Category: News

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Because the area experiences rainfall year round, it’s not uncommon to see giant waterfalls spontaneously fall from the plateau’s cliffs. And on cloudy days, the tepui more closely resembles some kind of sky island.

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In other words, it’s magical. The indigenous Pemón and Kapon certainly felt this way. According to their folklore, Mount Roraima is the stump of a sacred tree that once held all the fruits and tuberous vegetables of the world. The tree was struck down by the trickster god Makunaima, unleashing a terrible flood.

Throughout history, Mount Roraima has enchanted Native tribes and travelers alike. English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh climbed it in 1596 on his quest to find the legendary golden city of El Dorado. His findings were said to have inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel “The Lost World,” which depicts an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive.

Being home to several species of plants and animals that can only be found on the plateau—including carnivorous pitcher plants and the black and yellow Roraima Bush Toad, which is listed as a vulnerable species—it’s no wonder that Mount Roraima helped bring science fiction worlds to life.

Mount Roraima isn’t the only real-world place that helped create Pandora, by the way. China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Hawaii’s Hamakua Coast, Jamaica’s Bioluminescent Lagoon, New Zealand’s Glowworm Caves and the caves of Thailand’s Khao Sok National Park are just some of the filming locations used for “Avatar” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” collectively.

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Many of us love to watch movies that transport us to mystical imaginary places, but the planet we live on has so much natural beauty to marvel at.

Ahhh, siblings. Sometimes they’re your best friends and other times your living room turns into an MMA octagon over the remote control. If you grew up with brothers and sisters, it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to be an only child. (That’s not to say you didn’t dream about it when your sister stole your favorite shirt for the 30th time.)

But not everyone has siblings, so it can be equally as hard for someone who grew up as an only child to picture what it would be like to have them. Only children also likely had moments where they dreamt of having a little brother or sister, not realizing the literal torment siblings can inflict on each other.

TikTok creator Lonnie IIV recently posted a video of himself with two other friends seemingly out to lunch, when the girl in the group asked what it was like to grow up with siblings. In less than a minute she realized she lucked out being an only child because her two guy friends gave her a crash course in sibling behavior.

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In the clip, Lonnie asked if she wanted her drink but then promptly told her she didn’t want it before swirling his fingers around in her cup. This prompted the other friend to throw his balled-up straw paper at her before repeatedly dipping chopsticks into her soup. The woman just laughed and looked seemingly confused at the nonsense her guy friends were displaying. Of course, no sibling experience would be complete without the classic “stop touching me” added for a little pizzazz.

“She got an entire childhood in less than a minute,” one user wrote.

A different user said, “This is so accurate.”

Other commenters started sharing the things they did to their siblings or vice versa. The comment thread was full of childhood sibling…nostalgia? Seems weird to look back on those memories with fondness, yet here we are.

Honestly, my brother used to ask if he could have a bite of my food, and when I said no, he would just lick it before asking again. In turn, when my brothers wouldn’t let me play video games with them, I would pinch my arm until it turned red and run out of the room crying to tell my mom they hit me.

Kids are weird sometimes and thankfully there are usually doses of love in between. But if you grew up with siblings, you’ll likely appreciate the video below. Or it’ll give you flashbacks. It’s a toss-up. If you don’t have siblings, you may feel the need to have us evaluated. We turned out alright…mostly.

@lonnieiiv

Don’t ask, just bring it

A nationwide group of 30 independent court watch organizations has come together to create a network to ensure justice is served in America’s courtrooms. The National Courtwatch Network is working to expand court watching so that more people in power are held accountable.

The job of a court watcher is simple: Observe the proceedings to ensure justice is served. People can do this by showing up in a courtroom or observing online.

At a time when a growing number of Americans are waking up to systemic social injustice, court watching is a way that ordinary citizens can make a significant impact in the heart of where injustice often takes place. For those who are new to court watching, the organization provides training.

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The organization believes that with a watchful eye on the system, prosecutors and judges will be less likely to impose unaffordable fines, conceal police misconduct, hurt desperate families and ignore physical and mental health issues faced by defendants.

“Every day, thousands of people go through court hearings alone, as if in a national assembly line of injustice,” the National Courtwatch Network says on its website. “This leaves a devastating impact on individuals and communities, who are disproportionately Black and brown and low-income.”

