Well, today is the day! After months of Netflix teasing and threatening that it would be introducing ads for a lower price point, this week, Netflix added their ad-supported tier for $6.99 a month… even though they said for years they would never have ads, but hey, people change! So do million-dollar companies too, evidently.
The only problem (well, there are a few problems but we don’t have time to dissect all of them) is that the shiny new plan doesn’t work for anyone with an Apple TV. They really tried though, and you have to give them credit for rushing to get ads on there instead of spending all that money churning out another season of Stranger Things before the cast is old enough to collect social security checks.
Apple TV owners who might have been itching to try out the new cheaper plan will have to wait a little longer. In a statement to Variety, a spokesperson said, “Basic with ads plan support on tvOS is not available at launch but coming soon.” We all know that when Netflix says “soon” it could mean anything from a few months to years, so that’s fun.
The fumble isn’t a huge surprise, since the ad-supported subscription was originally supposed to launch in 2023, and Netflix scrambled to get it out in time for the holidays when their main competitor Disney+ is also introducing ads. Ads! For everyone! All the time!
As of right now, Apple TV users who wish to try out the new plan will either have to use it on a different device or upgrade to a more expensive plan with no ads. Maybe this was their plan all along–to get people to pay for more plans! How many times can YOU use the word “plan” in a sentence?!
Anderson Valley/Elysian/Rogue/East Brother/istock/Uproxx
If you’re at all familiar with the craft beer world, you’ve probably seen the term “oatmeal stout” before. It’s a common designation that simply means that, on top of the usual barley, the style includes a large percentage of oats in its mash. While that doesn’t necessarily make it taste like the oatmeal porridge you had for breakfast, it does create a creamier, smoother stout, which also has the roasted barley, coffee, and chocolate flavors you’d expect from a stout.
Popular in the 1800s and then largely gone by the mid-1900s, it wasn’t until Samuel Smith released an oatmeal stout back in 1978 that the style began to (re)gain popularity. Since then, the oatmeal stout has become popular enough that you could probably find a hundred or more if you looked hard enough.
Whatever your beer preference, November is a great time of year to dive into this historical style — hearty, warming, full-flavored and probably not as filling as most people imagine. To help get you started, this week I chose eight great oatmeal stouts (including the aforementioned Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout) and ranked them based on flavor and balance. Keep reading to see them all.
Brewed with Nugget hops as well as 2-row, Chocolate malts, Vienna malts, roasted barley, and of course oats, Oatis is known for its roasted malt, chocolate, coffee, and light hops. This 7% ABV oatmeal stout is available year-round but shines in the fall.
Tasting Notes:
Coffee, chocolate, raisins, and roasted malts, but not much else. The palate continues this trend with more roasted coffee beans, dark chocolate, and the addition of slightly herbal, earthy hops. Overall, not a bad beer by any means, just not very exciting. Fairly simple.
Bottom Line:
This beer isn’t lacking anything specifically. It’s just a little lighter in flavor than I’d hope for an oatmeal stout. A little watery for my liking.
You might wonder why a beer from Oregon named itself after William Shakespeare. Well, Rogue Ales was originally founded in Ashland, home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. One of the first beers ever brewed by Rogue, this beer has been available since 1988.
Tasting Notes:
Aromas of dark chocolate, coffee beans, roasted malts, light smoke, and pine needles greet your nostrils. The palate is all vanilla, roasted malts, coffee, and dark chocolate. It’s flavorful, but a little one-dimensional. It could use a little more balance between malts and hops.
Bottom Line:
If you’re looking for a smooth, roasted malt, coffee-filled beer without any other major distinguishable flavors, this is the beer for you. Otherwise, keep looking.
Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is the OG oatmeal stout, having its genesis in the late 1970s. This 5% ABV stout is made with traditional ingredients including well water, cane sugar, malted barley, hops, roasted malts, and oatmeal.
Tasting Notes:
Complex aromas of dark chocolate, coffee, burnt sugar, roasted malts, and sweet oats draw you in. Drinking it reveals more coffee, bitter chocolate, roasted malts, and dried fruits. It’s creamy, silky, and easy to drink. Its only downfall is that it’s a little thin.
Bottom Line:
Perhaps it’s because of the low ABV, but Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is a bit muted and thin for a fall beer.
