Kao Kalia Yang has been called the foremost chronicler of Hmong life in the United States, and though this isn’t wrong, it’s the kind of tempered acclaim with which immigrant authors are especially familiar. Let’s retire the qualified praise. Her immensely powerful new book confirms Yang as one of America’s sharpest nonfiction writers.

“Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother” is about Tswb (pronounced “Chew”) Muas. Yang fans know her by another name. She was “Chue” in Yang’s “The Latehomecomer,” and excellent follow-up, “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father,” which Esquire named one of the 50 best biographies ever published.

Tswb gave birth to Yang in a Thai refugee camp, where her family lived for eight years before moving to Minnesota in 1987. Because her life has been a study in resilience, this book could’ve been too reverent for its own good. But, sticking to the approach that worked so well in “Poet,” Yang foregoes third-person narration in favor of her mother’s first-person voice. This gives the book immediacy, authenticity and humor (Yang also has an autobiographical picture book, “The Rock in My Throat,” out this month).

Born in Dej Tshuam, Laos — known locally as the Village Where the Rivers Meet — Tswb’s youth was distressing and brief. Her mother was widowed three times. Seeking stability amid chaos — North Vietnamese and Lao troops stalked members of the Hmong ethnic group, some of whom aided America during the Vietnam War — Tswb wed at 16.

Tswb consulted her mother about such decisions. “Young men who smell bad will only smell worse with age,” her mother said. Nineteen-year-old Npis — “Bee” in Yang’s previous books — must’ve smelled just fine.

Hiding in Laotian jungles, Tswb’s family survived by fishing, bartering and gathering vegetables. They made toothpaste from cooked banana peels.

In 1979, Tswb, Npis and their first child, Dawb, nearly died crossing the Mekong River, yet made it safely to a refugee camp in Thailand. There, the growing family lived near an open sewage canal and trembled as wind blew the roof off their communal house. “Pressures of this transient life” caused marital arguments.

Tswb glimpsed a different life when a letter arrived from her nephew. His family was thriving since they “resettled in a place called St. Paul.” Tswb’s family made the same journey.

In the Twin Cities, Tswb worked in factories and earned her high school diploma. More challenges awaited: Repetitive-stress injuries, depression. One of her toddlers ate lead paint.

The book is stronger for Yang’s decision to include fraught, not necessarily flattering, scenes. In one, Npis, having learned Tswb was pregnant, says he’s too old to raise another child. To Tswb, this is cowardice, the words suggesting she “kill the child inside me.”

For all its harrowing detail, “Where Rivers Part” lets the reader see the world afresh. As young Tswb washes bowls in a stream, “little minnows emerge out of the rocks to grab the bits of rice swimming down the current.” Years later, Minnesota snowdrifts assume “shapes like sheet-clad American ghosts in the orange glow of the streetlamps.”

After marrying, Tswb was known to relatives as “Npis’ wife.” In her daughter’s exceptional book, Tswb shines in the lead role.

Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life

By: Kao Kalia Yang.

Publisher: Atria, 310 pages, $28.99.

©2024 StarTribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

“Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” starts with the group staying in the town of Kalm after leaving Midgar. After some introductory segments, the player is thrown into the open world which is broken up into a few huge chunks of the world map. While the entire world map isn’t available at the start, the pace at which new zones are unlocked is perfect.

The success of this game hinged on how well they were able to adapt the open world of the original, and Square did a a fantastic job. Activities in the open world have a lot of variety — from combat and exploration to puzzles and even a new card game. The world also looks beautiful, so fans of the original will be able to see iconic locations in greater detail than ever before.

One thing that detracts from the open world is the character Chadley, who was introduced in the previous part of the remake. This little twerp chimes in whenever Cloud and his party do anything in the open world, and it gets annoying fast. It also takes away from the mystique of the world and the joy of finding new things through exploration.

Combat is largely the same as it was in the previous installment. The game uses real-time action combat in battles with the option to pause to use special abilities or items. Each character plays differently, and it’s fun to experiment with different parties to see who works best together. Yuffie and Caith Sith join the cast, and their playstyles are different and powerful enough so that they feel like meaningful additions instead of tacked-on baggage. Most characters also get a great deal of development, which is great to see for such a beloved cast.

The materia system didn’t have as much of an update as I was hoping, but now there are ways to make leveling them feel a little faster. The biggest issue is that you can’t save loadouts on all your characters, so managing them is a pain as you swap weapons and party members. It never feels like you have enough materia so that everyone has a useful loadout, so have to either stick to three or four characters or go through the tedium of constantly swapping stuff.

Most of these issues are minor compared to the grand scale of the world and the spectacle of the story, but the biggest issue in “Rebirth” by far is its reliance on gimmicks. Almost every chapter has a story segment that breaks up your group and makes you play around with some new gimmick. What starts as an interesting idea becomes a series of bullets that this game uses to shoot itself in the foot. There isn’t really a reason for it because the core gameplay elements are enough to make the game great, yet the developers insisted on slowing things down to make you do something like throw crates at levers or run around a theme park.

