza. (“He’s cool,” a pierced punk says with a snort. A buddy asks if he’s being sarcastic, and the kid collapses like a hot air balloon: “I don’t even know anymore.”)

“Song Sung Blue” couldn’t be less cool. But the Sardinas were completely sincere and Jackman and Hudson honor their innocence by playing them straight. (Brewer, however, can’t resist a pratfall where Mike trips singing “Cracklin’ Rosie” in his skivvies.) Jackman looks and sounds so much like Diamond that the concert scenes feel like top-fleet karaoke, and Hudson more than holds her own, even as her Claire is tasked to stare at her husband with starry eyes that sparkle as much as her silver makeup.

Hudson encourages the audience to use Claire’s stubborn buoyancy and perky accent as a life raft when Lightning & Thunder are deluged by extremely bad luck. But the beat Hudson gets exactly right comes in a scene where you’re certain this klutzy melodrama is going to force her to sob. Instead, she refuses. She smiles, and that’s the detail that breaks your heart.

So I cried for her. Then I groaned some more and while I didn’t need an encore, I left the theater humming.

Dec. 25 (UPI) — The National Capital Planning Commission has added the East Wing Modernization Project at the White House to its Jan. 8 agenda to review construction of a new ballroom and other improvements.

Trump administration officials will provide the commission with an informational presentation on the ballroom construction and other planned improvements, according to The Hill.

No public testimony will be heard and no vote taken on the project during the meeting, according to the NCPC.

“This is an opportunity for the project applicant to present the project and for commissioners to ask questions and provide general observations prior to formal review, which we anticipate this spring,” the NCPC said in a FAQ published on the commission’s website.

The NPC has no authority over White House demolitions or site preparations and only reviews building exteriors, per the National Capital Planning Act, but it does review proposed new construction or permanent site improvements.

The National Environmental Policy Act does give the NCPC the authority to review projects within the District of Columbia to ensure compliance with the NEPA.

The National Historic Preservation Act, though, does not apply in the matter as the White House and its grounds are excluded from its provisions.

The Trump administration initially said the construction of a new ballroom in the East Wing of the White House would cost $200 million, and said that the project will be funded by private donations.

President Donald Trump last week said the project could cost twice that amount but that donors would cover all additional costs, too.

The president earlier announced the ballroom construction, which he said is needed to provide a modern event space inside the White House.

Officials with the National Trust for Historic Preservation challenged the construction in federal court and sought an injunction to halt all work.

A federal judge denied the injunction request but ordered the Trump administration to undergo a review process for the project.

The holidays bring good cheer — an opportunity to reflect but also, most likely, the anxiety of family. Jim Jarmusch’s latest film isn’t set during the season, although the faint flickers of awkwardness, resentment and guilt that pass across its characters’ faces may be painfully familiar to audiences who have an uneasy relationship with their parents. “Father Mother Sister Brother” is here to commiserate, but because the veteran indie auteur remains a sharp chronicler of the quotidian, he has no patience for sentimentality or pat resolutions. The movie glides by so unassumingly, you may be stunned how moved you are by the end.

“Father Mother Sister Brother” is divided into three chapters, each examining a separate family. In the first segment, set somewhere in the Northeast, siblings Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) visit their unnamed father (Tom Waits). The second tale shifts to Dublin, where sisters Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps) arrive at the home of their mother (Charlotte Rampling) for their annual tea party. And in the final chapter, twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) reunite in Paris to close up the apartment owned by their parents, who recently died in a small-plane crash.

Jarmusch has occasionally sliced his narratives into pieces: His films “Night on Earth” and “Coffee and Cigarettes” were anthologies tied together conceptually. Initially, “Father Mother Sister Brother” appears to be similar, but there’s a cumulative power to the movie, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, that reveals a subtle but profound thematic undercurrent.

The first clue comes in the “Father” chapter, which begins with Jeff and Emily in the car. There’s a stilted quality to the conversation as they discuss their eccentric, inscrutable dad. The visit has the heavy air of obligation — they don’t see Dad very often — and when he clumsily welcomes them into his ramshackle house, pregnant pauses and pursed lips ensue. Nothing much happens, until the segment’s finale introduces a twist that suggests the yawning chasm between what we think we know about our parents and what the truth of their lives is.