You might not have ever heard of Oliver Brewing BMore Breakfast, but you definitely should. This Baltimore-based brewery makes a variety of high-quality beers and one of its best is its 6% ABV oatmeal stout, loaded with coffee, chocolate, and roasted malts.
Tasting Notes:
The nose centers on roasted malts, caramel, dark chocolate, and a ton of freshly-brewed coffee aromas. The bittersweet flavor profile is filled with more roasty, toasty malts, toffee, very light coffee, bitter chocolate, and some licorice. Great beer but could definitely use more coffee flavor as it’s listed as a breakfast beer.
Bottom Line:
This is a creamy, chocolate, and roasted malt-filled stout. The only downfall is that while it starts off with a big coffee aroma, the palate doesn’t continue that trend.
This bold, 8.1% ABV imperial oatmeal stout is brewed with Pale, Munich, Chocolate, and C-77 malts as well as roasted barley and roasted oats. It gets its floral, slightly bitter flavor from the addition of Magnum, Cascade, and Centennial hops.
Tasting Notes:
Roasted malts, caramel, bready malts, and lightly floral hops are prevalent on the nose. While there isn’t a ton going on with the nose, the palate makes up for it with sweet malts, freshly-baked bread, roasted malts, brown sugar, caramel, vanilla, dried fruits, all with a gentle, semi-sweet bitterness at the very end that leaves you craving more.
Bottom Line:
Elysian Dragonstooth Stout is a beer that proves that less is more. It’s very simple on the nose and palate, but that totally works for this beer. It’s bold, rich, robust, and heavily warming on a cool fall night.
If you’re a fan of Great Lakes Brewing, you probably enjoy its Edmund Fitzgerald porter and its wintry Christmas Ale, but we suggest starting fall right with its Ohio City oatmeal stout. This roasty, warming seasonal beer is brewed with 2-row, Crystal 77, Chocolate, and Black malts as well as flaked oats. It gets its hoppy bitterness from the addition of Willamette hops.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find bitter chocolate, butterscotch, wintry spices, coffee, and roasted malts. The palate is a symphony of roasted coffee beans, toasted malts, caramel, vanilla, and lightly bitter hops. The finish is creamy and semi-sweet.
Bottom Line:
Great Lakes Ohio City is a great example of an oatmeal stout done right. It’s slightly sweet, slightly bitter, and effortlessly creamy.
While Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout is available year-round, it drinks the best in the fall. Brewed with oats and a variety of malts, it gets its bitter, earthy, herbal flavor from the addition of Chinook and Northern Brewer hops.
Tasting Notes:
On the nose, you’ll find aromas of dried fruits, freshly baked bread, roasted malts, coffee beans, and rich chocolate. The palate follows suit with candied cherries, sticky toffee, bitter chocolate, and lightly floral, bitter hops tying everything together. The finish is a velvety creamy mix of sweetness and bitterness.
Bottom Line:
This award-winning beer is sublimely well-balanced with roasted malts, chocolate, coffee, and dried fruits pairing nicely with Northwest hops.
Richmond, California’s East Brother is a brewery you should know about. They don’t rely on flashy labels, they rely on well-made, flavorful beer. This is especially true with its award-winning East Brother Oatmeal Stout. This English-style oatmeal stout is known for its mix of roasted malts, chocolate, and coffee.
Tasting Notes:
A nose of sweet oats, dried fruits, chocolate, coffee beans, toffee, and floral hops greet you before your first sip. Chocolate, coffee, and roasted malts continue into the palate with raisins, bready malts, licorice, and oats making an appearance as well. The finish is creamy, sweet, and memorable.
Bottom Line:
Nobody will fault you for grabbing a sixer of oatmeal stout made by a big-name brand, but we challenge you to try beer from a smaller brewery like East Brother from time to time instead. You’ll be happy you did.
Netflix is in such need of money after losing subscribers by the millisecond that the streaming service — which has already made moves to prevent people from sharing passwords — is introducing an ad-supported tier, which launches today (Thursday, November 3) in eight extremely unlucky countries including the United States. Deadlinereports that starting 9 a.m. Pacific time, the Basic With Ads plan goes live in the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and South Korea.
The Basic With Ads plan has already launched in Canada and Mexico (what did they do to deserve this before everyone else?) and Spain will get the ads starting November 10. Per Deadline, pricing for Basic With Ads can vary depending on location, but it is $6.99 in the U.S., while a basic plan without ads is $9.99. Netflix chief operating officer and product chief Greg Peters called Basic With Ads plan “a pro-consumer model” that will bring in “a lot more members.”