While “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” does a lot of things to make its story diverge from the original, it also feels like those changes don’t result in anything meaningful yet. This second chapter covers most of the original’s story, and I hope the conclusion pays off all of the wacky things “Rebirth” sets up. This game’s combat, open world and sheer spectacle are good enough for five stars, but the constant speedbumps in its pacing knock it down to four-and-a-half stars out of five.

The cozy mystery makes for perfect escapism.

Sometimes we want to set aside stories of grisly violence, gritty reality and dysfunctional cops to reach for soft-boiled, soft-focused tales of crime and detection comprising quaint villages, quirky characters and ample wit, charm and twists.

Kristen Perrin, originally from Seattle and now based in the U.K., has turned her hand to cozy crime for her adult debut. The enticingly titled “How to Solve Your Own Murder” incorporates key components of the genre. Its plot pivots on a decades-old prediction. In 1965, 17-year-old Frances visited a fair and learned from a fortune-teller that she would be murdered. Instead of dismissing the prophecy, Frances believed it and spends her life trying to prevent her early demise by gathering information on everyone she knows —ruffling many feathers in the process.

In the present day, Annie, an aspiring crime writer living in London, receives a letter out of the blue from Frances’ solicitor. Frances has named her great-niece sole benefactor of her estate and would like her to attend a meeting. Annie is baffled; she has never met her relative. Her confusion turns into shock when she arrives at Gravesdown Hall in the village of Castle Knoll and finds Frances dead.

Foul play is suspected, and at the reading of the will Frances issues a challenge from beyond the grave: In order to claim her inheritance, Annie must solve her great-aunt’s murder in one week.

“Frances may be nutty, but she’s very calculating. And she likes to play games,” explains Annie’s mother. This game involves Annie assuming the role of amateur sleuth and working against the clock to unmask a killer.

She trawls through the photos, notes and reports that Frances has amassed over the years in her “murder room,” and delves into the past by way of Frances’ journal. She compiles a growing list of suspects that includes a shifty property developer, a gardener with a “side business,” Frances’ friends and family — even a vicar and a detective. Annie also tries to decode the fortune-teller’s cryptic prediction, a riddle about a queen, a bird and dry bones.

As Annie investigates, we join her in weighing the significance of seemingly innocuous details (Frances’ messy bouquet of flowers, her recent car trouble) and answering nagging questions. Is Frances’ death connected to the decades-old disappearance of her friend Emily? And why, after 60 years, did Frances’ killer strike now?

Perrin’s update on the classic murder mystery is impaired by its far-fetched premise and a plot that becomes convoluted rather than intricate. In addition, not all her characters’ voices ring true. On the plus side, the pace never lets up and tension mounts when anonymous threats and a body in a trunk make Annie realize that her life might be in danger. The result is a fun yet flawed whodunit.

How to Solve Your Own Murder

By: Kristen Perrin.

Publisher: Dutton, 360 pages, $28.

©2024 StarTribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

“Oh, man,” the concession worker says. “We really need that one.”

“Dune II” notwithstanding, it has been a difficult year at the average movie theater. Now comes the new Godzilla/Kong smackdown — the marketing materials, for the record, tell us that the “X” in “Godzilla X Kong” is silent, which is a confusing waste of a perfectly good letter. But I’m happy to report that the follow-up to the 2021 “Godzilla vs. Kong” does the job — unevenly, yes, but with a pleasantly reckless spirit of engagement.

It’s directed, as was the 2021 movie, by Adam Wingard and features the return of Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Kaylee Hottle and assorted digital MonsterVerse golden oldies, from ‘Zilla to Kong to Mothra and more, shined up and fulla’ beans.

Maybe the preview crowd on Tuesday was an outlier, but I doubt it. The bursts of applause, particularly in the blithely destructive Rio de Janeiro climax — a team-building exercise for the headliners — had the ring of genuine approval, not just something you do because the movie’s begging for it. At one point Godzilla and Kong sprint toward their enemy, Scar King, the orange authoritarian nightmare whose territorial ambitions as a Kong-scaled antagonist know no bounds. You know the shot: the action-movie slow-mo dash toward the camera, executed here in such a way as to suggest Godzilla and Kong have spent many hours rewatching “Bad Boys.”

Dumb, right? Well, sure. Also amusing, and exciting and sincere. For the audience, it’s a shameless bid for applause that satisfies our deepest urges to see two endlessly competitive beings find the joy in starring, however briefly, in a Michael Bay action movie.

At the end of “Godzilla vs. Kong,” the atomically charged sea lizard and the woolly plus-sized simian reconciled, uneasily (without lawyers), after vanquishing the human-made Mechagodzilla. Despite widespread human fear and skepticism, Godzilla agreed (again, without lawyers) to keep a beady eye in his touchingly too-small head on monstrous threats to humankind on Earth’s surface. Kong returned to Hollow Earth, the gravity-scrambled inner wonderland of verdant beauty and violent predators. The film worked like a remake of “The Odd Couple,” proving that two lonely Titans can share a planet without driving each other crazy.