The organization has a celebrity to help promote its message, singer-songwriter and court watcher Fiona Apple, who wrote the music for “The Court Watchers” video. “Court watching is really the gateway to a better community, a better world, because it will make you care,” Apple told The Washington Post. “It makes you care about people you don’t know. And we need more of that. We really need more of that.”

A dad is being praised on TikTok for calling out how perfect attendance awards encourage unhealthy habits.

The father and video creator (who goes by @speechprof on TikTok) recalled going to a recent awards ceremony at his kid’s school, where they were also giving out perfect attendance awards. You remember the ones…those fake certificates celebrating the fact that you…showed up each day?

“I was like, ‘How are we still doing these?’” he said in the video. “After what we just went through and are still going through,” he adds, “how are we rewarding students for something that’s beyond their control?”

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He answered his own question by saying that it’s “funding” that causes schools to incentivize attendance. Washington Post contributor Jackie Spinner backed up this claim in an op-ed against perfect attendance awards back in 2021, where she wrote that average daily attendance was directly tied to funding in schools across seven states, including Texas and California.

Spinner’s argument was that—especially after the COVID-19 pandemic—in-person learning should prioritize health.

TikTok dad @speechprof echoed this sentiment by saying, “In the current state of the world we live in, should we really be encouraging parents to send their sick kids to school? Is that the message we should be sending?”

@speechprof #stitch with @jayrscottyy can we get rid of perfect attendance awards? #parentsoftiktok #stayhome #gettingsick ♬ original sound – The Speech Prof

He posits that instead, we might want to consider “rewarding the students that are responsible citizens and staying home when they’re ill instead of coming to school and getting their classmates sick.”

Otherwise, the message being sent is that kids are “somehow ‘less than,’ they’re not worthy of an award simply because they caught a cold.”

The video quickly went viral and received a ton of comments from people who also felt the award was pointless at best, and at worst, a bit toxic.

“They should rename them ‘My adults send me to school sick’ if they insist on doing them,” one person wrote.

“I had perfect attendance from K-12 and it has benefited me in absolutely no way,” quipped another.

And while @speechprof’s video focused mainly on taking sick days, others pointed out that perfect attendance awards also don’t take holy days of many non-Christian faiths into consideration, nor do they instill treating mental health as a priority.

“Attendance awards bummed me out bcz there was no universe in which a Jewish kid could honor our holidays & have perfect attendance at a public school,” wrote one person.

Another added, “This is why I practice MH days with my daughter I need her to trust how she’s feeling.”

Maybe a perfect attendance award itself doesn’t hold much power, but the concept of how it teaches kids to value pushing through at the risk of their health is worth considering. After all, well-being and agency arguably do a lot more for a person than any certificate can.

This weekend, the NBA will descend upon Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s the biggest weekend of the regular season, as the NBA All-Star Game and everything that comes along with it is finally here. It gives players and coaches a break from the grind of the 82-game sprint to the postseason, and it gives fans a number of events that they look forward to watching on a yearly basis.

Ahead of this year’s weekend, we decided to look at the six events — Friday’s Celebrity Game and Rising Stars Challenge; Saturday’s Skills Challenge, Three Point Contest, and Slam Dunk Contest; Sunday’s All-Star Game — and rank them from best to worst. The worst one, by design, is the Celebrity Game. As for the best? We’ll get to that shortly, but for now…

6. Celebrity Game

I do not need to explain why the Celebrity Game is bad, in large part because the NBA (or ESPN, my memory is a bit fuzzy) has already done this for me. In 2019, the All-Star weekend took place in lovely Charlotte, North Carolina. This remains the only time I went to the see that, as dril once so eloquently put it, the celebs were at it again. Before the game, there was a video package that made fun of how bad the whole thing is. Just a lot of misses, a lot of turnovers, a lot of watching failed U.S. Senate candidates from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania dribbling a basketball off of their foot. Having said all this, it does seem like everyone is in on the joke, and there is something to be said from that (this is also why I love the event with my whole heart). NBA, if you ever want me to do the Celebrity Game despite the fact that I am decidedly not a celebrity, DM me.

5. Skills Challenge

It’s fine? I guess the problem with the Skills Challenge is it’s pretty boring, because it’s not like we’re watching NBA players do anything that’s especially difficult for them. Every now and then you get a not great shooter bricking some threes, or a big fella who’s not quite as tidy dribbling the ball as Chris Paul, but on the whole, the event is just kind of a thing that exists, even if it’ll occasionally add some fun twists like whatever the heck they did with the course last year. Ultimately, the Skills Challenge is an appetizer to what comes later in the evening on Saturday, so it is does its job.

