Prime is celebrating springtime by premiering Fallout, a big-budget show based on the video game series; a second season of anthology horror series THEM: The Scare; Música, an auteur romantic-comedy from internet celebrity Rudy Mancuso; and way more. Check below for the best new shows and movies on Prime in April, with a few timeless movie recommendations for fun.
Fallout
The Fallout video games are practically revered among gamers, so there will be a lot of critical eyes turned toward Prime’s TV series based on them. Luckily, Fallout’s executive producer Jonathan Nolan knows how to adapt a dystopian science fiction story—he created HBO’s Westworld. In classic Fallout style, the series is set 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse obliterated humanity, and begins with the hero, Lucy (Ella Purnell), stepping out of a Vault-Tec vault into a bombed-out Los Angeles. She’ll encounter gun-slinging ghouls, the power-suited Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, a Mr. Handy robot, and all kinds of “hey, I recognize that!” material from the games. Hit play to see if it lives up to its legacy.
Start streaming April 11
Dinner with the Parents
Don’t discount this original comedy series because it’s on FreeVee. Dinner with the Parents’ cast includes some of the funniest people who have ever been seen on a screen, including Dan Bakkedahl, Michaela Watkins, and Carol Kane—there’s even a YouTube star, Daniel Thrasher, for the kids. Adopted from wildly popular British sit-com Friday Night Dinner, each episode of Dinner with the Parents revolves around a family meal at the eccentric Langer family’s house, a meal that inevitably descends into chaos.
Starts streaming on FreeVee on April 18
Música
Camila Mendes from Riverdale and internet personality Rudy Mancuso star in this Amazon original romantic comedy. Mancuso co-wrote the screenplay and composed the music in Música too. Described as an “untraditional romantic comedy that moves to its own infectious beat,” Música tells the story of Rudy (natch) a charismatic Brazilian street performer with synesthesia—he experiences everyday noises as music. Rudy’s directionless life is turned inside-out when he meets Isabella (Mendes), a beautiful woman who works at a fish market and seems to understand him much better than his girlfriend.
Starts streaming April 4
THEM: The Scare
The second season Little Marvin’s horror anthology series is set in 1991 Los Angeles and stars Deborah Ayorinde as Dawn Reeve, an LAPD detective investigating a particularly grisly series of murders. With the city teetering on the edge of chaos, Reeve tracks down the killer, but begins to suspect that something worse than human evil may be behind the crimes, and it’s targeting her and her family. THEM: The Scare also stars Pam Grier as Athena Reeve, and that’s reason enough to check it out.
Starts streaming April 25
How to Date Billy Walsh
If you’re in the mood for a teenage love story, check out How to Date Billy Walsh. Set at a posh British boarding school, Billy Walsh tells the story of Archie’s lifelong crush on his best friend Amelia (Charithra Chandran). Just when Archie is ready to tell his pal how he feels, Amelia meets Billy Walsh, a handsome, charismatic American transfer student, and she falls hard. Complications, as they say, ensue, as Amelia tries to date Billy and Archie tries to secretly keep them apart. It may not be the most original story for a teen comedy, but it’s presented here with sincerity and wit.
Starts streaming April 5
Going Home with Tyler Cameron
This reality/renovation show chronicles former Bachelorette and current handsome boy Tyler Cameron’s quest to start a construction business in his hometown of Jupiter, Florida. We are meant to believe that Cameron has always dreamed of working in construction, and now that he no longer stars in a top-rated television show where a gaggle of attractive women compete for his affection, he is finally free to pursue his real passion: renovating other people’s houses. Each of the eight episodes of Going Home features a remodeled home, and the series also boasts appearances from reality TV stars like Matt James, Rachael Kirkconnell, Jason Tartick, and Hannah Brown.
Ong Bak – The Muay Thai Warrior (2003)
I sometimes forget how great martial arts movies can be, often for years, but then I’ll watch something like Ong-Bak and go, “wait, why do I ever watch any other kind of movies?” Tony Jaa turns in a performance on the level of Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan with his portrayal of Ting, who sets out from his small village to retrieve a stolen statue of Buddha. That plot, though, is secondary to the fight sequences. Shot in pre-digital, no-wire-work times, Jaa and the rest of the cast’s stunts and choreography will have you saying “Goddamn” or shaking your head in pure disbelief.
Starts streaming April 1
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
One thing I’ll say for him, Jesus is cool. A screening of Jesus Christ Superstar is an Easter tradition in my house, and it should be in yours too. The story of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus told through hippie-era acid rock, Jesus Christ Superstar works as both campy rock opera and as straight story-telling—the source material is pretty solid. Packed with great music by Andrew Lloyd Weber and featuring performances from talented long-hairs like Ted Neeley as Jesus Christ and Carl Anderson as Judas, Jesus Christ Superstar is so great, it almost makes me forget I’m an atheist.
Starts streaming April 1
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
If you’re the kind of person who can separate an artist from their work, watch (or re-watch) Rosemary’s Baby, a masterpiece horror movie from director Roman Polanski. It’s strange that a criminal and reprobate like Polanski could have made a movie as progressive and pro-feminist as Rosemary’s Baby, but art is sometimes weird like that. Rosemary’s Baby’s pregnant-with-the-devil story works on the surface as a creepy slow-burn suspense/horror tale, but underneath is a scathing critique of the patriarchy, with powerless Rosemary systemically victimized and violated by everyone and everything in her supposedly perfect life. It’s still hard-hitting 55 years later, and it features stand-out performances from Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, and Ruth Gordon.
