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While the countless Hollywood blockbusters entirely centered around the perils of space might have you thinking of it as some cold, dark place with no return, an upcoming documentary from Universal Pictures is hoping to shed a bit of light on how brilliant and beautiful the final frontier actually is. In the first trailer for The Wonderful: Tales from the Space Station, documentarian Clare Lewins (I Am Ali) showcases bits and pieces of stories from people who have lived on the International Space Station, with particular focus on what led them to the work and their hopes for the future. In the accompanying YouTube description, Universal further describes the film’s premise and importance, stating:

Over twenty years ago, rival nations put aside political and cultural differences and came together in a demonstration of international co-operation to create something unique — the International Space Station. For the first time in history, driven by his innate impulse to explore, man had a permanently inhabited foothold in the heavens.

The Wonderful draws together personal stories from men and women from around the world who have been a part of this extraordinary endeavor, providing a fascinating insight into human nature and our relationship with planet Earth. These testimonials bring an intimacy and uniqueness to the story — bringing life in space alive, yet showing the strong emotional ties that bind these astronauts to the earth — and we are left not only with a sense of the vast ‘velvet bottomless bucket’ of the universe, but also the remarkable resilience and potential of mankind.

Among those interviewed in The Wonderful: Tales from the Space Station are George Abbey, Oleg Artemyev, Ken Bowersox, Cady Coleman, Samantha Cristoforetti, Frank Culbertson, Mike Foale, Scott Kelly, Ginger Kerrick, Sergei Krikalev, Tim Peake, Holly Ridings, William Shepherd, Jamey Simpson, Josh Simpson, Sergey Volkov, Koichi Wakata, and Peggy Whitson. The film is scheduled to hit theaters and video-on-demand on September 17.

With The Boys scoring an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A Movie thanks to its explosive second season, VFX Supervisor Stephan Fleet has opened up about what it’s like bringing exploding whales, a giant elongating “Love Sausage,” and freaky superhero sex to life.

While talking to The Wrap, Fleet revealed that everything traces back to Aristotle’s Poetics, even when you’re trying to figure out the logistic of making two characters like Antony Starr’s Homelander and Aya Cash’s Stormfront have violent mid-air coitus. Although, apparently, that was nowhere near as difficult as the scene where Homelander had to seduce himself:

“If you go back to Greek mythology, there’s a lot of weird sex stuff so it was fun,” says Fleet, noting that a lot of tricky planning went into making these sequence work. “Those are two of my other favorite scenes, but in television you’re always thinking about time and precision and the Homelander doppelganger character morphing is one of the hardest things I’ve had to tackle on the show, it’s very difficult to make it look real. We did a couple of interesting techniques where we overlapped the shadow from him blocking the light onto his face, and we were able to have them touch each other by splitting color and not actually split the screen. But ultimately, an incredibly rewarding day because Anthony Starr is amazing.”

With The Boys Season 3 currently in production, it’s hard to imagine how the show can top some of the dark, raunchy scenes from Season 2, but according to Fleet, that’s exactly the plan. Season 3 will deliver an even “bigger” experience while staying true to the show’s focus on character even as aquatic mammals are exploding and 12-foot-long penises are doing their thing.

(Via The Wrap)

The View is embracing dystopia now that Meghan McCain is gone.

On Monday, the daytime talk show released a promo for its upcoming season. “Season 25 premieres Tuesday, September 7 — see you then!” the tweet reads, along with #TheView hashtag. There was also a sparkles emoji, which was weirdly cheerful for a sinister-looking promo that looks it was shot in an evil billionaire’s lair. One quote-tweet read, “No joke, I thought this was a dark promo for the new season of The Morning Show” (that came out earlier today), while another wondered, “Why is this teaser so dystopian?”

The promo is like an SNL parody of The View, especially the out-of-context soundbites that play over the footage of the set, including Barbara Walters saying that she’s “always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds, and views” and Whoopi Goldberg exclaiming, “My goodness, that was quite a commercial for our show.”