4. Rising Stars Challenge

Does the Rising Stars game suck 99 percent of the time? Yes. Did last year’s version of the event absolutely rock and lead me to believe there is something potentially really, really fun here? Also yes. Adding the Elam Ending and G League Ignite players combine to add some drama to the whole thing, which seems impossible, because it’s the Rising Stars game. I’m putting it here based on potential, but two things: 1. It can fall down to 5 very easily (not 6, because the Celebrity Game exists), 2. The gap between the top-3 and this is considerably large.

3. Slam Dunk Contest

Alright, hear me out. When the Dunk Contest is good, it is the best thing. For my money, there has never been a thing at an All-Star weekend better than Vince Carter’s Dunk Contest performance in 2000. But the issue is the Dunk Contest can be really, really, really bad at its worst. The fact that last year’s Contest was most notable for Cole Anthony taking six hours to throw on some Timbs and Jalen Green doing an NFT dunk(?) is a good example of this — here’s a very upset Stephen A. Smith saying all the things that everyone said in the arena and on social media while they watched the whole thing.

There’s also the fact that we’re seeing less star power than ever in the event. This year: Mac McClung, Trey Murphy, Kenyon Martin III, Jericho Sims. Last year: Anthony, Green, Obi Toppin, Juan Toscano-Anderson. At the 2021 All-Star weekend which was impacted by COVID: Anfernee Simons, Cassius Stanley, Toppin. You have to go back to the famous 2020 contest where Aaron Gordon and Derrick Jones Jr. dueled (and sparked a judging controversy) for a really memorable one that had names that drew fans in (beyond those two, Pat Connaughton and Dwight Howard participated). It feels like the event is losing some of its luster, which knocks it down a bit, especially compared to…

2. Three Point Contest

The Three Point Contest is the best thing on All-Star Saturday night. For years, the Dunk Contest held this crown, but as the years have gone on, this event on the undercard tends to be much better at delivering big names and drama. As the NBA (and the sport of basketball, really) has become more and more defined by the ability to hit threes, the Three Point Contest has become a showcase of the single most valuable skill in the game right now. And because the title of “best shooter in the world” is so coveted, the guys who participate legitimately care about putting on a show.

It also does a wonderful job mixing the people who are the best at that skill with some of the biggest names in the game — prior to Anfernee Simons getting hurt, four of the six players with the most made threes in the league this season (Buddy Hield, Simons, Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum) were in the field. The last two winners, Karl-Anthony Towns and Steph Curry, are All-NBA caliber players. The whole event is just fantastic, keeps finding ways to get more and more entertaining, and has become the best part of Saturday night.

1. The All-Star Game

Two additions, the Elam Ending in the fourth quarter and teams that are picked by captains, have brought the game to a new level. There’s even an added twist on that second thing this year, as the captains will pick their teams live and in the arena prior to the game. That rocks! I am glad they’re doing this, it absolutely takes an already fun thing and makes it even more fun. I am saying this in part because I am a contentsman and this, potentially, helps us with the whole traffic thing.

Anyway, the All-Star Game hits on every note. It’s a celebration of the game and its best players, obviously, and the league has done a good job turning it into a spectacle that goes beyond basketball. People like Common and (this year) Vin Diesel have introduced players before the game, there’s a halftime show that has increasingly involved more and more artists, etc. And every now and then, you get something like last year’s NBA 75 celebration, which is one of the very best things the league has ever done. It’s the weekend’s main event for a very, very good reason.

Taylor Sheridan volleyed from a steady-enough acting career (Sons of Anarchy and an array of procedural shows) to a whirlwind of writing hits, including Sicario, all the way to helming his own universe for the Paramount Network. That has, of course, included the launch of Paramount+, where several of his series bring plenty of lingering eyeballs after people stop by to watch Top Gun: Maverick. Mind you, there are a lot of Taylor Sheridan shows for people to enjoy on streaming, and although Yellowstone is not actually available on Paramount+ at the moment (you can watch it on Peacock), there’s plenty more there including Yellowstone spinoffs and adjacent shows. These include projects starring Sylvester Stallone and Jeremy Renner and future series to come.

