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Tag: comedy

  • ‘Dumb Money’ goes all in on the GameStop stock frenzy — and may come out a winner

    ‘Dumb Money’ goes all in on the GameStop stock frenzy — and may come out a winner

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    TORONTO — Think of movies about the financial system and your mind is almost sure to go to Gordon Gekko and “Wall Street” or Leonardo DiCaprio’s gyrating Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

    When Hollywood takes on Wall Street, it usually heads straight to the C-suite.

    The protagonist of “Dumb Money,” though, is an amateur investor who trades out of his basement in Brockton, Massachusetts, with a bandana tied around his head and a Belgian beer in his hand.

    This is Keith Gill (played in the film by Paul Dano), also known as Roaring Kitty. In 2021, Gill’s enthusiastic endorsement of GameStop stocked helped fuel a viral trading frenzy that rocked Wall Street and humbled the hedge funds that has shorted the brick-and-mortar video game company.

    Now, Sony Pictures is betting that a David vs. Goliath story that played out on Reddit message boards can be a big-screen attraction, too. Like any investment, it carries some degree of risk.

    “Dumb Money,” made for about $30 million, is charging into a still-fresh wound for some Wall Street power players; at least one executive portrayed in the film has reportedly threatened to sue.

    The film, which opens in limited release Friday and expands in the next several weeks, will also have to sell itself without its colorful ensemble cast (including Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, America Ferrara, Anthony Ramos and Shailene Woodley) due to the actors strike. And then there’s the inherent challenge of making a dramatic narrative out of a revolution that occurred mainly on computer screens and smartphones.

    Yet Craig Gillespie, director of the Tonya Harding black comedy “I, Tonya,” managed to corral a brash online movement into a remarkably rollicking and crowd-pleasing entertainment that’s already stoking some of the same energy that sent GameStop soaring. Ticket prices to the movie’s Toronto International Film Festival were driven past $900 on secondary seller websites.

    “As much as it’s a really fun ride, ultimately I wanted to respect the frustration and the outrage that was happening,” says Gillespie.

    There are many ironies surrounding “Dumb Money.” It will play in AMC Theaters, which followed GameStop as a meme stock, pumping up its share price at a time when movie theaters were reeling from the pandemic.

    “I think we should go to AMC Theaters and we should bring stuff from Bed Bath and Beyond and carry Blackberries,” says Ben Mezrich, author of the book the film’s adapted from, “The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees.”

    Mezrich, whose 2009 book about Mark Zuckerberg, “The Accidental Billionaire,” served as fodder for David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” immediately recognized the potential drama in the GameStop phenomenon. On the day the company’s stock surpassed $300 a share, he began plotting a book that could adapted into a movie.

    “By the end of that day, I knew that this was something that I wanted to write and I could see it as a film,” says Mezrich. “That night, I wrote a 12-page proposal and treatment as both a movie and book idea. By the end of the week, we had a movie.”

    “Dumb Money” proceeded at a ripped-from-the-headlines pace — fast enough that most of those involved making it failed to invest, themselves. Gillespie was able to follow the phenomenon thanks to his 24-year-old son, who had been involved with the subreddit Wall Street Bets.

    “I got to live it through him,” says Gillespie. “That was a huge touchstone for me in terms of the emotionality of the film. That frustration, that outrage, all those emotions that were happening through this. I actually got in too late, myself. My son warned me: You got in too late.”

    Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, two former Wall Street Journal reporters turned screenwriters, came on to write the script. For them it was a way to extend their interest in the power of internet populism — and they already had some experience turning digital-based stories into something human.

    “We wrote a film about GamerGate a long time ago that didn’t get made,” says Blum. “The producer in that process was like, ‘Alright, let’s just go out and invent a new language of cinema.’ It has taken many years trying to figure out: How do you make a story like this cinematic?”

    “Dumb Money” seamlessly juggles a wide spectrum of characters who invest in GameStop for various reasons — a Pittsburgh single-mother nurse (Ferrera), a GameStop employee (Ramos), a pair of in-debt college students (Myha’la Herrold and Talia Ryder) — while breezily synthesizing the complicated economic context.

    “We don’t need Margot Robbie in a bathtub explaining complex financial concepts,” says Angelo, referencing 2015’s “The Big Short.”

    The meme-stuffed grammar of the film owes much to the frenetic, inundating experience of social media, but it also works as a surprisingly accurate portrait of the pandemic. You may be surprised how affectingly, and empoweringly, the film uses the then-ubiquitous TikToks of Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.”

    “It was a time when people were feeling very small. They feel small, they feel powerless, they feel that the system is rigged,” says Angelo. “And this was an opportunity to feel big and find power in numbers.”

    Gill, himself, dropped out of the spotlight as fast he entered it. His last tweet from his “Roaring Kitty” account was posted in 2021, of sleeping kittens. His investments, originally about $50,000 (much of his young family’s savings) when GameStop was going for about $5 a share, at one point reached $48 million in value.

    The filmmakers attempted to reach Gill but ultimately respected his privacy and had no direct contact with him. Gill has said little publicly since testifying before Congress in 2021. Lawmakers were then probing whether the rally had violated regulations of market manipulation.

    Gill maintained that he advocated for GameStop “for educational purposes only, and that my aggressive style of investing was unlikely to be suitable for most folks.” He simply believed in the company.

    “In short,” Gill said, “I like the stock.”

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • SNL’s Please Don’t Destroy Doesn’t Want Your Bras

    SNL’s Please Don’t Destroy Doesn’t Want Your Bras

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    This summer—as seemingly all of Hollywood took to the picket lines—the trio of sketch comedians collectively known as Please Don’t Destroy headed out on their first cross-country tour. Almost Famous this wasn’t: “It was really not rock star shit,” says troupe member John Higgins, whose fiancée, Emily Wilson, opened for them during the more than 25-show tour. “It was like, ‘Alright honey, let’s go to bed.’”

    Sure, they went to the casino a couple of times; their bus driver even won big one night. And there was the show where an audience member threw her bra onto the stage—but they didn’t exactly play it cool. “John screamed like a middle school girl,” says Ben Marshall. “I remember being like, This is so weird, this is not the environment for this. I just wanted to not touch it.”

    Higgins, Marshall, and Please Don’t Destroy’s third member, Martin Herlihy, are Zooming with me the morning that Drake decided to pose with all the bras that have been flung at him during concerts. “He had hundreds,” Higgins marvels. “We just had some nice lady who thought that we would like it.”

    The guys are back in New York during a brief break in their schedule before they close out their tour with shows in Los Angeles and New York. The Saturday Night Live writers—who also produce and star in digital sketches for the NBC institution—had always planned to go on tour during their summer hiatus. But they found themselves particularly grateful to have a busy schedule when the Writers Guild of America went on strike in early May, cutting their SNL season short. “We’re very fortunate we had this tour,” says Herlihy. Higgins adds, “Doing these live shows has been really gratifying.”

    From left: John Higgins, Martin Herlihy, and Ben Marshall of Please Don’t Destroy.

    Courtesy of Andrew Thomas.

    As the sons of respective SNL veterans Steve Higgins and Tim Herlihy, Higgins and Herlihy have some experience with writers strikes. “I remember going to one of the pickets with dad and hanging out with Jorma Taccone from the Lonely Island,” Higgins says of the 2007-2008 work stoppage. “They were striking, they weren’t making any money, but it was the best day of my life.” In May, he once again found himself on the picket lines with his dad. (Higgins, Herlihy, and Marshall are all WGA and SAG-AFTRA members.) “It was very weird and it was devastating,” he says.

    If you’re familiar with Please Don’t Destroy, it’s probably because of their viral TikToks or SNL sketches—the “Three Sad Virgins” music video they starred in alongside Pete Davidson and Taylor Swift has 9.4 million views on YouTube. But the trio, who met at NYU, got their start performing together onstage and have been enjoying returning to their roots. “We’ve been wanting to do a live tour for a while, and we just haven’t had time,” says Marshall. The trio had been busy with SNL and making a movie, Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, which will stream soon on Peacock. (They can’t talk about either because of the strikes.) “It’s been really nice to go back to performing live and connecting with a live audience.”

    Please Don’t Destroy’s stage comedy is very similar to what you’ll find online, but they have a little more freedom to expand the world of their sketches and to play different kinds of characters. They also sing songs while wearing matching multicolored track suits. “It’s a different side of us,” says Higgins. The live show has evolved over time, and even changed performance to performance this summer while they were out on tour. “Every time we make something together, we learn something new that the other person is good at and then kind of add it to the vocabulary that we can pull from when we’re doing stuff,” Marshall says.

    Their chemistry comes from how well they know each other. They’re not just comedy partners; for a time, Marshall and Herlihy were also roommates. “We are three people who have spent more time with each other than any three coworkers or friends should ever spend in an entire lifespan,” says Marshall. “Everything we do—our personal lives, our stage show, our videos—all bleeds into one another.”

    Please Don’t Destroy will end their tour September 29 at the Town Hall, a roughly 1,500 seat theater near Times Square where Marshall remembers seeing John Mulaney perform when he was a freshman in college. “We used to do this weekly show at a bar called Von downtown where there were, I think, nine or 12 folding chairs that were usually less than half full,” he adds. “To go from that kind of a space to this is extremely exciting.”

    But more than filling seats, they’re still just enjoying the experience of being onstage together. “The longer we keep doing the show, the more we’re trying to make each other laugh, which is a fun energy,” says Herlihy. “I think people like watching that too.”

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    Natalie Jarvey

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  • ‘Gran Turismo’ and ‘Barbie’ are neck-and-neck at the box office

    ‘Gran Turismo’ and ‘Barbie’ are neck-and-neck at the box office

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story” and “Barbie” are in a dead heat for the box-office crown, with the video game adaptation just edging Greta Gerwig’s pop sensation, according to studio estimates Sunday.

    Sony Pictures reported that “Gran Turismo” opened with $17.3 million over the weekend, while Warner Bros. estimated that “Barbie,” in its sixth week of release, took in $17.1 million. Those totals could change when final ticket sales are counted Monday.

    Due to a few wrinkles, it’s all but certain that “Barbie” sold more tickets than any other movie Friday through Sunday, even if “Gran Turismo” is claiming the checker flag.

    One reason: It was an usual weekend in multiplexes. U.S. movie theaters held the second annual National Cinema Day on Sunday, with $4 tickets to all films and showtimes at nearly all of the country’s theaters.

    “Barbie” was expected to be easily the top draw during the discounted day, with a particular boost coming from repeat viewings. With a domestic total of $594.8 million in ticket sales, “Barbie” has passed “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($574 million) to become the year’s biggest domestic hit. With $1.34 billion worldwide, “Barbie” will also soon surpass the leading $1.35 million worldwide tally of “Mario.”

    National Cinema Day is meant to lure moviegoers to theaters during a typically slow period — and recoup the lost ticket revenue by selling a lot of popcorn. Last year’s event drew 8.1 million moviegoers, making it the busiest day of the year in theaters. Warner Bros. estimated that “Barbie” would gross $7.8 million on Sunday, which would mean almost 2 million people saw the film that day.

    So what was the top movie in theaters this weekend?

    “Barbie,” says Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief for Warner Bros. “Without any question.”

    Though “Barbie” is the weekend’s top draw, “Gran Turismo” has a slight — and somewhat debatable — edge in gross earnings. In its weekend totals for “Gran Turismo,” Sony is also factoring in a hefty $3.9 million from preview screenings held before Thursday, along with $1.4 million in Thursday previews. Such accounting, while common practice for Hollywood, has stretched the definition of an opening “weekend.”

    “We’ve made a big issue of it only because ‘Barbie’ has had incredible holds,” says Goldstein. “To take away the number one, which would make it five weekends at number one since it opened, kind of doesn’t feel right for the ‘Barbie’ filmmakers who really deserve the accolades.”

    Sony executives declined to comment.

    Either way, it’s a so-so start for “Gran Turismo,” which cost about $60 million to make. But the film, about a young man whose love of the PlayStation video game helps turn him into a real-life racer, has gone over well with audiences. Moviegoers gave the Neill Blomkamp-directed movie an “A” CinemaScore.

    The ongoing strike by actors and screenwriters has taken away the studios’ ability to promote films with their casts. To help spread the word on “Gran Turismo,” Sony held several weeks of preview screenings and fan events.

    “Obviously, every movie is in pursuit of being the number one film,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. “But at the end of the day, ‘Barbie’ is just an out-and-out smash global blockbuster. No matter how you slice it, ‘Barbie’ is always going to be a winner no matter the outcome of this weekend. Sony, left without stars to go out and promote the movie, had to rely on the audience becoming the marketing voice.”

