review

The kid in the candy shop is Eli Roth with a gore budget and in the “Hostel” director’s latest bloody romp, “Ice Cream Man,” there’s a decidedly childlike giddiness from behind the camera to accompany the sicko suburban carnage depicted onscreen. Where others might view a “Village of the Damned” scenario as dread-inducing, Roth hears the bell for recess.

That doesn’t necessarily translate to a successful film. Little things like style, narrative command and character still matter, and Roth, who wrote “Ice Cream Man” with Noah Belson and even gives himself a role, is decidedly more of a smart-ass vaudevillian than a skilled filmmaker. (“Thanksgiving” was better as an impish sideshow teased as a trailer in “Grindhouse” than as a standalone feature years later.) And while that same belief in the lasting entertainment value of jokey splat-itude gives “Ice Cream Man” its occasional well-churned moments, it eventually undercuts Roth’s own semi-worthy bid to rattle us as the best horror movies can.

With its sunny elevator-music-scored opening of cheery park scenes and leafy residential neighborhoods, “Ice Cream Man” sets itself up, not unappealingly, like a Norman Rockwell painting asking to be vandalized. Next comes the arrival of a tinkling blue ice cream truck manned by an eerily silent, smiling, wraith-like purveyor (Ari Millen) with a John Waters mustache. He hands out his goodies free of charge, and the town’s children converge excitedly, then head home with colorfully smeared faces and a peculiarly quiet demeanor — except for easily bullied Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), who’s lactose intolerant and nobody’s friend anyway, after losing the ballgame for his team.

But when his ice cream-eating schoolmates begin slaughtering their parents overnight, seemingly fueled by the wafting sound of the truck jingle and old-timey black-and-white animations invading their phones, Jared seems like the lucky one. At school the next day, the cold-eyed stares of dairy-slopped grade-schoolers befuddles the teachers (“Is this some sort of zombie pajama day challenge?” is one of the better reaction lines) as well as unsuspecting Jared, along with two other unaltered classmates, Mia (Kiori Waldman) and Tommy (Shiloh O’Reilly). Then the ice cream man returns to refuel his targeted customers, who try to convert our well-cast, engaging trio of young double-scoop holdouts. Things get sticky.

A daytime massacre, built around gleefully homicidal children in full kill mode against adults, contains visuals designed to forever alter how you see tetherball, rope-skipping and cat’s cradle (plus a quasi-amusing shout-out to “The Birds”). It’s clear Roth was aiming for a blood-and-guts tour de force, which this both is and isn’t. Even after Jared and the gang escape the slayground to a church where they get the ice cream man’s backstory from a cowardly priest (Benjamin Byron Davis), genuine scares aren’t really in play here, just taboo snickers.

Then again, the carefully calibrated blend of dark humor, weirdness and sheer terror that made last year’s “Weapons” a rapturous nightmare about creepy children isn’t what Roth is after (or cares to do). He’s got a super-soaker “Goonies”-meets-early-Peter Jackson mindset and a list of clever kills to execute. Time’s a wastin’.

So a pinch of surprising depth proves to be the most unwieldy move when Roth unveils a resonantly nasty surprise for his story’s endgame. The impact is muted because it instantly clarifies how needlessly trivial everything before it was. Maybe someday, Roth will temper his empty-calories instincts and make more of a meal out of his twisted ideas.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. It’s too hot. I’m convinced that the Earth has been torn from its orbit and is hurtling toward the sun.

Trade deadline review

The Dodgers made some acquisitions at the deadline, the big one being Tarik Skubal. Let’s take a look:

Acquired Skubal from the Tigers for minor leaguers Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith

Andrew Friedman recently told reporters, “There just aren’t that many star-level players in the game. Any time one is available, we’re always going to participate in those conversations.”

Participate he did, as the Dodgers got the top player available. Skubal won the last two AL Cy Young Awards when he went 18-4 with a 2.39 ERA in 2024 and 13-6 with a 2.21 ERA last season, leading the league in ERA both seasons. He also led in strikeouts in 2024 with 228. Last season he struck out 241. You can see all of his stats here.

Skubal was taken by Detroit out of Seattle University in the ninth round of the 2018 draft. He reached the majors in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, going 1-4 with a 5.63 ERA in eight starts. He has gotten better each season since until this season, where he is 7-6 with an ERA of “only” 2.81.

Skubal was born in Hayward, Calif., on Nov. 20, 1996. He was a freshman All-American for Seattle in 2015, then missed most of the 2016 and all of the 2017 season after having Tommy John surgery. He pitched again in 2018 and was drafted by Detroit.

After winning his second Cy Young last season, he set the arbitration record by getting $32 million for 2026 (the Tigers had countered with $19 million). On May 4 this season, he had surgery to remove loose bodies in his pitching elbow (the same surgery Edwin Díaz had). He came back on June 13 and since then he has gone 4-4 with a 2.88 ERA in 59.1 innings, giving up 43 hits and walking 10 while striking out 77. The Dodgers will be on the hook for about $10 million of his salary this season.

Was this a good trade? Well, for now, yes, as the Dodgers are a better team with Skubal than without him. Long term, it depends on a lot of things. Will he be a key factor if they win the title again? He’s a free agent after this season, will the Dodgers re-sign him? Will the three prospects the Dodgers gave up turn out to be good to great major leaguers?

In 1987, Detroit was battling for the AL East and pulled off a deadline deal, acquiring Doyle Alexander from the Atlanta Braves. Alexander went 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA for the Tigers, who won the division thanks in large part to that. So, a great trade, right?

Well, Alexander retired two years later, and the prospect the Tigers sent to the Braves turned out to be pretty good: John Smoltz.

Hope, 21, is an outfielder who has hit at every level of the minor leagues. He is hitting .291/.368/.525 at double-A this season. He is considered by all sources to be one of the top 100 prospects in baseball, ranked 63rd by Baseball America, 27th by MLB and 18th by Baseball Prospectus.

Ryan, who turns 28 this month, pitched for the Dodgers in 2024, with a 1.33 ERA in four starts. He has been hampered by injuries ever since. He had arm surgery in August 2024 that sidelined him for the 2025 season. He made eight starts for triple-A Oklahoma City this season, with a 4.46 ERA. He has great stuff, but his age and injury history indicates he might never get a real chance to show it.

Smith, 21, was drafted in the third round in 2023. He missed the 2024 season because of injuries. He made only nine starts with a 6.00 ERA last season and in 21 starts in Class A ball this season, he was 0-7 with a 4.36 ERA, striking out 113 in 74.1 innings.

Acquired Ben Rortvedt from the New York Mets for Chayce McDermott

Rortvedt is a familiar name to Dodgers fans, as he filled in admirably when needed for Will Smith last season and took the backup catcher job from Dalton Rushing. He hit only .224/.309/.327, but he seemed to always get key hits, or laid down a bunt when needed. And the pitching staff loved him. It was as if he had been a Dodgers catcher for years. Look at the team ERA by catcher last season:

Rortvedt, 2.89 (140.1 innings)
Rushing, 3.87 (325.1)
Smith, 4.00 (865.1)
Chuckie Robinson, 5.14 (seven)
Austin Barnes, 5.16 (103)

Doesn’t it seem like Barnes has been off the team for a few seasons already?

McDermott has a career 12.00 ERA in 15 major league innings.

Acquired Hunter Feduccia and Jacob Kmatz from the Tampa Bay Rays for Jack Suwinski and $250,000 in international bonus pool money

The Dodgers acquired another old friend by getting Feduccia, who is also a catcher. He played in eight games for the Dodgers in 2024 and 2025 before he was traded to Tampa Bay for Rortvedt and pitcher Paul Gervase. Feduccia is one of those Dodger prospects who never panned out, as he is hitting .207/.297/.290 in 104 major league games. But, he knows the Dodger pitching staff and the Dodgers are better with Rortvedt/Feduccia than with Robinson/Eliezer Alfonzo.

The reason the Dodgers acquired two catchers is because of some bad news. Rushing has a torn UCL in his right elbow and more than likely won’t be able to play catcher again this season, though he may be able to serve as a right-handed pinch-hitter. With Rushing out, and Will Smith still sidelined by his neck injury, the Dodgers turned toward defense. Neither Rortvedt nor Feduccia have proven to be starting catchers, but they have been solid backups. The question is, who will get the most playing time the rest of the way? They both bat left-handed.

Acquired pitcher Kris Bubic from the Kansas City Royals for Carlos Duran

This reminds me of the trade for Danny Duffy at the 2021 deadline. Duffy was a good pitcher who was injured, but the Dodgers hoped he would return in time to help down the stretch during the 2021 season. He didn’t return. They signed him in the offseason hoping he would return from injury to help during the season. He didn’t return. He then retired.

Bubic was on the 60-day IL for the Royals, and is on that IL for the Dodgers. He was an All-Star last season for the Royals, finishing the season 8-7 with a 2.55 ERA in 20 starts (116 innings). He was 3-2 with a 4.11 ERA in nine starts this season before going on the IL because of shoulder soreness. The Dodgers hope he can return before the end of the month.

But let’s not hold our breath awaiting that, OK?

Duran, 25, had a 3.38 ERA in 42.2 innings at triple-A Oklahoma City.

Acquired reliever Seth Halvorsen from the Colorado Rockies for Nick Frasso and Landyn Vidourek

This trade happened on July 20, but we will include it. Halvorsen was, wait for it, on the 15-day IL for the Rockies because of shoulder inflammation. He is currently off the IL and has pitched 5.1 scoreless innings at Oklahoma City. He reaches 100 on the radar gun and has a 4.31 career ERA in 71 innings in the majors.

Frasso, 27, was selected in the fourth round by Toronto in the 2020 draft, was sent to the Dodgers for Mitch White in 2022 and never reached the majors with L.A. He had shoulder surgery before the 2024 season and sat out the season.

Vidourek, 22, an outfielder, was chosen by the Dodgers in the third round of the 2025 draft. He has power but strikes out a lot, fanning 141 times in 317 at-bats in the minors, where he is hitting .205/.357/.369.

So, there you have it. Your new Dodgers. The Dodgers are a better team today than they were before the deadline. It guarantees nothing though. They got Yu Darvish and Max Scherzer in previous years and did not win the title.

The Dodgers rotation, if everyone is healthy:

Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Skubal
Shohei Ohtani
Blake Snell
Tyler Glasnow

Next in line: Justin Wrobleski, Roki Sasaki, Eric Lauer, Emmet Sheehan.

Here’s what the other NL contenders did. I won’t comment, because this newsletter is long enough already and there’s still another item after this one, but if you click on each player’s name, you will be taken to their stat page at baseball-reference.com.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Acquired Lars Nootbaar from the St. Louis Cardinals for Daniel Eagen, Sandro Santana and a player to be named later.

Atlanta Braves

Acquired Tyler Uberstine from the Boston Red Sox for Eli White.
Acquired Duncan Davitt from the Chicago White Sox for Joey Bart.
Acquired Brent Suter from the Angels for Nacho Alvarez Jr.
Acquired Tyler Mahle from the San Francisco Giants for Anthony Molina.
Acquired Lane Thomas and Bailey Falter from the Kansas City Royals for Carter Holton and Lucas Braun.

Chicago Cubs

Acquired Kevin Gausman from the the Toronto Blue Jays for Brett Bateman and Ty Southisene.
Acquired Clay Holmes and Tyrone Taylor from the New York Mets for Jefferson Rojas.
Acquired Ryan Zeferjahn from the Angels for Moises Ballesteros and Mason McGwire.
Acquired Braxton Garrett from the Miami Marlins for Jonathon Long and Jace Beck.
Acquired Aaron Civale and cash from the Athletics for Aiden Moffett.
Acquired David Peterson from the New York Mets for Cole Mathis.

Miami Marlins

Acquired Brandan Bidois, Hyun Seung Lee, and Brian Sanchez from the Pittsburgh Pirates for Lake Bachar.
Acquired Victor Vodnik from the Colorado Rockies for Connor Norby and Aiden May.
Acquired Jonathon Long and Jace Beck from the Chicago Cubs for Braxton Garrett.
Acquired Brayden Taylor, Adrian Santana and Jacob Kisting from the Tampa Bay Rays for Liam Hicks.

Milwaukee Brewers

Acquired Antonio Senzatela from the Colorado Rockies for Mark Manfredi and Juan Martinez.
Acquired Dustin May and JoJo Romero from the St. Louis Cardinals for Alexander Frias and Josiah Ragsdale.
Acquired Bo Naylor and Codi Heuer from the Cleveland Guardians for Blake Perkins and Craig Yoho.
Acquired Braden Shewmake from the Houston Astros for cash considerations.

