Watching: What to watch this weekend
A fired-up Spanish dramedy
Dear Watchers,The Spanish dramedy "Rage" (in Spanish, with subtitles), debuting on Friday at 8 p.m. on HBO Latino, is a distinctive anthology of female anger. Each episode includes a true plate-smashing meltdown, the culmination of decades of frustration and neglect. People rip cabinets off the wall, light fires, destroy entire kitchens. And while the show has an amped-up soapy lilt, all the indignation is grounded in real despair and grief. The stories connect and coincide; some of the women are neighbors, or catch glimpses of one another on television. Some of the women are rich and impulsive while others scrounge for each rent check, but disappointment knows no tax bracket. A prized pig wanders through the chapters connecting the arcs, too. Marga (Carmen Machi) is a visual artist and hobbyist markswoman whose slick husband is sleeping with their housekeeper, Tina (Claudia Salas). Tina's mom, Adela (Nathalie Poza), struggles to make ends meet while taking care of her own ailing mother. Nat (Candela Peña), prim and stylish, loves her job at a high-end department store … until she is forced out by a blasé boss who prefers to hire less-qualified Instagram influencers. Vera (Pilar Castro), a celebrity chef, vents to her pal Marga about how hopeless she feels, how sinister the world seems to her. But it isn't just perception, it is also projection: She winds up torturing a journalist who antagonizes her. "We're all just selfishness, meanness and madness," she tells him while he's tied to a table. When Victoria (Cecilia Roth) realizes the award she is getting is sponsorship nonsense and not a belated recognition of her work, the humiliation overwhelms her, and we watch this tidal wave of self-recrimination crash on shore. Have I been a fool this whole time? How much of my life have I wasted operating under these misapprehensions about myself, about the world? Everything on "Rage" escalates, quickly, and the behaviors are extreme — and exciting. While the characters are motivated by pain, the show itself is bright and funny, colorful and surprising. Two episodes air on Friday and the remaining six air weekly after that. Your newly available movies
In a great week for films by obsessive auteurs, Wes Anderson and David Cronenberg go deep into their usual bag of tricks — Anderson with the miniaturist caper "The Phoenician Scheme" and Cronenberg with "The Shrouds," which involves a cemetery where you can watch loved ones decompose in real time. But for '90s indie-rock fans, the deconstructed documentary "Pavements," from Alex Ross Perry, is a slanted and enchanted delight. Unless otherwise noted, titles can generally be rented on the usual platforms, including Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, Fandango at Home and YouTube. SCOTT TOBIAS 'Brick' (Netflix only) Make sure to watch this thriller in its original German. Dubbed into English, it goes from mildly diverting to landing like a ton of, well … — Lisa Kennedy (Read the full review here.) 'Everything's Going to Be Great' By turns heartfelt and, especially in the ghost tête-à-têtes, irksome, the movie is helped substantially by its cast, especially [Bryan Cranston], who brings a welcome sincerity to a quixotic, potentially cloying character. — Ben Kenigsberg (Read the full review here.) 'Karate Kid: Legends' There is at once a roughshod, zippy energy coupled with a sedateness here that results from the simple fact that the film never quite knows how to square the pure awkwardness of two teachers — two stars from different eras of a franchise — instructing a karate kid at once. — Brandon Yu (Read the full review here.) 'Pavements' The effect is delightfully destabilizing. At some point we lose track of whether anything in here is real at all, or whether maybe it all is. — Alissa Wilkinson (Read the full review here.) 'The Phoenician Scheme' It's overstuffed, and thus skims and skitters across the surface of everything it touches, only glancing here and there before it's taking off to the next story beat, the next exquisitely detailed composition. A breath or two or 10 might have been in order, a moment to contemplate what the movie's getting at. — Alissa Wilkinson (Read the full review here.) 'The Shrouds' (The Criterion Channel; also rentable) With each new plot development, the movie lurches in a different direction before then abandoning it. "The Shrouds" is about a disturbing new gizmo. No, it's about grief, a force as mighty as it is paralyzing. Wait, it's about surveillance and espionage, and could involve Russia or China. — Elisabeth Vincentelli (Read the full review here.) Also this weekend
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