    Last week’s top film, the DC Comics release “Blue Beetle,” slid to third place in its second week, with $12.8 million. The Warner Bros. film has made $46.3 million in two weeks, making it another misfire for DC.

    Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” trailed in fourth, with $9 million in its sixth week. Like its “Barbenheimer” sibling, the Universal Pictures release has played remarkably well beyond the point at which most films fall off in theaters. “Oppenheimer” has passed $300 million domestically and reached $777.1 million globally.

    A handful of other new releases also hit theaters. MGM’s high-school comedy “Bottoms” got off to a strong start in limited release, grossing an average of $51,600 per location in 10 theaters. The Liam Neeson thriller “Retribution” debuted with $3.3 million in 1,750 theaters for Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions.

    “The Hill,” a sports drama starring Dennis Quaid, launched with $2.5 million from 1,570 locations for Briarcliff and Open Road. And “Golda,” starring Helen Mirren as the former Israeli prime minister, debuted with $2 million in 883 theaters for Bleecker Street.

    According to Comscore, the North American box office is now just $70 million shy of breaking $4 billion for the summer. After an up-and-down season that saw some major releases like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “The Flash” and “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One” fall short of expectations, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” have spurred a comeback. If the box office manages to reach $4 billion for the summer, it would be the first time since 2019.

    Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

    1. “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story,” $17.3 million.

    2. “Barbie,” $17.1 million.

    3. “Blue Beetle,” $12.8 million.

    4. “Oppenheimer,” $9 million.

    5. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” $6.1 million.

    6. “Meg 2: The Trench,” $5.1 million.

    7. “Strays,” $4.7 million.

    8. “Retribution,” $3.3 million.

    9. “The Hill,” $2.5 million.

    10. “Haunted Mansion,” $2.1 million.

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • ‘Gran Turismo’ and ‘Barbie’ are neck-and-neck at the box office

    ‘Gran Turismo’ and ‘Barbie’ are neck-and-neck at the box office

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story” and “Barbie” are in a dead heat for the box-office crown, with the video game adaptation just edging Greta Gerwig’s pop sensation, according to studio estimates Sunday.

    Sony Pictures reported that “Gran Turismo” opened with $17.3 million over the weekend, while Warner Bros. estimated that “Barbie,” in its sixth week of release, took in $17.1 million. Those totals could change when final ticket sales are counted Monday.

    Due to a few wrinkles, it’s all but certain that “Barbie” sold more tickets than any other movie Friday through Sunday, even if “Gran Turismo” is claiming the checker flag.

    One reason: It was an usual weekend in multiplexes. U.S. movie theaters held the second annual National Cinema Day on Sunday, with $4 tickets to all films and showtimes at nearly all of the country’s theaters.

    “Barbie” was expected to be easily the top draw during the discounted day, with a particular boost coming from repeat viewings. With a domestic total of $594.8 million in ticket sales, “Barbie” has passed “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($574 million) to become the year’s biggest domestic hit. With $1.34 billion worldwide, “Barbie” will also soon surpass the leading $1.35 million worldwide tally of “Mario.”

    National Cinema Day is meant to lure moviegoers to theaters during a typically slow period — and recoup the lost ticket revenue by selling a lot of popcorn. Last year’s event drew 8.1 million moviegoers, making it the busiest day of the year in theaters. Warner Bros. estimated that “Barbie” would gross $7.8 million on Sunday, which would mean almost 2 million people saw the film that day.

    So what was the top movie in theaters this weekend?

    “Barbie,” says Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief for Warner Bros. “Without any question.”

    Though “Barbie” is the weekend’s top draw, “Gran Turismo” has a slight — and somewhat debatable — edge in gross earnings. In its weekend totals for “Gran Turismo,” Sony is also factoring in a hefty $3.9 million from preview screenings held before Thursday, along with $1.4 million in Thursday previews. Such accounting, while common practice for Hollywood, has stretched the definition of an opening “weekend.”

    “We’ve made a big issue of it only because ‘Barbie’ has had incredible holds,” says Goldstein. “To take away the number one, which would make it five weekends at number one since it opened, kind of doesn’t feel right for the ‘Barbie’ filmmakers who really deserve the accolades.”

    Sony executives declined to comment.

    Either way, it’s a so-so start for “Gran Turismo,” which cost about $60 million to make. But the film, about a young man whose love of the PlayStation video game helps turn him into a real-life racer, has gone over well with audiences. Moviegoers gave the Neill Blomkamp-directed movie an “A” CinemaScore.

    The ongoing strike by actors and screenwriters has taken away the studios’ ability to promote films with their casts. To help spread the word on “Gran Turismo,” Sony held several weeks of preview screenings and fan events.

    “Obviously, every movie is in pursuit of being the number one film,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. “But at the end of the day, ‘Barbie’ is just an out-and-out smash global blockbuster. No matter how you slice it, ‘Barbie’ is always going to be a winner no matter the outcome of this weekend. Sony, left without stars to go out and promote the movie, had to rely on the audience becoming the marketing voice.”

    Last week’s top film, the DC Comics release “Blue Beetle,” slid to third place in its second week, with $12.8 million. The Warner Bros. film has made $46.3 million in two weeks, making it another misfire for DC.

    Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” trailed in fourth, with $9 million in its sixth week. Like its “Barbenheimer” sibling, the Universal Pictures release has played remarkably well beyond the point at which most films fall off in theaters. “Oppenheimer” has passed $300 million domestically and reached $777.1 million globally.

    A handful of other new releases also hit theaters. MGM’s high-school comedy “Bottoms” got off to a strong start in limited release, grossing an average of $51,600 per location in 10 theaters. The Liam Neeson thriller “Retribution” debuted with $3.3 million in 1,750 theaters for Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions.

    “The Hill,” a sports drama starring Dennis Quaid, launched with $2.5 million from 1,570 locations for Briarcliff and Open Road. And “Golda,” starring Helen Mirren as the former Israeli prime minister, debuted with $2 million in 883 theaters for Bleecker Street.

    According to Comscore, the North American box office is now just $70 million shy of breaking $4 billion for the summer. After an up-and-down season that saw some major releases like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “The Flash” and “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One” fall short of expectations, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” have spurred a comeback. If the box office manages to reach $4 billion for the summer, it would be the first time since 2019.

    Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

    1. “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story,” $17.3 million.

    2. “Barbie,” $17.1 million.

    3. “Blue Beetle,” $12.8 million.

    4. “Oppenheimer,” $9 million.

    5. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” $6.1 million.

    6. “Meg 2: The Trench,” $5.1 million.

    7. “Strays,” $4.7 million.

    8. “Retribution,” $3.3 million.

    9. “The Hill,” $2.5 million.

    10. “Haunted Mansion,” $2.1 million.

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • What to stream this week: Adam Sandler, ‘Star Wars: Ahsoka,’ Tim McGraw and ‘Honor Among Thieves’

    What to stream this week: Adam Sandler, ‘Star Wars: Ahsoka,’ Tim McGraw and ‘Honor Among Thieves’

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    Tim McGraw roars back with “Standing Room Only” and the “Mandalorian” spin-off “Star Wars: Ahsoka” are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are “The Eight Mountains,” a soul-stirring Italian epic of male friendship, and the return of Adam Sandler in “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.”

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — It would have been easy to dismiss “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” as another tired Hollywood effort to parlay whatever unused IP it had lying around. Yet directors and co-writers Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who helmed one of the better comedies in recent years (“Game Night”), turn “Honor Among Thieves” into a remarkably funny and refreshingly unserious fantasy adventure, led by comic performances by Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Hugh Grant. After playing in theaters this spring, “Honor Among Thieves” lands on Prime Video on Friday, Aug. 25. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck said it works “surprisingly, sometimes delightfully well — even if you have no clue what a paladin or Red Wizard or Harper is.”

    — The hills are alive in “The Eight Mountains,” Belgian filmmakers Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen’s soul-stirring Italian epic of male friendship. The film, one of the best of the year, tracks the lives of two friends (Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi) from childhood through adulthood in the Italian Alps. A mountain idyll is a pastoral dream to one, a humble livelihood to the other. The filmmakers, whose film took a prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, is unhurried, letting time unfurl against a stunning Alpine backdrop and the fragile, organ-inflected folk songs of Daniel Norgren. Reviewing “The Eight Mountains,” which begins streaming on the Criterion Channel on Tuesday, I wrote: “Vast and intimate at once, their luminously languid adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s bestseller reaches sublime heights.”

    — Adam Sandler has long been known for making movies with his friends. Now it’s his family’s turn. “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” which streams Friday, Aug. 25 on Netflix, stars Sunny Sandler, Adam’s teenage daughter, as one of two friends (Samantha Lorraine plays the other) driven apart by a squabble over a boy. Adam, himself, co-stars as Sunny’s father in the adaptation of Fiona Rosenbloom’s 2005 YA novel. Sandler’s wife, Jackie, and other daughter, Sadie, also co-star.

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Tim McGraw roars back with “Standing Room Only, ” an album with the wistful title track, and “Hey Whiskey,” which is almost a breakup song with booze. Another single, “Remember Me Well,” is a look back at a love affair in which McGraw sings “If you’re gonna forget me/Find someone else/If you’re gonna remember me/ Remember me well.” He says the songs are “some of the most emotional, thought-provoking, and life-affirming music I’ve ever recorded.”

    — Alice Cooper welcomes you to a new album in a very Alice Cooper way. “I know you’re looking for a real good time. So, let me introduce you to a friend of mine. I’m Alice. I’m the Master of Madness; the Sultan of Surprise,” he sings in the first single, “I’m Alice.” The rocker’s new collection, Road” also includes “Welcome to the Show” and “White Line Frankenstein” featuring Tom Morello. His team says the new music “taps into the essence of his classic hits while offering a fresh and invigorating sound, bursting with energy from the first note.”

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — The Jedi Ahsoka Tano was originally introduced in the 2008 animated film “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and then returned in “The Mandalorian,” played by Rosario Dawson. Now, Anakin Skywalker’s former apprentice leads a “Mandalorian” spin-off called “Star Wars: Ahsoka.” Ahsoka, a survivor of the Jedi purge, is investigating a threat to the galaxy after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Additional cast members include Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, David Tennant and Lars Mikkelsen. The series debuts Wednesday on Disney+.

    — If you want to stay in space, “Invasion” season 2 launches on Apple TV+ on Wednesday. The show, co-created by Simon Kinberg and David Weil, focuses on individuals across various continents whose lives are upended by the arrival of aliens on Earth. In season two, the aliens are getting more aggressive.

    — The life of an expat in Spain begins to unravel when a trip to a supermarket turns into a robbery and one of the robbers claims to recognize her. Might she have been living a double life? Evin Ahmad plays the titular character in her first English-speaking role. All seven episodes of “Who is Erin Carter?” drop on Thursday.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — The pitch for Electronic Arts’ Immortals of Aveum is simple: a first-person shooter with sorcery. Think something like Call of Duty, except instead of shooting bullets you’re firing off magic bolts, missiles and bombs. The protagonist, Jak, has just discovered his occult gifts, and he’s been recruited to fight in the millennia-long war between the two supernatural superpowers that run his world. Immortals comes from Ascendant Studios, a new production house founded by Call of Duty veteran Bret Robbins, and it’s a bit of a rarity these days — a fresh single-player adventure that isn’t just another sequel in a long-running franchise. You can start slinging spells Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • What to stream this week: Adam Sandler, ‘Star Wars: Ahsoka,’ Tim McGraw and ‘Honor Among Thieves’

    What to stream this week: Adam Sandler, ‘Star Wars: Ahsoka,’ Tim McGraw and ‘Honor Among Thieves’

    [ad_1]

    Tim McGraw roars back with “Standing Room Only” and the “Mandalorian” spin-off “Star Wars: Ahsoka” are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are “The Eight Mountains,” a soul-stirring Italian epic of male friendship, and the return of Adam Sandler in “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.”

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — It would have been easy to dismiss “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” as another tired Hollywood effort to parlay whatever unused IP it had lying around. Yet directors and co-writers Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who helmed one of the better comedies in recent years (“Game Night”), turn “Honor Among Thieves” into a remarkably funny and refreshingly unserious fantasy adventure, led by comic performances by Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez and Hugh Grant. After playing in theaters this spring, “Honor Among Thieves” lands on Prime Video on Friday, Aug. 25. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck said it works “surprisingly, sometimes delightfully well — even if you have no clue what a paladin or Red Wizard or Harper is.”

