This week, Megan Thee Stallion drops her new album, Celine Dion gets an intimate documentary portrait in “I Am Celine Dion,” and Apple TV+ debuts Eva Longoria as a woman whose life changes completely in “Land of Women.”
MOVIES TO STREAM
Celine Dion gets an intimate documentary portrait in “I Am Celine Dion” (streaming on Prime Video), a film chronicling the Canadian singer’s battle with Stiff Person Syndrome. For the film, director Irene Taylor spends time with Dion at home and in her personal life as she reflects on her career and discusses the difficulties of her condition, a rare affliction that she first divulged she was living with in 2022.
Before Lily Gladstone was Oscar-nominated for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” she starred in the Sundance 2023 entry “Fancy Dance,” director Erica Tremblay’s drama about life on the Seneca-Cayuga Nation reservation in Oklahoma. The film, which debuts Friday on Apple TV+, is about Jax (Gladstone), who searches for her missing sister with her niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson).
The life and style of fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg are chronicled in directors Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton’s documentary “Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge,” streaming on Hulu. The film, which kicked off the recent Tribeca Festival, profiles the Belgian designer whose huge influence on 20th-century fashion is most notable for bringing the wrap dress to prominence in 1974.
SHOWS TO STREAM
After four years, the acclaimed and award-winning German series “Babylon Berlin” has a new season available in the United States. The show is set in the 1930s as the Nazis rose to power. The first three seasons of “Babylon Berlin” originally streamed on Netflix. Still, those episodes and a new fourth season are available exclusively in North America on the MHz Choice streaming service.
In “Land of Women,” Eva Longoria plays Gala, a New Yorker living the good life one day and the next is left with her husband’s massive debt after he disappears. She flees to northern Spain with her mother and teenage daughter. The fish-out-of-water series is based on a famous novel created for TV by the prolific Spanish TV producer Ramón Campos. The dialogue combines English, Spanish and Catalan — a language spoken in northeastern Spain. “One of the big sources of comedy is miscommunication, which is ripe for that,” Longoria told TV critics earlier this year. The “Land of Women” debuted Wednesday on Apple TV+.
Much like Hulu’s take on Catherine the Great in “The Great,” a new Prime Video series called “My Lady Jane” is an irreverent telling of the story of Lady Jane Grey. At 17, Grey became Queen for nine days before her half-sister Mary stole her support and her crown. She was then sent to the Tower of London, where she was executed. “My Lady Jane” debuts Thursday.
Hello again, Wisconsin! The second season of “That ’90s Show” debuts on Netflix on Thursday. Season one saw Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Wilmer Valderrama, Laura Prepon and Topher Grace reprise their roles. (Danny Masterson was written out of the show as he prepared for a rape trial that ended with his conviction and a 30-year prison sentence.) Prepon is the only one from the core group who will be back for season two. The sequel series stars Callie Haverda as Leia Forman, the daughter of Grace’s Eric and Prepon’s Donna, who is visiting her grandparents, Red and Kitty, played by Kurtwood Smith and Debora Jo Rupp.
Ryan Serhant of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing” is now fronting his Netflix show, “Owning Manhattan.” Cameras follow some of his Serhant real estate employees competing for expensive New York listings. Where Serhant pounded the pavement in “Million Dollar Listing,” the pressure is now on his staff instead. Serhant is more of a mentor in this role.
MUSIC TO STREAM
Grammy-award-winning R&B singer Lucky Daye is preparing to release a new album on Friday titled “Algorithm.” (Think of the name as a creative reversal — he aims to make soulful music that extends beyond the predictability of machine learning.) His single “Soft” celebrates the vulnerabilities inherent in a new relationship atop big drum fills and heart-fluttering vocal harmonies.
“Megan” is Megan Thee Stallion’s third full-length album and the first to be self-released under her label, Hot Girl Productions; she promises to continue her reign as the sovereign of Hot Girl Summers. Independence looks good on her: From the rap-rock “COBRA,” with its fearless lyricism on everything from infidelity to depression, to the Gwen Stefani-sampling “BOA” – an imaginative take on 2004’s “What You Waiting For?” — it’s clear Megan is enjoying her creative autonomy. But don’t take it from us — a quick listen to “HISS,” an aggressive reclamation of her public image, makes it clear from the spoken-word intro.
Available on video-on-demand starting Friday, “Revival69: The Concert That Rocked the World” documents the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, a famous festival that featured the debut of The Plastic Ono Band — including video footage of John Lennon’s first significant performance outside the Beatles, what many credit as a trigger for Lennon’s decision to leave the band. This doc offers a behind-the-scenes look at the event and footage from its grounds, featuring talking head interviews with some musicians. And there’s a lot to celebrate with a lineup consisting of Lennon, Yoko Ono, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Doors, Alice Cooper and beyond.
VIDEO GAMES TO PLAY
Games don’t get much sillier than Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, the latest version of Sega’s most adorable franchise. The premise is simple enough: You control a monkey in a ball and zip around 3D mazes while collecting fruit and other goodies. You can compete against up to 15 other primates in various multiplayer games like “Ba-Boom!” — an explosive version of hot potato. You can also take on adventure mode, with more than 200 levels that you can explore solo or with up to three friends. It is out on Nintendo Switch.
