As has become almost routine on AMC’s delightful weekly chat show, Friday Night in the with Morgans, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his wife Hilarie Burton always bring in someone from the AMC family. A few weeks ago, it was Michael Cudlitz and Sarah Wayne Callies — who revealed the one thing that Andrew Lincoln could not do well — and last week, it was Rhea Seehorn, who talked about the evolution of fan theories on Better Call Saul.

On this week’s episode of Friday Night in with the Morgans, they brought on Samantha Morton, who played Alpha on The Walking Dead. Recall that Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Samantha Morton not only shared a lot of scenes together in season ten, but had a disturbing sex scene that prompted a rare sexual content rating for the episode.

Morton is quarantining with her family in Northern England in the “middle of nowhere. Bronte country.” During the episode, a popular topic during quarantine-times came up, specifically how partners across the world now have to cut the hair of their children and significant others. Burton has cut Morgan’s hair, for instance, and Meredith Salenger — who was also in the episode with husband Patton Oswalt — also had to cut his hair. Samantha Morton — who was completely bald as Alpha — hasn’t had to worry about cutting her hair. She’s more concerned with growing her hair out post-The Walking Dead, where they even shaved off her eyebrows.

“I haven’t seen hair on you in two years,” Morgan said to Morton.

“I look like an extra on Falcon Crest, Morton says. “When they shaved my eyebrows off, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s fine. Whoopi Goldberg looks amazing. I do not look fine with no bloody eyebrows at all!”

“Can I say this,” she continued, as she tried to shape her hair. “My hair doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s sticking up like Elvis, and it doesn’t know if it wants to be curly. I’m just in trouble. If anyone is watching out there has some ideas for Sammy Morton’s hair,” she added. “Please let me know.”

It doesn’t look bad at all!

As for The Walking Dead, Morton misses it. “I miss Georgia. I miss the people. I miss the crew, the cast. I miss my job!” Morton, however, singled out Morgan. “I miss you. Without being rude, there are a lot of male actors I have worked with that have real odd egos, you know? And that are not really there for other people. So, I want to say thank you to you for being so cool and kind and brilliant.”

Friday Night in with the Morgans airs on AMC on Friday nights during the quarantine.

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The most recent episodes of Rick and Morty have deconstructed the show’s basic principles in some interesting ways, but Sunday’s latest might be the most interesting departure yet if things go the way Jerry hopes. The latest episode appears to have a strong lack of science fiction elements in it, as Jerry wants the family to have a nice trip out in the wilderness without any universe-altering events taking place.

In a clip posted to the official Rick and Morty Twitter page on Saturday, the Smith family is driving in a car loaded with suitcases and everyone but Jerry seemingly annoyed by the journey to somewhere. And the tweet’s text implies it will actually follow Jerry’s best intentions. Maybe.

Summer bemoans missing Mike Triscuit’s drug party — “Look at this — he’s already watching Euphoria to pregame” — while Morty longs for the sweet glow of a television projecting video games. But this trip is strictly about family, according to Jerry. And that means a departure from the ordinary arc of episodes.

“We’re roughing it,” Jerry says. “And that means no sci-fi bullsh*t.”

Jerry confirms the lack of sci-fi bullsh*t with Rick, who then tries to ignore a phone call that somehow makes the entire car vibrate? Seems like some sci-fi bullsh*t to me. We’ll see just how strictly the episode actually adheres to Jerry’s plans, but it seems pretty clear that Jerry hopes things stay nice and calm.

During the current worldwide pandemic, movie studios are no longer providing box-office figures because theaters have been shut down around the nation and the world. Because we are less interested in the actual figures themselves and more interested in what people are watching over the weekends, each week we will dive into Most Streamed and Bestseller Lists on Fandango, iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu to pinpoint the weekend’s most watched films.

On Memorial Day weekend last year, Aladdin opened with more than $110 million, John Wick: Chapter 3 earned $31 million in its second weekend, and Avengers: Endgame crossed the $800 million mark after five weeks. Brightburn also opened that weekend. Remember James Gunn’s Brightburn? No one else does, either. It opened last year with $9.5 million and faded from there.

