Year: 2022

Looking back, it makes a lot of sense why I didn’t see Love Actually in theaters. Love Actually was released in theaters in November of 2003 and, at the time, I was living in St. Louis and I was going through a terrible breakup and the last thing I would want to do at the time is buy one ticket to a movie called “Love Actually.” A breakup that was bad enough that, a few months later, I decided, “Hey, maybe I should move to New York City. That sounds like a good idea.” (I still live here.) So, anyway, my point is that I was preoccupied during its theatrical run and then pretty busy during its initial home video blitz.

The thing is, I don’t remember Love Actually becoming “a thing” until later. It was a modest hit in the United States (and a pretty massive hit worldwide), but it’s always weird when you realize you missed out on something that seems pretty universally accepted as something everyone has seen. There are few movies like that. You know, where people don’t even ask if you’ve seen the movie. It is just assumed. They just go into their references and then I have to sit there and pretend I get them.

To be fair, I’ve seen bits and pieces on cable. It’s almost impossible to avoid Love Actually completely. Obviously, I’m aware of the Keira Knightley and Andrew Lincoln scene at the door, which has been parodied one million times, including this year in a cell phone commercial starring the two leads of Scrubs. Here are two funny things about that scene. The first is I didn’t understand the context. I had no idea Andrew Lincoln plays a guy in love with his best friend’s wife. (I have been warned by people who love this movie to not get too deep into this strange plot point here. Summing it up with, “We already know.” Fair enough.)

The other thing I assumed was this was the dramatic last scene of Love Actually. It is not. After this scene there are still 45 minutes left in the movie. But here’s the thing I realized about what I think makes Love Actually addictive. The entire movie is composed of “dramatic last scenes.”

So before we get into that and you start yelling at me on social media, I am not here to make fun of Love Actually. I’m actually embarrassed it took me this long to watch it. And no one forced me to watch Love Actually. A few days ago I had some time to kill and just watched it by myself. As I watched, it’s one of those things where I realized two things: One, yes, as I mentioned, I get why this is so popular. And two, this is not the movie I quite thought it was and, free from its edited cable run, this movie has a surprising amount of nudity for no real reason. I am not judging that aspect at all other than to say I didn’t realize this beloved holiday classic would be on par, nudity-wise, with popping in Porky’s. (Speaking of holiday classics, it never fails to delight me that the director of A Christmas Story also directed two Porky’s movies.)

Okay, so, back to the point that Love Actually is made up of nonstop dramatic endings. Think of almost, literally, every scene in this movie. If the credits played right after, would you be at all surprised? Obviously, when Mark reveals his love for Juliet through written out cue cards, the credits could run right after that and it would feel right. Actually, go back to one of the first scenes in the movie, Juliet and Peter’s (Chiwetel Ejiofor; literally everyone is in this movie, somehow) wedding. When “All You Need is Love” starts playing, that’s a dramatic ending! The credits could start playing right there and I would have thought, “well that’s nice.” When Hugh Grant’s David finally tells off the President of the United States (Billy Bob Thornton) to a round of applause, the credits could roll. I truly believe this was Richard Curtis’s intention. “People love emotional dramatic endings, what if we made an entire movie is only that?” It’s like that muffin-top episode of Seinfeld. Why mess around with the parts people don’t want?

(Speaking of parts you don’t want, yeah I could have done without a couple of the storylines that aren’t as exciting. And, again, I was warned not to focus too much on that either and that came with the same caveat, “We already know.” Fair enough. Though I have noticed people seem to disagree on what their least favorite storyline is. Though everyone agrees Bill Nighy rules.)

Anyway, yes, that’s finally over for me. I’ve now seen Love Actually. I will now understand all your references and the deeper meaning of current T-Mobile commercials. Also, Bill Nighy as Billy Mack is the best part of this movie and I kind of wish the whole thing had just been about him. In fact, I loved Nighy so much in this it inspired me to watch Nighy’s new film, Living, and he’s wonderful and I understand why now he’s getting so much awards acclaim. Anyway, I now completely understand that Love Actually is a good enough movie that’s been genetically engineered to make people inexplicably love it.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

With The Last of Us premiere less than a month away, Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann is opening up about how the HBO series differs from the award-winning video game. The biggest difference? The show starring Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) will have significantly less violence, while still ratcheting up the horror. But before fans of the video game get riled up, Druckmann broke down the reason for that decision.