Basic With Ads will include about four to five minutes of ads per hour. Ads will be included in both television and films, but a special exception will be made for new films coming to the service, such as Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Out of respect for the movies (hahaha) Netflix will “just have a pre-roll” of ads before its major original film releases start so you can watch the whole thing uninterrupted. “We’ll try to preserve that sort of cinematic model there,” Peters said.
A couple of minutes of ads before a movie in the comfort of your very own home? No one has shown more respect to cinema than this!
Once it became clear that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was still moving forward despite the death of Chadwick Boseman, Marvel made the surprising, yet respectful decision to not recast the role of T’Challa for the sequel. When the decision was made back in December 2020, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige simply said that Boseman’s portrayal of the Black Panther is “iconic and transcends iteration of the character in any other medium from Marvel’s past.” Only in recent months has Feige elaborated on the recasting decision by explaining that it was “much too soon.”
“The world is still processing the loss of Chad,” Feige told Empire. “And Ryan [Coogler] poured that into the story.”
Turns out, Marvel was not messing around with its commitment to the recasting decision. Black Panther producer Nate Moore shared with io9 that “Marvel probably would have canceled the movie entirely before actually recasting Boseman’s role as T’Challa.”
“[Chadwick’s] passing was sudden. It hit us really hard,” Moore told io9. “And you do have the thought of maybe we should just stop. Certainly, sequels aren’t a mandate. Many movies have existed as one-offs and they’re fantastic. Maybe Black Panther just lives on its own bubble. And then you start to have the other conversation, which is it did mean so much to people. And… even Chad, I think, knew it could mean as much as it did to people while we were making the first one.”
As writer/director Ryan Coogler recently shared, Wakanda Forever had one advantage that helped deal with the challenge of moving forward without Boseman. The story was already about grief. According to Coogler, the original script would’ve focused on T’Challa grappling with his five year absence during the events of Avengers: Endgame.
“He was grieving time he couldn’t get back,” Coogler told Inverse. “Grief was a big part of it.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits theaters on November 11.
Now that House of the Dragon is over, Sunday nights just aren’t the same. The Last of Us, an apocalyptic drama adapted from the critically acclaimed and universally beloved video game series of the same name is coming to HBO in January 2023 though, so you will have something addicting to bide the time until Succession returns for season four.
The Last of Us includes an all-star cast including some of Hollywood’s best such as international treasure Melanie Lynskey, comes from the Emmy-winning writer ofChernobyl, and from the looks of the powerful trailer at the top, it will be a good, if somewhat depressing, time.
Here’s everything you need to know about HBO’s The Last of Us, from the premiere date to the cast to the creatives behind the camera:
What’s It About?
The Last of Us is based on the video game series of the same name that is set 20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed by a fatal virus. The story follows a teenage girl Ellie and a hired hand Joel who helps her travel across the United States. Here’s the official synopsis from HBO:
“Twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.”
Do I Know Anyone In It?
You’ve definitely heard of some of these people, yes. Pedro Pascal, who rose to prominence for his performance as Oberyn Martell in season four of HBO’s Game of Thrones, stars as Joel Miller, a hardened survivor who is tormented by his traumatic past. Joel is hired to smuggle a teenage girl out of a quarantine zone and across the United States. Bella Ramsey, another Game of Thrones alum (she played the fierce and memorable little Lady Lyanna Mormont) plays Ellie, the 14-year-old girl who might be the key to creating a vaccine for the infection that changed the world.
A few other notable cast members include Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Merle Dandridge, Nick Offerman, Melanie Lynskey, Murray Bartlett, and Storm Reid. Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, who portrayed Ellie and Joel respectively in the video games, are reportedly appearing in the show in undisclosed roles.
Who Wrote This Thing?
The series was adapted by (former Ted Cruz roommate) Craig Mazin, and he co-wrote The Last of Us with Neil Druckmann. This isn’t Mazin’s first venture with HBO: he was the mastermind behind the incredible but very dark 2019 miniseries Chernobyl. Druckmann co-wrote and produced the video games the series is based on.
“Craig and Neil are visionaries in a league of their own,” Francesca Orsi, executive vice president of HBO Programming, said in a statement in 2020. “With them at the helm alongside the incomparable Carolyn Strauss, this series is sure to resonate with both die-hard fans of ‘The LastofUs’ games and newcomers to this genre-defining saga.”