    — The hills are alive in “The Eight Mountains,” Belgian filmmakers Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen’s soul-stirring Italian epic of male friendship. The film, one of the best of the year, tracks the lives of two friends (Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi) from childhood through adulthood in the Italian Alps. A mountain idyll is a pastoral dream to one, a humble livelihood to the other. The filmmakers, whose film took a prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, is unhurried, letting time unfurl against a stunning Alpine backdrop and the fragile, organ-inflected folk songs of Daniel Norgren. Reviewing “The Eight Mountains,” which begins streaming on the Criterion Channel on Tuesday, I wrote: “Vast and intimate at once, their luminously languid adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s bestseller reaches sublime heights.”

    — Adam Sandler has long been known for making movies with his friends. Now it’s his family’s turn. “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” which streams Friday, Aug. 25 on Netflix, stars Sunny Sandler, Adam’s teenage daughter, as one of two friends (Samantha Lorraine plays the other) driven apart by a squabble over a boy. Adam, himself, co-stars as Sunny’s father in the adaptation of Fiona Rosenbloom’s 2005 YA novel. Sandler’s wife, Jackie, and other daughter, Sadie, also co-star.

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Tim McGraw roars back with “Standing Room Only, ” an album with the wistful title track, and “Hey Whiskey,” which is almost a breakup song with booze. Another single, “Remember Me Well,” is a look back at a love affair in which McGraw sings “If you’re gonna forget me/Find someone else/If you’re gonna remember me/ Remember me well.” He says the songs are “some of the most emotional, thought-provoking, and life-affirming music I’ve ever recorded.”

    — Alice Cooper welcomes you to a new album in a very Alice Cooper way. “I know you’re looking for a real good time. So, let me introduce you to a friend of mine. I’m Alice. I’m the Master of Madness; the Sultan of Surprise,” he sings in the first single, “I’m Alice.” The rocker’s new collection, Road” also includes “Welcome to the Show” and “White Line Frankenstein” featuring Tom Morello. His team says the new music “taps into the essence of his classic hits while offering a fresh and invigorating sound, bursting with energy from the first note.”

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — The Jedi Ahsoka Tano was originally introduced in the 2008 animated film “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” and then returned in “The Mandalorian,” played by Rosario Dawson. Now, Anakin Skywalker’s former apprentice leads a “Mandalorian” spin-off called “Star Wars: Ahsoka.” Ahsoka, a survivor of the Jedi purge, is investigating a threat to the galaxy after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Additional cast members include Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, David Tennant and Lars Mikkelsen. The series debuts Wednesday on Disney+.

    — If you want to stay in space, “Invasion” season 2 launches on Apple TV+ on Wednesday. The show, co-created by Simon Kinberg and David Weil, focuses on individuals across various continents whose lives are upended by the arrival of aliens on Earth. In season two, the aliens are getting more aggressive.

    — The life of an expat in Spain begins to unravel when a trip to a supermarket turns into a robbery and one of the robbers claims to recognize her. Might she have been living a double life? Evin Ahmad plays the titular character in her first English-speaking role. All seven episodes of “Who is Erin Carter?” drop on Thursday.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — The pitch for Electronic Arts’ Immortals of Aveum is simple: a first-person shooter with sorcery. Think something like Call of Duty, except instead of shooting bullets you’re firing off magic bolts, missiles and bombs. The protagonist, Jak, has just discovered his occult gifts, and he’s been recruited to fight in the millennia-long war between the two supernatural superpowers that run his world. Immortals comes from Ascendant Studios, a new production house founded by Call of Duty veteran Bret Robbins, and it’s a bit of a rarity these days — a fresh single-player adventure that isn’t just another sequel in a long-running franchise. You can start slinging spells Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • ‘Blue Beetle’ unseats ‘Barbie’ atop box office, ending four-week reign

    ‘Blue Beetle’ unseats ‘Barbie’ atop box office, ending four-week reign

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    The DC superhero film "Blue Beetle" led weekend ticket sales with $25.4 million.

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  • What to stream this week: ‘The Monkey King,’ Stand Up to Cancer, ‘No Hard Feelings,’ new Madden game

    What to stream this week: ‘The Monkey King,’ Stand Up to Cancer, ‘No Hard Feelings,’ new Madden game

    [ad_1]

    Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings” and the more family friendly animated movie “The Monkey King” from director Stephen Chow are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are a Harlan Coben TV adaptation with a young protagonist, Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s third studio album and sweet Marcie, the introverted member of the “Peanuts” gang gets a special, “Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie.”

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Parents looking for fresh animated offerings should rejoice that Netflix has a new film from Stephen Chow, the actor and producer known for “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” in “The Monkey King” streaming Friday, Aug. 18. Jimmy O. Yang of “Silicon Valley” and “Crazy Rich Asians” voices said Monkey King, born from a stone with magical powers and a big ego and who is on a quest for immortality. A young human girl (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) teams up with him to defeat dragons and demons. Other voice actors include Jo Koy, Bowen Yang, Stephanie Hsu and BD Wong. It’s loosely based on the 16th century, Wu Cheng’en Ming dynasty novel “Journey to the West.”

    Netflix also has “Depp v. Heard,” a new doc about the widely watched libel trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, coming on Wednesday from director Emma Cooper (“The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes”).

    — ”Cocaine Bear” is coming to Prime Video on Tuesday. Very loosely based on a true story (and taken to wild heights), the non-stop action comedy from Elizabeth Banks stars Keri Russell, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Kristofer Hivju, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich and the late Ray Liotta. AP’s Mark Kennedy was no fan in his zero star review but said that at an efficient 95 minutes it “snorts along.” Others were enchanted. “When the movie’s pitched, you hear the word ‘Cocaine,’ you’re like I’m not sure what to think of this,” producer Phil Lord told the AP. “Then when you hear the word ‘Bear,’ you’re like: I’m all in.”

    — Or if you want to settle in with a raunchy comedy, the Jennifer Lawrence vehicle “No Hard Feelings” is coming to video-on-demand on Tuesday. Lawrence plays a woman who answers a Craigslist ad posted by some concerned parents who want someone to “date” their awkward teenage son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he heads to college. Lawrence’s pal Gene Stupnitsky (“Good Boys”) wrote it for he r to showcase her comedy prowess, which has so far been mostly relegated to her talk show appearances. Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote in his review that the movie “works better than it ought to” and that it gives Lawrence “plenty of room to showcase her talent at upending traditional ideas of Hollywood glamour. At every moment, she delights in undercutting her own sexiness; it’s not every A-lister who’s willing to film a beach brawl in the nude.”

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s third studio album, “Unreal Unearth,” comes out Friday, Aug. 18. The 16-track collection is loosely based on Dante’s “Nine Circles of Hell” and features the slinky “De Selby (Part 2),” “Unknown/Nth,” “All Things End,” “Eat Your Young” and “Francesca,” which builds to a thrilling, Phil Spector Wall of Sound-like climax. “I’m proud of this record and enjoyed watching it come to life over the past year,” Hozier wrote to fans. Also listen for Brandi Carlile on “Butchered Tongue.” (Columbia Records)

    — If oldies are more your style, look no further than “Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback,” a new feature-length documentary about the making of the television special that revitalized Elvis Presley’s career. When it aired on the night of Dec. 3, 1968, nearly half of the entire TV-watching audience tuned in to see Presley, clad in an iconic black leather suit, deliver some of the greatest performances of his life. The special lands on Paramount+ on Tuesday.

    — Take center stage with Broadway icon Idina Menzel, whose “Drama Queen” shows off her big, rich vocals. “I want everyone to move and sing with me and embrace their inner ‘Drama Queen,’” the Tony Award-winner told fans. The “Let It Go” singer worked alongside Nile Rodgers on “Paradise” and goes full disco on first single, “Move,” a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. “I’ll meet you on the dance floor or at the stage door or wherever you will have me. This album is for you.”

    — Go back in time and groove to the two-part music docuseries “San Francisco Sounds: A Place in Time,” premiering on Sunday, Aug. 20 from MGM+. The series tracks the history of the San Francisco music scene from 1965 to 1975. The series follows the creative explosion in San Francisco that featured the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Steve Miller, Santana, Moby Grape and more. The second part drops Aug. 27.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — A new “Peanut’s” special on Apple TV+ puts Marcie, the introverted, studious bestie of Peppermint Patty and the gang, in the spotlight with her first special. In “Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie,” the character has lots of ideas to make her friend’s lives easier, but when those problem-solving abilities get her elected class president, the attention makes Marcie uncomfortable, and she becomes overwhelmed. “One-of-a-Kind Marcie” debuts Friday, Aug. 18.

    — Best-selling author Harlan Coben has had many of his books adapted for TV, but his latest offering, “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” for Prime Video, centers on a younger protagonist. Jaden Michael (“Colin in Black & White”) stars as Mickey Bolitar — the teen nephew of famed Coben character Myron Bolitar. (Mickey has been the subject of YA books by Coben.) In this series, we meet Mickey when he is taken in by his aunt in New Jersey after his dad’s death. He quickly channels his own grief into obsessing over a local disappearance. We also see Mickey interact with colorful school classmates including Abby Corrigan, Adrian Greensmith, Sage Linder and Antonio Cipriano, doing his best Biff from “Back to the Future.” The series debuts Friday, Aug. 18.

    — The star-studded TV fundraiser for cancer research co-founded by Katie Couric called “Stand Up to Cancer” returns on Saturday, Aug. 19. Celebs taking part include Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Biel, Don Cheadle, Danai Gurira and Justin Timberlake. It will also feature skits and musical performances from past specials. The fundraiser airs every other year and this time, it will simulcast across 50 media platforms in both the U.S. and Canada, including on the four major U.S. broadcast networks.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — The nights are getting longer. School supplies are on sale. But you truly know summer’s ending when the latest edition of Madden comes out. What’s new in Madden NFL 24? Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is the cover model. Superstar mode, in which you guide one player’s career from draft pick to All-Pro, is back. Franchise mode has been revamped with upgraded training camp, trading and commissioner tools. And, as always, EA Sports is promising tighter control over throwing, catching, running and tackling, delivered with ever-more-realistic graphics. To get all this, you’ll need to buy the PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC version; less feature-packed editions will still come out for the PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. The season begins Friday, Aug. 18.

    — For college students and their parents, fall brings another brutal ritual: moving. Indies SMG Studio and DEVM Games at least try to make it fun with Moving Out 2. In the 2020 original, your Furniture Arrangement & Relocation Technicians (you work out the acronym) defied physics to cram mansions’ worth of stuff into their rickety vans. The sequel gets wackier, as the Smooth Moves moving team expands the business into entirely new dimensions and brings on new recruits like a sneakerhead — who literally has a sneaker for a head. And there are more ways to play co-op, either on the same couch or online. Start packing Tuesday on PlayStation 5/4, Xbox X/S/One, Nintendo Switch or PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • What to stream this week: ‘The Monkey King,’ Stand Up to Cancer, ‘No Hard Feelings,’ new Madden game

    What to stream this week: ‘The Monkey King,’ Stand Up to Cancer, ‘No Hard Feelings,’ new Madden game

    [ad_1]

    Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings” and the more family friendly animated movie “The Monkey King” from director Stephen Chow are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are a Harlan Coben TV adaptation with a young protagonist, Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s third studio album and sweet Marcie, the introverted member of the “Peanuts” gang gets a special, “Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie.”

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Parents looking for fresh animated offerings should rejoice that Netflix has a new film from Stephen Chow, the actor and producer known for “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” in “The Monkey King” streaming Friday, Aug. 18. Jimmy O. Yang of “Silicon Valley” and “Crazy Rich Asians” voices said Monkey King, born from a stone with magical powers and a big ego and who is on a quest for immortality. A young human girl (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) teams up with him to defeat dragons and demons. Other voice actors include Jo Koy, Bowen Yang, Stephanie Hsu and BD Wong. It’s loosely based on the 16th century, Wu Cheng’en Ming dynasty novel “Journey to the West.”

    Netflix also has “Depp v. Heard,” a new doc about the widely watched libel trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, coming on Wednesday from director Emma Cooper (“The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes”).

    — ”Cocaine Bear” is coming to Prime Video on Tuesday. Very loosely based on a true story (and taken to wild heights), the non-stop action comedy from Elizabeth Banks stars Keri Russell, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, Kristofer Hivju, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich and the late Ray Liotta. AP’s Mark Kennedy was no fan in his zero star review but said that at an efficient 95 minutes it “snorts along.” Others were enchanted. “When the movie’s pitched, you hear the word ‘Cocaine,’ you’re like I’m not sure what to think of this,” producer Phil Lord told the AP. “Then when you hear the word ‘Bear,’ you’re like: I’m all in.”

