Ukrainian-made armored utility vehicles were spotted on the film set of the new Netflix movie. The two Varta armored personnel carriers were spotted with a film crew in Kyiv this Autumn at the film set of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s action-comedy “The Last Mercenary” from director David Charhon. In the French-language film, written by Charhon and Ismael Sy Savane (“Lascars”), action star Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a mysterious former secret service agent who must urgently return to France when his estranged son is falsely accused of arms and drug trafficking by the government, following a blunder by an overzealous bureaucrat and a mafia operation. – […]
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David Letterman knows how to make a splash. Over three seasons of his Netflix interview series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction—the most recent of which drops this Wednesday—the former Late Show host landed a majorly famous guest for each premiere episode. First came former President Barack Obama in early 2018, giving his most in-depth on-camera interview since leaving office to the long-bearded Letterman. Last year, season two opened with a fiery sit-down with Kanye West, who both said he felt “bullied” by liberals for supporting Trump and admitted that he had never voted in his life. “Then you don’t have […]
Once The Haunting of Bly Manor’s narrator (Carla Gugino) has finished her long, spooky story, a listener approaches her with some edits. “I liked your story,” she says. “But I think you set it up wrong. You said it was a ghost story. It isn’t. It’s a love story.” It’s a moment that reads as a wink from creator Mike Flanagan to fans of his first horror-anthology installment, 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House. That series used Shirley Jackson’s novel as a springboard for exploring familial grief, aided by a healthy dose of gothic horror—it’s set at a creepy mansion and […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. As these last weeks have brought the first crop of scripted TV shows that directly tackle the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to watch the coronavirus pandemic unfold on screen as much as I want a case of the… well, I feel like there’s a taste level here I’m about to cross. But you understand what I’m saying. There’s a certain […]
Jerry Harris, the breakout star of Netflix’s Cheer who has been accused of coercing nearly a dozen young boys into sending him explicit photos and videos, is a victim of the competitive cheerleading world “where sexual predators were largely unchecked with children of all ages,” his lawyers said in a Wednesday motion arguing for his release on bail. Harris, 21, has been in federal custody since his arrest last month on child pornography charges. He allegedly pressured at least 10 young boys—including a 13-year-old he met on Instagram—to send him explicit photos and videos, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern […]
Less than one week after a Texas grand jury indicted Netflix over its distribution of the controversial coming-of-age film Cuties, the company’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos has hit back at what he calls a discussion of “censoring storytelling.” The film, a feature debut from Maïmouna Doucouré, follows an 11-year-old Senegalese immigrant, Amy, as she attends her new school and befriends a dance group called the “Cuties.” As her family life becomes more stressful, Amy begins to teach the group racier and racier moves—all of which are at odds with her traditional upbringing. Netflix first promoted the film with an image of the […]
“I know it sounds like I’m making this up,” Carla Gugino told me halfway through our interview. “But I’m actually not.” We were on the phone discussing The Haunting of Bly Manor—a follow-up to Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House in which Gugino makes a surprise appearance as the narrator. (Her character is also central to the season’s biggest, most spoiler-y twist, which we’ll get to later—with plenty of warning.) But in that moment, Gugino was not talking about Bly Manor. She was remembering the time about 15 years ago that she and her boyfriend, Sebastian, found themselves cohabiting with what she’s […]
Since its premiere, Darren Star’s picturesque Netflix show, Emily in Paris, has proven divisive: Is it a frothy, escapist fantasy—or a nightmare show about an incurable narcissist? But regardless of what you think of Emily and the show’s abundant forgiveness for her refusal to actually learn French, there is one thing we can all agree upon: Poor Camille deserved better! (Spoilers ahead!) It’s not just that Emily went behind her supposed friend’s back and slept with her boyfriend, Gabriel. Or that Gabriel constantly treats Camille like a nuisance when, frankly, she’s more delightful company than everyone else on the show combined. […]
Before actor, model and activist Nyle DiMarco created his new Netflix docusoap, Deaf U, he competed on both America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars. But even though he won both shows, the experience was not entirely positive for DiMarco; in both projects, he notes, “I was just ‘The Deaf Guy.’” “No one really took the time to really get to know me and who I really was—things I liked, my interests,” DiMarco told The Daily Beast during a recent interview. “There were no real layers that were explored. I just, you know, was kind of one-dimensional in that […]
