In the hunt for an American Classic some TV Recommendations will suggest a Scary Movie. Which is just #SetTheVCR fun. Welcome to a place where you’ll never say Mayday.
Monday, August 31
The Assassin: Season 1 (Anytime / AMC+ & Acorn TV)
A retired assassin Julie reunites with her estranged son Edward (Freddie Highmore), but her dangerous past catches up with them, forcing them to go on the run together while uncovering a dark conspiracy that threatens their relationship.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: THE LAST SUNRISE (ANYTIME / PRIME VIDEO)
Based on the beloved novel, The Last Sunrise follows Ry, a college student with a chronic illness, on a summer escape to Mallorca with her mother (Eva Longoria). As she unexpectedly falls for Julián and begins to embrace living in the moment, her worsening condition and long-hidden family secrets threaten to unravel everything before the summer ends.
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Hot Girl Cancer Movie! The Last Sunrise is an open buffet of classic teen movie clichés: she’s in a place she doesn’t want to be in (ugh!), excellent booty (yes!), vacation sex (mmm), accepts…get busy living or get busy dying (word!) and her mom said she can’t mash the high school hunk…who is a generic bad boy for life (no!). And all they have is the Summer, anyways (hot!). In yo’face A Walk To Remember. Hit the bricks Five Feet Apart. Let’s see which Last Sunrise survive to the first Sun Rise…
Tuesday, September 01
The Varnell Hill Show: Season 1 (Anytime / Paramount+)
Nearly three decades after audiences first met him, Varnell Hill is stepping back into the spotlight – and he’s determined to prove he’s still the star of the show. Set behind the scenes of a long-running late-night talk show, The Varnell Hill Show follows Varnell (Tommy Davidson, yo!) as he fights to stay relevant in a rapidly changing entertainment landscape. Between network executives eager to modernize the show, a chaotic writers’ room, celebrity guests, family drama, and his own outsized ego, Varnell quickly discovers that keeping a television empire together may be harder than building one in the first place.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: UNTOLD RAYGUN: BREAKING BADLY (ANYTIME / NETFLIX)
Nobody, least of all Rachael Gunn, expected to be an Olympian. But as Raygun’s performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics went viral overnight, so did an avalanche of memes, misinformation, and conspiracy theories questioning how she ever got there.
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Raygun is the Jar Jar Binks of breakdancing. And this is yet another painful example of why I despise representation so…so much. Breaking is beautiful and her performance was not. She can’t have been surprised at the harsh reaction she received. Seriously? Honestly, some of the online beatings she got were valid: subpar representation is awful. I deeply resent that representation. But notice I said some! A lot of is just blind dogpiling though and that’s another valid issue, which like representation is odious and one of our core online values. Yes, Raygun is the Jar Jar Binks of breakdancing. But I dunno she deserved to be Justine Sacco-ed. Good gravy the internet is an ugly place filled with ugly people. Fools who thought they could refute bad breaking by breaking bad…
Wednesday, September 02
Desert Warrior (Anytime / Hulu)
Defying a ruthless emperor, a princess flees into the Arabian desert, hunted by mercenaries. Forged into a warrior and aided by a legendary bandit, she unites warring tribes for a last stand that will change history. Like how bad can it be?!
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: THE RUNNER (ANYTIME / PRIME VIDEO)
Maia Marten is a brilliant, high-powered London lawyer who thinks she is completely in control of her world—until a single phone call during her morning jog shatters her life. Her young son has been kidnapped, and the anonymous voice on the other end delivers a sadistic, zero-margin ultimatum: she must sprint through the city on foot, obey every cryptic command, and assassinate a high-profile client before he testifies, or her child dies.
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Gal Gadot made a “bad connection” movie. Remember Cellular? Phone Booth? (Phone Booth is pretty decent!!) Eagle Eye? Die Hard with a Vengeance is one of the worst of these phone call thrillers. Just like Will Smith in Enemy of the State Gadot plays an “innocent” lawyer and just like Michael Douglas her life is turned upside by this cruel…Game. It’s all the same…run-of-the-mill. Are you gonna pick up when The Runner comes for you? Or will you run…away?
Thursday, September 03
Chad Powers: Season 2 (Anytime / Hulu & Disney+ Canada)
Chad Powers is a superstar on the field but his odd behavior off it has everyone suspicious – especially Coach Hudson and Gerry. The walls are closing in on Russ’s lie, and if he and Danny want Chad to survive the regular season and lead the Catfish to the College Football Playoff, the only person who can help them is the last person who wants to: Ricky.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU (ANYTIME / DISNEY+)
Following the collapse of the Galactic Empire, the fledgling New Republic enlists the help of legendary bounty hunter Din Djarin and his tiny Force-sensitive apprentice, Grogu. When they are tasked by Colonel Ward with rescuing Rotta the Hutt—the heir to Jabba’s criminal empire—the duo must navigate a dangerous outer rim crawling with scattered Imperial warlords who refuse to let the past die.