It sure was. But noticeably missing is McCain, who bid my father, I mean, farewell to The View in early August. “Thank you all so much again for the privilege and honor it has been for the last four years to work on this show. It really has been incredible,” McCain said in her final episode. “It will be referenced in everything I do for the rest of my life.”

This is the current top reply to the season premiere tweet:

No replacement has been announced.

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf (Netflix film) — To tide us over until The Witcher‘s second season arrives with more grumpy Geralt of Rivia, please set your calendars accordingly for this prequel anime film. The picture will go back in time to explore the early monster-hunting years of Geralt’s mentor, Vesemir, who appears to be enjoying himself a lot more than his successor. Theo James voices the character, who will be live-action portrayed by Kim Bodnia further down the line. At least we’ll know that, although the iconic Witcher baths only recently become canon, they’ve always been there, at least retroactively. Also, zombies.

Reservation Dogs: (FX on Hulu) — Taika Waititi’s FX on Hulu followup to What We Do in the Shadows brings us a comedy series that’s co-written by Native American filmmaker Sterlin Harjo. Yes, the lead quartet in this show rocks suits that look strikingly similar to the characters of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, yet they’re four Indigenous teens who fight crime and also commit it. The show (which has some Atlanta vibes) was shot in and near Okmulgee, Oklahoma (the home of the Muskogee Creek tribal headquarters) — where excitement is lacking. Not for long, though, and these teens hope to make it all the way to California. This week, the rival crew’s presence pushes Elora to enlist help for the Rez Dogs to learn some defense moves.

Roswell, New Mexico (CW, 8:00pm) — Liz tells a terrible lie while Maria and Rosa take on Jordan, and Isobel does a deep dive.

The Republic Of Sarah (CW, 9:00pm) — This show follows the ending of tranquility of Greylock, N.H., after a stash of valuable coltan leads to new overlords, and a rebellious teacher (Sarah Cooper) steps in to halt the madness. Greylock becomes a sovereign nation, and this week, Sarah and Paul get deeper into their relationship, and Ellen pulls off a huge surprise while Weston asks Sarah for help.

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Jason Momoa, Lorde

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Kelly Clarkson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Bakar

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Sean Penn, Jerome Flood II

Never one to rest and sit back on her laurels, Ariana Grande is apparently already back in the game. But, this time it’s not the studio she’s hitting but the makeup counter. Even though Ari’s had her fair share of beauty collabs in the past — including an ever-growing number of perfumes — this time she’s doubling down in a much bigger way. It’s been rumored that Grande was planning to launch her own collection, R.E.M. Beauty, and today the URL and social media handles on platforms like Twitter and Instagram all went live.

Considering Ariana seems to be in a settling down phase of her career – getting married, at her own house no less, and taking some time to appear as a judge on The Voice — it makes perfect sense for her to start a beauty company right now. If the success of Fenty Beauty has shown us anything, it’s that there’s even more money in makeup than pop songs, and other artists like Selena Gomez and Lady Gaga have followed suit without flooding the market. Keep an eye on those new social media handles for an exact launch date, but with the cat out of the bag already, it looks like the company will be coming very soon.

Manifest fans have been keeping their dream alive, and there’s something to be said for sticking to one’s guns over something, you know, fun that doesn’t harm anyone. TV can do that for us in a world where reality is rough on a daily basis. That’s why I’m enjoying the whole Manifest saga, which started as backlash to NBC cancelling what’s admittedly an objectively not-great show while it sat atop the Netflix Most Popular list. That’s wild in and of itself, and then there’s the actual content of the show, which involves a group of people who hop on a flight, arrive at their destination hours later, and find that five years of humanity passed in the interim. Cue threats to marriages and seemingly random voices dropping clues to crimes, and yeah, it’s nuts.

That is to say, I completely understand why the fans on the show are so passionate, even though I’m still working my way through Season 2. Also, the twists of the production/non-production itself are really something. First, Netflix supposedly decided a (paraphrased) “nope” to Season 4 while rans remained hell-bent upon saving the apparently doomed series. Creator Jeff Rake, who says that he’s plotted out a full-on, six-season run, urged people to stay strong, and then Stephen King showed himself to be a fan, and then a report indicated that Rake and the cast were having talks with Netflix. Not only that, but over this past weekend, Netflix started firing out device push-updates to alert users to the presence of Manifest Season 3, which was previously not available on the streaming service (although Peacock and Hulu had it).

