Saturday, October 31, 2020

Around the Tubes: October 31, 2020

 
I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on Moonbase 8, U2, Benee, Taylor Swift, Paris Jackson, Smoke: Marijuana + Black America, Couples Therapy, The Circus, Macho, My Phycadelic Love Storyand The Curve. 

SHOWTIME will release the premiere episode of its new comedy series MOONBASE 8 for free online sampling, on streaming platforms and on demand beginning at midnight on Sunday, November 8. Simultaneously, all episodes of the series will release for on-demand streaming or download on the SHOWTIME and SHOWTIME ANYTIME® apps and partner on-demand platforms for SHOWTIME subscribers. Starring Emmy® nominee Fred Armisen (Portlandia), Tim Heidecker (Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!) and Golden Globe® and Academy Award® nominee John C. Reilly (Step Brothers), MOONBASE 8 will officially premiere on Sunday, November 8 at 11 p.m. ET/PT and continue airing new episodes weekly.  The first episode will be available for free on YouTube and SHO.com, as well as across multiple television and streaming providers’ devices, websites, applications and authenticated online services and their free On Demand channels. In addition, the premiere will be available for free on the SHOWTIME stand-alone service’s website www.showtime.com.

The 20th Anniversary multi-format anniversary edition reissue of U2's global smash hit album All That You Can't Leave Behind - featuring a brand new 12-track remaster of the record and a 51-track Super Deluxe box set - is out now!  To celebrate the release, Live In Boston - the concert film capturing the band's June 2001 Elevation Tour performance - will be available to watch via live stream here. Tune in at 11:00 am PT / 2:00 pm ET TODAY to catch the film plus a Q&A with Adam Clayton and The Edge, hosted by the BBC's Jo Whiley. Also available on-demand here for 48 hours throughout the weekend.  A three-track EP titled "Trilogy," featuring two previously unreleased remixes unearthed in the band's Dublin archives, will be available on all DSPs on Friday 13th November.

New Zealand’s platinum sensation BENEE reveals her new single, “Plain” feat. Lily Allen & Flo Milli—listen HERE! It stands out as the latest song to be unveiled from her anxiously awaited full-length debut, Hey u x, out November 13th—pre-order it HERE now.  Sending a message to an ex, dreamy guitar fades in and out of the background as BENEE croons, “What a shame your girl’s so plain, she’s got nothing on meHope she stays the hell away, I don’t want to see her.” The song features a gorgeously melancholic cameo from Lily Allen, while Flo Milli raps over the bouncy beat with a razor-sharp rhyme of her own. The track unites three dynamic and diverse female voices on one understated, yet undeniable send-off.

Taylor Swift has garnered a total of 12 new certifications from the RIAA. Among them, her critically-acclaimed, 5 star 2020 album, folkore, has achieved gold and platinum status.  folklore arrived this summer to widespread acclaim and audience excitement. It became the top-selling record of 2020 worldwide and is the only album this year to cross 1 million albums in pure sales in the U.S. Taylor notably completed “the longest consecutive run at #1 since 2016” with six straight weeks atop the Billboard 200. Additionally, folklore returns to No. 1 this week on the Billboard 200 chart, marking eight nonconsecutive weeks atop the chart. What’s more Taylor has achieved 48 cumulative weeks at No. 1 across all of her chart-topping albums which marks a record amongst women.

-  22-year-old singer, songwriter, actress, model and activist Paris Jackson makes her solo debut with a song and music video entitled “Let Down. This notably marks her inaugural solo release for Republic Records. It also paves the way for her first full-length album, Wilted, arriving on November 13, 2020.  Written by Paris herself and produced by Manchester Orchestra's Andy Hull, “Let Down” tells a story of heartbreak through alternative-folk and singer-songwriter sounds and influences.  Watch the music video for “Let Down” HERE.  Get “Let Down” HERE.
 

BET announces a new original documentary titled “Smoke: Marijuana + Black America,” set to premiere on Wednesday, November 18th at 10pm ET/PT. Narrated and executive produced by multi-platinum rapper and entrepreneur, Nasir Nas” Jones, the two-hour special examines marijuana’s cultural, social, economic and legal impact on American society and the Black community. Told through the lens of aficionados, policy makers, advocates and innovators in the booming legal cannabis industry, SMOKE features testimony from a range of notable individuals including Senator Kamala D. Harris, Senator Cory Booker, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Cook County, Illinois State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, Representative Barbara Lee, former NBA player and cannabis investor Al Harrington, WNBA star Cheyenne Parker, former NFL star Ricky Williams, rapper B-Real (Cypress Hill), award-winning music artist Ty Dolla $ign, son of Notorious B.I.G. C.J. Wallace, Columbia University PhD Professor Carl Hart and others.