Republicans’ crusade against the French film Cuties, which garnered widespread controversy as it debuted on Netflix last month, just reached a new level of stupidity: A Texas grand jury has indicted the streamer for “promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child.” A press release from the office of Tyler County Criminal District Attorney (and former model and actor) Lucas Babin states that per state law it is illegal to “knowingly promote visual material that depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex and […]
Netflix is facing criminal prosecution over the controversial French film ‘Cuties,’ after a Texas grand jury indicted the entertainment streaming service for lewd depiction of children. The indictment was filed September 23 in Tyler County but was shared Tuesday on Twitter by Republican state Representative Matt Schaefer. It accuses Netflix of knowingly promoting visual material that depicts “lewd exhibition” of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was under 18 when the content was created. Further, the prosecution alleges that the material “appeals to the prurient interest in sex and has no serious literary, artistic, […]
When asked to describe the fashionable heroine of his sunny Netflix rom-com, Emily in Paris, Darren Star chose his words carefully. “I wanted to know, to create a character that had a lot of real sort of gung-ho ‘American qualities’—ambitious,” he told me during a recent phone interview. “She’s… she’s not a know-it-all, but she comes in with a… I think certainly a lot of, um, you know, spunk…” He seemed to be tip-toeing around the increasingly obvious word: annoying. Eventually, he landed close: “I wanted all those qualities to be a little bit off-putting to a lot of the French […]
Ifeanyi Nsofor reviews the documentary series, Journey Of An African Colony, which confronts a painful past — including involvement in the slave trade — and celebrates the nation’s independence. (Image credit: Quramo Productions) Source link
Get ready for The Real Royals of Montecito. Or maybe not. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have denied a report in the British Sun that they are planning to film a Netflix reality show which would have followed their lives and work for three months. A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan told the Independent: “The Duke and Duchess are not taking part in any reality shows.” The Sun originally reported that a source said the show would “be tasteful. They want to give people a glimpse into their lives.” Meghan, the source said, wanted viewers to see “the real her.” “They […]
Netflix’s new mystery movie, Enola Holmes, showcases the full breadth of Millie Bobby Brown’s talents with one of the entertainment industry’s time-honored traditions: Letting her do battle against the lung-crushing oppression of a corset. From the moment Brown crushed a Coke can with her brain as Eleven in Stranger Things, it was obvious she was going places. But the young actress’s fascinating potential could only be revealed with time and a proper starring role. (And her feature debut, a supporting role in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, did not quite meet that mark.) Enter Enola Holmes, a delightful adventure that premiered […]
It might seem strange to some that Glen Zipper, the Oscar-winning documentarian who created Netflix’s adorable docu-series Dogs, chose to tackle the Challenger explosion as his second project for the streaming giant. But in an interview with The Daily Beast, he said both have been passion projects for him—even if their subjects are different as can be. Challenger: The Final Flight, which Zipper executive produced, debuts on Netflix Wednesday and details the disaster that defined a generation. Before the tragic loss of seven astronauts in 1986, everyone thought that NASA could do anything. (NASA, the doc suggests, seemed to think that […]
In his new book No Rules Rules, Reed Hastings attributes Netflix’s success to the unorthodox office culture at the company. Hastings is pictured at Summit LA17 in Los Angeles in 2017. Amy Harris/Invision/AP hide caption toggle caption Amy Harris/Invision/AP In his new book No Rules Rules, Reed Hastings attributes Netflix’s success to the unorthodox office culture at the company. Hastings is pictured at Summit LA17 in Los Angeles in 2017. Amy Harris/Invision/AP Unlimited vacation. No dress code (just don’t show up naked). No approval needed for expenses. And if you criticize the company, you might get rewarded with a promotion. “It’s […]
CNN let Netflix CEO Reed Hastings off the hook for the second time in four days, neglecting to ask him even once about ‘Cuties,’ the film that ignited a campaign to cancel the streaming service for showing alleged “child porn.” The latest Netflix-friendly interview aired Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program, where host Brian Stelter kept the discussion focused primarily on promoting Hastings’ new book. CNN host Poppy Harlow took a similar approach on Thursday, steering clear of hard-hitting questions and talking mostly about the book in the 10 minutes she had with Hastings. Harlow interviewed the CEO the day after […]
