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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.

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10. (tie) Yellowjackets (Showtime)

Are you in the mood for an intense survival epic and psychological horror story with plenty of coming-of-age touches? How about all of that with Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci starring as the adult versions of two female athletes who were irretrievably shaken by their experiences after a plane crash in the wilderness? Sure, that sounds like a stressful description, but it’s also a hell of a watch. Not to mention another reason not to hop onto an airplane these days. Watch it on Showtime.

10. (tie) Hanna (Amazon Prime)

Esmé Creed-Miles is back as the pint-sized, badass title character, who’s still attempting to defeat the mysterious powers that be while Dermot Mulroney’s operative is as sinister as ever. The third season promises more fight scenes and thrills, all while more characters get backstories, and Mireille Enos’ character forms one half of a lady power duo to cross generations. Watch it on Amazon Prime.

10. (tie) Santa, Inc. (HBO Max)

In this stop-motion animated series, the perpetually jolly Seth Rogen voices what seems like Santa while Sarah Silverman plays the dedicated elf who’s seeking to become the first lady Santa. Let’s hope she kicks some butt and rises above all the dude candidates, and you’ll also hear the voices of Craig Robinson, Nicholas Braun, Maria Bamford, and more along the way.Watch it on HBO Max.

9. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Hulu)

The wait is over. The Gang is back to offer a playbook on how not to act, Forrest Gumping 2020, feigning wokeness, venturing back to the ’90s, and then going all the way to Ireland. From that description alone, it might sound like the show’s most epic season, and it may well be… which is fitting for its record-breaking 15th season. But no matter the ambition, these are still the same hilariously wicked monsters who inspire wonder over how they don’t get stabbed at the conclusion of every episode. Enjoy! Watch it on Hulu.

8. And Just Like That… (HBO Max)

Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte are back, along with the Big Apple. No Samantha will be found, given that Kim Cattrall declined to return, but there will be returning dudes, including Chris Noth’s Mr. Big. Yet there’s going to be a bittersweet aspect to this revival, given that Willie Garson (Stanford Blatch) recently passed away. All of those swirling moods will possibly disappear in a whirl of overwrought flower hats or something, but the show professes to be more inclusive this time around. Watch it on HBO Max.

7. The Great (Hulu)

The Great? More like The Great Show. Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult are back as Catherine the Great and Emperor Peter III, respectively, in season two of the wickedly funny Hulu series. If you like scheming and backstabbing, this is the show for you. Watch it on Hulu.

6. Hawkeye (Disney Plus)

The MCU is in holiday mood for this series, which begins to pass the bow from Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton (who desperately wants a real retirement) to Kate Bishop, played by Hailee Steinfeld, who hits the arrow-flinging mark while learning the ropes. The two battle through some sort of Christmas hellscape that feels awfully surreal, including a Captain America-themed musical and the entry of Vera Farmiga into the MCU. Also, Florence Pugh’s Yelena is on the way for Hawkeye, so watch out, man. Watch it on Disney Plus.

5. Yearly Departed (Amazon Prime)

Despite a few big gains (having a summer was a nice switch!), we’re rapidly being disabused of the notion that 2021 was somehow made to be a largely better year than 2020. 2022? Who knows!? But before we roll the dice, spin the wheel, and hope for the best, an All-Star team of female comics are here to roast the year that was in the second installment of Yearly Departed. Hosted by Yvonne Orji with appearances by Chelsea Peretti, Hacks standout Meg Stalter, Dulcé Sloan, Aparna Nancherla, and the gawd Jane Fonda, this special promises to do the only thing we can with a year like 2021: say hurtful things about it and laugh at its expense. Watch it on Amazon Prime.

4. Station Eleven (HBO Max)

It seems strange to say that a post-apocalyptic drama about a flu-like pandemic that destroys much of humanity qualifies as a “comfort watch,” but it’s nearly impossible to exaggerate just how beautiful and poignant and deeply human Station Eleven is. Based on a novel by Emily St. John Mandel and starring an exceptional cast (Mackenzie Davis and Himesh Patel being the most recognizable), the show sports serious Leftover vibes, following a traveling theater troupe 20 years after the world has ended. It’s bold and imaginative with dreamy cinematography that’s grounded by some truly inspired performances, and it might just be the best doomsday watch we’ve seen on TV in a long time. Watch it on HBO Max.