-  SHOWTIME Documentary Films announced today an original COUPLES THERAPY special will air on Sunday, December 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The one-hour documentary, entitled COUPLES THERAPY: THE COVID SPECIAL, features renowned therapist Dr. Orna Guralnik as she and her patients grapple with the realities of the COVID-19 shutdown and its impact on their lives and relationships. The critically acclaimed docu-series COUPLES THERAPY, which allows viewers an authentic and visceral look at weekly sessions, will return for a second season in 2021.  To watch and share a trailer of COUPLES THERAPY: THE COVID SPECIAL, go to: https://youtu.be/DeJ_yzzQ7Wg  When stay-at-home orders hit New York in March of this year, Dr. Guralnik was deep in therapy with many couples in crisis. Suddenly, these couples found themselves facing a radical new reality – they were literally trapped together, during a time of global, cultural and political unrest. COUPLES THERAPY: THE COVID SPECIAL follows the couples’ struggles through remote therapy sessions, as they push Dr. Guralnik to the limits of her insight and skill. Some couples are forced into conflict they can no longer avoid; some rise above to discover renewed love and connection. All emerge with their relationships profoundly changed.

THE CIRCUS: INSIDE THE CRAZIEST POLITICAL CAMPAIGN ON EARTH continues its fifth season this Sunday, taking stock of the presidential race and diving deep into the battle for the U.S. Senate. With less than a week before Election Day, former Vice President Joe Biden is on the trail and leading in battleground-state polls, while President Trump criss-crosses the country to mobilize support.  Meanwhile, hosts John Heilemann, Alex Wagner and Mark McKinnon, along with guest contributor Jennifer Palmieri, go inside key races that will help determine control of the Senate, following the Supreme Court confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.  For a preview, go to: https://youtu.be/6PmAhMp02Bc.

Showtime Sports Documentary Films today announced it will air MACHO: THE HECTOR CAMACHO STORY, an unflinching look at the remarkable life, storied career and unsolved murder of one of boxing’s greatest showmen. Premiering Friday, December 4 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME, the documentary debuts just two weeks after the eighth anniversary of Camacho’s fatal shooting in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.  For the first time on film, MACHO: THE HECTOR CAMACHO STORY offers a thorough examination of an unlikely sports hero. The film celebrates Camacho’s sublime boxing skills and the unbridled charisma that brought Spanish Harlem and Puerto Rican culture to the center of the sports world. Through rare and revealing interviews with his mother, Maria Matias, sisters, wife Amy and son Hector Jr., the documentary also delves into the legendary fighter’s troubled mind and spirit, his battle with addiction and the inner turmoil that ultimately lead to his demise – a mysterious double homicide on a roadside in November 2012.

- SHOWTIME has released the trailer and poster from MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY, the newest documentary from Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Errol Morris (Wormwood, The Fog of War)The film, which was the Closing Night selection at AFI Fest earlier this month and will screen at DOC NYC next month, is a psychedelic head trip crossed with a possible CIA conspiracy and wrapped in a fascinating love story told by the late Joanna Harcourt-Smith about her time with Timothy Leary. In MY PSYCHEDELIC LOVE STORY, Morris and Harcourt-Smith will reexamine this chaotic period of her life and explore the dark side of the Leary saga: his period of exile, reimprisonment and subsequent cooperation with the authorities. The film will premiere on Sunday, November 29 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME. To watch and share the trailer, visit: https://youtu.be/WJAsSX_V86I.

Anticipated documentary thriller The Curve is now streaming for free, ad-free, on YouTube in its entirety (thecurvedoc.com/watch) until the end of Election Day.  The movie – which is the first major creative, poetic and interpretive feature film to tackle to the COVID-19 pandemic – marks a major victory for filmmaking in the post-lockdown era. Radically different from anything else released this year, the hybrid film sets a new milestone for non-fiction filmmaking.  A rallying cry for a beleaguered film industry, released in unprecedented fashion, it sends a clear message to cinematic doom-mongers: storytelling must and will continue, regardless of circumstance. The film also serves as a damning condemnation of the failings of the Trump administration, emerging at a crucial moment in U.S. history. 

Sunday, October 25, 2020

57 Channels and Only This Is On: October 25, 2020

 
Lovecraft Country:  With wildly different episodes all season with different genre themes, it was weird ending it with a pretty straight forward ending.  Strong idea, but the whole show just kind of fell flat.

Fear the Walking Dead:  So is Daniel secretly working with Morgan and pretending his mental capacity this whole time?  But what I did not understand about that plan to empty the zombie room was why not just kill them while there were in that pen?  Why wait to do that after they broke free?

The Walking Dead: Worlds Beyond:  So ethically ambiguously sister told her sister than she got their mother killed.  But when does she tell nerdy dude she killed his mother?   But I was wrong that the adults would make the kids go right back to find out the evil chick killed everyone.  And why?  They were using too much power?  Is that what the final scene was about.

Fargo:  Really, they needed to kill off Doctor Senator?  He was the best character this season.  Meh.  But really an inconsequential episode up to this point.
You can download Fargo on iTunes.