Julio Torres is back with more wacky adventures in the new HBO comedy series Fantasmas, premiering Friday, June 7 at 11 p.m. ET/PT. New episodes of the six-episode season will debut weekly.
Fantasmas—a title very on-brand for Torres following Los Espookys—follows the character of Julio (Torres) as he goes in search of a precious oyster earring. Across his journey, he reflects on the offbeat characters he encounters in introspective, often eerie, and always comedic vignettes set in a dreamy, alternate version of New York City. The series weaves together stories of people looking for meaning, purpose, and connection in an increasingly isolating world.
In addition to creating, directing, executive producing, and starring in the series, Torres will be joined in the cast by Martine Gutierrez as Vanesja, Tomas Matos as Chester, and Joe Rumrill as the voice of Bibo. Fans can expect guest stars aplenty including Steve Buscemi, Paul Dano, Julia Fox, Alexa Demie, Emma Stone, Aidy Bryant, Bowen Yang, Kim Petras, and Ziwe, to tease a few.
Fantasmas is also executive produced by Emma Stone and Dave McCary for Fruit Tree, Alex Bach and Daniel Powell for Irony Point, and Olivia Gerke for 3 Arts; co-executive produced by Ali Herting.
Watch the trailer in full above.
This July, catch the premiere of Hard Knocks: Offseason along with new documentaries like Quad Gods, Faye, and Wild Wild Space, along with more new episodes of House of the Dragon and more.
See what else is arriving to HBO below; all titles listed will also be available to stream on Max.
Premieres:
July 2 at 9 pm: Hard Knocks: Offseason premiere
July 10 at 9 pm: Quad Gods premiere
July 12 at 11 pm: Fantasmas season finale
July 13 at 8 pm: Faye premiere
July 17 at 9 pm: Wild Wild Space premiere
July 18 at 9 pm: The Commandent’s Shadow premiere
July 24 at 9 pm: Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose premiere
New Movies
17 Again
2001: A Space Odyssey
Aquaman (2018)
As Good As It Gets
Babe
The Batman
Batman (1989), Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Batman Begins
Beowulf
Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Black Adam
Brokeback Mountain
Casablanca
The Dark Knight Rises
DC League Of Super-Pets
Deep Blue Sea
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Garden State
Gattaca
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Girl, Interrupted
The Glass Castle
Gods Of Egypt
Godzilla (2014)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Inside Job (2010)
Joker
Justice League (2017)
Lady Bird
The LEGO Batman Movie
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
The Meg
Melancholia
Mortal Kombat (1995)
Panic Room
Raging Bull
Saw, Saw II, Saw III, Sax IV, Saw V, Saw VI, Saw 3D: The Final Chapter
Shazam! (2019)
Signs
Singin’ in the Rain
The Sixth Sense
Suicide Squad
Superman: The Movie, Superman II, Superman III, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Superman Returns
Unbreakable
West Side Story (1961)
The Wizard Of Oz
Wonder Woman (2017)
Coming Soon to HBO
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This week’s What’s Alan Watching? newsletter coming up just as soon as I’m the thing that gets you to the thing… Thanks to the strikes, plus inevitable post-Peak TV contraction, it’s been an awfully slow spring, review-wise. This week, though, I’ve got four reviews, including an early one timed to an embargo, for next week’s belated second season of House of the Dragon. I was not hugely enthusiastic about HotD early in its first season. By the end of it — after multiple time jumps that derailed every character arc, after several episodes with long sequences that were too dark to visually make sense of, and after way too many interchangeable Targaryens — I was resigned to hoping that Season Two would be better, because it felt like the creators were treating Season One as a necessary evil to get them to the story they were actually excited to tell. Well, I’ve seen four episodes of the new season, and I’m afraid to say that HotD is not for me. As I discuss at length in my review, it remains impossible to keep track of who’s doing what and why, not only because everyone has such similar names and appearances, but because the characters are less clearly delineated, less complex, and less charismatic than all of their significant counterparts on Game of Thrones. Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, and a few of their co-stars are doing strong work, and the dragon sequences sometimes look cool. (It finally occurred to someone this season to have those scenes take place in broad daylight. Huzzah!) But it’s way too many people the show has failed to make me care about, doing way too many things for reasons the writers can’t clearly articulate. Given the ratings for Season One, I’ll be shocked if it’s not a monster hit again. I just wish it was better. Of the shows I reviewed this week, HBO’s Fantasmas was by far my favorite. I adored creator/star Julio Torres’ previous HBO comedy Los Espookys, which he co-created with Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen (Fantasmas is solely his creation). And I thought his movie Problemista was terrific. If you like either or both of those — or if, like me, you feel compelled to rewatch his “Papyrus” short film on a loop every now and then — chances are extremely high that you will fall for this one. It’s a mix of black box theater and sketch comedy, with lots of star cameos (Elizabeth Banks, Steve Buscemi, plus Tilda Swinton as the voice of a water spirit who lives in Julio’s toilet) and askew ideas that seem like they could have only come from the mind of this particular creator. Not all of it works, but more than once, I texted critic friends while watching to ask, only mostly jokingly, “Am I currently watching the greatest television show ever made?” If you want to know more, here’s my review. Unfortunately, the week’s other big premieres pleased me much less. Let’s move on to The Acolyte, a new Star Wars series set about a century before the rise of the Empire. Created by Russian Doll’s Leslye Headland, the show attempts to tackle a problem that’s been apparent at least since the prequel films were made: the Jedi are in fact terrible at their jobs. But it doesn’t do it in the most interesting ways possible, and setting it before The Phantom Menace — when the Jedi are still smug idiots who don’t recognize all the things they’re doing wrong — means that nothing anyone learns is going to stick. It aspires to Andor, but through the four episodes I’ve seen, it feels closer to The Book of Boba Fett. Meanwhile, FX (or, technically, FX on Hulu, or however we’re referring these days to shows made by John Landgraf’s team that go directly to streaming) has Clipped, a docudrama about the mess that led to racist Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling being forced to sell the team. There are some good performances, particularly by Laurence Fishburne as Clippers coach Doc Rivers, and by LeVar Burton as… LeVar Burton (in a show where every other famous character is played by an actor). But Clipped doesn’t have enough new insight or interesting presentation to justify retelling a very familiar, not particularly old news story. In general, I have a high bar for anyone making a docudrama about a well-known case, and this fails to clear that bar. All those other reviews, plus responsibilities for later in the month, prevented me from watching more than a couple of episodes of Queenie, a British comedy that began streaming today on Hulu as part of its Onyx Collective imprint dedicated to stories by Black creators. Hoping to revisit, and potentially review, later this month, but the two installments I’ve seen so far of the show — starring Dionne Brown as a Jamaican British woman struggling with a messy personal life and a disappointing professional one — were smart and entertaining. It’s a binge release, so if anyone gets ahead of me on the episodes,
Source: HBO
