What to Stream: Krasinski and Portman search for 'Fountain of Youth,' and Joe Jonas' album
This combination of images shows promotional art for the new original series "Motorheads," left, the second season of "Nine Perfect Strangers," center, and the new series "The Librarians: The Next Chapter." (Prime/Hulu/TNT via AP)
Joe Jonas' sophomore solo album Work It Out' and John Krasinski and Natalie Portman searching for immortality in Guy Ritchie's adventure movie 'Fountain of Youth' are some of the new television, films, 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: Paul Reubens shines in the documentary 'Pee-wee as Himself,' Nicole Kidman returns as a shady wellness guru in 'Nine Perfect Strangers' and Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping offers gamers a chance to test their de-duck-tive skills.
— Matt Wolf's two-part documentary 'Pee-wee as Himself' (out Friday, May 23 on Max and HBO) is one of the most intimate portraits of Paul Reubens, the man many know as Pee-wee Herman. Wolf crafted his film from some 40 hours of interviews conducted with Reubens before he died of cancer in 2023. In 'Pee-wee as Himself,' Reubens discusses the ups and downs of his career, how he crafted the Pee-wee persona and how it came to dwarf his own self.
— Guy Ritchie's adventure movie 'Fountain of Youth' (Friday, May 23 on Apple TV+) stars John Krasinski and Natalie Portman as a pair of siblings hunting for the fabled Fountain of Youth. The film, which also stars Eiza González, Domhnall Gleeson and Stanley Tucci, is the latest from the fast-working Ritchie, whose recent films include 2024's 'The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare' and 2023's 'The Covenant.'
– Last fall, 'The Last Showgirl' (out Friday, May 23 on Hulu) proved a poignant showcase for Pamela Anderson, long after her 'Baywatch' heyday. In Gia Coppola's indie drama, she plays a Las Vegas performer in the twilight of her career. Dave Bautista co-stars.
— Film Writer Jake Coyle
— In the first single released from Joe Jonas' forthcoming sophomore solo album, 'Work It Out,' the boy band brother breaks the fourth wall in the third person. 'Come on, Joe, you got so much more to be grateful for,' he sings in a rare moment of pop candor. His characteristic cheekiness soon follows. 'Even baddies get saddies and that's the hardest truth,' he sings atop cheery pop-synth. The album, titled 'Music For People Who Believe In Love' promises more alt-pop – with country and rock flair thrown in for good measure.
— Good news for cool people with interesting taste: the Anglo-French avant-pop band Stereolab returns with their first new album in 15 years, since 2010's 'Not Music' arrived after the group announced an indefinite hiatus. That came to an end in 2019, when Stereolab announced remastered reissues, tour dates and a set at Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona. The latest news arrives in the form of this new album, titled 'Instant Holograms on Metal Film,' and it sounds as if no time has passed.
— Pachyman, the Puerto Rican-born, Los Angeles-based musician Pachy Garcia, has charmed audiences with his vintage gear and deep appreciation for dub reggae. That continues on his fifth album, 'Another Place,' out Friday, with its dreamy, psychedelic indie. It's the kind of stuff that would be at least partially labeled 'vaporwave' or 'chillwave' a few years ago. Now, it's a kaleidoscope of influences only Pachyman could put together in such a fluid package.
— Music Writer Maria Sherman
— With hits like 'Maxton Hall' and 'The Summer I Turned Pretty,' Prime Video is investing in its YA content. In the new series 'Motorheads,' a mother (Nathalie Kelley) returns to her blue-collar hometown with her teenage twins (played by Michael Cimino of 'Love, Victor' and Melissa Collazo.) They move in with their uncle (Ryan Phillippe) who is haunted by the disappearance of his younger brother. Fun fact: Phillippe's son, Deacon, with Reese Witherspoon, plays that younger brother in flashback scenes. Besides the expected coming-of-age storyline about first love and fitting in at school, there's also a greater mystery at play, plus street racing! It premieres Tuesday.