“We need a certain amount of action, or violence, that we could use for mechanics so you could connect with Joel and get into a flow state,” Druckmann told SFX Magazine about the game. “Then you would really feel like you’re connected with this on-screen avatar and you’re seeing the world through his eyes.”

However, when it comes to the passive medium of TV, Druckmann explained that viewers don’t need that immediate jolt of violence to be connected to the characters, and he’s actually thankful for that dynamic:

One of the things that I loved hearing from [co-creator Craig Mazin] and HBO very early on was, ‘Let’s take out all the violence except for the very essential.’ That allowed the violence to have even more impact than in the game, because when you hold on showing the threat and you’re seeing people’s reaction to a threat, that makes it scarier. And when we do reveal the infected and the Clickers, you get to see what brought down humanity and why everyone is so scared.”

The Last of Us premieres January 15, 2023 on HBO.

(Via SFX Magazine)

James Cameron has a very specific vision when it comes to his movies, which may or may not be why they take so long to produce. But it obviously works, and even though he may say some silly things while he’s hyping up his movies, it doesn’t negate the impact that his little blue army has on society, both good and bad.

So, when making Avatar: The Way Of Water, Cameron was very aware of how violence would be portrayed in the film. “I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now,” Cameron recently told Esquire Middle East via Variety. “I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30-plus years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”

Cameron also revealed that he cut nearly 10 minutes of the film in order to reduce the amount of gun violence on screen. Of course, the movie is already close to three-and-a-half hours long, so that was probably a good idea no matter what the content. “I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action,” Cameron explained. “I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark.”

The director explained that the various strifes on Pandora could be handled in a different way, without excessive amounts of violence that are often shown in other action movies and, unfortunately, real life. “You have to have conflict, of course. Violence and action are the same thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker.” While there is little gun violence, the movie is not safe for people who are afraid of water and/or drowning, because there is water everywhere. But that’s kind of obvious at this point.

Eventually, Cameron might want to add back the deleted scenes for an extended edition, if the fans decide they need to spend 6 more hours in a movie theater. Who doesn’t?

(Via Variety)

A day after the news broke out on Daesung and Taeyang‘s departure from YG Entertainment, another second-generation K-pop icon begins their new chapter elsewhere.

Yesterday (December 26), it was reported Girls’ Generation’s very own Tiffany Young signed with Sublime Artists Agency after leaving her longtime company SM Entertainment five years ago. This marks the Korean-American artist’s first time signing with a Korean label since 2017.

“We are sincerely delighted to be able to work together with Tiffany Young, who has limitless influence,” Sublime Artists Agency stated, in a translated report from Soompi. “We will actively support her so that she can exert that influence in a wide variety of fields in the future.”

Tiffany’s decision to sign with Sublime roots from the rapport and trust she’s built with a longtime manager.

With that being said, Tiffany now joins a star-studded roster that includes Rain, GOT7’s Jackson Wang, Youngjae, EXID’s Hani, former GFriend member Yerin, and much more under Sublime.

Over the summer, the members of Girls’ Generation reunited for their 15th anniversary and released their seventh studio album, FOREVER 1, with a lead single of the same name. Just recently, Tiffany Young starred in the popular Korean drama Reborn Rich alongside Korean actor Song Joong Ki. This comes after her role as Roxy in the Korean version of the Broadway musical Chicago.

2017 was a big year for Cardi B. She released her hit single, “Bodak Yellow,” which later went on to be the first solo female rap song to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 19 years — the first was Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing).” But before then, she had dropped her second mixtape, Gangsta B*tch Music, Vol. 2.

On the mixtape was the standout cut, “Lick,” which featured her then-boyfriend, later-husband Offset. Yesterday (December 26), Cardi responded to a fan who had shared the video on Twitter, remembering how Cardi “ate this so bad.”

Cardi remembered having butterflies for the man who would later become her husband.

“I couldn’t even breath doing this video …I was crushing hard on Set,” Cardi said.

The two got married later that year, and have been more or less going strong since. Though, Offset admitted in an interview with E! News that took place shortly before Cardi’s 30th birthday this year that it’s getting more challenging for him to buy gifts for his wife.

“These are the hard times,” he joked. “First off, she has everything. Second off, she doesn’t want anything. Third off, I’m gonna get her something because she deserves it. It’s getting harder and harder.”