Netflix has addressed a wave of condemnation directed at its new release ‘Cuties,’ defending the film as a “powerful” social commentary while hitting back at irate critics who say the movie sexualizes young girls. Released on the platform internationally earlier this week, the movie immediately stoked controversy, sending #CancelNetflix into the trends on Twitter as thousands denounced the film for wildly inappropriate depictions of children. After days of silence, Netflix attempted to speak to the criticism on Thursday, urging detractors to give the film a chance. “Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children,” the company said in […]
A long-standing obsession with clowns has led Simón Wilches-Castro, a Colombian animator working on special projects at L.A.-based animation studio Titmouse, to some of the most rewarding credits in his rapidly-rising career, including Charlie Kaufman’s new critically acclaimed, narratively abstract Netflix film I’m Thinking of Ending Things. “Everybody is interested in scary clowns, but I think there’s a side to them that’s a little bit more tragic than scary because they have to pretend to be somebody that is happy all the time, when life is not always happy,” Wilches-Castro told The Daily Beast. Raised in the rural town of Popayán […]
In the history of love stories, few have been as strange and unlikely as the one depicted in My Octopus Teacher. Netflix’s first original South African feature documentary concerns the wholly unexpected, and ostensibly transformative, affair struck between Craig Foster, a South African filmmaker, and an amphibious mollusk that he discovered in the Atlantic Ocean near the small seaside bungalow he frequented as a kid. It’s a relationship that transcends all boundaries, and serves as a quietly profound (and crazy) portrait of the bonds we share with everything in our environment—even if its cinematic depiction is sometimes far from perfect. Debuting […]
https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107918/35/1079183598_0:0:2919:1642_1200x675_80_0_0_09f7d31fda9f2802530946ab285593d8.jpg Sputnik International https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/i/logo.png Oleg Burunov. Sputnik International https://sputniknews.com/uk/202009061080382446-tory-mp-wants-prince-harry-meghan-markle-to-pay-back-for-their-uk-home-renovation-with-netflix-cash/ Earlier this week, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they had clinched a deal with Netflix to create content for making documentaries, feature films, scripted shows, and children’s programming. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, deputy chair of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, has urged Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to use a hefty sum from their deal with Netflix to pay back the money they received to renovate Frogmore Cottage, the couple’s former home on the Windsor Castle estate in the UK. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are now in the process of […]
If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox on Sunday. Earning their keep One of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s first projects as part of their Netflix deal could be a film about Harry’s mom, Princess Diana. The Sunday Mirror reports that the couple are in talks to make a documentary about Diana’s life and the legacy of her work, as one of their first projects for their reported $100 million deal. Source link
What is it about space? The black, starry void is a singularly vexing backdrop; it evokes endless possibility and terrifying nothingness all at once. We love to watch celebrities scream in space, contemplate fictional long-lost loved ones in space, and, of course, mull the very real existential doom that faces our planet in space. Enter Netflix’s Away—a gripping drama that embraces this galaxy of thematic potential while also grounding its action in reality. Oh, and its lead is a powerful, multi-faceted Hilary Swank—whose tenacity brings the show’s stakes to life in visceral, at times unsettling ways. In other words: If ya […]
On a nondescript April night in 1990, 21-year-old Dale Wayne Sigler walked into a Brazoria County, Texas, Subway shop and robbed it of $400. When the man behind the counter, John William Zeltner Jr., attempted to flee into the back room, he was shot six times. The “overkill” nature of the crime implied that the two weren’t mere strangers, and the ensuing revelation that Sigler knew Zeltner helped convince a jury that not only was he guilty of the crime—to which he confessed, after being apprehended—but that the execution had been premeditated. For this senseless slaughter, Sigler received the death penalty, […]
New Delhi (Sputnik): Indian diamond dealer Mehul Choksi is accused of defrauding the government-run Punjab National Bank to the tune of over $2 billion with the help of his nephew Nirav Modi. In 2018, Choksi surrendered his Indian passport and obtained Antiguan citizenship. Fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi on Wednesday approached an Indian court in response to the upcoming Netflix documentary ‘Bad Boy Billionaires: India’, requesting that the release date and pre-screening of the documentary be postponed. After a brief hearing, Justice Navin Chawla of the Delhi High Court posted the plea for a further hearing on Friday (28 August). The adjournment […]
