Keeley Brooks
Jan 6, 2023
New Titles Dropping This Month
A new year brings fresh new content, and there’s plenty of that streaming this month. You didn’t think I was gonna leave this out, did you? Here are some of the hottest titles dropping on some of your favorite platforms this month. Enjoy, my friends.
NETFLIX
Kaleidoscope – This title hit on Jan. 1. Giancarlo Esposite (Breaking Bad) stars in this new heist series that plays with format, interaction, and linearity in a Black Mirror: Bandersnatch/Murderville sort of way. Esposito is a veteran thief after one last payday of 7 billion dollars in dirty money kept in the “world’s safest vault.” Just like Clooney in Ocean’s Eleven, he puts together a team and prepares, but his hidden past with the vault’s security consultant could complicate everything. Also stars Rufus Sewell (Old, The Man in the High Castle), Jai Courtney (Suicide Squad), Peter Mark Kendall (Top Gun: Maverick), and Tati Gabrielle (You).
The Pale Blue Eye – Dropping Jan. 6, Christian Bale (Batman) is back as detective Augustus Landor, who is tasked with solving the gruesome ritual murder of a young West Point cadet in 1830 and putting a stop to a potential scandal for the military school. He engages an eccentric, brooding young cadet named Edgar Allen Poe (eek!!), played by Harry Melling (Harry Potter series), to infiltrate the ranks and expose the strange happenings. Also stars Robert Duvall, Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody), and Toby Jones (Truman Capote from Infamous).
That 90’s Show – Red and Kitty are back, and this time they’re hosting a basement full of new talent in this sequel series to That 70’s Show. When Eric and Donna’s daughter Leia bonds with new friends, she falls for Jackie and Kelso’s son Jay as she spends the summer of 1995 with her grandparents in Wisconsin and recreates her parents’ philosophical smoke sessions and madcap adventures. Stars all of That 70’s Show cast, minus Danny Masterson who is absent for legal issues, along with some fresh new faces.
Streaming Jan. 19
You People – Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy team up for this comedy about a couple in love, who must get their parents on the same page with each other and on board with a Jewish-Muslim marriage. Also stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld), David Duchovny (The X-Files), and Nia Long (Bad Boys). Streaming Jan. 27
Also streaming this month: Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, Season 1 (Jan. 4); Vikings: Valhalla, Season 2 (Jan. 12); and Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (Jan. 26)
HULU
Death in the Dorm – This documentary tells the true stories of six college students whose lives were cut short by murder: Andrea DelVesco (UCLA), Christian Aguilar (Univ. of Florida), Yeardley Love (Univ. of Virginia), Michael Deng (Baruch College), Samantha Josephson (Univ. of South Carolina), and Katie Autry (Western Kentucky University). Now streaming
The Drop – The newest film from the Duplass Brothers (Safety Not Guaranteed, Room 104) … When a happily married couple excited about starting a family travel to a tropical resort for a wedding, things quickly go south when the wife accidentally drops her friend’s baby. The vibe of the friends’ reunion sours as past drama and old wounds surface, throwing the married couple’s future into doubt. Stars Anna Konkle (PEN15), Jermaine Fowler (Coming 2 America), Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street), Utkarsh Ambudkar (Brittany Runs a Marathon), Elisha Henig (The Sinner), Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project), and Robin Thede (A Black Lady Sketch Show). Streaming Jan. 13
Extraordinary – This latest superhero sendup unfolds in a world where everyone develops a power on their 18th birthday—except for late-bloomer Jen, who is 25 and still waiting for her power. Frustrated with her dead-end job and flaky hook-up Luke (who can fly), Jen plods through a world of super-strength and hyper-ability in search of her gift. Streaming Jan. 25
Also streaming: Koala Man, Season 1 (Jan. 9), How I Met Your Father, Season 2 (Jan. 24), and National Geographic Investigates: LSD and Psychedelics (Jan. 26)
AMAZON PRIME
The Rig, Season 1 – Calling to mind John Carpenter classics like The Fog and The Thing, this series features some spooky, unexplainable occurrences on an oil rig in the Scottish North Sea after a mysterious fog rolls in. Soon the entire structure is haunted, and people start suffering psychological breaks. Stars Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek) and Iain Glen (Game of Thrones). Streaming Jan. 6
Hunters, Season 2 – This alt-history revenge/conspiracy thriller series is back for a final season, three years after everyone got hooked on the Al Pacino pulp tale. Holocaust survivor-turned-philanthropist Meyer Offerman (Pacino) has assembled a team of outcasts to hunt Nazis hiding in 1970’s America, but an accident derails their plans. This season they reunite on an internation mission to track down and kill Hitler, played by Udo Kier (Swan Song), who is supposedly hiding in South America and mobilizing an army to establish a Fourth Reich. Also stars Logan Lehrman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother), Carol Kane (The Princess Bride), and Jerrika Hinton (Grey’s Anatomy). Streaming Jan. 13
Shotgun Wedding – This action/romcom stars Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel as a wealthy couple trying to navigate the perils of an island destination wedding … right up until a gang of modern-day pirates show up and begin taking hostages, leaving the pair to save the day in a set of increasingly outlandish violent shenanigans. Streaming Jan. 27
Also streaming: Indiana Jones original trilogy (Jan. 1); Endeavour, Season 8 (Jan. 3); The Test, Season 2 (Jan. 13)
HBOMax
Velma – Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project) voices Velma in a new adult animated mystery series following the nerdy sleuth’s origins before the official formation of the classic Scooby Doo gang … just with a sharper, more serious storyline and a whole new look. Joining Kaling are Sam Richardson (Veep), Constance Wu (Fresh Off the Boat), and Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Streaming Jan. 12
The Last of Us – Who HASN’T been waiting on this puppy?!! This long-anticipated series adaptation of the very popular horror video game takes place in 2033, 20 years after humanity was ravaged by a brain fungus that turns its hosts into violent, feral monsters that use echo location to rip survivors apart. Post-apocalyptic mercenary Joel (Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian) is hired to escort a teen named Ellie (Bella Ramsey, Game of Thrones) on a brutal trek across post-pandemic America to a team of doctors who hope that she may hold the cure to the disease. Keep an eye out for Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation), who guest stars as a loner survivalist living in the woods. The plague starts streaming
Jan. 15!
