‘National Anthem' Sets Hulu Release With Wolfe Video & LD Entertainment
Wolfe Video and LD Entertainment will release the LGBTQ western drama Thursday, June 5 exclusively on Hulu, along with several queer titles from Wolfe's library that hit the streamer on June 1.
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'National Anthem is a film about the search for belonging,' said Gilford in a statement. 'I'm thrilled that the film will be streaming on Hulu, making it accessible to even more viewers who might connect with its reimagined vision of the American West, and perhaps see themselves reflected in it.'
Set in a rural queer ranching community, against the real-life International Gay Rodeo Association, National Anthem stars Plummer as Dylan, a 21-year old construction worker in rural New Mexico, who joins a community of queer ranchers and rodeo performers in search of their own version of the American dream.
The film, which premiered at SXSW in 2023, also stars Eve Lindley, Mason Alexander Park, Rene Rosado and Robyn Lively. Written by David Largman Murray, Kevin Best and Gilford, it was produced by Mickey Liddell, Pete Shilaimon, Kevin Garland, Gina Marcheschi, and Jasmine Daghighian, with executive producers Beau Ward, Jacob Yakob, Michael Glassman, Troy Nankin, Gilford, Zackary Drucker and Murray.
Other Wolfe titles currently streaming on Hulu include Adam (2019), Big Eden (2000), Boy Meets Girl (2014), Elena Undone (2010), Hurricane Bianca (2016), Loving Annabelle (2006), A Perfect Ending (2012) and Sordid Lives (2000).
'I am excited to bring an amazing collection of films to Hulu this Pride season,' said Evan Schwartz, Wolfe's head of content. 'Working with LD Entertainment on National Anthem has been an honor and I am thrilled to have Hulu's support in amplifying stories about the LGBTQ+ community.'
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Tom's Guide
2 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
How to watch 'Limitless: Live Better Now' with Chris Hemsworth online
"Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth is all about facing the challenges life presents as we grow older but, in particular, cognitive decline. The Marvel actor takes on a series of challenges across three episodes (see below for details) to push himself to the edge and inspire us to follow suit. Here is how to watch "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth online from anywhere with a VPN. "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth lands with a full series drop on Disney+ and Hulu in the U.S. on Friday, August 15. It will also premiere on National Geographic on Monday, August 25th.• U.S. — Hulu (30-day FREE trial) / Disney Plus Bundle • Worldwide — Disney Plus• Watch anywhere — Try NordVPN risk-free Cutting edge science plays a huge part in this docuseries, in part because (as he revealed in the first season of "Limitless") it helped reveal that he has inherited two copies of the APOE4 gene, one from his mother and one from his father, which makes it eight to ten times likelier for him to eventually develop Alzheimer's disease than the general population. He wants to prevent this, live a healthy life as long as possible and, in the meantime, show us how to do the same. Consequently, he learns how to play the drums before appearing with Ed Sheeran in front of 70,000 fans (learning a new skill being an excellent work out for the brain) and takes on a 600-foot climbing wall in the Swiss Alps to demonstrate risk and how to approach it. For fans of watching rich celebrities suffering, in episode three he joins the training camp of the South Korean Special Forces to experience varying degrees of pain and learn how to deal with it. And yes, of course, he takes his top off wherever possible but if you can put up with that then there might be a message at the end of this docuseries that's worth holding on to. Here's everything you need to know about how to watch "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth online. "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth will be available to stream on Hulu from Friday, August 15 in the U.S.. Plans start from $9.99/month, and new users can get their first 30 days of Hulu absolutely FREE! You can subscribe to Hulu on its own or, for even better value, you can opt for the Disney Plus bundle from only $9.99/month. You can also add live sport with ESPN Plus for only five bucks more. And for anybody in the market for a full on cable replacement, all Hulu shows are included in the provider's Hulu + Live TV package. If "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth isn't streaming where you're currently located, that doesn't mean you have to miss the show while you're away from home. With the right VPN (virtual private network), you can stream the show from wherever you are. We've evaluated many options, and the best VPN you can get right now is NordVPN. It meets the VPN needs of the vast majority of users, offering outstanding compatibility with most devices and impressive connection speeds. You can try it risk-free for 30 days if you take advantage of NordVPN's no-quibble money-back guarantee. NordVPN deal: 3 Months Extra Free Boasting lightning fast speeds, great features, streaming power, and class-leading security, NordVPN is our #1 VPN.