Once we move to the “Mother” sequence, we’ve started to acclimate to the movie’s discomfiting rhythms — which is good considering that, if anything, Timothea and Lilith’s relationship with their mom is even frostier. Their mother’s polite, excessively formal demeanor cannot mask her befuddlement regarding how to relate to her children. Decked out in an unflattering haircut and eyeglasses, Blanchett plays Timothea as terminally mousy, still craving her aloof mom’s approval. By comparison, Krieps’ Lilith is more assertive, proudly showing off her pink-dyed hair and bragging about a Lexus she doesn’t actually have. Rampling crackles as a matriarch who can sniff out her kids’ lies and insecurities but has the good manners not to say anything. Or maybe it’s not kindness at all but, rather, a way to reassure herself that she will always have the upper hand.

The film’s persistent brittleness may make some viewers antsy. That’s partly the point, but hopefully, they’ll soon be swept away by the movie’s melancholy undertow. Working with a minimalist keyboard score he co-wrote, Jarmusch fills the silences with an ineffable despair. You can feel it in the way Emily looks out her father’s window to the lake beyond, the wintery tableau both tranquil and poignant. You sense it when Timothea quietly inspects herself in a bathroom mirror, wishing her life was more than it is.

Such moments could make you cry. But Jarmusch’s deadpan approach often chases that sadness with a wry chuckle during instances of unfiltered honesty. Krieps relishes portraying her character, a big-talking phony hoping to wow her mother and sister. (At one point, Lilith announces, “I almost hate to say it, but my life’s been like a dream.” Blanchett’s reaction is delicious.) Eventually, we learn to look past Jarmusch’s deceptively mundane surfaces to see the fraught, unresolved issues within these guarded families. The characters occasionally expose their true selves, then just as quickly retreat, fearful of touching on real conflict.

Which brings “Father Mother Sister Brother” to its most affecting sequence. It would be a spoiler to disclose anything about Skye and Billy’s intimate saga, but what becomes clear is that Jarmusch has fashioned the “Father” and “Mother” installments in such a way that the final “Sister Brother” segment hits differently. Just as importantly, Moore and Sabbat’s lovely performances slyly alter our impressions of those previous chapters, building to some of the tenderest moments of Jarmusch’s career.

Turning 73 in January, Jarmusch has lost none of his edge or preternatural cool, but the depth of feeling in recent works like 2016’s “Paterson” becomes, here, a bittersweet meditation on the anguish of trying to unlock the mystery of our aging parents. In “Father Mother Sister Brother,” family can be hell, but the only thing worse is when they’re no longer with us.

Mar Hall Hotel and Resort near Glasgow underwent a £20m refurbishment and was voted in the top 20 resorts in Europe by Condé Nast Traveler readers – and I recently stayed there

Many tourists are drawn to Scotland for the Highlands, Loch Ness and whisky — not necessarily the outskirts of Glasgow. However, I recently discovered a charming corner of Scotland is just a stone’s throw from the baggage claim.

The phrase “airport hotel” isn’t one that ignites much enthusiasm. They’re more often a necessary inconvenience than a destination, but just outside Scotland’s largest city lies the newly refurbished Mar Hall Hotel and Resort. Let’s be clear, this isn’t so much an ‘airport hotel’ as it is a hotel near an airport. The five-star resort has recently undergone a £20million makeover under new management.

Despite being no more than 30 minutes from my flat, it feels like an escape to the country. Arriving at 3pm, which is sunset during the depths of winter here, the sun casts a golden hue over the Clyde and the gently rolling hills and trees beyond. Toto, I don’t think we’re in Glasgow anymore.

The new Mar Hall

At the grand old age of 180, Mar Hall has had several incarnations. Originally commissioned by the 11th Lord Blantyre as the latest Erskine house estate, it was later transformed into a hospital for soldiers returning from World War 1 with amputations.

Fast forward to 2025 and Mar Hall finds itself under fresh ownership once more. For Glaswegians such as myself, an evening spent in a lavish period property offers a welcome escape from everyday life. For those travelling from further away, it provides an exceptionally luxurious introduction to Scotland.

Despite the hotel’s new proprietors being Dubai-based — and its Instagram-ready aesthetic — Mar Hall’s makeover feels unmistakably Scottish. During a tour of the recently renovated establishment, Jim Hamilton from Graven, the interior design company behind the transformation, told me he grew up locally and still lives minutes away.

The quintessentially Glaswegian design house Timorous Beasties provided wallpapers and fabrics, while Glasgow’s Artpistol gallery sourced much of the artwork displayed throughout, including pieces from recent Glasgow School of Art graduates.

Noting how Mar Hall has transformed from “home to hospital to hospitality”, Jim said they aimed to maintain that sense of homeliness and care in its latest incarnation.

One of the callbacks to its Victorian roots is the potted palm trees flanking the entrance hall — a nod to an era when exotic plants were a symbol of sophistication and worldliness. The attention to detail extended to the very walls. A series of four large paintings depicting Scotland’s seasons, commissioned from Scottish artist Nichol Wheatley, are set within custom wall panelling, reflecting the style of the period.