    — Or if you want to settle in with a raunchy comedy, the Jennifer Lawrence vehicle “No Hard Feelings” is coming to video-on-demand on Tuesday. Lawrence plays a woman who answers a Craigslist ad posted by some concerned parents who want someone to “date” their awkward teenage son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he heads to college. Lawrence’s pal Gene Stupnitsky (“Good Boys”) wrote it for he r to showcase her comedy prowess, which has so far been mostly relegated to her talk show appearances. Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote in his review that the movie “works better than it ought to” and that it gives Lawrence “plenty of room to showcase her talent at upending traditional ideas of Hollywood glamour. At every moment, she delights in undercutting her own sexiness; it’s not every A-lister who’s willing to film a beach brawl in the nude.”

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Irish singer-songwriter Hozier’s third studio album, “Unreal Unearth,” comes out Friday, Aug. 18. The 16-track collection is loosely based on Dante’s “Nine Circles of Hell” and features the slinky “De Selby (Part 2),” “Unknown/Nth,” “All Things End,” “Eat Your Young” and “Francesca,” which builds to a thrilling, Phil Spector Wall of Sound-like climax. “I’m proud of this record and enjoyed watching it come to life over the past year,” Hozier wrote to fans. Also listen for Brandi Carlile on “Butchered Tongue.” (Columbia Records)

    — If oldies are more your style, look no further than “Reinventing Elvis: The ’68 Comeback,” a new feature-length documentary about the making of the television special that revitalized Elvis Presley’s career. When it aired on the night of Dec. 3, 1968, nearly half of the entire TV-watching audience tuned in to see Presley, clad in an iconic black leather suit, deliver some of the greatest performances of his life. The special lands on Paramount+ on Tuesday.

    — Take center stage with Broadway icon Idina Menzel, whose “Drama Queen” shows off her big, rich vocals. “I want everyone to move and sing with me and embrace their inner ‘Drama Queen,’” the Tony Award-winner told fans. The “Let It Go” singer worked alongside Nile Rodgers on “Paradise” and goes full disco on first single, “Move,” a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community. “I’ll meet you on the dance floor or at the stage door or wherever you will have me. This album is for you.”

    — Go back in time and groove to the two-part music docuseries “San Francisco Sounds: A Place in Time,” premiering on Sunday, Aug. 20 from MGM+. The series tracks the history of the San Francisco music scene from 1965 to 1975. The series follows the creative explosion in San Francisco that featured the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Steve Miller, Santana, Moby Grape and more. The second part drops Aug. 27.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — A new “Peanut’s” special on Apple TV+ puts Marcie, the introverted, studious bestie of Peppermint Patty and the gang, in the spotlight with her first special. In “Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie,” the character has lots of ideas to make her friend’s lives easier, but when those problem-solving abilities get her elected class president, the attention makes Marcie uncomfortable, and she becomes overwhelmed. “One-of-a-Kind Marcie” debuts Friday, Aug. 18.

    — Best-selling author Harlan Coben has had many of his books adapted for TV, but his latest offering, “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” for Prime Video, centers on a younger protagonist. Jaden Michael (“Colin in Black & White”) stars as Mickey Bolitar — the teen nephew of famed Coben character Myron Bolitar. (Mickey has been the subject of YA books by Coben.) In this series, we meet Mickey when he is taken in by his aunt in New Jersey after his dad’s death. He quickly channels his own grief into obsessing over a local disappearance. We also see Mickey interact with colorful school classmates including Abby Corrigan, Adrian Greensmith, Sage Linder and Antonio Cipriano, doing his best Biff from “Back to the Future.” The series debuts Friday, Aug. 18.

    — The star-studded TV fundraiser for cancer research co-founded by Katie Couric called “Stand Up to Cancer” returns on Saturday, Aug. 19. Celebs taking part include Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Biel, Don Cheadle, Danai Gurira and Justin Timberlake. It will also feature skits and musical performances from past specials. The fundraiser airs every other year and this time, it will simulcast across 50 media platforms in both the U.S. and Canada, including on the four major U.S. broadcast networks.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — The nights are getting longer. School supplies are on sale. But you truly know summer’s ending when the latest edition of Madden comes out. What’s new in Madden NFL 24? Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is the cover model. Superstar mode, in which you guide one player’s career from draft pick to All-Pro, is back. Franchise mode has been revamped with upgraded training camp, trading and commissioner tools. And, as always, EA Sports is promising tighter control over throwing, catching, running and tackling, delivered with ever-more-realistic graphics. To get all this, you’ll need to buy the PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S or PC version; less feature-packed editions will still come out for the PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. The season begins Friday, Aug. 18.

    — For college students and their parents, fall brings another brutal ritual: moving. Indies SMG Studio and DEVM Games at least try to make it fun with Moving Out 2. In the 2020 original, your Furniture Arrangement & Relocation Technicians (you work out the acronym) defied physics to cram mansions’ worth of stuff into their rickety vans. The sequel gets wackier, as the Smooth Moves moving team expands the business into entirely new dimensions and brings on new recruits like a sneakerhead — who literally has a sneaker for a head. And there are more ways to play co-op, either on the same couch or online. Start packing Tuesday on PlayStation 5/4, Xbox X/S/One, Nintendo Switch or PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • What to stream this week: Gal Gadot, ‘Red, White and Royal Blue’ and ‘Only Murders in the Building’

    What to stream this week: Gal Gadot, ‘Red, White and Royal Blue’ and ‘Only Murders in the Building’

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    The return of the mystery-comedy “Only Murders in the Building” and Gal Gadot getting her “Mission: Impossible”-style action film with the international espionage thriller “Heart of Stone” are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are “Superfan,” a new one-hour game show that features music superstars crowning their biggest fan, and a royal rom-com adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s bestseller “Red, White and Royal Blue” lands on Prime Video.

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Gal Gadot gets her “Mission: Impossible”-style action film in the international espionage thriller “Heart of Stone.” The film, debuting Friday, Aug. 11, on Netflix, stars the “Wonder Woman” actor as a superspy for a shadowy global peacekeeping agency called the Charter. “Heart of Stone,” directed by Tom Harper, boasts plenty of stunt sequences and international locales, with Gadot starring alongside Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Keya Dhawan and Sophie Okonedo.

    — Harry and Meghan have competition. In “Red, White and Royal Blue,” the royal rom-com adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s bestseller, Nicolas Galitzine (“Cinderella”) stars as British prince Harry and Taylor Zakhar Perez (“The Kissing Booth”) plays the son of the first female U.S. president (Uma Thurman). They’re initially bitter rivals who cause a media frenzy when they tussle and fall into a cake at a royal wedding. But in the film, directed by playwright Matthew López, a resulting PR campaign brings them closer. “Red, White and Royal Blue” premieres Friday, Aug. 11, on Prime Video.

    — Mario is a-here. Since early August, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has been streaming on Peacock, bringing one of the year’s biggest box office hits to the NBCUniversal platform. Back when the film (the second attempt at a big-screen adaptation of the Nintendo videogame) opened in theaters in April, it raced to more than $1.3 billion at the global box office. In my review, I called this “Mario” “okey-dokey,” writing: “As nice as it is to look at ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ it’s not anywhere near as fun as it would be to play it.”

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Music fans get to take center stage on Wednesday. CBS has the debut of “Superfan,” a new one-hour game show series that features six music superstars each week as they each crown their biggest fan. Contestants vie in multiple rounds to prove they are their favorite artist’s most devoted supporter, including a lip-synch battle. Season one features Kelsea Ballerini, Gloria Estefan, Little Big Town, LL Cool J, Pitbull and Shania Twain. The show is hosted by co-creator Keltie Knight and Nate Burleson.

    — Neil Young has dug deep into his own record crates to release his 1977 lost album “Chrome Dreams” for the first time on Friday, Aug. 11. The 12-track album, recorded between 1974 and 1977, includes several originals eventually re-worked or overdubbed elsewhere, including “Powderfinger” and “Pocahontas,” later featured on “Rust Never Sleeps; “Sedan Delivery” and “Hold Back the Tears,” later remade with new lyrics; and “Stringman.” Fans might know all the songs but six of the 12 tracks are presented here in its original way.

    — Hip-hop’s 50th anniversary will be celebrated by Netflix with the four-part docuseries “Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop.” Each episode will feature a mix of classic MCs including Queen Latifah, Sha Rock, Remy Ma, Yo-Yo, Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Da Brat, Monie Love, Bahamadia and Rah Digga mixed with some of the hottest artists of today, such as Latto, Saweetie, Coi Leray, Chika, Rapsody, Kash Doll and Tierra Whack, as well as commentary from journalists, record label executives and stylists. It starts Wednesday.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez have a new case to devote their podcast to when “Only Murders in the Building” returns to Hulu on Tuesday. In the new episodes, Oliver Putnam’s (Martin Short) career comeback is in jeopardy when a murder disrupts his Broadway play, and it seems almost everyone involved is suspicious. “Your show is a death trap! Today alone I almost died three times,” Martin’s Thomas Haden-Savage declares in the trailer. The third season also features new all-star cast members including Meryl Streep, Paul Rudd, Jesse Williams and Ashley Park.

    — A new Netflix limited series details the rise of opioid use in the United States from various perspectives. “Painkiller” features Matthew Broderick as Richard Sackler, the former Purdue Pharma head, who developed OxyContin. Taylor Kitsch plays an honest family man whose life is torn apart by opioid addiction after an accident on the job. Uzo Aduba portrays a prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s office investigating the Sackler family. West Duchovny (daughter of actors David and Téa) plays a pharmaceutical sales rep who gets caught up in the allure of pushing the drug on doctors. “Painkiller” All six episodes were directed by Peter Berg and drop Thursday.

    — After sitting out season six, Damian Lewis’ “Billions” character, Bobby Axelrod, returns for the seventh and final season of the Showtime drama. Lewis reunites with Paul Giamatti’s character Chuck Rhoades, who is now Attorney General of New York. “Billions” will first be available on Paramount+ on Friday, Aug. 11 (with the Showtime bundle), and then air on the Showtime cable network on Sunday, Aug. 13.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — It’s been a busy summer for fans of role-playing games, but here’s something completely different: Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. It’s an urban fantasy in which a college dropout gains the power of song when an ancient muse dies in her arms, and the gods aren’t too happy about it. It comes from Summerfall Studios, which was founded by Dragon Age writer David Gaider, and the lead composer is Austin Wintory, best known for his Journey soundtrack. The cast of voiceover all-stars is led by The Last Of Us veterans Laura Bailey, Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. If you love musicals but wish they were interactive — or if you love games but wish they had more singing — the show must go on Thursday on PlayStation 5/4, Xbox X/S/One, Nintendo Switch and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • What to stream this week: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,’ Quavo, ‘Reservation Dogs’ and ‘Mixtape’

    What to stream this week: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,’ Quavo, ‘Reservation Dogs’ and ‘Mixtape’

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    “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hunt” with Sigourney Weaver and Quavo’s album “Rocket Power” are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are “Mixtape,” a Paramount+ documentary celebrating hip-hop, and the return of the acclaimed comedy “Reservation Dogs” for its third and final season on FX on Hulu.

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” reaches an appropriately sincere, satirical and cornball finale in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” The film, one of the few non-“Barbie” or “Oppenheimer” summer hits, arrives Wednesday on Disney+ having already grossed $844 million in worldwide ticket sales. Gunn’s underdog superhero trilogy culminates with a tale focused on a backstory for Rocket, Bradley Cooper’s wise-cracking raccoon, and a showdown with a supervillain (Chukwudi Iwuji) hellbent on repopulating Earth with a “perfect” species. In my review, I praised the conviction of Gunn’s soupy sci-fi spectacle, writing: “Whatever this sweet, surreal sci-fi shamble is that Gunn has created, everyone here seems to believe ardently in it.”

    — “Oppenheimer” isn’t the only movie around returning to Los Alamos. Steve James, the acclaimed documentarian of “Hoop Dreams,” in “A Compassionate Spy” details the story of physicist Ted Hall, a brilliant 18-year-old Harvard student when he was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project and went on to pass nuclear information to the Soviets. He confessed in 1998, a year before his death. Hall, one of several scientists to leak information from the atom bomb project, maintained he did it for the good of humanity and to prevent a nuclear monopoly. “A Compassionate Spy” debuts Friday, Aug. 4 on video-on-demand and in theaters.

    — “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” a documentary of the decades-long collaboration between the “Power Broker” author and his revered editor is a stirring and affection portrait of two literary giants. The film, directed by the editor’s daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb, will begin streaming Tuesday on the Criterion Channel, just weeks after the death of Gottlieb, who edited novels by Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Joseph Heller and many others. In my review of the film, I wrote: “Civil wars over semicolons and heated debate over the word ‘looms’ would not, on the face of it, seem like the stuff of a gripping big-screen movie. But make no mistake about it, ‘Turn Every Page’… is as much a rock ’em, sock ’em clash of heavyweights as found in any blockbuster.”