Philadelphia Phillies

Acquired Luis Arraez and Caleb Kilian from the San Francisco Giants for Ramon Marquez and Marty Gair.
Acquired Colby Thomas from the Athletics for Seth Johnson.
Acquired Manuel Colon and cash considerations from the Kansas City Royals for Nolan Hoffman.
Acquired Brooks Raley from the New York Mets for Luke Gabrysh and John Spikerman.

San Diego Padres

Acquired Robbie Ray from Giants for Miguel Mendez and Joniel Hernandez.
Acquired Hunter Stratton from Pirates for Andrew Moore.
Acquired Casey Mize and Gage Workman from Tigers for Kash Mayfield and Jackson Wolf.

For full reports on all the trades across the majors, I suggest visiting mlbtraderumors.com.

What, me worry?

So, the Dodgers have lost six in a row and were swept in two consecutive series. Time to worry or panic?

To find the last time the Dodgers lost six in a row and were swept in consecutive series, you have to go all the way back to … July 2025. The Dodgers woke up on July 4 leading the NL West by nine games. They then proceeded to get swept twice:

lost to Houston, 18-1
lost to Houston, 6-4
lost to Houston, 5-1
lost to Milwaukee, 9-1
lost to Milwaukee, 3-1
lost to Milwaukee, 3-2

The then lost their first game against the Giants, 8-7. After that, they were in first place by only four games.

Then they won two in a row and lost three more in a row. They went 5-13 over one stretch that month and went 10-14 in July. They lost five in a row to start September. They ended up winning the division by three games, but did not get a first-round bye.

My memory fails me, what happened in the postseason last season?

If the Dodgers get a couple of major injuries and lose like 15 in a row, then we can begin to panic. But they are going to make the postseason, and anything can happen in the postseason. They could be swept in the first round, they could win it all again. It’s all part of the ride.

Up next

Friday: Dodgers (Roki Sasaki, 5-5, 4.64 ERA) at Arizona (Merrill Kelly, 8-9, 5.04 ERA), 6:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Saturday: Dodgers (Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 11-7, 2.76 ERA) at Arizona (Brandon Pfaadt, 6-1, 3.66 ERA), 5:10 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Sunday: Dodgers (*Justin Wrobleski, 11-3, 3.31 ERA) at Arizona (*Eduardo Rodriguez, 10-4, 2.71 ERA), 1:10 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

All times Pacific

*-left-handed

In case you missed it

Shohei Ohtani, Pete Crow-Armstrong put on a show as NL MVP talk heats up: ‘He’s a great player’

‘Dodgers do all the right things.’ Tarik Skubal dismisses the ‘ruining baseball’ critics

Two of Rob Reiner’s children pay tribute to their late parents with Dodgers ceremonial first pitches

Dodgers add catchers Ben Rortvedt and Hunter Feduccia, pitcher Kris Bubic at trade deadline

Dodgers Debate: The Dodgers will stop at nothing to win

Inside the aggressive push Andrew Friedman and Dodgers made to acquire Tarik Skubal

Shaikin: ‘L.A. is America’s team.’ But the Brewers should have been Tarik Skubal’s team

Plaschke: Tarik Skubal trade brings Dodgers hate, envy … and another championship

And finally

Vin Scully is interviewed by Roy Firestone. Watch and listen here.

Until next time …

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” is a witty, gory slasher-romance that feels so personal to writer-director Jane Schoenbrun that they’ve essentially sliced out their soul and smeared it on the screen.

“Hacks’” Hannah Einbinder plays a rising director named Kris, a Sundance darling and Schoenbrun avatar of sorts who wants to convince a long-forgotten scream queen named Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) to star in her next movie. It’s a resurrection of the fictitious “Camp Miasma” franchise, a hack-’em-up about hormonal camp counselors slaughtered by a gender-bending, spear-wielding killer called Little Death, who has an air-conditioning vent for a face. (The reason why sort of makes sense when you see his lair.) Billy played the final girl in the 1983 original film, then disappeared. And so Kris heads out to Billy’s snowbound hideaway — which just so happens to be where the movie was shot.

Young Billy (a riveting Amanda Fix) imprinted on Kris in a way she can’t articulate. Smoking weed with the real woman will hopefully help. Anderson’s Billy steps out of the shadows with a full face of femme fatale makeup and a syrupy Dolly Parton drawl, promptly serving Kris enough fried chicken to feed a bobsled team. Has Anderson ever had more fun onscreen? Her performance presents as camp, but her dynamic range of loud cackles and quiet glances is fabulous.

Acting in a film within a film, Fix’s version of teenage Billy is so nervous it seems impossible she’ll become Anderson’s diva. You can practically hear the girl’s heart beating so loud that it breaks your own. The two Billys almost snatch the movie from under its lead. But then toward the climax, Einbinder has a powerful close-up that puts the film back in her pocket. (Metaphorically, that is — by then, her character isn’t wearing any pants.)

Kris’ breakout movie was a high-concept inversion of “Psycho” told through the shower curtain’s POV. Yet she’s well aware that the studio hired her to rescue the “Camp Miasma” franchise not for her genius but because she’s queer and the internet has deemed Little Death “problematic.” The satirical scenes of Kris’ agent (Sarah Sherman) getting annoyed that her client can’t pitch a four-quadrant movie are hilarious while also ringing of truth.

Likewise, Schoenbrun specializes in zeitgeisty fables about 21st century isolation. Their own debut, the 2021 micro-budget internet thriller “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” was simultaneously mesmerizing and tedious, a mental breakdown that burrowed so deeply inside its own world that several COVID-era high schoolers I know felt like it had been made just for them.

A strange thing about Schoenbrun is that even when I haven’t liked their work, I’ve left the theater certain that I just watched what will be someone else’s favorite film of all time. (The affectless disassociation of 2024’s “I Saw the TV Glow” drove me bonkers.) Yet “Camp Miasma” finds Schoenbrun bravely opening up and getting vulnerable. It’s not just a lament about loneliness; it’s a challenge to change your perspective and maybe your life.

I suspect Schoenbrun could deliver a five-hour TED Talk on the pop cultural kitsch of “Friday the 13th’s” Jason Voorhees. They’re so fluent in how Hollywood squeezes the fun out of a franchise that they can convey “Camp Miasma’s” descent into schlock in a sprightly opening montage that sees Little Death become a trading card, a bobblehead, an 8-bit video game, an anti-drug spokesman and a novelty rapper. Over 13 sequels, the character’s trail of nubile corpses stretches from Manhattan to Mars to Quibi.

Kris pops in a disc of “Camp Miasma’s” tawdry 2008 reboot, which cinematographer Eric Yue makes look as flat as the discounted DVD. As that movie’s disposable bimbo strips off her top, the score cranks up a porno-chic song and Kris scribbles the word “desire” in her notebook in all caps. But the contrast between that sham seduction footage and a 35mm reel of the original “Camp Miasma” is like night and day — or rather, trash and art. Kris and Billy watch that one together in an intimate sleepover, sinking into the murky texture of a scene in which the virginal actor allowed a jerk to take off her clothes.

Schoenbrun loves the movie-ness of movies. You can see their devotion in outdoor backdrops that are deliriously false, in sight gags that reference Cronenberg and Carpenter or in production design that includes the perfect nostalgic ’90s video store carpet. Inside Billy’s private movie theater, the projector beams down on the back of Anderson’s head like that infamous Nicole Kidman AMC promo. Maybe I’m loopy, but I’d even swear the entrance to Billy’s screening room has a handmade mural of the Roku City screensaver. Watch for clues when the storyline we’re watching becomes its own nested narrative.

Horror fans waiting for jump scares will be thwarted. At least there are several sequences of macabre murder-comedy with blood geysers shooting up to the sky and a tracking shot through a killing spree that’s a riot. The soundtrack sets a more accurate tone right away with a gentle cover of R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming” that segues into Alex G’s dreamy synths. Yet Schoenbrun’s needle drops also seem to have been chosen to make the audience chuckle. A massacre set to the Counting Crows’ piano-and-accordion ballad “A Long December” is bizarre. (The only excuse I can think of is that Little Death hibernates at the bottom of a frozen lake?)

It feels like a magic trick when the film finally reveals where it’s going. “Teenage Sex and Death” is about climbing out of your head, admitting what you want and allowing yourself to enjoy it. Sexually, yes — that’s right in the title — and creatively, too, as Schoenbrun wants us to keep loving movies that make us squirm.

Lately, it’s been hard to talk about difficult art, with culture warriors deeming entire filmographies unworthy of enjoyment. People have gotten so used to preemptively apologizing for what they like that their mea culpas feel as reflexive as a sneeze. But Schoenbrun sticks up for the right to forgive a movie’s flaws. Here, when Kris anxiously whispers that a scene in the first “Camp Miasma” is transphobic, Billy gives her a shush.

We’ve all got our kinks, including ones for canceled flicks. (I still adore “Revenge of the Nerds” despite its god-awful rape joke.) Kris can intellectualize her “Camp Miasma” fandom all she wants. But Billy counters that the appeal of “Camp Miasma” is simple: “It’s flesh and fluids,” she says. And since she’s still living in it, we believe her.

Every now and then a rom-com comes along with an absolutely ludicrous premise that we just sort of accept because it creates the unique conditions for watching a pair of budding movie stars fall in love. This year’s entrant is “One Night Only,” written by Travis Braun, directed by Will Gluck and set in a pretty familiar if spit-shiny New York City. The catch is that America, for some reason, has outlawed premarital sex, with the exception of one night a year, when singles can get their freak on. It’s like “The Purge” but for sex, so the Sex Purge.

Braun’s script was on the Black List, a collection of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, which tends to reward hooky, high-concept projects, often to mixed results. That is most definitely the case with “One Night Only,” a film that exists on the vapors of a bizarre plot and the appeal of hot actors.

You probably have a lot of questions, and “One Night Only” is only going to satisfy some of them. How does the government police the premarital sex? With bio-sensors, of course, as explained by a drunken tech bro (Nicholas Braun) in an exclusive lounge. Singles receive small tattoos that turn from red to green during the 12 hours that premarital sex is permitted, body modifications that measure things like oxytocin and dopamine and whether one sensor is in close proximity to another. Sexual acts that are solo, distanced or parallel are permitted, yet many questions still remain about the kinds of hookups that can be had during the mandated ban.

The why of it all is much less satisfactory. An upbeat news report explains that rates of teen pregnancy are down, which is a very 1980s justification. The whole gambit feels dated and underexplored, both conceptually and politically — so you’re saying single straight people are an oppressed sexual minority? Maybe that idea should have been unpacked a little bit more.

On the night of the Sex Purge, the streets are flooded with attractive, thin, largely heterosexual couples making out all over the place. Perish the thought of being single and vulnerable, as they say on “Love Island,” on such a night, which is how we find our two winsome protagonists, Owen (Callum Turner) and Allie (“A Complete Unknown’s” Monica Barbaro). Owen’s a pizza maker whose girlfriend (Maya Hawke) wants to explore someone else; advertising jingle singer Allie has been ditched by her best friend (King Princess) for a prince.

These two strangers are both despondent and desperate. When they bump into each other on the street, a meet-cute turns into a meet-puke, and so the story follows an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers track, as they spend one crazy night continually running into each other on their increasingly urgent sex quest. The script does a good job of throwing up plausible obstacles and sticky situations for these two to navigate: price-gouged condoms, police raids, catfishing, injuries, parental ambushes, etc.

Turner and Barbaro have charm up the wazoo, and Gluck does a fair amount of key-jangling to distract from the nagging issues of the premise itself. There are repeated gags about Allie’s job singing covers of popular songs reworked for pharmaceutical companies and almost too many celebrity cameos. Every time a celeb’s face pops up it’s essentially an “ooh, shiny thing!” moment so that we stop thinking about the intricacies of the world where Sex Purge happens. Allie’s hopeless romanticism isn’t well-established, and there’s a whole complicated climax (no pun intended) involving the Empire State Building that could have been a lot smoother and more intuitive.

Allie’s most impressive feat is making it 12 hours in New York City in spike heels and a sequined micro-mini, but rom-coms are the stuff of fantasy anyway. Yet “One Night Only” doesn’t present us with fun escapism but, rather, a misguided, underbaked and very straight-guy fantasy of what something like this might look like, which is essentially … lots of people kissing in public? It’s tame and weirdly conservative.

Turner and Barbaro give it their best, but not even their charisma can reliably bolster the inherent structural flaws of this concept and its execution. “One Night Only” feels purged of a brain.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

LOVE ME TENDER

(15) 134mins

★★★★☆

BREAK-UPS can be horribly complicated, especially when there are children involved.

This emotionally intelligent, exquisitely acted film shows the depths of despair warring couples can go to over a custody battle.

We meet Clémence (Vicky Krieps), a former lawyer, who has separated from her husband, Laurent (Antoine Reinartz). The split is amicable, and they are raising their young son, Paul, who lives with his dad.

But unbeknown to her ex, Clémence, who has quit her job to write, is now exploring her sexuality and having relationships with multiple women.