The aesthetic is a bold mix of vibrant colours and patterns: it’s Victorian, but with a 2025 twist. Your gaze is constantly drawn upwards through the lofty spaces towards the stunning vaulted ceilings above. The overall effect is lavish and chic, yet inviting. Whilst it is a five-star resort, the staff are incredibly friendly, making me feel perfectly at ease.

The rooms

It’s nearing December and the hotel has been fully decked out for the festive season. The receptionist, who offers a typically warm Scottish welcome, pauses before the doors to the Gallery, clearly excited to show me the grand room at the heart of the hotel.

For a moment, I worry about having to feign excitement for this kindly lady, but when she swings open the doors, I’m genuinely taken aback. It’s even more impressive in person than online.

To reach one of the hotel’s 74 rooms, guests walk through the Gallery with its plush seating, fireplaces and marble bar. I’m handed the keys to the Erskine grand suite for the night, priced at £1,125 per night, kitted out with a regal sitting room and grand piano.

The sitting room and bathroom, featuring a rolltop bath, offer views over the golf course, River Clyde and picturesque woodlands beyond, in that order. The bespoke bookcases are so perfectly illuminated — as is everything in the hotel — that when I meet Jim, I can’t resist asking if he would design my flat pro bono.

The festive decorations extend to the rooms. I’m thrilled to discover a Christmas tree in the lounge, sparkling next to a handwritten note and dish of treats welcoming me to Mar Hall. It’s enough to make anyone feel warm and fuzzy.

The bedroom, with its luxurious four-poster bed and impeccably luxurious bedding, lulls me to sleep shortly after I start watching a cheesy Netflix Christmas film. It’s a pity I can’t spend more time savouring a hotel room of this standard.

Mar Hall only reopened in May this year, but I hear Kylie Minogue has already stayed in these suites twice.

The food

Before dinner, I enjoy a drink in the Slàinte bar, which is delightfully cosy with a crackling fireplace and a Christmas tree. For dinner, smoked salmon, beef, and sticky toffee pudding are the mainstays of ‘fancy dining’ in Scotland and rightly so. I’m pleased to see all three on the menu.

Layering local smoked salmon on a bed of horseradish and a crunchy cracker was a real treat. The blade of beef was as tender as expected, with dauphinoise and honey-roasted carrots making for a perfect mouthful. The only critique I’d have is that the pudding could have done with more toffee sauce, as is often the case.

The unexpected highlight, however, were the warm fig bread rolls – they’ve been on my mind ever since. And all throughout, the service struck a good balance between being attentive and unobtrusive.

Breakfast in the Dining Room offers a continental selection with a variety of hot options including full Scottish breakfast, sausage egg roll, eggs Benedict, and porridge. I chose the ‘rise & shine crumpet’, a tasty combination of Argyll smoked salmon with scrambled egg.

Location and facilities

Mar Hall is set within a 240-acre estate, just a 25-minute drive from Glasgow city centre or a mere 10 minutes from Glasgow Airport. However, it’s not easily reachable by public transport.

The 18-hole Earl of Mar golf course is conveniently located just outside. Like the hotel, it boasts picturesque views of the River Clyde and the Kilpatrick Hills.

The spa features a swimming pool, saunas and steam rooms. Other amenities include a gym, games room and private screening room.

Final thoughts

Mar Hall’s new owners have invested millions into the hotel with the aim of making it a world-class destination. Resort director Andy Roger shared plans for a clubhouse featuring a second restaurant and a state-of-the-art indoor-outdoor spa.

However, it faces tough competition just an hour up the M8. This year, Mar Hall made it into the top 20 resorts in Europe as voted by readers of American luxury travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler. The number one spot on the list? Gleneagles. This iconic resort is a Scottish summer camp for the rich, offering seven eateries, three golf courses and a spa, along with horse riding, shooting, fishing, off-roading and more in the hills of the Perthshire resort.

While it may not be a full-service millionaire’s playground, I’m already excited about returning. Mar Hall tops my list for a pampering staycation with my husband or for afternoon tea with out-of-town visitors. Once the spa is refurbished, I know it’ll be a huge hit with locals.

The more time I spent at Mar Hall, the less I wanted to leave, and that’s the sign of a great hotel.

Booking details

Rooms and packages can be booked through Mar Hall’s website. Rooms start from £292.

