New this week: Bruce Springsteen, 'The Big Brunch' and Sonic
This weekโs new entertainment releases include albums by Bruce Springsteen and Louis Tomlinson, Olivia Wilde's โDon't Worry Darlingโ hits HBO Max, and Dan Levy of Emmy-winning โSchittโs Creekโ fame has โThe Big Brunch,โ a cooking competition he created and hosts.
New this week: 'Turning Red,' Ryan Reynolds and Mooski album
This weekโs new entertainment releases include albums from Canadian rocker Bryan Adams and a Stephen Sondheim tribute from Betty Buckley, Ryan Reynolds starring as a time-traveling pilot in Netflixโs โThe Adam Projectโ and a small-town murder case gets some big-star wattage in NBCโs โThe Thing About Pamโ with Renรฉe Zellweger.
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In 'Ma Rainey,' channeling the blues of August Wilson
Following โFencesโ and โMa Rainey,โ he intends to continue adapting Wilsonโs famed American Century Cycle, a 10-play series spanning each decade of the 20th century. All of Wilson's plays hum with the sorrowful beauty of the blues but โMa Rainey" is soaked through. On a sweaty, summer day, a band has gathered at a white-owned recording studio to cut a new record with Ma Rainey (Davis), the pioneering โMother of the Blues,โ and an unapologetically liberated woman from the South. Itโs Cutler and Slow Drag and Ma Rainey talking," says Wolfe. For Davis, Ma isn't a character she wants to let go of, or stop admiring.
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Final 'Miss Peregrine' novel to be published in February
NEW YORK โ We'll soon be saying farewell to peculiars, non-peculiars and ymbrynes: Ransom Riggs has written his final tale of โMiss Peregrine's Peculiar Children." Penguin Young Readers announced Tuesday that โThe Desolations of Devil's Acreโ will come out Feb. 23, again featuring young Jacob Portman and the pipe-smoking headmistress Alma LeFay Peregrine. โ'The Desolations of Devilโs Acre' was many years in the making,โ Riggs said in a statement about his sixth Peregrine novel. โI spent a decade in this world, building and tending to these characters, and itโs a bittersweet thing to finally bid them goodbye. The first book, โMiss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children,โ was adapted by director Tim Burton into a 2016 feature film starring Eva Green, Samuel L. Jackson and Asa Butterfield, among others.
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BET Awards highlight Black voices as artists went political
The BET Awards served as an extension of the voices of Black people protesting in the streets about the inequalities Black people face daily, as artists used their performances to highlight the Black Lives Matter movement, civil rights and the lives of those lost because of police officers, including George Floyd. The BET Awards kicked off with Black artists rapping and singing anthems about the Black experience and fighting for equal rights. Nipseyโs family, we love you.โThe BET Awards, one of the first awards shows to air virtually, featured performances that were sharp with artsy stage production, giving extra life to the songs being performed. โI used to watch the BET Awards all the time thinking, โOne day thatโs going to be me going up there accepting my awardโ โ and now it is.โThough the BET Awards are technically about handing out trophies, the awards were an afterthought. Beyoncรฉ won the BET HER award for โBrown Skin Girl,โ shared with daughter Blue Ivy Carter as well as Wizkid and Saint JHN.

Your Amazon Alexa can sound just like Samuel L. Jackson
(CNN) - Alexa is about to get real Samuel L. Jackson. Amazon will introduce Jackson as the first celebrity voice for its Alexa virtual assistant later this year, the company said Wednesday. Here are a few fun requests Amazon suggests you try after setting up Jackson's voice on your Echo:"Alexa, ask Samuel L. Jackson where he is from." "Alexa, ask Sam to wake me up at 7 a.m.""Alexa, ask Sam Jackson to sing happy birthday." They can just head over to the settings menu of the Alexa app to select between clean and explicit content.

Movie prop auction offers axe from 'The Shining'
In this 2006 photo, a woman looks at a display from the movie "The Shining" at an exhibition of items from 13 movies of director Stanley Kubrick in Ghent, Belgium. Jack Nicholson's axe from "The Shining," Russell Crowe's armor from "Gladiator" and a lightsaber used by Samuel L. Jackson in "Star Wars" are among 900 items going under the hammer next month in a massive auction of movie props. A Tantive IV Stormtrooper helmet from "Star Wars: A New Hope" is among the headline items, with an estimated sale price of between 120,000 and 180,000 ($145,000 and $218,000). The sale is the sixth annual London auction put on by movie-themed auction house Prop Store, set to be held over two days on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. Last year's headline item was Han Solo's jacket, worn by Harrison Ford in the "Star Wars" film "The Empire Strikes Back," but the outfit failed to sell after bidding stalled.