An awkward evening drink with Laurent reveals how he is clearly still in love with Clémence, while she makes it clear her desires lie in women.

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This suddenly changes everything between the pair, with Laurent claiming Paul doesn’t want to see her during her next visit.

The scenes are not overplayed with emotion, but are slowly devastating as Clémence struggles with the sudden change in a family arrangement that was so comfortable before.

Soon, authorities are brought in, and horrific claims are made against Clémence’s character.

She is only able to see Paul at supervised visits in a soulless social service office.

All this unfolds in a slow exhale on screen rather than an explosion, with Clémence juggling heartbreak and frustration with various relationships, her ill father and her career.

Adapted from Constance Debré’s 2020 novel, director Anna Cazenave Cambet allows this distressing story to show the huge problems that parents’ egos can cause for their child’s future.

Krieps is sensational in the role, allowing her face to portray so many emotions and carrying huge emotional strain.

While Clémence is the focal point of the audience’s sympathy, she, too, can be self-absorbed and a little cruel to lovers.

This shows she is human rather than just a victim. The story never gets bogged down in courtroom battles, but rather lingers on little moments Clémence feels as her time with her precious son slips away.

Running over two hours, these are perhaps overused, and the pace is unapologetically slow in many scenes.

But with stand-out acting from Krieps, it makes this film feel voyeuristic, as it is so natural, and while in emotional agony, we all still just carry on.

HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE

(12A) 101mins

★★★★★

IN celebration of its tenth anniversary, this charming offbeat comedy is being re-released in cinemas for a new generation to enjoy.

And, the bonus, of course, it also brings the recently deceased and hugely talented Sam Neill back to the big screen.

Set in the sweeping countryside of New Zealand, it is the story of “Uncle Hec” (Neill), a grumpy foster father who is delivered a troublesome child, Ricky (Julian Dennison), by the welfare services.

The pair soon spark a full-on search when they set off on a bizarre outback adventure.

Dennison’s performance is both comedy and tragedy, going from an offensive teen obsessed with being “gangster” to an abandoned child looking for emotional security.

And Neill manages to step away from caricature to make Hec layered and empathetic.

But there’s a refreshing lack of cliché and sentimentality, too. The characters don’t simply transform into different people just because they have experienced getting lost in the wilderness together.

Directed by Taika Waititi, it’s still the best buddy movie since Up in 2009.

NIMRODS

(15) 116mins

★★☆☆☆

THIS overly complicated coming-of-age film is somewhat based on punk-pop band Green Day.

Yet, while it features the US rockers, is full of their songs and has a storyline that revolves around getting to their gig, it lacks the ­confidence to be about them entirely, which is a shame.

School dropout Tommy (Mason Thames) is a huge fan and receives a phone call from his pranking older brother, inviting his garage grunge band to open for Green Day.

So he and his pals hit the road in a stolen taxi with barely a penny to their name, believing they are going to perform at a huge gig, with no prior experience, record agent or links to anyone in the industry. Just one prank phone call.

Inspired by the real band’s early days touring in vans before the release of breakout album Dookie in 1994, this film takes place in modern times but could easily be set in the Nineties.

And it probably should have been. With the great soundtrack and nostalgic footage of the real band at the end, it leaves you craving a documentary on Billie Joe Armstrong and co.

In cinemas from Tuesday.

A chapbook by Henry Opeyemi 

Publisher: Felis Catus Press

“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”

T.S. Eliot

Henry Opeyemi is an oracle, and this chapbook is a miracle of sorts; it is a prayer of consolation, a hymn, a psalm, a song that gives birth to awakening after awakening, enlightenment after enlightenment. It starts with conscientising and ends by raising a phoenix-like awareness of boyhood and its challenges on the African continent. Where Rumi, Khalil Gibran, Weldon Kees, Mzi Mahola, and Ken Saro-Wiwa walked, where Rethabile Masilo walks, now Henry Opeyemi walks alongside these giants. There was Derek Walcott, Langston Hughes, those constellations feeding galaxies, and now there is Henry Opeyemi.

Perhaps all poets have an innate sense of clairvoyance. They can recognise the pains of the land, the masculine and feminine pains of the vessel of an African body, the psychological torment, the mental despair, the stigmatized struggle, the social alienation, the estrangement from the land of our ancestors, and the unbearable loneliness that every waking moment a poet experiences, lives with, suffers from, and the devastation of the internal landscape of the wounded children of Africa. Yes, yes, yes. Henry Opeyemi has turned blood into ink, and the veins are enriched with shelter.

These poems, each one “peeling itself into joy” (from the poem, Wanderers on pg.5).

This manuscript cleanses like the sea. Writing is a spiritual act, a spiritual dance. It is meditative and comes with instructions. It is sacred. When the hand of God moves through the pen, the poet must obey, and Henry Opeyemi has obeyed. The title of this chapbook speaks about black vulnerability, black stigma, the rallying cry of injustice and inequality, systemic racism, the undertow of the vision of poverty-stricken, disenfranchised and marginalised Africa. Henry Opeyemi writes about miracles in the same breath that he confronts suicide ideation, and when he writes, as he does in his dedication, “of the land of his youth”, he is addressing the social ills of the day, he is speaking to every man, woman, youth and child on the African continent. 

The dedication is a searing polemic, a testimony to a time that came before, and that sadly, heartwrenchingly still exists. The bittersweet river of the sands of time through the hourglass, the tapestry of exile, the memory of the silent witness, the memory of the historian and recorder and poet, the novel dispensation that we are living and co-existing in with the pains of a wandering soul, and history, have not erased anything. We, as African poets, living on the African continent beset with problems of despair and conflict, a continent ravaged by “hungry bowls” as the poet writes, we are the angry souls, the grief, heartbreak and emptiness of our rages.

There is beauty in the poetic sense and sensibility of Henry Opeyemi, and a sense of isolation. Every poet from this continent writes about what we have faced, endured, survived (colonialism, liberation, independence, civil war), and the terrible price we have had to pay, the debts of love of our mothers, the considerable debts of love of the maternal figures in our lives. There is the moral distress, the psychiatric distress, and cry of the poet, the language of moral decay in these verses, and the injury, the sickness, the mental tension, the utter mental turmoil and devastation, and the moral distress of the decay of the mind, of the psychological framework, of the alienation, the social ineptitude and isolation, the rejection from the church, from the community, from society who has labeled the citizens and inhabitants of African descent as interlopers, from the immediate and maternal and paternal family of the individual, of the poet.

Henry Opeyemi is the poetic version of Moses Molelekwa, and in his verses abound “genes and spirits”, ancestral kingdoms and bloodlines.

Every African writer, every African novelist and African poet who lives on the continent and finds themselves elsewhere in the world, writes about stigma, whether they acknowledge this consciously or subconsciously. It is written on the blueprint of our consciousness. Henry Opeyemi (remember this name) writes about the wounded child, the boy, the youth’s fractured sense of self and the youth’s spoiled identity, marginalised identity, wanting to seek validation and approval from the powers that be, from the same gender parent, from adult supervision, from their contemporaries, from leaders, from mentors. Every poet is a wanderer, a directionless nomad, a seeker, a believer if he has found the certainty of faith, of religious instructions and meditative practices. When I write, I write as an African, who lives on the African continent first and foremost; secondly, I write as a woman.

On these pages, a particular tenderness is personified in the writing. The wound is sacred and as omnipresent as the omega, and the grief our mothers have carried is a sacred kind of grief that their cells carried when they were in the womb of the maternal grandmother. The mother-figure is the portal, the origin of humanity. It is where the tension and spark of history coincide with the psychological repair, release and repair of life. 

The poet serves grief, heartbreak, their loneliness on a silver platter to humanity, like a beacon, an anchor, a lighthouse in the storm, like the being of light, like daybreak, like an oyster it is consumed, eaten, studied, investigated, and it is this noble endeavour, the practice of writing poetry about grief, heartbreak, and loneliness, that serves us, our collective humanity, exile and history, that is a remainder of colonialism that will last the test of time, that will serve as proof of evidence that we existed, that we were here, that this was our collective emotional pain on the face of the African continent.

The grief of Africa is, unfortunately, not bloodless. Even her tears are, in fact, tears of blood, of war, of strife, of conflict, of genocide. Poetry is our only method of self-defence. It is the survival, coping and defence mechanism of the novelist, the journalist, the filmmaker, the editor, most of all, the poet. It always has been since the onset of slavery and colonialism and independence. Henry Opeyemi does what poets have done before and after colonialism, he discusses emancipation, personal freedom, personal growth, missionary education, liberation, self-improvement, his youth, his Africa, he addresses the ritual of bone, blood, bowl, the question of God and religion, yes, how immortal religion defies and defines us, guides and interrogates us, he mentions the roles of Big Pharma, and the use of pharmaceuticals in society, are they of help or hindrance? He speaks about the mother-figure, the abandonment of Eve, the resurrection of Lady Macbeth on these pages. The mosque becomes an education, the mind of the young intellectual like a feverish young tree, eager for verdant-green growth, branches like limbs, eager to be acknowledged in a garden of other poets, all vying for attention and literary prizes, or, or, humility, imaginative grace, which is, to all intents and purposes more powerful than attention and literary prizes. 

Creative writing, the practice of writing poetry, is an intellectual pursuit. It is the cultural endeavour of the modern-day philosopher, and all poets are wanderers for an eternity of time.

Sidenote: Henry Opeyemi, welcome to the African Renaissance. May you mentor other poets, you, young poet, young leader, young intellectual. Africa is in good hands. Be, go forth, onwards and upwards; be as all princes from this continent who write poetry; be King of the World. Take the empire back. Build your own empires of gold from the dust of the colonial masters, from the powers that be.

Bravado, insecurity, deceit. These are the bitter ingredients that seasoned the chef Anthony Bourdain inside the pressure cooker of the restaurant industry. Set over one formative summer in 1975, Matt Johnson’s affectionately sleazy biopic “Tony” is a portrait of the culinary adventurer (who died by suicide in 2018 at the age of 61) as a snotty 19-year-old Vassar student who doesn’t know an oyster knife from his ego. “I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking,” Bourdain confessed in his 2000 bestseller “Kitchen Confidential,” a scorching memoir that elevated him from obscurity to damaged saint. “Tony” opens with that quote and proves it with scenes of boozing, puking and petty crime. Miraculously, it’s the most heartwarming comedy of the year.

Teenage Tony (a feral Dominic Sessa of “The Holdovers”) claims he’s already writing the next great American book, a navel-gazing bildungsroman — his word, not mine — in the key of Kerouac. Really, he’s just a middle-class kid from New Jersey who doesn’t expect to work for a living. Stalking his high school crush Nancy (a grounded Emilia Jones) to Provincetown, Mass., he begrudgingly supports himself with a dishwashing gig at the Flagship, a humble seafood joint. The kid is ashamed of blue-collar labor. That his rowdy co-workers think he sucks at it is worse. This taste of humiliation would change his destiny.

Under the tutelage of the Flagship’s idiosyncratic unnamed chef (Antonio Banderas), Tony will discover the importance of punctuality. A devilish shellfish-shucker (Leo Woodall, an intoxicating scamp) will also introduce him to cocaine. That first bump hits Tony with such a rush that the soundtrack explodes with boogielicious disco.

Sessa was born to prowl around wild-eyed in retro polyester. He relishes the fast and funny dialogue, flinging around fancy words that don’t mean a thing. At low emotional tide, Sessa’s Tony can also be watchful and quiet. He makes us hear the character’s silent inner schemes as loudly as when he’s actually blabbering.

Director Johnson (“BlackBerry” and the maniacally brilliant “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie”) and his co-screenwriters Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe have blended every hard-knock lesson that Bourdain learned across decades of job-hopping into one month of blood and sweat. Spiritually, it’s fantastic. Factually, it’s baloney, although “Tony” does restore the restaurant’s actual name — the Flagship — from Bourdain’s Dreadnaught, the pseudonym he gave it before he ever imagined future fans following him around the world. Mild spoiler alert: Readers of “Kitchen Confidential” will also know it’s dedicated to Nancy, who became his first wife.

The kitchen scenes are a combo platter of boot camp, frat house hazing ritual and kung fu movie. As Bourdain would later explain, he thrived in a setting where actions have instant consequences: a sore back, a sliced hand, a good meal. Burn the sandwich, toast it again; scrub every plate and punch out with pride. You can’t help but grin at Sessa’s hoot when his scrawny Tony finally manages to muscle a raw potato through a french-fry slicer. And at the end of a shift, he and his dysfunctional workplace family gather to share bowls of squid stew and taste the results of their work. Back in New Jersey, dinnertime with his biological family feels as cold and stale as their meal of frozen peas and store-bought white bread.

