Netflix is wrapping up this month with the highly-anticipated streaming landing of another Steve Carell-Greg Daniels comedy series. Space Force sees Carell heading up a wholly different workplace comedy, one complete with territorial disputes on The Moon and congressional hearings gone wrong. After you get your fill of his ridiculously funny back-and-forth with costar John Malkovich, queue up another comedy legend. We’re talking about Adam Sandler, whose buzzed-about Safdie Brother’s project, Uncut Gems, has finally moved to the streaming platform.
Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of May 29.
Space Force (Netflix series streaming 5/29)
Steve Carell reteams with Office creator Greg Daniels for a different kind of workplace comedy — one that comes with plenty of real-world political ties and outrageously funny mishaps. Carell plays an Air Force general forced to head up the president’s newly-created Space Force, with the aim of getting a military force in space within just a few years. He runs into plenty of problems — think Russian meddling, competition for drilling rights to the moon, and uncooperative space monkeys — but the best thing about this series might be Carell’s comedic chemistry with John Malkovich, who plays a scientist fed up with the idiots he’s surrounded by at work.
This adventurous mindf*ck starring Adam Sandler lands on Netflix this week, and our only advice before watching this criminally-good romp is this: prepare yourself for a wild, over-the-top ride. Sandler gives one of his best performances, and the Safdie Brothers prove they’ve got a knack for crafting thrillers textured with grit and a realness that just can’t be beat.
Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:
Avail. 5/23 Dynasty: Season 3
Avail. 5/25 Uncut Gems
Avail. 5/26 Hannah Gadsby: Douglas
Avail. 5/27 I’m No Longer Here
The Lincoln Lawyer
Avail. 5/28 Dorohedoro
Avail. 5/29 Space Force
Somebody Feed Phil: Season 3
And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:
Leaving 5/30 Bob Ross: Beauty Is Everywhere: Collection 1
Leaving 5/31 Austin Powers in Goldmember
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Dear John
Final Destination
The Final Destination
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 3
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
My Girl
The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Outbreak
Red Dawn
Richie Rich
“You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me. Every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waiting around the corner: karma. That’s when I realized that I had to change. So, I made a list of everything bad I’ve ever done, and one by one I’m gonna make up for all my mistakes. I’m just trying to be a better person. My name is Earl.”
Most people do not remember this, but in the fall of 2005, NBC’s Must See Thursday line-up was in shambles. Cheers and The Cosby Show were long gone, Seinfeld left the air in 1998, and the network was two years removed from the last monster sitcom of the modern era, Friends. In the 2004-2005 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was running on the fumes of Will & Grace in its last two seasons, and Joey, the ill-fated Friends spin-off that was renewed for a second season because NBC didn’t have anything better to put on their schedule.
In that same 2004-2005 season, NBC decided to try an American adaptation of the most beloved UK comedy of all time, The Office. No one in the critical community thought it would work, and most audiences were hugely skeptical of an Americanized version of British sitcom, particularly after the disastrous and short-lived American version of Coupling, which was cancelled after only five episodes the season before, illustrating again how low the Must See Thursday lineup had sunk.
The Office premiered in the Spring of 2004 as a midseason replacement. The first season aired only 6 episodes, and it wasn’t particularly well received. Or, rather, the pilot episode was poorly received. It was seen by 12 million people willing to give it a chance, but after its tepid reception, it lost nearly 50 percent of its audience in its second week. Though The Office continued to shed viewers in that first season, it gained a critical spark that convinced NBC to renew it for a second season. After all, NBC didn’t have anything better to air, so it decided to take a risk on the talent that had been assembled for The Office.
Still, in the 2005-2006 season, NBC’s Thursday night line-up was in tatters. Joey was kicking off its second season in the Friends old time slot of 8 p.m., although Joey would struggle so badly that it would be cancelled before the season ended. Will & Grace was in its final season, having lost over half of its peak viewership. Meanwhile, The Office — a poorly rated show that was barely renewed — slid into the 9:30 p.m. slot before E.R., huffing fumes itself in its 12th season.
Amid the flopping Joey, the struggling Will & Grace, and upstart The Office, which basically got a second-season pity renewal, came a new comedy from Greg Garcia (Yes, Dear) called My Name Is Earl. Earl starred Jason Lee, a guy at the time probably best known for his work in Kevin Smith’s films, and Ethan Suplee, another Kevin Smith regular who was five years removed from probably the biggest role of his career, a 7th billed actor in Remember the Titans. Beyond those two, Earl starred two little known actresses at the time named Jaime Pressly and Nadine Velazquez.
