New this week: 'The Starling,' Diddy and Billy Bob Thornton
ABC News
This week’s new entertainment releases include new albums from rapper Diddy and “Star Trek” star William Shatner, as well as Melissa McCarthy playing a grief-stricken mother in the Netflix drama “The Starling.”
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— The best way to remember Norm Macdonald, who died last week at age 61, is probably to surf YouTube for late-night and “Saturday Night Live” clips, sift through Twitter for anecdotes and read some of the many fine tributes written about the comedian. But while movies were a smaller part of Macdonald's output, his plainspoken, deadpan comedy could be all the more distinct on the big screen. If his singular rhythm stood out on “SNL,” he was totally out of place in studio comedies. His first film was Adam Sandler's “Billy Madison" (available for digital purchase), the first of many with Sandler. Macdonald mostly sat by the pool playing a drunk; as Sandler told it, Macdonald fell asleep in their first scene together. “Dirty Work” (1999), currently streaming on HBO Max, was one of Macdonald's few starring roles. The Bob Saget-directed film, released on the heels of Macdonald's infamous “SNL” exit, suggests a movie path that never unfolded for Macdonald. To some, it's a cult classic.
— Writer-director Theodore Melfi and Melissa McCarthy came together in 2014's “St. Vincent,” in which she played the single-mother neighbor to Bill Murray. It was an early hint at McCarthy's talent as a dramatic actor, several years before her great performance in “Can You Forgive Me?” In Melfi's “The Starling," which debuts Friday on Netflix, the two reunite with McCarthy starring as half of a couple, Lilly and Jack (Chris O'Dowd) ruined by grief after the death of their infant. Lilly becomes obsessed with battling an annoying starling that nests in her backyard, which becomes an unlikely mode of healing for her. Reviews out of the film's Toronto International Film Festival have been suggested this Melfi-McCarthy collaboration isn't as fruitful.