— At the end of season one of Hulu's 'Nine Perfect Strangers,' we saw Nicole Kidman's Russian wellness guru, Masha, high tailing it out of town after her unorthodox practices included sneaking psychedelics into her patients' smoothies. In season 2, debuting Wednesday, Masha has relocated to the Austrian Alps with two new business partners and they're welcoming a new group of people to a retreat. 'I invited you all here because sometimes you shouldn't deal with pain gently,' Masha says in the trailer. The cast includes Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, Murray Bartlett, Henry Golding, Dolly de Leon and musician King Princess in her first acting role.
— Alicia Rancilio
— Winston Green, a high-strung courier in small-town America in the late 1950s, has one motto: Deliver At All Costs. If that means wrecking other cars or plowing through buildings, so be it. And as the cargo gets weirder — judging from the screenshots, UFOs may be involved — Winston 'spirals downward into the depths of insanity.' The result, from Swedish studio Far Out Games by way of Konami, looks somewhat like the original Grand Theft Auto with a retro 'Happy Days' glow. Hit the gas Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.
— Duck Detective: The Secret Salami was once of last year's cleverest surprises, introducing us to down-on-his-luck gumshoe Eugene McQuacklin in an animal-world parody of film noir. My only complaint was that it was just a few hours long — but the good news is that Germany's Happy Broccoli Games is already back on the case with Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping. This time, McQuacklin investigates a mystery at a luxury campsite. If you enjoy brain-teasers, another chance to test your de-duck-tive skills arrives Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Switch and PC.
— Lou Kesten
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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Japan Today
26-05-2025
- Japan Today
Paul Reubens tells his story in ‘Pee-wee as Himself.' Here's how it came together after his death
This image released by HBO Max shows Paul Reubens in a scene from the documentary "Pee-Wee As Himself." (HBO Max via AP) By LINDSEY BAHR Paul Reubens did not tell his director that he was dying. On July 31, 2023, the news of Reubens' death came as a shock to documentary filmmaker Matt Wolf, who had spent a year trying to convince him to make the ambitious two-part documentary 'Pee-wee as Himself,' now streaming on HBO Max, and over 40 hours interviewing him on camera. But in 2023, the project was in danger of falling apart: The two had been at an impasse for a while over the issue of creative control and they'd finally found a way forward. He had one last interview scheduled, set for the first week of August. Then the texts started coming in. Wolf sat there shaking. They'd spoken about everything — Reubens' childhood, his complicated relationship with fame, his ambitions, his commitment to his alter-ego Pee-wee Herman, his sexuality, his arrest — except the fact that he'd been battling cancer for the past six years. But after the initial shock, a renewed purpose set in. 'I went to work the day after Paul died. I started to read the 1,500-page transcript of our interview through the night and was struck by the significance and meaning that came by understanding that he was privately contemplating mortality,' Wolf said. 'I was aware that this was an extraordinary situation that was part of the story of the film and that the stakes were the highest I had ever experienced.' For the next year, Wolf would wake up and say to himself, 'You cannot drop the ball. Rise to the occasion.' It was, he said, 'the most challenging and involved and emotional process of filmmaking that I've ever gone through and maybe that I'll ever go through again.' Reubens wanted to direct his own documentary. He'd always prized creative control and couldn't fathom why he would cede it in telling his own story for the first time. But everyone around him seemed to think that was a bad idea. It would take over a year of getting to know Wolf, whose film credits include documentaries about cellist Arthur Russell and news archivist Marion Stokes, to consider letting go. Even after Reubens had agreed to let Wolf direct the project, he continued to push back and resist at times. Early on, they decided to record their phone conversations as well, recognizing that their dynamic illuminated something true about Reubens. 'Right away, Paul was sort of rebelling against the process, blowing off steam, procrastinating, teasing me, sometimes being adversarial, but in a funny wink-wink way,' Wolf said. 