Banderas’ chef is the kind of mentor you’d expect to find on a mountaintop mediation retreat, starting over a half-dozen scenes coldly waking up the sleeping whippersnapper with a cold bucket of morning seawater to the face. As Banderas plays him, he’s a bearish marvel of a man with the kind of earthy soul that would have had Ernest Hemingway chugging salty dogs on his barstool all night. There’s a shot of Banderas biting into a tomato that’s pure bliss for him and us.

Whereas Tony talks a big game, squeezing Japanese words like boketto — the art of doing nothing — into conversation, Banderas shows us how to simply do it. (Likewise, a centerpiece montage makes penning a coming-of-age book look way lamer than than just living a full life.) Watching Banderas’ chef stare at the Atlantic, it may occur to you that a cook can no longer afford a waterfront shack on the sand. The film is too breezy to say so directly, but its emphasis on the value of honest work wants you to think it.

Watching Banderas spend a day simmering his own handcrafted ketchup simply to store it in repurposed Heinz bottles says everything about the guy’s devotion to food and his indifference toward marketing. It’s a little grating to see boorish Tony offer him business tips. It helps that some of his advice isn’t great.

“Tony” stays planted in its own immediate present, rarely hinting at the veers Bourdain’s biography will take. “Kitchen Confidential” won’t be published for another 25 years; his globe-trotting celebrity comes after that. Johnson keeps the tone so zingy and loose that you don’t have to know Bourdain at all to enjoy the movie. The ending even tacks on a let’s-save-our-hangout rally that could be Velcroed onto any ’80s comedy.

The script allows itself just two beats to squeeze out a knowing tear. The first comes when Tony describes his approach to writing: “I try to imagine interesting places I’ll probably never go, people I’ll never get to meet,” he says, unaware how much his horizons will one day expand. The second trickier and clumsier aside happens when Banderas’ chef tells Tony the tragedy of 17th century French cook François Vatel, who literally fell on his sword before serving a banquet to Louis XIV. Lore has it that Vatel didn’t have enough fish. The teenager doesn’t understand. “He killed himself? Why?” Tony repeatedly asks. That question will never have a satisfying answer.

Like a lazy Susan, today’s youth seem to be coming full circle to young Tony’s dilemma. He’s got one foot on the so-called safe path — college, white-collar isolation — and the other on a career that’s already covering him in well-earned scars. As employees are feeling insecure and replaceable, there are rumblings that the current crop of kids is gravitating back toward physical jobs and finding, as Tony did, that one can find fulfillment working with your hands. The stress of the kitchen didn’t make Tony a better man overnight. But it was the grit that grew a pearl.

Camp Bestival 2026 review – Britain’s happiest family festival proves there’s still nothing quite like it

What do you get if you cross two mini ice-cream cones with Ursula and King Triton from the Little Mermaid?

The wacky and immersive world of Camp Bestival of course!

Britain’s happiest family festival once again put on a show for not just the ages, but all ages.

For one glorious weekend each summer, the stunning grounds of Lulworth Castle in Dorset are transformed into what can only be described as a giant playground.

The brainchild of renowned music specialist Rob da Bank and creative director Josie da Bank, and founded in 2008, Camp Bestival is known as the UK’s ultimate family festival, having won Best Family Festival at the UK Festival Awards six times.

Created with a vision of reinventing family time, it has gone from strength to strength, and from personal experience as a multi-time Bestivaler, 2026 delivered one of its strongest editions yet.

While Camp Bestival has never been centred on drawing the crowds solely for big name headline acts, you’d be hard pushed to get a better line up than rave DJ Fatboy Slim, De La Soul, the Cuban Brothers, Billy Ocean, Leftfield and chart-topping Bastille, just to name a few.

For sure, these acts would pull in massive crowds at any venue round the country, but the magic for 30,000 festival goers in any year is what you will find away from the main stages.

Have you ever danced to a country band in a Pig’s Big Ballroom, or raved with your kids to a grammatically correct rap MC Grammar? No, then what are you waiting for?

For our family, two big kids (me and my wife Katie) and our two small humans, aged five and two, like so many others, running around sun soaked fields, listening to music, climbing giant robot sculptures (them not us!), riding a ferris wheel or letting loose on swinging chairs at the fun fare; this was a real chance to connect.

Let’s be honest, life can seem pretty tough these days. The news cycle can be overwhelming at times, then chuck in work, school, bills, exams, kids!

But as soon as you enter into this kaleidoscope of countryside colour, where bubble machines float across fields packed with picnics, children chasing giant puppets through woodland trails, and every pathway revealing another adventure waiting to be discovered, your worries can be a distant memory.

Unlike many festivals where the music is everything, Camp Bestival’s magic lies in the moments in between.

As we gathered for the annual trolley competition – the type you either haul to the beach or the park with your camping chairs in, or your exhausted children back to your tent after a day of festival fun – we were given a glimpse into how special this place can be.

The aforementioned mini ice-cream cones were two toddlers dressed up in exquisitely made papier mache inventions, alongside parents dressed as ice cream sellers and their vehicle imaginatively turned into a mobile ice cream stall.

Dozens of families queue patiently every year to show off their creative talents, but this particular entry had an added meaning.

As people clapped and cheered their flawless construction, the mum-of-two not only announced that she was pregnant – nine months and a week in fact! – but that she had just got the all clear from cancer and the festival was the family celebration of how far they had come.

I’ve always been impressed with how, unlike many large-scale events, at Camp Bestival there is an overwhelming sense that everyone was looking out for one another, but the cheers and applause that rang out in that moment was something magical.

And what more could you want from a weekend away with your loves ones?

Scenes where parents dance with toddlers on their shoulders to TV pranksters Dick & Dom, chats with Traitors star Joe Marler and the odd appearance from kids’ favourite Bluey – even on stage with Bastille – and teenagers queuing patiently for activities alongside parents and grandparents.

This is a place where children truly get to enjoy the rare freedom of exploring a safe, welcoming environment where imagination is not only encouraged, but pretty much mandatory, at every turn.

Festival founders Rob and Josie have spent years perfecting an event that understands exactly what families need.

Every year the festival revelers such as us also get a chance to play dress up and this year’s theme played homage to the Sunday headline act, Brighton boy Norman Cook, aka DJ Fatboy Slim,.

The 2026 At the Seaside Fancy Dress Competition was a full-blown celebration of British seaside spirit: swimmers, mermaids, jellyfish, lobsters, sailors, and a Baywatch themed lifeguard flashmob.

Yes, there are headline acts capable of filling arenas, but there are also puppet shows, storytelling sessions, outdoor adventures, comedy, wellbeing activities and enough arts and crafts to keep even the busiest little minds occupied for hours.

There are hundreds of free activities for families to explore from theatre, circus skills, science explorations, sports and immersive theatre through to amazing live acts and DJs, family raves, comedy, award-winning street food, and flamboyant evening cabaret – all shared with families simply there to have the best time.

Tucked away in a haven of calm amidst the festival buzz, Slomo Wellbeing offered a three-day programme of free wellbeing session designed for all ages.

Headliners Jasmine Hemsley, Joe Wicks, Zita West, Trish Whelan, Rosie Underwood, Jonni Pollard, Carla DiMattina and Mama Shrooms lead a wellbeing programme featuring soundbaths, meditation, breath work, mindful movement, dance, yoga and food workshops, alongside a range of one-on-one treatments and, of course, Slomo Wellbeing’s hugely-popular saunas, ice baths and hot tubs.

Reflecting on Camp Bestival, presented by Debenhams 2026, festival curator Rob da Bank says: “What a ridiculously fun and sun kissed weekend we’ve had, bringing families together in proper Camp Bestival style.

“It always blows us away to see 30,000 revellers get stuck into so many activities, dancing to the beats and bands, getting arty and active with their families across our amazing site.

“There’s nothing Josie and I love more than to see all generations enjoying time together. We can’t wait for 2027 and are thrilled to announce that Early Bird Weekend Tickets go on sale this Friday! See you in Lulworth next year, campers!”

Returning for a second year as a headline partner, Dan Finley CEO of Debenhams Group added: “After such a fantastic debut with Camp Bestival last year, we couldn’t be more thrilled to return as headline partner for 2026.

“The energy, engagement, and connection we saw across families and festival-goers was incredible, it brought the heart of Debenhams to life in a vibrant way.

“We’re looking forward to building on that momentum, deepening our relationships, and delivering another unforgettable experience together.”

In an increasingly crowded festival market, Camp Bestival remains exactly what it has always aspired to be: a joyful celebration of music, adventure and family life, leaving thousands already counting down the days until next summer.

Thank you Camp Bestival. We can’t wait to come back!

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With memories made and next year’s adventure already calling, eager fans can already snap up 2027 Early Bird Weekend Tickets from 10am on Friday 7th August 2026.

Camp Bestival by Debenhams will take place from Thursday 29th July – Sunday 1st August 2027.

Early Bird Weekend Tickets go on sale 10am on Friday 7th August.

For more information and to buy tickets visit campbestival.net.

2027 Early Bird Prices:

Adult Weekend Camping: £225

Teen Weekend Camping: £157.50

Child 10-12 Weekend Camping: £130.50

Child 5-9 Weekend Camping: £110.50

Child 2-4 Weekend Camping: FREE (but ticket required)

Babes In Arms Weekend Camping: FREE (but ticket required)

If we are lucky enough to survive into our 20s, and have attained some degree of adult consciousness, we all will have lived a coming-of-age story. It’s a powerful, relatable basis for fiction or memoir or some combination of the two. Poignant. Piquant. It might be hilarious or depressing or, probably, both at once. Stories of first times, of big feelings imperfectly grasped, of life coming into focus for better or worse. Engaging with them as a reader or viewer, we look back on who we were, who we wanted to be, who we wish we hadn’t been. I get a little misty remembering my own clumsy progress through that flower-filled minefield. Remind me never to tell you about it sometime.

Television likes a coming-of-age story, and has logged some great ones — “My So-Called Life,” “Never Have I Ever,” “Freaks and Geeks,” “Everybody Hates Chris” — along with … some other ones. Premiering Wednesday are two series focusing on characters in their late teens; while stylistically, and one would say morally, miles apart, they nevertheless cover some of the same ground. There are things you can’t avoid growing up, wherever your life is set.

A rich-kids drama with a side of serial murder set in 1981 Los Angeles, FX‘s “The Shards” plants itself at the intersection of Bret Easton Ellis, whose 2023 “autofictional” novel it’s based on, and co-creator Ryan Murphy, in one of his bloodier moods, amplifying each other’s taste for the sensational and surfaces. Set on a lake in Canada, Prime Video’s “Sterling Point,” from Megan Park (“My Old Ass”), unrolls like a leisurely indie film; there will not be blood.

Kaia Gerber, from left, Igby Rigney, Hayes Warner, Homer Gere and Graham Campbell in FX’s “The Shards.”

(FX)

Igby Rigney plays Ellis in “The Shards,” narrating from the future. Bret shares with his authorial namesake an avocation and a love for Joan Didion (“Like all aspiring writers of my generation, I wanted to write like Didion. With restraint, economy and total control. If i could write like that, I could be like that. Or so I thought.”), as well as a manuscript titled “Less Than Zero,” though here it’s a screen treatment rather than the 1985 novel that made the author famous at 21. (One character will call it “brilliant.”)

As did Real Bret, TV Bret attends the private Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, where he is one in a small clique of rich, beautiful cool kids: Susan Reynolds (Kaia Gerber, daughter of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber) and Debbie Schaffer (Hayes Warner) in contrasting shades of Veronica and Betty; and Susan’s jock boyfriend, Thom (Graham Campbell). Debbie is Bret’s girlfriend, though he is also actively, if secretly gay, and has a kind of thing for Susan. They are shallow, if sad, nostalgic for their own untrammeled youth; they still have a little innocence left to lose. Because Bret is kind to marginal characters, beneath the notice of his friends, from whom he mentally distances himself by virtue of observing them (he’s Nick Carraway in Wayfarers), he reads as slightly more sympathetic, if no less tedious, and possibly more problematic. “I told myself I was only going to chronicle the decadence,” says narrator Bret, “an excuse I’d return to many times in my career.”

Into this shakily ordered universe comes handsome, charismatic, mysterious new kid Robert Mallory (Homer Gere, son of Richard, with Carey Lowell), whom Bret remembers seeing at a screening of “The Shining” a year before, though Robert denies having been there. Soon he has cast a spell over Bret’s friends, stirring in Bret twin feelings of obsession and competition: “I smelled him before I saw him — it was cedar and sandalwood as if he had just walked through a forest of citrus,” but also, “He was up to something and it was up to me to find out exactly what that was.”

Around the same time that Robert arrives, a serial killer, eventually dubbed the Trawler, comes to town. (Happily, we see only the elaborately staged, possibly satanic results of their work, not the process.) Who this person is, and what less than random reasons might explain the murders, remains a mystery at least through the nine out of 10 episodes available to review. But Bret points a finger so often at Robert that, by the mathematics of television drama, one can only believe him innocent. Still, no idea.