That development led to a Top 3 spot on Netflix’s Most Popular list.

So, what now? We wait and wonder, but it sure as heck seems like Netflix is preparing to make things official. Season 3 being on the service (when it wasn’t yet) seems like the biggest clue so far that Netflix knows what the people want, and they (hopefully) want to make it happen. Of course, people waited for Hannibal to receive the same sort of fan service before that show’s existing seasons eventually disappeared from Netflix. Yet as fans of Lucifer can attest, sometimes, the Devil really is in the details, and Netflix dropped one heck of one with the appearance of Manifest Season 3.

John Lydon has lost a UK court battle to block the Sex Pistols’ music from being used in an upcoming TV miniseries about the iconic punk group. Former Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones had both given permission for the band’s songs to be in the show, which is being directed by Danny Boyle and set to appear on FX.

Jones and Cook argued that the band had made an agreement in 1988 that Sex Pistols songs could be used on a “majority rule basis.” They noted that they also had support of bassist Glen Matlock and the estate of the late Sid Vicious. However, a lawyer for Lydon said that Jones’ 2016 memoir, Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol (on which the series is based), had portrayed him “in a hostile and unflattering light.”

In a joint statement, Cook and Jones said the ruling “brings clarity to our decision-making” and “it has not been a pleasant experience.” They added, “We believe it was necessary to allow us to move forward and hopefully work together in the future with better relations.”

Lydon, who likened the agreement to “becoming a prisoner of a hostile majority” and “some kind of slave labor,” has yet to respond.

As for the miniseries, announced earlier this year, it began filming in March but has no official release date yet. “Imagine breaking into the world of The Crown and Downton Abbey with your mates and screaming your songs and your fury at all they represent,” Boyle said in a statement back in January. “This is the moment that British society and culture changed forever. It is the detonation point for British street culture…where ordinary young people had the stage and vented their fury and their fashion…and everyone had to watch and listen…and everyone feared them or followed them. The Sex Pistols. At its center was a young charming illiterate kleptomaniac — a hero for the times — Steve Jones, who became in his own words, the 94th greatest guitarist of all time. This is how he got there.”

If you’re among the countless number of fans who can’t wait for the tenth season of popular FX horror anthology American Horror Story to make its big debut this Wednesday, you’re in for quite the treat. Earlier today, FX released a six-minute-long “radio broadcast” on their official YouTube channel filled with subtle clues and references to the first half of American Horror Story‘s upcoming season, Double Feature, for their truly devoted fans to pour over and attempt to piece together. Following the clip’s big reveal, FX announced the original broadcast is merely part one of a three-part series, with two additional videos being uploaded Tuesday, August 24 and Wednesday, August 25 at 10 AM PT.

The first broadcast begins with classical music and reaches a peculiar end with an advertisement for a very steamy romance novel entitled The Drought. However, the middle portion is clearly what we’re meant to focus on, and follows an original character named Rose Flynn who is the self-proclaimed “First Daughter of P-Town.” In her on-air banter, Rose says Provincetown — the fictional city the first half of American Horror Story: Double Feature is set in — is a place all about freedom, where “artists, lovers, writers, and outsiders come to express their truest selves,” and she is proud to tell their stories. Rose then tosses the program over to Steven St. Leroy, the station’s traffic correspondent, who reports there is absolutely no traffic on the roads (per usual, apparently) before throwing in an additional fun warning for listeners: ignore the massive and gory roadkill on the highways.

While we’re a bit unsure of the whole roadkill situation, the rest of the program lines up pretty well with what we know about Provincetown and the first half of American Horror Story: Double Feature entitled “Red Tide.” According to FX’s description of “Red Tide,” the mini-series follows a “struggling writer (Finn Wittrock), his pregnant wife (Lily Rabe), and their daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong)” after they move to “an isolated beach town for the winter.” However, “once they’re settled in, the town’s true residents begin to make themselves known.”