Maïmouna Doucouré’s Cuties, available on Netflix from September 9, has been met with the ire of the religious right, as well as a wider online public that believes that the film sexualizes children. To be fair, the poster Netflix initially chose to promote the French film, which won the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance in 2019, was a grossly inappropriate choice—one that decontextualized a scene from the film in order to promote a movie about the complexities of growing up in both modest and modern cultures at once. Netflix has taken the image down but, despite outcry, is continuing with […]
The aliens aren’t coming—they may already be here! Or, at least, that’s what recent news suggests the U.S. government suspects. Just this past week, the Pentagon announced it was creating a new task force to look into the existence of UFOs that may have been witnessed flying around and over U.S. military bases. That development was spurred by a New York Times report that, despite previous statements to the contrary, the Pentagon has been carrying out a covert program—dubbed the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, which was tucked inside the Office of Naval Intelligence—to investigate American pilots’ encounters with mysterious aerial […]
A Netflix film set to debut next month has drawn major public backlash and a petition to see it cancelled, with critics insisting the mature-rated movie – centered on an 11-year-old wannabe dancer – sexualizes children. Scheduled for release on the platform in September, the French film ‘Cuties’ bills itself as a coming-of-age drama that hits on modern social issues, following protagonist Amy, a pre-teen girl from a conservative family who joins a school dancing troupe. But a growing number of detractors argue that the film is obscene and “promotes child pornography,” pointing to sexually provocative dance routines and revealing outfits […]
Betty Gilpin has been folding paper cranes. It’s a hobby the GLOW actress taught herself by watching YouTube tutorials around 10 years ago when she quit smoking. And now, in coronavirus quarantine times, it’s something to do. Her medium of choice? Cardboard New Yorker subscription tear-outs. “It has a very Etsy feel to it,” Gilpin quipped during an interview last week—although she also made clear she has no interest in becoming an online entrepreneur. “I don’t have the patience for that,” she said. “It’s just gonna be piles.” Debbie Eagan, Gilpin’s enterprising GLOW character, would certainly know how to turn these […]
With all due respect to the Real Housewives, Love Is Blind’s Jessica, and whatever man-whore Bachelor they’re trotting out, the best reality TV villain on television right now is Christine Quinn, the icy glamazon of Selling Sunset. “People are terrified of me,” Quinn says. “As they should be.” Netflix’s incredibly addictive reality series—from The Hills co-creator Adam DiVello—trails the statuesque female real estate agents of the Oppenheim Group as they gossip, backstab, and peddle palatial L.A. homes. And while there is plenty of drama to be had in Season 3, from Chrishell’s actor-hubby Justin Hartley (This Is Us) dumping her by […]
Donald Trump does not want you to see Immigration Nation. In fact, according to filmmakers Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz, his administration tried to strong-arm them into delaying their Netflix docuseries on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) cruel implementation of the president’s zero-tolerance immigration policy until after the 2020 election. “There were so many asks that just were completely out of line,” Schwarz tells The Daily Beast. “After some pushes and shoves that didn’t work, we were asked by the ICE spokesman to delay it to November [after the election]. They tried to pin it on the fact that we said […]
For the majority of us whose bodies have essentially fused to the couch in these months of the pandemic shutdown, the most physical activity we’ve gotten has come while watching episodes of the ’90s game show Supermarket Sweep, which Netflix acquired and made available for streaming in July. The collection of the episodes quickly ranked among the streamer’s most popular offerings, as audiences lost their minds for contestants in baggy sweaters with fake collars sprinting through grocery store aisles in search of a particular jar of spaghetti sauce that could win them $5,000. There is something about the show that demands […]
There are varying degrees of bad guys, and per its title, World’s Most Wanted is about the absolute worst of the worst. A six-part Netflix docuseries whose each installment fixates on a different fugitive, it’s a true-crime effort (premiering Aug. 5) that aims to further raise the profile of the globe’s chief villains—and, in doing so, to make their avoidance of the law that much more difficult. Of the monstrous sextet profiled in World’s Most Wanted, only one has been caught, Félicien Kabuga, and he just landed in custody on May 16, 2020. That’s the best news to come out of […]