3. MacGruber (Peacock)

It seemed improbable that a one-note SNL sketch sending up an ’80s action TV show could be stretched into a film, but dammit they did it, creating a cult favorite action-comedy that has now spurred a Peacock TV series. Circle of life! Unfortunately, Val Kilmer couldn’t return but the specter of the film’s explosive and urine-soaked conclusion hangs over MacGruber’s life, setting him off on a trail of redemption that is a lot more fully developed than you might imagine. Sure this thing is friggin hilarious in all the ways you’d expect, but it’s also a damn good TV show with a platinum level cast with Billy Zane and Laurence Fishburne joining Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe, and Will Forte as they reprise their roles. Watch it on Peacock.

2. Emily in Paris (Netflix)

God help us all, this show will once again be binged into oblivion. Lily Collins returns as the stereotypically clueless and culturally offensive American who’s taking Par-ee by storm, one Instagram post at a time. The twist here is that Emily actually attempts to learn French this season, but the hot chef is still around with his gross, unwashed skillet. So much drama, courtesy of primetime TV king Darren Star. Watch it on Netflix.

1. The Witcher (Netflix)

It’s time to go on another swashbuckling rampage through destiny as Henry Cavill’s wig returns for more monster hunting on The Continent. The show’s got a lot to live up to, given that it defied expectations during its debut, and it’s still a banger. That is to say, the Humble Bard is cranking out his angst in song, Geralt has less time to be grumpy, and Ciri is in training mode. The monsters are better, the emotions run higher, and we’ve got two new kids on the block: Killing Eve‘s Kim Bodnia (as Geralt’s mentor, Vesemir) and Game Of Thrones‘ Kristofer Hivju (in highly unflattering prosthetics, and we’ll leave it at that). Watch it on Netflix.

Rapper-producer duo Nas and Hit-Boy have been on an incredible run for the past two years, releasing two iterations of the solid King’s Disease collaborative album, receiving a Best Rap Album Grammy for the first, and a nomination for the second. Yet, somehow, they still aren’t done yet, looking to finish off the year with another new album, completing a hat trick to close out 2021. The new album, which Nas and Hit just announced on their respective social media channels, is called Magic and has just nine tracks and two features, ASAP Rocky(!) and DJ Premier(!!).

It’s an impressive accomplishment, to be sure, but it’s also a testament to the working chemistry these two have exhibited since being introduced by Big Sean. We should all give way more credit to Sean in general, but especially for being one of hip-hop’s best A&Rs, matching up the Queens icon with a producer that finally brings the best out of him, overcoming the one great weakness of his 25-year catalog.

In addition to cranking out two redemptive albums alongside Hit-Boy, Nas also made significant investments in the music industry infrastructure this year, backing the Audius streaming service alongside Pusha T to increase revenue for artists. In September, he was honored with a key to Queens and his own day in his home borough.

Wheel of Fortune fans (and rational people) are in an uproar over a ruling during Tuesday’s episode of the long-running game show.

To recap: contestant Charlene Rubush made it to the bonus round, where the category was “What Are You Doing?” After incorrectly guessing “CHOOSING THE RIGHT CARD,” Charlene had enough time for another answer, and her buzzer-beater response was accurate: “CHOOSING THE RIGHT WORD.” But because she paused seven seconds between “CHOOSING THE RIGHT” and “WORD,” she didn’t win the grand prize of an Audi. As host Pat Sajak explained, “This one’s tough because you said all the right words, including the word ‘word’ but as you know, it’s got to be more or less continuous. We’ll allow for a little pause but not four or five seconds. I’m sorry, you did a good job in getting it but we can’t give you the prize and it was the Audi.” An Audi Q3, to be precise.

The ruling drew the ire of many Wheel viewers, including Jeopardy! champ Alex Jacob, who tweeted, “Come on @WheelofFortune, the woman literally chose the right word. Give her the car.” Audi was paying attention.

“You’re a winner in our eyes, Charlene. Now, let’s get you a prize. Time to #GiveHerTheQ3,” the car company tweeted. “There’s no community like the Audi community. With your help, we tracked down Charlene! More to come as we help #GiveHerTheQ3.” Merry Christmas to Charlene, and Charlene only.

