This Week’s Must-Watch Streaming Picks: Annette Bening, Jason Aldean, Awkwafina, NKOTB and ‘Blue Eye Samurai’
Coming soon to your screens are new television shows, movies, music, and games featuring Awkwafina as a woman obsessed with game shows in “Quiz Lady” and an animated historical drama called “Blue Eye Samurai” that follows the story of a mixed-race female samurai seeking revenge in Japan.
Among the deals selected by Associated Press entertainment reporters are Jason Aldean’s studio album, a new Hulu series based on Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Black Cake” and Annette Bening playing a real-life hero who swims a rogue. passage from Cuba to Key West in 2013.
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NEW MOVIES to stream
– It took Diana Nyadi more than 30 years and five attempts to swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys. “Free Solo” filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” airing Friday, Nov. 3 on Netflix, dramatizes her resilience and the perseverance of her closest friends and collaborators. Bening plays Nyad, who was in her 60s when she started training again for open ocean swimming. In a standout supporting performance, Jodie Foster plays her friend and trainer Bonnie Stoll. In my review I wrote that there is enough here to help the film “if not swim against the tide of the sports biopic convention, then at least ride the fast current to the finish line”.
– In “Quiz Lady”, a 30-something accountant named Anne (Awkwafina) has devotedly watched every episode of “Can’t Stop the Quiz” since she was 4 years old. After her pug is kidnapped and held for ransom, Anne and her estranged sister Jenny (Sandra Oh) embark on a mission to get Anne on “Can’t Stop the Quiz,” a “Jeopardy!”-style show featuring Will Ferrell. A host like Alex Trebek. “Quiz Lady” debuts Friday, Nov. 3 on Hulu.
– The awesome trio of Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and James Allen White anchor director Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails,” a near-future sci-fi drama where couples can use science to figure out if they’re meant to be together. In the movie, which debuts Friday, November 3rd on Apple TV, Buckley and White play a couple who have a 100% positive result, proving they are soulmates. But things get complicated when Buckley’s character hits it off with a colleague (Ahmed).
– AP film writer Jake Coyle
PERFORMING NEW MUSIC
– Last month, singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who turned his unique beach bum soft rock and “Margaritaville” escapism into a brand of lifestyle and movement. As the music world continues to mourn the loss of the giant, Mailboat and Sun Records have teamed up to release his final album, a posthumous release titled “Equal Strain on All Parts,” recorded earlier this year. Featuring Paul McCartney, Emmylou Harris, Lennie Gallant, Angelique Kidjo and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Buffett’s light-hearted, good-natured jams live on, as evidenced by previously released tracks “My Gummie Just Kicked In” and “Bubbles Up.”
— “Highway Desperado” is mainstream country juggernaut Jason Aldean’s 11th studio album, released following his first Billboard Hot 100 no. 1 single, the controversial “Try That in a Small Town.” Produced by Michael Knox, Aldean says “Highway Desperado” is inspired by his live performance. “Looking back, I built my career early on my live performance and have been touring since I was 18,” Aldean said in a press release. “For us, the tour is our favorite part. Getting on a bus and going from city to city, playing our shows, doing our stuff and seeing the fans… the name of the tour and the album was really inspired by that.”
– In 2008, the Boston boy band New Kids on the Block returned after a 12-year hiatus as a band with the new album “The Block”. This year, NKOTB will release “The Block: Revisited” to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the second chapter of their career. It features four previously unreleased tracks as well as a new remix of their single “Dirty Dancing”, this time featuring a new generation boy band: Dino, DK and Joshua from the best-selling K-pop group SEVENTEEN.
– For some, via Australia, Zimbabwean rapper-singer Tkay Maidza‘s unique singing voice may be most closely associated with his cover of the 1988 Pixies song “Where Is My Mind?” as used in the Apple AirPods commercial. (He reworks the song in his own style—quite a feat for an oft-covered song attached to the final scene of Fight Club .) But his original work deserves attention. “Sweet Justice,” his sophomore debut in 2016 and the follow-up to his 2020 EP series, is an eclectic collection of soulful electronica and psychedelic production, highlighted by his playful flow and smooth vocals.
— AP music composer Maria Sherman
NEW SERIES to stream
— Before Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Black Cake” was released in 2022, Oprah Winfrey secured the TV rights in a bidding war and it’s now a new Hulu series. The first three episodes of “Black Cake” air on Wednesday, with new episodes being released weekly. It follows Benny and Byron, adult estranged siblings whose mother has died and left them a mysterious flash drive containing details of her family history. It explains how he arrived in California from the Caribbean in the 1960s. The story also relates to their heritage Caribbean Black cake.
— Another popular novel, Anthony Doerr’s WWII-themed “All the Light We Cannot See,” has also been serialized. Shawn Levy directs the story of Marie (starring newcomer Aria Mia Loberti) as a blind young woman hiding in German-occupied France and a Nazi soldier named Werner (Louis Hoffman). He’s an orphan created against his will, and the show explores how a radio broadcast brings them together despite their different backgrounds. The four-episode series also stars Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie and premieres Thursday on Netflix.
— The animated historical drama “Blue Eye Samurai” about a mixed-race, vengeful female samurai in Japan is already receiving praise for its 2D and 3D artistry. Maya Erskine voices the main character Mizu, along with Masi Oka, George Takei, Randall Park, Kenneth Branagh, Brenda Song, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Darren Barnet. “Blue Eye Samurai” hits Netflix on Friday, November 3rd.
– Naturalist Sir David Attenborough narrates the long-awaited third part of the “Planet Earth” series. The new episodes use modern technology such as drones, submersibles and high-speed cameras to record both awe-inspiring views of nature and the heartbreaking struggles of wildlife due to climate change. “Planet Earth III” debuts Saturday, Nov. 4 on BBC America and AMC.
— In 2021, National Geographic introduced a limited series called “9/11: One Day in America” to critical acclaim. The second installment, titled “JFK: One Day in America,” will premiere on Sunday, November 5. The three-part series features unprecedented testimony from surviving witnesses, creating an oral history of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. November 22 will be the 60th anniversary of his death. “One Last Day: JFK” will also air on Disney and Hulu a day later.
– Alicia Rancilio
NEW VIDEO GAMES ARE PLAYING
– Bad news: humanity is extinct. Good news: Our robot descendants are fans of human culture. In Talos Principle II, you’re an AI tasked with figuring out how humans messed everything up and maybe avoid repeating their mistakes. The 2014 original by Croatian developer Croteam was one of the most challenging puzzle games of its generation. The studio promises a wider variety of 3D puzzle games in the sequel, with new techniques such as gravity manipulation and mind transfer – not to mention “questions about the nature of the cosmos and the purpose of civilization”. If you dig mind-benders like Portal and The Witness, chances are you already have Talos II on your wishlist for Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.
— Another respected European studio, France’s Don’t Nod, is back with another fascinating puzzle game, Jusanti. The goal is to climb to the top of a giant, mysterious tower, but as you climb you’ll find different environments and artifacts from a lost civilization. I found it exhausting to watch just the preview, but the developer, best known for the time-warping adventure Life Is Strange, describes Jusant as a “meditative journey.” And you have an adorable companion, a watery blob named Ballast, who asks for hints when you get stuck. Conquest starts on Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.
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