What’s a movie? What’s television? What’s the difference? Does it matter?
These questions arise when considering “The Tomorrow War,” streaming today on Amazon Prime. At first glance, “Tomorrow” has big-budget-tentpole-blockbuster written all over it. A sci-fi fantasy literally shot through with big guns and explosions, it looks like Hollywood at its most unsubtle and pulverizing. It even features Chris Pratt, of “Guardian of the Galaxy.” But he’s also Chris Pratt, the goofball from “Parks & Recreation.”
Most curiously, “Tomorrow,” a “Terminator”-like tale of humans from the future returned to enlist help in a battle to save humanity itself, is the feature film debut of Chris McKay.
He’s best known for his work on “Robot Chicken” and “Moral Orel,” an “Adult Swim” riff on those old “Davey and Goliath” cartoons. Like Pratt, he was involved (as an animation director) in the production of “The Lego Movie.”
Again, is this a movie or television? Or a cartoon, video game or vehicle for product placements? Does it matter?
— Sometimes, history takes a while to show up. Some 52 summers ago, the media was electrified by the Woodstock music festival, a gathering of some half a million young people to listen to a smorgasbord of bands. Just a few weeks before, in late June 1969, the Harlem Cultural Festival offered a series of concerts featuring Nina Simone, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, Chuck Jackson, Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach, the 5th Dimension, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, and comic Moms Mabley. Some 300,000 people attended.
It’s interesting to note that Sly and the Family Stone performed at both events. It was the year the band released “Hot Fun in the Summertime.”
Seen as both entertainment and a political expression of Black pride, solidarity and identity, the Harlem Festival got mixed reaction from the powers-that-be. It had corporate sponsors including Maxwell House Coffee and the blessing of the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs department of New York City, but the NYPD refused to offer security. The organizers turned instead to the Black Panthers.
While it was covered on local television, much of the footage of the Harlem event was believed lost. A few years later, a similar event held in Los Angeles was successfully turned into the rousing 1973 music documentary “Wattstax.”
Now, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has assembled never-before-seen footage of the Harlem event to direct “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” streaming today on Hulu. This is Questlove’s directorial debut.
— Peacock streams the animated sequel “The Boss Baby: Family Business,” featuring the voices of Alec Baldwin, Lisa Kudrow and Jimmy Kimmel.
Streaming on Discovery+, the documentary “Roswell: The Final Verdict” may not provide the “truth,” but it is a master class in tabloid TV production values. Offering grainy footage, reenactments and ominous voiceovers, it’s evidence of a TV aesthetic unchanged since the mid-1980s. Call it the gospel according to “Hard Copy.”
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— Tampa Bay and Montreal clash in Game 3 of the 2021 Stanley Cup final (8 p.m., NBC).
— A bad day for a biker concludes this season of “Emergency Call” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14).
— On two helpings of “Blue Bloods” (CBS, r, TV-14): fighting City Hall (9 p.m.); harsh words (10 p.m.).
— “American Masters” (9 p.m., PBS, r, TV-14, check local listings) profiles Norman Lear.
CULT CHOICE
— Returning to the hard-boiled mysteries she had made with her late husband Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall plays a woman who hires a private eye (Paul Newman) to tail her wandering husband in the 1966 thriller “Harper” (8 p.m., TCM, TV-14), adapted by William Goldman from a novel by Ross Macdonald. After a career that included scripts for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men,” Goldman may be best known to some viewers for adapting the screenplay for “The Princess Bride.”
SERIES NOTES
Shot down by a cartel on “Magnum P.I.” (8 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14) … “WWE Friday Night SmackDown” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Going all-out on “Charmed” (8 p.m. CW, r, TV-PG).
“20/20” (9 p.m., ABC, r) … Brainstorming on “Dynasty” (9 p.m. CW, TV-PG).
LATE NIGHT
Jimmy Fallon welcomes Julianne Moore, Dave Bautista and Twenty One Pilots on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC, r) … Quentin Tarantino, Iliza Shlesinger and Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (11:35 p.m., ABC, r).
Ewan McGregor and Casey Wilson visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC, r) … Emily Blunt and Elle King appear on “The Late Late Show With James Corden” (12:35 a.m., CBS, r).
