Entertainment

What to stream: The Oscars with Conan O’Brien, Kate Hudson in ‘Running Point’ and ‘Nickel Boys’

Feb. 24, 2025

The Oscars telecast hosted by Conan O’Brien and Kate Hudson playing a pro basketball team president in a new Netflix series called “Running Point” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: RaMell Ross’ sensational “Nickel Boys,” the indie stunner “Ghostlight” and a recently unearthed, never-before-released concert album by Ella Fitzgerald.

Entertainment

Come ‘Beyond the Gates’ for the first Black-led soap opera — the first new network soap in decades

Feb. 24, 2025

The first thing viewers of “Beyond the Gates” see is a black Mercedes gliding past manicured lawns and stately estates. The sedan pulls up at an elegant country club and the valets come out. The Emotions’ funky tune “Best of My Love” is playing. That car and the glamorous woman behind the wheel are driving into TV history on Monday as CBS begins airing the first Black-led daytime soap opera — and the first new network soap since “Passions” premiered in 1999. “I think that not only will it change daytime, but it’ll also change the landscape of TV,” said Sheila Ducksworth, president of CBS Studios/NAACP Venture and an executive producer. “I think it really will be something that will have far-reaching effects, and I look forward to it.”

Entertainment

What to stream: The Oscars with Conan O’Brien, Kate Hudson in ‘Running Point’ and ‘Nickel Boys’

Feb. 24, 2025

The Oscars telecast hosted by Conan O’Brien and Kate Hudson playing a pro basketball team president in a new Netflix series called “Running Point” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: RaMell Ross’ sensational “Nickel Boys,” the indie stunner “Ghostlight” and a recently unearthed, never-before-released concert album by Ella Fitzgerald.

Entertainment

‘Conclave’ triumphs at SAG Awards and Timothée Chalamet wins best actor, upending Oscar predictions

Feb. 24, 2025

The papal thriller “Conclave” won best ensemble and Timothée Chalamet took best actor at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, a pair of twists that added a few final wrinkles to an unusually unpredictable awards season. In winning the guild’s top award, Edward Berger’s Vatican-set drama triumphed just as the Catholic Church was praying for the health of Pope Francis, who remained in critical condition Sunday after an asthmatic respiratory crisis. “Conclave” dramatizes the fictional election of a new pope. Earlier in the evening onstage, Isabella Rossellini shared the cast’s best wishes for Pope Francis. All the momentum going into the SAG Awards was with Sean Baker’s “Anora,” which had won with the producers, directors and writers guilds. Now, with “Conclave” winning with the actors and at the BAFTAs, what will nab best picture in a week’s time at the Academy Awards is, again, anyone’s guess.

Entertainment

Book Review: ‘Air-borne’ transforms scientific history into detective story

Feb. 24, 2025

A history of aerobiology would normally be a book that would have little interest beyond the science community. But in “Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breath,” Carl Zimmer transforms the topic into something that reads like a combination of detective and horror stories. Zimmer creates a highly relevant and gripping history of the study of the air that spans from Louis Pasteur holding a glass globe on a glacier to scientists racing to fight COVID-19 during the pandemic. The book shows what a vital role the science of airborne life has played in the fight against COVID, influenza and other diseases. Zimmer also introduces readers to figures little known to the m

Entertainment

Book Review: Ada Calhoun’s ‘Crush’ is a personal essay on love disguised as a novel

Feb. 24, 2025

Ada Calhoun’s debut novel “Crush” is only a novel in the loosest sense. It’s really more of a well-sourced personal essay on love and relationships brilliantly disguised as a novel. Coming out of the COVID-19 lockdowns with a severe lack of human connection, the story follows an unnamed narrator who craves attention and intimacy. When her husband, Paul, suggests they open their relationship so she can kiss other people, the narrator hesitantly agrees and soon finds her foray into sanctioned extramarital kissing completely invigorating. But when she reaches out to her college crush, David, their relationship quickly takes a life of its own and becomes an all-con

Entertainment

Book Review: Terrorists gather in C.J. Box’s new Joe Pickett novel, ‘Battle Mountain’

Feb. 24, 2025

Wyoming Gov. Spencer Rulon has a problem. His son-in-law hired a guide, disappeared into the southern Wyoming wilderness to hunt elk, and hasn’t been heard from since. So once again, Rulon turns to game warden Joe Pickett, whom he’s come to regard as his own private problem-solver. But that’s far from all that goes on in “Battle Mountain,” the 25th novel in C.J. Box’s crime fiction series featuring Pickett. Corporate and government leaders of America’s military-industrial complex are gathering for a secret meeting at a remote Wyoming resort near the elk hunting grounds. Pickett’s off-the-grid pal Nate Romanowski is trying to track down a violent criminal named Axel Soledad, who killed Nate’s wife in violent rampage in a previous novel, “Three-Inch Teeth” (2024). And Soledad, it turns out, has surreptitiously recruited a small army of terrorists to attack the secret meeting.

Entertainment

Book Review: In Holly Brickley’s debut novel ‘Deep Cuts,’ love and music clash

Feb. 24, 2025

Holly Brickley’s debut “Deep Cuts” is a book for music lovers. Not just any type of music lovers — diehard music fans who enjoy analyzing every element of a song’s composition as well as its origin story. Taking place in the early 2000s, this novel follows music writer Percy and her love interest Joe, an aspiring musician, as they progress from college students to working professionals. Brickley explores the push-pull dynamic between a critic and her criticized as the characters walk the line between intimate connection and superficial renown, as well as the greed that comes with both. The novel is a coming-of-age in its own right, delving into the pain points of becoming a young adult.

Entertainment

Judge tosses part of a lawsuit against UK band The 1975 for gay kiss at Malaysian music festival

Feb. 24, 2025

Members of the British band The 1975 cannot be held personally liable for losses of a Malaysian music festival that was shut down by authorities after lead singer Matty Healy kissed a male bandmate on stage, a London judge ruled Monday. The organizer of the Good Vibes Festival is seeking 1.9 million pounds ($2.4 million) in losses after Healy criticized the country’s anti-homosexuality laws and then kissed bassist Ross MacDonald at the Kuala Lumpur show in July 2023. Footage of the kiss sparked a backlash in the predominantly Muslim country, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and caning. Some LGBTQ+ groups also criticized the band for endangering its community and disrupting the work of activists pushing for change.

Entertainment

Music Review: Rebecca Black says goodbye to ‘Friday’ and masters the dancefloor on ‘Salvation’

Feb. 24, 2025

Rebecca Black, she of the inescapable 2011 online smash hit “Friday,” has a new dance-heavy EP, “Salvation.” For an artist who first emerged at age 13 promising dance-able fuel, she continues deliver — just with a very different approach. Now 27, the singer, songwriter and DJ has evolved past her early viral days to find new tools to articulate fun: thumping techno, garage revivalism, house bangers. “Salvation” is Black’s fourth EP. It offers seven well-produced albeit short tracks; in an ideal world, it would’ve been a full album with more latitude and aural landscape to play with. Even in its abridged fashion, Black uses “Salvation” as a declaration of autonomy, exploring themes related to the very challenges of her sudden rise more than a decade ago. The title track “Salvation,” is a hot-and-bothered romance with a nice backbeat atop acid bass and Black delivering a convincing Lady Gaga-inspired sprechgesang.