How can you keep track of every Taylor Sheridan-verse show and know where to stream them? We’ve got you covered here. Although there’s currently some drama involving both Yellowstone (Kevin Costner might be out the door soon with an A-list McConaughey on the horizon) and Tulsa King (showrunner Terence Winter is departing with a replacement yet to be announced), they’re firmly part of the roster of ongoing Sheridan hits. He is involved with all of these series — some are directly part of the Yellowstone timeline and others completely unrelated — in varying capacities, whether that’s on the creation side or as full-on writer, executive producer, and more.

Yellowstone (Streaming on Peacock)

Here’s the granddaddy of them all. If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably at least checked out the series starring Kevin Costner as John Dutton, so we won’t spend time describing the show. What does matter is that the drama is now extending beyond the Chief Joseph Ranch and out into the real world because Costner might be leaving the building. Such a development would obviously complicate the rest of the Sheridan universe and carry far-reaching Dutton fallout, which we’ll briefly discuss in a moment.

1883 (Streaming on Paramount+)

This first-to-arrive prequel follows on the heels of the initial series’ runaway success and stars Sam Elliot, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Billy Bob Thornton. The story goes back to the travels of the O.G. Dutton family moving through the Wild West on the way to Montana. Basically, this is all about the search for America’s promised land, which will yield bittersweet discoveries with welcome callbacks to the beloved series that brought those fans to the franchise in the first place.

1923 (Streaming on Paramount+)

Even more A-list power arrived with another prequel/origin story for the Dutton family. As the show’s title suggests, this show picks up four decades following the events of 1883, and two land-defending Duttons are portrayed by Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. There are forces of nature to contend with, sure, but more than that, there’s the Great Depression and Prohibition and predatory parties circling aplenty. A ton of antagonists would like to get their hands on that ranch property, but Helen Mirren ain’t having it. Surely, you’ve seen her work, right? She means business.

6666 (In development)

Although the title of this show suggests some evil cowboys afoot, the label does arrive with context. Reportedly, the still-in-development series will take place at the 6666 Ranch in Texas. As TV Guide points out, this is a direct reference to a Season 5 episode, in which John Dutton’s daughter, Beth, found inspiration from the ranch and decided to “to start selling Yellowstone-branded beef,” and this spinoff would follow the stories that take place with that famous ranch’s cowboys.

Mystery Matthew McConaughey Project? (Up in the air, TBA)

As the label indicates, this one’s a puzzler, but according to an initial report from Deadline, the Magic Mike star is “in talks” to lead a “franchise extension to continue the Dutton saga.” This could be great timing, considering reports that Kevin Costner wishes to leave this universe, and McConaughey’s Texan-yet-adaptable drawl would be right at home in either a Yellowstone offshoot or if they even tried to pop him into the flagship series. Stay tuned on that note.

And now for Sheridan-involved, non-Yellowstone shows…

Mayor Of Kingstown (Streaming on Paramount+)

Jeremy Renner has had a tough time of things in real life lately, but he’s still part of the Taylor Sheridan stable of successes. The Yellowstone king co-created this show with Hugh Dillon, and the story follows Dillon’s observations from his formative years near Ontario’s Kingston Penitentiary. Renner is the figurative “mayor” of the title, meaning that he’s the sales dude who negotiates deals between inmates and law enforcement. Renner truly hits a higher gear in crime drama mode.

Tulsa King (Streaming on Paramount+)

Sylvester Stallone has been leading up to this role for his whole career, and he’s genuinely having a blast as a mafia boss with the run of an entire city, which yes, simply happens to be Tulsa. Who would have thought that this city would be so hot on TV these days? After Watchmen and amid the ongoing Reservation Dogs, TV characters cannot seem to stay away from the semi-appealing armpit of Route 66. Stallone delivers a fun and emotional performance in an irresistible show that’s so-far helmed by Boardwalk Empire‘s Terence Winter with a replacement to come. Winter has chosen to move onto other projects, although a second season is in the works for Balboa in the Heartland.

Lioness (In post-production)

This series shall star Zoe Saldaña as top brass at the CIA’s Lioness Program (modeled after the real life entity), where she will mentor and mold recruits into tough undercover operatives. These young women will go on to assassinate baddies in dangerous situations, although one such situation grows complicated when a recruit must grow close to a terrorist’s daughter in order to reach a mark. The show’s been filming in Maryland, and while we don’t have a release date yet, that should be coming soon.