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Mariah Carey is spending another week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, as fans across the globe were blasting “All I Want For Christmas Is You” during the holidays. In total, Carey’s hit has been at the top of the charts for eleven weeks — and a third consecutive one this year. Billboard also dated this week’s Hot 100 for New Year’s Eve (December 31), meaning Carey holds the final No. 1 song of 2022.

Carey recently became the first woman and second artist to have at least three songs spend eleven or more weeks on the chart. She joined her “One Last Day” collaborators Boyz II Men to hold the significant achievement. Overall, Carey is also the artist to have the most No. 1’s, with 90 in total across her discography.

“YAYYYYYYY!!!! Such an amazing surprise and an early Christmas gift!!! Thank you so much!!!” she previously wrote.

Other notable chart updates on Billboard’s Hot 100 this week include Wham!’s song “Last Christmas” reaching the top 5 for the first time ever. Given the season and the track being a recent TikTok trend, it likely gave it a boost this year.

Holiday songs rounded off the rest of the top 5, with Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” at No. 2, Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” at No. 3, and Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” at No. 4.

The first time I saw Syd Tha Kyd in the flesh, she had to wait patiently to jump into the crowd. It was 2011, the height of Odd Future’s pop culture influence (and infamy) and the kids of Dublin, Ireland had turned up to their show in force to chant “Kill people, burn sh*t, f*ck school” without consequence.

Perched behind the decks in her role as DJ, Syd watched on as members of the Los Angeles collective did about 12 stage dives each — only at the end of the show was she afforded the opportunity to make the awesome leap. Though the only girl in a group of unruly boys, Syd’s tight trim and muscle tops meant she blended into the crew with ease. More importantly, she bent the knee at the same N*E*R*D altar as group archdeacon Tyler The Creator, and her musicality and counsel was crucial to building the rap group into a pop culture phenom — a lot of their early stuff was, in fact, recorded at Syd’s parents’ house.

Yet Odd Future’s success didn’t make her happy. Out on the road, Syd struggled with depression and feelings of disconnect from her family and girlfriend. “I wasn’t in a good place then and so I don’t really reminisce on those moments,” she told NME earlier this year.

A decade later, Syd’s a solo star on a seemingly unbreakable upward flight path. Her most recent album, Broken Hearts Club, is one of the year’s finest and most striking pop records, an electrifying shock of retro-futurist soul and cyber-funk explorations. Nowadays, she doesn’t have to wait for anyone to take her turn.

Sydney Loren Bennett comes from musical stock. Her Jamaica-based uncle Mikey Bennett is one of the songwriters and producers behind Shabba Ranks’ still-great 1991 chart reggae classic “Mr. Loverman.” As a kid, she’d spend family vacations hanging out in the studio and observing her uncle at work. At 16, Syd’s parents let her turn their guesthouse into her own studio. The budding music-maker’s vocation became playing piano and creating beats.

Syd expressed herself by crafting instrumentals for Odd Future, but a more rounded portrayal of her proclivities was coaxed out by her band The Internet. Originally a component piece of Odd Future that Syd later took in her divorce from the group, The Internet flourished from her musical kinship with background OF member Matt Martians. The very Google-incompatible name of the project actually started out as a joke: In 2011, a journalist interviewing Odd Future asked one member, Left Brain, where he was from. “He was like: ‘I hate when people ask me that,’” Syd later remembered. “‘I’m going to start saying I’m from the internet.’”

No joke, The Internet — with Syd on vocals, backed by Martians and Odd Future touring members Patrick Paige, Christopher Smith, and Tay Walker — made serious cosmic funk odysseys and sci-fi soul tunes, with The Neptunes’ influence very palpable: “Dontcha” could be one of Chad and Pharrell’s early Justin Timberlake productions. The band’s first two albums were low-budget efforts laid down in Syd’s home studio, but after a few line-up changes that included the addition of guitarist Steve Lacy, third album Ego Death proved a breakthrough, earning a Grammy nomination and providing a hit in the slinky Kaytranada-produced single “Girl.”

Syd embarked on further explorations on her 2017 solo debut, Fin, crafting a set of foggy, state-of-the-art alt-R&B tunes — The Weeknd and Miguel-type stuff — with flair and focus. She twinned this contemporary sound with confident declarations of her impending supremacy: On the stuttering electro-slap of “Shake Em Off,” Syd accelerates away from “drowning in doubt and frustration” to announce herself a “young star in the making.”