The premise of My Name is Earl is about as high-concept as they come: It’s about a bad person named Earl (Lee), who wins a $100,000 scratch ticket and immediately loses it after being run over by a car. While in the hospital, Earl sees Carson Daly talking about the concept of karma on his late-night television show. Earl likes the concept of karma so much that he decides to live his life by Carson Daly’s philosophy. He makes a list of 258 wrongs in his life, and he decides to right them all. The decision to do so immediately brings the $100,000 scratch ticket back into his life, validating his decision to live by the rules of karma.
That’s My Name is Earl in a nutshell, except that it barely scratches the surface of how fantastic the main characters were. They can probably best be described as lovable trailer trash, and America fell instantly in love with the comedy. The premiere was seen by 15 million viewers during a time when its lead-in, Will & Grace was getting only half of that. It wasn’t just the highest-rated new show on NBC, it was the highest rated new or returning comedy on any network in the 18-49 demo.
My Name is Earl was an instant smash-hit for NBC in 2005, and no show benefited from that more than the comedy that came on after My Name Is Earl on the NBC lineup: The Office. Viewers who had otherwise tuned out after the first season returned after Earl spiked the audience for The Office in its second season, a crucial time for the Greg Daniels’ series, as now classic episodes like “The Dundies,” Sexual Harassment,” and “Office Olympics” were airing. The combination of Earl and The Office was so successful for NBC that the next season, after Will & Grace exited, NBC moved up Earl and The Office to the 8 p.m. hour to anchor the night (while the reliable Scrubs took the 9 p.m. slot to help launch 30 Rock).
Of course, by the end of the second season, The Office could hold its own, after the ratings on My Name is Earl essentially nurtured The Office into its massive success. By Earl’s third season, it was anchoring the 8 p.m. hour and The Office had moved to 9 p.m. Sadly, that’s also when Earl started to slide creatively. It was the unfortunate nature of the show’s high-concept premise: It could only sustain itself for so long. However, Earl did manage to survive for four seasons, and before it went out, it helped NBC to launch one more successful comedy, Parks and Recreation, which was sandwiched between Earl and The Office in its first season before essentially replacing Earl on the schedule the next year.
Still, My Name is Earl is remembered fondly by most who watched it (and it is currently streaming on Hulu), even if its legacy is that of a show that was eventually overshadowed by the comedy it helped to find an audience.
When Ramy Youssef took home an Emmy for his performance in Hulu’s breakout comedy series last year, he joked that most of the audience hadn’t seen his show. That might’ve been true then, but as the series — appropriately titled Ramy because it follows the sort-of-true exploits of Youssef’s millennial Muslim, a kid trying to navigate the modern world while holding onto his sense of self – gears up for a second season, the vibe’s a bit different. Fans who have witnessed Ramy make pilgrimages to Egypt, hook up with married women, and survive the torture of living with his overbearing immigrant parents might be surprised to see a somewhat more serious version of the show: one that tackles Islamophobia, mental health issues, gender identity, and more.
That last bit is where May Calamawy’s character Dena comes in. As Ramy’s sister, she’s normally on the peripheral edge of the show’s plot, but halfway through season two, she’s recruited to help her mother Maysa (the terrific Hiam Abbass) track down a disgruntled Lyft passenger that might prevent her from gaining citizenship. It’s a wild, cringe-filled ride that touches on everything from mother-daughter bonds to what qualifies as “stalking,” and we chatted with Calamawy about season two expectations and playing a Muslim woman she can finally relate to.
Ramy’s first season did really well. I mean, you guys made it to the Emmys. And won.
Yeah, it felt really surreal. None of us knew what the reception would be. Nothing was expected.
Did that put any pressure on this second season?
I personally didn’t feel any of that pressure. [Laughs] But a couple of days ago, we posted some artwork for season two. That was the first time that I was like, “Oh my God, are people going to like this?” But I think the truth of the matter is we gave so much of ourselves to it, it almost doesn’t matter. I feel validated about our experience. If people’s expectations aren’t met, I almost don’t mind it. I really enjoy Ramy’s vision, and I trust it.
I think we all recognized how differently this show depicts Middle Eastern culture. Was that apparent to you when you first got the scripts?