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Quavo will release “Rocket Power,” his first album since fellow Migos member Takeoff was shot and killed outside a bowling alley in November 2022. Quavo introduced the new LP with a trailer that features a massive CGI rocket preparing to launch into space. In a statement, he shared: “Through the process of healing I’ve learned to turn tragedy into triumph. I had to dig deep into my purpose and find the power to keep striving.” This summer, Quavo and Future shared a new song, “Turn Your Clic Up,” which followed recent singles “Greatness” and “Honey Bun.” Shortly before his death, Quavo and Takeoff had shared their joint LP, “Only Built for Infinity Links.”

    — Rick Springfield, whose hits include “Human Touch,” and, of course, “Jessie’s Girl,” is putting out his 21st album, “Automatic.” Written and produced by Springfield, the collection features 20 new songs. “My goal was solid three-minute tunes with the biggest hooks I could come up with,” he said in a news release. Springfield previewed his sound by releasing the title track and “She Walks With the Angels.” The album is dedicated to Matty Spindel, a friend and soundman of 25 years who died in 2022. Springfield will be hitting the road this summer on the I Want My ’80s Tour.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — Hip-hop is markings its 50th anniversary and Paramount+ will stream a documentary called “Mixtape” beginning Tuesday. The film explores how before the hip-hop genre had radio play, streaming or social media, its songs were often shared via mixtapes. Lil Wayne, DJ Khaled, Fat Joe, 2 Chainz, Big Boi and KRS-One are just a few of the artists featured in the doc about mixtape culture.

    — The half-hour critically acclaimed comedy “Reservation Dogs” returns for its third and final season on Wednesday on FX on Hulu. The series follows four Indigenous teens who, when we first meet them in season one, are reeling from the death of their friend Daniel. Daniel’s dream was to leave rural Oklahoma for California. The group decides the best way to honor Daniel is by fulfilling his goal and traveling to this magical state he was enamored with. To get there, they’ll steal and scheme but it’s not an easy road. In this new season, they’ve made it to California but don’t have the means to return home. Now that the friends have achieved Daniel’s wish, they also must decide what to do next with their own lives. The Indigenous representation in “Reservation Dogs” also extends behind-the-camera with each of its writers, directors and crew.

    — Netflix’s popular British rom-com drama series “Heartstopper,” starring Joe Locke and Kit Connor returns for its second season on Wednesday. Locke and Connor play Charlie and Nick, two high school schoolmates who fell in love in season one. The series has been praised for its portrayal of LGTBQ+ characters.

    — Sigourney Weaver and Alycia Debnam-Carey co-star in “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hunt” for Prime Video. The story is based on a novel of the same name by Holly Ringland. Debnam-Carey plays Alice, who as a young girl, moved in with her grandmother June – played by Weaver – after a family tragedy. June is a flower farmer and teaches Alice how flowers can be used as a form of self-expression. The story spans two decades and follows Alice into adulthood. The series debuts Friday, Aug. 4 on the streamer.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — Dungeons & Dragons has seen a boom in popularity over the last few years, with a hit movie, live-streamed games and a major supporting role on “Stranger Things.” But it’s been a while since we’ve gotten a true D&D video game. That drought ends with Baldur’s Gate 3. You begin as just some poor sap with an evil parasite stuck in your brain, but once you round up the typical gang of wizards, brawlers, clerics and rogues, the fate of D&D’s sprawling Forgotten Realms is in your hands. Developer Larian Studios, best known for the terrific Divinity: Original Sin, has shown it has the chops to create stirring role-playing adventures, and has promised that this one could take up to 200 hours to fully explore. You can pick up your sword or wand Thursday on PC, or hold out for the PlayStation 5 version in September.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • What to stream this week: Steph Curry doc, Greta Van Fleet, ‘Justified’ returns and ‘Minx’ survives

    What to stream this week: Steph Curry doc, Greta Van Fleet, ‘Justified’ returns and ‘Minx’ survives

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    A documentary on Apple TV+ that chronicles the atypical path Stephen Curry took to becoming a basketball legend plus new tunes from the rock band Greta Van Fleet are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are Laura McGann’s documentary “The Deepest Breath” which plunges into the world of free diving and Starz has given the workplace comedy “Minx” a new home and a berth for season two.

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Laura McGann’s documentary “The Deepest Breath” plunges into the world of free diving, a sometimes deadly sport in which divers descend into watery depths with only a nose plug to defend from fluctuations in air pressure. The film, which made a well-reviewed debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January, premieres Wednesday on Netflix. It’s an immersive descent into a silent underwater realm and the risk-takers compelled to sink themselves to the ocean floor. McGann’s film recounts the story, in particular, of two divers — Alessia Zecchini and Stephen Keenan — brought together in love and tragedy.

    — Steph Curry is a four-time NBA champ, two-time MVP and nine-time all-star, so naming a documentary about the transformational shooting guard “Underrated” is, itself, a kind of provocation. But “Stephen Curry: Underrated,” which debuts Friday, July 21, on Apple TV+, chronicles the atypical path Curry took to becoming a basketball legend, with many doubters along the way. The film, directed by the well-respected Bay Area filmmaker Peter Nicks, is further proof of a modern NBA truism: No matter how much he wins, Steph Curry is easy to root for.

    — A cinematic highpoint of the first half of the year, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes’ “Tori and Lokita,” begins streaming Tuesday on the Criterion Channel. It’s a heart-wrenching immigrant drama about 11-year-old Tori (Pablo Schils) and 16-year-old Lokita (Joely Mbundu), two African immigrants living in an unnamed Belgian city. Only Tori has the necessary papers to stay, and immigration authorities are pressing Lokita, dubious of her claims that Tori is her brother. In my review of “Tori and Lokita,” I wrote that “their bond is something more profound than blood, a product of shared circumstance and mutual perseverance.”

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — The Grammy-winning rock band Greta Van Fleet is back with a “Starcatcher,” a strong album that shows the quartet’s maturity and embraces a more prog rock and psychedelic flavor. The first single, the sprawling, Woodstock-y “Meeting the Master,” made the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. Producer Dave Cobb took the guys back to their roots as a live band. A few days after the release, Greta Van Fleet kick off a new tour in Nashville at the Bridgestone Arena and will make stops at Madison Square Garden in New York and The Forum in Los Angeles and London’s OVO Arena Wembley. (Lava/Republic Records)

    — Blur, who helped put the pop into Britpop, is releasing their first album in eight years, “The Ballad of Darren.” Among the 10 new tracks is the wistful, joyfully building “The Narcissist,” with the lyrics: “I’m going to shine a light in your eyes/You will probably shine it back on me. But I won’t fall this time,” and the sloppy rocker “St. Charles Square.” The band wasn’t planning on another album. “It really is most unexpected,” bass player Alex James told Rolling Stone magazine. “We didn’t know we were pregnant, and we gave birth in the supermarket car park. It’s like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s a beautiful boy!’” (Parlophone)

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — Eight years after the series finale of “Justified” on FX, Timothy Olyphant returns as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in “Justified: City Primeval.” The limited series takes Givens to Detroit as the lawman hunts down a murderer played by Boyd Holbrooke. The story is based on the Elmore Leonard novel “City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit.” Olyphant’s daughter, Vivian, plays Givens’ daughter on the show. The cast also includes Aunjanue Ellis. At a gathering of TV critics earlier this year, Olyphant said he “really didn’t have any concerns” playing the character again. “I just thought that I’d love to be there for it.” The first two episodes of “Justified: City Primeval” premiere Tuesday on FX.

    — It’s charter boat season for Captain Jason and Chief Stew Aesha as they set sail in Australia with a new crew of deckhands, stewards, and a chef in season two of “Below Deck: Down Under.” Besides the expected inter-personal drama from a Bravo show among the crew and demanding, occasionally unruly guests, the “Below Deck” cast must also contend with an aging yacht that has a lot of problems. “Below Deck: Down Under” debuts Monday, July 17.

    — Despite favorable reviews, “Minx” was canceled late last year in a cost-cutting move by the streamer formerly known as HBO Max. The decision came as “Minx” was in production on its second season. Luckily, Starz swooped in to give the comedy a new home and season two returns Friday, July 21. Starring Jake Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond, “Minx” is set in the 1970s and follows Lovibond’s Joyce, a young feminist who teams up with a seedy publisher named Doug (Johnson) to create the first erotic magazine for women. Season two follows the team behind Minx magazine dealing with sudden success.

    — Tyler Sheridan has another new TV series and this one is not a Western. “Special Ops: Lioness” stars Zoe Saldana, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Kelly and newcomer Laysla De Oliveira. Saldana plays Joe, a member of a secret team of spies with the CIA. They recruit a young woman – played by De Oliveira – to go undercover and become friendly with a wealthy woman whose family is believed to have ties to a terror organization. The first two episodes premiere Sunday, July 23 on Paramount+.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — Nintendo’s Pikmin may not deliver the star power of Mario, Zelda or Pokémon, but it does have a devoted cult audience who have been waiting 10 years for Pikmin 4. The setup hasn’t changed: You are an astronaut who has crash-landed on an alien planet, and you need help from the plant-like title critters to survive. Any one Pikmin by itself is too small to get much done, so you need to summon and corral dozens of them at once to explore your new home and battle the native wildlife. The major addition on this expedition is an eager “space dog” named Oatchi who’s happy to give your Pikmin a ride. It’s the kind of chill puzzle-adventure that may appeal to gamers who fell in love with Animal Crossing during the pandemic, and it arrives Friday, July 21, on the Switch.

    — There’s nothing like playing a visual puzzle game — say, Portal or The Witness — when you want to settle into a kind of Zen groove. Aficionados of such brain-benders have been buzzing about Viewfinder, from Scotland’s Sad Owl Studios. Each level is a maze of sorts, but to get from one end to the other you need to tinker with reality. You have a magical camera that lets you take two-dimensional images, like paintings and photographs, and drop them into 3-D settings so they become part of the environment and fill in the gaps. The result is as trippy and elegant as an M.C. Escher drawing. Prepare to have your mind blown Tuesday on PlayStation 5 and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • ‘A puddle of emotions’: Sheryl Lee Ralph, Sarah Snook, Jessica Chastain react to Emmy nominations

    ‘A puddle of emotions’: Sheryl Lee Ralph, Sarah Snook, Jessica Chastain react to Emmy nominations

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    Reactions from select nominees for the 2023 Emmy Awards.

    SHERYL LEE RALPH

    “I am a puddle of emotions! It is just absolutely crazy. It, I mean, I am living one spectacular year. … In all honesty, it could never ever be about me trying to beat that moment (of last year’s ceremony, when Ralph won her Emmy and stole the show, singing much of her speech). Maybe they’ll ask me to host it! That moment was something. as all of my friends say that’s something you worked for Sheryl. That’s something you waited for and you received the gift, now, just sit back and be lovely and I’m gonna just sit back and be lovely! And so thankful to everybody who thought that it should be me … for me to be in a space where that is happening for me after all of these years, I’m just so happy. I am SO happy.” — Ralph, who’s nominated for best supporting actress in a comedy for ABC’s “Abbott Elementary.”

    JESSICA CHASTAIN

    “It’s incredible … the thing that was the most shocking in the journey is that when Mike Shannon came on, he was pretty adamant that we sing live, and he’s someone who’s in a band. He’s used to things like that. …. he really wanted it to be as authentic as possible, which I appreciate. But it also meant that I was absolutely out of my comfort zone. And 95% of what we have in the show was done on set in the shot that you’re seeing it, it was done live in front of audiences. So that, that is unlike anything I’ve done before, that’s scarier … that’s me way, way, way doing something I just never thought I could even mentally be capable of.” — Chastain, nominated for best actress in a limited or anthology series or movie — her first Emmy nod — for “George & Tammy.”

    SARAH SNOOK

    “I knew the news was coming (overnight, in Australia) but I decided to wait until my (baby) daughter woke me up. And at 4 a.m. I rolled over and checked my text messages and yeah, a bunch of stuff was coming in from the States, very exciting! … Having the show finish up and getting a nomination and also so many for the cast and crew and everybody involved is so special. It feels like a real sense of closure. It’s sad that we don’t get the opportunity to continue it, but it’s also such a nod to how great it was when it was going. … I have had fans come up and say, ‘Oh, you’ve really inspired me (as her character, Shiv Roy) or, ‘My daughter really looks up to you,’ and there’s a part of me that wants to say, ‘I hope the good bits! You know, not the repressed anger or the conniving, Machiavellian bits!’” — Snook, nominated for best actress in a drama for “Succession.”