The Climb – Who doesn’t love watching Jason Momoa do, well, anything? This time he and rock-climbing iconoclast Chris Sharma are hosting a competition to inspire the next great generation of adrenaline junkies: amateur climbers will endure a gauntlet of physical and mental challenges in a contest for a $100,000 prize and a sponsorship from elite outdoor brand prAna. Momoa took up rock climbing to train for several films; his joy and reverence for the sport gives the series a wild, spiritual quality. Streaming Jan. 12
APPLE TV PLUS
Servant, Season 4 – M. Night Shyamalan’s psychological thriller is back for a nerve-shredding close with a final installment of supernatural terror. If you haven’t been watching, the series centers around a grieving couple who opens their door for a sinister force in the form of a nanny to enter their home and all hell breaks loose. In season 4, the nanny’s war with the Church of Lesser Saints heats up, threatening the city of Philadelphia and beyond. The grieving couple must confront her instability and evil, and as their home continues to literally crumble, we will learn who the nanny really is, along with the identity of the baby in their home. Stars Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under), Nell Tiger Free (Game of Thrones), a very funny Rupert Grint (Harry Potter), and Toby Kebbell (Wrath of the Titans). Streaming Jan. 13
Shrinking, Season 1 – Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) is Jimmy, a grieving widower and overwhelmed therapist, who stumbles upon a new approach to life: he decides to start breaking the rules and telling everyone exactly what he thinks of them and their problems. His professional peer Dr. Rhodes (Harrison Ford) is less than impressed, but Jimmy throws training and ethics to the wind and finds himself catalyzing profound change in peoples’ lives – including his own. Sometimes, you just need to have a breakdown before you have a breakthrough. Streaming Jan. 27
Also streaming: Mosquito Coast, Season 2 finale (Jan. 6); Echo 3, Season 1 finale (Jan. 13); Superleague: The War for Football (Jan. 13); and Truth Be Told, Season 3 (Jan. 20)
PARAMOUNT PLUS
Sometimes When We Touch – A new three-part documentary exploring the “reign, ruin, and resurrection” of soft rock, offering the hopeful view that the genre is experiencing one of the most unlikely comebacks in music history. Now streaming
Mayor of Kingstown – Taylor Sheridan is back with season 2 of his hit new series, starring Jeremy Renner (Avengers), Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights), Dianne Wiest (Edward Scissorhands), and Hugh Dillon (Flashpoint). In case you missed season 1, this series follows the McLusky family, power brokers in Michigan led by Renner, where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry. Tackling themes of corruption and inequality, the series offers a stark look at the family’s attempt to bring order and justice to a town that has neither. Streaming Jan. 15
Wolf Pack – Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) trades vampire hunting for investigating sightings as she stars in a new supernatural show from the creator of MTV’s Teen Wolf (no relation). During the chaos of a forest fire in California, a strange creature from the woods bites two high schoolers, who become werewolves. They join two other undercover werewolf teens, abandoned as puppies after a … waaiiit for it … forest fire sixteen years before, to discover the secret that connects them and eliminate the beast that is stalking them. When one of the pack is kidnapped, the others must draw on both sides of their nature to find the cunning and courage to rescue her. Also stars Rodrigo Santoro (300). Streaming Jan. 26
PEACOCK
Poker Face – Starring Natasha Lyonne (Orange is the New Black), Adrien Brody (Succession), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer), Chloe Sevigny (Zodiac), Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy) and Lil Rel Howery (Get Out). Lyonne is Charlie, who has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying, hits the road with her Plymouth Barracuda and with every stop encounters a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve. You won’t want to miss this series, I promise. Streaming Jan. 26