It’s a world from which adults are almost entirely missing, and when they are not, they are disappointing, or trouble. Significantly, there are Wes Bentley as Debbie’s skeezy movie producer father and Evan Rachel Wood as Debbie’s mother, a narcotized failed actor straight out of “Valley of the Dolls.” Jordan Roth plays Bentley’s somewhat sinister, sometimes helpful right hand kitted out post-glam Bowie style.

To be perfectly honest, if one set out to create a show I would be constitutionally disposed not to care for, this is it, though I allow that this is also exactly a show some people would be born to love. It’s often absurd and always melodramatic — not in itself a criticism — but if you’re in the market for a slick miniseries about cocaine-sniffing kids (and adults), murder, animal mutilation, sex and sports cars in New Wave L.A., with cameos from Hamburger Hamlet and Orange Julius and an excellent selection of period songs on the soundtrack, you can’t do better than this.

Ella Rubin, left, and Bo Bragason in Prime Video’s “Sterling Point.”

(Sabrina Lantos / Prime Video)

“Sterling Point,” on the other hand, is just my cup of Canadian Maple Syrup Soda. (It’s a thing.)

Ella Rubin plays Annie Jacobson, and like the kids in “The Shards,” we meet her suspended between her junior and senior years of high school, facing a summer she had planned to fill with more school. “You’re 17,” says her knuckleheaded, yet strangely perceptive twin brother Connor (Keen Ruffalo, son of Mark), “you act like you’re 30,” suggesting instead a period of “just going bug wild.”

Then a letter from a lawyer arrives, and it transpires that their maternal grandfather, whom they never knew, has left them, among other things, an island in Ontario’s Muskoka Lakes district. (Their mother died when the twins were 2.) Annie leaves their father (Jay Duplass) a misdirecting Post-It note — she knows he’s been lying to her about her grandfather — and scurries off to pierce the heart of this mystery, which comes from an incomplete instruction to “find her.” (She’s a rich girl. Scurrying from New York to rural Canada doesn’t require a second thought.)

Arriving by seaplane, Annie meets Ellis (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie), a townie working for Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s marina owner, Joe, who carries himself like a man with a secret. Ellis, a sweet guy not averse to skimming a little off the top when dealing with moneyed customers — it’s a summer getaway for the rich — takes an immediate shine to Annie. This will be complicated by the coincidental appearance of Rory (Daniel Quinn-Toye), a former piano prodigy Annie knows from New York, who’s in residence with his mother (Missi Pyle, ever a treat to see), who always seems just a little bit drunk and thinks nothing of pouring one out for the kids. (Adult presence is minimal.) There are posh parties, through which some of the young characters pass, though no one is doing cocaine or getting murdered. (There is pot and underage drinking.)

The crew is filled out by Oona (Bo Bragason), a sort of seafaring vagabond who lives on a boat with her 12-year-old sister Maple (Mabel Strachan), and Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle, terrific) an angry local returning after some time away, and possibly presenting the answer to a riddle.

What makes “Sterling Point” work so beautifully is its rare, real, unhurried sense of of time; it stretches out the way days do when you’re young, a sense heightened by the fact that Annie speaks twice as fast and as much as anyone else in the series. (It’s that New York energy.) Though there are some low-key melodramatic plot points, the show feels diaristic. It isn’t that the stakes are low, or that conflict is nonexistent, but that the drama is driven by issues of connection, identity, love and longing. (As in “The Shards,” there’s a scene in which someone who likes someone discovers them liking someone else — but who hasn’t been there.)

The series emanates a sense of urgency without cooking up abnormally dramatic situations. There is a lot of conversation, which, indeed, is what takes up a large portion of teenage life. One couldn’t exactly call “Sterling Point” unglamorous, since this is an attractive green and blue world — all that water makes the show refreshing to watch in a heat wave — and the cast is good-looking, in interesting ways, chosen, I would guess, not for perfection but for soulfulness. Who wouldn’t want to live here?

After three years, “Ted Lasso” has returned to the pitch. Did it need to? The third season finale, which seemed until now to be a series finale, brought most every character’s arc to a satisfying, credible conclusion — the less satisfying ones were just as credible — while pointing to a future you were free to imagine, or think nothing more about. Or you could write fan fiction. (People do.) I loved the show, but its absence has not been a painful one.

Anyway, it’s back, beginning Wednesday on Apple TV, and I am glad enough. Strictly speaking, it’s a new adventure, as one Indiana Jones movie might follow another, with Jason Sudeikis’ title character returning to Richmond to manage a new women’s soccer team, a project raised way back at the end of Season 3, and which now has “been three years in the making.”

Where are we now? Star player Jamie Tartt has departed the show all the way to Barcelona; kit man turned coach turned competition turned kit man Nate Shelley is nowhere to be seen. But as much may be said of the whole of AFC Richmond, apart from Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), who took over as manager when Ted returned to Kansas City, Mo., to spend more time with son Henry (Grant Feely, replacing Gus Turner), and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), who has turned into an uncommunicative mass of hair. This is not at all that team’s story, though certain fans within (and perhaps without) the world of the series might prefer that it was.

Four episodes out of 10 have been made available for review. The first is something of a hurdle, bogged down in contrivances to get Ted back to Richmond from Kansas City, where he has been “trying to help [Henry] become the best version of himself.” The question is whether Ted, working part time as the assistant manager of a supermarket, is living the best version of himself. The answer, as everyone but Ted recognizes, is no. Naturally, he spreads sunshine all over the place, being who he is, but this is not the future you would have written for him, nor one suggested by the third season finale, where we saw him coaching Henry’s soccer team. But it gives him a place to come back from.

Hannah Waddingham, left, and Juno Temple in “Ted Lasso.”

And so club owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), director of operations Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift) and queen of all marketing Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) show up on Ted’s doorstep to propose that he manage the Lady Greyhounds, “to lay the foundations of the Richmond culture that you created with our men.” (He has not been checking his messages, apparently, necessitating this in-person, three-person visit.)

In addition to dragging the pieces into place, much of the opening episode seems meant to satisfy an impulse to show off Kansas City — Sudeikis grew up in that area. There are multiple excursions for barbecue, each resulting in stained clothes for Rebecca. There’s a trip to CPKC Stadium, “the first privately funded stadium in the world solely for pro women’s soccer,” to see the Kansas City Current play.

Finding the American Jazz Museum closed, Higgins (earlier established as a double bassist) wanders across 18th Street to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, where a friendly docent (Milan Carter) schools him on its history, including a long tribute to pitcher Satchel Paige, with oddly interpolated documentary footage. (Higgins ventures that their experience is “quite similar to how women in England weren’t allowed to play football for years,” an idea his Black host shoots down with a well-aimed, “Mmmmm.”)

“They didn’t do it for fame or fortune. They did it ‘cause to not play would have been unacceptable,” he’s told. Or, as former AFC Richmond striker Dani Rojas said of soccer: “Football is life.”

Things improve in the more natural second episode (and improve from there), which takes us finally back to Richmond. Ted’s only real objection to leaving Kansas City is almost too easily overcome by suggesting that Henry and his mother, Michelle (Andrea Anders), the ex- but not estranged wife, come with him. Having won over all doubters over the first three seasons, Ted needs someone new to charm, and that will be coach Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds), who had hoped for the manager’s job. She’s a little rain cloud of a person, dour and humorless, though perhaps rightly offended by being passed over. Reynolds, who’ll certainly emerge as the season’s star, makes a big impression by holding things in, acting almost entirely with her eyes, so that when she cracks a smile in spite of herself, it registers as huge.

Jude Mack as player Boots in “Ted Lasso.”

Among the players, our attention is directed to Boots (Jude Mack), whom we notice because of her short-cropped hair, and because she’s the goalkeeper, and has a quirk — though she’s a powerhouse, “none of the big clubs will touch her because she won’t wear gloves.” (She prefers to keep things tactile. “What’s the point of life if you’re not feeling it?” Boots asks in another of the show’s sampler sentiments.) Lizzie (Faye Marsay) stands out because she arrives to an open call with a cute child in tow and is older and more mature than the others, Gemma (Abbie Hern), by virtue of having unresolved old business with Alice, and having, like Ted, to be talked onto the team.

The underdog aspect of it all will be emphasized, of course — a new team, in a money-losing second division, with second-rate locker room accommodations, seasoned with sexism that may or may not reflect actual British attitudes toward women’s soccer. Feminist themes, always present vis-a-vis Rebecca and Keeley, not unreasonably take the foreground, with Rebecca overcorrecting the thought that she might not be one — a funny conversation with Harriet Walter as her mother comes out of this — and Tracey Ullman arriving in Episode 4 to be badass.

By the end of that episode, there will have been enough sweet, celebratory moments to have rewarded your investment. (I gauge this scientifically by how often I choke up.) Where the story is going in any substantial way, other than, you know, win games, maybe get Roy and Keeley back together, do something interesting with Henry and/or Michelle, it’s too soon to tell. I assume it’s going somewhere, but we’ll find that out together.

Who pissed off Ariana Grande? Well, who didn’t?

On her new album, “Petal,” the pop superstar opens the spigot on what she’s described as an “unfiltered rage” to blast any number of feckless exes, a prying public obsessed with her body and her personal life — and not least herself for allowing anyone the power to hurt her in the first place.

“Tell me who’s to blame — is it the people or myself?” she wonders against the icy synth stabs of the title track.

Her answer, delivered as a sneering little aside: “Yeah.”

“Petal” marks a dramatic shift from Grande’s previous LP, 2024’s “Eternal Sunshine,” a tender and melancholy electro-pop collection that laid out a kind of emotional philosophy of heartbreak. She recorded the new album with the same team — the hit-making writer-producers Ilya Salmanzadeh and Max Martin — but here they go for a murkier, more percussive sound to match Grande’s dark mood.

Tolling electric guitar accompanies her in “Freak” as she muses on “all of the life I’ve been denied,” while “Oh Well” puts a jittery U.K. garage beat under her sneering farewell to an unnamed antagonist: “Good luck on your way to hell.” In “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 when Grande released it as “Petal’s” lead single, she sings, “I’ve held your projections when you’ve felt so insecure,” over a trudging groove that moves like a funeral march.

These downcast observations arrive at what would seem to be a professional high point for Grande, who recently wrapped her extended stay in the “Wicked”-verse and who’s in the middle of a tour that’s drawn adoring fans to arenas across the country.

But perhaps that’s the point: Almost every song on “Petal” can be interpreted two ways — as a story about a broken relationship between two people or as a tale about the toxic connection between an idol and her audience. (More than once did this record make me think about Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department.”)

“My pain is music — do you hear me everywhere?” Grande asks in “Warning Signs (Interlude),” which climaxes with a pithy diagnosis of pop stardom in the parasocial age: “You don’t deserve me / You know you don’t, you never have / But I want you to feel me / I wish someone could hear me.”

Complaints about celebrity can be pretty tedious, of course; sometimes it feels as though famous pop singers have forgotten how to write about anything other than life in the social-media fishbowl.

Yet “Petal” gets some creative traction from how Grande chooses to use her voice; instead of belting, she rarely rises above a whisper, which gives a spooky, slightly creepy quality to her thoughts on being endlessly scrutinized. The airiness of her singing provides some comedy too in a hard-edged song such as “Like I Do,” where after noting that “all that s— talk keeps me well-fed,” she tells whoever needs to hear it, “No one f— you like I do.”

Having gotten all this off her chest, Grande finishes the album by allowing in some light: Over a zippy new wave arrangement, “Bad Thing (Bunny Hop)” ponders the renewing energy of a fresh romance — or maybe a rekindled old one — while the glistening “Nowhere, Nobody” has her taking deep breaths with a lover she’s convinced might finally give her what she needs.

“Convinced” is probably the wrong word.

“Hard to believe in a perfect ending,” she admits, “But that’s all right.”

In a book nerd battle that’s become so epic, even The Onion has satirized the saga, acclaimed author Susan Orlean has grabbed the mic, and Emily Wilson is admitting she has one regret in her review of “The Odyssey.”

Earlier this week, Joyce Carol Oates panned Wilson’s critique of Christopher Nolan’s big-screen adaptation, and now acclaimed author and journalist Susan Orlean has entered the chat.

“I loved The Odyssey (saw it twice) and love any piece of art that gets people talking and reading and thinking,” she posted on Threads on Thursday. “Emily Wilson is being a bit of a jerk.”

Choice words from Orlean, but she knows a thing or two about film adaptations: her 1998 book “The Orchid Thief” inspired Spike Jonze’s 2002 film “Adaptation” starring Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep (who played Orlean), and her 1998 article “Life’s Swell” was brought to screen as “Blue Crush,” also in 2002.