Starts streaming April 1
The Holdovers (2023)
I can’t say enough positive things about The Holdovers. A character-driven drama directed by the great Alexander Payne, The Holdovers stars Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham, a hardass classics instructor at a New England boarding school. Tasked with babysitting a crew of poor-little-rich-boys with nowhere to go over Christmas vacation, Hunham strikes up an unlikely friendship with troubled-but-intelligent delinquent Angus Tully (played by Dominic Sessa) and the school’s cook, Mary Lamb (a role for which actor Da’Vine Joy Randolph won an Academy Award). It’s the kind of movie that you know will make you cry about five minutes in, but the tears are honest, man.
Starts streaming April 29
Last month’s picks
Ricky Stanicky
Wrestler-turned-movie-star John Cena is always funnier than you think he’ll be, and Ricky Stanicky gives Cena the chance to sink his teeth into a hammy role as the title character. In this Amazon-produced comedy from director Peter Farrelly, Zac Efron, Andrew Santino, and Jermaine Fowler play Dean, JT, and Wes, lifelong pal who and have been pretending to have a friend to use as an alibi or scapegoat since they were kids—if they want a night out with the guys, they just say they’re visiting Ricky Stanicky in the hospital. When their partners become suspicious and demand to meet Stanicky, the trio hire “Rock Hard” Rod (John Cena), a washed-up actor who specializes in x-rated celebrity impersonations, to portray Ricky. Things quickly spiral out of control as Ricky refuses to drop the role and insinuates himself into every aspect of their lives.
Starts streaming March 1.
Road House
In the original Road House, Patrick Swayze played against type as the bouncer in rough Southern saloon. In the remake, it’s a jacked-up Jake Gyllenhaal doing the honors. He plays Elwood Dalton, a nice-seeming dude who used to be a UFC fighter. Down on his luck, Dalton takes a gig as security at a rundown roadhouse in the Florida Keys, but his new gig quickly leads beyond bouncing drunks toward confrontations with dangerous criminals. In his first acting job, MMA champion Conor McGregor plays the heavy, and finding out if he can act is enough reason to watch Road House by itself.
Starts streaming March 21.
Invincible, Season 2, Part 2
This animated superhero show has built up a large following for its R-rated action and compelling story, so the second half of season 2 appearing on Amazon is cause for celebration in nerd-circles. Invincible’s main character is 17-year-old Mark Grayson, a second-generation superhero living under the shadow of his famous dad, Omni-man, the most powerful man on the planet. According to Prime’s official show description, in the second part of season 2, “Mark goes back to college, reads his dad’s books, and nothing bad happens to him or his family. This is a very official synopsis.” So I’ll go with that.
Starts streaming on March 14.
Frida
This documentary explores the life and work of iconic artist Frida Kahlo using her own words taken from journals, letters, interviews and other primary source material, all illustrated with animations inspired by Kahlo’s art. First-time director Carla Gutiérrez had access to material never presented to the public before, and uses it to create a film that aims to go deeper than an art history lesson or just-the-facts biography.
Starts streaming March 14.
Boat Story
In this BBC-produced action series, a pair of down-on-their-luck strangers happen upon a shipwrecked boat that’s packed to the rafters with pure cocaine. They decide to sell it, but their get-rich-through-drug-sales scheme goes haywire when they get mixed up with the police, masked assassins, and “The Tailor,” a hardened gang-boss who wants his shipment of cocaine back. Boat Story was created by the people who made the excellent Netflix show The Tourist, and if even comes close to measuring up to that show, you won’t want to miss it.
Starts streaming on March 12.
Tig Notaro: Hello Again
Emmy and Grammy award-winning comedian Tig Notaro’s best jokes come from mining everyday life for comedy gold, and delivering it with a laid-back, friendly style. In Hello Again, she takes on domestic life, misunderstandings with clerks at the airport, and more.
Starts streaming on March 26.
Five Night At Freddy’s (2023)
The Five Nights at Freddy’s video games are considered best-of-the-best by many horror game fans, so the movie adaptation was eagerly awaited, particularly since the game’s creator is a producer and co-writer of the film. But does the tale of a kids’ pizza place haunted by animatronic monstrosities work as a movie? Depends on who you ask. Critics hated it, giving it a measly 32% on rotten tomatoes, but fans loved it, earring it an 87% audience score. All you can do is give it a shot and see where you land.
Starts streaming on March 5.
Minions: The Rise Of Gru (2022)
Everyone loves minions, but what even are they? Rise of Gru answers that and many other questions by presenting Gru’s origin story and his meet-cute with the minions, taking us back to the 1970s, when Gru was just a boy dreaming of world domination from his suburban bedroom. Minions: The Rise Of Gru features voice acting from Steve Carell, Russell Brand, Michelle Yeoh, and Julie Andrews as Gru’s mom, and the animation by best-in-the-world-except-Pixar animation company Illumination,
Starts streaming on March 26.
