What to stream this weekend: Childish Gambino, ‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ ‘Cobra Kai’ and ‘Skywalkers’

Natalie Portman starring in her first TV series in “Lady in the Lake” for Apple TV+ and Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series “Those About to Die” 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: Kerry Washington’s comedy “UnPrisoned” returns for a second season, Daisy Ridley stars as the trailblazing deep sea swimmer Trudy Ederle in ”Young Woman and the Sea” and Donald Glover releases his last album under his Childish Gambino moniker.

NEW MOVIES TO STREAM

— If you loved the adrenaline rush of watching Alex Honnold scale El Capitan in “Free Solo,” Netflix has a treat for you. This time the heights are manmade but no less harrowing. In “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” filmmaker Jeff Zimbalist takes viewers into the dangerous world of rooftoppers – the daredevils who scale the world’s tallest buildings. The subjects in “Skywalkers,” streaming on Netflix starting Friday, are Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus who are not only talented rooftoppers but also in a relationship (hence the “love story” in the title) with own ups and downs. Part heist movie, part dazzling spectacle thanks to incredible Go-Pro footage, part relationship drama, it is a no-brainer of a click.

15 months after his firing, Tucker Carlson returns to Fox News airwaves with a GOP convention speech

NEW YORK (AP) — Tucker Carlson returned to Fox News’ airwaves 15 months after being unceremoniously fired, seen Thursday in its coverage of a Republican National Convention speech that highlighted his growing influence in Donald Trump’s world. Carlson called the Republican nominee to return as president a changed man who effectively “became the leader of this nation” following last Saturday’s assassination attempt. His 11-minute speech in Milwaukee also highlighted changes in the media personality, who had said privately following the 2020 election that he “truly can’t wait” to ignore Trump. Before being given the prime-time role on the convention’s climactic […]

Bob Newhart, deadpan master of sitcoms and telephone monologues, dies at 94

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bob Newhart, the deadpan accountant-turned-comedian who became one of the most popular TV stars of his time after striking gold with a classic comedy album, has died at 94. Jerry Digney, Newhart’s publicist, said the actor died Thursday in Los Angeles after a series of short illnesses. Newhart, best remembered as the star of two hit television shows of the 1970s and 1980s that bore his name, launched his career as a standup comic in the late 1950s. He gained nationwide fame when his routine was captured on vinyl in 1960 as “The Button-Down Mind of […]

Lou Dobbs, conservative pundit and longtime cable TV host for Fox Business and CNN, dies at 78

NEW YORK (AP) — Lou Dobbs, the conservative political pundit and veteran cable TV host who was a founding anchor for CNN and later was a nightly presence on Fox Business Network for more than a decade, has died. He was 78. His death was announced Thursday in a post on his official X account, which called him a “fighter till the very end – fighting for what mattered to him the most, God, his family and the country.” No cause of death was given. “Lou’s legacy will forever live on as a patriot and a great American. We ask […]

Shannen Doherty finalized divorce hours before death

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shannen Doherty finalized her split with husband, Kurt Iswarienko, just hours before her death at age 53, and she was granted a rare posthumous divorce two days later. Doherty, the star of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Charmed,” died Saturday after years with breast cancer, her publicist said. Los Angeles County court documents showed that Doherty and her lawyer Laura Wasser, who handled the divorces of Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, Ariana Grande and many others, worked to finish the details of hers before she died. FILE - Shannen Doherty attends the G-Star Fall 2010 collection, in New […]

Too soon for comedy? After attempted assassination of Trump, US politics feel anything but funny

Political jokes: too soon? The answer from many quarters at midweek was a resounding yes, days after an assassination attempt against Republican former president Donald Trump rattled the nation over political violence that has been brewing in the United States for decades. Several late-night shows that thrive on political comedy changed plans immediately, with Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” canceling its Monday show and its plan to broadcast from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week. Its host, Jon Stewart, and his counterparts delivered somber monologues. FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures as he is […]

MLB All-Star Game viewers up 6% to 7.44 million after falling to record low last year

NEW YORK (AP) — Paul Skenes, Shohei Ohtani, Jarren Duran and the rest of this year’s All-Stars drew 7,443,000 viewers on Fox, up 6% from the 2023 game but the second lowest for the event. The American League’s 5-3 victory at Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday night saw an increase from the 7,006,000 viewers for the National League’s 3-2 win last year at Seattle. The 2022 game in Los Angeles was watched by 7.51 million. This year’s game had a 3.8 rating and 12 share, down from a 3.9/12 last year. The rating is the percentage of television households tuned to […]

Selena Gomez gets her due, Netflix and FX top HBO and 2 Queen Elizabeths get nominated for Emmys

With less overall entries due to the shortened TV season, this year’s Emmy nominations probably won’t spark any protest campaigns. The folks at FX should be popping bottles though for a stand-out year, with 93 nominations — including 25 nods for “Shogun” and 23 for “The Bear.” The nominations bring overdue acknowledgement for critical favorites like FX’s “Reservation Dogs” and “What We Do in the Shadows” and fresh competition, including “Shogun” actors Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada. Lily Gladstone and Kali Reis became the first female Indigenous actors to be nominated for Emmys — Gladstone for “Under the Bridge” and […]