Dear Television Academy: I just want to talk! I’ll let my colleague Kevin Fallon handle the snubs and surprises from Tuesday morning’s nominations, but I do have to ask: How do you rationalize, year after year, snubbing actual living legend Rita Moreno? Tuesday’s Emmy nominations included zero Latinx acting nominees. None. Not Rita Moreno, who has been killing it on One Day at a Time for four seasons. Not Laura Gómez, whose performance in Orange Is the New Black’s excellent final season was alternatively haunting and inspiring—and as timely as it gets. Not Melissa Barrera or Mishel Prada of Vida, a […]
“Truth is the most important thing,” says Tomasz (Maciej Musiałowski) midway through The Hater, and of all the falsehoods this habitual liar spews, none is more shameless. Still, while deception is Tomasz’s stock-in-trade, there’s plenty of authenticity to be found in writer/director Jan Komasa’s Netflix feature (premiering July 29), whose release was temporarily delayed because its fictional story wound up echoing a real-life tragedy that shook Komasa’s native Poland. Three weeks after filming wrapped on The Hater, liberal Gdańsk mayor Paweł Adamowicz was assassinated on stage at a Christmas charity event by a right-wing hatemonger—a shocking crime that eerily echoes the […]
On June 17, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office announced that actor Danny Masterson had been charged with three counts of rape. Masterson, 44, best known as the star of That ’70s Show, is accused of forcibly raping three women at his Hollywood Hills home between 2001 and 2003. He is facing 45 years to life in prison if convicted. (Masterson’s attorney said, “Mr. Masterson is innocent, and we’re confident that he will be exonerated when all the evidence finally comes to light and witnesses have the opportunity to testify.”) It has been a long journey for Masterson’s accusers—one that began, […]
February didn’t seem like halcyon days at the time, but you often don’t realize this sort of thing until later. As soon as he was finished talking for the day, Jarvis Cocker had plans to check out a cool, kinda underground venue in Brooklyn he’d been hearing about. The former Pulp frontman, Britpop legend and hero to literate overthinkers everywhere was planning on releasing his first album in over a decade in May, and he wanted to find just the right place for his first U.S. show in nearly as many years. Since this was an early February afternoon, it was […]
Remember that time Marvel boss Kevin Feige said we’d have a gay superhero within the next decade and we were supposed to clap? Or the time Marvel gave us a bisexual Thor: Ragnarok character but then failed to make her sexuality explicitly clear in the actual movie? Or the time DC made countless Batman movies that deny the obvious fact that the caped crusader and Robin are totally, completely, and gloriously gay? Superhero films have a long legacy of squeamishness when it comes to any whiff of queerness. In recent years, as viewers across all genres call for better representation of […]
A portrait of the way in which our lives are shaped not only by our parents and the examples they set—and values they instill—but by the traumatic events we’re forced to endure, Father Soldier Son is a quietly incisive and moving Netflix documentary about a military family beset by hardship. Prepare to cry more than once before its opening credits roll, and then make sure to have tissues at the ready for the rest of its intimate, unaffected runtime. Directed and produced by Catrin Einhorn and Leslye Davis, Father Soldier Son (now streaming) spends ten years with the Eisch clan, comprised […]
People might debate whether The Old Guard is a superhero movie, what with its blessed existence outside the Marvel-DC dick-measuring contest and not a swatch of spandex to be found. To me, the film is as if the Avengers and the Justice League met up with the Fantastic Four and teamed up with the X-Men. It did the thing the superheroes movies are supposed to do—present a world where the best among us fight for what’s right—but which none had done before: present a world that feels like my own. The first time it’s acknowledged that the characters Joe (Marwan Kenzari) […]
The Crown has found its final Princess Margaret. The role, which Vanessa Kirby occupied for the Netflix drama’s first two seasons before handing it over to Helena Bonham-Carter in Season 3, will now go to Lesley Manville, who received an Oscar nomination in 2018 for her arch performance as Cyril Woodcock in Phantom Thread. In a statement posted on The Crown’s Twitter account, Manville wrote, “I could not be happier to be playing Princess Margaret. The baton is being passed on from two formidable actresses and I really don’t want to let the side down. Furthermore to play siblings with my […]
In case a Netflix reboot was not enough, Unsolved Mysteries co-creator Terry Dunn Meurer dropped one of the show’s trademark updates right in the middle of our interview to prove that the old standby is still in prime form. Turns out, a case the show covered in 1993 might be turning a corner. Months ago, a law enforcement officer opened up an old police file box in the hopes of dusting off a decades-old case in which a John Doe killed himself in a church. The bin was empty save for one thing—a video tape of the 1993 Unsolved Mysteries segment […]