Animation is an art of the impossible, though it often settles for the ordinary. Much of what comprises adult animation merely translates into line what might be shown in live action — humans in human settings. Which is fine. Some great shows fit that bill — “King of the Hill” and “Bob’s Burgers,” for example. Still, there are infinite avenues to explore, and so it’s good to have Adult Swim, the network that once produced a series whose heroes are a meatball, a shake and a bag of fries, still making aesthetic trouble.

“The Elephant,” which premieres Friday on the network, and Saturday on HBO Max alongside a documentary on its creation, “Behind the Elephant,” is an animated take on exquisite corpse, the old surrealist game in which three artists contribute the head, torso or legs of a single figure, folding the paper so as not to see what the others had drawn. This project enlists four fab animators over three acts — “Adventure Time” creator Pendleton Ward, Ian Jones-Quartey (“OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes”), Rebecca Sugar (“Steven Universe”) and Patrick McHale (“Over the Garden Wall”) — to make something that not only had we not seen before, but none of them had either, until their independently produced parts were put together. All are “Adventure Time” vets, as are Jack Pendarvis and Kent Osborne, who conceived the idea, served as “game keepers,” and share story credit with the animators.

Exquisite corpse was also used in character design. It invariably produces monsters, if amusing ones, which explains why the character — let’s call her The Character — in Ward’s act has a cactus for an arm and a giant pink foot in place of one leg. In the Jones-Quartey and Sugar act, she has robot arms, fishnet stockings and a “music button” in her chest (the city parties when its disco plays), and in McHale’s, a TV for a torso. One regards The Character as the same person in each act, and through changes that occur within each act — identity, death and reincarnation are at the heart of the show. She’s always different, though always the protagonist. (And seemingly female.) Which is not surprising if you’ve ever watched “Adventure Time,” where even every villain is also a protagonist.

Ward takes the first act; Jones-Quartey and Sugar, who are married, worked together on the second; and McHale brings it home with Act 3. Ward’s section is easily recognizable as his work in its mix of the uncanny and the offhand, both from “Adventure Time” and the psychedelic “Midnight Gospel.” Sugar and Jones-Quartey opt for a New Wave angularity far from their usual styles, and McHale cycles through several looks until his Character, who arrives already hoping to get off this wheel of endless rebirth and cease to exist, settles down for a spell in a realistically portrayed city in the snow — New York, I’d say — in conversation with a lonely inventor. McHale also brings in, for just a few seconds, the eponymous elephant in an apropos reference to the parable of the blind men who imagined that animal to be a different sort of beast depending on where they laid their hands.

Each animator (or team) integrates their position in the game — and the nature of the game itself — into their storytelling. Ward’s Character, born onscreen, wonders “What am I? I’m not sure.” In the second section, Sugar and Jones-Quartey have their narrating Character say, “I could feel my existence stretching in both directions, back to the nothingness before anything happened and forward to the nothingness after everything is over. And if everything has a beginning and also a end then this was just the middle.” By virtue of owning the conclusion, and it’s a moving one, McHale brings order to the whole; given the scattered process, and the changes between and within each section, it feels remarkably cohesive and intentional. But metamorphosis is the soul of animation.

If “The Elephant,” described by the network as “a creative experience,” had appeared before it was already published, it would have certainly joined four other animated series — three from Adult Swim — on my list of 2025 favorites. It demands a second viewing, and you’ll want to watch “Behind the Elephant” to learn more. You may want to watch that twice as well.

Looking for a cosy UK weekend getaway this winter? This award-winning country pub ticks all the boxes, our writer Sam Kistamah found out on a recent stay there

Approaching The Gunton Arms, we quickly realised it’s not your average local. It is a pub, but one set in a 1,000-acre deer park near Cromer in rural Norfolk, kitted out in furnishings to rival posh department store Liberty and with walls covered in art by the likes of Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. And there’s a restaurant that’s in the Michelin Guide too. The deer park surrounds the 18th-century Gunton Hall, and The Gunton Arms was originally a farm that became the second house to Gunton Hall.

After careful restoration by art dealer Ivor Braka (hence the amazing collection), The Gunton Arms opened as a pub with bedrooms in 2011, and earlier this year was listed in the top 20 of The Good Food Guide’s best British pubs.

The food at The Gunton Arms

The Elk Room restaurant is dominated by a giant Irish elk skull, which hangs over an open fire. That’s where chef Stuart Tattersall cooks local fare, including venison from the deer park and beef from the Blickling Estate. Being four miles from the coast, The Gunton Arms also offers seafood, including a popular Cromer crab pasta dish.

We began with fried cod cheeks with caper and bronze fennel mayonnaise, and mixed beets with pickled walnuts and Binham blue. We loved the tender nuggets of cod with their zingy sauce, and the sweet beets were beautifully contrasted by creamy blue cheese and tangy slivers of walnut.

