Wondering what to watch this weekend? This week we have several picks for the spooky season, plus a game show to take your mind off of Halloween.
The Mill - Hulu
Picked by Lawrence Banton
It's the thick of the spooky season and I've watched a pretty good amount of horror and thriller flicks over the last several days. Hulu's The Mill was my latest watch and it really messes with you. Imagine you're going about your day like normal and then you suddenly wake up in an open-air prison. That's the predicament Joe, played by comedian Lil Rel Howery, found himself in. He has to figure out a way to escape this prison and make it home to his very pregnant wife. With Lil Rel as the star of the film, know that you will laugh – often – while your palms sweat in anticipation of his next move.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxu1zTco8-I[youtube]
Totally Killer - Amazon Prime
Picked by Keara O’Driscoll
As of late, and especially during this time of the year, I've learned that my favorite style of movies is campy, fun and mildly frightening Halloween movies. I watched Totally Killer after seeing all over my “FYP” on TikTok. I didnt think the film started out well as it gave the low-budget energy of a Disney Channel movie with insanely bad CGI that I was shocked to see in the year 2023. But…that is half of the charm. Starring Julie Bowen, Kiernan Shipka and Olivia Holt, the film follows the classic "angsty teen who hates her mom until something so outlandish happens that she is forced to realize that she is just a person" trope. But as the film progresses, it really sucks you in, and I found myself glued to the screen until the end.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNm3VPPKEQI[youtube]
Taskmaster - YouTube and Taskmaster Supermax+
Picked by Newsletter Writer Graison Dangor
This offbeat British game show is the perfect supply of clips when you just want to laugh and take your mind off things. Episodes, which you don't have to watch in any order, has comedians compete to solve odd tasks — examples include "Knock Over the Fewest Skittles," "Hide 3 Eggplants In This Room" and "Make the Plastic Bag as Heavy as Possible" — which they often fulfill in even odder ways. If you become a big fan, you can watch full seasons of the show and its international offshoots with a paid subscription to Taskmaster Supermax+, their delightfully named streaming platform.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5D4cph_KwI[youtube]
Throwback Pick
The Witches - Amazon Prime
Picked by Senior Editor Dina Ross
Based on the Roald Dahl novel, this spooky family-friendly film tells the tale of a boy who is on a trip with his grandmother when he happens upon a convention of witches. He finds out the hard way that the witches want to turn all children into mice. Now it's his job to stop them. I'll point you to the 1990 adaptation, starring Anjelica Hudson, but the 2020 remake, starring Anne Hathaway, is also worth a watch if you're into a more modern aesthetic.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_ZyqaN_XNM[youtube]
The backlash from President Trump's meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin continued well into Tuesday, with politicians from both sides of the aisle condemning Trump. During his meeting with Putin on Monday, Trump seemed to side with the Russian President over U.S. intelligence officials on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Shares of Netflix tumbled after the company reported lower-than-expected subscriber growth in its quarterly earnings report on Monday. The streaming giant also missed Wall Street estimates on revenue and earnings per share.
And Jonathan Trager, CEO of Group Elephant, joins Cheddar to talk about his organization's mission to stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos in South Africa.
The home rental company partnered with the nonprofit to provide website knowledge and expertise, and to help the organization grow. "We started to touch on what I call 21st-century philanthropy, which is companies not only giving checks to help organizations but actually giving their time and their resources and their talents to go out and solve for problems in the world," says Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia.
The online travel company announced on Tuesday it will invest $500 million in the Chinese ride-hailing company, in a bid to get in on the country's booming tourism industry. "When you see the number of airports that China's building, that's another sign that the tourist area in China is going to continue to grow very strong. That's why we're invested there," says Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel. The two companies have also entered a partnership to offer their services on the other's apps.
A big priority for the company when introducing delivery was retaining quality. "We spent a year engineering proprietary packaging specifically designed just to protect the pancakes themselves, to make sure that they would transport well," says the chain's president Darren Rebelez in an interview with Cheddar. IHOP announced its partnership with DoorDash on Tuesday, coinciding with its 60th anniversary.
Shares of the streaming giant fell a day after the company announced it missed estimates for user growth and revenue in the second quarter. "I think Netflix is approaching a ceiling of subscriber growth, especially here in the U.S.," says Paul Verna, principal analyst of video at eMarketer. "They're going to have to do something bold and different."
The streaming player company introduced a set of wireless speakers to be integrated into the Roku system. “We know that when users sit down, and they stream their favorite shows or listen to music, if they’ve got great sound as a part of that, it’s just a more immersive experience,” says Mark Ely, vice president of product management for Roku.
In an era where many production companies are bringing back old TV hits, the "How I Met Your Mother" actor doesn't think there's a real future for Doogie Howser. "The whole conceit of that show was that he was a child who was a super smart doctor," Neil Patrick Harris tells Cheddar's Tim Stenovec.
The show, which features political figures like Bernie Sanders and Trent Lott, premiered last night on Showtime. While it taps into political and social issues like gun control, popular.info’s Editor in Chief Judd Legum doesn’t know if it will significantly affect the public’s attitudes. “I don’t think this is a complete game changer, but I do think that things like this can contribute into some of the changes and attitudes on guns."
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
*President Trump meets with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, Finland, days after the indictment of 12 Russian operatives for trying to disrupt the 2016 election.
*A federal judge blasts the HHS giving them one more week to reunite 2,000 families at the border after the administration missed the initial deadline.
*Protests erupted in Chicago over the weekend after a popular barber was shot and killed by the police.
*Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber won Wimbledon titles over the weekend. And France took home the World Cup.
Cheddar's Hope King gives us the details.
Despite last year's devastating box office summer and the growth of streaming, box office sales rebounded this summer. "Sometimes you actually want to go outside of the home," says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
