Ars Technica health reporter Beth Mole (previously) is a national treasure, and nowhere is her background in biology and science communications on better display than when she is puncturing the potentially lethal bullshit (vaginal jade egg -toxic shock -RIP) that Gwyneth Paltrow peddles through her Goop magazine and store (Mole was very good on Paltrow's advice to squirt coffee up your asshole). Read the rest
I haven't had the chance to play any of the Witcher games (although Witcher 3 for Nintendo Switch is on my list of titles to buy, just as soon as I finish Divinity: Original Sin 2.) However, I loved the books back in the day and have high hopes for the Netflix series. The final trailer for The Witcher dropped earlier this week and it's looking good. That said, I've been disapointed by streaming service series in the past. Fingers crossed. Read the rest
The Netflix doc Knock Down the House debuted at Sundance earlier this year, winning the Audience Award for U.S. Documentaries. Directed by Rachel Lears, it follows the midterm Congressional campaigns of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin.
Knock Down the House comes to Netflix May 1st.
(Photo: YouTube Screenshot) Read the rest
When Ios launched, Apple's App Store took a 30% royalty on all apps sold. App vendors responded in large part by switching to free apps that charged in-app for annual subscriptions and other fees, prompting Apple (by then the dominant smartphone seller and critical to many companies' businesses) to ban in-app purchases except through Apple, which would charge a 30% commission on the lifetime revenues from each user. Read the rest
If there was ever collective schadenfreude to be had, it was when we learned that a bunch of young, privileged rich kids got swindled by the promoters of the 2017 Fyre Festival and were left to fend for themselves on a remote island. On January 18, Netflix is releasing a documentary about the dumpster Fyre.
Here's its teaser trailer:
Get your exclusive first look at FYRE — a revealing new doc about the insanity and rapid unraveling of Fyre Festival: the greatest party that never happened. Premieres January 18. #NetflixNewsWeek pic.twitter.com/B4iaR3UJwM
— See What's Next (@seewhatsnext) December 10, 2018
Previously: Fyre Festival fraudster sentenced to six years in federal prison
Netflix's latest "golden ticket" is an original animated series based on the stories of late author Roald Dahl. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and The Twits are just some of the popular titles that will be included. The series will begin production in 2019.
Read the restNetflix intends to remain faithful to the quintessential spirit and tone of Dahl while also building out an imaginative story universe that expands far beyond the pages of the books themselves.
“Our mission, which is purposefully lofty, is for as many children as possible around the world to experience the unique magic and positive message of Roald Dahl’s stories,” said Roald Dahl’s widow, Felicity Dahl, “This partnership with Netflix marks a significant move toward making that possible and is an incredibly exciting new chapter for the Roald Dahl Story Company. Roald would, I know, be thrilled.”
Netflix has a new magic six-part series called Magic For Humans. The show's star, magician Justin Willman, worked with an audience to help him pull off the trick in this clip. Working together, they make two guys believe they've become invisible, and they really, really do believe they can't be seen. (I was a little worried about the second guy. I think "being invisible" broke his brain.)
“When I was a kid I put a tooth under my pillow, went to sleep, and in the morning there was money there. That tangible evidence was more than enough proof to make me believe in the tooth fairy. To find out how far I could take that premise, I set up a large flash-mob style social experiment all to convince one guy he had turned invisible.” - Justin Willman.
The creator of The Simpsons and Futurama, Matt Groening, has a new animated series for adults called Disenchantment. The "medieval adventure" debuts August 17 on Netflix and "follows the misadventures of a hard-drinking princess, her feisty elf companion and her personal demon."
...Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson will voice Bean, who, in the four promotional photos released by Groening on Reddit and the show’s official Twitter account, carries either a sword, scimitar or a pint of beer, suggesting no ordinary princess.
Bean’s sidekicks Elfo and Luci will be voiced respectively by Nat Faxon, who in 2011 won a best adapted screenplay Oscar for The Descendants, and the comic Eric Andre, last seen partaking in bachelor-party shenanigans in Rough Night. Supporting the main trio is a group of celebrated voice actors including Futurama’s John DiMaggio, Billy West, Maurice LaMarche, David Herman, Tress MacNeille, Jeny Batten, Rich Fulcher, Noel Fielding and Lucy Montgomery.
...In a statement last summer, Groening described Disenchantment, which has been picked up for 20 episodes, as a show “about life and death, love and sex, and how to keep laughing in a world full of suffering and idiots, despite what the elders and wizards and other jerks tell you”.
A princess, an elf, and a demon walk into a bar...
The new series from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, coming soon. pic.twitter.com/vruQ0na4tJ
— Disenchantment (@disenchantment) May 22, 2018
images via Netflix Read the rest
We'll find out soon what might happen when if lesbians run the country.
Deadline is reporting that Jennifer Aniston and Tig Notaro will star as the first same-sex couple in the White House in an upcoming political comedy film on Netflix:
Netflix has set Jennifer Aniston to play the U.S. president, and Tig Notaro her first lady in First Ladies, a political comedy being written by Notaro and Stephanie Allynne, based on their original pitch. This one’s not your usual White House comedy. First Ladies is a political comedy about America’s first female President and her wife, The First Lady. When Beverly and Kasey Nicholson move into the White House, they’ll prove that behind every great woman… is another great woman.