Since its introduction at the start of the year, the COVID vaccine has been the subject of intense partisan debate, with Republicans being the most predominant source of misinformation about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness in curbing the coronavirus pandemic. Which is why it’s particularly notable that Donald Trump is slowly emerging as a staunch defender of the vaccines that, technically, were sped into production under his administration.

During a new interview with The Daily Wire‘s Candace Owens, Trump not only swatted down the conservative conspiracy theory that people are dying because of the vaccine, but he did it after Owens teed him up with a chance to attack Joe Biden for having more people die of COVID under his administration. Via The Hill:

“Oh no, the vaccines work, but some people aren’t the ones. The ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine. But it’s still their choice. And if you take the vaccine, you’re protected,” Trump told Owens.

“Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it’s a very minor form,” Trump continued. “People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.”

As for what the heck is going on, Trump seems to be finally leaning into the fact that he can take a huge amount of credit for the vaccine development if he starts admitting that they are safe and effective. It’s also notable that Trump recently revealed that he was very happy to see the Biden administration credit him for Operation Warp Speed. If that was an attempt to get Trump to be more vocal about the jab, it’s freaking working. He’s already out here confirming that he got a booster shot, so stroke that orange maniac’s ego until he’s personally handing out the shots himself. We can do this.

(Via The Hill)

Olivia Rodrigo is only 18 years old, but even at her young age, she has already been writing songs for a long time. In fact, Rodrigo says her first original tunes arrived when she was just five.

In a recent Music Week feature, Rodrigo said of her musical origins, “I’ve been writing songs since I was five years old. Just gibberish, stuff about getting lost in the grocery store. My mom has a lot of them on VHS tapes.”

She added, “And I think the first proper song I ever wrote — the first one I finessed and that was a complete song — I was probably about 12 or 13. It was called ‘Naive Girl’ and I put it on my Instagram. It’s probably still out there somewhere, in the depths of the internet.”

While it might be tough to track down those VHS tapes featuring the grocery store song, you don’t actually have to dig too deep to find “Naive Girl.” While the original post is no longer on Rodrigo’s Instagram account, is has been saved and re-uploaded by third parties. Genius notes the track was originally shared on October 12, 2018 along with the caption, “hi I wrote dis! writing songs is a huge passion of mine and I thought it was about time to share it with y’all! the whole song is on IGTV if ur interested! I’m terribly nervous so please be tender haha.”

Drake has long been fond of honoring his friends and heroes with tattoos; in 2017, he adorned himself with portraits of Lil Wayne and Sade, he celebrated passing The Beatles’ Billboard milestones with an Abbey Road-themed addition in 2019, and who could ever forget that infamous Aaliyah body art he got done to signify his boyhood crush on the late singer? While fans questioned some of these considering his dubious connections to their subjects, his latest is one of his most personal, honoring the late designer Virgil Abloh.

Designed by Joaquin Ganga, who specializes in “microrealism,” the new forearm tattoo recreates a photo of Virgil at Paris Fashion Week in 2018, throwing a kite down the runway like a paper plane.

Drake’s tattoo is just the latest in a string of tributes to the designer, who passed away after a two-year battle with cancer in November this year. Before his passing, he was considered a pioneer in the world of fashion, holding the role of artistic director for Louis Vuitton since 2018 (he was the first Black person to do so). His own label, Off-White, was a favorite of hip-hop’s elite and saw him collaborating on controversial but popular designs with Nike. He was also an accomplished DJ and designed the cover for Pop Smoke’s posthumous debut album, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, although that assignment prompted much controversy as well.

Among the celebrities and musicians who honored Virgil after his death were his oldest collaborator and first major champion Kanye, Kid Cudi, Frank Ocean, Vic Mensa, LeBron James, and Tyler The Creator.

This article originally appeared on 06.20.18

Studies show that having daughters makes men more sympathetic to women’s issues.

And while it would be nice if men did not need a genetic investment in a female person in order to gain this perspective, lately I’ve had sympathy for those newly woke dads.

My two sons have caused something similar to happen to me. I’ve begun to glimpse the world through the eyes of a young male. And among the things I’m finding here in boyland are the same obnoxious gender norms that rankled when I was a girl.

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Of course, one notices norms the most when they don’t fit. If my tween sons were happily boy-ing away at boy things, neither they nor I would notice that they were hemmed in.

But oh boy, are they not doing that.

In fact, if I showed you a list of my sons’ collective interests and you had to guess their gender, you’d waver a bit, but then choose girl.

