GoneTrending

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. (tie) I Love You, You Hate Me (Peacock)

To many, Barney The Dinosaur was a foundational and positive part of their childhood, filling their days with song and love, but the icon also found himself caught in the middle of a still-raging war between snark and sentimentality, sparking hate from hate groups of the early internet era that, in I Love You, You Hate Me, get credit for helping to unlock the culture of grievance and rage that feels more prevalent and caustic now. Throw in side stories about a tantric sex guru, a shooting, and some Blues Clues Steve wisdom on the uncomplicated positivity of Barney and you get a pretty rich and compelling 2-part docuseries. Watch it on Peacock.

10. (tie) Elvis (HBO Max)

Baz Lurhman’s Elvis biopic is trash. Beautiful, glorious trash. The kind you leave out on your front porch for your neighbors to marvel at in grotesque disbelief. It’s hip-gyrating, finger-thrusting, sweat-pouring theatrics packaged in lush cinematography, contained in a classic underdog story that reaffirms everything you thought you knew about the King of Rock and Roll, and then adds some weird personal fodder that makes you question everything you thought you knew about the King of Rock and Roll. Austin Butler is mesmerizing, and so is whatever the hell Tom Hanks is doing in this thing. Enjoy it for what it is – a beautifully-shot fever dream filled with some great tunes. Watch it on HBO Max.

10. (tie) Thor: Love and Thunder (Disney Plus)

Thor is back once again and he brought some new friends with him. Natalie Portman, to be specific. Which is fun. This follow-up to the also-fun Ragnarok has made the move from theaters to streaming and into your living rooms. That’s another fun thing. It is almost unreasonable how good Chris Hemsworth is in these movies. You should not be allowed to look like that and be that funny. Someone should make a rule about it. Until then… watch it on Disney Plus.

9. Hocus Pocus 2 (Disney Plus)

Oh look! Another glorious sequel. Fans have been clamoring for a followup to this spooky childhood classic for so long that, now that it’s finally here, there’s some understandable apprehension. Can it capture the magic (pun intended) of its predecessor? Will the surprise musical numbers go as hard? Will Disney allow more tongue-in-cheek one liners about Satanic worship and child cannibalism to flourish (because we really need to hear Sarah Jessica Parker confirm she smells children, just one more time)? We don’t have all the answers but it’s never a bad thing when Bette Midler, Parker, and Kathy Najimy get together on screen. And we wouldn’t be caught dead talking smack about the Sanderson sisters. Watch it on Disney Plus.

8. Do Revenge (Netflix)

A revenge fantasy set in an impossibly luxurious school where impossibly rich kids trade impossibly sharp and smart barbs, Do Revenge is not to be believed as a real slice of teenage life, but it is to be enjoyed. A lot. Led by Maya Hawke and Camila Mendes, Do Revenge is the perfect mean-teen movie, giving us all the fun and fierce cross of Mean Girls, Clueless, Heathers, 10 Things I Hate About You, Cruel Intentions, and Throw Momma From The Train (!?) that we didn’t know we needed, but we so, so did. Watch it on Netflix.

7. The Redeem Team (Netflix)

So here’s what happened. The Dream Team took the world by storm at the 1992 Olympics, with Magic and Michael and Larry and a slew of other Hall of Famers coming together to win gold in almost hilariously dominant fashion. Then, over the next 15 years, playing for USA Basketball became less appealing and things all got weird. Until, that is, 2008, when everyone from LeBron James to Dwyane Wade to Kobe Bryant had enough and got the band together for what became known as The Redeem Team. Now, 14 years after that, there’s a documentary about it. Feels like a must-watch for hoops fans. At least a should-watch. So… watch it on Netflix.

6. Hellraiser (Hulu)

You are probably at least a little familiar with Hellraiser, the 1987 horror classic directed by Clive Barker. It’s been depicted on the screen in one way or another 11 times now, so that feels like a pretty safe assumption. The 11th and most recent version comes to Hulu and stars Odessa A’zion and Jamie Clayton. The official description goes something like this: “A young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites, a group of sadistic supernatural beings from another dimension.” It is always a bummer when that happens. Watch it on Hulu.

