Usher’s first new solo album in eight years and the “Abbott Elementary” debuting its third season on ABC are a number of the new tv, films, music and video games headed to a tool close to you.
Also among the many streaming choices value your time as chosen by The Associated Press’ leisure journalists: Justin Hartley of “This is Us” debuts his new CBS sequence “Tracker,” Sony’s new multiplayer navy shooter Helldivers 2 and Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” an achingly tender movie about making peace with the alternatives that form our lives.
— Celine Song’s “Past Lives” is an achingly tender movie about making peace with the alternatives that form our lives. Song’s directorial debut, which is nominated for finest image and finest screenplay on the Academy Awards, is a couple of girl named Nora (Greta Lee) who, whereas married and residing in New York, reconnects with a childhood buddy (Teo Yoo) from Seoul. Though modest in scale, “Past Lives” gently reckons with existential quandaries that stretch throughout time and continents. In her assessment, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck referred to as it “a gorgeous, achingly wistful feature debut.” Streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime.
— The thoughts of Charlie Kaufman has produced a number of the most memorable movies (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Synecdoch, New York”) of the previous couple of many years. But even when Kaufman final scripted an animated movie, (“Anomalisa”), you wouldn’t name the outcomes child-friendly. But in “Orion and the Dark,” Kaufman adapts Emma Yarlett’s illustrated kids’s e book a couple of fifth-grader (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) who’s afraid of the darkish, amongst different issues. He’s pressured to confront his fears when visited the precise Dark (voiced by Paul Walter Hauser). In his assessment, AP’s Mark Kennedy stated director Sean Charmatz’s movie “is about fear and overcoming … but has too much junk clogging up the vision.” Streaming on Netflix.
— Laura Chinn’s directorial debut “Suncoast,” which not too long ago premiered on the Sundance Film Festival, attracts from Chinn’s personal expertise rising up in Florida and caring for her sick brother. With a forged together with Laura Linney and Woody Harrelson, newcomer Nico Parker stars because the high-schooler Doris on this coming-of-age drama. “Suncoast” streams Feb. 9 on Hulu.
— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle— It might very properly be Usher’s world, and we’re simply residing in it. From an extremely profitable Las Vegas residency to scoring the 2024 Super Bowl halftime present, the “Confessions” singer is experiencing a well-deserved inflow of consideration — from a brand new and curious viewers in addition to these crammed with nostalgia for his clean ’00s R&B. There’s extra nice news: on Friday, Feb. 9, simply two days earlier than he seems at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for Sin City’s inaugural Super Bowl, Usher will launch “Coming Home,” his first new solo album in eight years. He hasn’t missed a beat — “Good Good,” the only with Summer Walker and 21 Savage — is silky summertime R&B with some Atlanta bounce — a successful mixture. Elsewhere on the album, Usher joins forces with Burna Boy, Latto, The-Dream, H.E.R., BTS member Jungkook and Pheelz. “Stacked” is the phrase.
— Swedish pop singer Zara Larsson will launch her fourth studio album, “Venus,” on Feb. 9 — an album filled with shimmery synth-pop and Euro dance-pop that burns vibrant, scorching and quick like a Saturday evening. “On My Love” with EDM big David Guetta proves it, however Larsson’s dedication to feel-good membership bangers exists all through: like on the strings of “End of Time,” which she stated was impressed by Rihanna and ABBA in equal elements. Now that’s a mix.
— If you frequent indie music corners of the web, you would possibly’ve seen the shirts launched by Helado Negro, the musical moniker of Roberto Carlos Lange, earlier than you heard his music: “Young and Latin and Proud,” they learn, a celebration of the South Florida native born to Ecuadorian immigrants’ id, but in addition the id of a lot of his listeners. It’s an important framework to contemplate Helado Negro’s newest album, “Phasor,” a day-dreamy assortment of experimental pop (like on “Best For You and Me”), psych rock (“LFO (Lupe Finds Oliveros)”) and different rhythms and flutes (“I Just Want To Wake Up With You.”) It is a celebration of an unimaginable variety of Latin music, together with one which will get misplaced when listeners focus too intently on geography: atmospheric sounds.
— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman
— “Abbott Elementary” aired its season two finale final April and there are lingering questions that want solutions. Can Janine and Gregory (sequence creator Quinta Brunson and Tyler James Williams) stay platonic after nearly stepping exterior the friend-zone on the sector journey to the science museum? Did a summer time at Harvard immediate Ava (Janelle James) to lastly take her job as principal critically? And will Mrs. Howard (Sheryl Lee Ralph) lastly be taught that Brian Tyree Henry’s identify just isn’t Brian Austin Green? Answers could also be revealed Wednesday when faculty is again in session and “Abbott Elementary” debuts season three on ABC. Episodes additionally stream on Hulu.
— Revisit fashionable Super Bowl advertisements from years previous on “Super Bowl Greatest Commercials XXIII: The Ultimate Countdown,” on Wednesday on CBS. The present presents prime commercials from through the years from manufacturers together with Budweiser, E-Trade and Coke. Hosts Boomer Esiason, the previous NFL quarterback, and actor Danielle Ruah slim down the competitors to 2 finalists, and viewers can choose a winner by scanning a QR code on display to vote dwell. The particular may even stream on Paramount+.
— There’s a four-legged different to Super Bowl Sunday: Puppy Bowl XX. This yr marks the Bowl’s twentieth yr and 131 adoptable pups have been drafted from shelters and rescues throughout the U.S. to compete. Teams Ruff and Fluff sq. off for the coveted “Lombarky” trophy whereas additionally encouraging individuals to undertake and never store for pets. Puppy Bowl XX will simulcast on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Discovery+, TBS, TRUTV, and MAX earlier than the massive human recreation on Sunday, Feb. 11.
— Great American Family additionally needs in on the call-to-adoption programming. Year two of the Great American Rescue Bowl will characteristic each canines and cats — all who’ve already been adopted — to spotlight the sorts of pets you’ll find at a shelter or rescue as a substitute of a retailer or breeder. The paw-some recreation between groups The Adorables and The Cuddlers start at 12 p.m. additionally on Sunday, Feb. 11.
— Justin Hartley of “This is Us” debuts his new CBS sequence “Tracker” within the prime spot after Super Bowl LVIII. Based on the e book “The Never Game” by Jeffery Deaver, Hartley performs Colter Shaw, a man with a ability for monitoring down the lacking and all he asks for in return is reward cash. In an interview, Hartley says he was itching to roam round exterior after years of being in kitchens and residing rooms for “This Is Us.”
— Alicia Rancilio
— Sony’s new multiplayer navy shooter Helldivers 2 invitations you to “wage war for peace” and “die for democracy.” If these slogans sound like one thing out of the 1997 satire “Starship Troopers,” wait till you see the enemy, a species of big bugs referred to as terminids. You can be a part of forces with as much as three mates as elite troopers defending “Super Earth” from the aliens — which, after all, is finest achieved by attacking the monsters on their dwelling planets with a spectacular assortment of high-tech weaponry, out of your primary laser rifle to huge bombs. If you end up cornered by an alien “bile spewer,” properly, that’s your drawback. The invasion launches Thursday on PlayStation 5 and PC.
— Lou Kesten
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