Land Man (In pre-production)

Billy Bob Thornton already portrayed U.S. Marshal Jim Courtright in 1883, but he picks up a completely different character for this series outside the Yellowstone timeline and which is based upon the hit podcast of the same name. Here, Thornton portrays an oil company crisis manager, who wheels and deals in West Texas while tangling with “roughnecks” and “wildcat billionaires” who found their fortune in, you guessed it, Texas Tea. The podcast story took on the paradigm shift that went down in the process, so it should be a solid time onscreen, too.

Bass Reeves (In development)

This series will star David Oyelowo and (recently announced addition) Barry Pepper and also stars Dennis Quaid, Forrest Goodluck, and Lauren E. Banks. The show revolves around the real-life Bass Reeves, who is recognized in the history books as the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshall of the West. The show’s description duly recognizes him “as the greatest frontier hero in American history, worked in the post-Reconstruction era as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory, capturing over 3,000 of the most dangerous criminals without ever being wounded.”

Will there be more to come? We don’t doubt that it’s possible.

The Inside the NBA crew seems to like each other — you don’t work with people for as long as they have unless you do. Having said that, there have been plenty of moments over the years where they try to rile one another up, presumably because it is extremely funny when they do that.

Shaquille O’Neal tried his hardest to do just that on Thursday night while the fellas were in Salt Lake City for this weekend’s All-Star Game. Shaq, unsurprisingly, decided to try and prod Charles Barkley by getting the crowd in attendance to chant “We Hate Chuck,” which, Barkley played in the Western Conference for a while and played against Utah in the 1997 conference finals, so maybe Jazz fans have some long-standing disdain for the dude.

The issue that Shaq ran into is this is not the case, and after this fell flat, the fans actually started to chant “We Love Chuck.”

In fairness to Shaq, he did say this was in an effort to see if the fans loved or hated the Round Mound of Rebound, so he ultimately did get an answer to his question. And once his first chant didn’t work, both Shaq and Kenny Smith led the “We Love Chuck” chant, which was far more well-received.

Whether he was hanging out with the Muppets, cameoing on New Girl, or serving pancakes following a game of basketball, Prince was as unpredictable as he was brilliant. He also knew how to plan a memorable date.

On Friday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, Pushing Daisies actress Kristin Chenoweth revealed that she was once wooed by The Purple One.

Chenoweth didn’t believe it was Prince at first, understandably so, but she agreed to a date at Paisley Park once she confirmed that it wasn’t an elaborate prank. “I’m sweating bullets, I’m so nervous,” she recalled. “And here comes, ‘click, click, click, click.’ Prince’s heels, right? Comes in. He was like, ‘Hi.’ I was like, ‘I’d like to party like it’s 1999 and wear my raspberry beret.’” Prince was not amused (at least go with deep cuts, jeez), but things improved after dinner when they had a “great talk about life, love, faith.”

They made their way to his basement, where he showed her his display of 200 guitars. “He goes, ‘Pick one up. Play one.’ So I picked up this long, white-necked one. I turned it over and it was all scratched. I was like, ‘What happened?’ He goes, ‘Elvis’ belt.’”

Prince then brought Chenoweth to his theater, where “he played a video of Chenoweth performing that he said ‘inspired’ him,” according to Decider (I hope it was this). Prince told her, “What you do is what I like to do. And please never stop.” Chenoweth doesn’t divulge what happened the rest of the night — she doesn’t (sorry Prince) kiss and tell.

You can watch the clip below.

(Via Decider)

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.

10. Abbott Elementary (Hulu)

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

9. Cunk on Earth (Netflix)

Philomena Cunk first appeared as a character in Charlie Brooker’s little universe of shows, making her mark as an “expert” and “investigative reporter” who knew very little about anything but was very confident about all of it anyway. Here, she gets her own playground to go wild, with a full season to examine the history of the world. It’s a ton of fun, part Nathan for You, part Daily Show reports from the field, but still entirely original. And really, really funny. This is a good one to sit down with for a few hours with your brain turned down to a low hum. Let Philomena Cunk teach you nothing of value for a little bit. You deserve this break.

Watch it on Netflix

8. Star Trek: Picard (Paramount Plus)

Sir Patrick Stewart’s most iconic character (yes, including X-Men) heads into his final season in the 25th century. This show provides a bounty of happiness for Star Trek: The Next Generation viewers, given that many fan-favorite characters are all onboard, along with Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager. This season will see Picard deal with the threat of Captain Vadic, and it’s something to behold that this particular era of the franchise has now carried on for over 25 years. The “final frontier” keeps on kicking.

