Your weekly guide to staying entertained any day of the week

June 6, 2025

Welcome back to The Big To-Do. The weekend weather forecast has rain in it yet again, and the Globe’s Beth Teitell is on the case, asking, “Why are we being taunted by basically everything?” It’s a big sports weekend: the Belmont Stakes is Saturday at Saratoga Race Course (because of construction at the downstate track); the French Open finals are Saturday (women) and Sunday (men); and the NBA Finals are underway, with the Pacers taking a 1-0 lead over the Thunder into Sunday’s Game 2. To prepare for Sunday night’s Tony Awards, consider streaming a nominee — say, George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck” — or a previous winner. The Globe’s Matt Juul has the details. Or venture out to explore the best of the overstuffed arts and entertainment calendar, with guidance from the Globe’s experts. Bring an umbrella!

Film & Movies

Tom Hiddleston in “The Life of Chuck.” NEON

“The Life of Chuck” earns 4 stars from Globe film critic Odie Henderson, who calls the Stephen King adaptation “one of this year’s best movies.” The film “feels like the coziest of blankets enveloping you in the theater. ... I can see it becoming a beloved favorite in the same way ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ ultimately did. Like that classic, this one really makes you think about life and the things we take for granted.”

The John Wick spinoff “Ballerina” stars Ana de Armas as Eve, who’s out to avenge her murdered father. “As a big fan of the franchise, I admit I had a good amount of fun watching ‘Ballerina,’” writes Henderson, awarding 2½ stars. “But the appearance of John Wick [Keanu Reeves] only highlighted the one major problem this film has. Though we learn all about Eve, she remains a far emptier and less interesting character.”

Sean Byrne’s “Dangerous Animals,” about a serial killer whose murder weapon is sharks, “is a slick-looking yet routine exercise that wastes an ideal premise.” Jai Courtney (“Suicide Squad”) plays “crazed Aussie” Tucker opposite Hassie Harrison as Zephyr, who “wakes up handcuffed on his boat,” Henderson writes in a 2½-star review. After that, the movie “becomes a cat and mouse game.”

Written and directed by Wes Anderson, “The Phoenician Scheme” is “the worst Anderson movie yet.” Benicio Del Toro stars as a 1950s oligarch who “swindles a wide variety of characters in cutesy vignettes that repeat the same unfunny joke.” Acknowledged non-fan Henderson gives the film 1 star, presumably for its “one major casting success. As Bjorn, an awkward insect specialist ... Michael Cera gives a career-best performance.”

A prehistoric megalodon. A grizzly bear. A giant octopus. For the 50th anniversary of “Jaws,” Henderson looks back at “some of the movies its success hath wrought.” He’s especially high on John Sayles’s screenplays for “Piranha” and “Alligator,” in the category he calls “It’s ‘Jaws’, but with a ――!” And on the “Let’s make another movie with a shark!” shelf, the vibe is international and the plotlines are bananas.

TV & Streaming

Peter Dager, left, and Owen Wilson in "Stick." Apple TV+

“Stick” aspires to be the “Ted Lasso” of golf, but it swings and misses. Owen Wilson plays “Stick” Cahill, a washed-up golfer who gloms onto a teen phenom “and embarks on a wild, wacky, life-affirming tour of major amateur events,” writes Globe correspondent Chris Vognar. The series “leaks treacle and cliché all over the screen. Worse still, you can watch several of the first season’s 10 episodes without laughing once.”

The French Open ends this weekend, meaning Wimbledon is on the horizon. “These days, with dozens of networks and streaming services constantly competing over rights to various sporting events, it can be tough to know where and when to catch anything at all,” writes Globe correspondent Caroline Framke. She demystifies your viewing options for all three of the remaining majors.

The Big Day

Carolina Rodeghiero and Felipe Soares enjoyed a wedding reception organized by friends in a Cambridge backyard in April. Amanda Macchia

The Globe’s weddings column, The Big Day, tells stories of how couples found each other, fell in love, and said “I do.” Carolina Rodeghiero and Felipe Soares planned a low-key ceremony followed by an evening at TD Garden, but they hadn’t consulted their loved ones. “Our friends decided, ‘No. You cannot go to a Celtics game. We’re going to celebrate this,’” Carolina tells Globe correspondent Rachel Kim Raczka. The Brazil-born hotties, who are also accomplished academics, tied the knot in April at Boston City Hall, then took the T to Cambridge for a backyard reception. Says Felipe, “[J]ust seeing the effort of everyone, to be there, to be together, was amazing.”

To apply to be featured, recently married and engaged couples (vow renewals and commitment ceremonies, too!) with ties to New England can click here for the application form.

Theater

Andrew Durand in "Dead Outlaw." Matthew Murphy

Of the 29 productions nominated for Tony Awards, “the subject of death is central or ancillary to the story in more than a dozen of them.” Looking ahead to Sunday’s ceremony, Globe theater critic Don Aucoin considers “our attitudes toward death and the lengths we go to avoid it, while standing as proof that the subject lends itself to a wide variety of approaches and tones — including comedy, and even farce.”