    TARAJI P. HENSON

    “About 30 years ago, I moved out here because I thought I would land a huge sitcom. And quite to the contrary, I booked ‘Baby Boy’ and it was drama after drama. What I came out here to do is comedy. I wanted to be a comedic actress. I guess what’s different about this nomination is getting nominated for what I actually came out to Hollywood to do.” — Henson, nominated for best guest actress in a comedy series for “Abbott Elementary.”

    RILEY KEOUGH

    “I hope I made them proud. I’m sure I do. I hope that I continue to make them proud.” — Keough, the daughter of the late Lisa Marie Presley and eldest grandchild of the late Elvis Presley, who’s nominated for best actress in a limited or anthology series or movie for her role in Amazon’s “Daisy Jones & The Six.”

    NIECY NASH-BETTS

    “You never know. This industry can be very fickle. You just don’t know. I knew that I was proud of my work. I didn’t know people were going to rally in support of it this way. What I am is grateful.” — Nash-Betts, nominated for best supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie for her role as Glenda Cleveland in the Netflix series “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”

    LORENE SCAFARIA

    “They really stuck the landing. It’s just such an extraordinary achievement to leave the characters in such a satisfying way and yet so brutal and so telling and so tragic — it’s a tragedy, at its heart. It’s very hard to make a show that sticks the landing, let alone resonates with people and becomes part of the zeitgeist. It’s just honestly lightning-in-a-bottle casting, and its (creator and showrunner) Jesse Armstrong leading from a place that’s so collaborative and gives people a lot of freedom … but has a vision the entire time.” — Scafaria, nominated for directing the “Sucession” episode “Living+.”

    JAMES MARSDEN

    “I really wasn’t anticipating this kind of love, or even the nomination. I know everybody says that, but I really wasn’t. I just yelled as loud as I could. I think I levitated off the couch a few feet. It was pretty, pretty exciting. (This show) has just been a constant stream of surprises. It’s just a testament to what we pulled off.” — Marsden, nominated for best supporting actor in a comedy for ”Jury Duty.”

    ALLEN HUGHES

    “I’m happy that Afeni’s story that was lost in history is getting recognized. She had a meaningful narrative that never gets talked about. Both of their contributions are important to our culture, but particularly hers.” — Hughes, director, on his two nominations for the FX docuseries “Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur.”

    NATHAN LANE

    “No, it doesn’t get old! In this day and age with the enormous amount of really great television, to be included in such wonderful company is incredibly gratifying and I feel very happy and lucky. … As a character actor of a certain age, it’s nice to still get invited to the party. (Working on “Only Murders in the Building”) is about, “Let’s have a good time. Let’s do our work and do it to the best of our ability, but also it really is about enjoying it, having fun with one another. It’s just a wonderful atmosphere and, and you feel very supported and free to try things. — Lane, on his eighth Emmy nomination (including a win last year), for guest actor in a comedy series for ”Only Murders in the Building.”

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  • The friendship behind summer’s most charming comedy ‘Theater Camp’

    The friendship behind summer’s most charming comedy ‘Theater Camp’

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    There is quite a bit of history between the team behind “Theater Camp,” a loving satire of musical theater kids and their teachers that opens in theaters Friday.

    Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin and Nick Lieberman are all, first and foremost, theater kids themselves. They’re also longtime friends. Lieberman has been making things with Platt since they were in high school. Galvin and Gordon are best friends and did a play together about a decade ago. And Galvin and Platt are currently engaged.

    It’s Platt and Gordon’s relationship that stretches back the furthest, though. Both children of parents in the entertainment industry, they’ve been friends since they were 3 years old.

    “I was deeply in love with him,” Gordon laughed in an interview with her collaborators during the Sundance Film Festival. “He came out to me and didn’t want to be with me, but I still tried for years.”

    The ins and outs of all of their collaborations, musical workshops, web series, comedy videos and hours improvising would require a flow chart to process fully. But what it boils down to is when the four found each other, they didn’t want to let go.

    About five years ago, they found themselves with a moment between projects and decided that they would finally do something together. So they “stole” some kids from Galvin’s old performing arts high school in Manhattan and put together a short film about a musical theater camp.

    “It seemed like the most natural world for us to jump off the ledge into together as this comedy collective for the first time,” Platt said. “We all felt like it really suited us tonally and emotionally. It was exactly the kind of thing we wanted to make. (The short) was a quite a janky, very fast, very, very, very cheap, quick little moment. But it definitely set off an alarm in all of us.”

    A few years would go by before they got the greenlight for the feature, helped by Picturestart and Topic Studios, as well as Jessica Elbaum, of Will Ferrell’s Gloria Sanchez Productions, who’d gotten to know Gordon and Galvin during “Booksmart.”

    “I’m such a nerd, so I knew who Jessica was,” Gordon said. “We got lunch one day and she said ‘I feel like you want more than this. I feel like you want to write things.’ She’s done that to Noah too. She’s really good at spotting people who want more.”

    “Theater Camp” is the feature debut for Gordon and Lieberman. They all wrote the screenplay, and everyone but Lieberman acts in the film. The premise is that a documentary crew has come to make a film about a crumbling but beloved upstate New York camp, AdirondACTS, run by Amy Sedaris’ character. In the first few minutes she has a seizure, and her son, a finance bro (Jimmy Tatro), steps in to try to run the camp. Gordon and Platt play camp teachers and former students, while Galvin is a techie with unsung talents.

    “We don’t often give a voice to the tech people,” Galvin said.

    Nearly all of the scenarios in the film are based on things that have happened to them or stories they’ve heard from friends.

    “Theater is a world of people who are so absurd and in their own worlds. You can get away with them doing things that are ridiculous,” Lieberman said. “But you also want to find a way to ground it.”

    “The Bear” breakout Ayo Edebiri — nominated this week for an Emmy — plays a new hire, who tries to hide the fact that she has no experience teaching musical theater.

    “We all have moments with teachers who are so formative and meaningful and also, like, wildly absurd,” Platt said.

    Though all the 20-somethings have been in the business for most of their lives, making “Theater Camp” was still a baptism by fire in some ways. They only had 19 days to shoot, which they did last summer at a defunct camp in upstate New York, and then had to feverishly edit the film to get a cut to Sundance in time for this year’s festival. This was made more complicated by the fact that “Theater Camp” was also largely improvised.

    “There’s about 47 different versions of this movie. Some of them are bad, some of them are good,” Gordon said. “But like Christopher Guest edits for a year!”

    Still the set was a joyous place and all took care to make sure it was a fun experience, especially for their young co-stars. Some of their favorite moments ever were at school performances and theater camps and they wanted to recreate that.

    “It felt like being in a real theater program,” Gordon said. “Even if they messed up, that could be turned into a beautiful moment. I think everyone was scared when we were pitching this movie. How are the kids going to improvise? And they improvised around all of us. They were amazing.”

    The truth and history in “Theater Camp” runs deep, from real footage of Platt and Gordon performing together as kids, up through some more dramatic elements in which the co-dependent friends have a fight.

    “I just felt totally, completely free to be intense and unlikable and funny and weird and all of the things necessary in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced,” Platt said. “We’ve all been part of things where the making of it just really didn’t live up to what the project was. And even if it came out beautifully, there was something either challenging or difficult about the making of it. The fact that people can look back on this experience separate from the product and be like, ‘This was so fun and I’m going to remember this positively’ is the best thing.”

    The film premiered to positive reviews at Sundance earlier this year and was quickly acquired by Searchlight Pictures for a theatrical release in the summer — the ideal scenario. But the making was already a peak.

    “There will never be another quite like it,” Platt said.

    ___

    A version of this story first ran during Sundance on Jan. 20, 2023. It has been updated to in advance of the film’s release Friday.

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  • Yet Again, the Year’s Most Acclaimed TV Comedies Aren’t Very Funny

    Yet Again, the Year’s Most Acclaimed TV Comedies Aren’t Very Funny

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    In what seems to be the series finale of Apple’s smash-hit football show, Ted Lasso, there are perhaps three mushy, heartstring-yanking scenes for every one mild joke. HBO’s Barry definitively concluded its run with a bleak and mordant assessment of Hollywood’s processing of real-world violence. FX’s The Bear recently debuted its second season, a busy, serious, and introspective run of episodes full of everyday epiphanies and setbacks. These shows are all competing for outstanding comedy series at the Emmys this year.

    It’s not a new complaint that much of what counts as comedy on TV is a lot less funny than it is, well, doled out in half-hour segments. (Though episodes of The Bear range from 26 minutes to over an hour, and Ted Lasso episodes swelled to a similar size in what is believed to be its last season.) Saturday Night Live spoofed the trend—with Tom Hanks no less—a whopping six years ago. But the problem has only gotten worse and has led to less satisfying television.

    When it first premiered, Ted Lasso was an amiable and only slightly cloying portrait of a fish out of water: a good ol’ boy from Kansas City, played affably by co-creator Jason Sudeikis, is brought to the United Kingdom to coach an ailing football club, with the intention that he will fail. It was a clever workplace comedy setup, one that offered American audiences a behind-the-curtain look at the world’s most popular sport and reinvented its star as a fount of folksy wisdom meant to uplift in difficult times. (The show premiered during the first few months of the pandemic, and many months into a grinding presidential election year.)

    The show was never hilarious. But it still mostly functioned, at its beginning, as a quirky joke machine. The more acclaim and awards Ted Lasso received, though, the more it mutated into something different. By its third season, the series seemed hell-bent on creating nothing but viral emotional moments, something more akin to This Is Us than The Office.

    Although The Office is partly to blame for this. That series remained true enough to its comedy roots until the end, but its final few seasons were also overly reliant on the human drama of Jim and Pam and other romantic entanglements. The more the series bought into its fans’ maudlin obsessions, the worse it got. And yet, or perhaps because of that, it was a massive success, both during its original run and in its streaming years, when two whole generations seemed to embrace the show’s warmhearted whimsy as the new house style for comedy. Parks and Recreation had a similar fate; by its finale, most of the series’s original peppery comedy had been replaced by smarmy coziness.

    That same sensibility would inform Ted Lasso and ABC’s Abbott Elementary. (Some have deemed this genre “nicecore.”) Abbott has more traditional sitcom rhythms than does Ted Lasso, but its humor is typically soft and sweet, sometimes so gentle it barely registers as comedy at all. CBS’s Ghosts, an unexpected hit in the last couple of years, is a bit sillier, more antic, but that show too is guided by an undaunted pleasantness—even in the face of, well, death.

    So that’s all on The Office, I suppose. But that NBC juggernaut shares little to no DNA with series like The Bear and Barry, graver and artier shows that find their influences elsewhere. In those cases, patient zero may be FX’s Louie, a revolutionary kind of experimental comedy that constantly changed shape and tone. That show’s legacy has obviously been diminished by controversies surrounding its star and chief creative force, Louis CK—but its impact is easily apparent across the television landscape today.

    Louie begat Transparent, which begat Atlanta, which perhaps led us to The Bear’s narrative tangents and Barry’s auteur-y ambitions. Barry, created by Bill Hader, often hummed with an eerie brilliance, a daring and exciting trip into the dark that featured whizbang direction and sharply articulated performances. It wasn’t very funny, though it’s classified as a comedy by the Emmys, where it’s won piles of awards.

    The Bear, to its credit, never really advertised itself as a raucous comedy—yet it’s also being slotted into that category, despite its first season’s shaggy moodiness and its second season’s attempts at quiet profundity. Ted Lasso’s third season took the characters on a trip to Amsterdam, where some lightly amusing things happened but mostly everyone learned little heartwarming lessons and things ended nicely. The Bear’s second season takes one character to Copenhagen, far from the grimy Chicago kitchens where the show lays its scene. What happened on that monumental trip? Nothing much, really. That portion of the episode is really just a hushed rumination on learning one’s craft: interesting, but not terribly vital.

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    Richard Lawson

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  • Comedian Reveals Downside Of Being Sen. Ted Cruz’s Neighbor

    Comedian Reveals Downside Of Being Sen. Ted Cruz’s Neighbor

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    Being neighbors with Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) may be even more annoying than having him as your senator.

    That’s the impression given by comedian Tom Segura, who claims on his new Netflix special, “Sledgehammer,” that he recently discovered he was neighbors with a “current or former United States senator,” whom he doesn’t name at first. That senator was Cruz, he reveals as a punchline later.

    Segura shared about a bizarre encounter that happened one morning while he walking past the senator’s house.