For mains, we devoured the sirloin steak, which had been perfectly cooked on the fire, and came with roast potatoes and a jug of Béarnaise sauce, and the roasted halibut special, accompanied by a buttery spinach and chive sauce and tasty Portland cockles. As keen dessert fans, we inhaled the Norfolk treacle tart with clotted cream and buttermilk pudding with honeyed fig.

The next day, we had lunch at The Gunton Arms’ sister pub The Suffield Arms, which serves outstanding Mediterranean tapas. Highlights included the corn ribs with mojito mayonnaise, and the white Andalusian prawns with garlic and chilli.

The rooms at The Gunton Arms

There are 16 rooms and we stayed in the stunning Rocksavage suite, which gave us some major inspiration for our own home renovation with its muted tones and carefully chosen pieces of art and dark wood furniture. Everything, from the marble bathroom with its roll-top tub to the sumptuous bed, oozed elegance. While the suite was traditionally decorated, we appreciated the Nespresso machine and Roberts radio, and the Norfolk Natural Living toiletries were a nice touch too.

What is there to do around The Gunton Arms?

You can explore the deer park but we were told not to approach the herd as it was rutting season when we visited – we loved watching them from the pub garden while enjoying a glass of chilled Gavi. The pretty seaside town of Cromer is a 10-minute drive away, and the pub is an ideal base for visiting the beautiful North Norfolk coast. With its towering sand dunes, Holkham Beach is a must-see spot that’s loved by the royals as it’s close to Sandringham.

How much does it cost to stay at The Gunton Arms?

Rooms at The Gunton Arms start from £145 per night.

Looking for a cosy UK weekend getaway this winter? This award-winning country pub ticks all the boxes, our writer Sam Kistamah found out on a recent stay there

Approaching The Gunton Arms, we quickly realised it’s not your average local. It is a pub, but one set in a 1,000-acre deer park near Cromer in rural Norfolk, kitted out in furnishings to rival posh department store Liberty and with walls covered in art by the likes of Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. And there’s a restaurant that’s in the Michelin Guide too. The deer park surrounds the 18th-century Gunton Hall, and The Gunton Arms was originally a farm that became the second house to Gunton Hall.

After careful restoration by art dealer Ivor Braka (hence the amazing collection), The Gunton Arms opened as a pub with bedrooms in 2011, and earlier this year was listed in the top 20 of The Good Food Guide’s best British pubs.

The food at The Gunton Arms

The Elk Room restaurant is dominated by a giant Irish elk skull, which hangs over an open fire. That’s where chef Stuart Tattersall cooks local fare, including venison from the deer park and beef from the Blickling Estate. Being four miles from the coast, The Gunton Arms also offers seafood, including a popular Cromer crab pasta dish.

We began with fried cod cheeks with caper and bronze fennel mayonnaise, and mixed beets with pickled walnuts and Binham blue. We loved the tender nuggets of cod with their zingy sauce, and the sweet beets were beautifully contrasted by creamy blue cheese and tangy slivers of walnut.

For mains, we devoured the sirloin steak, which had been perfectly cooked on the fire, and came with roast potatoes and a jug of Béarnaise sauce, and the roasted halibut special, accompanied by a buttery spinach and chive sauce and tasty Portland cockles. As keen dessert fans, we inhaled the Norfolk treacle tart with clotted cream and buttermilk pudding with honeyed fig.

The next day, we had lunch at The Gunton Arms’ sister pub The Suffield Arms, which serves outstanding Mediterranean tapas. Highlights included the corn ribs with mojito mayonnaise, and the white Andalusian prawns with garlic and chilli.

The rooms at The Gunton Arms

There are 16 rooms and we stayed in the stunning Rocksavage suite, which gave us some major inspiration for our own home renovation with its muted tones and carefully chosen pieces of art and dark wood furniture. Everything, from the marble bathroom with its roll-top tub to the sumptuous bed, oozed elegance. While the suite was traditionally decorated, we appreciated the Nespresso machine and Roberts radio, and the Norfolk Natural Living toiletries were a nice touch too.

What is there to do around The Gunton Arms?

You can explore the deer park but we were told not to approach the herd as it was rutting season when we visited – we loved watching them from the pub garden while enjoying a glass of chilled Gavi. The pretty seaside town of Cromer is a 10-minute drive away, and the pub is an ideal base for visiting the beautiful North Norfolk coast. With its towering sand dunes, Holkham Beach is a must-see spot that’s loved by the royals as it’s close to Sandringham.

How much does it cost to stay at The Gunton Arms?

Rooms at The Gunton Arms start from £145 per night.