Over the course of the Hulu show “The Dropout,” Naveen Andrews brings the entire emotional spectrum to former Theranos president and COO Sunny Balwani. Through Balwani’s fraught relationship with future tech world fascination Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried), Andrews finds a certain combination of charm, menace, paranoia, anger, pity, and bafflement. All of those are present in the sequence in Episode 5 that takes place at the sunlit Theranos office. Holmes’ impromptu dance to the Lil Wayne song “How to Love” became one of the memeworthy moments of “The Dropout....

Chickie Donahue (Zac Efron) is already deep in his self-appointed wartime mission when someone finally calls it what it really is: “the dumbest thing I ever heard.” By then, the part-time merchant marine and full-time screw-up is already in the middle of Vietnam and its war. The next step is embracing the idiocy of what’s he done while coming out of the whole damn thing alive. Peter Farrelly’s “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” is his first film since he won Best Picture for “Green Book,” a film embraced by audiences and maligned by critics....

The primary issue: “The In Between” seems stuck in between (sorry) two very different stories. There’s the sweet, chemistry-fizzing romance between budding orphan photographer Tessa (King) and trilingual championship rower Skylar (Kyle Allen, soon to be our next He-Man) who meet cute at a screening of “Betty Blue” at their local arthouse (kids these days!) and then try to make a go of it, and what happens after a summer together — cut short when a car accident kills Skylar....

Paramount’s “The Lost City” starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in a latter-day “Romancing the Stone” opened with $31 million, dislodging still-strong “The Batman” from #1. The $70 million production continues Paramount’s 10-month string of successful openings of mid- to lower-budget releases that prosper in theaters, most with a window of 45 days or longer. “The Lost City” is also the first COVID film to open at this level that was propelled by both females (61 percent) and older (about half over 35) viewers....

Most of “The Prank” revolves around two squeaky-voiced teenagers: floppy-haired overachiever Ben (Connor Kalopsis) and ditzy-but-brilliant slacker Tanner (Ramona Young), broadly sketched types we’ve seen a million times. The outsized caricatures work when it comes to Mrs. Wheeler, whose slight stature collides playfully with the outsized fear she instills in her students. But the tired Gen Z tropes and cheesy one liners suck the life out of the rest of the movie....

After such a tumultuous year, are any of us really surprised that the holiday season has been completely disrupted? Or, conversely, is anyone that shocked by some people’s insistence on attempting to plow ahead with their Thanksgiving traditions, giving little heed to the ongoing pandemic that continues to expand by the day? Ah, but you and I are smarter than that. We’ve canceled our plans with family and friends and our Thursday schedule includes hunkering down to watch a deserted Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and eating Cool Whip straight out of the container....

“The Staircase” explores the life of Michael Peterson (Firth), his sprawling North Carolina family, and the suspicious death of his wife, Kathleen Peterson (Collette), who was found dead at the bottom of the staircase in their mansion. Her husband, Marine Corps veteran Michael, was a novelist, newspaper columnist, and mayoral candidate when he was convicted of Kathleen’s murder in 2003. Starring alongside Firth and Collette is an embarrassment of rich talents: Michael Stuhlbarg, Juliette Binoche, Dane DeHaan, Olivia DeJonge, Rosemarie DeWitt, Tim Guinee, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sophie Turner, Vincent Vermignon, Odessa Young, and Parker Posey....