The threats double, triple and quadruple in the new movie. Scar King, whose miserably enslaved followers include a Titan “ancient” in the Godzilla vein, ranks as Headache No. 1.  But there are others, and Godzilla gives up his post to chase down an unexplained distress signal emitting from Hollow Earth. The signal perplexes the humans in “Godzilla X Kong,” nervous about what might happen if Godzilla and Kong mix it up again.

These humans of whom we speak include the brilliant, eternally preoccupied scientist Dr. Andrews (the Hall character). Her adopted daughter Jia (Hottle), the sole surviving member of the Iwi tribe of Skull Island, has been plagued by visions of Hollow Earth and imminent catastrophe, and with her telepathic communication with her pal Kong heightened, something’s definitely up. Reunited with the Titan-obsessed podcaster Bernie (Henry) and Andrews’ one-time squeeze Trapper (Dan Stevens), the humans zwoop to Hollow Earth to make their own set of astonished green-screen discoveries on cue.

Whole sections of “Godzilla X Kong” shove the humans off-screen for many minutes at a time. Few will complain. I love Hall in just about everything and she and Hottle capture enough authentic feeling in their mother/daughter relationship to earn a tear or two themselves. To be fair, some of that comes from the screenplay by writers Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett and Jeremy Slater, though the laziest exposition and boilerplate dialogue puts the “bored” in “cardboard.” (I stopped counting how often Hall’s character says “Oh, my god!” in response to whatever she’s oh-my-godding about.)

Whatever; nobody’s paying for the words here. “Godzilla X Kong” makes up for its own deficiencies with oddball flourishes. Wingard and the writers work like rogue chefs at an Olive Garden, tossing everything they can at any number of walls to see what sticks. The sight of Godzilla curling up like a kitten, napping inside the Colosseum in Rome after he’s half-trashed it in order to save it from an attacker: very nice. Later on, chowing down on a lifetime’s worth of free food (atomic energy stored under the Arctic ice), Godzilla’s bad breath and body odor color changes from blue to bright pink, as if he’s getting dolled up for a Summer of ’23 weekend with Barbenheimer.

The movie proceeds with brutal bouts of MMA combat with 300-foot combatants. The comparatively measured and selective action storytelling of the 2014 Gareth Edwards “Godzilla,” like last year’s terrific Japanese revitalizer “Godzilla Minus One,” feels a long way from Wingard’s janky funhouse movies. But they have their own relentless, overstuffed appeal; I wouldn’t recommend them if they didn’t.

If I focus more on Godzilla in this new picture than Kong (the movie’s slightly more Kong-centric), maybe it’s because the best dog I ever had also had a too-small head. Not sure that’s enough to build an entire Godzilla ethos around, but I’ll take it up with my therapist.

And I’ll take these Godzilla/Kong MonsterVerse movies over most other corporate studio franchises these days, especially the recent “Jurassic Park” outings, which were, what’s the word … lousy. Yes, Godzilla and Kong cause untold and blithely unexamined human and property damage in Wingard’s latest, enough so that I wouldn’t mind seeing an entire movie at some point in this franchise’s lifespan devoted to lawsuits and legal battles, if only to see how Godzilla and Kong behave in a courtroom. The Rio carnage is quite extensive; earlier, there’s a dash of sweet pathos in the sight of Godzilla klutzing around Rome, damaging priceless landmarks because he can’t help it. Typical foreign tourist.

But let’s be realistic: What good is realism to “Godzilla X Kong”? Final question: Which low-level employee took the time to add the extra exclamation point to the dire control panel warning “GODZILLA VITALS SURGING!!”? There are only four possible words for whoever it was: employee of the month.

“Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” — 3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for creature violence and action)

Running time: 2:02

How to watch: Premieres in theaters March 28

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

The biopic form practically demands failure, or at least a series of narrative compromises made under pressure from so many factions: the real-life subject, or keepers of the now-deceased subject’s estate, nervous about an unsympathetic truth or two; the streamer or studio backing the project; and the filmmakers themselves, trying to do right by the person featured in the title, while finding a shape — and the ideal performer — to make the thing work.

“Shirley,” now streaming on Netflix, constitutes the latest frustrating, two-hour example of all that pressure. You don’t, however, detect any of it in the carefully detailed performance of Regina King as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black female member of the U.S. Congress, who campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972.

Watching King in scenes with the late, great Lance Reddick (as Chisholm advisor Wesley “Mac” Holder), or Terrence Howard (Arthur Hardwick, her second husband; they met as New York State legislators in 1966), or André Holland (as Chisholm’s rival presidential hopeful Walter Fauntroy), you can relish the skill sets of these performers — their sleight-of-hand ease with even the horsiest loads of exposition. This, too, can scarcely be avoided in any biopic: those moments when two characters are meant to be talking like they know each other well, and are well-acquainted with the background or context of whatever they’re discussing. Problem is, the audience isn’t. So the dialogue starts sounding like they’re speaking directly to the viewer, in bullet points.

