What to Stream This Weekend

Jon Bernthal (from The Punisher and The Walking Dead) seems to actually believe it when his character says "I'm not a dirty cop." But I'd expect no less from We Own This City, a mini-series about the Baltimore police and the real-life failure of its Gun Trace Task Force. It kicked off last Monday, it's brought to you by alums from the best cop show of all time, The Wire, and it even co-stars Jamie Hector from that show and Bosch.

No one wanted to make the bestselling book The Godfather by Mario Puzo into a movie, at least until producer Albert S. Ruddy was tasked with the job. He got Coppola and even got the Colombo crime family to go along (by never using the word "mafia" in the film). Now, the epic story behind the epic story can be told—at the same time that all three The Godfather films start streaming on Paramount+ as well.

In this new comedy, SNL alum Vanessa Bayer plays a woman who wants to keep her job at a shopping channel, and the only way she can think to do so is to blurt out a lie that the cancer she had as a kid has returned.

Big fans of the now-classic comic book Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai may be disappointed to know this show isn't about that story's lead (and frequent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover guest) Miyamoto Usagi. It's about his teenage descendent, who joins a group of warriors, Kung-Fun Panda-style. That said, Miyamoto may appear in some 2-D flashbacks.

Oscar-nominated, plus Tony- and Golden-Globe-winner Andrew Garfield (you know him as Peter 3 from Spider-Man: No Way Home) is back on TV—this time in the adaption of the Jon Krakauer true crime book, about a Latter-Day Saints member and police detective investigating a murder related to the church. The first two episodes premiered last night. For more of this kind of thing, watch the documentary Prophet's Prey on Showtime.

Disney spent decades perfecting 2D animation before computers took over, but even with 3D, there's plenty of drawing required for animation. This show follows six Disney artists giving full instruction on how to draw, with each episode concentrating on illustrating a single character such as Captain Hook, Olaf, the Genie, and Mirabel from Encanto.  

It premiered late last weekend, but fans of sci-fi should check out this updated version of the head-trippy story that David Bowie himself starred in back in the 1970s. Sadly, the remake has little to do with Ziggy Stardust. But it does star the luminescent Chiwetel Ejiofor and Naomie Harris as the alien and the human who he seeks out. There will be 10 episodes by the time it finishes in July.

This weekend sees the birth of a new free streaming video service, kinda. Amazon's Freevee is a rebranding of IMBb TV (which used to be IMDb Freedrive when it launched in 2019). It's essentially Amazon's take on Crackle, Pluto, Roku Channel, or Tubi, tossing a lot of licensed content online with advertising—you know, like old-school broadcast TV. We gave it a 3.5-star review in 2020. The name change is official as of April 27, so look for new apps or icons for the app on your devices. The old version had a few original shows like Alex Rider and Leverage: Redemption; coming soon are some interesting new shows, such as Bosch: Legacy.