Watching Dark’s third and final season is like clutching the hand of a person who’s dangling from a helicopter over a vast canyon—you’re just holding on for dear life, desperate to maintain your grip on the wild situation. Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar’s German-language series has always been a masterpiece of time-travel intricacy, and that continues to be true with its closing eight-episode run (premiering Saturday, June 27), which keeps tying itself in temporal knots—heck, everyone even calls their interconnected circumstances “The Knot”—while simultaneously adding a new mind-melting complication to the mix: the multiverse! For a show about existential grief […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. ‘Netflix and Chill’ Is Now Actually Porn When you click on the film Love on Netflix, where it has spent the last week in the Top 10 of the service’s most-watched movies and shows, the very first thing you see is a woman dragging her nipple up and down a man’s erect penis as she masturbates him and he fingers her clitoris, which is pointed directly […]
If you want to fix your show, a great first step is to feature Judith Light in a starring role. If you can, it is highly recommended to pair her with Bette Midler, preferably in scenes that have them extolling the virtues of romantic throuples for women over 50, or celebrating the discovery of “spicy lube.” If Gwyneth Paltrow is already in your show as a somnambulant Santa Barbara socialite, both self-aware of her own privilege and unbothered by the entitled attitude it fosters, please continue to script her swanning around in kaftans—and also, sure, why not have her run for […]
Da 5 Bloods is, like BlacKkKlansman, another attempt by the prolifically astute Spike Lee to blend fact and fiction so to better tell the truth of our times. But with this film, streaming on Netflix now, the subject is the complex and differing experiences of four black Vietnam War vets—the eponymous Bloods—who return to the country to uncover a lost treasure as well as the remains of their fallen commander (Chadwick Boseman, in flashbacks). It’s a weighty project, nimbly navigated by actors Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock, and Norm Lewis—titan character actors who evaded star status mostly because of the […]
Dave Chappelle released an unannounced Netflix special in the early hours of Friday that tears into the media and calls on America to listen to the protest movement that has risen up to demand an end to more than a century of oppression. The comedian said he couldn’t bring himself to watch the killing of George Floyd for a week, but as soon as he did, he understood why the U.S was witnessing one of the most widespread protest movements in 50 years. “This kid thought he was going to die, he knew he was going to die. He called for […]
By sheer coincidence, Netflix’s Lenox Hill has arrived at just the right time. Directors Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barash began work on their docu-series, set in an acute care hospital in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, in 2017—long before the novel coronavirus thrust health-care workers into the spotlight. The eight-hour series follows four physicians doing their best to care for their community—delivering babies, removing brain tumors, and, sometimes, providing care to patients who need a hot meal and a safe place to sleep even more than immediate medical attention. “It felt like an opportunity to really share with the world what we […]
Netflix has removed comedy series ‘The Mighty Boosh’ and ‘The League of Gentlemen’ from its platform, citing their use of blackface. Critics have labeled the move an “arbitrary gesture” that does little to address actual racism. ‘The Mighty Boosh’ features several characters that are supposed to be black in the show, but are played by white actors. This fact has for a long time been seen as a controversy. ‘The League of Gentlemen’ features the character of Papa Lazarou, who is openly based on the creators’ landlord, a real-life black person. Once again, he has been played by a white actor, […]
This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here. There are many tools at our disposal to activate, demand change, inform, and amplify right now, including your television. There is no equating it to the work being done on the streets, in protests, at the ballot box, through petitions and grassroots campaigns, and with donations. But there is action and amplification—and therefore change you can advocate for—through the content choices you make. Now, especially, is a […]
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister is convinced that Carole Baskin’s former husband, Don Lewis’s will—which granted Baskin all of Lewis’ assets in the event of his disappearance, is a fake. Moreover, he said, two experts have confirmed it. “They had two experts deem it 100 percent a forgery,” Chronister told Tampa-based news outlet WTSP, as reported by TMZ. The problem, he said, is the statute of limitations has already expired. “But you know, it certainly cast another shadow of suspicion.” In May two handwriting experts told Mississippi’s Clarion Ledger that the signature and power of attorney on Lewis’ will appeared to […]