    “I walk past his house, he comes outside. I don’t say anything, right? But he yells out — he goes, ‘Hey, are you the comedian,’” Segura said.

    After Segura confirmed his identity, the senator asked him a bizarre question without even saying “hello,” the comedian said.

    “He goes, ‘Where do you think the term motherfucker comes from?’” Segura recounted.

    Segura said he replied that he didn’t know, leading the senator to ask, “You think it’s from people doing that?” and ”How many people do you think do that?” ― to which Segura replied, “More than you want it to be.”

    But the exchange didn’t end there. Segura said when he was walking home past the house, the senator came back out with a new revelation.

    “He goes, ‘I thought about it. And a motherfucker is not somebody who fucks their own mom,’” Segura said. “He goes, ‘A motherfucker is someone who fucks your mom. That’s the most disrespectful thing anyone can do. So if somebody is particularly rude, you call them a motherfucker.’”

    Segura said he told the senator, “Wow! I am so impressed that you put that together so quickly. I can see why you may or may not be Ted Cruz.”

    It’s unclear whether this actually happened. Segura owns a home in Austin, Texas; the senator and his family resided in Houston as recently as December.

    Cruz’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    You can watch the complete segment below:

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  • What to stream this week: ‘Asteroid City,’ Lukas Nelson, ‘Quarterback’ and ‘Secrets of Playboy’

    What to stream this week: ‘Asteroid City,’ Lukas Nelson, ‘Quarterback’ and ‘Secrets of Playboy’

    [ad_1]

    Albums from Lukas Nelson and Kool & The Gang plus a Spanish-language spin-off of “Bird Box” are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are the dinosaur-hunting video game Exoprimal and the new Netflix series “Quarterback,” which takes an unprecedented look at the lives of popular QBs Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota.

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Wes Anderson’s stylish and star-studded “Asteroid City” is coming to premium video on demand (VOD) on Tuesday. This outing is a whimsically constructed play-within-a-play that’s set in the American midcentury Desert West at a junior stargazer convention, bringing together several kid geniuses, their parents, including Scarlett Johansson’s Marilyn-esque movie star and Jason Schwartzman’s widowed war photographer, scientists, military types, some singing cowboys and a very special cameo from Jeff Goldblum. I wrote in my review that it is very, very Wes Anderson and also a return to form. It’ll also still be available in theaters around the country for anyone still hoping to catch it on the big screen.

    — Remember the Sandra Bullock-in-a-blindfold movie “Bird Box” that seemingly everyone with a Netflix account watched over the holidays in 2018? Well, the streamer made a spin-off, in Spanish, that will debut on Friday, July 14. The blindfolds are once again paramount in “Bird Box Barcelona,” in which a father played by Mario Casas tries to protect his daughter from the monsters. Álex and David Pastor wrote and directed this installment based on Josh Malerman’s 2014 novel.

    — Several other films big and small will be available on VOD starting on Tuesday, including “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” set in 1994 and starring Dominique Fishback and Anthony Ramos. There’s also the independent gem “The Starling Girl,” a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl (Eliza Scanlen) who is trying to find her identity while adhering to the rules of her isolated religious community. Her life gets complicated when she develops a crush on the handsome youth pastor (Lewis Pullman).

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Country star Lukas Nelson calls his latest album “the perfect setlist.” “Sticks and Stones,” the follow-up release to his 2021 album “A Few Stars Apart,” includes the first single, “More Than Friends,” featuring Lainey Wilson. Another single, “Alcohallelujah,” touches on both the highs and lows of drinking, with Nelson singing: “Forgive me, Father, for I’ve been inspired /I got bars and bars of melodies and memories/May this spirit lift me ever higher.” The new 12-track album, out Friday, July 14, sees Nelson backed by his longtime band Promise of the Real.

    — Kool & The Gang and summer go together like peanut butter and jelly. The R&B, funk and soul icons — celebrating their 60th anniversary next year — have a new album, “People Just Wanna Have Fun.” The first single is infectious stuff, the happy, funky “Let’s Party,” featuring vocals from Sha Sha Jones. The band is led by founding members Robert “Kool” Bell on bass and George “Funky” Brown, the keyboardist, drummer and producer, whose memoir “Too Hot: Kool & The Gang & Me” arrives Tuesday. In addition to Jones, vocals on the album also include Shawn McQuiller, Lavell Evans, Dominique Karan, Rick Marcel and Walt Anderson, plus rappers Ami Miller & Ole’.

    — A 1998 video recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s music theater classic “Oklahoma!” — starring then-newcomer Hugh Jackman — is hitting movie theaters for a lot less than a Broadway ticket. Jackman starred as Curly, alongside Maureen Lipman, Josefina Gabrielle and Shuler Hensley, during the show’s cheered run in London. The film will be screened in more than 800 cinemas around the globe for two days only, on Sunday, July 16 and Wednesday, July 19 – including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Ireland, Norway and Australia. It features some very hummable songs, including “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” and the joyous title tune.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — The title “Secrets of Playboy” alone sparks intrigue and the docuseries was a big hit for A&E because of its in-depth look at an alleged underbelly of the brand and its founder Hugh Hefner. The series returns for a second season on Monday with more interviews with former Playboy models, Playmates, and archival footage that examines Playboy’s impact on pop culture and those directly involved with the company.

    — Football fans: would you like to know exactly what your favorite team’s quarterback is thinking during a season, from practices, to wins and losses, and what they say and do in a huddle? A new Netflix series called – you guessed it – “Quarterback” —takes an unprecedented look at the lives of popular QBs Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota for the entire 2022 season. The players were mic’d for every game and cameras followed them home. “Quarterback” premieres July 12.

    — Season five of the silly, witty, Emmy-nominated comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” premieres July 13 on FX. The mocumentary-style show follows the adventures of a group of vampire roommates living in a decrepit mansion. These hundreds-year-old vampires go out into the world and interact with the population. If it sounds ridiculous, it is, and that’s the point.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — California indie developer Night School Studio charmed gamers in 2016 with Oxenfree, the tale of a group of meddling teens who stumble across a series of dimensional rifts while exploring a mysterious island. Night School, which has since been acquired by Netflix, is at long last returning to the story with the much anticipated Oxenfree II: Lost Signals. The sequel revolves around Riley, an environmental researcher who’s assigned to her coastal Oregon hometown to investigate puzzling radio transmissions. Fans of the original — not to mention the supernatural smash “Stranger Things” — can book a return visit for Wednesday on PlayStation 5/4, Nintendo Switch, PC and the Netflix mobile app.

    — Most of us who think about what 2040 will look like are worried about things like war, climate change and our new AI overlords, but Capcom’s Exoprimal proposes a different existential threat: dinosaur outbreaks! Your mission is to team up online with four other players and send the voracious beasts back to extinction. You are armed with futuristic weapons and high-tech “exosuits” of armor — but you also have to compete with other squads to collect the most trophies. Capcom has plenty of experience with fearsome creatures, thanks to its popular Monster Hunter series, but even veterans of that franchise may be overwhelmed when Exoprimal drops dozens of raptors on them at once. The dinos arrive Friday, July 14, on PlayStation 5/4, Xbox X/S/One and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

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  • What to stream this week: ‘Asteroid City,’ Lukas Nelson, ‘Quarterback’ and ‘Secrets of Playboy’

    What to stream this week: ‘Asteroid City,’ Lukas Nelson, ‘Quarterback’ and ‘Secrets of Playboy’

    [ad_1]

    Albums from Lukas Nelson and Kool & The Gang plus a Spanish-language spin-off of “Bird Box” are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are the dinosaur-hunting video game Exoprimal and the new Netflix series “Quarterback,” which takes an unprecedented look at the lives of popular QBs Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota.

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Wes Anderson’s stylish and star-studded “Asteroid City” is coming to premium video on demand (VOD) on Tuesday. This outing is a whimsically constructed play-within-a-play that’s set in the American midcentury Desert West at a junior stargazer convention, bringing together several kid geniuses, their parents, including Scarlett Johansson’s Marilyn-esque movie star and Jason Schwartzman’s widowed war photographer, scientists, military types, some singing cowboys and a very special cameo from Jeff Goldblum. I wrote in my review that it is very, very Wes Anderson and also a return to form. It’ll also still be available in theaters around the country for anyone still hoping to catch it on the big screen.

    — Remember the Sandra Bullock-in-a-blindfold movie “Bird Box” that seemingly everyone with a Netflix account watched over the holidays in 2018? Well, the streamer made a spin-off, in Spanish, that will debut on Friday, July 14. The blindfolds are once again paramount in “Bird Box Barcelona,” in which a father played by Mario Casas tries to protect his daughter from the monsters. Álex and David Pastor wrote and directed this installment based on Josh Malerman’s 2014 novel.

    — Several other films big and small will be available on VOD starting on Tuesday, including “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” set in 1994 and starring Dominique Fishback and Anthony Ramos. There’s also the independent gem “The Starling Girl,” a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl (Eliza Scanlen) who is trying to find her identity while adhering to the rules of her isolated religious community. Her life gets complicated when she develops a crush on the handsome youth pastor (Lewis Pullman).

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Country star Lukas Nelson calls his latest album “the perfect setlist.” “Sticks and Stones,” the follow-up release to his 2021 album “A Few Stars Apart,” includes the first single, “More Than Friends,” featuring Lainey Wilson. Another single, “Alcohallelujah,” touches on both the highs and lows of drinking, with Nelson singing: “Forgive me, Father, for I’ve been inspired /I got bars and bars of melodies and memories/May this spirit lift me ever higher.” The new 12-track album, out Friday, July 14, sees Nelson backed by his longtime band Promise of the Real.

    — Kool & The Gang and summer go together like peanut butter and jelly. The R&B, funk and soul icons — celebrating their 60th anniversary next year — have a new album, “People Just Wanna Have Fun.” The first single is infectious stuff, the happy, funky “Let’s Party,” featuring vocals from Sha Sha Jones. The band is led by founding members Robert “Kool” Bell on bass and George “Funky” Brown, the keyboardist, drummer and producer, whose memoir “Too Hot: Kool & The Gang & Me” arrives Tuesday. In addition to Jones, vocals on the album also include Shawn McQuiller, Lavell Evans, Dominique Karan, Rick Marcel and Walt Anderson, plus rappers Ami Miller & Ole’.

    — A 1998 video recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s music theater classic “Oklahoma!” — starring then-newcomer Hugh Jackman — is hitting movie theaters for a lot less than a Broadway ticket. Jackman starred as Curly, alongside Maureen Lipman, Josefina Gabrielle and Shuler Hensley, during the show’s cheered run in London. The film will be screened in more than 800 cinemas around the globe for two days only, on Sunday, July 16 and Wednesday, July 19 – including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Ireland, Norway and Australia. It features some very hummable songs, including “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” and the joyous title tune.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — The title “Secrets of Playboy” alone sparks intrigue and the docuseries was a big hit for A&E because of its in-depth look at an alleged underbelly of the brand and its founder Hugh Hefner. The series returns for a second season on Monday with more interviews with former Playboy models, Playmates, and archival footage that examines Playboy’s impact on pop culture and those directly involved with the company.

    — Football fans: would you like to know exactly what your favorite team’s quarterback is thinking during a season, from practices, to wins and losses, and what they say and do in a huddle? A new Netflix series called – you guessed it – “Quarterback” —takes an unprecedented look at the lives of popular QBs Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota for the entire 2022 season. The players were mic’d for every game and cameras followed them home. “Quarterback” premieres July 12.

    — Season five of the silly, witty, Emmy-nominated comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” premieres July 13 on FX. The mocumentary-style show follows the adventures of a group of vampire roommates living in a decrepit mansion. These hundreds-year-old vampires go out into the world and interact with the population. If it sounds ridiculous, it is, and that’s the point.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — California indie developer Night School Studio charmed gamers in 2016 with Oxenfree, the tale of a group of meddling teens who stumble across a series of dimensional rifts while exploring a mysterious island. Night School, which has since been acquired by Netflix, is at long last returning to the story with the much anticipated Oxenfree II: Lost Signals. The sequel revolves around Riley, an environmental researcher who’s assigned to her coastal Oregon hometown to investigate puzzling radio transmissions. Fans of the original — not to mention the supernatural smash “Stranger Things” — can book a return visit for Wednesday on PlayStation 5/4, Nintendo Switch, PC and the Netflix mobile app.