Now, we have Broken Hearts Club, her most pop-minded album yet, the kind of record an artist seeking to reach the highest peaks of musical stardom would make. As with Fin, Syd produces or co-produces a number of tracks, with external beatmakers drafted in too. Besotted with 1980s pomp productions, throwback drum machines and mammoth synth loops complement the catchy choruses. Prince mimicry comes in the form of the obvious “Little Red Corvette” analog “Fast Car,” while “Control” shoots forward a decade to draw strength from Aaliyah’s music with Timbaland, though it is actually produced by none other than Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. In other words, Broken Hearts Club is the future as envisioned by pop stars of yesteryear; a retro-futuristic art installation that sounds fresh and vital.

Yet it is primarily about the most rudimentary pop subject matter: a breakup. The 13 songs veer from being written before and after the dissolution of a relationship, accidentally scripting the tragedy of lost love. So you get an opener like “CYBAH,” a collaboration with Lucky Daye, the title serving as an acronym for a serious question posed throughout the song: “Could you break a heart?” Syd, no longer a Kyd (she hit the big 3-0 in the middle of the year), quizzes a potential new love interest with the kind of bluntness only possible if you’ve old traumas of the heart to bear.

Syd is no tub-thumping vocalist, instead her cool, broken-hearted voice amalgamates with the icy-heat generated from the funky, futurist machine dreams. But that coo really slithers on turn-the-lights-off slow jams like “No Way.” “Don’t know what you’ll have arranged / We’ll be gone, missing for days,” she sings, evoking the sentiment of loverman Maxwell on his classic “Til the Cops Come Knockin’.” And there’s further retro goodness with the sweetly plucked strings of “Right Track” recalling a strand of ’00s chart R&B — think Kandi Burress’s “Don’t Think I’m Not.”

The album reaches its emotional apex on the home straight. “BMHWDY” (“Break my heart, why don’t ya?”) is a desperate yearning, while the pillow-soft “Goodbye My Love” sounds like acceptance. But if those two songs feel fueled by raw emotion, closer “Missing Out” is the full relationship post-mortem. “As far as I can see, you and me could never be,” sings Syd. “‘Cause we didn’t spend the proper time tryna work it out.” Her final realization on this emotional journey is that it’s her ex-girlfriend who’s lost out in this breakup.

Having bore witness to Syd from her artistic inception, it feels like she is reaching maximum speed in what is bound to be a long race. Take it from Beyoncé, who tapped Syd to produce funky ditty “Plastic Off The Sofa,” the most romantic joint on Bey’s new album Renaissance. When you realize that it’s not a dissimilar song to “Heartfelt Freestyle,” a minor number from Broken Hearts Club, it becomes evident that Beyoncé is just as besotted with Syd’s style as her most dedicated disciples. No wonder nobody can say anything to her anymore. When asked by NME if she still seeks the validation of others, Syd shook off the question. “I don’t think I care anymore,” she said. “I know I’m a genius.”

Broken Hearts Club is now via Syd Solo/Columbia. Get it here.

Kyrie Irving played a basketball game in Cleveland on Monday night. It went pretty well for Irving and the Brooklyn Nets, as he scored 32 points in a 125-117 win over the Cavaliers. And after the game, one of Irving’s former teammates with the Cavs advocated for the franchise to lift his jersey into the rafters once his career comes to an end.

“Without a doubt. Absolutely. Right away, after his career ends,” Kevin Love said to Chris Fedor of cleveland.com about whether or not the franchise should retire Irving’s jersey. “It’s not even a question to me. He needs to be up there. He made the biggest shot in franchise history and one of the most important shots in Finals history when you consider how it all went down — what it meant for the city, what it meant for his legacy, LeBron’s legacy and everything else, including that Golden State team that became a dynasty and was historically great.”

The Cavaliers drafted Irving No. 1 overall in the 2011 NBA Draft. After looking like one of the league’s brightest young talent for his first three seasons on a struggling team, Irving was joined in Cleveland by LeBron James, who rejoined the franchise as a free agent, and Love, who the team acquired in a trade with the Minnesota Timberwolves, to create one of the most fearsome trios in all of basketball.

Prior to Irving’s trade to the Boston Celtics ahead of the 2017 season, those three players helped lead the Cavaliers to three NBA Finals appearances in a row. The high point came in 2016, when the team came back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Golden State Warriors to win the only championship in franchise history. Irving averaged 27.1 points per game in the series and hit a three in the waning moments of Game 7 to seal the title.