“Shirley” struggles with many such moments. Writer-director John Ridley, who also produced, focuses the two hours he has on a few months in ’72, when Chisholm took on the political challenge of her life, seeking 1,500 delegates amid a pale male sea of skepticism. Nixon was set to go for a second Republican term pre-Watergate; in those days, scandalous and/or illegal presidential activity was enough for a vast majority of the party in power to ditch the man in charge. McGovern, the way-out-ahead Democratic front-runner, felt inevitable though he got creamed by Nixon in the end.

Did Chisholm and her better-known, better-funded competitors, from Humphrey to Muskie to Lindsay, have a chance? No, and yes. Campaigns turn on a series of dimes, and coin tosses with fate. In America, we’re besotted with underdog stories because they typically involve long-shots who end up winning. “Shirley” can’t work that way, although Chisholm proved an seriously inspirational political figure. She had her eye on the future, whether she would run the country in that future or not.

I wish the movie dramatized those harried campaign months more persuasively, without quite so many speech-y bits even when no one’s making any speeches. Five minutes into “Shirley” in a brief scene from Chisholm’s first congressional year, there’s a confrontation with a bigoted white Southern pol, fussed about this interloping Black woman from Brooklyn earning the same $42,500 annual salary he does. Does the scene work? Only as crude shorthand. It feels more like a biopic straining for hit-and-run impact, rather than a telling fragment in a real-life story.

The actors do all they can, all the time. Lucas Hedges portrays young, green law student Robert Gottlieb, who at 21 became Chisholm’s national student organizer; Christina Jackson, astutely delineating campaign worker and future Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s conflicted feelings about politics, adds welcome doses of subtlety. Along with Reddick and company, these two buoy a script gradually taking on more and more water.

King’s in charge, of course. Her real-life sister Reina King plays Chisholm’s sister Muriel, resentful of Shirley’s favored-daughter status. In their scenes, and in every scene elsewhere, the top-billed Oscar winner (King won for her work in “If Beale Street Could Talk”) works low-keyed wonders in selling what’s overstated in an understated, humanizing way. Chisholm came from Guyanese and Bajan (Barbadian) descent, and while King foregoes some vocal particulars (the sibilant “s,” mainly) she evokes Chisholm’s public persona and refreshing candor extremely well.

Writer-director Ridley, who won his own Oscar for adapting “12 Years a Slave,” has done solid work (the recent Apple miniseries “Five Days at Memorial”) and at least one directorial documentary project, the 1992 Los Angeles uprising documentary (“Let It Fall”), that is very close to great. With “Shirley” we’re close to almost-not-quite territory, and visually, Ridley sticks with conventional shot sequences of characters in frame, alone, either speaking or reacting. This makes fluidity and interpersonal flow pretty difficult. The political particulars of Chisholm’s presidential bid, and the question of why so many other candidate’s delegates got funneled into McGovern’s losing campaign, never risk much complication. Time is too short.

At one point King, as Chisholm, resists the advisors’ pleas to simplify her “messaging” (was that word in circulation 52 years ago?) by saying: “I am not leaving out the nuance!” In “Shirley,” the top-shelf actors aren’t, either. Even if their material does.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

“Shirley” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for profanity including racial slurs, brief violence and some smoking)

Running time: 1:57

How to watch: Now streaming on Netflix.

The term “Big Time” is “the regional term for what people in the Midwest would call a powwow,” said Leo O’Neill, president of the Butte College Native American Club.

The event took place at the Butte College main campus and featured dance performances, Supaman’s headlining show and vendors selling traditional Native American items and food.

Supaman is member of the Apsaalooke Nation and is known for his fusion of traditional Native American music and contemporary rap.

“I love Supaman,” O’Neill said. “His lyrics, his dancing, his beats: it touches the soul.”

This is the second annual Big Time put on by Butte College and Supaman’s second time headlining the event. Attendees filled the bleachers of the gym where he performed while groups of young school children sat on the floor smiling and cheering.

Supaman’s story and message

Supaman’s performance involved callbacks with phrases such as “prayers up, tobacco down” and “love each other, no matter what the color.”

At one point, Supaman opened up about his upbringing living on a reservation in Montana. His parents were both alcoholics and his father was abusive. At a young age he and his siblings were put in foster care.

He shared that he lost his father to suicide, but that his mother is now sober. The crowd cheered when he talked about his mother’s sobriety, and cheered again when he said that DJ Element, the DJ he performed with, is 10 years sober.

According to the American Addiction Centers, “There are several factors that affect American Indians and Alaska Native communities, which can increase their risk of developing alcohol addiction. Some of the major risk factors that these communities face include historical trauma, lack of easy access to healthcare, lower educational attainment, poverty, housing problems, unemployment, violence, loss of connection to culture, and mental health issues.”

Supaman said he never got into alcohol because he saw the harm it caused those around him.

“It’s a good choice,” Supaman said about sobriety. “It doesn’t make us better than anyone but it’s a good choice.”

Throughout his performance he harped on the message of equality and love.

Feather River Tribal Health had a table at the event offering Narcan and information on wellness services.