    — Most of us who think about what 2040 will look like are worried about things like war, climate change and our new AI overlords, but Capcom’s Exoprimal proposes a different existential threat: dinosaur outbreaks! Your mission is to team up online with four other players and send the voracious beasts back to extinction. You are armed with futuristic weapons and high-tech “exosuits” of armor — but you also have to compete with other squads to collect the most trophies. Capcom has plenty of experience with fearsome creatures, thanks to its popular Monster Hunter series, but even veterans of that franchise may be overwhelmed when Exoprimal drops dozens of raptors on them at once. The dinos arrive Friday, July 14, on PlayStation 5/4, Xbox X/S/One and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • What to stream this week: Taylor Swift, a new animated ‘Superman,’ ‘Biosphere’ and ‘Wham!’

    What to stream this week: Taylor Swift, a new animated ‘Superman,’ ‘Biosphere’ and ‘Wham!’

    [ad_1]

    Taylor Swift’s rerecording of her “Speak Now” and survivalist Bear Grylls taking Bradley Cooper and Rita Ora into the wild are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are the sci-fi comedy ”Biosphere” starring Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass, and a new spin-off series starring Luann de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan from “The Real Housewives of New York City.”

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass are the last two men on Earth in the not-too-distant-future sci-fi comedy ”Biosphere,” available in theaters and on demand on Friday, July 7 from IFC. John DeFore in The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it’s “a mysterious and hilarious pic that really can’t be discussed much without saying things a prospective viewer would be better off not hearing.” “Biosphere” is the directorial debut of Mel Elsyn, who co-wrote the script with Duplass.

    — If Paramount+ isn’t in your streaming bundle, “80 for Brady” will be available on Prime Video starting Tuesday. The movie, inspired by a true story, stars Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field as a quartet of best friends, and lifelong Patriots fans, who go to the super bowl to see Tom Brady play. Reviews weren’t great, but most singled out the legendary actors as reason enough to take a chance. Stephanie Zacherek, in Time, wrote it was “brassy, ridiculous and shameless” and also “irresistible,” while critic Katie Walsh singled out the “loose, absurdist” humor of the screenplay. Plus, it’s only 98 minutes.

    — Freddie (Park Ji-min) is a 25-year-old who was adopted as a child, raised in France and decides to return to South Korea, where she was born, for the first time in “Return to Seoul,” coming to Mubi on Friday, July 7. The critically acclaimed film, written and directed by Davy Chou, got a little lost in its theatrical run but made a handful of year-end best of lists. Richard Lawson, in Vanity Fair, wrote, “She’s a fascinating creation, prickly and mercurial and, for a spell, immoral. But Chou eventually rounds his film into something compassionate, a bittersweet collage of a young life in flux.”

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Taylor Swift has given us a chance to travel back in time after she re-recorded her sophomore country album, “Speak Now,” her third do-over after “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and “Fearless (Taylor’s Version).” “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” has 22 songs, including six that were written during the album’s original era, but not recorded until recently. Fall Out Boy and Paramore’s Hayley Williams are among the guest appearances. Swift wrote on social media: “Since ‘Speak Now’ was all about my songwriting, I decided to go to the artists who I feel influenced me most powerfully as a lyricist at that time and ask them to sing on the album.”

    — If PJ Harvey’s new album sounds fresh and inspired that’s because the new songs came out in about three weeks and they were recorded spontaneously. “I Inside the Old Year Dying” is Harvey’s 10th studio album and first since 2016’s Grammy-nominated “The Hope Six Demolition Project.” The album is produced by long-time collaborators Flood and John Parish. Lead folkish single “A Child’s Question, August,” is filled with pastoral imagery, sparse instrumentation and the singer’s soprano.

    — Go to Netflix if you’re hoping to wake up before you go-go to celebrate a special pop duo in “Wham!” The 92-minute documentary about the musical pair — George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley — lands Wednesday and promises access to personal archives including never-before-seen footage, and previously unheard interviews. The doc, directed by Chris Smith, charts the duo’s four-year journey from teenage school friends to global superstars with hits like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “Young Guns.” Michael died in 2016.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — Part one of “The Lincoln Lawyer” season two drops Thursday on Netflix. If you haven’t watched the series based on the novels by Michael Connelly, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays Mickey Haller. Haller is a well-known defense attorney in Los Angeles who has a keen ability to think outside the box in ways to help his clients. He’s also often chauffeured around town in a Lincoln while he does work from the back seat. Season one saw Haller return to law after several setbacks including addiction and a divorce. In season two, Haller is the It Lawyer in town. Season two is based on Connelly book’ “The Fifth Witness.”

    — David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan aren’t the only new Superman and Lois Lane in town. A new animated series, “My Adventures with Superman,” has Jack Quaid as the superhero’s voice along with Alice Lee as Lois Lane. Debuting Thursday on Adult Swim, the story follows Clark Kent as a reporter for the local paper in Metropolis who also happens to be a secret superhero.

    — Adventurist Bear Grylls has found more celebrities to take out of their comfort zone and be tested by the great outdoors. Watch Bradley Cooper venture out into the Wyoming Basin on a new season of “Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge,” premiering Sunday, July 9. Other stars featured include Troy Kotsur, Grylls’ first deaf guest whom he takes to the Scottish Highlands, “Doctor Strange” and “Sherlock” star Benedict Cumberbatch, Tatiana Maslany of “She-Hulk,” recording artist Rita Ora, and Tony Award-winners Daveed Diggs and Cynthia Erivo.

    — Bravo is sending two of its most iconic Bravo-lebrities, Luann de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” and giving them the “Simple Life”-meets-“Schitt’s Creek” treatment in “Luann and Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake.” Normally accustomed to trips to the Hamptons or St. Tropez, the pair jet off to Benton, Illinois, where the population is less than 7,000. The socialites check into a motel and are requested by the mayor to boost Benton’s morale. De Lesseps and Morgan revitalize a local theater with a variety show and build a new program. They also take part in activities like searching a nearby lake for crappie fish with their bare hands or going mudding with monster trucks. The show premieres Sunday, July 9, on Bravo and episodes will stream the following day on Peacock.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — In 2004, the Japanese developer Nihon Falcom launched one of the most ambitious video game franchises in history with The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Ten titles later, the drama of the war-torn land of Zemuria shows no signs of slowing down, and it has been finding a wider Western audience since NIS America took over the English translations in 2019. The latest chapter, The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, is being pitched as the series’ midpoint, so it may be a good chance for newcomers to catch up and the story so far and brace themselves for the endgame. If you relish the turn-by-turn strategy and anime-influenced storytelling of old-school Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, you can pick up the trail Friday, July 7, on PlayStation 5/4 and Nintendo Switch.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • What to stream this week: Taylor Swift, a new animated ‘Superman,’ ‘Biosphere’ and ‘Wham!’

    What to stream this week: Taylor Swift, a new animated ‘Superman,’ ‘Biosphere’ and ‘Wham!’

    [ad_1]

    Taylor Swift’s rerecording of her “Speak Now” and survivalist Bear Grylls taking Bradley Cooper and Rita Ora into the wild are among the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Among the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are the sci-fi comedy ”Biosphere” starring Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass, and a new spin-off series starring Luann de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan from “The Real Housewives of New York City.”

    NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

    — Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass are the last two men on Earth in the not-too-distant-future sci-fi comedy ”Biosphere,” available in theaters and on demand on Friday, July 7 from IFC. John DeFore in The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it’s “a mysterious and hilarious pic that really can’t be discussed much without saying things a prospective viewer would be better off not hearing.” “Biosphere” is the directorial debut of Mel Elsyn, who co-wrote the script with Duplass.

    — If Paramount+ isn’t in your streaming bundle, “80 for Brady” will be available on Prime Video starting Tuesday. The movie, inspired by a true story, stars Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field as a quartet of best friends, and lifelong Patriots fans, who go to the super bowl to see Tom Brady play. Reviews weren’t great, but most singled out the legendary actors as reason enough to take a chance. Stephanie Zacherek, in Time, wrote it was “brassy, ridiculous and shameless” and also “irresistible,” while critic Katie Walsh singled out the “loose, absurdist” humor of the screenplay. Plus, it’s only 98 minutes.

    — Freddie (Park Ji-min) is a 25-year-old who was adopted as a child, raised in France and decides to return to South Korea, where she was born, for the first time in “Return to Seoul,” coming to Mubi on Friday, July 7. The critically acclaimed film, written and directed by Davy Chou, got a little lost in its theatrical run but made a handful of year-end best of lists. Richard Lawson, in Vanity Fair, wrote, “She’s a fascinating creation, prickly and mercurial and, for a spell, immoral. But Chou eventually rounds his film into something compassionate, a bittersweet collage of a young life in flux.”

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    NEW MUSIC TO STREAM

    — Taylor Swift has given us a chance to travel back in time after she re-recorded her sophomore country album, “Speak Now,” her third do-over after “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and “Fearless (Taylor’s Version).” “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” has 22 songs, including six that were written during the album’s original era, but not recorded until recently. Fall Out Boy and Paramore’s Hayley Williams are among the guest appearances. Swift wrote on social media: “Since ‘Speak Now’ was all about my songwriting, I decided to go to the artists who I feel influenced me most powerfully as a lyricist at that time and ask them to sing on the album.”

    — If PJ Harvey’s new album sounds fresh and inspired that’s because the new songs came out in about three weeks and they were recorded spontaneously. “I Inside the Old Year Dying” is Harvey’s 10th studio album and first since 2016’s Grammy-nominated “The Hope Six Demolition Project.” The album is produced by long-time collaborators Flood and John Parish. Lead folkish single “A Child’s Question, August,” is filled with pastoral imagery, sparse instrumentation and the singer’s soprano.

    — Go to Netflix if you’re hoping to wake up before you go-go to celebrate a special pop duo in “Wham!” The 92-minute documentary about the musical pair — George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley — lands Wednesday and promises access to personal archives including never-before-seen footage, and previously unheard interviews. The doc, directed by Chris Smith, charts the duo’s four-year journey from teenage school friends to global superstars with hits like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and “Young Guns.” Michael died in 2016.

    — AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy

    NEW SERIES TO STREAM

    — Part one of “The Lincoln Lawyer” season two drops Thursday on Netflix. If you haven’t watched the series based on the novels by Michael Connelly, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays Mickey Haller. Haller is a well-known defense attorney in Los Angeles who has a keen ability to think outside the box in ways to help his clients. He’s also often chauffeured around town in a Lincoln while he does work from the back seat. Season one saw Haller return to law after several setbacks including addiction and a divorce. In season two, Haller is the It Lawyer in town. Season two is based on Connelly book’ “The Fifth Witness.”

    — David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan aren’t the only new Superman and Lois Lane in town. A new animated series, “My Adventures with Superman,” has Jack Quaid as the superhero’s voice along with Alice Lee as Lois Lane. Debuting Thursday on Adult Swim, the story follows Clark Kent as a reporter for the local paper in Metropolis who also happens to be a secret superhero.

    — Adventurist Bear Grylls has found more celebrities to take out of their comfort zone and be tested by the great outdoors. Watch Bradley Cooper venture out into the Wyoming Basin on a new season of “Running Wild with Bear Grylls: The Challenge,” premiering Sunday, July 9. Other stars featured include Troy Kotsur, Grylls’ first deaf guest whom he takes to the Scottish Highlands, “Doctor Strange” and “Sherlock” star Benedict Cumberbatch, Tatiana Maslany of “She-Hulk,” recording artist Rita Ora, and Tony Award-winners Daveed Diggs and Cynthia Erivo.

    — Bravo is sending two of its most iconic Bravo-lebrities, Luann de Lesseps and Sonja Morgan of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” and giving them the “Simple Life”-meets-“Schitt’s Creek” treatment in “Luann and Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake.” Normally accustomed to trips to the Hamptons or St. Tropez, the pair jet off to Benton, Illinois, where the population is less than 7,000. The socialites check into a motel and are requested by the mayor to boost Benton’s morale. De Lesseps and Morgan revitalize a local theater with a variety show and build a new program. They also take part in activities like searching a nearby lake for crappie fish with their bare hands or going mudding with monster trucks. The show premieres Sunday, July 9, on Bravo and episodes will stream the following day on Peacock.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    NEW VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY

    — In 2004, the Japanese developer Nihon Falcom launched one of the most ambitious video game franchises in history with The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Ten titles later, the drama of the war-torn land of Zemuria shows no signs of slowing down, and it has been finding a wider Western audience since NIS America took over the English translations in 2019. The latest chapter, The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, is being pitched as the series’ midpoint, so it may be a good chance for newcomers to catch up and the story so far and brace themselves for the endgame. If you relish the turn-by-turn strategy and anime-influenced storytelling of old-school Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, you can pick up the trail Friday, July 7, on PlayStation 5/4 and Nintendo Switch.

    — Lou Kesten

    ___

    Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/entertainment.

    [ad_2]

    Source link