Back in 2019, The Witcher exceeded all expectations in its first outing, which led to massive streaming success and the swift greenlighting of a warmly received Nightmare of the Wolf animated movie and a prequel series, Blood Origin. However, it’s fair to say that the franchise lost some luster with Season 2, and news that Henry Cavill will depart after Season 3 (arriving in mid-2023) hasn’t helped matters. Liam Hemsworth will take over as Geralt of Rivia, and he’s got an uphill battle ahead of him because the fandom does love Henry.

The Christmas Day release of Blood Origin didn’t help matters. The show’s not as hard to follow as Season 1 of The Witcher, but I found it difficult to warm up to the story even though labels like “Dog Clan” and “Raven Clan” should excite me. As well, the show begins with an interlude from Joey Batey’s Jaskier, a.k.a., “The Bard,” who’s the second-most beloved character of the TV franchise. He’s not belting out a banger but visible in a hellscape while confronted by a different Jaskier, and then the story shows him in present time while Minnie Driver’s shapeshifting elf character asks him to “sing a story back to life.” Presumably, this is all meant to heal the ongoing riff between elves and the rest of the world, and then the story largely cuts to the new characters from an old world.

The show’s Twitter account posted part of this scene to celebrate the end of “Witchmas.”

This should have been a clever way for the franchise to tide us over with a connecting O.G. The Witcher thread, but the prequel isn’t aflame with accolades for the new show. As Rotten Tomatoes details, the aggregate critic score sits at 38% with the audience giving the show even less leeway with a 9% rotten rating. Viewers also seem to agree that the small bit of Jaskier was a highlight, especially how his “I’m not, not into it” declaration to his own clone may have formally canonized The Bard as queer (although I think we knew this already after “Burn Butcher Burn”).

The Witcher: Blood Origin is currently streaming on Netflix.

There were so many great TV shows streaming this year that, naturally, a few failed to receive the attention they deserved. While everyone was tweeting screencaps of Jennifer Coolidge panicking over murder-plotting yacht gays on The White Lotus or debating what constitutes familial incest in their House of the Dragon recaps, these shows were skimming just below the surface, biding their time until someone noticed how undeniably watchable they were.

Well, the wait is over. We’ve watched entirely too much TV this year and we’ll be damned if it doesn’t pay off in some way for these dramas and mystery-thrillers and chill comedies that need to be on everyone’s radar. Here are the best 2022 TV series that demand more hype and more eyes on them.

Interview with the Vampire (AMC+)

This series adaptation of Anne Rice’s peerless gothic horror novel might just be the thirstiest show on TV at the moment (pun intended). Creator Rolin Jones isn’t content to simply retrace old tropes, he revolutionizes Rice’s books, keeping a tight grip on what works about her writing while modernizing her characters and setting to become something singular on-screen. Sam Reid plays the refined and ruthless French nobleman Lestat de Lioncourt while Jacob Anderson plays Louis de Pointe du Lac, a Creole businessman in early 20th-century New Orleans who reluctantly becomes his undead lover. The series embraces the pair’s romance more than any adaptation before and adds layers of meaning and social commentary by gifting Anderson’s Louis a layered backstory that constantly surprises and challenges its source material. And all of that meat is hidden underneath opulent costumes and lush set designs and bloody threesomes, and fleshy, frightening orgies, all of which heighten its horror element and keep you on the edge of your seat.

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

Women banding together to kill bad men will always make for entertaining television. Sharon Horgan knows this, which is why she helped create a series about a group of Irish sisters intent on ridding their tight-knit clan of a monstrous brother-in-law they un-lovingly nickname “The Prick.” Horgan plays Eva, the most level-headed of the group who tries to keep her siblings’ bloodlust under control. Sara Greene, Eve Hewson, Anne-Marie Duff, and Eva Birthistle round out the murderous family who all employ their own methods for ridding themselves of one of TV’s more detestable villains but things devolve into a comedy of errors – one that delights in the dark and macabre while managing to infuse heart and a nuanced message on sisterhood. Come for the many failed assassination attempts, stay for the unexpected storytelling depth.

