TV: ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’
As it hurtles toward its May 30 season finale, this Apple TV Plus dramedy (new episodes on Fridays) has managed to surprise and compel week after week. A perfectly cast Jon Hamm stars as a newly divorced and fired hedge funder who keeps up the lifestyle to which he’s become accustomed by stealing from the titular denizens of an unnamed leafy New York City suburb. Imagine John Cheever rebooting “Breaking Bad” and you’re nearly there. In the early 2000s, creator Jonathan Tropper (who also made the amazing action series “Banshee”) wrote a half-dozen novels that mined similar terrain. All are worth a look. —Doug Brod
Online auction: Authors for eSims
More than 100 Canadian writers donated autographed or special edition novels, memoirs and poetry collections in support of “Authors for eSims,” an online auction raising money to buy and send eSims (digital SIM cards) to Gaza, where infrastructure, including Wi-Fi and cell service, has been devastated by Israeli bombardment. Giller Prize winners Madeleine Thien, Omar El Akkad, Sarah Bernstein and Souvankham Thammavongsa are among the participating authors. The auction, organized by novelist Thea Lim and poet Jody Chan, runs until May 18 and has already raised more than $7,000. “We’re really heartened to see so many people rallying around this collective effort that ‘keeps all of us alive to Gaza’s struggle,’ in the words of participating publisher Norm Nehmetallah,” Lim told the Star. “Mutual aid projects offer all of us the chance to intervene quickly and directly in an ongoing and devastating catastrophe — we are not surprised that so many people are jumping at the chance to help.” —Richie Assaly
TV: ‘Untold’
Despite my general lack of interest in actual sports, I am bizarrely into sports documentaries of all kinds. That includes the “Untold” series on Netflix, which explores everything from the mental-health challenges many athletes face to shocking scandals. This month’s roster of fascinating subjects includes viral bodybuilder the Liver King, an infamous locker-room brawl and the dark cloud over former NFL great Brett Favre. —Briony Smith
Movie: ‘Killer of Sheep’
Shot in the predominantly African American enclave of Watts in Los Angeles near the end of the 1970s, “Killer of Sheep” is widely considered a landmark independent film, leveraging fine-grained documentary realism against subtle, poetic flourishes of sound and image. Part community portrait, part character study, and wholly attuned to quotidian details — adults at work, children at play, solace and pain in the same clinging embrace — Charles Burnett’s debut initially failed to secure commercial distribution while slowly accruing legendary stature. Its ingenuity, honesty and sense of humane drama have since inspired multiple generations of Black filmmakers. On Saturday, Burnett will be at TIFF Lightbox (350 King St. W.) to present the film in a new 4K restoration. —Adam Nayman
