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NEW YORK (AP) — Apple TV+ is hoping people will make a dent in the Strategic Popcorn Reserve by bingeing its streaming TV and movies for free this weekend in what experts are calling a canny promotion. The two-day offer this Saturday and Sunday is intended to give viewers a taste of what's behind the Apple paywall and get them hooked, ready to fork over $9.99 a month in the U.S. Michael D. Smith, a professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, said the two-day window is not too short to ignore and not too...
NEW YORK (AP) — If you've ever had trouble solving a Rubik's Cube, a good piece of advice is to break it down into steps. It's worth a shot: That advice is from the man who invented it. "Problem solving is a very basic activity of the human mind and if a problem is complex you need to divide the problem into smaller elements," says Ernő Rubik, who invented the cube in 1974. Rubik has seen his color-matching puzzle go from a classroom teaching tool in Cold War-era Hungary to a worldwide phenomenon with over 450 million cubes sold and a mi...
Early on in "Stillwater," a gruff oil rig worker from Oklahoma is asked what he's doing in the French port city of Marseille. "Visiting my daughter," he replies. That's only sort of right, it turns out. He left some stuff out. But truth itself gets more than a little smeared in this fascinating film that's really a character study pretending to be a thriller. Matt Damon stars as the Oklahoman, a goateed, denim-wearing roughneck named Bill with a sad past. He's visiting his daughter (Abigail Breslin) in France — that part is true. But it's n...
NEW YORK (AP) — The Emmy Award nominations announced Tuesday included some snubs and surprises. STRIKE A POSE "Pose" left the ballroom with a clutch of Emmy nominations. The groundbreaking FX show about ballroom culture in the 1980s and '90s ended its third and final season with nods for Billy Porter and Mj Rodriguez — the first trans performer up for a major acting Emmy — and a best drama series nomination, its second. The series from creators Steven Canals and Ryan Murphy made history with its historic casting of transgender actors to play...
NEW YORK (AP) — TikTok's crowdsourced "Ratatouille" musical has cooked up some serious talent for its one-night-only benefit concert, including roles for Tituss Burgess, Adam Lambert, Wayne Brady, André De Shields and Ashley Park. "Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical" — fondly nicknamed the "Ratatousical" — will begin streaming on Friday at 7 p.m. ET for 72 hours. Tickets are on sale exclusively on TodayTix.com and are $5. Proceeds will benefit The Actors Fund, which aids entertainment industry workers. It is the product of several minds — many...
NEW YORK (AP) — As half of HGTV's "Property Brothers," Jonathan Scott is all about transforming interior spaces. Now he's revealing a massive space he'd like to transform — the Earth. "Jonathan Scott's Power Trip" is his new documentary about solar power and why this clean, renewable source of energy is being stifled by what he calls an "archaic, old boys system" that's financially addicted to fossil fuels. "It's just so frustrating when you see how rigged the game is," he tells The Associated Press. "I've always been willing to be the per...
NEW YORK (AP) — This year's Stand Up for Heroes fundraiser is going virtual for the first time and The Boss will once again be there. But so will a real prince. Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Tiffany Haddish and Brad Paisley have all signed up to participate — as well as Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, for the first time. The fundraiser, which benefits injured veterans and their families, will also feature comedians and musicians including Nate Bargatze, Ronny Chieng, Mickey Guyton, Patti Scialfa, Iliza Shlesinger, Jeannie Gaffigan and Ray...
NEW YORK (AP) — What has more letters than the alphabet? That's easy: The post office. That joke — sponsored by the letter A — is a highlight of the first original podcast from "Sesame Street," featuring music, interactive games and Muppets galore. "The Sesame Street Podcast with Foley & Friends" is an offering on Audible that gives some screen-free educational entertainment to kids who may be having spotty school lessons during the coronavirus pandemic. "We think it's so important to have this other medium besides screens for playful, fun, eng...