✅ 3 months extra FREE!✅ 76% off usual price Use Nord to unblock Hulu and watch "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth online with our exclusive deal. Using a VPN is incredibly simple. 1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favorite. 2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're visiting the U.K. and want to view a U.S. service, you'd select a U.S. server from the location list. 3. Sit back and enjoy the show. Head to your streaming service app — Hulu, for example — and watch "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth online from wherever you are in the world. "Limitless: Live Better Now" with Chris Hemsworth will be available to stream in Canada, the U.K. and Australia on Disney Plus from Friday, August 15. The Disney Plus price starts from CA$7.99/£4.99/AU$13.99/month. Chris Hemsworth: Self Elsa Pataky: Hemsworth's wife Sasha and Tristan: Hemsworth's twin boys Peter Attia: Longevity physician. Luke Zocchi: Hemsworth's trainer and friend BJ Miller: Pain expert Ross Edgley: Sports scientist Ben Gordon: Drummer from the band Parkway Drive Ed Sheeran: Musician Kim Dong-hyun: MMA fighter Robbie Maddison: Freestyle motocross legend Prof. Abigail Marsh: Neuroscientist Prof. Maya Shankar: Neuroscientist Tanya Streeter: Athlete. Steph Davis: Mountaineer/ solo-climber Part 1 - "Brain Power": Inspired by the benefits of learning a new skill, which aids memory and cognitive function, Chris Hemsworth takes up drumming. When he is invited to join Ed Sheeran onstage at a stadium concert, Chris has just months to master the instrument and conquer his nerves to perform in front of 70,000 fans. It's a challenge that pushes him beyond his limits. (Friday, August 15) Part 2 - "Risk": Chris Hemsworth pushes his limits by attempting to climb a 600-foot Alpine dam in the Swiss Alps. Inspired by his children's carefree risk-taking, Chris learns from experts how exposure therapy and Flow — a state of hyperfocus — can improve mental and physical health, showing how taking risks as adults can lead to a happier, healthier life. (Friday, August 15) Part 3 - "Pain": Chris Hemsworth sets out to confront his chronic pain in a bold, immersive journey through South Korea. Guided by pain expert Dr. BJ Miller, he explores ancient healing traditions and cutting-edge science. Chris faces 'pain valley' in the final test, a brutal gauntlet of Special Forces trials that will push him to his limits. (Friday, August 15) 'Making this series has been a life-changing journey. I've discovered so much about my own health, resilience and what it really means to live well... I hope this next chapter inspires audiences to step outside their comfort zones and embrace challenges, because the impact it's had on my life has been truly profound.' We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
National Geographic
2 hours ago
- National Geographic
Buddhist monks have a secret to reduce suffering — even when you're in pain
Young Buddhist monks use muscles as well as meditation during their stay at the Dongzhulin Monastery in the mountainous northwest of Yunnan, China. Photograph by Gilles Sabrie, Nat Geo Image Collection Much of the global population suffers from chronic pain. Here's what we can learn from Buddhism about how to manage it. Is it possible to feel physical pain without suffering? For thousands of years, that question has fueled Buddhist mindfulness practices that combat pain relief by embracing the inevitability of suffering. Today, an estimated 10 percent of the global population suffers from chronic pain, and the U.S. spends more on combating chronic pain than diabetes and cancer combined. Actor Chris Hemsworth is no stranger to physical suffering, as he's struggled with chronic back pain for much of his life. In episode three of Limitless: Live Better Now (streaming on Disney+ and Hulu starting August 15 and on National Geographic starting August 25), the 41-year-old travels to South Korea, where people treat pain with both ancient wisdom and modern science. There, he searches for tools to help him live with chronic pain—or transcend it. (How walking can prevent lower back pain.) Befriending pain 'Discerning pain from suffering is at the heart of Buddhism,' says palliative care physician and pain expert BJ Miller , who's featured in the show. '[It's] a time-tested way to unburden yourself and live with what you can't control.' Buddhism—a belief system followed by approximately 4.1 percent of the world's population and about 17 percent of South Korean adults—teaches that suffering and desire are part of the human condition. That might seem like bad news for people experiencing the physical and emotional turmoil of pain, but Buddhism emphasizes a path out. To attain liberation from pain, practitioners must learn not only to accept it, but to also realize its impermanence. This is something deeply familiar to Jeong Yeo, a Buddhist monk of 50 years who rose to become Grand Patriarch of the Beomeosa Temple in South Korea in 2023. He uses a mix of storytelling, science, and psychology in his teachings. 'In Buddhism, we do not try to avoid or remove suffering,' he explains. 