Hanks, ‘Outer Banks' and ‘Snowfall'
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s new this week.
FX’s critically-acclaimed series “Snowfall,” about the crack cocaine boom in Los Angeles in the 1980s kicked off its sixth and final season on Thursday. The final episodes are high-stakes for all the characters including Damson Idris as Franklin Saint, who rose to drug kingpin status throughout the series and had declared war on everyone around him.
It’s been 13 years since we last saw the cater waiters of “Party Down” suffer through another event thrown by the rich and sometimes famous of Los Angeles. Original cast members including Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen and Megan Mullally reprise their characters in a third season that debuted Friday on Starz. This new batch of episodes sees the characters older and (somewhat) at different places in their lives but they’re still just as funny.
Netflix’s “Outer Banks” returned for its third season on Thursday and JJ, Sarah, and the gang have discovered a deserted island they’ve named Poguelandia. If we’ve learned anything from “Lord of the Flies” and “Yellowjackets,” teens on a deserted island equals trouble. And that’s just how the third season begins, promising more action, romance and of course, hidden treasures. — Alicia Rancilio
Movies
Adult dramas have generally been having a hard time in theaters in recent months, but one notable exception has been “A Man Called Otto.” The film stars Tom Hanks as a despondent and ornery widower whose suicide plans keep getting foiled by the needs of his neighbors. “A Man Called Otto” arrived on video on demand Tuesday. Marc Forster’s adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s bestseller and a remake of the 2016 Swedish film “A Man Called Ove,” “A Man Called Otto” is well tailored to Hanks’ screen presence while subtly tweaking it.
Since its prize-winning debut at the Cannes Film Festival last May, Polish filmmaking legend Jerzy Skolimowski’s “EO” has been moving audiences like few other recent films. Skolimowski made “EO,” nominated for best international film at the Academy Awards, from the perspective of a circus donkey on a spiritual journey as it experiences cruelty and kindness while traveling through Poland and Italy. “The idea was from the very beginning that we don’t want to tell the story about the donkey, but that we want the audience to feel like it is a donkey,” Ewa Piaskowska, Skolimowski’s wife and co-writer told AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr. “EO” began streaming Tuesday on the Criterion Channel and is also available for digital rental. — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle
Video Games
The big news in games is the arrival of Sony’s PlayStation VR2 virtual reality headset. It’s pricey at $550 and you need a PlayStation 5 to use it, but there will be a healthy software lineup. The marquee title is Horizon: Call of the Mountain, which allows the player to climb mountains and hunt cyborgs in the franchise’s lively, postapocalyptic setting. Owners of the racing game Gran Turismo 7 and the horror epic Resident Evil Village will be able to download free VR versions, and there are dozens of other games — some new, some old — in the pipeline. Sony’s updated take on the metaverse was released Wednesday.
Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler drew some flak for its goofy name when it debuted in 2018, but it found a big enough audience to warrant a sequel. Like its predecessor, Octopath Traveler II tells eight separate stories of eight intrepid adventurers as they explore a magical land. And if the formula holds true, they’ll team up at the end to fight off some world-threatening cataclysm. The journeys began Friday on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5/4 and PC. — Lou Kesten