Who’s Directing?
Rather than sticking to one director for the entire series, a few directors worked on season one of The Last of Us. Kantemir Balagov, who directed the 2019 film Beanpole, directed the pilot and episode two. Jasmila Žbanić, Jeremy Webb, Ali Abbasi, and Peter Hoar also directed episodes from the first season.
Okay, Sold! When Does It Come Out?
The Last of Uspremieres its first episode on HBO Sunday, January 15 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Episodes will air weekly, with ten episodes in total.
Ed Sheeran flooded his fans with updates last month. He’s headed to North America in 2023 to continue his Mathematics Tourand is currently filming a documentary. He popped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where he discussed gifting Elton John a marble penis status and performed “Shivers.” And this week, he celebrated a “Shivers” milestone while adding more to next year’s slate.
“So, ‘Shivers’ has just hit a billion streams on Spotify, which makes it my 11th song as an artist and 15th song as a writer. I’m over the moon about it. Thank you everyone who’s been streaming that song,” Sheeran said in an Instagram video. “I’m gonna celebrate by shooting a music video for my brand new album, which will be out next year. See you in a bit.”
Sheeran became the first artist to eclipse 100 million Spotify followers this summer. The four-time Grammy winner explained the long-held vision for his discography on the November 1, 2021 episode of Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard, shortly after the arrival of his = (Equals)album. He was inspired by Coldplay to follow a mathematical title cadence (2011’s Plus, 2014’s Multiply, 2017’s Divide, 2021’s Equals).
“Very, very young, I was like 18 or 19, I just decided — I was like, ‘Right, I’m gonna do five math symbols as my albums. One’s gonna be orange, one’s gonna be green, one’s gonna be blue, one’s gonna be red, one’s gonna be yellow. And you’re gonna just see a poster, and the poster’s gonna have an equals sign on the on it, and you’ll know what it is.’” Sheeran said.
He added that the Mathematics Tour is his version of a greatest hits tour without needing to be billed as a greatest hits tour, and his plan was for Equals to be “the end of the equation” but noted that he’ll probably do a No. 7 Collaborations project between Equals and the next math-related album. “I’m gonna make 10 symbol records, but the next five won’t be maths,” he clarified.
So, the question is no longer when Sheeran’s next project will drop but whether 2023 will bring Subtractor No. 7 Collaborations. In the meantime, fans can listen to Sheeran’s Pokémon track “Celestial.”
Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish movies available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
To many, Barney The Dinosaur was a foundational and positive part of their childhood, filling their days with song and love, but the icon also found himself caught in the middle of a still-raging war between snark and sentimentality, sparking hate from hate groups of the early internet era that, in I Love You, You Hate Me, get credit for helping to unlock the culture of grievance and rage that feels more prevalent and caustic now. Throw in side stories about a tantric sex guru, a shooting, and some Blues Clues Steve wisdom on the uncomplicated positivity of Barney and you get a pretty rich and compelling 2-part docuseries. Watch it on Peacock.
Baz Lurhman’s Elvis biopic is trash. Beautiful, glorious trash. The kind you leave out on your front porch for your neighbors to marvel at in grotesque disbelief. It’s hip-gyrating, finger-thrusting, sweat-pouring theatrics packaged in lush cinematography, contained in a classic underdog story that reaffirms everything you thought you knew about the King of Rock and Roll, and then adds some weird personal fodder that makes you question everything you thought you knew about the King of Rock and Roll. Austin Butler is mesmerizing, and so is whatever the hell Tom Hanks is doing in this thing. Enjoy it for what it is – a beautifully-shot fever dream filled with some great tunes. Watch it on HBO Max.
Thor is back once again and he brought some new friends with him. Natalie Portman, to be specific. Which is fun. This follow-up to the also-fun Ragnarok has made the move from theaters to streaming and into your living rooms. That’s another fun thing. It is almost unreasonable how good Chris Hemsworth is in these movies. You should not be allowed to look like that and be that funny. Someone should make a rule about it. Until then… watch it on Disney Plus.
