New this week: 'We Are Lady Parts' & a third 'The Conjuring'
This week’s new entertainment releases include new music from Liz Phair, Lloyd Banks and Joe Walsh
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Your support makes all the difference.Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— Pride Month will be celebrated across many streaming platforms beginning this week. One standout new release is “Changing the Game,” Michael Barnett’s documentary about three transgender teens navigating high school athletics. The film, which first premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival back in 2019, is only just getting a release, on Hulu beginning Tuesday, with some updated material. Amid swirling media attention, “Changing the Game” humanizes a sometimes fraught issue by staying close to the kids — a wrestler in Texas a skier in New Hampshire and a Connecticut track star.
— With old-school, trope-heavy, sturdily built horror tales, “The Conjuring” films have amassed a surprisingly vast franchise, with its many iterations and offshoots totaling nearly $2 billion in worldwide box office. In “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” the third in the flagship “Conjuring” series and the eighth film overall in the Conjuring-verse, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are back for a 1981 murder trial in Connecticut considered to be the first known court case in which demonic possession was used as a defense. The film opens Friday in theaters and on HBO Max.
—AP Film Writer Jake Coyle
MUSIC
— Liz Phair last released an album of original songs 11 years ago, and she’s returning to the scene with “Soberish” on Friday. The 13-track album was produced by Brad Wood, who worked on Phair’s albums “Exile In Guyville,” “Whip-Smart” and “whitechocolatespaceegg.” Phair said this of the album’s title: “Soberish can be about partying. It can be about self-delusion. It can be about chasing that first flush of love or, in fact, any state of mind that allows you to escape reality for a while and exist on a happier plane. It’s not self-destructive or out of control; it’s as simple as the cycle of dreaming and waking up.”
— It’s also been 11 years since Grammy-nominated rapper Lloyd Banks has dropped a solo album. On Friday, the former G-Unit member will release “The Course of the Inevitable,” a 18-track set featuring collaborations with Styles P, Benny The Butcher, Vado, Sy Ari da Kid, Roc Marci and Ransom.
— After playing together at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, the Eagles’ Joe Walsh invited classical sarod player Amjad Ali Khan and his two sons to Los Angeles to record music at his home studio last year. The result is “Prayers,” a three-song EP being released Friday. The three tracks – “Healing Love,” “Goddess” and “Hope (We Shall Overcome)” – were inspired by frontline workers and social justice groups. And artist proceeds from the album will benefit global health nonprofit Intrahealth International.
— AP Music Editor Mesfin Fekadu
TELEVISION
— A 1921 race attack that decimated a prosperous Tulsa, Oklahoma, business district known as Black Wall Street and killed scores of the community’s residents is getting unprecedented attention on its centennial. Among the TV entries: A two-part OWN special, “The Legacy of Black Wall Street,” debuting on consecutive Tuesdays on the channel (9 p.m. EDT) and the discovery+ streaming service. The first episode (Tuesday), tells of the pioneers who built Greenwood District and saw its destruction by mob violence, while the June 8 chapter details efforts by a new generation of entrepreneurs and others to resurrect what was lost.
— The eye-catching title is just the start of the fun with “We Are Lady Parts,” a six-part, London-set series about a Muslim female punk band called — you’ve got it — Lady Parts. Anjana Vasan plays Amina, a microbiology student who is reluctantly pressed into service as the group’s lead guitarist by driven frontwoman Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey) despite the doubts of her bandmates (Juliette Motamed, Faith Omole) and manager (Lucie Shorthouse). Amina, captivated by the band’s spirit, uneasily finds it at odds with that of her university pals and routine. The series debuts Thursday on the Peacock streaming service.
— Netflix’s “Sweet Tooth,” based on writer-illustrator Jeff Lemire’s DC Comics series, is set a post-pandemic world in which children born as human-animal hybrids are feared and hunted. Gus (Christian Convery) is a deer-boy who emerges from his protected forest home and ends up in the company of a wanderer (Nonso Anozie), skirting danger as they both seek answers about themselves and what remains of America. The series makers, including husband-and-wife producers Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey, say it’s a work of hope meant for families to watch together. The eight-part series is out Friday.
— AP Television Writer Lynn Elber
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Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/apf-entertainment.