Yeah, for a year, the only things I was auditioning for were Arab women who were in some sort of a struggle — who were veiled and in a fight for something. This one, she was just a girl. She felt like me. She was just figuring out who she is. It’s funny, there was nothing really to her that was going on, but that was what attracted me, because I was like, “Oh, wow, you can really get to see what someone is going through without all this other stuff on the outside.” I don’t know how to say “normal.” I guess I saw myself in her in a way. And I saw many women that I know in her.
In season one, Dena has one of the worst TV dates I’ve ever seen with a barista played by Jake Lacy. It’s a really uncomfortable interaction for her. Was it uncomfortable for you to shoot, too?
It’s funny because we were still working on that episode up to the last day, which was scary and also fun. I’ve never experienced anything like that before but I feel like, with Dena, she’s examining what she understands about womanhood. She wants to step out of that comfort zone, and redefine her identity. She’s also stuck in the pattern of constantly checking herself because of the system that she’s grown up in. She’s creating that control over her body, and her decisions. And in a way, even though the experience is the opposite of what she hoped it would be, just that act, or the choice, was liberating.
Yeah, she can’t help that the guy was a jerk.
I feel like she doesn’t wallow in that self-pity of it. Do you know what I mean? It’s more just like, “Are you f*cking serious? Okay. All right.” And that’s what makes it funny. And ironic. She finally decides to go do this, and then this is what happened.
That episode also opened up a bigger conversation about what Muslim women face. Do you think the show does a good job of trying to understand that struggle?
I think it’s an ongoing topic because no matter how much we talk about it we still don’t know what is right or wrong on this path, or in life. I mean, I grew up in the Middle East, but I’ve also spent time in America, and I have a mix of these views. I understand for women here, sex is really not a big deal, and it’s just intimacy, it’s beautiful and sacred. In the Middle East, it’s also considered sacred, but there’s so much shame around it and around trying to explore yourself before you’re married. I think the show did a good job of showing she’s stuck. Ramy is stuck, he’s sort of mirroring her in certain ways, but he’s allowed to make mistakes. He gets to be wild and explore whatever instinct he has. On the other hand, she has to think twice about going on a date with someone. I think that it’s so nuanced. I guess because I did it, maybe I’m like, “Yeah, I feel like we showed it.” For her, it’s this rite of passage to just get over with. I think that starts to happen to a lot of people who’ve grown up in conservative households when they start to come into themselves, and their logic doesn’t really match up with the logic that’s been put on them.
This season, we see Dena and her mom go through some things. There’s such a divide between those two. Is it more of a cultural gap or a generational one?
I think it’s both. In the West, you’re more exposed to certain things, so you can adapt really fast. Whereas, someone living in the Middle East will probably be really shocked watching this because some things that are common here aren’t common over there. It’s just the reality.
Right. Even when Maysa’s trying to understand, she ends up misgendering one of her Lyft passengers and makes the whole situation even more awkward.
Maysa sort of lived in her bubble. She wants to expand and wants to learn, but I guess our generation is just, again, it’s exposed faster — there’s more of a curiosity. Whereas, with the older generation, it’s like, “What are you doing? Why are you [a man] in a dress?” I feel like, for them, it’s just a harsher judgment because it doesn’t make sense in their head. I see similarities in my own dad. He’ll make comments, and I’m so shocked sometimes. I know how pure he is, he’s such an amazing human that I’m not mad at him, I’m just like, “Oh wow, that’s really where you’re living still?” Maybe full acceptance is still scary?
That particular episode with Dena and Maysa also exposes how hard women are on each other, and themselves. Do you think that’s another reason why their bond is so strained?
I guess sometimes women can feel alone. We put all these pressures on ourselves because they were put on us at a certain age, and unless we’re conscious of them at a certain point, we end up living with them, and they control us. You can be next to your own mom, and you’re both going through the same thing, and then you’re not able to connect, because you’re both trying so hard to, I don’t know, please. I feel like Dena looks at her mom and can see why she is that way at that moment and it really touches her heart. There’s a bit of an awareness, and a bit of compassion. And then that also opens Maysa’s eyes as well, because she really does want the best for her daughter, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Maysa needs someone to just give her a break. They actually both want the same thing. And if they can at least give it to each other then that’s [a start].
Hulu’s ‘Ramy’ arrives for a second season on May 29.