'I was frustrated. I thought, how am I ever going to get through this? This is the most resistant interview subject I've ever encountered. Then I realized this is actually a pretty significant form of portraiture. This is showing Paul's discomfort and uncertainty about really showing and sharing himself.' The result is a collaboration, Wolf said, but one in which he also had editorial control. It wasn't going to be a hit piece, but it wasn't going to be a puff piece either. Wolf, 43, was part of the generation of kids who grew up with the children's television series 'Pee-wee's Playhouse.' It was, he said, the first time he'd felt viscerally moved by a work of art. Still, he wasn't approaching the project as a fan. He was coming as a filmmaker who makes documentaries about gay artists and unconventional visionaries who 'beg for reappraisal.' Unlike most of his subjects, however, Reubens was an icon and a cult figure. 'I was determined not to make a film that fell into the traps of the celebrity biopic with platitudes from other famous people and manufactured self-reflection,' Wolf said. 'I wanted to make portrait of an artist.' Much of the film focuses on the prehistory of Pee-wee, showing how his childhood, his artistic awakening, his early improv days and his 'Saturday Night Live' rejection would converge into the commitment to this alter ego. Part of that involved engaging with Reubens' sexuality in a direct way. In the film, Reubens speaks about living openly as a gay man, and then going back in the closet. 'He had always intended to come out but was very ambivalent about that,' Wolf said. 'And I saw myself as a younger gay person who could help somebody achieve that and also to give a sense of nuance and depth to his artistry that one could appreciate, and to understand the personal sacrifices that were required for him to do that.' Reubens' career was derailed when he was arrested for indecent exposure in an adult movie theater in 1991. He was handed a small fine but the damage was incalculable. In 2001, he was arrested and charged with misdemeanor possession of child pornography, which was reduced to an obscenity charge with probation. These are covered in the documentary's second part. 'He wanted to set the record straight, particularly about the unfortunate footnotes of his arrest, which to some extent have overshadowed his artistic accomplishments,' Wolf said. 'That to me felt like the easy part and also the least interesting part of the film.' 'Pee-wee as Himself' premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where Wolf got to see emotional responses from audiences, no matter if they came to it as fans or out of some curiosity around the controversies. That emotional intensity was what he hoped they'd feel. 'I wanted to make a film with a big range of emotions, from joy and delight to tragedy and sorrow,' Wolf said. 'Paul contains that big spectrum of feelings. And I wanted the viewer to feel it, to have a lasting connection to him. When a film can affect you emotionally it becomes unforgettable.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
23-05-2025
- Japan Today
Natalie Portman and John Krasinski embark on a globe-trotting adventure in ‘Fountain of Youth'
By LINDSEY BAHR The spirit of Indiana Jones is baked into the essence of the new movie 'Fountain of Youth.' This lighthearted, globe-trotting heist from Guy Ritchie, debuting on Apple TV+ on Friday, stars Natalie Portman and John Krasinski as estranged siblings attempting to piece together historical facts in hopes of finding the mythical spring. The quest takes them to far-flung places from Vienna to the pyramids, as they try to evade capture by the authorities and a shadowy operation intent on stopping the search. 'I've been looking to watch this movie for years,' Krasinski said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'This is the movie I pretended to be in when I was a kid. This is what got me into the business.' The film also stars Domnhall Gleeson as the wealthy businessman funding the operation and Eiza González as one of the protectors of the Fountain of Youth. ' Guy Ritchie gets to work with some of the best cast in the world,' said González, who has now worked with him three times. 'The biggest gift Guy has given me, besides the privilege of working with him, is working with them.' Gleeson, a newcomer to the world of Ritchie, was pretty sure that it was going to be as enjoyable as it looked. And he got a vote of confidence from his director. 'Guy basically said, if you're not having fun, then this is not going to work and so the idea is to turn up and have fun,' Gleeson said. There were a lot of things about 'Fountain of Youth' that piqued Portman's interest. The chance to work with Ritchie, Krasinski, and the rest of the cast, as well as the travel, but it also felt like something she could share with her own son and daughter. 