Tyler James Williams, Nikki Glaser, Eric André and more react to their Emmy nominations

Reactions from select nominees for the 2024 Emmy Awards, including some first-time nominees. Tyler James Williams, “Abbott Elementary” “You want to do it with good people, and I’m happy that I get to be on this journey with good people and celebrate this with good people. So it’s not just a celebration of what happened, but who it happened with. ” — Williams, nominated for best supporting actor in a comedy series for “Abbott Elementary.” This image released by FX shows Lamorne Morris in a scene from "Fargo." (Michelle Faye/FX via AP) Nikki Glaser, for her special “Someday You’ll Die” […]

List of top Emmy nominees

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Partial list of top nominees for the annual prime-time Emmy Awards, announced Wednesday by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. For the complete list, visit Emmys.com. Drama series “The Crown,” Netflix FILE - Emmy statues appear on stage at the 70th Primetime Emmy nominations announcement in Los Angeles on July 12, 2018. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File) “Fallout,” Prime Video “The Gilded Age,” HBO/Max “The Morning Show,” Apple TV+ “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” Prime Video “Shogun,” FX “Slow Horses,” Apple TV+ “3 Body Problem,” Netflix” Comedy series “Abbott Elementary,” ABC “The Bear,” FX “Curb Your […]

Martin Short, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Ryan Gosling among Canadian Emmy nominees

After two decades as a composer in Hollywood, Jeff Toyne says it feels “surreal” to receive his first two Emmy nominations for his work on the Apple TV Plus dramedy “Palm Royale.” The 49-year-old Ontario native was nominated Wednesday for best music composition for a series and best original main title theme music. “It really hasn’t sunk in yet. It’s thrilling and it’s an honour,” Toyne said over the phone from his home in Sault Ste. Marie. Martin Short attends the 8th annual Love Rocks NYC concert benefiting God's Love We Deliver at the Beacon Theatre on Thursday, March 7, […]

‘Shogun’ leads all Emmy nominees with 25 and ‘The Bear’ sets comedy series record with 23

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “The Bear” went on a tear at Wednesday morning’s Emmy nominations with a comedy-series record 23, and “Shogun” led all nominees with 25 in a dominant year across categories for FX. Nominations for the “The Bear,” up for its second season in which its rag-tag band of sandwich makers tries to create an elite restaurant, included best comedy series and best actor in a comedy series for Jeremy Allen White – both awards it won at January’s strike-delayed ceremony — along with best actress for Ayo Edebiri, who won best supporting actress last time around. It […]

MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ host says he was surprised and disappointed the show was pulled from the air

MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said Tuesday he was “surprised and disappointed” the news show was pulled off the air the day before and hasn't received a good explanation about why.

The four-hour morning news and talk show, a favorite of President Joe Biden and his fans, was pre-empted Monday in favor of a live news feed from the NBC News Now streaming service that was focused on covering the aftermath of Saturday's assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

Scarborough said he was told Sunday night that all of NBC News channels would be working from a single, consistent feed for the entire day Monday.

“That did not happen,” he said on “Morning Joe” Tuesday. “We don't know why that didn't happen. Our team was not given a good answer as to why that did not happen, but it didn't happen.”

‘Time Bandits’ show reinvigorates Monty Python film with Lisa Kudrow-led ensemble

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Adapting a cult-classic film into a television series is a daunting task, but for Lisa Kudrow and her collaborators on “Time Bandits,” that challenge just meant there was more room for exploration.

“The series version of a film means you’re gonna expand and really go into some more details about that world, and that’s what I was excited about,” Kudrow said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “It was really fun.”

“Time Bandits,” an Apple TV+ series that begins streaming July 24, is based on the 1981 film of the same name directed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam and co-written by him and frequent collaborator Michael Palin. Both the film and the series follow a ragtag band of time-traveling thieves, led by Kudrow as Penelope, who join forces with their newest recruit — an 11-year-old history buff named Kevin — as they journey through time on a quest to save the boy’s parents from evil forces.

While the series stays loyal to several key details and bits from the source material, Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, who created the series with Iain Morris, said it was important to them that the show didn’t feel like an imitation of the film.

Cuisine on the small screen

Order up!

The third season of The Bear dropped on Disney+ late last month. To say that fans of the Emmy Award-winning television series had been hungering to catch up on the goings-on at the oft-chaotic Original Beef of Chicagoland, the fictional restaurant that serves as the show’s primary setting, would be an understatement.

According to Variety magazine, the first episode of Season 3 of The Bear, which stars Jeremy Allen White as chef Carmen (Carmy) Berzatto and Ayo Edebiri as sous chef Sydney Adamu, registered 5.4 million views in the four days following its June 26 release, a 24 per cent increase over the second season’s debut episode in June 2023.

While it’s true The Bear has been a runaway hit since its debut two years ago, with audiences and critics alike, it’s far from the first time a dining spot has played a starring role on a TV screen.