'Instead, we try to see suffering as it truly is.' All branches of Buddhism involve examining suffering; the Buddha himself is quoted saying that suffering and its end were all he taught. But Buddhists' approach to suffering varies. Seon Buddhism, a branch of the religion followed in Korea, is similar to Zen, and involves meditation, bowing, contemplation, study, and other practices. 'In Korean Buddhism, the solution to suffering is not simply healing or peace, but to delve into the core of existence,' says Yeo. By diving into suffering instead of trying to fend it off, he says, one can begin to realize that pain is a thought just like any other. 'The fundamental mind does not know pain or suffering,' he explains. Instead, a human's attachment to their own thoughts generates the concept of pain and suffering. (How you can change your body's threshold for pain.) Yeo learned this the hard way when he once suffered a head injury while laboring at a temple. Reeling from a long fall and a bleeding head, he managed to move his focus from the aching pain to his mind. Beneath the pain, he says, he found a part of himself that was unworried about his suffering. 'When I reflected on my mind, I observed that [it] did not waver from the injury and it was serene and peaceful,' he recalls. 'I realized that no matter the circumstances, the mind is always peaceful and unmoving, clear and quiet. This is the difference between pain and suffering.' Not only are Buddhist practices associated with pain relief for some followers, but they are even considered powerful enough to help some come to terms with disability and death. That doesn't surprise Miller, who took Hemsworth to the Beomeosa Temple to immerse him in sometimes painful activities like prostration meditation, which involves folding the body into a reverent bow over 100 times in one session. Miller compares pain to an unwelcome houseguest. 'If he won't leave, then you might as well invite him to have a seat and figure out some way to get along.' The science of Buddhism The perceived ability of Buddhist practitioners to rise above pain has long intrigued scientists, especially as the religion's tenets have spread in the West. 'There's much to be said for going into the feeling of pain,' says Miller. 'And no doubt it has things to teach us.' So do other, less painful forms of mindfulness—and research suggests it may not take long to see results. In one 2014 study, researchers used meditation as an intervention for people with migraine pain. Participants took a 20-minute guided meditation class based on the Buddhist concept of 'loving kindness,' which involves cultivating compassion toward the self and others. Afterwards, these migraine sufferers reported 33 percent less pain and 43 percent less tension, leading researchers to conclude that meditation may be 'an effective, quick, and portable means of reducing pain and emotional tension.' (Why synthetic pot could be the future of pain relief.) There are plenty of theories regarding the physical benefits of mindfulness. Potential advantages include a stronger immune system, better sleep, even a reduction in suicidal or other intrusive thoughts. Despite researchers trying to understand the science of meditation and other Buddhist practices for decades, their findings vary wildly. Some studies suggest that advanced meditation techniques that de-emphasize a person's inner narrative are more effective for pain relief than those focusing on a single thought or object. Others have found physical differences in long-time practitioners. A 2024 review of 21 brain studies found that meditation 'causes structural and functional changes in large-scale brain networks.' Another study asked 13 Zen meditators and 13 non-meditators to undergo fMRI scans while experiencing moderate pain. Compared to their counterparts, the meditators' brains showed less activity in brain regions linked to emotion. Those who didn't meditate showed more activation in brain regions associated with pain, leading researchers to conclude that meditation may help decrease sensitivity to pain. Befriending the mind—and even the pain—might solve suffering. But that doesn't mean the pain itself isn't real. Instead, Buddhist practices like meditation can help turn down the volume on pain signals or even distract an individual from painful experiences for a bit. Getting started is as simple as taking a breath, Yeo says. 'Try to feel your breathing in short moments during [your] commute to work, or simply observe yourself when you feel stressed or angry and accept the emotions as they are.' He emphasizes that these practices are accessible to everyone. 'The teachings of Buddhism are not limited to specific cultures,' he says, advising others to practice speaking gently to themselves. 'Do not avoid suffering. Observe it with indifference and wrap it with compassion. Try to end the day telling [yourself] 'Today was hard. Are you okay? You did a great job.' Simply telling oneself this is Buddhist practice in compassion.' After all, says Miller, pain is just one aspect of existence. 'There's so much besides pain that is worthy of your attention.' "Limitless: Live Better Now" is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu starting August 15 and on National Geographic starting August 25. Check local listings.