'It's so rare to get to make a movie that has this scale and this scope of adventure that you can watch with your kids,' Portman said. 'I'm always looking for something that I can enjoy with my children.' Her character, Charlotte, is an art historian who had an adventuresome childhood with her explorer father and brother Luke (Krasinski) but has since settled for a more stable life. We meet her amid a contentious divorce and custody battle over her 12-year-old son, and she's not exactly pleased when Luke steals a piece of art from her gallery and attempts to recruit her for the bigger mission. But soon, she's in scuba gear hunting down a lost Rembrandt in the wreckage of the RMS Lusitania. 'I think that something we search for as adults is how to regain that youthful spirit, how to hold onto that youthful energy and freedom and wildness, even when having to move into some adult responsibilities,' said Portman, who, like her character is recently divorced. 'Maybe that can make you a better parent to have a little bit of that glint in your eye.' She and Krasinski, working together for the first time, fell into the sibling dynamics easily. 'These movies sort of live and die with the relationships,' Krasinski said. 'The sibling thing really only works if you're having genuine fun with the person and it can come off screen. And I laughed with her every single day. She's so funny.' Globe-trotting films aren't just travelogues for the audience, but their own sort of adventure for the cast and crew. This production earned their miles, skipping between the streets of Bangkok and Liverpool, the Austrian National Library in Vienna and Cairo to film at the great pyramids — where 'Fountain of Youth' became the first film of this scale to be granted the privilege to shoot action sequences there. 'It was really a pinch me kind of moment to be like, oh, those are the pyramids and we're just hanging out here and walking into them and filming in them,' Portman said. The big first was landing a Boeing Chinook CH47 helicopter in front of the Giza Plateau, and blowing up a jeep, all while the site remained open to tourists. 'With any luck, we didn't blow it for Hollywood going back there for somebody else,' Krasinski said. 'But if we did, at least we got to do it.' Most of the big action moments 'inside' the pyramids were saved for the safety of sets constructed at London's Leavesden Studio, where they also built the wreckage of the Lusitania in a water tank so big that it took two weeks to fill. 'Fountain of Youth' might seem like the type of movie that would be a natural fit for the big screen: A big budget, global adventure with major stars and sweeping vistas. While Krasinski champions movie theaters — at the time of the interview, he had a ticket to see 'Sinners' on IMAX the next day — he's also not feeling bittersweet that this one won't be playing at the multiplex. They all came into 'Fountain of Youth' knowing that it was a streaming-first endeavor. 'This was always going to be a streaming movie, so I didn't really think about it in terms of ... Would people want to see it in theaters because it was just one of those things,' Krasinski said. 'And I think that's the new reality. There are definitely movies that are being made for streaming, and there are movies being made for theatrical.' He added: 'It all depends on what the filmmaker's intent was, what the studio's intent and I think as long as those rules are laid out clearly in the beginning, I'm down for either one.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
19-05-2025
- Japan Today
What to Stream: Krasinski and Portman search for 'Fountain of Youth,' and Joe Jonas' album
This combination of images shows promotional art for the new original series "Motorheads," left, the second season of "Nine Perfect Strangers," center, and the new series "The Librarians: The Next Chapter." (Prime/Hulu/TNT via AP) Joe Jonas' sophomore solo album Work It Out' and John Krasinski and Natalie Portman searching for immortality in Guy Ritchie's adventure movie 'Fountain of Youth' are some of the new television, films, 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: Paul Reubens shines in the documentary 'Pee-wee as Himself,' Nicole Kidman returns as a shady wellness guru in 'Nine Perfect Strangers' and Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping offers gamers a chance to test their de-duck-tive skills. — Matt Wolf's two-part documentary 'Pee-wee as Himself' (out Friday, May 23 on Max and HBO) is one of the most intimate portraits of Paul Reubens, the man many know as Pee-wee Herman. Wolf crafted his film from some 40 hours of interviews conducted with Reubens before he died of cancer in 2023. In 'Pee-wee as Himself,' Reubens discusses the ups and downs of his career, how he crafted the Pee-wee persona and how it came to dwarf his own self. — Guy