Stream on Demand: Odenkirk goes from unscrupulous lawyer in ‘Better Call Saul’ to unhappy professor in ‘Lucky Hank’
What’s new for home viewing on Video on Demand and Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and other streaming services.
Top streams for the week
Bob Odenkirk, fresh from the Emmy-nominated “Better Call Saul,” is Henry “Hank” Devereaux, Jr., an English professor at a mediocre, underfunded Pennsylvania college, in “Lucky Hank: Season 1” (TV-14). As you might guess, the title is ironic. Hank is miserable, in the shadow of a famous father and on the road to a midlife crisis as he tries to teach uninterested students and navigate a department in disarray, and it only gets worse after he unloads on one of his students. Mireille Enos plays his slightly less miserable wife, the vice principal of the local high school, and Diedrich Bader costars. New episodes on Sundays. (AMC+)
“Up Here: Season 1” (not rated), a musical romantic comedy set in New York City in 1999, stars Mae Whitman as an aspiring writer and Carlos Valdes as an ambitious investment banker, opposites who fall in love and break into song when the emotions get too big. Brian Stokes Mitchell costars in the series created by playwright Steven Levenson (“Dear Evan Hansen”) and songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (“Let It Go”). All episodes streaming. (Hulu)
Elizabeth Banks stars in “Call Jane” (2022, R), a timely drama set in 1968 Chicago about the Jane Collective, the real-life volunteer network who helped women seeking abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade. Banks plays a housewife and mother whose pregnancy threatens her life, and Sigourney Weaver and Wunmi Mosaku are among the activists she turns to. (Hulu)
There’s something mysterious – and dangerous – in the skies above a California horse ranch in Jordan Peele’s “Nope” (2022, R). Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer star as siblings who investigate the strange phenomenon in this fascinating (if overstuffed) mix of modern western, alien invasion thriller and ecological parable. (Prime Video)
True stories: The Oscar-nominated documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” (2022, TV-MA) from award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras weaves the story of artist and activist Nan Goldin and her protests to hold the Sackler family accountable for the opioid crisis with a survey of the New York art underground from the 1970s and its activism during the AIDS crisis. (HBO Max)
Pay-Per-View / Video on Demand
The animated “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (2022, PG) and the horror film “M3gan” (2022, PG-13) are both also available on Peacock, while “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (2022, PG-13) is also streaming for Disney+ subscribers.
Netflix
An FBI agent (Gabrial Basso) in the White House basement answers the emergency line and gets caught up in a conspiracy in the political thriller “The Night Agent: Season 1” (TV-MA).
Amazon Prime Video
The documentary “Reggie” (2023, PG-13) looks back on the life and barrier-busting career of five-time World Series champion Reggie Jackson.
Other streams
The second season of the acclaimed horror thriller “Yellowjackets” (TV-MA) arrives with new episodes on Fridays. (Showtime Anytime)
Originally produced for HBO Max, “Minx: Season 1” (TV-MA) lands a new home at Starz in advance of the second season debut. (Starz)
Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer. His reviews of streaming movies and TV can be found at https://streamondemandathome.com.