Movie & Television Reviews

The following are capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television during the week of Aug. 2, as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

Place one of Western civilization’s foundational texts in the hands of one of the entertainment industry’s greatest living auteurs and the results are likely to be impressive. And so it proves with “The Odyssey” (Universal), writer-director Christopher Nolan’s lavish and absorbing adaptation of Homer’s epic poem.

Why be satisfied with an animated success when a live-action re-working of the same tale might also be a hit at the box office? That’s a question that seems to be on the minds of the folks at the Mouse House these days, and so, after several other examples in recent years, we get the musical adventure “Moana” (Disney).

The following are capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television during the week of July 19, as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

Set primarily in the Hollywood of the 1920s, the delightful animated comedy “Minions & Monsters” (Universal) is at once director and co-writer Pierre Coffin’s paean to and satire of early Tinseltown.

The following are capsule reviews of theatrical movies available now for streaming or scheduled for broadcast on network or cable television during the week of July 12, as well as notes on TV programming for the same week.

A deservedly much-loved animated series gets a touching extension with the arrival of “Toy Story 5” (Disney). The franchise’s hallmark combination of sunny humor and emotional intelligence continues to make for outstanding entertainment, this time under the direction of co-writer Andrew Stanton.

The truth is out there, and director Steven Spielberg ultimately intends to tell you all about it with his grandiose, vaguely paranoid fantasy “Disclosure Day” (Universal).