Oh look! Another glorious sequel. Fans have been clamoring for a followup to this spooky childhood classic for so long that, now that it’s finally here, there’s some understandable apprehension. Can it capture the magic (pun intended) of its predecessor? Will the surprise musical numbers go as hard? Will Disney allow more tongue-in-cheek one liners about Satanic worship and child cannibalism to flourish (because we really need to hear Sarah Jessica Parker confirm she smells children, just one more time)? We don’t have all the answers but it’s never a bad thing when Bette Midler, Parker, and Kathy Najimy get together on screen. And we wouldn’t be caught dead talking smack about the Sanderson sisters. Watch it on Disney Plus.
Hulu is continuing its tradition of taking dusty old romance classics and reimagining them for our more modern, thumb-swiping times (see Fire Island) by tackling, who else, Shakespeare. If you’ve ever heard the tale of two teenagers from warring families who off-ed themselves instead of, I don’t know, giving group therapy a try and thought to yourself, “Huh, this is really messed up,” then this rom-com is for you. Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever plays Rosaline, the girl Romeo drops like a hot potato soon after meeting his Juliet. Jilted and craving revenge, she enacts a plan to keep the lovers apart and … well, you know how things go. Sharply smart and wickedly funny, it’s the kind of Shakespeare re-telling no one knew to ask for but you’ll be happy it exists anyway. Watch it on Hulu.
What better way to escape incessant political ads and election noise than by checking out… a political conspiracy thriller about a bombshell story that could upend an election? Still, while we all appreciate the star power of Steve Kornacki and his big board, it doesn’t quite compare to Brian Cox and John Cena, who play an investigative journalist and a surging independent candidate for President, respectively. Watch it on Peacock.
Lot going on here. Let’s start at the beginning. Paul Feig directs a cinematic take on a book of the same name about two kids who get swept away to an enchanted school where students learn to be heroes and villains in an attempt to keep the universe in balance. This is why “the school for good and evil” is right there in the title. We’ve got magic and teen angst and a heck of a cast that includes everyone from Charlize Theron to Kerry Washington to Laurence Fishburne to Michelle Yeoh. Again, a lot going on here. Most of it promising or at least interesting. Worth a shot, probably. Watch it on Netflix.
If you’re missing Key & Peele, we have some good news for you. Multiple seasons of the Comedy Central series will arrive on Netflix in November, so you can get your Hingle McCringleberry on, right from the comfort of your living room. In the meantime, you can enjoy Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s voices (along with that of Angela Bassett) as they play plotting demons who tangle with a teen who digs punk rock. Watch it on Netflix.
Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne star in a mostly fictionalized account of Charlie Cullen, a New Jersey nurse who was found responsible for dozens of murders of patients over a 16-year period. The star power is here and everyone seems to love semi-true stories about serial killers lately so there’s at least even money odds that this sucker takes off. Just don’t watch it before you have a doctor appointment. That would not be fun. Watch it on Netflix.
Jennifer Lawrence ended her mini-acting hiatus with last year’s Don’t Look Up, but she was part of an ensemble cast with other A-listers. The Oscar winner is front and center (along with Atlanta great Brian Tyree Henry) in A24’s Causeway as a soldier who struggles to adjust to her life after returning home to New Orleans. It’s the kind of movie that she hasn’t made since her breakout performance in Winter’s Bone — and it looks just as good. Watch it on Apple TV+.
Thank goodness Henry Cavill didn’t sign on to play Superman again before filming this sequel, or there’d be another The Witcher-esque switcheroo in the works. Cavill is back, but more importantly, Millie Bobbie Brown returns as the sassy younger sister of Sherlock Holmes. One of the bigger plot finds roots in the real-life Bryant & May match factory atrocities, but somehow, the overall mood stays light. Enola sets up her own detective shingle and goes undercover, so you can only imagine what hijinks will ensue. Watch it on Netflix.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story stars Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe as “Weird Al” Yankovic, obviously. The fake biopic depicts the world’s premier polka-loving pop song parodist as a hard-drinking sex maniac, obviously. It also stars Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna, Quinta Brunson as Oprah Winfrey, and Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento, obviously. Should you watch Weird: The Al Yankovic Story this weekend on the Roku Channel? Obviously.
Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
A comedy all-star team of Judy Greer, Keegan Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, Rachel Bloom, and Paul Reiser come together to gently mock the reboot gold rush and the entertainment industry, providing a Larry Sanders-y kind of inside baseball show that benefits from the presence of Modern Family co-creator Steven Levitan and Party Down mastermind John Enbom. Did we mention Judy Greer? The legend that is Judy Greer grows as she totally steals these early episodes as an actress turned duchess turned actress trying to stave off Hollywood irrelevancy, which is something that could never happen to the real Judy Greer because she is an American treasure. But acting! Watch it on Hulu.