By now you’re probably sick of eating all the store-bought snacks and easy-to-make foods you’ve been living off of since quarantine hit. It’s undoubtedly getting old fast. But time is on your side, friend, which is exactly why you should be using these long days to start mastering the restaurant-level foods that you haven’t been able to enjoy as often in isolation (yes, we want to support independent restaurants as often as possible, but that still leaves us with plenty of nights to cook).
If you didn’t grow up in a household where Japanese food was being prepared, today might be your chance to gather some pointers on this diverse foodway. We offered some tips on ramen from chef Hiro Mitsui earlier in the pandemic; this time around, we’re talking about sushi. Our expert on deck is Rangel Suarez, the Chef de Cuisine at Miami’s Katsuya Brickell (which is currently closed due to coronavirus-mitigation efforts). Suarez has spent 30 years in the business focused on Japanese cooking, including working alongside Benihana founder Kudo Masuzo and Iron Chef competitor Makoto Okuwa — “Doing it the traditional way. No shortcuts — it’s step-by-step.”
We spoke with Suarez over the phone and he offered tips for making great sushi rice, gave us fish sourcing advice, and weighed in on when to put wasabi in your rolls.
Katsuya Brickell
What are some of the most common mistakes people make at home when trying to prepare Japanese food?
Well the first one is rice. If you can’t get the rice right, nothing else is going to turn out right. Also, maybe when they start making a sushi and they put too much water on their hands, it’ll soften the rice and it won’t become as sticky. Also, the vinegar that they pour in the rice for mixture — if it’s not enough, the rice won’t be sticky enough. If it’s too much, then it’ll be too vinegary.
Could you walk us through preparing great sushi rice?
There is new crop and old crop. There’s usually a sticker on the bag that’ll identify that. Once you have the rice you want to cook, you’re going to go ahead and clean it. You always want to measure the rice that you’re cleaning because you want to add the same ratio of water to it.
You want to move it around so it’ll peel the outside part of each grain of rice. Keep rubbing it down, throwing out water that’s really cloudy, then you bring in more water and you keep doing the same routine. It’ll take that outside layer of the rice that’s no good to cook. You want to do that about three times, till the water’s kind of clear.
Once you do that, put it in a Hitachi rice cooker. It’ll cook at a high temperature for about 15 minutes to boil and then you’ll leave it for about another 15 to 20 minutes just simmering there. Unless you use an automatic rice cooker, then it’ll do everything on its own.
Once the rice is cooked, you’re going to pull it out and you’re going to put it in a wood squarish bowl called a Hangiri. Hangiri are made out of wood. It has no nails to it. It’s all held with a metal strap. It’s all tied in. The Japanese are really unique about not using nails so nothing gets rusted out. So it’s all wood.
So this hangiri you need to fill with water. New crop rice tends to be drier and will need a little more water. The reason why you fill it with water is, the wood’s going to swell up and seal any cracks that water or any liquid might drain through. Once the wood soaks up all that water, dump out the water, clean the excess water on the inside, and put your steamed rice in there. And then for every three ratios of rice, you’re going to add one ratio of rice vinegar.
Pour the vinegar over the rice, and then you’ll start cutting the rice. So there are no balls of rice left that are not seasoned. Cut all the rice. And any of that excess vinegar that is too much for the rice to absorb, the actual wood will start absorbing it. So it won’t be all mushy type rice. That’s why it’s so important to use the wooden hangiri compared to like a plastic or a metal bowl because it won’t have that, where it’ll kind of suck in that excess seasoning.
Once it’s all cut, you’ll leave it out for, I’d say, about 10 minutes to cool. And then you flip it over, leave it for another 10 minutes to cool, and then you just can put it away and start using it.
What’s the best rice to use?
Well, you want to use short-grain rice. A lot of the short grain rice now that we use for all these Japanese restaurants are mostly coming out of California. But definitely a small grain.
Katsuya Brickell
If we want to make pro-level sushi rolls at home, what kind of tools do we need to invest in and how much money are we looking at?
Well, definitely you’ll need a cutting board. You’re going to need a nice sharp knife, a bamboo rolling mat — which is called a makisu — your ingredients, if you want to use any raw fish or any items like that, water to always keep your hands moist so the rice doesn’t stick, seaweed, sesame seeds if you like sesame seeds. You can also use a tofu paper, which is called mamenorisan.
If you don’t like the chewiness of the seaweed or the texture or any of the flavors, you can go with a tofu paper.
Do you have any fresh fish sourcing tips?
Well, usually the best is to go to a fish market that’s out on the water or something where the local fishermen bring in their catch. And you can buy something really nice and fresh there. Or if you know a local spot that you trust and it has a sushi-grade fish, you can go that route as well.