“Why can’t things be the things they are and if they’re different from their source material that’s their new form and their own thing and I SAY THIS FROM EXPERIENCE,” she added in a separate post.

The ire stems from a biting 4,200-word takedown of “The Odyssey” penned by classicist Wilson, who translated Homer’s poem in 2017.

In early interviews discussing the film, Nolan referenced Wilson’s translation, which subsequently skyrocketed in sales. A representative for Audible told The Times on Wednesday that, year over year, purchases of Wilson’s “Odyssey” translation were up by more than 600% across Audible’s U.S., U.K. and Canadian marketplaces.

Wilson’s review, published in the London Review of Books, essentially dubbed Nolan’s film a dud for academics with taste and a blockbuster hit for virgins who like special effects that go “Boom!”

“Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours,” she wrote. “It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”

Pulitzer Prize finalist Oates, like Orlean, is also team Nolan. “Her tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note,” Oates said of Wilson’s review in a post on X. Oates added that rather than Wilson disagreeing with “interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner,” she benefited from Nolan’s film and then attacked it.

Wilson’s review went so viral it crashed the London Review of Books website for a few hours on Monday. On the heels of the missive’s publication, Wilson posted on Bluesky that an earlier draft of the essay was actually more cutting than the version that went live.

“Was I too mean? Or not mean enough? I went through my first draft and tried to take out the snark,” she wrote. “To quote the great poet: ‘Though much is taken, much remains… That which we are, we are.’”

She added in the same thread: “The oddest thing about the response to this essay is people who say it’s ‘personal’. You can disagree about some or all of it! I may well be wrong! But it’s not ‘personal’ to analyze a film or other work of art, even negatively. Criticism is more than ‘Hurray!’ or ‘Hiss!’”

One criticism Wilson admits she regrets in retrospect is her take on Nolan’s race-neutral casting. In the review she wrote that while the casting launched a culture war, it wasn’t actually progressive. She likened the characters portrayed by Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins and Travis Scott to “versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.”

On Bluesky, she wrote, “In this piece, I regret the paragraph about the uses of the POC actors – who are all great, but IMO under-utilized (and why couldn‘t Himesh Patel be Odysseus instead?) I still think the film largely wastes its strong cast, but I framed it badly.”

The Federal Communications Commission has demanded for months that ABC prove its stations deserve to stay on the air — a proceeding with no precedent in the last half-century. This week, the network delivered a sharp retort, accusing the agency of waging a campaign of political retribution.

“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” Disney’s attorneys wrote in the 109-page filing.

ABC has enlisted prominent elected officials, community organizations and seasoned litigators for the 1st Amendment showdown that could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Burbank entertainment giant’s combative stance comes after the FCC, led by Chairman Brendan Carr, took the rare step this spring of demanding that Disney defend the broadcast licenses of its eight ABC stations — including KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles — years before the permits were set to expire.

The government’s move represents a significant threat to Disney because the loss of licenses would hobble the ABC network by forcing its largest stations off the air. Other ABC stations at risk include those in San Francisco, Fresno, Houston, Philadelphia and New York.

The FCC is expected to make a determination next month. It could require ABC to defend the stations in a hearing or before the commission.

The FCC, in a statement, defended its inquiry and hinted that it may go further.

“For decades, Americans of all stripes have been subsidizing broadcast media to the tune of many billions of dollars by giving TV stations free use of a valuable, public resource — the airwaves,” an FCC spokesperson said in a statement.

“Broadcasters are required by law to operate in the public interest — not in the narrow or partisan interests of a political party,” the spokesperson said. “The FCC is going to hold broadcasters accountable to the full extent of the law, regardless of any disinformation campaign that some of them may choose to run.”

ABC accused the FCC of overreach.

“The FCC has spent the last 18 months searching for some pretext for revoking the stations’ licenses,” ABC wrote in the filing. “The Commission has found none, because the stations easily meet the standard for license renewal.”

Disney‘s attorneys cited the unusual nature of the proceedings, linking the FCC’s action to Trump’s dislike of certain ABC network programs. The FCC launched its review in late April — one day after the president lashed out at ABC after late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about Trump’s health and First Lady Melania Trump.

Until this spring, the FCC had not called for an early license review in more than 50 years.

“For the first time in history, the Federal Communications Commission has ordered an entire group of local television stations … to undergo simultaneous license renewal proceedings well before their current licenses expire,” Disney’s attorneys wrote.

The network asked the FCC to dismiss its review.

“This is as clearcut an example of retaliation as one could imagine,” ABC said in the filing. Damage has been done even if the FCC stops short of revoking the licenses, the network said.

“The mere investigation and the threat of finding a violation are sufficient: ‘the value of a sword of Damocles is that it hangs — not that it drops,’” ABC wrote.

The FCC has previously said the review grew out of an inquiry it launched early last year to scrutinize Disney’s internal diversity, equity and inclusion programs to see if they violated federal anti-discrimination laws — part of an expansive Trump-led campaign against DEI initiated as soon as he returned to the White House.

This year, the FCC opened a separate inquiry over whether ABC’s “The View” should keep an exemption granted to news programs so they are not obligated to provide equal airtime for opponents of various political candidates. The FCC had given “The View” the exemption in 2002.

Carr also has criticized ABC for not televising Trump’s live prime-time speech earlier this month to vent his grievances over past elections. Carr told reporters ABC’s decision could factor into the station license review.

By calling for the early review, the FCC allowed petitioners and ordinary residents to chime in on the stations’ operations and ABC network programming.

By Wednesday night’s deadline, the FCC had received more than 153,000 public comments. An estimated 96% of respondents wrote to support their local ABC station, the company said, including L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna, L.A. Police Chief Jim McDonnell and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.

In his letter, Luna said KABC — which has operated in Los Angeles for more than 75 years — provides residents with “timely and accurate information that has … undoubtedly saved lives.”

Lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), have called on the FCC to drop the review, saying the agency has politicized its regulatory powers.

Disney has hired prominent attorneys Beth Wilkinson, Jennifer Tatel and Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general with experience arguing before the Supreme Court. Disney’s chief legal officer, Horacio Gutierrez, is leading the team.

Several conservative groups have questioned whether ABC was fit to hold its licenses.

“ABC’s rights are important, but they are not preeminent,” Center for American Rights President Daniel Suhr wrote in his 66-page petition to the FCC to deny ABC’s local licenses, adding that the commission must instead focus on “the right of viewers of ABC stations.”

“Disney’s lawyers can wish upon a star, but they cannot make this record disappear,” Suhr said in a statement Thursday. “Disney does not own the public airwaves, and an FCC license is not a corporate entitlement. The FCC should reject Disney’s effort to avoid meaningful scrutiny, require full answers, and designate these applications for a hearing.”

The FCC doesn’t license networks, only the local stations that carry network programming.

In one public comment, an ABC critic named Lawrence Caswell agreed with Suhr’s contention: “ABC is just a grossly biased propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.”

Jeffrey C. Illes, a Chicago-area viewer who identified himself as a Republican, wrote in support of Disney’s WLS-TV station.

“I rely on their broadcast for accurate, timely, and trusted local news, breaking weather updates, and essential public safety information,” Illes wrote. “ABC 7 Chicago is a vital institution in our community.”

Stations typically file for a license renewal once every eight years. The commission then determines whether the station has “served the public interest” and has not run afoul of the “rules and regulations of the Commission.”

The commission’s lone Democrat, Anna M. Gomez, blasted the station license inquiry.

“The FCC has no authority to police the ideological balance of the airwaves, and no matter what this Commission does next, the record now makes clear that this was never a genuine search for the public interest,” Gomez said in a Thursday statement.

There are three commissioners: Gomez and two Republicans — Carr and Olivia Trusty, who joined the panel last year.

Congress restricts the FCC from any regulatory moves that trample on free speech rights for broadcasters.

A coalition of progressive groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Disney Chief Executive Josh D’Amaro to continue to defend 1st Amendment freedoms in the company’s battle with the FCC.

“When you’re standing up for yourself, you are standing up for all of us,” the group wrote. “All of our rights are in danger when the FCC is allowed to censor comedians, journalists, and critics.”

In a summer of Gen Z-driven blockbusters and ancient Greek juggernauts, the 38th entry in the Marvel universe can’t help smelling like your uncle’s sweaty Comic-Con ball cap. At least the core ensemble of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is still young, even after four “Spider-Man” movies together in nine years — unlike the mature super squad in last summer’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” who boasted an average age of 42.

“Brand New Day” stars buzzy A-listers Tom Holland and Zendaya as Peter Parker and MJ Jones-Watson, sweethearts estranged after he was forced to save the multiverse by wiping all memories of his existence at the end of 2021’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home”. Adding drama to the couple’s onscreen breakup, the actors recently got married in real life. So kudos to the extras who steal scenes from them in the background, flailing like avant-garde dancers when a vicious mental parasite leaps from grandmothers to joggers to security guards on a quest to find something awful. Choreographed by Nathan Kim, the practical effect looks fantastic.

Fittingly for a film with body-snatching, director Destin Daniel Cretton (“Short Term 12,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”) has made a story about letting people in. New York City’s brain-barging antagonist (“Stranger Things’” Sadie Sink in a fun character reveal) disrespects personal boundaries. Meanwhile, Peter, scarred by the murder of his dear Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) in 2021’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” keeps to himself in fear of revealing his secret identity. Forced to skip college while his former high school friends MJ and Ned (a lovable Jacob Batalon) attend MIT, this Spider-Man endures the rise-and-grind routine of an anonymous gig worker. His phone app pings; he puts on his protective mask and heads out wearily to fight crime. It’s a living. Barely.

Peter’s only physical connection to humanity is via webs and fists. Otherwise, he’s restricted to impersonal helpers — a detective (Liza Colón-Zayas) willing to take his phone calls, an AI assistant (ew) and a network of facial recognition cameras (double ew). He’s so isolated that his closest friend is a frenemy: Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, an equally lonely brute.

Screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers add too much padding with their need to include the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the new Black Widow (Florence Pugh) and the government’s increasingly radicalized Department of Damage Control before this December’s “Avengers: Doomsday.” Perversely for a film with a two-hour-and-25-minute running time, the climax still feels rushed.

Cretton must shoulder an overburdened franchise. His film is likable as heck but never quite achieves liftoff. The soundtrack’s needle drops of Tame Impala and Bad Bunny add swagger. Better, Cretton seizes small moments to put his stamp on this installment. Just as Zendaya’s aspirationally chill MJ insists she won’t work for some “soulless corporation,” he’s quietly made a humanist super-flick: A shot of agents in black SUVs separating a telekinetic family could come right from the news. Likewise, Cretton allows the Punisher his rage while silently noting that the vigilante’s gun-toting tactics usually make things worse.

Peter’s inner despair gets externalized when he invents a genetic inhibitor neck implant to tamp down his sensitivity. The arachnid hormones in his body are surging, causing his pupils to turn black and his temper to explode. His emotions — and that sticky goo in his wrists — are about to burst. On a related note, between this second spider-puberty and Holland’s supporting turn as a mother-henned Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” will Hollywood ever allow 30-year-old Holland to play a grown man? I suppose when he proves he can carry his own movie. For now, he keeps squandering his Marvel breaks on whiffs like “Cherry” and “Uncharted.”

At least he’s an earnest, open-faced hero — the best live-action Spider-Man of the bunch. Holland holds onto his buoyancy even as his character battles the blues. His Peter fends off despair by insisting that he’s fine. The bruises on his body disagree. So does the glowing inhibitor on his spine, which seems to ask if we’re too quick to prescribe medication for our problems.

Cretton is the rare former indie filmmaker who pushes himself to stage clever action sequences. The web-slinging scenes in “Brand New Day” are designed to let the audience ride Peter’s mood swings. When he’s up, we soar from girder to girder in a tight POV that allows us to barely make out the tips of his boots. When he’s unsteady, every leap is perilously close to a free fall.

During the best fight scene, Peter takes on a squadron of gravity-defying ninjas in a brawl that takes place as much in the air as on the ground. Brett Pawlak’s camera spins a cartwheel alongside a flying kick, then plunges into the eye of a tornado of bad guys trapped in a web. Overall, there’s too much use of hurled rubble. But I dug how Cretton gooses our spidey senses with dramatic sound effects. The thud of a hammering Hulksmash rattles our seats; later, a cocked rifle is so crisp we perk up like a dog hearing the mailman.

“Brand New Day” manages a few strong images: a dive-bombing pigeon, a cityscape at dusk, a close-up of headstrong MJ getting yanked through the sky, still determined not to let a stranger sweep her off her feet. And, of course, there’s that army of extras each making the most of their five seconds of fame. After order is restored just enough to prod us to a sequel, Cretton circles back to those civilians in an end credits montage of normal New Yorkers hanging out on stoops and playing chess in the park. These faces couldn’t matter less to the plot. But Cretton’s affection for people over pixels is his entire point.