Charlie Hunnam and Shubham Saraf told us how chaos fueled this odyssey, and they aren’t messing around. Hunnam, as well, is a world away from Sons of Anarchy‘s Charming, California setting here. He’s semi-similarly an outlaw, though, in this adaptation of Gregory David Roberts’ same-named book, which details the life of an Australian convict who flees from prison for a new life in India. This may or may not be a semi-autobiographical turn from Roberts himself, whose life experiences are incredibly similar. Hunnam’s character finds himself both enthralled and struggling to avoid the trouble that got him into prison in the first place. Then he meets an enigmatic woman, and life grows even more complicated. It happens! Watch it on Apple TV Plus.
George Lucas has frequently insisted that, like Wu-Tang Clan, Star Wars is for the children. But Andor sure looks like it’s geared more towards adults. The Rogue One prequel starring Diego Luna, reprising his role as Cassian Andor, is gritty, mature, and other words you use to describe movies and TV shows that aren’t messing around. And with this being the first Disney-era Star Wars show to be filmed in real-life locations, Andor isn’t messing around. Watch it on Disney Plus.
Fresh off his Dahmer success, Ryan Murphy is here to freak people out again with this true-crime miniseries about the Broaddus family, who thought they found the greatest home ever, but it’s haunted. Not literally, but it’s being stalked by somehow who actually calls himself “The Watcher” and claims a deep attachment to the home, and god, this sounds horrific. Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale portray the terrorized leads, but rest assured, some light moments will exist because Jennifer Coolidge portrays the house’s realtor. Sold! Watch it on Netflix.
Atlanta is back — and back in Atlanta — for one last ride after a season-long jaunt to Europe. It’s kind of remarkable that this show has even existed. In a good way. It’s strange and silly, thoughtful and artistic, and not really like anything else out there. Donald Glover was a star before any of this got underway, but it’s made the rest of the main cast stars, too. That’s kind of cool. Get in there and appreciate this show while we still have it. You could be waiting a long time for anything even remotely similar. Watch it on FX/Hulu.
6. Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Netflix)
NETFLIX
The horror maestro unleashes an anthology series full of sinister tales, helmed by seasoned directors including Jennifer Kent (The Babadook). Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke adapts a story from H.P. Lovecraft, and other directors include Ana Lily Amirpour, Panos Cosmatos, Guillermo Navarro, David Prior, Vincenzo Natali, and Keith Thomas. It’s a fitting way to wrap up the witching season, so make it last forever. Watch it on Netflix.
The bitter irony of Netflix streaming a show about the long-fallen lords of home entertainment will definitely turn heads, but don’t let it distract. The former DVD and VHS haven is more an inconsequential setting, occasionally inspiring nostalgia for a pre-algorithmic world, but often no more vital to the story than the bar in Cheers. It’s less about the place than it is the people, a group of well-drawn characters struggling with economic uncertainty, gentle bickering, and the eye-roll-inducing but still sweet notion of co-workers as family. If you’re looking for a new Superstore (which was your new Parks And Rec which was your new Office), this might be it. Watch it on Netflix.
You’ve surely seen the 1990s movie starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst, and now, Anne Rice’s most popular gothic novel gets the small-screen adaptation. Great news: this version is better than the film for several reasons. Jacob Anderson of Game of Thrones gives us a very different Louis while Sam Reid swaggers about as Lestat de Lioncourt, and Claudia’s story gets expanded with Bailey Bass giving us a brazen and tragic performance and a secondary narrative framing device. The leading duo takes their sexual tension out of the closet, too, which adds a lot of layers (and fun) to this update. Watch it on AMC Plus.
These new episodes are nonsensical as always for this sci-fi soap opera, so it remains to be seen whether this investment will pay off for Netflix after NBC dropped the show at the height of streaming glory. Cal suddenly being five years older doesn’t even scratch the top 10 of WTF moments for Flight 828 passengers, but here we are. All of the passengers remain confused as hell, and the voices and red herrings continue. Expect to see many more Death Date mentions and a total fiasco as showrunner Jeff Rake aims to bring this puppy in for a landing. Watch it on Netflix.
