The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
New this week: Billy Joel sings, Dora explores and ‘Food, Inc. 2’ chows down
A Billy Joel concert special celebrating his residency at Madison Square Garden and Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal playing cowboys and former lovers in Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life” are some of the new television, movies, 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: a sequel to the powerful documentary “Food, Inc.,” a reboot of “Dora the Explorer” on Paramount+ and Linkin Park’s first career-spanning greatest hits collection.
NEW MOVIES TO STREAM
• A song can transport you back to a different time in your life with just a note. The new film “The Greatest Hits,” starring Lucy Boynton, draws on this idea and makes it literal for a woman mourning the death of her boyfriend (David Corenswet, aka the new Superman). The random bouts of time travel, which can happen any time a familiar song comes on the radio, make it tough for her to live in the present and move on. The film comes from writer-director Ned Benson, who made the underappreciated “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,” and of course boasts a great soundtrack including Beach House and Roxy Music. “The Greatest Hits” is streaming on Hulu starting Thursday.
• Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal play cowboys and former lovers in Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life,” his 31-minute Western streaming on Netflix starting Sunday, April 14. At the film’s Cannes premiere last year, Almodóvar, who famously turned down the opportunity to direct “Brokeback Mountain,” said unlike the characters in that movie, he imagined these guys were really gunslingers in the vein of “The Wild Bunch.” AP Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote at the time that “it’s delightful to see Almodóvar at work in a new genre, yet just as at home, filling the frame with pops of color (Pascal’s character wears a lime green jacket) and flourishes of emotion” and that it “extends yet another vibrant chapter in Almodóvar’s filmography, now in its fifth decade.”
• Sixteen years after “Food, Inc.” changed the way many think about where their food comes from, filmmakers Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo reunited with “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” author Michael Pollan and “Fast Food Nation” writer Eric Schlosser to take another look at the current state of food in the U.S. With a special focus on the rights of farmworkers and the downsides of corporate consolidation and ultra-processed foods, “Food, Inc. 2” will be available on VOD starting Friday, April 12.
NEW MUSIC TO STREAM
• There is peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, peace and love, and Billy Joel and Madison Square Garden. Some things just go together. Joel and MSG have long been synonymous; he’s sold out more shows than any other performer at the famed venue, first performing there in 1978. To celebrate his triumphant run, a new concert special, “The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden — The Greatest Arena Run of All Time,” will air on CBS and can be streamed on Paramount+ on Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific. It was filmed at Joel’s 100th consecutive performance at Madison Square Garden just a few days ago — March 28. Prepare to watch the Piano Man at the height of his powers. And then consider seeing him live, because he won’t be at MSG for much longer: He will conclude his residency in July with his 150th lifetime performance at the venue.
• One of the defining American rock bands of the 2000s, Linkin Park will release their first career-spanning greatest hits collection, “Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000 – 2003),” on Friday, April 12. Headbangers should expect a comprehensive retrospective from the band as well as a previously unreleased track, “Friendly Fire,” originally recorded around their 2017 album “One More Light” and featuring their late vocalist Chester Bennington.
• Rhiannon Giddens’ music and scholarship has highlighted the contributions of Black Americans in folk and country. That work continues on “The Ballad of Sally Anne,” a remarkable Alice Randall cover and choice cut from the forthcoming covers compilation “My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall.” Randall is the author of a new book also titled “My Black Country” and the first Black woman to write a country No. 1 hit in Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl).” This compilation celebrates her legacy. Other contributors to the album include Leyla McCalla, Valerie June, Rissi Palmer, and many other Black female country performers working to evolve the genre. “My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall” is a necessary listen for Randall and Giddens fans old and new. (And if you’ve just learned about Giddens through her contributions to Beyoncé’s “Act ll: Cowboy Carter” — well, welcome!)*