Days after a classicist who translated Homer’s “The Odyssey” in 2017 eviscerated the Christopher Nolan film based on the poem, Joyce Carol Oates has entered the debate.

She’s Team Nolan.

The National Book Award-winning author is known for her (sometimes controversial) hot takes on social media, and on Wednesday, she stepped up to the plate in opposition of translator Emily Wilson’s brutal takedown of Nolan’s big-screen adaptation of “The Odyssey.” Nolan had previously said Wilson’s translation inspired him in making the film. But Wilson wrote that she would be ashamed to have written any part of the script.

“Her tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note,” Oates said of Wilson’s review in a post on X. “Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers.”

Wilson’s biting missive, published in the London Review of Books this week, went so viral that it reportedly crashed the outlet’s website for a few hours Monday. The British American classicist’s take on the film was especially notable because, last fall, Nolan quoted Wilson’s translation when telling Empire magazine why he was drawn to the story. “I think it’s the Emily Wilson translation that begins, ‘Tell me about a complicated man,’” he said.

Wilson’s version of “The Odyssey” subsequently spiked in sales. A representative for Audible told The Times on Wednesday that, year over year, purchases of Wilson’s “Odyssey” translation were up by more than 600% across Audible’s U.S., U.K. and Canadian marketplaces. Daily global title sales rose nearly sixfold during the week the movie premiered. And in the nine days following wide release, daily global sales averaged around 20 times more than the rate before the premiere, showing sustained demand for Wilson’s translation.

Oates, who penned the Pulitzer Prize-nominated “Blonde,” said that, within the world of translators, Wilson’s review “seems all the more surprising since all translations are, presumably, subjective & not equivalent to the original text.”

“One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is,” Oates wrote.

In separate posts on the social platform, Oates said she highly recommended Nolan’s adaption and that she wasn’t a fan of Wilson’s translation. “What I’d read of Emily Wilson’s translation was not for me,” she wrote, adding that she assumes it was “deliberately written to appeal to an audience comfortable with YA (young adult) directness & spareness of vocabulary — that is, with the intention of being marketable, adopted by high school classes.

“With a more poetic, elevated speech, you are naturally limiting your audience,” continued the author, who further noted that there was nothing wrong with a direct, commercial approach. “Why not profit from a classic work not protected by copyright?”

In the viral review by Wilson, who also translated Seneca and Euripides, as well as Homer’s “Iliad,” she likened Nolan’s nearly three-hour epic to Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “Game of Thrones.”

Her sharpest critiques were aimed at Nolan’s rendering of Homer’s female characters, of which she said there were more than in his other films “thanks to the source material” but that, in contrast to the poem, none of them “had much to say.” Wilson said Nolan’s race-neutral casting was essentially a wash as “[m]ost of the non-white actors — Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott — play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.”

And don’t get her started on the whole point of the poem — the cost of war — of which Wilson quipped, “We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it — a very different point.”

“Furious,” which premieres Monday on Hulu, is technically a serial killer story, since there are multiple murders committed by a single character, but happily that is the least of it.

Broadly speaking, these kinds of stories — powered by a stop-them-before-they-kill-again clock, making their antagonists out to be finicky geniuses or horror movie monsters instead of opportunistic mediocrities — strike me as a low form of fiction. But “Furious” is as much relationship drama as procedural, animated by a quartet of excellent performances, with some things to say about abuse, exploitation and love along the way.

Although “Furious,” created by Elizabeth Meriwether (“New Girl,” “Dying for Sex”), acknowledges an inspirational debt to the 1987 Theresa Russell-Debra Winger film “Black Widow,” all it really preserves are a couple of names, the idea of a female serial killer and an emotional relationship with the woman hunting her. The killer is Catherine (Lola Petticrew), a petite young woman who goes about in a variety of wigs, under a variety of names, careful to mask in public. Her murdering is not a compulsion but a mission, like Jeanne Moreau in “The Bride Wore Black.”

Her nemesis is Alice Black (Emmy Rossum), a former police detective now answering phones for the FBI. She became persona non grata in the NYPD after identifying her detective boyfriend (Jake Lacy as Marshall) as the person who put her in the hospital, because, you know, cops. One day a request comes from former colleague Danny Kelly (Scoot McNairy) to assist him in investigating the homicide we see Catherine commit at the top of the series.

Various elements of the crime bring to mind an earlier killing; Alice believes they’re connected and might have something to do with sex trafficking or, eventually, a Jane Doe cold case. This brings her to the desk of Nora Washington (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), who also happens to be running the very FBI department Alice has been hoping to join. “You requested my squad,” says Nora. “Why do you want to work in the basement on sex crimes and crimes against children — do you hate yourself?” Maybe she does — she orchestrates internet dates where foreplay is a fistfight, and has some relevant trauma in her past.

Catherine (Lola Petticrew), a petite young woman whose murdering is not a compulsion but a mission.

(Sarah Shatz / Disney)

Sharing scenes with the other principal characters, intense or sensitive as the moment requires, Alice is the hub around whom the series revolves and hurtles forward. Danny, who found himself isolated in the department when he said he believed her, is her only friend. (“But here’s the crazy s—. You don’t … talk to me anymore, either.”) Nora, who has a hard edge and a drinking problem, has a few things to teach her, sometimes with a quote from Balzac (“Laws are spiderwebs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught”) and Beckett (the dead “make a noise like feathers”) or a tale from Greek mythology. (“I’m not a former cop. I went to a fancy school, and I’m very smart,” she says, very drunk.)

As to Catherine, she is a mix of a sly fox and a wounded bird. She may be manipulative and murderous, but as we’re given reasons to dislike her victims, a collection of rich white people — with one sad exception — and because Alice feels connected to her in some way, and because she’s had a terrible life, there is not a little of the protagonist in her antagonist. There are some sad ironies stitched into the plot, and an upsetting late twist, though the show doesn’t wallow in it. We understand that Catherine has her reasons, and in a strange way we want to see her carry out her mission. She may be a killer, but she isn’t the villain.

It’s not perfect. We are not surprised at least as much as we are. Some of the plot points strain credulity. There are some old-school jurisdictional clashes between the police and the FBI (as in every fourth episode of “The Closer”), and a heaping helping of professional jealousy within departments.

But the show stays fascinating less for the plot than for the performers. Rossum attacks her role as if playing a Greek tragedy. (The hair redoubles the impression.) McNairy, one of TV’s most likable actors, brings warmth. Petticrew evokes broken innocence. Bernstine finds new notes in a role that typically runs to cliche.

I also want to mention the great Hope Davis as the sister of a victim, the son of a well-connected mogul with something to hide, and especially Steve Way, as Alden (“Ramy”), a force for good in Catherine’s life, and for humor in the series; born with muscular dystrophy, he manages some excellent physical comedy in his motorized wheelchair. The direction (Brian Kirk helmed the first two episodes) is crisp and matter of fact, staying out of the way, which is all you can ask when the writing is good and the actors are too.

Twenty-five years after “Is This It,” the Strokes are as big as they’ve ever been — and not just among old heads eager to relive the wasted glamour of the early-2000s garage rock revival. Go to a Strokes gig these days — they’re playing arenas and headlining festivals like next month’s Just Like Heaven in Pasadena — and you’ll find teens and twentysomethings in the audience; open up Instagram and there’s frontman Julian Casablancas dispensing viral hot takes on the New York City subway. On Spotify, the band’s most-streamed song isn’t the Giuliani-era “Last Nite” but “The Adults Are Talking,” which came out at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic — a feat of cultural endurance unmatched by any of the Strokes’ Gen X or millennial peers.

So what better time to drop a new album full of arcane jokes, baffling vocal affects and light conspiracy theorizing?

The group’s first LP since 2020’s Grammy-winning “The New Abnormal,” “Reality Awaits” is easily the nuttiest entry in the Strokes’ catalog, with a spooky opening track, “Psycho S—,” in which Casablancas, his voice slathered in AutoTune, ushers the listener “past the hall of judging dead into the bed of nightly dread.” (Sexy!) “Falling Out of Love” is a lilting robo-country ballad about dancing alone under acid rain; “Liar’s Remorse” is a voice-and-guitar lament about submitting to artificial intelligence that Casablancas croons for some reason in a terrible Caribbean accent.

Then there’s “Lonely in the Future,” in which Casablancas name-drops John Legend and Josh Groban, appears to ding Harry Styles for cribbing the beat from the Strokes’ “Hard to Explain” and informs Anthony Fantano, the popular internet music critic, that he “would not recognize art in any age.”

Philosophically, “Reality Awaits” feels less like a Strokes album than like a Casablancas solo record or an effort by his other band, the Voidz, which he’s used for the last decade or so as a kind of finsta for his harder-edged sociopolitical musings. “Going Shopping,” the LP’s lead single, casts a condescending eye on anyone insufficiently troubled by what the singer views as the creeping tyranny of a super-rich ruling class: “The worse reality gets, the less you want to hear about it / Solidarity can be difficult when you got cool stuff to lose.” That “Going Shopping” is the album’s jauntiest cut — with a music video that restages Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al,” no less — only sharpens the critique.

Yet every now and then the Strokes, who absolutely ripped at Coachella in April, lock into a groove with the springy precision that’s been the band’s signature since the beginning. “Dine N’ Dash,” “Going to Babble On,” “Lonely in the Future” — it’s pure pleasure to hear the guitars in these songs slashing away over a rhythm section as crisp and nimble as this one. For all they’ve absorbed from their forbears, the Strokes don’t sound like anybody else, even when they seem to be trying to, as in “The Fruits of Conquest,” which suggests early Maroon 5 having a go at the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You.” (Obviously, I mean this as a compliment.)

You can view the indelibility of the Strokes’ style as the reason the band makes so many wacky decisions on “Reality Awaits”; looked at differently, the band is taking advantage of its persistent success to spend a bit of creative capital. Either way, Casablancas doesn’t actually seem worried at all in “Going Shopping” when he voices some anxiety about how long he can continue to matter. “I’ve been thinking about what I want to say,” he sings, “But I’m an old man now — at least that’s what they tell me anyway.”

After a day spent walking around Alton Towers, I was happy to be spending the night in their iconic hotel on the resort – here’s my honest review of a stay for our family of four

A day at a theme park is knackering, especially with two kids in tow who can seemingly have the best day of their lives while also complaining every single second. Nothing is worse than getting to the end of a day out and facing the drive home exhausted.

So, if you’ve got a day at a theme park planned, you may be considering staying in one of the park’s onsite hotels. Arguably, Alton Towers has one of the best selections of accommodation out of any UK theme park. It has hotels, woodland lodges, treehouses, and stargazing pods, so there’s all sorts of places to stay, and you’re right on the park’s doorstep so you’ve got somewhere to rest after a long day.

Recently, I stayed with my two kids at the Alton Towers Hotel, a three-star property that’s one of the park’s three hotels. Themed around a fictional Victorian explorer, Sir Algenon, the hotel has a sort of steampunk, historic look, although my kids thought it was pirate-y more than anything, but either way, the detail that has gone into it is impressive.

Stepping into the hotel, there’s a huge atrium with a large ship-shaped stage, and checking in late afternoon there was already entertainment and live music in full-swing. We went back later and the entertainers were playing some fun games with the kids, and it had a really joyful, slightly chaotic atmosphere around the bar.

We stayed in a Moon Voyage room, which had a similar theme to the hotel with lamps that looked like Victorian gaslights, lots of gears and levers, and explorer-themed murals. The room was clean and the beds comfy, and I liked that the kids sleeping area with bunk beds was slightly sectioned off and had their own TV. It meant we could lie in bed and watch some grown up TV while they could watch a bit of CBBC before dinner.

For dinner, we headed to the Splash Landings Hotel to try Flambo’s Jambo, an all-you-can eat buffet that had a bit of everything from peri peri to tacos, roast dinners, and Chinese dishes. The atmosphere was fun, with a giant waterwheel and the sounds of some very lively entertainment going on in the background, and the food was OK, with the kids more excited about the ice cream machine than anything else.

While we slept well and the room was comfortable, I woke up early to find the bathroom door had locked itself from the outside. I had to run down to use the loo in the lobby and find hotel staff, still in my pyjama bottoms and my hair looking even more dishevelled than usual. It did get fixed within an hour, but obviously that kind of thing is a pain when you’re up early with kids.

Breakfast was included and is served buffet style at the Secret Garden Restaurant. It had quite a basic selection of hot food, plus some cereal, pastries, and pancakes, which the kids were happy with. Again, the food wasn’t amazing, but it kept us going on the way home.

If you’re visiting Alton Towers and have a long drive, a stay at the hotel or its other accommodation is worth considering. For us, driving there and back would mean five hours in the car as well as the long day exploring the park, so it was nice to crash overnight and split the journey up.

