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    ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Review: Singing, Slinging and Slashing

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    Beyond the somewhat silly premise of this Netflix animated film is a charming, funny and artfully punchy original universe.Lest you roll your eyes and think of it as a four-quadrant-friendlier version of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” “KPop Demon Hunters” immediately establishes its premise, getting any prospective scoffing out of the way.For generations, a voice-over intro explains, girl groups have used their popular songs to secretly trap hordes of demons underground and keep the world safe. The latest group on their trail? Huntrix, a K-pop girl band that, in its fight against the sinister Gwi-ma (Lee Byung-hun) and his demons, is close to completing the Golden Honmoon, a protective barrier that will permanently keep evil forces at bay. But the girl group soon faces its toughest challenge yet: a demon boy band.With that somewhat silly logline behind us, what we’ll find in this Netflix animated film, directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, is an original universe that is charming, funny and artfully punchy.It’s a Sony Pictures Animation film that shares a kind of lineage with the studio’s recent hit “Spider-Verse” franchise that is most apparent in the similar visual style. But otherwise what it borrows mostly is a more holistic and technical sense of the cinematic, a philosophy of approach that is rare in big-budget animation films. The action sequences are fluid and immersive, the art is frequently striking and the music (catchy, if formulaic earworms) is a properly wielded and dynamic storytelling tool.And as for the cheesy girl group vs. boy band story, Kang and Appelhans have a sly sense of humor about it all, too; the movie is funniest when it pokes at pop culture that is highly manufactured, from K-pop to K-dramas to mass-produced singing competitions — the very things the film itself would never stoop to.Rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Two Miss Austens, Asterix & Obelix and Robot Chambermaids

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      New international series include a drama about Jane Austen and her sister, a Netflix reboot of a French institution and a whimsical sci-fi anime.In this roundup of recent series from other shores, we go tripping through time and space: from Roman Empire high jinks to Regency England melodrama, and from contemporary British mystery to a postapocalyptic Japanese hotel.‘Apocalypse Hotel’This whimsical, oddball science-fiction anime has not ranked highly in surveys of this spring’s season of Japanese animated series, perhaps because it doesn’t fit precisely into a standard category. (It also has the disadvantage of being a rare original series, with no ties to an already popular manga or light-novel franchise.) In a Tokyo slowly being reclaimed by nature, on an Earth abandoned by humans because of an environmental catastrophe, an intrepid band of robots keep the lights on at a luxury hotel, prepping every day for nonexistent guests. The staff members’ intelligence may be artificial, but their commitment to service is touchingly genuine.When guests do appear — sometimes decades or even centuries apart — they are not humans but wandering aliens whose habits and needs test the robots’ resourcefulness. A family of shape-shifting interstellar tanuki (raccoon dogs) decorate their rooms with towers of dung; a superpowered kangaroo with boxing gloves for paws is intent on destroying the planet’s civilization, not realizing the job is already done. As the travelers and the staff adjust to one another, the robots enact their own version of exquisite Japanese tact and hospitality, with results that are both melancholy and raucously comic. (Streaming at Crunchyroll.)‘Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight’The tremendous success of the Asterix comics and their offshoots across more than 60 years — hundreds of millions of books sold, a panoply of movies, a popular theme park outside Paris — has never translated particularly well to the United States. The heroes of the stories, a village of 1st-century-B.C. Gauls with egregiously punny names, may hold out against Roman occupation because of the magic strength potion brewed by their druid priest. But their true power, in literary terms, is a projection of insular French wit and wordplay and rough-and-ready Gallic sang-froid. For Americans, the humor can seem both beneath our standards and over our heads.“Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight” is based on the long-running Asterix comics.2025 Les éditions Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo/NetflixNow that Netflix is involved, however, it is a sure bet that the intention is to cross over into as many markets as possible, not least the United States. This five-episode adaptation of an early (1966) Asterix book accomplishes that goal with sufficient style, primarily through its brightly colorful 3-D animation. The images are vivid and pleasing, and they hold your interest even when the action kicks in and the storytelling loses some of its French particularity, sliding into a Pixar-derived international-blockbuster groove. (Streaming at Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Sesame Street’ Signs New Streaming Deals With Netflix and PBS

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      The deal is a much-needed shot in the arm for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces “Sesame Street” and has been struggling financially.After many difficult months, “Sesame Street” has a moment to celebrate.“Sesame Street,” the 56-year-old institution of children’s television, has signed a new distribution deal with Netflix, as well as a separate deal with PBS, the show announced on Monday.That means new episodes of “Sesame Street” will now be available to the more than 300 million subscribers of Netflix, giving it significantly more reach than in the past. New episodes will also be available on PBS the day they are released on Netflix, the first time in roughly a decade that the public broadcaster will have access to brand-new “Sesame Street” content. The new agreements will go into effect later this year.The deal is a much-needed shot in the arm for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces “Sesame Street” and has been in the throes of a financial crisis. Sesame Workshop laid off about 20 percent of its staff this year after several grants dried up, and, more significantly, it confronted a significant loss in revenue with the expiration of its current distribution deal, a lucrative contract with HBO.Since 2015, HBO has paid Sesame Workshop $30 million to $35 million a year for new episodes of “Sesame Street,” The New York Times reported. But Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO’s parent company, is letting that deal expire as it turns away from children’s content and faces financial challenges of its own.It was not immediately clear how much Netflix paid to distribute the show. But Sesame Workshop executives have warned employees for months that any new distribution agreements would bring in significantly less revenue than the old HBO deal.In a note to staff, Sherrie Westin, the chief executive of Sesame Workshop, said that it was “certainly worth celebrating” that the show will be available in many more households going forward.But, she added, “we will also have to find additional new ways to sustain our work, as the economics of these agreements are vastly different than those of the past, given the drastic market and media landscape shifts in recent years.” More