NEW YORK (AP) — Eddie Van Halen, the guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rock's biggest groups and became elevated to the status of rock god, has died. He was 65. A person close to Van Halen's family confirmed the rocker died Tuesday due to cancer. The person was not authorized to publicly release details in advance of an official announcement. "He was the best father I could ask for," Van Halen's son Wolfgang wrote in a social media post. "Every moment I've shared with h...
"The Social Dilemma" is the first film you'll watch and immediately want to toss your smartphone into the garbage can. And then toss the garbage can through the window of a Facebook executive. It's an eye-opening look into the way social media is designed to create addiction and manipulate our behavior, told by some of the very people who supervised the systems at places like Facebook, Google and Twitter. Tim Kendall, a former president of Pinterest, admitted that years ago he couldn't get off his phone even when he came home, despite having...
NEW YORK (AP) — Tyler Perry has won awards from the NAACP and BET. Now he's getting a big one from the Television Academy: He and his foundation are the recipients of the 2020 Governors Award. The prize, picked by the academy board of governors, honors Perry "for his unprecedented achievements in television and his commitment to offering opportunities to marginalized communities." Perry has so far created 22 feature films, over 20 stage plays, 13 television shows and two bestselling books. The Atlanta-based producer was one of the first m...
NEW YORK (AP) — Newsweek has apologized for an op-ed that questioned Sen. Kamala Harris' U.S. citizenship and her eligibility to be Joe Biden's running mate, a false and racist conspiracy theory which President Donald Trump has not dismissed. "This op-ed is being used by some as a tool to perpetuate racism and xenophobia. We apologize," read Newsweek's editor's note on Friday, which replaced the magazine's earlier detailed defense of the op-ed. "We entirely failed to anticipate the ways in which the essay would be interpreted, distorted and w...
It's the sound of silence that Josh Groban finds hardest to hear during the pandemic. Quarantine hasn't stilled his voice or songwriting, but the give-and-get Groban usually enjoys from interacting with his audience is gone. He sings into a machine and hears nothing back. "When the song is over, to have silence is so weird," he said. "The back and forth that I love so much, chatting with the audience, going into the crowd — I've had to fill in that gap in my head." Groban is doing his best to fill the void with a new album due in November a...
NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway seamstress Amy Micallef hasn't put her talent on hold while theaters are shut. She's been making plush toys — unusual plush toys. Micallef, who has worked in the wardrobe departments of "Hamilton," "Waitress" and "Frozen," makes gleeful representations of COVID-19, complete with a pair of eyes and faux fur. Each one goes for $23 on Etsy and she encourages buyers to unleash their anger on her creations — be merciless against a virus that has caused so much loss and disruption. "Sometimes you need to throw something again...
NEW YORK (AP) — "The Magic School Bus" has traveled everywhere from Pluto to inside the human body. Now it's going somewhere new: the big screen. Scholastic Entertainment said Thursday that it will make "a feature-length, live-action hybrid film" based on the animated TV show that ran from 1994 to 1997. Elizabeth Banks will play the manic science teacher Ms. Frizzle. "The Magic School Bus," adapted from a series of books written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen, centers on a group of school children who board a yellow school bus f...
NEW YORK (AP) — Jesse Tyler Ferguson is a star in his own right but even he has had to gulp at the wattage on tap for the upcoming benefit for New York City's fabled Public Theater. Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alicia Keys, Daniel Craig, Danielle Brooks, Glenn Close, Elvis Costello, Claire Danes, Danai Gurira, Anne Hathaway, John Leguizamo, Audra McDonald, Sandra Oh, David Hyde Pierce and Sting are just some of stars expected to attend the June 1 virtual event, called "We Are One Public." "It is a pretty impressive l...
NEW YORK (AP) — Time never softened the urgency of Larry Kramer's demands. Theatergoers leaving a celebrated revival of Kramer's "The Normal Heart" in 2011 were greeted by the playwright himself, deep in his 70s by then, handing out leaflets outside the Broadway theater demanding they do more to stop AIDS. "Please know that AIDS is a worldwide plague. Please know there is no cure," the leaflets read. That same year, Kramer found time to help the American Foundation for Equal Rights mount their play "8" on Broadway about the legal battle over s...