5. Rosaline (Hulu)

Hulu is continuing its tradition of taking dusty old romance classics and reimagining them for our more modern, thumb-swiping times (see Fire Island) by tackling, who else, Shakespeare. If you’ve ever heard the tale of two teenagers from warring families who off-ed themselves instead of, I don’t know, giving group therapy a try and thought to yourself, “Huh, this is really messed up,” then this rom-com is for you. Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever plays Rosaline, the girl Romeo drops like a hot potato soon after meeting his Juliet. Jilted and craving revenge, she enacts a plan to keep the lovers apart and … well, you know how things go. Sharply smart and wickedly funny, it’s the kind of Shakespeare re-telling no one knew to ask for but you’ll be happy it exists anyway. Watch it on Hulu.

4. The School for Good and Evil (Netflix)

Lot going on here. Let’s start at the beginning. Paul Feig directs a cinematic take on a book of the same name about two kids who get swept away to an enchanted school where students learn to be heroes and villains in an attempt to keep the universe in balance. This is why “the school for good and evil” is right there in the title. We’ve got magic and teen angst and a heck of a cast that includes everyone from Charlize Theron to Kerry Washington to Laurence Fishburne to Michelle Yeoh. Again, a lot going on here. Most of it promising or at least interesting. Worth a shot, probably. Watch it on Netflix.

3. Wendell and Wild (Netflix)

If you’re missing Key & Peele, we have some good news for you. Multiple seasons of the Comedy Central series will arrive on Netflix in November, so you can get your Hingle McCringleberry on, right from the comfort of your living room. In the meantime, you can enjoy Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s voices (along with that of Angela Bassett) as they play plotting demons who tangle with a teen who digs punk rock. Watch it on Netflix.

2. The Good Nurse (Netflix)

Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne star in a mostly fictionalized account of Charlie Cullen, a New Jersey nurse who was found responsible for dozens of murders of patients over a 16-year period. The star power is here and everyone seems to love semi-true stories about serial killers lately so there’s at least even money odds that this sucker takes off. Just don’t watch it before you have a doctor appointment. That would not be fun. Watch it on Netflix.

1. Halloween Ends (Peacock)

The Halloween franchise is back for one last ride. Probably. The word “ends” is right there in the title so it’s a decent assumption, at least. For now. Jamie Lee Curtis is running around with a gun and there will be spooky music and ominous shots of Michael Myers and tons of callbacks to all the previous installments in the series. The bigger issue here is that Michael Myers has been terrorizing these poor people for almost 50 years now. Leave it alone, buddy. Move on. Watch it on Peacock.

Much has been made about The Watcher and for solid reason. The limited series has cemented Ryan Murphy’s place as a Netflix force, given that he held tight with two shows atop the Netflix charts at the same time. In addition, plenty of people who would have preferred a definitive ending expressed disappointment at the lack of a concrete conclusion. I still maintain that the show is worth watching despite complaints, but who does The Watcher end up being on the TV show?

As you’re likely aware by now, The Watcher is inspired by the real-life ordeal of the Broaddus family. They purchased what they believed to be their dream home in New Jersey and soon began to receive threatening letters from a mysterious person who raved about “young blood” while stalking the home and family. No one ever figured out who this real-life Watcher is, and the Broadduses moved out without further incident to the next owner. The same thing happens on the show but with a twist.

No character ends up pinpointed as The Watcher. However, multiple characters take credit, either in a joking way or otherwise:

– Theodora Birch: The private detective hired by Dean Brannock delivers a deathbed confession that she is The Watcher and had been jealous that the Bannocks owned the home. Yet as Theodora’s daughter later reveals, that this was a falsehood, and her mom only meant to make it appear as though her final case wouldn’t go unsolved.