“We really try to integrate culture and healing,” said Feather River Tribal Health wellness director Ashley Weiss.

Weiss said it is important to have support and community when reaching out for help with addiction.

“I think there’s nothing harder than struggling alone,” Weiss said.

Traditional jewelry

Vendors at the event sold ornate jewelry, ribbon skirts and and a variety of crafts. Tables covered in black cloth displayed what appeared to be millions of glistening beads and shells.

Vendor Rose Alley didn’t start making jewelry until after she had open heart surgery. During her recovery she had extra time, and filled it with jewelry making and crocheting.

Alley said events like the Big Time bring the community together, those of Native American descent and those not of Native American descent.

“I’m probably related to all of them,” Alley said about the attendees. “I’m getting to meet all my cousins.”

Alley has one Native American parent and one white parent. She said she is a descendent of multiple tribes, but mainly Mechoopda.

“I was what they called a ‘half-breed,'” Alley said. “So I wasn’t rejected by both sides.”

Food

Food vendors sold various items including fry bread, Indian tacos, corn and rez dogs.

Fry bread is a traditional Native American bread that is puffy and can be eaten plain, with powdered sugar or with meat and vegetables which makes it an Indian taco. A rez dog is a hot dog wrapped in fry bread.

Debbie Steele wore an apron with a picture of her grandma on it as she made countless orders of fry bread with Bald Rock Fry Bread.

“I get nervous every time I make it,” Steele said. “Everybody says it turns out real good. They like it.”

Steele, 68, has been attending Big Time events her whole life.

“It’s like our church,” Steele said. “It’s real spiritual …  lots of love, lots of love.”

If you want to head to the theaters, check out Luc Besson’s wacky “DogMan” and our find of the week “Lousy Carter” (showing one night only in San Francisco).

Here’s our roundup.

“Renegade Nell”: “Happy Valley” creator Sally Wainwright enlivens the popular tween fantasy-tinged genre with this exemplary female powered Disney+ series set in 18th-century England. In eight addictive episodes, the on-point filmmaker succeeds where others have failed, injecting just the right doses of intrigue and humor into a quietly subversive feminist story.

Best of all, the series is thankfully not a prequel nor a reboot, and, refreshingly, not a sequel. And what joy it is to have a lively female protagonist at the center of it all, a quick-tempered young adult who’s confident and rebellious and restless. Nell is infamous, too, trying to clear her name in a shocking murder.

“Nell” is made stronger by its well-written characters. And it is purpose-driven Nell (Louisa Harland, channeling some Jessie Buckley intensity) — a legend in the making — who anchors it. She’s gained not only notoriety but superpowers via a Tinkerbell-esque sidekick Billy Blind (Nick Mohammed).

When Nell and her two sisters flee from those who want to keep them quiet, their paths continue to cross with a duplicitous highwayman/aristocrat (Frank Dillane, providing much of the humor) who is the younger paramour of an irresponsible, gossip-mongering newspaper editor (Joely Richardson, living it up here), and a privileged brother (Jake Dunne) and sister (Alice Kremelberg) who are enabled int their tapping to the dark side by the Earl of Poynton (Adrian Lester).

There are many more engaging characters and a slew of clever cameos from British stars. Each play essential parts in the action, and do their fair share of conniving and derring-do to aid or defeat the grand, evil purposes of the bad guys. “Renegade Nell” gallops ahead of other Disney+ offerings by telling a new story tremendously well, and giving us a young woman who defies the ruling class to gain not only justice but freedom. Details: 3½ stars out of 4; all episodes available starting March 29.

“A Gentleman in Moscow”: Anyone who gulped down Amor Towles’ 2016 literary page-turner and then campaigned friends to follow suit will approach Showtime’s eight-part adaptation with a touch of trepidation. Rest easy, dear readers, showrunner and executive producer Ben Vanstone and creator/writer Joe Murtagh have done this one a solid and nothing more.

Ewan McGregor initially seems like an odd casting choice to play Count Alexander Rostov — a 1920s aristocrat whose mouthy ways lead to his getting forever confined by a Bolshevik court panel to the ritzy Metropol hotel. But he grows on you and gives another one of his emotionally complex performances, even if he’s not a Russian.

What might look on the outside look like a cushy sentence is anything but as Rostov’s ordered to never step outside and is confined within the dilapidated, uncomfortable accommodations in a drafty, chilly attic. Down below, he befriends many: confident actress Anna Urbanova (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, giving a classic, classy performance) who relishes her healthy sexual appetite, and a precocious child instrumental in playing a critical, life-changing part in his life as the decades fly by and the screws get tightened on dissent.

Unlike some series, the extended length of this one benefits the decades-spanning story arc, with each episode cycling us through Russian history and showing how the changing political winds whisked away some in power leaving the powerless to find strength, love and greater meaning. Details: 3 stars; starts streaming March 29 on Paramount+ (with Showtime) and then on March 31 on Showtime.

“STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces”: The first part of Morgan Neville’s entirely worthwhile two-part Apple TV+ series blows the audience away in its creative approach in charting comedian Steve Martin’s childhood, fledgling stand-up career and then his phenomenally successful stage shows. Told entirely without the fallback plan of a talking head, it overlays interviews with Martin and others with video and images of the time. It’s an immersive experience and one of the most creative and unique approaches used for a documentary about a famous person.

The second part is less adventurous but finds Steve at home, preparing for a show with his friend and “Only Murders in the Building” co-star Martin Short, his wife, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, friend Tina Fey and costar Diane Keaton, amongst others. It focuses more on his film career, and features clips from some of his biggest successes (“The Jerk,” “Parenthood”) and his biggest failures (“Pennies From Heaven” and Nora Ephron’s “Mixed Nuts”). The energy and momentum of the first part deflates in the second, but it is in tempo with the man himself, as a much more content, less anxiety-ridden Martin candidly reflects on the films, his greatest loves (including art), his emotionally shut-off father and a renaissance-like career that includes author, painter and playwright amongst other talents. It is a telling glimpse into the life of a creative artist who learns the invaluable truth that all the trappings of success mean so little until you’ve built a place you call home. It’s an exceptional documentary, even if the second half can’t quite keep up with the first. Details: 3½ stars; drops March 29 on Apple TV+.

“DogMan”: Luc Besson’s bizarro but commendable character study swings from great to awful, sometimes in a matter of seconds. What prevents its erratic tendencies from going entirely off leash is Caleb Landry Jones’ gutsy, fully committed performance. You can’t take your eyes off this underrated actor. He’s unforgettable as Douglas Munrow, a loner drag performer (he does a very cool Marilyn) in a wheelchair who’s more at home with his own pack of scraggly dogs than he is with humans. He has a good reason — his cruel dog-fighting father kicked him out and locked him in the filthy backyard kennel till he broke out. The dogs were the only ones who showed Douglas unconditional love and also protected him. Besson wrote this outlandish story, and while his directing is better than his screenwriting there is an undeniable flair to everything about this weird affair. Yes, it continually goes on and off the rails, but then it spits you off into an unexpected, but rather ingenious, place at the end. So given all that, is it worth seeing? Yes, but only if you plunge rather than lean into its chaotic  mindset from the very start. Details: 2.5 stars, in theaters Friday.

Find of the week

“Lousy Carter”: Indie filmmaker Bob Byington’s biting comedy fails on all counts in the originality department with its worn-out premise of a pompous professional – in this case a college literature professor who’s teaching a master’s course on “The Great Gatsby” –  confronting mortality when his doc says he has six months to live. A “death sentence” is one of the most overused plots but Byington’s dry-witted black comedy works better than the bulk of ‘em because it is wickedly funny and uncompromising and that’s due to the acidic screenwriting from Byington and the wry lead performance from David Krumholtz as a former dreamer with a big, hardly commercial idea to make an animated movie out of a Nabokov novel. Byington’s cast this droll comedy well with funny turns from actors portraying Carter’s forthright ex-girlfriend (Oliva Thirlby), a funeral-loving grad student (Luxy Banner) who challenges him all the time and his sorta best friend (Martin Starr) and his horny wife (Jocelyn DeBoer). Told in just under 80 minutes, “Lousy Carter” made me laugh uncomfortably quite often and then even shocked me at the end. Details: 3 stars; screens March 31 at the Roxie in San Francisco; also available On Demand starting March 29.

Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.

Thinking of cruising around French Polynesia with Windstar Cruises? Now, you can add on a stay at Marlon Brando’s private island after your sailing.

Windstar Cruises is launching a new offering in partnership with Pacific Beachcomber, a company that operates seven hotels in French Polynesia. One of those properties is The Brando, a private island eco-resort on the atoll of Tetiaroa with 35 private villas, white sand beaches and a 5-mile-wide lagoon.

Through the collaboration, Windstar guests can now book a two-night stay at The Brando after sailing aboard the Star Breeze, which recently replaced Wind Spirit and doubled the small-ship line’s capacity in the region.

The luxury post-cruise add-on will be available for booking starting May 1. It’s only open to guests staying in Star Breeze’s top suites: the owner’s suites, as well as the Broadmoor and Sea Island suites.

After sailing around French Polynesia with Windstar, guests will disembark the ship in Papeete. Then, they’ll board a small plane for the 20-minute flight to The Brando. While there, they’ll enjoy daily excursions, spa treatments, beach equipment and more. Then, they’ll be flown back to Papeete. Rates start at $6,900 per person based on double occupancy.

“This collaboration not only further enhances our commitment to providing unparalleled luxury and most romantic experiences for our guests in French Polynesia, but also allows us to extend the Windstar experience seamlessly from sea to land, providing our guests with exceptional hospitality throughout their journey,” says Christopher Prelog, president of Windstar Cruises.

The late American actor first purchased the atoll in the 1960s. In 1999, he asked his friend Richard Bailey, chairman of Pacific Beachcomber, to help him develop the property into a resort. Together, the two men began drawing up plans for a luxurious but environmentally friendly haven.

