What to Stream: A$AP Rocky, Madison Beer, Damon and Affleck reunite
By The Associated Press
A$AP Rocky’s first full-length album in eight years, “Don’t Be Dumb,” and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reuniting again in Netflix’s “The Rip” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.
Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: The pop-R&B vocalist Madison Beer returns with her third LP, “Locket,” Idris Elba tries to solve a hostage situation on a train in Season 2 of “Hijack” and Will Smith takes viewers on a trip to all seven continents in his new docuseries “Pole to Pole with Will Smith.”
New movies to stream from Jan. 12-18
— Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are together again, this time in Miami. In “The Rip” (Friday, Jan. 16 on Netflix), the Boston-bred stars are directed by Joe Carnahan in an action thriller about a group of Miami police officers whose bonds begin to fray after they discover millions in cash in a derelict stash house. The supporting cast including Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor and Kyle Chandler.
— James Sweeney’s “Twinless,” an award-winning standout at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, arrives Friday, Jan. 16 on Hulu. In it, Sweeney stars alongside Dylan O’Brien as two young men who become friends after meeting at a twin bereavement support group. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote: “Sweeney’s film argues that grief is also subjective, and that it doesn’t always follow logical paths — or even acceptable ones.”
— While development and nonstop casting rumors surround the next James Bond film, all 26 of the 007 movies are coming to Netflix beginning Thursday. Though Bond is now owned and controlled by Amazon MGM, the studio is licensing the Bond library to Netflix to whet appetites while director Denis Villeneuve preps the first post-Daniel Craig entry in the long-running spy series.
New music to stream from Jan. 12-18
— It has been nearly a decade — eight years — since A$AP Rocky released a full-length project, his third studio album titled “Testing” back in 2018. The wait is finally over Friday when he drops “Don’t Be Dumb.” The first official taste of the release comes courtesy “Punk Rocky,” a restrained alt-rock song built atop a dream-pop riff and Rocky alternating between a reverbed chorus and melodic flows.
— The pop-R&B vocalist Madison Beer returns with her third LP, “Locket,” also on Friday, Jan. 16. It may prove to be her strongest output to date: “Bittersweet” plays to her strengths, recalling a soft, balladic Ariana Grande. Others confirm the current cultural moment as post-“Brat,” like the propulsive electro-pop single “yes baby” and the slightly sinister “15 minutes.” Could this be the album that sends Beer to the next level? Only time will tell.
— For the eclecticists reading along: Avant-garde experimentalists Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore have teamed up for the collaborative album “Tragic Magic.” It’s ambient, well, magic — the two composers improvising and weaving into one another; Lattimore with her harps and Barwick with her synthesizers. Together, they form a kind of poetry.
— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman
New series to stream from Jan. 12-18
— Will Smith takes viewers on a trip to all seven continents in his new National Geographic docuseries “Pole to Pole with Will Smith.” This is not your average travel show. It’s taken five years to complete and Smith visits the jungles of the Amazon, skis in the South Pool and climbs the Himalayas. The seven-episode series debuts Tuesday and streams next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
— A funny meme circulated last summer about Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty” that essentially said, if you think the Jeremiah character is a bad boyfriend you haven’t seen the character Stephen DeMarco of Hulu’s “Tell Me Lies.” See for yourself just how toxic he is in the show’s third season, debuting Tuesday. It follows a group of (sort of) friends during two timelines, at college and then six years later as twentysomethings. Grace Van Patten and Jackson White star.
— Idris Elba saved the day during a hijacking on a plane in season one of “Hijack” for Apple TV. In Season 2, out Wednesday, his character is scarred from the events of season one, but he finds himself in another hostage situation on a train.
— An adaptation of “The Seven Dials Mystery,” a 1929 Agatha Christie novel, lands on Netflix Thursday. It’s about a young wealthy woman investigating a murder at a party in the English countryside. “Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials” is a three-part series and stars Helena Bonham Carter, Martin Freeman and Mia McKenna-Bruce.
— Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson co-star in a new thriller called “Ponies” for Peacock. Out Thursday, the pair play two women living a mundane life in the Soviet Union in the 1970s as their husbands are CIA operatives. When they both find themselves widowed, they get thrust into the action.
New video games to play from Jan. 12-18
— Last year’s sensational Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 drew much of its inspiration from classic Japanese role-playing games, leaving many fans to wonder: Where can I get more of this goodness? Well, Japanese developer Nihon Falcom has been at this for a while, and the English translation of its latest epic, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon, is here. As this chapter begins, humanity is about to venture into outer space, but there are still some issues to be resolved on your home planet. That means rounding up a team of fighters and taking on the kinds of battles, both real-time and turn-based, that Nihon has refined over the years. This is the 14th game in the increasingly popular Trails series, but don’t let that scare you off. You can dive in Thursday on PlayStation 5/4, Switch or PC.