If you want to stay safe, most Asian markets have Saku blocks, which is frozen Saku tuna. You can defrost and use that. It’s not going to be the same quality as a fresh product, but definitely usable.
Katsuya Brickell
What are some of the easiest sushi rolls to make at home?
I would have to say rice on the outside, most Japanese restaurants will use the half-cut seaweed, which is a little more difficult to roll. But if you use the whole sheet and not apply rice to the whole thing, it’ll be much easier to roll sushi at home. And you can really put any ingredient in the inside, as long as it’s solid. Nothing, let’s say, ground, so that when you kind of press it and matte it out, it’s not going to squeeze out the ends.
Could you walk us through setting up the ingredients for a roll on the mat?
Let’s go with the California roll. You’re going to use your crab steak. So you’ll grab your crab steak and you want to squeeze the excess water out of it. Usually, it’s imitation crab, which is made from fish, but you can also use king crab.
You can apply the king crab, the rice over on top of your nori (seaweed), you’ll flip it over so the rice is on the outside, the space that has no rice on the end, that’s where you’ll begin to roll. You set it on your makisu, your bamboo mat. You’ll put your crab. You’ll want to cut your cucumbers, I’d say, probably the thickness of a pencil, maybe, the normal measurements in Japan is four fingers.
Four fingers will be the exact length of the seaweed. So everything that you cut for a roll, you measure with four fingers. So you would cut your cucumbers to a four-finger length, your tuna, whatever it is, your avocados. And then lay it out straight out. Push in that seaweed that has no rice, and then use the bamboo mat to help you out, and keep rolling further into the roll.
In the event that it becomes a disaster and you have to throw in the towel and make fish fried rice, how do you repurpose ingredients if it’s just not working out?
Well, a good way to do that is, it’s like a staple traveling food that the Japanese have, it’s called onigiri. It’s very simple. You grab your rice. You kind of make a ball shape out of it. You’re going to press in a type of a hole in the center of that rice. You’re going to put your ingredients in there. And then you’re going to cover it with the rest of the rice.
You shape it into a triangle, grab a piece of seaweed, and you cover that. And that’s what you call onigiri. And it’ll repurpose your ingredients and you can take it out on the road, picnic, anywhere you want.
In your opinion, should we do wasabi on the side, in the soy sauce, or directly on the sushi?
You can always put it inside the roll. That’ll give it a little heat. And then it all depends on if you’re out on a picnic, or you’ve got a table setting. If it’s something that’s out on the run and it’s maybe a road trip or whatever, you can put the wasabi inside the roll and then that way you don’t have to be mixing the wasabi in your soy sauce and maybe just put a little soy sauce over the roll.
Katsuya Brickell
What’s an easy home sauce you can make that pairs well with Japanese food that isn’t teriyaki?
A really easy sauce is a ponzu sauce, which is like citrus soy. So it’s, let’s say, one ratio of soy with the same ratio of vinegar. And that would be the Japanese vinegar. Also, you can squeeze some lemons and squeeze some oranges in there. And a nice touch of a little sesame seed oil and you’ve got a great citrus soy. That’s good with sashimi and with your rolls.
What are the key components to making a great teriyaki sauce?
Well, the key components are definitely — and most of all Japanese sauces are — soy, sugar, mirin, and sake.
Ginger isn’t essential?
Well, I mean, depending on what sauce you make. But your base of most of all your Japanese sauces are those four.
What’s an underrated Japanese food that Americans don’t show enough love to?
I would say the pickled vegetables, like pickled daikon, pickled eggplant, pickled cucumbers, those are really nice, refreshing. You can put them in your rolls, give it a nice crunchy texture to it.
Could you set us up with a good pickled sushi roll?
You could probably do something like regular cucumbers. Then you can put the takuan, which is the pickled daikon, the yamagobo, which is a pickled burdock root, the pickled eggplant, which is really nice. And that’s it. Maybe a little bit of umeboshi, which is a plum paste. Give it a nice little tang to it, and that’s a great roll right there.
What’s the average amount of ingredients we should be looking for to put in a roll? How much is the perfect amount and how much is just too much?
For rice, you probably want to use somewhere about a hundred grams of rice. Fish, I would go anywhere from about 40 to 60, depending on how much protein you want in there. Vegetables as well, anywhere probably from 30 to 40 grams.
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