Baking, reading, drawing, holidays, films, volleyball, cute mammals, video games, babies and toddlers, reading, travel, writing letters.

I imagine many of you are thinking at this point: That’s awesome that your boys are interested in those things!

There’s more. One loves comics and graphic novels but gravitates to stories with strong female protagonists, like Ms. Marvel and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Cool! I love it.

And sports. They are thoroughly bored by team sports. They don’t play them. They won’t watch them. They will up- or down-arrow through any number of sporting events on TV to get to a dance contest or to watch competitive baking.

So? Nothing wrong with that.

Those are the kinds of things all my progressive friends say.

But it’s often not the message my sons themselves hear from the other adults in their lives, their classmates, and the media.

For example, the first get-to-know-you question they are inevitably asked by well-meaning grown-ups is, “So, do you play sports?” When they say, “No, not really,” the adult usually continues brightly, “Oh, so what do you like to do, then?”

No one explicitly says it’s bad for a boy not to play sports. But when it’s always the first question asked, the implication is clear: playing sports is normal; therefore, not playing them is not.

The truth is that one of them does play a sport. He figure skates, as does my daughter. When people find out that she skates, they beam at her, as if she suddenly has possession of a few rays of Olympic glory. In the days before my son stopped telling people that he ice skates, most of them hesitated and then said, “Oh, so you are planning to play hockey?”

But it’s not just what people say. It’s all those pesky, unwritten rules. When he was in second grade, my younger son liked the Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew series. But he refused to check any out of the school library. He explained: “Girls can read boy books, but boys can’t read girl books. Girls can wear boy colors or girl colors, but boys can only wear boy colors. Why is that, Mom?”

I didn’t have an answer.

An obvious starting point — and the one that we have the most control over — is to change the way we speak to the boys in our lives.

As Andrew Reiner suggests in a spot-on essay, we should engage boys in analytical, emotion-focused conversations, just like we do with girls. In “How to Talk to Little Girls,” Lisa Bloom offers alternatives to the appearance-focused comments so often directed at young girls: asking a girl what she’s reading or about current events or what she would like to see changed in the world. I could copy-paste Bloom’s list and slap a different title on it: “How to Ask Boys About Something Besides Sports.”

And with a few more built-in nudges, we might expand the narrow world of boyhood more quickly. Boy Scouts could offer badges for developing skills in child care, teamwork, and journaling. Girl-dominated activities like art, dance, gymnastics, and figure skating could be made more welcoming to boys, with increased outreach and retention efforts. My son could write his own essay about trying to fit in to the nearly all-girl world of figure skating, including the times he has had to change clothes in a toilet stall at skating events because there were no locker rooms available for boys.

I used to think that the concept of gender — of “girl things” and “boy things” — was what was holding us back.

Now I see it differently.

The interdependent yin and yang of gender is a fundamental part of who we are, individually and collectively. We need people who like to fix cars and people who like to fix dinner. We need people who are willing and able to fight if needed and people who are exquisitely tuned into a baby’s needs. But for millennia, we have forced these traits to align with biological sex, causing countless individuals to be dissatisfied and diminished. For the most part, we’ve recognized this with girls. But we have a long way to go when it comes to boys. As Gloria Steinem observed, “We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons … but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”

I acknowledge that young boys feeling pressured to be sports fans is not our country’s biggest problem related to gender.

Transgender individuals still confront discrimination and violence. The #MeToo movement has revealed to anyone who didn’t already know it that girls and women can’t go about their everyday lives without bumping into male sexual aggression.

But if our culture shifts to wholeheartedly embrace the whole spectrum of unboyishness, it may play some small role in addressing these other issues, too. Male culture will be redefined, enriched, and expanded, diluting the toxic masculinity that is at the root of most of our gender-related problems.

Boys and girls alike will be able to decide if they would rather be made up of snips and snails, sugar and spice, or a customized mix. And my future grandsons, unlike my sons, won’t think twice about wearing pink or reading about a girl detective at school.

This story originally appeared on Motherwell and is reprinted here with permission.

For years, J. Cole fans’ favorite refrain to defend their hero was the “platinum with no features” trope — so much so, that even J. Cole himself got sick of it. Well, now they’ve got a new platinum album to crow about without adding that caveat. Cole’s new album, The Off-Season, hasn’t yet been officially certified by the Recording Industry Association of America, but according to the ChartData Twitter which tracks sales data readily available online, the album has crossed the one million units sold milestone to become eligible for certification.