Watch it on Paramount Plus

7. Hello Tomorrow (Apple TV)

Human beings need dreams, but do dreams need salespeople? And are those salespeople providing a service by distracting people with hope or are they just setting people up for disappointment while lining their own pockets? These questions come to mind when watching Hello Tomorrow, Apple’s new Billy Crudup-starring drama that blends 1950s futurism with an exploration of hope (in the form of timeshares on the moon), regret, and the heaven on earth that is redemption.

Watch it on Apple TV Plus

6. You (Netflix)

Joe Goldberg has another new name, and he’s moved to London. More news: the stalker is the one being stalked. Joe also has a new beard, but someone’s still onto him, but most importantly for his purposes, he’s vowed to finally change his ways, but books are still there for him. He’s now Jonathan Moore, a fake professor, who’s staring into the souls of college students and the adults who can’t quit academia, either. Penn Badgley has admitted to to feeling “icky” about a Season 4 poster, which still fits with the theme of the show, but now, it’s also a mystery story.

Watch it on Netflix

5. Full Swing (Netflix)

This new docuseries from Netflix about the PGA Tour really struck gold with the timing. They thought they were getting a Drive to Survive-style product about the ins and outs of professional golf but then they stumbled into a global controversy about an upstart new league funded by the Saudi government that wooed away a bunch of the PGA’s biggest stars. There is drama here. Lots of it. Which should make for a fun watch.

Watch it on Netflix

4. Shrinking (Apple TV Plus)

The mental health and comedy crossover of Ted Lasso was apparent in the show’s second season as Ted’s coping mechanisms started to falter, pushing him to get some help. Shrinking, which comes from the minds of Lasso producer Bill Lawrence and Lasso writer/co-star Brett Goldstein (as well as series star Jason Segel) begins in a similar place with its main character, played by Segel, realizing that his strategies aren’t working when it comes to managing grief, having a relationship with his daughter, and helping the patients who come to him for help as their therapist. What follows is an odyssey of personal rediscovery with plenty of awkward moments, incremental improvements, and a whole lot of charming grouchiness from Harrison Ford as a begrudging mentor type.

Watch it on Apple TV Plus

3. Planet Sex With Cara Delevingne (Hulu)

The supermodel with loads of famous friends will (as the title of this series suggests) explore all things related to sexuality and the relationships and dynamics that revolve around it. She recently told Variety that making this series made her feel slightly prudish, if that tells you anything at all. It’ll be sheer, awkward fun, as is already evidenced by how she was instructed to take care of herself for a full ten minutes and the report to the camera. Hmm.

Watch it on Hulu

2. The Last of Us (HBO Max)

One of the most popular video games of all-time comes to HBO as a television series, with Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal leading the cast on a post-apocalyptic trek through a harsh landscape filled with horrors. The reviews are really good. HBO gave it the primo Sunday night slot it reserved for shows like Game of Thrones and Succession. It’s led by Craig Mazin, who also produced Chernobyl, another gripping watch about the potential end of the world. There is a lot to be excited about here. Dive in so you know what your cool friends are talking about.

Watch it on HBO Max

1. Poker Face (Peacock)

Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne have combined their powers to give us a gift that keeps on giving with a case-of-the-week style detective show featuring a hyper-observant and very idiosyncratic lead. Played by Lyonne, Charlie Cale just happens to be on the lam and on a roll when it comes to stumbling into other people’s very bad days. Part Columbo with dashes of Highway To Heaven and Psych, Poker Face is a true slice of comfort food, smart, funny, and distinctive.

Watch it on Peacock

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.

10. Sick (Peacock)

A group of friends decides to hunker down during the COVID-19 lockdown together at nice little lake house and… wait a second. This sounds like the plot of a horror movie. Which makes sense because… it is the plot of a horror movie. This horror movie. The Blumhouse team is at it again, with a slasher on the loose and a deadly virus in the air and about four other things to be terrified of. Maybe there’s a monster in the lake, too. Who knows? Only one way to find out…

Watch it on Peacock

9. Pamela, A Love Story (Netflix)

Pamela Anderson gets the full documentary treatment from Netflix. Which makes sense. Very few people have defined an entire era of sex appeal and beauty standards — for better or worse — than the Baywatch star did in the 1990s. This look at her life covers, well, all of that, as well as the infamous sex tape and various rock star marriages and her activism for animal rights. It’s kind of a lot, really, which also makes sense. The woman has lived a big life, in a bunch of ways, and now she’s telling the story in her own words.