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      HBO’s Streaming Service Becomes ‘HBO Max’ Again

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      Warner Bros. Discovery executives are reinstating the name HBO Max for the popular streaming service. It’s the fourth name change for the app in the last decade.It’s not Max. It’s HBO Max — again.In a surprise pivot, Warner Bros. Discovery executives announced Wednesday morning that the streaming service Max would be renamed HBO Max, reinstating the app’s old name and abandoning a contentious change that the company introduced two years ago.The reason for the change, executives explained, was straightforward.People who subscribe and pay $17 a month for the streaming service wind up watching HBO content like “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us,” as well as new movies, documentaries and not a whole lot more.“It really is a reaction to being in the marketplace for two years, evaluating what’s working and really leaning into that,” Casey Bloys, the chairman of HBO content, said in an interview.HBO, a trailblazer of the cable era, has been on a very bumpy ride to finding an identity in the streaming era. There was HBO Go (2008), HBO Now (2015), HBO Max (2020), Max (2023) and now, once again, HBO Max (2025).Two years ago, Warner Bros. Discovery executives said that they meant well by changing the name to Max. Their overwhelming concern, the executives said, was that Discovery’s suite of reality shows — “Sister Wives,” “My Feet Are Killing Me” — risked watering down the HBO brand, which continued to produce award-winning series like “Succession.”Further, they said, HBO spent decades branding itself as a premium adult service. That was not exactly an ideal anchor for a streaming service that they envisioned would compete head-to-head with a general entertainment app like Netflix.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘North of North’ Is a Warm Arctic Comedy

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      Set in a fictional Inuk community in Canada, this Netflix comedy shows abundant tenderness for its characters but also surprising depth and edge.“North of North,” streaming on Netflix, is a bright Canadian comedy set in a fictional Inuk community in Nunavut, remote and TV-quirky. Gossip travels fast in a small town, and our heroine, Siaja (Anna Lambe, terrific), is giving everyone plenty to talk about.Now that her little girl (Keira Cooper) is in school, Siaja feels a bit lost. She’s married to her high school sweetheart, Ting (Kelly William), who kind of sucks, and while she’s glad her mom (Maika Harper) is sober now, their relationship is patchy, and she has never even met her father.While seal hunting with Ting, Siaja falls off the back of their boat into the icy waters, and she has a mystical and transformative experience. Back on shore, Ting berates her, but this time is not like the other times. This time she leaves. Siaja needs something for herself: a job, yes, but also a purpose. And hey — who are those handsome strangers who just got to town?“North” operates in the ways lots of shows about women in their 20s who pursue self-actualization operate. Siaja’s sexual and romantic high jinx are played for laughs and for growth, and the story finds its true heft in the excavation of her mother’s pain. As Siaja resituates herself within her community, she discovers that she has plenty of natural talent that need only be cultivated and directed.She initially scrambles in her new gig as an assistant to the capricious head of the community center (Mary Lynn Rajskub, very fun). “Just make sure you look busy when Helen comes in,” one co-worker warns.“When does Helen come in?” Siaja asks.“When you least expect it,” says another.The show’s abundant warmth and its tenderness for its characters suggest a slightly hokier, cornier show. But the edge and depth of “North” do emerge over its eight episodes, in both the casual cruelty within Siaja’s marriage and in snappy humor. (“You’re an ambassador?” “A brand ambassador.”)On the whole, this is a cozy sweetheart show with lots going for it. There is one aspect, though, that casts a grotesque shadow over everything. It occurs at the end of the pilot, so this is a spoiler, but only barely.One of those handsome strangers in town is Alistair (Jay Ryan), and when Siaja first meets him, she is drunk and spiraling, and he is hot and friendly, so they impulsively make out a little. But lo: Alistair is actually her father. Aaaaaaaahhhh! Save it for “The White Lotus”! The show treats this as merely cringe, but it lands as inescapably disturbing. More

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      In ‘Ransom Canyon,’ Minka Kelly Enjoys the Ride

