The It List: 'Westworld' unveils a new Delos park, 'The Hunt' hits theaters amid controversy and the best in pop culture the week of March 9, 2020
The It List is Yahoo’s weekly look at the best in pop culture, including movies, music, TV, streaming, games, books, podcasts and more. Here are our picks for March 9-15, including the best deals we could find for each. (Yahoo Entertainment may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page.)
WATCH IT: Westworld Season 3 has more worlds, more robots and more Aaron Paul
After the second season of HBO’s sci-fi mindbender more or less blew up the titular park, the citizens of Westworld has to relocate... to our world. Season 3 finds Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) living amongst humans in the world of tomorrow, while still planning her grand robot uprising. One of her newest recruits in that endeavor is Caleb, played by Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul. While details about Caleb’s history are being kept under wraps, we do know that he’s got a heist crew that includes guest stars Lena Waithe and Marshawn Lynch, and those extracurricular activities are what bring him to Dolores’s attention. A secret trailer tucked away on HBO’s YouTube channel depicts their first meeting as a typical rom-com date night that turns atypically violent. While Dolores is out in the real world, free spirit Maeve (Thandie Newton) is still exploring Delos Destinations’s wide world of parks, which has expanded to include WarWorld — a land modeled after World War II-era Germany. She’s also been tasked with a mission by a mysterious new character played by Vincent Cassel: track and kill Dolores. A Newton vs. Wood showdown? That’s the main event in our dream theme park. — Ethan Alter
Westworld Season 3 premieres Sunday, March 15 at 9 p.m. on HBO.
WATCH IT: The Hunt blasts into theaters six months after its abrupt termination
Originally scheduled for release in September, this Damon Lindelof-penned social satire/shoot ‘em up had its theatrical premiere canceled after a series of mass shootings, and being denounced by media commentators and politicians, including President Donald Trump. Now, The Hunt is back on with an appropriate new release date: Friday the 13th. Directed by Craig Zobel, the movie stars Betty Gilpin, Ike Barinholtz and Emma Roberts as a group of “deplorables” who are kidnapped and hunted by wealthy elites... or are they? As you’d expect from a Lindelof script, The Hunt has a few twists up its sleeves — which, by the way, are fairly blood-soaked from all the over-the-top gore. While the film’s controversial premise has dominated pre-release coverage, coming out of the theater all you’ll be able to talk about is Gilpin’s note-perfect performance as a wryly funny butt-kicking machine. Someone give her a John Wick-type franchise now, please. — E.A.
The Hunt opens in theaters on Friday, March 13; visit Fandango for showtime and ticket information.
HEAR IT: Niall Horan continues his solo direction
Following recent album releases by his former One Direction bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and Liam Payne, and the success of his own 2017 debut Flicker, the “Slow Hands” star returns with Heartbreak Weather. The sophomore album features collaborations with superstar songwriters Greg Kurstin, Teddy Geiger, and Tobias Jesso Jr., among others; Horan has co-writing credit on all 14 tracks. — Lyndsey Parker
Download on iTunes, buy on CD/vinyl at Amazon.
WATCH IT: Spend some time with more On My Block
When we last saw the teens from the Netflix dramedy, they were not in a good situation, having been snatched off the streets of their inner-city neighborhood. In eight new episodes, Jamal, Monse, Cesar and Ruby will come face-to-face with their kidnapper. Last season, show creator Lauren Iungerich told Entertainment Weekly that this new collection will directly stem from that finale. “What I can tell you is that it’s setting us up for our Season 3 drive,” she told the magazine. “It will totally make sense when it is revealed, but it’s not what you’d expect.” In other words, prepare for another addictive season of what Netflix said was its most-binged show of 2018. — Raechal Shewfelt
On My Block Season 3 premieres Wednesday, March 11 on Netflix.
PLAY IT: The Shining board game is all play and no work
Bring a piece of the Overlook home with you with The Shining, a board game based on Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic from Prospero Hall — the geniuses behind tabletop adaptations of Jaws and Top Gun. Three to four caretakers will spend a winter inside the hotel’s haunted halls, while another player tries to corrupt their minds by unleashing the many demons lurking in the rooms. Survive for four months and you can descend from the Colorado mountains a winner! Succumb to the horrors and you might find yourself playing at the Overlook forever... and ever... and ever. — E.A.
The Shining board game is available for purchase at Target.
WATCH IT: Uncut Gems arrives on Blu-ray, anxiety pills not included
Here's the thing about Uncut Gems, which you certainly already know if you've experienced this finely cut gem of a movie: It will give you all kinds of anxiety. That was the overarching reaction of countless viewers who saw this 2019 fall release. But here's the thing: It's a "good" kind of anxiety. Like the anxiety you experience slowly climbing to the top of a 400-foot roller coaster. Only this ride lasts a nerve-racking 135 minutes. Adam Sandler gives a career-best performance as a New York City jeweler and gambling addict who keeps digging himself further and further into doo-doo, yet almost inexplicably just as deep into our hearts. What this home entertainment release is light on, though, is bonus content, with one making-of featurette included. Why do we feel like a Criterion Collection release can't be far off? — Kevin Polowy
Buy Uncut Gems on DVD or Blu-ray at Amazon.