I’ll admit, the hotel is expensive, and some parts felt more worth the price than the others. Packages include one day at the theme park, 9-hole golf, and breakfast, and there are deals on such as free child entry to the waterpark if you book an adult ticket. The hotel does have an incredibly fun style and is well-maintained, and kids are enchanted by the style.

But other things felt like they needed a little work. The themed rooms feel a little basic, and while they have nice décor it felt a little like they were missing something. I would have liked to have some bottled water in the rooms for example, as there were no refill points in the hotel and at £3 a pop, it’s expensive to rehydrate after a day in the sun. But I think most visitors know to expect theme park prices when they stay somewhere like this, and really, it’s the location that’s the main draw when you’ve spent all day on your feet in the summer.

Rooms start from £106pp for an Explorer Room at the Alton Towers Hotel this summer. You can currently book and take advantage of their Kids Swim Free offer. Find out more and book at altontowers.com.

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There are many dedicated figures devoted to Chicano empowerment in America. But in the arts, playwright-director-impresario Luis Valdez — the migrant farmworkers’ son behind the defiantly consciousness-raising El Teatro Campesino and the historic hits “Zoot Suit” and “La Bamba” — holds a singular place, achieved with remarkable perseverance. It’s a trajectory that the immensely appealing, rollicking documentary “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez” tracks with a vitality and purpose befitting its subject.

Anchored by Valdez himself, now in his 80s and filling the camera frame like a grandfatherly lion, the film supplements his vivid biographical details with rich archival footage and testimonials from family members, collaborators and peers. There’s also the bold but sneakily effective narrator choice in Edward James Olmos, reviving his snarling, star-making El Pachuco growl from “Zoot Suit” to remind us of one of Valdez’s essential contributions to the theatrical canon. (Olmos is also an interviewee, as is Cheech Marin, Taylor Hackford, Lou Diamond Philips and labor leader Dolores Huerta.)

Born in Delano, Calif., and drawn to literature and language as a way to combat racist assumptions about a Mexican American’s destiny, Valdez found his gifts sharpened by puppet shows, school plays and finally, the union movement in his hometown. Valdez saw that pointed, raw satire was not only necessary but a recruitment tool for the fight. We hear the underdog aesthetic term rasquachismo used to describe these early impromptu performances: essentially a colorful funkiness, “so funky that nothing can undermine you,” Valdez says. As if something earthier and stronger had been harvested in the fields with all those valuable grapes.

After the labor battles of the Vietnam War era, Valdez took El Teatro Campesino’s mission nationwide. Excerpts from a televised adaptation of his play “Los Vendidos (The Sellouts)” — about a shop selling automatons representing Chicano stereotypes — underscore the continuing tensions of assimilation, a trap disguised as acceptance. But the piece also reflected feelings Valdez had about his long-estranged brother Frank, an engineer whose alienating efforts to deny his own background and fit in formed a heavy undercurrent in Valdez’s life.

“Zoot Suit,” an ambitious, musicalized, slang-flavored staging of the violent injustice behind L.A.’s notorious 1943 Zoot Suit riots, became a smash in 1978 (its narrow-minded New York reception notwithstanding). The story of how the Ritchie Valens biopic “La Bamba” came to be — a delicate mix of legacy tending and savvy casting — is similarly rousing and illuminating, even if it seems like an omission not to dig into why, after such a big hit, more movies didn’t follow. (Although, since this is Hollywood, we can guess the reasons.)

There’s so much to chew on in David Alvarado’s portrait of life, art and activism that “American Pachuco” plays like a joyful challenge to those searching for their own voice or meaning. As engaging a chronicler of his own life as Valdez is, his lessons in how to be seen and heard — and how to stay that way — feel especially timely. In our demonizing present, the story of such a pioneering truth-teller speaks powerfully to the needs of our blended American future.

Singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell first wrote the numbers for “Hadestown,” a folk musical based on Greek mythology, in 2006. Twenty years later, the Tony-winning smash musical comes to the big screen in a version filmed on the West End in 2025, directed by Brett Sullivan. The production reunites the original Broadway cast — André De Shields, Patrick Page, Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada and Amber Gray — six years after the show debuted and swept the Tonys in 2019.

There is a timelessness to Mitchell’s work, thanks in large part to the ancient source material, the myths of Orpheus, Eurydice, Hades and Persephone. Developed in partnership with Rachel Chavkin, who directed the Broadway show, the action is set around the 1930s in the American Deep South. The story expresses evergreen themes of love, sacrifice, oppression, addiction and devotion, juxtaposing the tragedy of the way things are against a hope of the way they could be.

There are moments when Mitchell’s songs feel eerily prescient: The show’s villain, Hades (Page), rules the underworld of Hadestown as a fascistic industrialist; his Act I closing number is titled “Why We Build the Wall.” Factory workers sing back to him, “We build the wall to keep us free,” a chorus that foretells the Trumpian rhetoric of 2016 and a reminder that these patterns of division and otherization are the eternal tools of the oppressor.

“Hadestown” is a love story first and foremost, set in a joyous juke joint, the band ringing the stage. The camera follows our narrator, Hermes, played by American theater legend De Shields, as he takes the stage, kissing the heads of his company.

But the show doesn’t start until the 79-year-old De Shields nattily flips his jacket open, to the approving roar of the audience. He introduces doomed Orpheus (Carney), “touched by the Gods themselves,” a born yearner with a gift for song. When Eurydice (Noblezada), a scrappy, skeptical slip of a girl, rolls into town, Orpheus instantly falls head over heels. They have nothing except each other, their love symbolized by a red flower that Orpheus offers.

Party girl Persephone (Gray) brings the summer fun, but her jealous lover Hades wants to keep her all to himself in his domain, trapping the world in a long winter. Orpheus promises to write a song to summon spring again, but a struggling Eurydice is seduced by Hades’ promises of security in Hadestown, and she descends with him, signing her life away to work in his factory. Orpheus tries to rescue his love, but his faith in her is tested on their return to the top — if he turns back to see if she’s there, she’ll be banished to Hadestown forever.

Real-life couple Carney and Noblezada married several months after this production; they met at Noblezada’s audition. Their chemistry makes the emotional devastation of this tragedy that much more real: Every main actor sheds a real tear over the course of the show. Carney’s unique tenor ranges from Jeff Buckley to Freddie Mercury; his rock background and skill with the guitar is required for Orpheus’ lyre-playing and lends to the folk roots of Mitchell’s songs.

Cinematographer Clayton Jacobsen captures unexpected camera angles that a theatergoer wouldn’t get (even one with decent seats), both from down below in the circular pit and above it. He sends the camera soaring over the heads of the audience into intimate medium shots. Sullivan makes the animated and often rowdy crowd an integral part of the cinematic experience, including an extended curtain call with De Shields toasting the audience, sending them out with the warmth with which he brought them in.

There is such a temporal quality to theater, a shared moment in time and space. This production feels like a fleeting moment — a reunion of friends and collaborators retelling a myth that is recounted over and over again. “It’s a sad song, but we sing it anyway,” Hermes reminds us, and it’s a sentiment worth repeating. There may be tragedy, but the summer will inevitably return.

“The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove,” a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at UC Irvine’s New Swan Shakespeare Festival, relocates the comedy to a Southern California beach town in the 1950s. The surf’s up, a chocolate-covered-banana stand is hopping and a washed-up Elvis-like rock star named Johnny Falstaff is trailing chaos.

Those merry wives aren’t actually all that merry about the state of their marriages. Margaret Page (Sonya Cooke) has lost all patience with her grinning, gadabout husband, George (Evan Lugo), who floats through life as though it were as lighthearted an affair as “Beach Blanket Bingo.” Margaret’s best friend, Alice Ford (Sarah Hentges), has more serious problems with her jealous husband, Frank (Abel Garcia), who suspects infidelity whenever she leaves the house.

When Falstaff (Wyn Moreno), motivated by avarice and a mania for cuckolding, comes a-wooing, sending identical letters to Margaret and Alice, the wives grow merrier as they set a trap for their shameless suitor, whose uncontrolled appetites make him an easy mark.

Margaret and Alice are the forerunners of Lucy and Ethel, and Shakespeare’s comedy, written expressly to entertain, gives us a sense of what an Elizabethan-era situation comedy might look like. The Falstaff of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is not the complex figure of the “Henry IV” plays. (The late scholar Harold Bloom, a Falstaff fanboy, called this version of the character “pseudo-Falstaff, “ and considered “Merry Wives” to be, along with “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” Shakespeare’s “slightest” comedies.)

Sonya Cooke (Margaret Page) and Sarah Hentges (Alice Ford) in “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove.”

(Jesus Lopez Vargas)

Revivals of “Merry Wives” are not all that frequent. I’ve seen Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which heavily relies on Shakespeare’s plot for the opera, more times than I’ve seen the play. But Margaret and Alice’s quick-witted machinations provide the basis for a merry outing at the theater.

When the possessive and paranoid Frank Ford runs into Margaret as she’s scurrying to meet his wife, Alice, he pointedly remarks, “I think, if your husbands were dead, you two would marry.” To which she replies in savvy screwball fashion worthy of Carole Lombard: “Be sure of that — two other husbands.”

I have a soft spot for “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” The refreshing sight of the women teaming up against Falstaff never fails to amuse. And I appreciate the frank and forgiving light the play sheds on long-term marriage.

But swaths of the comedy are antiquated. And the language has a dashed off quality in places, suggesting there’s some truth to the legend that Shakespeare wrote the play at the request of Queen Elizabeth, who was said to be so charmed by Falstaff that she wanted a sequel depicting Sir John in love.

Falstaff isn’t exactly in love in Shakespeare’s comedy. And he definitely isn’t motivated by pure romance in this adaptation, written by New Swan founding artistic and producing director Eli Simon and Anna Fitzgerald, with music by Zachary Dietz. As in all things, Falstaff is led by his belly, a gargantuan metaphor for his gluttonous nature.

Megan January (Nym), Wyn Moreno (Johnny Falstaff) and Sam Schneider (Pistol) in “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove.”

(Jesus Lopez Vargas)

The pastiche score, indebted to the pop charts of the 1950s, isn’t allowed to dominate. As modern musicals go, this is a low-key affair. The comedy is still the thing in this frolicsome outdoor production, which takes place in the charming ambiance of the festival’s portable, mini-Elizabethan venue.

The cast is principally composed of UC Irvine students, past and present, with a few guest artists in the mix. Under Simon’s direction, the presentation is smooth and professional, though the ensemble reflects different levels of experience.

My general note is particular to the genre: Comedy works best when exaggeration arises the way it does in nature, as a fact of personality rather than as a calculated theatrical effect.

Certain members of the cast push the humor a little too vociferously. How much funnier Shakespeare’s motley crew can be when we’re allowed to discover the variety of eccentricity and ludicrousness on display for ourselves.

Falstaff’s girth is worked into the comic mayhem, but the character should be more than a sight gag. Moreno tries to preserve a measure of dignity while wearing a jumpsuit from Elvis’ Las Vegas era. But the sight gag nature of the characterization is overworked.

Garcia’s Ford seems not just jealous but borderline apoplectic. (Garcia is more nuanced when Ford is operating in disguise to suss out Falstaff’s true intentions.) As Doctor Cayo, one of the risible suitors for Anne Page (Marilyn Alonzo), Heriberto Cruz Jr. delivers a flailing, full-body performance that practically holds the audience hostage for laughs.

Evan Lugo (George Page), top left, Sonya Cooke (Margaret Page), top right, Zane Caputo (Abraham Slender), from bottom left, Zach Trent (Skateboard Fenton) and Heriberto Cruz Jr. (Doctor Cayo) in “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove.”

(Elijah Waller)

Robert Shallow (Greg Ungar) does what he can to promote Abraham Slender (Zane Caputo, appropriately zoned out), his socially inept nephew, as a prospective husband for Anne. But neither gentleman is what anyone would call efficacious. In truth, both performers seem more at home as members of the Banana Splits Band, the quirky onstage combo that ushers in the show’s retro beat.

In a nicely balanced performance, Alejandra Villanueva’s Mistress Quickly, the play’s go-between and overseer of mischief, embodies the free and easy spirit of Simon’s production. Lugo’s George has a simple affability that’s infectious. And Alonzo’s Anne and Zach Trent’s Skateboard Fenton, the young lovers swerving around parental obstacles, are a delightful throwback to those gaga California kids from the age of “Gidget.”

Cooke’s Margaret and Hentges’ Alice remain, as they should, defiantly in charge. The adaptation delves more into their marital melancholy, but I felt I understood them better in Shakespeare’s original, which recognizes the power of suggestion and interpretive restraint.

Yet “The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove” succeeds in extending a warm communal embrace to its audience, which is the ultimate aim of this mischievous and kind-hearted comedy.