– Roger Kaplan: After Dean and Nora confronted this high school teacher about a letter-writing exercise he had once conducted, they accused him of being their stalker. Subsequently, Roger’s wife was so freaked out that she separated from him. In retaliation, he mockingly stood near the problematic house and declared, “I’m The Watcher!” But no, it ain’t him, either.

– Nora Brannock: When Jennifer Coolidge’s real estate agent ended up buying the problematic house, Nora surfaced inside to deliver a piece of her mind. She menacingly signed off with an “I’ll be watching.” And then someone with a male-looking stature appeared inside the home and sent the realtor running for the hills but not before killing her dog. Not cool! However, this was clearly not Nora.

In summary, no one is The Watcher, but that might make everyone The Watcher.

The Watcher is streaming on Netflix.

The Portland Trail Blazers finally had their scalding hot start to the season come to an end in Miami on Wednesday night as the Heat handed them their first loss of the season, but more important to the Blazers’ long-term hopes of being a playoff contender again was seeing their star leave the game early.

Damian Lillard came up limping in the fourth quarter and left the game with a calf strain, but said afterwards that he would’ve played through the pain had it been a playoff situation. However, despite the star’s insistence it wasn’t serious enough to warrant real concern, word broke on Thursday afternoon that Lillard would be “re-evaluated” in 1-2 weeks, meaning he will miss at least a few games and the team wants to make sure a calf strain doesn’t become a bigger problem.

There is always some concern when it comes to soft tissue injuries, as there’s no way to know exactly how they will heal and react to treatment. The Blazers clearly don’t want to put early season success ahead of their long-term aspirations, and sitting Dame now to try and get his calf back to full strength before he plays again is certainly the long play, even if Lillard probably isn’t thrilled to be sitting.

In the meantime, Anfernee Simons becomes the star in the backcourt for Portland, and will have a chance to show what he can do as a leading man with a playoff-caliber roster around him (sans an All-NBA guard). If there is a bit of consolation, it’s that the Blazers are about to have four days off after playing Houston on Friday night, meaning they can rest Lillard for a full week and, potentially, only have him miss two games — but that is followed by a stretch of five games in seven days.

When you’ve been around long enough, you start to see the cycle of life for what it is. You stop worrying that “hip-hop is dead” because you realize that all things go through highs and lows. Of course, when Nas first coined that phrase for the title of his 2006 album, he was still in the process of learning this. He was still mature enough, though, to be able to handle the incendiary reactions to it with grace — which, in turn, helped the generation who felt more incensed by it to handle their own volatile situations in the future.

As Jeezy told Billboard in a recent interview about his new Gangsta Grillz mixtape Snofall, Nas’ laid-back reaction to him flipping out over Hip-Hop Is Dead, helped him to keep his own cool when Freddie Gibbs blew up their partnership in 2012. “What I have learned is the same when Nas did Hip-Hop Is Dead and I reacted,” he explained. “I was kinda spazzing out on the radio, if you remember. I’ll never forget when I got in the car from the radio station, somebody from Def Jam was like, ‘Nas wanna holla at you. He’s on the phone.’”

While he anticipated a confrontation, Nas instead wanted to simply explain his position. “I’m ready for whatever he’s gonna say — I’m all for it,” Jeezy joked. “We can fight dogs, race cars, shoot guns or whatever he wanna do. He asked how I’m feeling, and he was like, ‘I can understand your frustration, but let me explain what I’m saying, and how it has nothing to do with you.’ He was so calm — and I always remembered that. When me and Freddie [Gibbs] had our thing, that was one of the reasons I remained calm — because I’ve been on the other side of that. So I’m hearing his frustration, and I get it, because we’re doing business and not everybody’s gonna be happy. It’s like being married, you gotta communicate. You can’t be like, ‘I’m gonna blow the whole house up.’”

As was recently reported, Freddie and Jeezy were able to end their feud after a chance meeting at an airport.