Jennifer Aniston, Tig Notaro First Same Sex White House Couple In Netflix Film Comedy ‘First Ladies’
photo by Diego Cambiaso, cropped and then altered with a rainbow by NikNaks Read the rest
There are a lot of comedy specials on Netflix and I do my best to watch them all, as I have a voracious appetite for seeing professional comedians perform their craft.
Now, I don't normally do this but I feel compelled to share the one I watched last night with you. It's called Gad Elmaleh: American Dream and it's showing on Netflix right now.
This is the first special the Moroccan-born comedian has done in English, though apparently it's rehashed material from his 2016 French language Gad Gone Wild. It doesn't matter. He's gone ahead and created something wonderfully funny for us to enjoy without having to read subtitles.
His unique insight on everyday American culture and the quirks of our language really had me laughing. His observational humor is Seinfeld-esque (though distinctly his own) and, in fact, he's been described many times as "the Jerry Seinfeld of France."
Amazingly, Elmaleh's debut appearance on American television was just two years ago. He recounted on Seth Meyers' show the first time he met Seinfeld in person, on his then-home turf of Paris:
YouTube channel Squirrel Monkey has imagined what it would be like to stream movies through Netflix on a 56K modem in 1995. It's a hoot, whether you lived through the ancient days of early computing or not.
Previously: If Siri existed in the 1980s Read the rest
Former President Barack Obama is in the late stages of negotiations with Netflix to produce a series of stories with his wife and former First Lady Michelle. The Obamas would be paid for exclusive content, which they say would not directly challenge Trump and the GOP, but instead would be inspirational. Stories might include moderated conversations on topics such as health care, voting rights, nutrition and climate change.
According to The New York Times:
The deal is evidence that Mr. Obama, who left the White House when he was just 55 years old, intends to remain engaged in the nation’s civic business, even as he has studiously avoided direct clashes with Mr. Trump about his concerted efforts to roll back Mr. Obama’s legacy. It is also a clear indication that the former president remains interested in the intersection of politics, technology and media.
Several people familiar with the Netflix discussions said that executives from Apple and Amazon, which have their own streaming services, have also expressed interest in talking with Mr. Obama about content deals.
The number of episodes and the format of the show hasn't yet been nailed down.
Image by Petty Officer 1st Class Mark O'Donald, USN - http://www.defenselink.mil/PhotoEssays/PhotoEssaySS.aspx?ID=1073, Public Domain, Link Read the rest
On Friday, Netflix announced a new cast member for the upcoming season of Stranger Things. Maya Thurman-Hawke, the 19-year-old daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, will join the hit show as Robin, the "alternative girl."
Hawke will play an “alternative girl” bored with her mundane day job. She seeks excitement in her life and gets more than she bargained for when she uncovers a dark secret in Hawkins, Ind.
Ooooo...
photo via Netflix Read the rest
The folks at Reality Check Documentaries took the trailer for Netflix's gritty drug-crime docuseries DOPE and made it into a clever parody for the "Tide Pods epidemic." It works a little too well, imo.
The official trailer for #TideDoc a documentary exploring the struggles and lives of pushers and the police in their never ending cat and mouse game.
Previously: Now there's Tide Pods sushi and, yes, it's edible Read the rest
The introductory sequence of Bright is enchanting: signs and street art in Los Angeles that describe a world where the races of historical high fantasy stuck around into the present day to become the mocked or honored subjects of political graffiti.
But once characters start talking, this geeky cool evaporates into a mediocre buddy-cop movie. The swirling fantasy tropes are a trash gyre on the seas of racial allegory.
Bright's contemporary LA is also anchored in the past, all sterotypical gang violence, decrepit public services and despotic crime lords. At the top of society are elves, whose fortified enclaves echo South African apartheid more than Jim Crow. At the bottom are orcs, an underclass repressed due to their former allegiance to a long-defeated Dark Lord.
In the middle is humankind, whose own internal racial consciousness and strata are supposedly absent or muted in the world of Bright—but whose humans constantly exhibit our world's racial conscioussness and strata.
When star Will Smith's character kills a verminous bat-like fairy, for example, he declares that "Fairy lives don't matter today." The "today" warps a quip into darker territory: it suggests that fairies are sentient enough for there to be a slogan opposing the moral insignificance of their lives and that he is sick of hearing about it. Smith apparently ad-libbed the line, and offers a similar one later, telling an Orc to get his "Shrek ass" out of the way.
Imagine the cultural signifiance of Shrek in the world of Bright! Read the rest
Hey Santa, 1983 called. Eddie Murphy wants his tight red leather suit back.
This Team Coco bit imagines Santa Claus telling off-color jokes for a stand-up comedy special on Netflix called, "Sack Up! Santa Live!" It's so wrong. Read the rest
Eight current or former "House of Cards" employees claim they were sexually harassed and/or physically sexually assaulted by Kevin Spacey. Read the rest