The Off-Season becomes Cole’s sixth consecutive album to sell platinum, not including the Dreamville compilation Revenge Of The Dreamers III, on which Cole also holds top billing. The Off-Season included features from 21 Savage, 6lack, Bas, Cam’Ron, Diddy, James Fauntleroy, Lil Baby, and Morray, debuting at No.1 on the Billboard 200, and launching five of its songs into the Hot 100 top five: My Life” (No. 2), “Amari” (No. 5), “Pride is the Devil” (No. 7), “95 South” (No. 8) and “Interlude” (No. 8). Cole’s manager Ibrahim Hamad celebrated the achievement on Twitter as well, reminding fans just how long-running this streak has been.

2021 has been a massive year for Cole, who is also nominated for several Grammys, including Best Rap Song for “My Life” and Best Rap Album. He recently completed his Off-Season Tour and capped off his year with a headlining performance at Rolling Loud California.

A few days ago, it was reported that Eric Clapton got a €3,400 (about $3,844) win in a court case against a woman who was attempting to sell a bootleg CD of one of his concerts for €9.95 (about $11.25) on eBay. Now, more details about the situation have come to light, including the fact that Clapton apparently doesn’t intend to actually collect the money awarded to him in the case.

As The Guardian reports, Clapton’s management released a statement yesterday through the Where’s Eric! fan club website, which offers some context by starting:

“Germany is one of several countries where sales of unauthorized and usually poor-quality illegal bootleg CDs are rife, which harms both the industry and purchasers of inferior product. Over a period of more than 10 years the German lawyers appointed by Eric Clapton, and a significant number of other well-known artists and record companies, have successfully pursued thousands of bootleg cases under routine copyright procedures.

It is not the intention to target individuals selling isolated CDs from their own collection, but rather the active bootleggers manufacturing unauthorised copies for sale. In the case of an individual selling unauthorised items from a personal collection, if following receipt of a ‘cease and desist’ letter the offending items are withdrawn, any costs would be minimal, or might be waived.”

The statement then claims the defendant was uncooperative with Clapton’s management when they contacted her, writing, “This case could have been disposed of quickly at minimal cost, but unfortunately in response to the German lawyers’ first standard letter, the individual’s reply included the line (translation): ‘feel free to file a lawsuit if you insist on the demands.’ This triggered the next step in the standard legal procedures, and the Court then made the initial injunction order. If the individual had complied with the initial letter the costs would have been minimal. Had she explained at the outset the full facts in a simple phone call or letter to the lawyers, any claim might, have been waived, and costs avoided.”

The statement concludes by noting, “However, when the full facts of this particular case came to light and it was clear the individual is not the type of person Eric Clapton, or his record company, wish to target, Eric Clapton decided not to take any further action and does not intend to collect the costs awarded to him by the Court. Also, he hopes the individual will not herself incur any further costs.”

Unlike George R.R. Martin, who wanted Game of Thrones to run for at least 10 seasons, Peter Dinklage was ready for the show to be over.

“It was the right time. No less, no more. You don’t want to wear out your welcome, although I’m not sure that show could have,” the Emmy-winning actor told the New York Times when asked about Thrones ending after eight seasons. “But I think the reason there was some backlash about the ending is because they were angry at us for breaking up with them. We were going off the air and they didn’t know what to do with their Sunday nights anymore. They wanted more, so they backlashed about that.”

There may have been other reasons, too.

“They wanted the pretty white people to ride off into the sunset together. By the way, it’s fiction. There’s dragons in it. Move on. [Laughs] No, but the show subverts what you think, and that’s what I love about it. Yeah, it was called Game of Thrones, but at the end, the whole dialogue when people would approach me on the street was, ‘Who’s going to be on the throne?’ I don’t know why that was their takeaway because the show really was more than that.”

I fall into the camp of Game of Thrones viewers who did not like the final episode (or the final season, for that matter), but I still love the show, not only for the character development, witty dialogue, and scenic locations. But because, as Dinklage puts it, “there’s dragons in it.” Every show would be better with dragons in it. Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Joey, Ross, and a dragon. See? Friends is good now.

Dinklage can soon be seen in Cyrano, the trailer for which you can watch here.

(Via the New York Times)