If you haven’t seen The Woman King yet…. get up off your a** and see the stunning historical epic from director Gina Prince-Blythewood (Love & Basketball, Beyond the Lights) in theaters. If you want to wait until you can watch it at home, fine: we are living in weird times that appear to be unending. The Woman King hit theaters on September 16, and it stars Viola Davis, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu, and John Boyega.

Here’s the film’s synopsis, from Sony Pictures:

In the 1800s, a group of all-female warriors protects the African kingdom of Dahomey with skills and fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen. Faced with a new threat, Gen. Nanisca trains the next generation of recruits to fight against a foreign enemy that’s determined to destroy their way of life.

So, when is The Woman King streaming?

Okay, sorry, enough meandering. Time to get to it! First, The Woman King will be available to purchase digitally from Apple and Amazon on November 22. It will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 13, and a short time after that, it will be available to rent digitally for a much lower price than it is to purchase. Streaming options for The Woman King aren’t available yet (at least publicly), which is a pretty rare occurrence in 2022. That’s because the film was distributed by Sony, the only major film studio that does not have its own streaming platform (yet). The Woman King could come to Netflix or Amazon Prime, but it probably won’t be available on any streaming service until several months after it’s been available to purchase or rent at home. Although nothing is definitive, it is safe to say that one day, somehow, you will be able to stream The Woman King somewhere.

Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Jon Bernthal is absolutely not playing Aaron Hernandez in a limited series for Netflix.

People have once again fallen for completely fake entertainment news on Twitter dot com. You’d think that the time a film Twitter news parody account said that Succession’s Jeremy Strong was cast as Stuart Little would get people to be a little more careful about what they believe, but it did not.

Earlier this week, the DiscussingFilm parody account DisbussingFilm tweeted, “Following the success of ‘DAHMER’, Netflix is producing an Aaron Hernandez limited series with Jon Bernthal in the leading role.” The tweet included a photo of Bernthal alongside a photo of Hernandez, which is emblematic of the DiscussingFilm format.

Netflix’s DAHMER is one of the streamer’s most popular series of all time, but it has received backlash for making profit out of tragedy rather than respecting the victims, which has spurred conversation over what true crime stories are appropriate for adaptation. Hernandez played football for the New England Patriots for three seasons. His career ended after his arrest for the murder of his friend Odin Lloyd in 2013. He was found guilty in 2015. Hernandez died by suicide in prison in 2017.

Here’s the tweet:

Following the success of ‘DAHMER’, Netflix is producing an Aaron Hernandez limited series with Jon Bernthal in the leading role.

(Source: Netflix) pic.twitter.com/gZZAdJhxDq

— DisbussingFilm (@DisbussingFilm) October 25, 2022

The tweet had many people fooled: so much so that fake news went viral, and Jon Bernthal became a trending topic on Twitter, according to The Spun.

The Los Angeles Lakers could be doing a lot better at the start of the 2022-23 NBA season. After losing to the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday night, the team fell to 0-4 on the year, and find themselves as one of three teams in the league that have yet to win a game at this early point in the calendar.

While LeBron James and Anthony Davis have done about what you’d expect and the defense has been one of the stingiest in the NBA, Los Angeles’ total lack of shooting has been a gigantic problem. This includes James (25.7 percent from three) and especially Davis (18.2 percent), but as a team, the Lakers are at a hair over 22.3 percent on the season.

All of this has led to the return of one of basketball’s most well-known phenomenons: LeBron posting stuff on social media that can very easily be read as a cryptic message. James posted a video of himself dunking during the game against Denver with a simple caption, “How long will you be taken for granted…..”

In the aftermath of the Lakers’ first loss of the season, ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst did a detailed breakdown of a subtle move James made in his postgame press conference that led him to believe James is trying to get a point across about how things are going in L.A. This latest post by James will only fuel the belief that he’s working to make sure the Lakers’ brass won’t just let another season of his go to waste.

They said they’ll be famous 5eva, not on Peacock 5eva. The Peacock comedy Girls5Eva is moving over to Netflix for its third season, Netflix announced in a press release on Thursday. You might have to pay extra to share your account soon, but at least the money is going toward saving one of the best comedies on TV right now, right?

