‘Slow Horses’ Review: Gary Oldman’s Excellent British Spy Series Delivers For A Second Time This Year

EXCLUSIVE: Gary Oldman has found “great joy” in playing the Falstaffian, flatulent-sharing, British espionage operative Jackson Lamb in Apple TV+’s Slow Horses, which has just launched season two. Meanwhile, the Harry Potter star confirmed he will play Harry Truman in one scene in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

Ghosts spooked up record viewership with its holiday-themed episode on Thursday. The special one-hour episode of the CBS comedy took home an average of 7M viewers, according to live + same day Nielsen data.

Disgruntled angels are coming to Hulu. The streamer has ordered Standing By, a satirical look into the lives of a group of eternally bound, irritated guardian angels and the lessons they’ll eventually learn from not only the dysfunctional humans they’re in charge of protecting, but also each other.  

Love and compassion don’t require grand gestures. Often, the subtlest actions forge the deepest, most meaningful connections — a patient ear, a shared space, a gentle hand.

The Golden Globe nominations for 2022 are out! And they’re missing some pretty big names!

In today’s episode of Bingeworthy, our TV and streaming podcast host Mike DeAngelo gets pulled back into Apple TV+’s London-based spy series, “Slow Horses.” Based on the Mick Herron novel of the same name, the show follows Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), the slovenly, irascible, insubordinate leader of Slough House —a destination for all of British Intelligence’s misfits and career f*ck-ups. In the second season, which premiered its first two episodes last week on Apple TV+, the derogatorily dubbed “Slow Horses” stumble into another far-reaching case when a former colleague of Jackson Lamb’s is found dead on a bus.

EXCLUSIVE: Hulu’s We Were the Lucky Ones is adding Amit Rahav, Eva Feiler and Hadas Yaron in series regular roles.

It’s been a truly stellar year for television, with each new month providing ample opportunities to immerse ourselves in superb storytelling as the “to watch” list grows longer by the day. Most of the tentpole series have come and gone, with the major IP of Marvel, “Star Wars,” “The Lord of the Rings,” and “Game of Thrones” and their spinoffs all dominating a large part of the conversation.

NBC Universal chief Jeff Shell was coy yet clearly jazzed today about the possible merger of prolific horror producers Jason Blum and James Wan’s respective companies — Blumhouse and Atomic Monster – saying “I can’t confirm it,” but, “If that should happen, we are going to be in an absolutely impregnable position.”

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said Peacock has more than 18 million paid subscribers as of today, a nice bump from the 15 million it announced for the quarter ended Sept. 30, driven by programming migrated from Hulu, sports and Universal movies.

Prime Video has released a very bloody look at it’s upcoming college-set The Boys spinoff, Gen V.

Writer-director Tarik Saleh’s latest film Cairo Conspiracy follows Adam, the son of a fisherman, who is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power in Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest religious leader, the Grand Imam, suddenly dies and Adam soon becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt’s religious and political elite.

Davy Chou’s “Return to Seoul” is a fast one for the books, a film that (contrary to so much of contemporary cinema) delivers exponentially more than it promises. It begins as a modest, observational slice-of-life drama and slowly transforms into a movie about the lies we tell ourselves — about who we are, what we feel, and what we need.

A platoon of titles hits the specialty circuit this weekend, getting in ahead of steamroller Avatar: Way of Water and the year-end deadline for Oscar eligibility. This is a soul-searching, what-lies-ahead moment for a market still much too inconsistent for comfort, but that can be pondered later. At the moment, indie distributors are quite busy “with all these movies, and these plans to release theatrically. We are not going anywhere,” said one executive.

The longest voting awards committee is underway with the New York Film Critics Circle already naming this AM A24’s Marcel the Shell With Shoes On Best Animated film and A24/Mubi’s Aftersun from Charlotte Wells as Best First Film. In previous years, it can take five hours before the New York Film Critics Circle names Best Picture. We’ll be here for the long haul.

“Return to Seoul” is a film that played at a number of festivals in 2022, most notably TIFF and Cannes, where it earned rave reviews. However, when you look at the lineup of international films vying for Oscar glory, it doesn’t always get brought up.