Brando died in 2004, but his family gave Bailey permission to carry the late actor’s vision forward. In 2014, that plan finally came to fruition when The Brando opened to the public. Since then, it’s been a hot spot for celebrities, with guests ranging from Barack and Michelle Obama to Britney Spears and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Since February, Windstar has offered Pacific Beachcomber’s InterContinental Tahiti Resort & Spa in Papeete for pre- and post-cruise stays. During their sailing, Windstar guests can also book a one-night stay in an overwater bungalow at Pacific Beachcomber’s Intercontinental Bora Bora Le Moana as a shore excursion.

“We are delighted to extend a warm invitation to Windstar Cruises’ guests to discover our secluded island havens, including The Brando, an eco-resort unlike any other nestled in the heart of French Polynesia,” says Bailey. “Together, we aim to deeply immerse our guests in the vibrant Polynesian culture and the untouched splendor of our natural surroundings.”

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©2024 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Visit at travelpulse.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Streaming Friday, March 29, on Apple TV+ comes a revealing two-part documentary about beloved comedian Steve Martin, directed by Oscar winning “20 Feet from Stardom” director Morgan Neville. “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces,” is a truly unique documentary project, the two halves distinctly different but fitting together to create an illuminating portrait of Martin and his relationship to fame and creativity.

The first half “Then” tracks his early life, through childhood, the budding of his comedy career, his boundary-pushing stand-up shows, and his meteoric rise to fame in the 1970s, becoming a pop culture sensation through his platinum-selling comedy albums, sold-out tours and many appearances hosting “Saturday Night Live.” The first part ends with Martin’s transition to a film career with “The Jerk,” and his first major stumble with the poorly received “Pennies from Heaven.”

The second half of the two-part film, titled “Now,” follows Martin in the present day, co-starring on the Hulu hit “Only Murders in the Building” with his longtime friend and collaborator Martin Short, living a private life with his wife and young daughter. In contrast to the chaotic frenzy of his life in the 1970s, Neville captures Martin in moments of quiet contentment, biking with Short through Santa Barbara, fixing easy meals on the road, and reflecting on his life. It’s a fascinating and riveting watch, in which the elusive star opens up like never before about the highs and lows of his personal life and career.

But while “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces,” is an absorbing watch, it will likely make you want to revisit his filmography, especially the early titles from the late 1970s and ’80s on which the documentary focuses. So here’s a little primer of where to watch some of Steve Martin’s earliest films, as an accompaniment to the doc.

His breakout role was obviously in “The Jerk” (1979), which he wrote and Carl Reiner directed. Martin stars as a simple country boy who heads off for life in the big city. The film was a massive hit and cemented Martin as a star. Stream it on Showtime or rent it elsewhere. In 1982, Martin and Reiner reunited for the noir parody “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”

The documentary also focuses on the 1981 flop “Pennies from Heaven,” a 1930s-style movie musical directed by Herbert Ross and co-starring Bernadette Peters and Christopher Walken. Martin in a sincere mode was not warmly received by critics and audiences, and the film explores how that failure was a deep wound for Martin. A fascinating object in his career history, rent “Pennies from Heaven” on all digital platforms.

Of course, there’s the iconic 1986 comedy “Three Amigos!,” which Martin wrote with Lorne Michaels and Randy Newman, directed by John Landis and co-starring Short and “SNL” star Chevy Chase. Stream it on AMC+, The Roku Channel, or rent it elsewhere.

But while he was making these rom-coms, he was also starring as a beloved movie dad, in 1989’s “Parenthood,” directed by Ron Howard, heading up an all-star ensemble cast including Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest, Jason Robards, Rick Moranis, Martha Plimpton, Keanu Reeves and Joaquin Phoenix. Stream it on Netflix. He also starred in the 1991 film “Father of the Bride” opposite Diane Keaton and Kimberly Williams-Paisley (plus Short and a tiny Kieran Culkin). Stream it on Disney+ or rent.

There are so many more fantastic Steve Martin movies, but the documentary will inspire you to revisit these early favorites in his career, so consider this the companion guide to “Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces” on Apple TV+.

(Katie Walsh is the Tribune News Service film critic and co-host of the “Miami Nice” podcast.)

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

In the late 1990s, NBC ran a promotional campaign with the slogan, “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you,” aimed at boosting summer reruns of such hits as “Mad About You” and “Frasier.”

Updated for 2024, the line would be, “If you haven’t streamed it, it’s new to you.”

Original series created to drive new subscribers to streaming platforms are showing up more frequently on linear broadcast and cable TV networks. Media companies are looking to expose the programs to broader audiences and fill out their lineups to help pay the freight as they battle to keep pace with Netflix.

This summer, CBS will be running the first season of the Taylor Sheridan crime drama “Tulsa King” starring Sylvester Stallone — a show that was made for streamer Paramount+. You can binge rival Peacock’s new reality series “The McBee Dynasty,” but if you want to kick it old school, individual episodes air weekly on parent company NBCUniversal’s USA Network.

In January, ABC aired the first season of the Hulu hit “Only Murders in the Building,” It performed well enough for the network to plan on airing another season at some point in the future.