The first season of Abbott Elementary was a feel-good network sitcom that caught a massive wave of popularity and won a bunch of Emmys in a time when feel-good network sitcoms are kind of not supposed to do that. Credit for this goes to creator and star Quinta Brunson, who realized that an underfunded inner-city public school was exactly the right place to show us people with good hearts working inside a system that can be cold. Kind of like Parks and Recreation but in Philadelphia. The second season is underway and does not appear to be missing a beat. This is basically a miracle, all around. Watch it on Hulu.
The first season of The White Lotus took the world and the internet by storm with its combination of misery and drama and beautiful Hawaiian scenery. Season two takes the action to a new resort in the White Lotus chain, this one in Italy, and replaces almost the entire cast. “Almost” being the key word here because Jennifer Coolidge is back as Tanya. Which is good. More shows should be about Jennifer Coolidge going to fancy hotels around the world. This is a nice start. Watch it on HBO Max.
Like all of us, President Joe Biden feels the weight of paying concert ticket processing fees, so he announced that he and his administration would get rid of them.
Biden called the processing fees “unfair and deceptive” in a tweet on Thursday. He wrote, “I know hidden junk fees – like processing fees on concert tickets – are a pain. They’re unfair, deceptive, and add up. That’s why, last week, I called on my Administration to crack down on these fees and put that money back in your pocket.”
I know hidden junk fees – like processing fees on concert tickets – are a pain.
They’re unfair, deceptive, and add up.
That’s why, last week, I called on my Administration to crack down on these fees and put that money back in your pocket.
While many are delighted with the move, others believe there are more critical issues that the president should focus on. “Oh, thank god, concert ticket fees are killing the poor and middle class. Finally, a focus on the big issues,” one person tweeted. Another user noted that people “are not worried about concert fees” but worried about necessities like rent, groceries, and more.
Oh thank god, concert ticket fees are killing the poor and middle class. Finally a focus on the big issues.
Real Americans aren’t worried about concert ticket fees, they are worried about paying their rent, buying groceries, and gas. Do something useful for once.
It’s unclear when this change will go into effect, and so far, the Biden administration has yet to release more details.
Recently, the Biden administration formally launched a student loan forgiveness program, which promises to forgive up to $10,000 (and up to $20,000 for those who received Pell grants). At least eight million people have signed up already, and the number is only expected to grow.
Election Day is less than a week away, but you don’t even need to own a calendar to know that. By watching just a few minutes of television, the onslaught of political attack ads is clearly signaling that the midterms are almost here. But if Trevor Noah had his way, we’d never have to bear witness to yet another sinister-sounding voiceover telling us everything that’s bad about each of this year’s candidates — awful or otherwise.
As The Daily Show continues airing from Atlanta, Noah shared his utter disdain for attack ads. “I watched TV for 10 minutes last night and I saw 30 minutes worth of ads,” he joked. But he wasn’t kidding when he said that “the thing that stuck out to me was how most of them were mean as sh*t.”
“If you only knew Stacey Abrams from attack ads in Georgia,” Noah said, by way of example, “you would think she was Darth Vader combined with Thanos combined with that a**hole who cuts you off in traffic. Pure evil!” It’s for that reason that The Daily Show host thinks that attack ads should be banned altogether, and he made a strong argument for why that might improve the strength of the candidates we see running around the country:
If you ask me, I say attack ads should be illegal. I mean it… Not campaign ads, attack ads. I’ll tell you why: First of all, I think it’s because they only drive up polarization and hate. That’s what they do, right? And secondly, politicians should be earning your vote by telling you what they’re going to do, not just by sh*tting on other candidates. Just tell me what you’ll do if you want me to vote; don’t tell me about the other person.
‘Cause you realize, they’re auditioning for the job. We don’t accept this sh*t in any other job. There’s no other job where you can apply for it and then your resume isn’t what you do, it’s just a list of other reasons that the other people suck. You can’t do that anywhere else. You can’t just be sitting there, like: ‘Oh, what are my strengths? Well I think you should be focusing on Anthony’s weaknesses. That guy types with his index fingers. So when do I start?’
As Noah sees it, attacking your opponent isn’t “campaigning,” nor is it how candidates should be winning votes. “It shouldn’t be a part of democracy,” he said, noting that attacking the opposition isn’t a savvy political move — “it’s basically the same strategy every R&B song from the ‘90s used.”
You can watch Noah’s full argument against attack ads above, beginning around the 2:30 mark.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