Ramy Youssef is in a situation many auteurs have stumbled into before. When a person creates, writes, and stars in his own show—with his name in the title, to boot—viewers tend to confuse where the fictional character stops and the real person begins. And so, ahead of the season two premiere of Ramy, which launches Friday on Hulu, Youssef has decided to come clean about a season two plot point that was, in fact, directly inspired by his own life. Yes, he really did cry during Toy Story 4. “There are things that are fictional Ramy and there are things that […]
Leave it to Netflix to drop a Jeffrey Epstein docuseries in the midst of a global pandemic that’s left many Americans trapped indoors with lots of free time to binge. On May 27, the four-part series Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich will premiere on the streaming behemoth. Based on the book by James Patterson, it details the harrowing stories of Epstein’s (mainly underage) victims, from his sexual abuse to the lasting mental toll it took. One of the biggest revelations in the documentary concerns Prince Andrew, a British royal and good friend of Epstein’s. Virginia Roberts Giuffre accused Epstein of sex-trafficking her […]
There’s a very annoying thing in the age of streaming. It’s the “just wait until episode five… it gets real good” thing. The “I know there are close to 1,000 TV series to watch but spend several hours not enjoying yourself so you can appreciate when this arbitrary show finds its way” thing. The very annoying thing that—groan of all groans—can be true if you have the patience and/or the masochism to investigate. And so when it came to Space Force, I watched through episode five. And then I watched episode six. And episode seven. And episode eight. The show did […]
If Nanette was Hannah Gadsby’s attempt to, as the Tasmanain comedian put it in the show itself, “tell her story properly,” her new set, Douglas, finds her processing its aftereffects—and expanding it even further. It’s also, perhaps, her best troll yet. In the special, which premiered on Netflix Tuesday, Gadsby wonders aloud why her audience is there—and what they’re expecting after she purged herself of some of her darkest experiences in Nanette. “Because I’m sorry, if it’s more trauma, I am fresh out!” She rails against (mostly male) comedians who spent months after Nanette’s release arguing that her show was not, […]
Considering the cheesy and unsubtle melodrama peddled by White Lines, it’s amazing that it takes until midway through its fourth episode before someone explains its metaphorical title (hint: it doesn’t just refer to cocaine!). Nonetheless, one doesn’t need to wait that long for wholesale absurdity to rear its head in this latest series from Money Heist mastermind Álex Pina, as the craziness begins early and then continues unabated for most of this Netflix import’s 10 roller-coaster installments. The modus operandi of this immoderate crime saga (premiering May 15) is to pile on the corniness at every turn, and in that respect, […]
In the feature documentary Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, now streaming on Netflix, celebrities ranging from the Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz to comedian Ben Stiller recount their experiences tripping on drugs, ranging from the wild (rapper A$AP Rocky claims “a rainbow shot out of my dick” while having sex on acid) to the scary (actress Rosie Perez ended up topless at a nightclub before becoming one with her bed). Filmmaker Donick Cary’s amusing doc also boasts a series of Drunk History-style recreations with comedians acting out tripping tales from the recently-departed, including Carrie Fisher and Anthony Bourdain. One of […]
This post contains spoilers for Dead to Me Season 2. Maybe it’s the surreality of, well, everything lately—or maybe it’s just aged like the fine wines all of its characters toss back by the bottle. Whatever the reason, Dead to Me Season 2 hits even better than Season 1—fighting off a sophomore slump with a fresh batch of twists, dramatic ironies, and, most importantly, some more Christina Applegate angsting out to metal. Perhaps this season’s smartest move, however, is a trope pulled straight out of Soapy Dramas 101: Bringing James Marsden back to play his own twin. Series creator Liz Feldman […]
The best of the new Netflix show The Eddy, about an eponymous jazz club and its multicultural house band in Paris, is not at all in Whiplash and La La Land director Damien Chazelle’s first two episodes (he is also an executive producer of the series, along with writer Jack Thorne and lead actor Andre Holland). Instead, the show’s brief streak of brilliance can be found in Divines director Houda Benyamina’s following two episodes. It’s Benyamina, and not Chazelle, who understands what jazz can and should do, and is able to advance the show well beyond its tedious crime subplot and […]
With a title like Trial by Media, you’d naturally expect Netflix’s true crime series—executive produced by CNN and The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin, alongside George Clooney and Grant Heslov—to focus on the multifaceted ways print and TV reporting affected, for better or worse, high-profile legal cases. Like a student term paper that sporadically forgets to relate all of its evidence to its thesis statement, the streaming service’s latest doesn’t always stick to that guiding objective. And yet at its best, this six-part affair does serve as a routinely dispiriting portrait of the press’ impact on the process of determining guilt and […]