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      There were times when Minka Kelly assumed that her acting career was over.Kelly, 44, had never planned on becoming an actress. Before breaking out in her mid-20s as the sassy cheerleader Lyla Garrity in the football weeper “Friday Night Lights,” she worked as a scrub nurse. A decade ago, during a slow period, she graduated from culinary school.So later, when fallow months turned into fallow years, she would tell herself this was fine. If Hollywood had finished with her, she would survive it.But recently, having published a sensitive, unsparing memoir, “Tell Me Everything,” a New York Times best seller, Kelly found herself again in demand. An offer came for “Ransom Canyon,” a Netflix neo-western series with romance elements. Kelly would fill the cowboy boots of Quinn O’Grady, a concert pianist who runs a dance hall in the Texas Hill Country. Quinn’s enthusiasms include soap making, love triangles, looking wistful in prairie skirts.Kelly didn’t think a romantic lead would be available to a woman in her 40s. But it was. And audiences have been enthusiastic: “Ransom Canyon,” based on the novel by Jodi Thomas, has been one of Netflix’s most popular shows since it debuted last week. And there is also more to come. After Kelly finished shooting “Ransom Canyon” in June, she flew to Paris to film her first romantic comedy, “Champagne Problems.” That movie will debut in November, also on Netflix.Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly in a scene from “Ransom Canyon.” “This is Lyla 20 years later,” Kelly said of her new role, comparing it with the one she played in “Friday Night Lights.”Anna Kooris/Netflix“I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I am my best, and now the best thing has happened,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Labor Board Classifies ‘Love Is Blind’ Contestants as Employees

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      The National Labor Relations Board’s case against the Netflix hit could have ripple effects across the reality TV industry.The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the hit reality show “Love Is Blind” on Wednesday in which it classified the show’s contestants as employees, opening a case that could have ripple effects across the reality television industry.The complaint by the labor board’s regional office in Minnesota says that the show committed several labor violations, including unlawful contractual terms related to confidentiality and noncompete provisions.By classifying the cast members — who date and sometimes marry other singles on the show — as employees with certain federal legal protections, the complaint opens the door to possible unionization. It is one of the labor board’s first forays into reality television and a major development in the effort by some onscreen personalities to change the industry through the legal system.Several contestants on “Love Is Blind,” which streams on Netflix and has been one of the buzziest dating shows since its debut in 2020, have come forward in lawsuits, in interviews and on social media with objections to the restrictions outlined in their contracts.One contestant, Renee Poche, got into a legal dispute with the show after she publicly accused the production of allowing her to get engaged, in front of TV cameras, to a man “who was unemployed with a negative balance in his bank account.” She said in court papers that after she had made “limited public remarks about her distressing time on the program,” one of the companies behind the production initiated arbitration proceedings against her, accusing her of violating her nondisclosure agreement and seeking $4 million. (Her suit said she had earned a total of $8,000 on the program.)Two “Love Is Blind” participants — Poche and Nick Thompson — submitted complaints to the labor board, resulting in an investigation into the policies and practices of the production companies behind the show, which include Kinetic Content and Delirium TV.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Women Find Watching True Crime Comforting

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      Since the election, I have been spending a lot of time horizontal in my soft pants watching true crime — nonfiction television about a variety of illegal activity, mostly murder. My husband thinks it is pretty demented that I find comfort by turning away from breaking news and watching a show called “Accident, Suicide, or Murder,” but I often watch or listen to true crime as a way to calm down.That I am a woman who enjoys this lurid pastime does not make me remotely unique. Women are twice as likely as men to listen to true crime podcasts, and younger women with less formal education are particularly likely to listen. Some have estimated that the audience for true crime shows is 80 percent female. In fact, women loving true crime is such a cliché that “Saturday Night Live” made a song about it in 2021. I half sing it to myself every time I turn on “Dateline”: “I’m gonna watch a murder show, murder show/ I’m gonna watch a murder show…late night true crime, this is my relaxing time.”I have seen many theories — in academic papers and Reddit forums and talking to other crime junkies — about why women are more drawn to the genre. The explanation I see most frequently is that women watch true crime to protect themselves: We are usually less physically powerful than men are, and we think that by understanding the psychology of criminals we can better avoid them.That interpretation may be true for some women, but it never quite resonated with me. It wasn’t until I was processing my anger about America electing a man who was found liable for sexual abuse and nominating people who were accused of sex trafficking to run the Justice Department that I could finally explain to myself why I find the genre so irresistible.Most of the true crime I watch reflects a black and white moral universe where victims ultimately get justice, even if it is delayed. In this closed world, modern law enforcement is competent and empathetic, and evidence from medical examiners and forensic scientists is taken seriously. I don’t like “Unsolved Mysteries” because there’s no real resolution for the victim’s family, I find it devastating. But my favorite true crime does not just show good people doing their jobs. It also celebrates the emotional and intuitive; victims, including their families, often have hunches about perpetrators that elude law enforcement and defy norms.An excellent recent example of the moral universe I enjoy returning to, one that felt particularly poignant, is the two-part Netflix documentary “Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter.” It centers on Cathy Terkanian, who in 1974, at 16, had a daughter she named Alexis. Her mother pressured her to give Alexis up for adoption so that the little girl could have a better life.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jake Paul-Mike Tyson: What to Know About the Fighters

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      This Guy VS. That Guy Meet the 27-year-old social media influencer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion who are gearing up for a bizarre boxing match. The Curious Fight Between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson The most-watched program on Netflix this weekend may not be a documentary or a romantic comedy. Instead, millions of people are […] More