In the top eight Tony Award categories, who’s nominated, who will win, and who should win? “While the picture has started to come into focus, you can still expect some suspense in several categories,” writes Globe correspondent Christopher Wallenberg. He explains his picks, which include a lot of “Oh, Mary!” and not much George Clooney.

“Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” “follows the well-worn, rom-com formula of an unlikely couple thrown together who fight their attraction, until they don’t.” In the American premiere of the musical, at the ART, Sam Tutty brings “irresistible charm” to the role he originated in England, and Christiani Pitts proves “a stunning singer and actor,” writes Globe reviewer Terry Byrne.

After Tuesday’s performance of “Two Strangers,” stick around. The Globe’s Love Letters columnist and podcast host Meredith Goldstein will chat with Rachel Kim Raczka, who writes The Big Day, about the drama of weddings. They’re especially excited to discuss “Two Strangers,” which includes a hilarious song about Tinder. For more information and to book tickets, click here.

Music

Aimee Mann performing in 2023 in New York City. Rob Kim/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Performing with ’Til Tuesday recently for the first time in 33 years, Aimee Mann says, “felt like singing karaoke — and I don’t ever sing karaoke. ” On Friday, the Berklee grad’s tour reaches Boston. The setlist is her album “Lost in Space” (2002). “A lot of the songs are very depressing, but when you’re on stage, the audience creates a different vibe, so it’s a more cheerful party atmosphere,” she says in a Q&A with Globe correspondent Stuart Miller.

Billy Corgan is on a solo tour, marking the 30th and 25th anniversaries of the Smashing Pumpkins’ best-known albums on his own. “The fact that these significant anniversaries were going to go by with no particular unified voice of how to present them, I said, ‘Well, I’m just gonna do it myself.’” Ahead of a date in Boston Monday, he talks with Globe correspondent Victoria Wasylak about, among other things, writing a memoir, aging, and the new pope.

Ryan H. Walsh and the Boston band Hallelujah the Hills borrowed from playing cards to structure their new quadruple album, “DECK.” “Literally everyone has at least one deck in a junk drawer somewhere in the house,” Walsh tells Globe correspondent Eric R. Danton. Says guest vocalist Ezra Furman, “Instantly I wished I had thought of it. I just love a giant idea organized to a system like that.”

SOMEDAY Fest comes to Somerville Saturday, bringing “eight hours of free, all-ages entertainment.” The free event features “11 Somerville artists across two stages, as well as ... the city’s artisans and vintage vendors,” Wasylak writes for Sound Check. Co-founder Ryan DiLello hopes to foster community engagement. “I just want that energy to be continued and passed between events and people.”

Festivals around Massachusetts and Rhode Island spotlight “music catering to just about any taste, from rootsy string bands to thunderous heavy metal.” Danton has the lowdown on 15 events that “also promise plenty of rock, hip-hop and jam-band fare, along with classic and modern jazz, and contemporary music with an experimental edge.”

Perfume Genius, a.k.a. Mike Hadreas, visits Boston next week, on tour in support of the new album “Glory.” “After seven acclaimed albums of thorny, electronics-enhanced chamber pop, Hadreas seems to have figured out a system,” writes Globe correspondent Marc Hirsh. Says the musician, “The songs aren’t for me in the end. They’re for everybody else, so I need to figure out how to articulate [things] better.”

Classical Music

Boston Festival Orchestra's artistic director Alyssa Wang and executive director Nicholas Brown in the Boston Athenaeum. The BFO stages a chamber concert in the space June 12. Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

Boston Festival Orchestra cofounders Alyssa Wang and Nicholas Brown are ready for the busy season. “Leading up to the summer concerts, I’m a ball of anxious energy,” Brown, a clarinetist, tells Globe correspondent Cate McQuaid, writing for the Working Artist series. “I think if we didn’t have a really efficient working partnership, it would make everything impossible,” says Wang. BFO plays a chamber concert next week at the Boston Athenaeum.

Museums & Visual Art

J.M.W. Turner, "Staffa, Fingal’s Cave," 1823, oil on canvas. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

“J.M.W. Turner: Romance and Reality,” at the Yale Center for British Art, is “a sample platter arranged by era and theme.” Globe art critic Murray Whyte writes from New Haven, “By mistake, I went the wrong way ... and found much satisfaction in traveling the Turner timeline backward, frontloading the experimental élan of his later years and meandering Benjamin Button-like back to his formative phase.”

In “Jung Yeondoo: Building Dreams,” at the Peabody Essex Museum, reality and fantasy coexist. Photographs of Seoul apartment residents capture “domestic reality, which can be a kind of lived fantasy,” writes the Globe’s Mark Feeney. An accompanying video “contrasts people’s actual lives with fantasies of what they’d like those lives to be. ... In an effective cinematic touch, the image of reality dissolves into that of fantasy.”

Books

Tina’s Chicken Bake from “By Heart” by Hailee Catalano. Sheryl Julian for The Boston Globe

When “dinner is something you never made before and you’re delighted with the results, it turns what might be a chore into real pleasure.” Three new cookbooks with “a certain personal appeal from beginning to end” intrigued former Globe food editor Sheryl Julian, who sings the praises of Hailee Catalano’s “By Heart,” Omid Roustaei’s “Bitter & Sweet,” and Meera Sodha’s “Dinner.”

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