Ritchie's adventure movie 'Fountain of Youth' (Friday, May 23 on Apple TV+) stars John Krasinski and Natalie Portman as a pair of siblings hunting for the fabled Fountain of Youth. The film, which also stars Eiza González, Domhnall Gleeson and Stanley Tucci, is the latest from the fast-working Ritchie, whose recent films include 2024's 'The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare' and 2023's 'The Covenant.' – Last fall, 'The Last Showgirl' (out Friday, May 23 on Hulu) proved a poignant showcase for Pamela Anderson, long after her 'Baywatch' heyday. In Gia Coppola's indie drama, she plays a Las Vegas performer in the twilight of her career. Dave Bautista co-stars. — Film Writer Jake Coyle — In the first single released from Joe Jonas' forthcoming sophomore solo album, 'Work It Out,' the boy band brother breaks the fourth wall in the third person. 'Come on, Joe, you got so much more to be grateful for,' he sings in a rare moment of pop candor. His characteristic cheekiness soon follows. 'Even baddies get saddies and that's the hardest truth,' he sings atop cheery pop-synth. The album, titled 'Music For People Who Believe In Love' promises more alt-pop – with country and rock flair thrown in for good measure. — Good news for cool people with interesting taste: the Anglo-French avant-pop band Stereolab returns with their first new album in 15 years, since 2010's 'Not Music' arrived after the group announced an indefinite hiatus. That came to an end in 2019, when Stereolab announced remastered reissues, tour dates and a set at Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona. The latest news arrives in the form of this new album, titled 'Instant Holograms on Metal Film,' and it sounds as if no time has passed. — Pachyman, the Puerto Rican-born, Los Angeles-based musician Pachy Garcia, has charmed audiences with his vintage gear and deep appreciation for dub reggae. That continues on his fifth album, 'Another Place,' out Friday, with its dreamy, psychedelic indie. It's the kind of stuff that would be at least partially labeled 'vaporwave' or 'chillwave' a few years ago. Now, it's a kaleidoscope of influences only Pachyman could put together in such a fluid package. — Music Writer Maria Sherman — With hits like 'Maxton Hall' and 'The Summer I Turned Pretty,' Prime Video is investing in its YA content. In the new series 'Motorheads,' a mother (Nathalie Kelley) returns to her blue-collar hometown with her teenage twins (played by Michael Cimino of 'Love, Victor' and Melissa Collazo.) They move in with their uncle (Ryan Phillippe) who is haunted by the disappearance of his younger brother. Fun fact: Phillippe's son, Deacon, with Reese Witherspoon, plays that younger brother in flashback scenes. Besides the expected coming-of-age storyline about first love and fitting in at school, there's also a greater mystery at play, plus street racing! It premieres Tuesday. — At the end of season one of Hulu's 'Nine Perfect Strangers,' we saw Nicole Kidman's Russian wellness guru, Masha, high tailing it out of town after her unorthodox practices included sneaking psychedelics into her patients' smoothies. In season 2, debuting Wednesday, Masha has relocated to the Austrian Alps with two new business partners and they're welcoming a new group of people to a retreat. 'I invited you all here because sometimes you shouldn't deal with pain gently,' Masha says in the trailer. The cast includes Annie Murphy, Christine Baranski, Murray Bartlett, Henry Golding, Dolly de Leon and musician King Princess in her first acting role. — Alicia Rancilio — Winston Green, a high-strung courier in small-town America in the late 1950s, has one motto: Deliver At All Costs. If that means wrecking other cars or plowing through buildings, so be it. And as the cargo gets weirder — judging from the screenshots, UFOs may be involved — Winston 'spirals downward into the depths of insanity.' The result, from Swedish studio Far Out Games by way of Konami, looks somewhat like the original Grand Theft Auto with a retro 'Happy Days' glow. Hit the gas Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC. — Duck Detective: The Secret Salami was once of last year's cleverest surprises, introducing us to down-on-his-luck gumshoe Eugene McQuacklin in an animal-world parody of film noir. My only complaint was that it was just a few hours long — but the good news is that Germany's Happy Broccoli Games is already back on the case with Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping. This time, McQuacklin investigates a mystery at a luxury campsite. If you enjoy brain-teasers, another chance to test your de-duck-tive skills arrives Thursday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Switch and PC. — Lou Kesten © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