The trend runs counter to the perception that viewers looking for non-sports entertainment programming have abandoned linear TV.

It may be true that many younger consumers who have grown up with streaming don’t even own a TV set, which they see as a gadget to bombard their parents and grandparents with pharmaceutical drug commercials all day. But for media companies, linear TV, while on the decline with shrinking ratings and cord-cutting, has turned into a marketing tool that expands public awareness of their streaming shows.

Meanwhile, the streaming businesses owned by legacy media companies such as NBCUniversal parent Comcast Corp., Paramount Global and Disney are all under pressure from Wall Street to generate profits. Turning to linear networks is a means of generating more revenue to help monetize their investments in streaming.

“These companies are hemorrhaging money [on streaming],” said Doug Herzog, a veteran cable and broadcast executive. “None of it is working great. That’s the issue. They are trying things out because that’s what they should be doing.”

Paramount Global Chief Financial Officer Naveen Chopra summed up the approach at an investor conference where he said his company aims to get “the most we possibly can out of every single dollar that we invest in content.”

Executives say viewers can expect to see more original programs created exclusively for streaming services pop up on broadcast and cable channels.

That’s because the broadcast networks have the ability to reach more than 95% of the homes in the U.S. While cord-cutting has reduced the number of homes getting pay TV, major cable networks are connected to about 70 million homes, still more than most subscriber-based streaming services. Peacock, for example, has about 30 million paying subscribers.

Streaming shows can become hits and cultural touchstones, but it’s harder for them to reach the kind of critical mass that big network TV series such as “Friends” once achieved. That’s why the legacy companies are finding that shows already exposed on streaming can pass as original programming on linear TV.

“It’s something we will continue to do because what you see in a fragmented marketplace — as popular as these shows are — there are still people who have not seen them,” said Craig Erwich, who as president of the Disney Television Group oversees ABC and Hulu. “Putting them in different places and telling people they are there is always additive. It’s never cannibalistic.”

With a cast that includes Martin Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez, “Only Murders in the Building” is a show with the kind of broad appeal linear TV networks still seek, requiring just a few edits of foul language.

Disney found that half of the viewers who watched “Only Murders” on ABC were not signed up to Hulu, which has almost 50 million subscribers. After the series aired on the broadcast network, viewers wanted more. The hours of viewing for the first two seasons of the program rose by 40% on its original streaming home.

“It was new to a lot of people,” Erwich noted. “It surprises me because the show is so wildly popular in both consumption and critical acclaim that you start to think that everybody who wants to see this has seen it. But it’s a big country and there are many different types of people who want to watch TV in many different types of ways.”

NBCUniversal similarly saw viewers flock to Peacock to watch the second season of the medical anthology drama “Dr. Death,” after episodes from Season 1 aired on NBC. Viewing of the show on Peacock rose 58%.

“Only Murders” came in handy for ABC, as last year’s strikes by Hollywood screenwriters and actors had shut down production for months and cut off the pipeline of fresh programming. But the network was looking for a way to deploy the show well before the labor stoppages became a factor, executives said.

Streaming shows are likely to show up on the networks during the summer months, when repeats can no longer draw a sizable crowd. Rather than investing in original series for a smaller available audience, CBS can turn to a streaming show with a high-profile star such as “Tulsa King,” which features Stallone as a crime boss.

Last week, NBCUniversal’s Peacock unveiled a new serialized reality show, “The McBee Dynasty,” which tells the story of a family ranch and the four brothers vying to take over the business from their patriarch. The entire series is available to stream on Peacock while individual episodes air Monday nights after “WWE Raw” on USA Network.

Funneling the nearly 2 million WWE fans per week into the Peacock series uses one of the most time-honored stunts in the TV playbook.

The notion of a TV schedule where viewers are compelled to make an appointment to watch shows has almost become an anachronism in the age of streaming video on demand. But pulling an audience from one time period to the next remains the most efficient way to drive millions of viewers into sampling a new program, especially following live events or reality competition shows that are best enjoyed by watching in real time.

“The concept of a show-to-show audience flow is real,” said Frances Berwick, chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment. “There is still a tremendous amount of value in it.”

Bravo aired the first season of the Peacock reality competition “Traitors” ahead of the streaming debut of its second batch. It was an easy fit, Berwick noted, as several of the players on the program come from the Bravo slate of reality shows such as “Below Deck.”

“We’ll do it where it makes sense and we have the right content,” Berwick said.

Most streaming shows making it to linear TV are staying under the same corporate umbrella. But it may be only a matter of time before networks regularly provide a second window for original shows created for platforms that they do not own. It’s already happening.

Fox recently cut a deal with Amazon’s Prime Video to get a broadcast run of the game show “The 1% Club” a week after episodes make their streaming debut. The CW is currently airing the Canadian sitcom “Children Ruin Everything,” which was created for the Roku Channel.

Similar deals and experiments are probably ahead in the effort to get programs in front of enough viewers to build them into profitable assets.

“We’re going to see a lot of creativity,” Berwick said. “Good content is good content.”

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.