The comedy series, from creator/showrunner Meredith Scardino and executive producer Tina Fey, follows the reunited members of a popular girl band from the late 90s/early 2000s as they manage their reunion and adulthood. Netflix will be the exclusive home for the third season and the streamer has also acquired streaming rights to the first and second seasons of Emmy-nominated comedy. The series stars Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell, and  Busy Philipps.

“Our deepest thanks to Peacock for bringing Girls5eva to life and supporting us creatively at every turn since the first pitch,” executive producers Meredith Scardino, Tina Fey, Jeff Richmond & Robert Carlock said in a joint statement. “And we are endlessly grateful to our partners at NBCU for their boundless commitment. Today, we are thrilled to announce that our reunited girl group will be re-reunited at Netflix. We are so thankful to everyone at the streamer who fell in love with our music-filled comedy. We cannot wait to introduce Dawn, Wickie, Summer, and Gloria to the global Netflix audience. Well, not fully introduce, if you look closely, Girls5eva can be seen in the background of the Woodstock ’99 documentary setting a porta potty on fire.”

Fey and Carlock have worked with Netflix before on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a comedy series they co-created.

If you haven’t seen Barbarian yet, you should head over to HBO Max to watch it right now and come back in roughly 94 minutes. If you have, then congrats! And sorry, because it was pretty rough (in a fun way).

You may or may not recall one of the most disturbing scenes in the film where Justin Long’s jerk character is being breastfed by a human/monster hybrid that has lived in a basement since Reagan’s America. Or maybe you looked away during that scene because that’s also a very reasonable thing to do.

Director Zach Cregger recently told Yahoo! that there was an even darker scene in the script that he had originally taken out because he was afraid that Long would not want to be a part of the project. The scene involved the Mother being force-fed a dead rat, which isn’t that far-fetched from the actual plot of the movie.

Cregger explained, “I was like, ‘When he gets to Bulgaria, I will see if I can talk him into it. And so I very delicately tried to broach it. … And he was like, ‘We have to do that. We have to do that.’” This isn’t surprising considering that Long once played a podcaster who painstakingly transforms into a walrus. He’s into that stuff!

Long eventually did film the scene, but it ended up being cut. “Zach cut that out,” Long told Vulture earlier this year. “He felt like it was a bridge too far, gross-wise.” It would have been gross, yes, but is it really out of character for the basement monster who watches home-birthing VHS tapes? Probably not.

Barbarian is now streaming on HBO Max.

(Via ScreenRant)

Ahead of his upcoming album, What Had Happened Was, DRAM has released another new track, “Ppl” featuring BJ The Chicago Kid.

The Virginia crooner is set to drop the 19-track album on November 10. Last month, he released two more tracks off the upcoming project, including “Let Me See Your Phone” and “Wham.”

DRAM calls this his most “raw and open album yet.” He said What Had Happened Was takes fans on a journey as he reflects on his life and treks through his “personal traumas.”

The singer has been doing quite a bit of reflecting lately. Last year, DRAM decided to change his moniker to Shelley FKA DRAM. The name change was meant to acknowledge his birth name and speaks to the self-reflection process of creating his album of the same name, but this year, he changed it back.

What Had Happened Was is set to drop on 11/10 via Waver Records. You can pre-save it here.

You can check the new song, “Ppl,” above and see the tracklist for DRAM’s upcoming album below.

1. “Vibe of the Year”
2. “Ride Or Die”
3. “Wham”
4. “3s Company”
5. “Let Me See Your Phone”
6. “Where’s My Sunshine”
7. “Best That I Got”
8. “Can’t Hold You Down”
9. “Bad News”
10. “Angry”
11. “A Mother’s Love”
12. “Note To Self”
13. “Soul to Take”
14. “Big Baby DRAM”
15. “Ppl”
16. “Reflections”
17. “First Time Again”
18. “Wwyd”
19. “Wham (Remix)”