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Oh? I’m not really a Star Wars dude: I haven’t watched most of the recent movies. And the only Star Wars TV I’ve watched is The Mandalorian. Like most folks, I enjoyed it. The Mandalorian movie is a bit like The Simpsons movie: the popular show worked just fine. It didn’t need to be a movie. Did it? I’m sure it’ll hit on streaming. Or will it? Back in September 2025, in a wave of performative anger subscribers canceled Disney+ over ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel. And of course, because This Is The Way they bravely went online to inform us how pious they are standing up to President Trump. Well, now they can’t see Baby Yoda. For the rest of us…who are not so pious we have the freedom (and intelligence!) to lean back and just enjoy pop culture. There’s no need to “Force” the issue.
Friday, September 04
The Gentlemen: Season 2 (Anytime / Netflix)
A year after reluctantly inheriting his family’s massive estate—and the hidden weed empire nestled beneath it—Eddie Horniman has officially traded his aristocratic civilian life for an immaculately tailored gangster suit. Alongside his calculating partner Susie Glass, the newly minted Duke of Halstead decides that defending their patch isn’t enough; they want to go international, pushing their multi-million dollar operation straight into the crosshairs of the ruthless Italian mafia.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: MAYDAY (ANYTIME / APPLE TV)
When hotshot U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) is sent on a top-secret mission into Russian territory at the height of the Cold War, the operation implodes, leaving him stranded behind enemy lines. Discovered by Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh), a gruff ex-KGB agent with a penchant for American culture, Troy thinks he’s toast – but could an unlikely alliance between the two lead to Troy’s rescue and a bond neither saw coming?
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Ryan Reynolds just made reverse Safe House. Only now he’s Denzel Washington and Kenneth Branagh is now Ryan Reynolds. Generously sprinkle in some Red Heat call backs and here ya go. Recycling is fine for streaming, I suppose…I can watch this (again!) in my Safe House…so I accept this is a cheap and disposable Mayday movie and it won’t be a Red Letter Day.
Saturday, September 05
LEGO Star Wars: The Mandalorian (Anytime / Disney+)
A comedic retelling of all three seasons of bounty hunting, protecting the Child, and accidentally liberating Mandalore, Din Djarin and Grogu decide to throw an epic party with their misfit allies to celebrate their heroism. But as their colorful friends take turns retelling legendary tales of their past adventures, a brand-new space pirate threat looms on the horizon, threatening to crash the blocky festivities.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: SCARY MOVIE 6 (ANYTIME / PARAMOUNT+)
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer, the original survivor squad—Cindy Campbell, Brenda Meeks, Shorty, and Ray—are forced right back into the killer’s crosshairs. With Ghostface back on the prowl, no modern horror trope is safe as the gang slices through a chaotic maze of reboots, remakes, elevated horror, and anything desperately using the word “legacy.”
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Ghostface: “What’s your favorite Scary Movie?” Now this…made me Scream. I miss In Living Color with the passion Homey D. Clown has for teaching little kids; so a Scary Movie return is as close we as get these days. I’m 100% in for this foolishness. All the modern Screams post-III have sucked…the casts suck, the writing sucks, the kills suck, the meta commentary sucks, the openings suck etc. It all just sucks. So they should be mocked and bullied for sucking so bad. It’s scary bad how terrible Scream movies currently are.
Sunday, September 06
A Tale of Two Cities: Limited Series (Anytime / MGM+)
Set against the turbulent backdrop of 1782 London and Paris on the brink of the French Revolution, a young woman named Lucie Manette embarks on a desperate mission to find her long-lost father. When her path collides with an idealistic French émigré and a brilliant but self-destructive young lawyer, it triggers a messy, sweeping love triangle bound by secrets, treason, and sacrifice.
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SAMMY SUGGESTION: AMERICAN CLASSIC: SEASON 1 (ANYTIME / PRIME VIDEO-US)
After originally premiering as a hidden gem on MGM+, this star-powered comedy series finally makes the leap to standard Prime Video. The series follows a once-celebrated but now completely unhinged classic theater actor who returns to his eccentric hometown to save his family’s dilapidated local playhouse, only to realize his most dramatic role yet might just be dealing with his deeply dysfunctional family.
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Sweet: Kevin Kline gets back to doing what he does best: being absolutely, gloriously over the top ridiculous. If you missed this comedy Classic when it quietly dropped on MGM+ earlier this year, Amazon is inviting more Americans to check it out, now it’s streaming on Prime Video. Think Schitt’s Creek chaos but with a heavy dose of high-brow theater camp and Shakespearean-level family drama. (I honestly don’t know how Nathan Lane isn’t in this?) Kline is a Broadway narcissist trying to stage a hometown comeback only thing in his way is Laura Linney as the mayor of “Our Town.” Is he role playing a man with a kind heart or is he just delusional and putting the “off” in off-Broadway?
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.