Vox
3 hours ago
- Vox
The missing piece of Hulu's strange new Amanda Knox docudrama
writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019 fellow of the National Critics Institute, they're considered an authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars. If ever true crime had a 'household name,' that name might be Amanda Knox. Forever immortalized as an inadvertent yet infamous media darling, Knox has weathered the storm of being tried, convicted, imprisoned, freed, retried, and ultimately found innocent of the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher. Knox, a Seattle native, was just 20 when she briefly lived with Kercher and two other roommates in the idyllic cliffside house in Perugia, Italy, where Kercher was murdered. Despite a glaring lack of evidence against her from the start (and overwhelming evidence against the man who actually did it), Knox became a publicly reviled figure who still generates suspicion across two continents. Since her exoneration, she's chosen to meet that suspicion head-on, participating in a documentary, writing memoirs, and speaking out about how the media demonized her and how the justice system nearly failed her. All of this has led to her newest project, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, an eight-episode Hulu docudrama created by K.J. Steinberg (This Is Us) and co-produced by Knox, retelling her story from her perspective. While true crime biopics are everywhere these days, there's something particularly strange about this one, which sees Grace van Patten as a wide-eyed, winsome, fourth-wall-breaking Amanda. The show's director, Michael Uppendahl, deliberately plays with tonal shifts, seesawing between the quirky, twee aesthetic of Amelie, the film Knox and her boyfriend were watching the night of the murder, and the claustrophobia of interrogation rooms and grief of tearful family meltdowns. The result is something that feels almost unholy — like The Staircase meets Fleabag, two things that should probably never meet! As with Hulu's other recent true crime-ish docudrama about Natalia Grace, Twisted Tale takes a granular approach to its storytelling, canvassing a huge amount of detail even as the narrative spans years. It also takes on a very close point of view through Knox's perspective — which may explain why the narrative glosses over one of the most well-known aspects of this case: If this tale is twisted, who exactly twisted it? Whatever you think you know about this case, you don't know the half Because we rarely shift out of Knox's viewpoint in Twisted Tale, many of the more famous aspects of the case become offstage concerns. The media's obsession with 'Foxy Knoxy' — the main lens through which most Americans would have absorbed the Amanda Knox story — gets reduced to a passing remark between unnamed journalists. The public's obsession with the case is also kept firmly at arm's length; fictional Amanda doesn't even open the hordes of fan mail she receives in prison. The elevation of so many personal details and relationships inevitably leads to the fast-tracking of many other details about the case, including years of pretty bonkers information about the investigation, prosecution, and ongoing media frenzy. The result is that casual viewers, and even viewers who think they already know where this is headed, might be left frantically Googling case facts to convince themselves they just heard that correctly. Spoiler: You did. Yes, the prosecutor, Mignini, decided a woman must have killed Meredith Kercher because her body had been covered with a blanket. Yes, he, the investigators, the public, and the press all decided from the outset that Knox was guilty because she kissed her boyfriend while standing outside the crime scene. Yes, Mignini also pursued an occult conspiracy theory in the case of the 'Monster of Florence.' After accusing 20 people of being involved in occult acts related to those murders, Mignini was reprimanded by the courts and convicted of abusing his office by improperly wiretapping some of the suspects. That conviction, however, was overturned on a technicality, so Mignini continued to investigate and prosecute cases — including the murder of Meredith Kercher. Yes, Knox claims she really was coaxed into doing yoga poses at the police station. Yes, the police really interrogated her for five days while barely allowing her to sleep, hitting her when she gave answers they disliked. This went on until she coughed up a false confession that was then successfully used to convict her of slandering the innocent man the police had pressured her to implicate. Yes, authorities really lied to her and told her she had contracted HIV in order to get her to give them information about her sexual history. Yes, several of Knox's friends really testified about her awkward behavior at her 2009 trial. 'Sometimes she had unusual attitudes, like she would start doing yoga while we were speaking, or she would play guitar while we were watching TV,' her roommate Filomena Romanelli testified. While Mignini's occult theory was barred from trial, the Satanic Panic of it all continued to influence the media, the public, and the prosecution. Italian lawyers were allowed to refer to Knox in court as 'Luciferina,' 'enchanting witch,' and 'she-devil.' The list of tabloid nicknames for her was much longer and just as absurd. Fortunately for Knox and Sollecito, the actual evidence that they did it was almost nonexistent, and the prosecution's DNA evidence fell completely apart due to evidence contamination and a botched handling of the crime scene. Guede, meanwhile, left his DNA everywhere. Because there was so much legal wrangling that happened offscreen and out of sight, you might understandably be confused about whether Knox and