Look for familiar faces in the 2024 Netflix thriller “Trigger Warning,” streaming today. No stranger to martial arts action and balletic violence, Jessica Alba stars as Parker, a Special Forces commando. She’s knee-deep in some super-secret mission when word comes of her father’s sudden death.
This drags Parker back to her dusty hometown to take over the family bar. There, Parker discovers that things have changed and that the training that saw her through dangerous war zones just may come in handy.
Her old boyfriend Jesse (Mark Webber) has become the sheriff of a small and parochial corner of the world where the law is always compromised. He must contend with his hot pistol of a brother, aptly named Elvis (Jake Weary). Both boys dance to the tune of their powerful father, Sen. Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall).
Think they all had something to do with the death of Parker’s dad?
Or do you watch movies like “Trigger Warning” for a chance to stop thinking altogether?
It’s fun to see Hall in this paranoid thriller as a heavy. “Trigger Warning” arrives just a week after the premiere of the Hulu documentary “Brats,” cataloging Hall’s fellow Brat-Packer Andrew McCarthy’s confessional (self) pity party.
For those who haven’t seen it, “Brats” is rather amazing in all the wrong ways, a middle-aged man’s musings about might-have-beens fueled by bitter obsessional memories of a New York magazine article about the ridiculously forgettable movie “St. Elmo’s Fire.” We all have our grudges! At one point, McCarthy muses that his wife warned him that making “Brats” would be a “humbling” experience. She was being kind.
Throughout the film, McCarthy is confronted with evidence that while he was gazing at his navel, his brat-pack brethren were getting on with their lives and working when they could.
Hence, Anthony Michael Hall as an ominous heavy in a forgettable film like “Trigger Warning”!
— Hulu launches the third season of the goofy and thoroughly Canadian comedy “Shoresy.” For the uninitiated, this “Letterkenny” spinoff continues the original’s aggressively goofy and immature brand of humor. The setting moves to the city of Sudbury, where the title character (Jared Keeso) works for a minor league hockey team plagued by legendary losing streaks.
— With sweltering weather smothering vast portions of the country, it’s a tad strange to think of NFL football. But the preseason is barely a month away. HBO has already announced the new season of its exhibition season docuseries “Hard Knocks.” This year’s features the Chicago Bears and arrives on Aug. 6.
Streaming on Netflix, “America’s Sweethearts” documents last year’s company of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, following the melodrama from auditions to the sidelines.
Longtime squad director Kelli Finglass is as close as we come to a “star” here, but the series follows a long sports tradition of exploring each cheerleader’s backstory and “personal journey.” Something to prepare us for the Olympic Games!
TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
— U.S. Olympic Trials (NBC) feature swimming (8 p.m.) and track and field (9 p.m.).
— The Edmonton Oilers host the Florida Panthers in game 6 of the Stanley Cup NHL Finals (8 p.m., ABC).
— A grieving woman finds her emotional footing thanks to a good man and an ancestral troll figurine in the 2023 romance “My Norwegian Holiday” (9 p.m., Hallmark, TV-G).
— “Guy’s All American Road Trip” (9 p.m., Food) samples pizza in Wyoming.
— The 1977 documentary “Gay USA” (9:45 p.m., TCM) captures gay rights marches and pride parades eight years after Stonewall and just as activists, including Florida-based Anita Bryant, began fomenting a social and political backlash.
— A homicide investigation explores a voodoo subculture on “Blue Bloods” (10 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
— Jack visits a Vegas take on “European” architecture and a mid-century retro residence in Destin, Fla as the competition continues on “Zillow Goes Wild” (10:30 p.m., HGTV, TV-PG).
CULT CHOICE
A wizard (Nicolas Cage) casts a series of spells to save Manhattan from an evil-doer (Alfred Molina) in the 2010 fantasy “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (6 p.m., Freeform, TV-PG). Inspired by a segment in the 1940 Disney musical “Fantasia,” the film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Jon Turtletaub.
SERIES NOTES
RuPaul hosts “Lingo” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) … “WWE Friday Night SmackDown” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-PG) … Powell goes missing in Mexico on “S.W.A.T.” (9 p.m., CBS, r, TV-14).
LATE NIGHT
Will Ferrell visits “Late Night With Seth Meyers” (12:35 a.m., NBC, r) … Taylor Tomlinson hosts Jon Lovett, Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson on “After Midnight” (12:35 a.m., CBS, r).