HEAR IT: The Trolls sequel soundtrack can’t stop the feeling
The cast-and-credits listing for the Trolls: World Tour movie soundtrack reads like an A-list pop festival; contributors includes Justin Timberlake, SZA, Kelly Clarkson, Anderson .Paak, Mary J. Blige, George Clinton, HAIM, Dierks Bentley, Ester Dean, and Icona Pop. This is the kind of internet trolling we can get behind! — L.P.
Download on iTunes, buy on CD at Amazon.
WATCH IT: Never Rarely Sometimes Always offers a moving snapshot of being a teenage girl
“Don’t you ever just wish you were a dude?” a girl asks her cousin, who’s just learned that she’s unexpectedly pregnant, in the trailer for this poignant drama. In the vein of Ladybird and Boyhood, the movie promises an up close view of what it’s like to be young, female and sometimes struggling with adult problems. Writer and director Eliza Hittman’s film is about those two girls, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), taking a “fraught journey across state lines to New York City.” Hittman said she got the idea for the project in 2012, after reading an article about a woman who was denied an abortion that would have saved her life.
“I started to wonder where would she have had to go? How far would she have had to travel to save her own life?,” Hittman told Deadline in January. “I started reading about the journeys that women take to other countries and within America from rural areas into urban areas. It’s what’s insensitively coined abortion tourism. Her death was really the beginning of an extensive research process for me.” — R.S.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always opens in theaters on Friday, March 13; visit Fandango for showtime and ticket information.
HEAR IT: The Boomtown Rats are back with a bang
Bob Geldof’s Irish pub-punk band is back with Citizens of Boomtown – incredibly, their first album in 36 years! The current Rats lineup, which features original bassist Pete Briquette (who also produced the 10-track Citizens) and original drummer Simon Crowe, will go on tour later this year. — L.P.
Download on iTunes, buy on CD/vinyl at Amazon.
WATCH IT: Revisit A Quiet Place in a special Blu-ray edition before the sequel sneaks into theaters
With A Quiet Place Part II set to make some noise in theaters on March 20, here’s a chance to look back at John Krasinski’s 2017 hit that launched a new horror franchise. Paramount’s new 4K Ultra HD Combo release houses two discs in a handsome (and spooky!) Mondo X Steelbook case. Bonus features include three behind-the-scenes documentaries that cover the movie’s visual effects, sound editing and production design. — E.A.
Buy the A Quiet Place 4K Ultra HD Combo at Amazon.
WATCH IT: See Bob Dylan like you’ve never seen him before in the cult movie musical Masked and Anonymous, on Blu-ray for the first time
The cinematic equivalent of a lost Bob Dylan album, Masked and Anonymous, came and went from theaters in 2003 and has mostly resided in obscurity ever since. Thanks to Shout Factory, you’ll be able to experience this oddball star vehicle yourself in its first-ever Blu-ray release. The folk rock legend plays road-tripping troubadour, Jack Fate, who exits prison and enters a decrepit future America en route to a benefit concert. Along the way, he encounters such famous faces as Jessica Lange, Mickey Rourke and Jeff Bridges. Directed by Larry Charles — who provides a newly-recorded video interview for the Blu-ray — the film reportedly originated on scraps of paper filled with Dylan-esque wordplay. That explains why the finished product unfolds more like a feature-length game of word association than a conventional three-act narrative. But that’s also what makes it the quintessential Bob Dylan big-screen experience. — E.A.
Buy Masked and Anonymous on Blu-ray at Amazon.
WATCH IT: The Ten Commandments worth coveting with new Special Edition Blu-ray Digibook
Pop quiz: What's the most expensive movie ever made? Nope, it's not Avatar, nor Avengers: Endgame. You might be surprised to hear that it's actually Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, a.k.a. the fourth installment of the Captain Jack saga, which cost a whopping $379 million to produce. In 1956, though, that title easily went to Cecil B. DeMille's Biblical epic The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston as the sea-parting prince Moses. That "whopping" $13 million was money well spent. Sixty-four years later, the spectacle of DeMille's all-time classic and its glorious set pieces haven't dimmed a microwatt, even if the effects naturally look aged. A regular cable TV staple around Passover and Easter, this year the film gets a home entertainment upgrade with a Blu-ray digibook that includes both the 1956 film and DeMille's own 1923 silent film that preceded it, as well as an accompanying 16-page booklet. — K.P.
Buy The Ten Commandments on Blu-ray on Amazon.
HEAR IT: Indie supergroup offers Deap thoughts, Flaming-hot psych-rock
Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd (of Oklahoma eccentrics the Flaming Lips) and Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards (of L.A. garage-rock duo Deap Vally) team up for a new psychedelic supergroup, Deap Lips. The self-titled LP features Deap Vally’s first new music since their 2016 album Femejism, while it’s the prolific Lips’ most fascinating side-project since their short-lived Dead Petz collaboration with Miley Cyrus in 2015. — L.P.
