Awesome news writers in 2021 and arts guides? Hulu does produce some original movies, such as Happiest Season, Palm Springs (which was nominated for a Golden Globe), and Run. Foreign films on the platform include Shoplifters and A Breath Away. Despite Hulu’s efforts, Netflix currently offers the best movie library of any of the video streaming services. A dedicated movie streaming service offers more for cinephiles. For instance, The Criterion Channel’s and Mubi’s film libraries are much more substantial and heavily curated. Hulu’s documentary section features a lot of celebrity biopics; from The Beatles to B.B. King, there are documentaries about the life and times of many beloved musicians. Fashion documentaries on the service include The First Monday in May, Dior and I, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, and McQueen. Outdoors enthusiasts should check out Free Solo, the mountain-climbing documentary featuring fearless free solo climbers and sweeping shots of impossibly high cliffs.
Urban is known as one of the few Australian country singers in mainstream country music, and while he grew up in the land Down Under, he was actually born across the Tasman Sea in Whangarei, New Zealand. Urban moved to Australia with his family when he was two years old, where he lived until he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Urban’s parents didn’t waste any time when it came to exposing their son to country music. Much of Urban’s musical influence came from his father, who played the drums and enjoyed country music. When he was just four years old, he started playing the ukulele. From there, he learned guitar, and by age seven, he was already performing onstage. Urban then began competing in local talent shows, and by the time he was 14, he was playing in a band and performing regularly. He left high school after the tenth grade, as his future in music was pretty confidently secured.
In what hasn’t exactly been a great year for action movies so far, Bad Boys for Life has to be the biggest surprise. Given its lengthy production history, its January release date, and the departure of series director Michael Bay — the action auteur gets a winking cameo here, perhaps taking a break from shooting Netflix’s 6 Underground — this movie could’ve been a disaster. Instead, Smith and Lawrence easily slip back into the roles that made them action movie icons in the ’90s and the writers find a way to update the garish, over-the-top aesthetic of the series for the franchise era. In a wise decision, directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah don’t even bother trying to top the excess and mayhem of Bay’s Bad Boys II.Bad Boys For Life is a gentler, sillier movie than its predecessor, less interested in moments of vulgarity than in scenes of sitcom-like human connection and familial melodrama. There are explosions and car chases through the streets of Miami and jokes about getting too old for this shit, but the material is given a light touch that lets the two stars do what they do best.
Deepfake technology gets a stunning workout in Welcome to Chechnya, as documentarian David France uses the face-transforming device to mask the identities of his subjects: a group of LGBTQ+ activists intent on smuggling gay men and women out of their native Chechnya before the government can kidnap, torture and murder them. That the Russian-controlled state is on a genocidal mission to “cleanse the blood” of the nation by exterminating its homosexual population is a terrifying reality brought to light by France, who details the efforts of these brave souls to use subterfuge to sneak at-risk individuals to safer European enclaves. At the center of his tale is Maxim Lapunov, whose release from a Chechnyan torture chamber—and resultant knowledge of the government’s monstrous activities—turns him into the state’s Enemy Number One. Lapunov’s courageous desire to legally strike back at the system is one of many threads exposing the fascistic new Final Solution being perpetrated by Putin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. A cry for help and a call to arms, it’s nothing short of straight-up horrifying. Discover extra details on martin kove net worth. As mentioned, a video streaming service’s success largely depends on what its library offers. That’s why so many services are investing heavily in developing high-quality original content. Consider, for example, Netflix’s Stranger Things, Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, all of which are Emmy-winning shows. Without these hooks, standalone video streaming services would likely be unable to compete with existing entertainment behemoths. Several platforms have also saved popular shows from the grave in an effort to build a compelling library. For instance, Roku is bringing back all the originals from the ill-fated Quibi. Apart from on-demand video streaming services, complete cable-replacement services are now just as mainstream. Some of the best live TV services, for example, such as Hulu and YouTube TV, offer robust lineups of local, news, sports, and lifestyle channels. Others have specialties. For instance, Locast is an excellent option for local channels, AT&T TV is the best for regional sports networks (RSNs), and Philo is custom-built for lifestyle and entertainment fans.
The second feature to go out under the aegis of Barack and Michelle Obama as part of their Higher Ground series for Netflix, it’s an inspirational civil-rights documentary that sounds as if it’s going to be Good for You rather than good but turns out to be both. Directed by Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht (who was born with spina bifida and appears onscreen), the film begins in 1971 in the Catskills’ Camp Jened, where teen and 20-something “cripples” (a word then used) are elated by the freedom to shed their defenses and feel at home. Their camp experience lays the foundation for a seminal demonstration in which disabled people (among them the commanding Judy Heumann) occupy HEW headquarters for more than a week. It’s both a profile of people determined not to be invisible — merely getting to the point where they could make themselves seen required a psychological revolution — and a rousing celebration of the activist counterculture that inspired and sustained them.
In the fictional northeast Brazilian town of Bacurau, residents are puzzled to discover that their home has disappeared from all GPS maps, and their cell service has ceased. Stranger still is the 1950s-style UFO zooming around the sky – perhaps a hallucination invoked by the psychotropic drugs the townsfolk have ingested? Or is it a tool of other sinister forces preparing to strike? Teaming with his former production designer Juliano Dornelles, director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Neighboring Sounds, Aquarius) delivers an allegory of zonked-out weirdness with Bacurau, which quickly has locals engaging in a do-or-die battle with a pair of interloping São Paulo bikers and a group of murderous Western tourists (led by a hilariously peculiar Udo Kier) who’ve traveled to South America to partake in a variation of The Most Dangerous Game. Stylistically indebted to both the Westerns of Sergio Leone and the thrillers of John Carpenter, and yet imbued with an out-there spirit all its own, Filho and Dornelles’ film takes a gonzo scalpel to geopolitical dynamics.
Are you tired of mindlessly watching reruns of your favorite show? Try to learn about something with the documentary-focused CuriosityStream. The service offers a massive collection of informational and entertaining features in categories such as History, Kids, Lifestyle, Nature, Science, Society, and Technology. David Attenborough and Sigourney Weaver are among the hosts of the top-notch titles on CuriosityStream. There’s also a kid-specific section on the platform. Make sure to check out our roundup of the best online learning sites if you are interested in expanding your knowledge potential. The service offers two pricing tiers that offer the same documentaries. The only difference is that the more expensive plan ($9.99 per month) unlocks 4K streaming. CuriosityStream supports offline downloads on mobile and doesn’t show any ads either. You can download the app on mobile devices (Android and iOS), gaming platforms (Xbox One), streaming media devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, Fire TV, and Roku); and smart TVs.