Sollecito actually got exonerated or not. Yes, and no. After Knox's first trial in 2009, she was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25. In 2011, they won a successful appeal — the decision that freed them both — but that appeal was overturned in 2013 and a new hearing found them guilty again. In that verdict, the court actually increased Knox's sentence to 28 years. Neither were required to return to Italy to serve this time, however, and in 2015, the case was appealed to the Italian supreme court, which overturned this conviction and acquitted them both once and for all, citing 'glaring errors' and 'investigative amnesia' among other reasons. This overturned conviction often gets framed as an exoneration. However, she still stands guilty of slandering her former boss, Patrick Lumumba, as a result of her false confession. Guede was initially sentenced to 30 years, but ultimately served just 13 years before his release. He still claims he was innocent and that Amanda Knox was the culprit — and for years, many Italians and British citizens believed him. Even today, despite the general shift in public sentiment in the US, many people still argue fiercely that Knox was guilty, based on little more than vibes. The problem of centering Amanda Knox One side effect of this dramatization is that like many true crime dramas, it reduces real people into characters in ways that feel uneven and unsatisfying. The intermittent attempts to return to talking about Meredith feel shallow; after all, Amanda only knew her for a few weeks. This series argues unequivocally that Meredith and Amanda were both victims — but while centering the victim has become a true crime watchword, centering Meredith in Amanda's story is easier said than done. Then there's the 'character' of Amanda herself. On the one hand, the decision not to water down her tendency to be flippant, glib, or socially awkward at the worst times is a smart one, since this is exactly what the media attacked her for to begin with. On the other hand, she's a frustrating ingénue. Her knowing looks at the camera start out annoying and have diminishing returns. Her family members ultimately seem more fazed by her imprisonment than she does. By the time she finds herself on a mystical visit to the Innocence Project, where an encounter with fellow exoneree Antoine Day leads to her awakening as a justice advocate, you can be forgiven if, while wallowing in sympathy, you are just a little tired of this girl. The decision to present Amanda directly to the viewer without the filter of a damning media lens is arguably a smart choice — but it creates a gap in Amanda's version of the story. After all, the way the press chose to cover the case at home and abroad may have played a bigger role than anything else in putting Amanda in prison. The biggest absence in Knox's narrative are, perhaps, the people who put her there To understand the real impact the media had on the trial of Amanda Knox, it's crucial to understand that Italian juries aren't sequestered during the trial proceedings. That means that both before and during the trial, they have access to the media's coverage of the case. Experts close to the case have argued that this media exposure was the single biggest reason for Knox and Sollecito being convicted. We do see one such journalist in action, but only after Knox has finally been cleared of guilt — when she sits down for a 2013 CNN interview with Chris Cuomo, who proceeds to challenge her innocence and hound her about why Italian investigators were so convinced she'd been involved in sex games. Because this comes after Knox is free, it doesn't speak to the real role of the media; it fails as a clue to how we got here. Contrast this with the 2016 Netflix documentary Amanda Knox, in which prolific Daily Mail journalist Nick Pisa proudly gave a master class in villainy. Pisa was the one who coined the nickname 'Foxy Knoxy'; in the doc, he compared his front-page bylines about her to having sex. He was blithe about never fact-checking the things he wrote about her before sending articles off to his editors, and gave quotes on the record that would leave any reputable journalist open-mouthed. 'I think now, looking back, some of the information that came out was just crazy really, it's just completely made up,' Pisa stated at one point. In one interview years after her first trial, Pisa brought up a purely innocent incident on Knox's part — she wore a Beatles T-shirt to trial — as a reason why prosecutors and 'the media' painted her as suspicious. He failed to mention that he had been the one writing about the T-shirt to begin with. By keeping all of that irresponsible scheming at bay, we miss a vital piece of the convoluted puzzle that led to Knox and Sollecito becoming such easy targets. It wasn't just that Mignini was 'prey to delirium' or that the police had an anti-American bias. It was that Amanda herself was vulnerable to a media that craved a villainess. She was 'creepy,' 'weird,' 'inappropriate.' Above all, she was the one thing an innocent girl is never allowed to be: easy. 'It wasn't the crime itself,' Frank Bruni wrote for the New York Times in 2013. 'It was the supposed conspiracy of her libido, cast as proof that she was out of control, up to no good, lost, wicked, dangerous. A girl this intent on randy fun was a girl who couldn't be trusted and got what was coming to her, even if it was prison.' It's understandable that the media might have been squarely in the periphery of Amanda's perspective as she experienced the events that unfolded in Perugia, and that this might shape her version of the story. But if she wasn't focused on them, they were certainly focused on her. Without their influence, this Twisted Tale might have untangled itself much sooner.