The box office would kill right now for a $9.5 million flop, especially when a horror movie called The Wretched has been at the top of the box office in May, earning around $300,000 in drive-in theaters. Even “successes,” like the release of last weekend’s Tom Hardy movie Capone, feel underwhelming, as it earned about $2.5 million in revenue on a $20 million budget. It may earn a profit, but it’ll be a long haul, and it’s already fallen from second to 11th on the iTunes rental charts, while it’s now 7th on Fandango’s VOD charts.

The top five on the VOD charts look a lot like they did a month ago, with the exception of Scoob!, which remains the top film on all the digital charts (iTunes, Fandango, Amazon). Given its placement the last two weeks, it’s curious as to why Warner Brothers hasn’t released any figures, since Universal was so eager to brag about the $100 million success of Trolls World Tour.

Otherwise, the VOD charts include familiar titles: Bad Boys for Life, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Invisible Man. It is worth noting, however, that while it hasn’t been in the top five since the outset of the pandemic, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out has been hovering in the top tier of releases for a couple of months, so cumulatively it’s doing very well, as are a few other titles that cling to the upper rungs like The Way Back, Bloodshot, and Emma.

There’s not much shaking on the Hulu movie charts this weekend, although it is worth noting that a movie called Military Wives starring Kristen Scott Johnson and Sharon Horgan, which is getting fairly good reviews, is available now on Hulu. It’s also doing OK on the iTunes rental charts for those who do not have Hulu. The Painter and the Thief is also on Hulu, and it is getting phenomenal reviews.

Elsewhere, over on Netflix, the highly anticipated Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani romcom Lovebirds, has debuted in the top spot this Memorial Day weekend. The film was supposed to be released in theaters last month, but when that fell through, it became the first movie of the pandemic to move from theaters to Netflix. Reviews suggest that it probably was best suited to Netflix from the beginning. It’s not that it’s getting unfavorable reviews (66 percent), it’s just that most of the reviews note the low-stakes. It feels like a Netflix and chill kind of movie, although I’m sure many of us would kill to see it — or anything else — in a movie theater this weekend.

In at number two is Happy Madison’s The Wrong Missy, last weekend’s top Netflix film. The reviews may be terrible, but it’s clear that the money Netflix is spending for these Adam Sandler produced films is worth it for the streaming service. In fact, another Adam Sandler film, Just Go with It (with Jennifer Aniston), jumped to number three this weekend. Meanwhile at number four and five are Soul Surfer and Public Enemies, two more films that have weirdly resurfaced on Netflix during the pandemic.

For new movies, next weekend will be a slow one, with no major VOD or Netflix releases. However, Sandler’s Uncut Gems arrives on Netflix tomorrow, and I suspect everyone is clearing the way for Greg Daniels’ and Steve Carell’s Space Force series next weekend.

Source: iTunes, Fandango, Netflix, Hulu

In the near future, Slingbaum will share his debut album Slingbaum One with the world. Contrary to most debut albums of today, Slingbaum’s debut will be comprised of just three songs and will be a vinyl-only release. Giving fans their first preview of what’s to come, Slingbaum shared the first track on the album, “Behoove,” on Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 6 show.

The roughly six-minute track sees guest appearances from D’Angelo and Erykah Badu. In addition to their vocal contributions, “Behoove” also finds appearances from former Internet member and brother of Thundercat, Jameel Bruner, as well as Keyon Harrold, Marcus Strickland, Austin Williamson, and more. The song stands as D’Angelo’s first vocal contribution since joining Rapsody’s “Ibithaj” last summer, while the song follows Erykah Badu’s Verzuz battle with Jill Scott and a pair of quarantine livestreams from her bedroom.

As for the remaining two tracks on Slingbaum One, FKA Twigs, Oumou Sangaré, Nick Hakim, and Questlove will join Slingbaum for “Strangers” while Damon Albarn, Bilal, Syd, and Ahmad Jamal join him for “Morphine.” Vinyl pre-orders for Slingbaum One have already closed but for those who were able to pre-order the album, they will receive a digital download by the end of the month. For those who were unable to pre-order the album, a limited amount of copies of Slingbaum One will be available at select record stores this spring.

To hear the track, head over of the May 23 episode of Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 6 show here and fast forward to 1:50:55.

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Saving on beauty dupes means I can just…get more lipsticks.

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