Watch at Home (as if you had other options currently)

Happy St Patrick's Day!  It hasn't really felt like that holiday without bars open, has it? 

Time for our bi or tri-weekly listing of new titles to DVD and BluRay... plus a little new-to-streaming thrown in for good measure. Given that most of us are trapped at home withe coronavirus pandemic blu-rays and streaming are necessary. 

New(ish) to Blu-Ray and DVD
• Black Christmas - horror remake
• Bombshell - Oscar winner for Best Makeup
• Charlies Angels - another iteration
• Dark Waters - Todd Haynes legal drama
• Jumanji the Next Level - hit sequel
• Queen & Slim - polarizing crime romance
• Richard Jewell - Eastwood dud
• Spies in Disguise - animated
• Uncut Gems - critical darling
• 5B - a doc on the AIDS crisis in 1980s San Francisco.

New to streaming recently
We've freeze-framed a few titles at entirely random places...

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Cate Blanchett is Mrs. America

by Murtada Elfadl

Intensity is coming to Hulu. Cate Blanchett level intensity. Uzo Aduba, Sarah Paulson, Rose Byrne intensity. The cast assembled for Mrs America, the F/X Hulu series that recounts right wing activist Phyllis Schlafly’s fight against the feminist movement of the 1970s is chock full of all your favoriter character actresses. Elizabeth Banks, Margo Martindale, Tracey Ullman and Melanie Lynskey are also in the cast. There are some men too, namely John Slattery, James Mardsen and Insecure’s Jay Ellis. The official synopsis reads... 

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Lady of the Flies

by Jason Adams

Let's take a break from Movie News to take a look at an exciting television project that's just been announced that's gathering together a pair of our favorite people -- Destroyer director Karyn Kusama has worked on TV before, most notably directing some of the finest episodes of the great Halt and Catch Fire, but she's about to Executive Produce and direct the pilot episode of a show for Showtime called Yellowjackets, which sounds like a Lord of the Flies and Alive riff. And taking it from merely exciting to "Put It In My Face Right Now!" is today's fresh word that Friend-of-TFE and Massively Under-appreciated Actress Melanie Lynskey is taking the lead. Says Variety:

"The project tells the story of a team of talented high school girls soccer players who survive a plane crash deep in the Ontario wilderness. The series chronicles their descent from a complicated but thriving team to warring, cannibalistic clans, while also tracking the lives they’ve attempted to piece back together nearly 25 years later.

Lynskey will play Shauna Sheridan, one a handful of survivors of the plane crash. 25 years later, Shauna is on a mission to reclaim her agency — her life — while doing everything in her power to keep her darkest secrets safe."

Funny enough back in July it was announced that Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino was in talks to actually adapt Lord of the Flies itself for a new film -- for a time there was a rumor he was switching genders from William Golding's book, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Still it seems pointed that stories about groups of reasonable people turning savage are the next big thing -- sounds like Life In 2019 to me!

Links: Lynskey, Castillo, Cho, and Missing 80s Movies

• THR a reporter on the next tense moments at Netflix as they try to make their original movies more culturally impactful to continue to lure filmmakers. Roma and The Irishman are going to be crucial to their plans
• Awards Daily Melanie Lynskey talks about her work on Castle Rock
• EW high powered producer Craig Zadan, who brought lots of musicals to the screen and also produced the Oscars, died unexpectedly at just 69. Hollywood is paying tribute.
• Playbill cast announced for the Broadway aimed Beetlejuice musical. Includes Kerry Butler in the Geena Davis role!

• ScriptNotes a great discussion about the new silent-movie like loss of old movies (particularly from the 70s and 80s) in the streaming era. It springs from this article...
• BlackList "In search of the last great video store" - the writer had a craving for Fresh Horses starring Molly Ringwald and couldn't find it. (We've been there MANY times)
• Filmmaker Raúl Castillo talks about his career from his theater roots, through Looking, and on to We the Animals
• Variety Aretha Franklin apparently didn't leave a will before she died
• Coming Soon Crazy Rich Asians sequel is moving forward. That's great news for Gemma Chan and Harry Shum Jr who feature prominently in the book's sequel
• My New Plaid Pants John Cho seven times
• The AV Club Hulu wants to revive Veronica Mars
• Vulture looks into the climactic mahjong showdown in Crazy Rich Asians

Today's 5: "She's got Bette Davis eyes... 🎵 "

Five mood-boosting showbiz anniversaries for today, and if it's a special day for you have a great one. Take these suggestions and let us know if they helped.

MAY 16th History

2003 The fabulous and seriously undervalued Down with Love opened in theaters...

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