Watch it on Netflix

8. The Pez Outlaw (Netflix)

We all have our little preoccupations and collections. Baseball cards, Funko Pops, creepy victorian dolls with their watchful eyes and secrets. Pez Outlaw is about, you guessed it, collecting pez dispensers, those cheap plastic candy dispensers of yore. But it’s also about making cold hard cash, the lengths one will go to feed their habit for pez and profits, black markets, and international intrigue. So pop back the head of this doc and bite out the sweet treat of infotainment with this hyper-stylized doc.

Watch it on Netflix

7. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)

Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc with a whole new cast of potential murdermakers to relish. Dave Bautista as a scantily clad social media sensation is only one of the ensemble highlights, and the endless buffet of cameos can not be stopped, nor do the story’s twists feel gratuitous or implausible. Instead, the film dances through mischief and swings bigger and better with a series of bewitching wrinkles and knots that will make you forgive the runtime. In fact, you’ll barely notice the passage of time because this film is fun and cerebral and makes perfect sense when all is revealed. Also, one of the greatest TV murder detectives in history makes a (bittersweet) cameo, for crying out loud. Netflix really should have run with a longer theatrical window, but at least it’s streaming for you now.

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6. You People (Netflix)

Black-ish creator Kenya Barris makes his directorial debut in this movie that appears to star too many funny people. We’ve got Eddie Murphy and Jonah Hill (who plays one half of a couple completed by Lauren London) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Sam Jay to bring laughs. Also look for a hefty dose of Nia Long and David Duchovny, who plays a dad (bye bye, Fox Mulder and Hank Moody, who was a different kind of dad). The subject matter happens to be romance and cultural clashes, but fortunately, yes, there are many funny people here.

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5. Tár (Peacock)

Tár is a performance piece for Cate Blanchett, which is great because Cate Blanchett always deserves a place to do stuff like that. Here, she plays composer Lydia Tár, a kind of mad genius who is a few days away from a huge symphony performance and dealing with everything around her falling apart. It’s a psychological roller coaster and can be a heavy lift but if you want to see Cate Blanchett give it the full Cate Blanchett, buddy, Tár is the movie for you.

Watch it on Peacock

4. Your Place or Mine (Netflix)

Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon play mismatched best friends — she loves the calm of California, he loves the chaos of New York — who swip-swap houses for a week for reasons that we could explain, but… you’ve seen a rom-com before. You know how this goes. The draw here is less the story than the star power, with a couple of our more charming faces shining bright. A solid watch for a quiet Valentine’s.

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3. Somebody I Used To Know (Amazon Prime)

Dave Franco and wife Alison Brie already have one on-screen project in the books – the unsettling thriller The Rental that will likely turn you off Air BnB for good. For their follow-up, the couple takes on a different genre – swapping horror for comedy – and a different, but no less cringeworthy, topic. Brie plays Ally, a successful TV producer who’s thrown a professional curveball and forced to seek solace in the one place she swore never to return: home. She reconnects with her ex Sean, rediscovers herself, and for a while, Somebody I Used to Know reads like a plot-by-numbers rom-com — until Sean’s fiancé pops up and wedding festivities begin and a possible throuple forms? Come for the secondhand embarrassment-fueled laughs, stay for the surprising amount of heart.

Watch it on Amazon Prime

2. The Menu (HBO Max)

A horror-comedy set on an island where a fancy young couple has traveled to dine at a world-class restaurant led by a world-class chef who may have other things in store for them beyond your standard filets and Caesar salads. It’s… weird. But also surprisingly fun. Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult are out there — apologies for this awful pun but it had to be done — making a meal of it all. In a good way. Definitely in a better way than their characters do. It’s a good time. Just maybe don’t start it before dinner.

Watch it on HBO Max

1. Sharper (Apple TV)

Lots going on here, all of it intriguing. We’ve got Julianne Moore and Sebastian Stan and John Lithgow all starring in what Apple describes as a twisty neo-noir thriller where a con artist takes on a slew of Manhattan billionaire. That’s probably enough to get you excited, at least a little. You could do a lot worse, that’s for sure. The world needs more Julianne Moore.

Watch it on Apple TV Plus