NEW YORK (AP) — The magicians Penn & Teller hope to pull off a heck of a trick on Monday — make fears of the coronavirus disappear, at least for an hour. The duo star in the CW's special "Penn & Teller: Try This at Home," created and filmed entirely by the homebound magicians and their friends. "It is a fascinating challenge to be able to do magic for people when you can't touch anything," said Penn Jillette, the taller, more vocal part of the group, who goes by his first name. "It's not even a retooling. It's a complete ground-up ret...
NEW YORK (AP) — There was a time not too long ago when Broadway star Ben Platt was interviewed by a monster. A perfectly nice monster, of course. It was Elmo. Elmo asked Platt what was his favorite music to sing. Cookie Monster interrupted to ask what was Platt's favorite cookie. "Oatmeal chocolate chip," replied Platt in one exchange. "Good answer," said Cookie Monster. "But, then again, there's no such thing as bad cookie." After a stellar group rendition of the song "C Is for Cookie," Elmo presented his guest with a placemat. "A placemat f...
NEW YORK (AP) — The big budget musical "Frozen" will not reopen when Broadway theaters restart, marking the first time an established show has been felled by the coronavirus pandemic. Until now, only shows that were waiting to officially open have announced postponements or cancellations. Disney still has "The Lion King" and "Aladdin" on Broadway and five productions of "Frozen" planned worldwide. Citing the "global pandemic," Thomas Schumacher, president and producer of Disney Theatrical Productions, said Thursday that running three Disney s...
NEW YORK (AP) — We might not be totally free these days, but there's a lot out there that is. Companies like Pure Barre and Peloton are offering free access to fitness classes. Amazon is giving away book classics like "The Call of the Wild" and "Emma," and MasterClass has experts offering their wisdom for nothing. The coronovirus's shutdown has wreaked havoc on so many lives and also disrupted many companies plans. But some are offering their goods for free or dropping their paywalls for a limited time. It may not make the best financial d...
NEW YORK (AP) — They were skeptical. The name was weird. The concept was a little crazy — but it was intriguing. Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz and rising star Stephan James each overcame initial reluctance to become pioneers in Quibi, the mobile phone-only platform that offers installments of movies and TV in 10 minutes or less. "When they told me about the whole endeavor, I said, 'Really? Have attention spans come down that far? It's now below 10 minutes?'" jokes Waltz. Now on the other side, both film actors are firm believers in the process t...
Portia de Rossi has been teaching herself how to cook during the coronavirus lockdown. It's been an eye-opening experience for the actress — and for her fans. She's cut herself and been burned, yes. She's also discovered she doesn't like some Indian flavors and that her longtime wife, talk show host Ellen Degeneres, isn't a fan of curry and garbanzo beans. "We're learning a lot about each other in quarantine!" she admits on Instagram. We are indeed learning a lot about each other these days, and that's especially true with our celebrities. Soci...
NEW YORK (AP) — Quibi may specialize in small, bite-sized videos, but its volume of shows is large. The media platform launches Monday with 175 new original shows — everything from scripted series, comedic diversions, deep dramas and celebrity fluff. Here's a look at some of the notable and less notable shows. MOST DANGEROUS GAME Liam Hemsworth stars as a father-to-be with huge bills and a terminal illness in this high-end thrilling series that feels like watching a big-budget film. Christoph Waltz plays a man with an intriguing offer for our...
Bill Withers, who wrote and sang a string of soulful songs in the 1970s that have stood the test of time, including " Lean on Me, " "Lovely Day" and "Ain't No Sunshine," has died from heart complications, his family said in a statement to The Associated Press. He was 81. The three-time Grammy Award winner, who withdrew from making music in the mid-1980s, died on Monday in Los Angeles, the statement said. His death comes as the public has drawn inspiration from his music during the coronavirus pandemic, with health care workers, choirs, artists...
