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What’s on TV Thursday: ‘Bill & Ted’ and ‘An Easy Girl’

With a sequel coming soon, revisit “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” Or watch the latest film from the French director Rebecca Zlotowski on Netflix.

BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (1989) Stream on Starz platforms; rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and YouTube. By the end of 1989, Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves’s fates were sealed: The pair would be forever known as the teenage stoner-doofus bandmates Bill and Ted. “I remember somebody doing an air-guitar slide on their knees, all the way across the floor of the restaurant up to our bar stools,” Winter recalled in a recent interview with The New York Times. “I remember saying to Keanu, you realize that this — no matter what happens — is never going to stop.” Winter and Reeves don’t seem to mind: They’re set to reprise the roles later this month in a sequel, “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” which makes now an opportune time to revisit the original movie. “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” finds the Southern California dudes Bill (Winter) and Ted (Reeves) traveling in a time machine, introducing the word “bogus” to medieval England and meeting historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Joan of Arc.

Anjelah Johnson, center, hosts “HA Festival: The Art of Comedy.”
Anjelah Johnson, center, hosts “HA Festival: The Art of Comedy.”

HA FESTIVAL: THE ART OF COMEDY Stream on HBO Max. In late February, the HA Comedy Festival brought an array of Latinx comedians to a historic theater in San Antonio, Texas. This hourlong special, hosted by the comic Anjelah Johnson, showcases highlights from the event. The lineup includes Gina Brillon, David del Rosario, Carmen Lynch, Monique Marvez, Pedro Salinas, Jesus Trejo and Mark Viera. First up: Trejo, who discusses how his parents have reached their “terrible 75s.” He illustrates that with an anecdote about walking in on his mother when she’d just taken recreational drugs. “At that moment,” he says, “I thought to myself, ‘Where did I go wrong as a parent?’”

Zahia Dehar, left, and Mina Farid in “An Easy Girl.”
Zahia Dehar, left, and Mina Farid in “An Easy Girl.”

AN EASY GIRL (2020) Stream on Netflix. Summer, sex and salt water: These are some of the ingredients in this latest film from the French director Rebecca Zlotowski. A tale of two cousins, “An Easy Girl” is told from the perspective of Naïma (Mina Farid), a 16-year-old preparing to start a culinary summer internship on the French Riviera. The story kicks off with the surprise arrival of Naïma’s older cousin, Sofia (Zahia Dehar), who hooks up with a pair of rich, yacht-riding older men (Nuno Lopes and Benoît Magimel) — and helps usher in Naïma’s coming of age. “Sultry, but never sleazy, observant yet nonjudgmental, ‘An Easy Girl’ is more than just a tale of innocence and experience,” Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The New York Times. “Taking a nuanced look at sexual awakening and, to a lesser extent, class distinction, the movie has a charming flightiness that builds to an unexpectedly touching climax.”

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