Outer Range (Amazon Prime Video)

Think Yellowstone meets The Twilight Zone and you’ll come close to grasping the sci-fi sky-country vibes of this Josh Brolin-starring series. There are the normal soap opera elements that make for juicy drama — feuding families, rival ranches, etc. — but they’re all elevated by a central mystery that incorporates some mind-bending genre tropes to great effect. Brolin plays Royal Abbott, a quiet rancher fighting to save his family after tragedy strikes. When he discovers a black void hidden in one of his pastures, he’s forced to question where he comes from and the nature of more abstract concepts like time, space, and the meaning behind it all. It’s weird, it’s eerie, and it makes for a riveting binge-watch.

The Resort (Peacock)

Speaking of weird, this little gem housed on an oft-forgot streaming platform is one of the more daring mystery comedies we’ve seen on TV in a long time. It’s a modern-day Scooby-Doo adventure deep in the jungles of the Mayan Riveria with a series of mysterious disappearances that consume a vacationing couple trying to save their marriage. William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti play Noah and Emma, who seem too comfortable in their routine of ignoring the problems that threaten their relationship to ever change. Their tropical getaway is supposed to help them reconnect, but when Emma becomes obsessed with solving a missing persons case from 15 years ago, they have to work together to avoid seedy cartels, research ailing geniuses and uncover mythic legends made real. It defies genre and, in doing so, sets itself apart from nearly every other show on this list.

Ramy (Hulu)

Ramy hasn’t always been an underrated show. Its first season received a fair amount of due hype. But the dramedy about a young Muslim man navigating the pitfalls of assimilating into American culture while holding onto the values of his immigrant parents has only gotten better as the years go on — and the streaming buzz around the show just hasn’t been able to keep up. In its third season, Ramy takes bigger swings and better storytelling risks, leading fans on a journey to Jerusalem, delivering sharp social commentary on the cost of the American dream, highlighting the struggles of the rest of the Hassan family, and introducing us to a fever dream known as Egyptian Shark Tank.

The Serpent Queen (Starz)

Starz has been home to some of the most polished period pieces on TV for a while now but the latest entry in their ongoing anthology universe about famous, powerful female monarchs of the past has a bit more edge than you might expect. Samantha Morton plays a cunning and cutthroat Catherine de’ Medici, the controversial 16th-century Queen of France while Liv Hill plays her younger counterpart. The show chronicles how Catherine was forced to maneuver amongst a vicious royal court, eventually gaining a foothold and becoming a frightening figure in her own right. There’s scandal and sex and political intrigue — really everything you could hope for from a show like this.

Roar (Apple TV+)

Roar is the unexpected follow-up from GLOW creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch that borrows a couple of stars from the Netflix wrestling comedy to tell an anthology of stories about women’s experiences. Some episodes are pure surrealist fantasy — like Merrit Weaver’s situationship with a talking duck — while others feel like the kind of dystopian futurism ripped straight from a Black Mirror script — like Issa Rae’s cautionary creative tale. It’s all good, if a little f*cked up at times.

Pachinko (Apple TV+)

Adapted from a New York Times bestseller, this moving drama chronicles the journey of one Korean-American family across four generations as each descendant tries to survive and thrive far from their homeland. Youn Yuh-jung’s Sunja is the connecting thread, a young woman living in Japanese-controlled Korea who grows to become the family’s matriarch as her sons and grandchildren branch out — some becoming successful businessmen and attending prestigious universities, others struggling to assimilate into a culture so unlike their own. It’s heartbreaking and inspiring with a surprising amount of authenticity that only adds to its worthwhile story.

Mo (Netflix)

Mo Amer was a breakout in Hulu’s Ramy so it makes sense that he’d co-create and lead a semi-autobiographical comedy series that’s too good, and too funny to miss. Helped by his collaborator Ramy Youssef, Mo follows a Palestinian refugee seeking asylum and citizenship in Houston, Texas. It’s the kind of completely unique story that feels surprisingly relatable and its pacing is so deliberately chill, you won’t see the laughs coming.

1899 (Netflix)

From the twisted minds of the creators of Dark, this period thriller has found a spot in Netflix’s Top 10 recently but really, who the hell knows what that means? The reality is that the word-of-mouth hasn’t matched the pedigree and Lindelofian conspiracy theorizing that this show deserves so it’s going on this list. The basic premise follows a group of passengers aboard a ship to America just a few months after another vessel in the company’s fleet went missing. Strange time loops and unexplained disappearances and a murder or two puts everyone on board on the suspect list, but the twists just keep on coming until the very end and they get wilder with every question answered.