While the description already sounds pretty interesting, long time American Horror Story fans will also be happy to know that “Red Tape” will feature the return of several of the series biggest stars, such as Frances Conroy, Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Adina Porter, Angelica Ross, Denis O’Hare, and, of course, Wittrock and Rabe. In addition, none other than Macaulay Culkin will be making an appearance in Provincetown, while Neal McDonough and John Carroll Lynch are confirmed to be joining the tenth season’s second half entitled “Death Valley.” As of right now, there’s no telling what the connection will be between the sea-story “Red Tide” and the desert-tale “Death Valley,” but it’ll surely be something sinister.

The first two episodes of American Horror Story: Double Feature, entitled “Cape Fear” and “Pale,” premiering exclusively on FX Wednesday, August 25 at 7 PM PT.

Scarlett Johansson’s battle with Disney over the release of Black Widow seems to be escalating with a very public war of words. But that public war of words has resulted in some high-profile support, too, as the Marvel star got a bump from another actress in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Monday.

WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen expressed support for Scarlett Johansson during a joint interview with Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis. Olsen and Jason Sudeikis appeared together to have a lengthy chat about their working relationship together — specifically the 2017 film Kodachrome — as well as the state of TV in the streaming era.

The interview from Vanity Fair is interesting in a number of ways, including Sudeikis encouraging Olsen to host Saturday Night Live. But when the topic of movies being released on streaming sites came up, Olsen said she’s not worried about Johansson in particular, but is concerned about the future of movies.

“I think she’s so tough and literally when I read that I was like, ‘good for you Scarlett,’” Olsen said. But she is worried about what the streaming era has done in the age of the pandemic.

I’m worried about a bunch of things. Not worried on Scarlett’s behalf. But I’m worried about small movies getting the opportunity to be seen in theaters. That was already a thing pre-COVID. I like going to the movies and I don’t necessarily want to see only an Oscar contender or a blockbuster. I would like to see art films and art house theaters. And so I do worry about that, and people having to keep these theaters alive. And I don’t know how financially that works for these theaters. I do hope that there’s some sort of solution that the larger companies are coming together to keep, at least in L.A. this is going to happen.

Sudeikis also called her lawsuit “appropriately bad-ass and on-brand” for an actress that the two clearly respect a lot, but it’s fascinating to see someone in the Marvel universe offer support for someone not exactly on great terms with the Mouse House.

[via Vanity Fair]

Healthcare workers in South Florida staged a walk-out in an effort to bring attention to how devastating the Covid-19 resurgence has been on facilities and staff in the area.

On Monday, a group of 75 doctors from a hospital in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida protested the state’s low vaccination rates by walking out of their shifts. The hospital has been flooded with unvaccinated patients as the state’s mask mandates and immunization campaigns continue to lag behind the rest of the country’s. Reporter Kerry Sanders was on-site, covering the protest for MSNBC’s Morning Joe program where he shared that an estimated 85 percent of ICU beds in the state are now full before urging viewers to “ignore the nonsense and the absurdities that you’re hearing people say at public meetings and recognize the value of what a vaccine will do.”

According to The New York Times, Florida now leads the U.S. in daily average cases and hospitalizations. According to CNN, five South Florida police officers died from the virus in one week, earlier this month. The healthcare system is struggling to keep up as more beds go to patients with severe Covid complications, leaving staff scrambling to find room for others suffering from more common and unpredictable health crises

Sanders spoke with some of the medical professionals who were involved in the walkout and who pleaded with the public to ignore the misinformation tactics on social media and just get their shot.

“It’s incredibly frustrating because we know vaccines are safe and effective,” Dr. JT Snarksi told Sanders on-air during MSNBC’s Morning Joe program. “And it’s people who go out and talk against them that really go against physicians and medicine and science. It’s not the message we want to get across to people. Vaccines are safe and we need to get our communities vaccinated.”

The protest comes after the FDA granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.