The It List: Jerry Seinfeld's back with his first comedy special in 22 years, Disney+ celebrates May the 4th, 'Gladiator' turns 20 and the best in pop culture the week of May 4, 2020
The It List is Yahoo’s weekly look at the best in pop culture, including movies, music, TV, streaming, games, books, podcasts and more. During the coronavirus pandemic, when most of us are staying at home, we’re going to spotlight things you can enjoy from your couch, whether solo or in small groups, and leave out the rest. With that in mind, here are our picks for May 4-10, including the best deals we could find for each. (Yahoo Entertainment may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page.)
STREAM IT: Laugh at the mundane with Jerry Seinfeld
The comedian’s first comedy special in 22 years, Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill, may be streaming on Netflix but the formula that has worked for him for decades — poking fun of the mundane and trivialness of everyday life — remains the same. In the show, Seinfeld waxes about public restroom stall doors. Why do they have a "display viewing window" along the bottom showing "lifeless collapsed pant legs and tragic little shoe fronts"? And why are hotdogs at baseball games — which typically arrive cold in an untoasted bun — taste so good when they are so bad? He also tackles "talking vs. texting, bad buffets vs. so-called ‘great’ restaurants and the magic of Pop Tarts,” according to the streaming service. Close to billionaire status these days with the success of Seinfeld (syndication!), the comic doesn't hide from his massive wealth in his set either, quipping, "You and I know each other, on a certain level for many many years. You know for a fact: I could be anywhere in the world right now!" The hour-long special — which parodies a James Bond film with the Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee star as 007 — was shot during his Beacon Theatre residency. — Suzy Byrne
Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill premieres Tuesday, May 5 on Netflix.
STREAM IT: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker lands on Disney+ two months early
If the theme of theatrical movie releases during the coronavirus has been "delayed 6-12 months," the theme of home entertainment has been "moved up 4-8 weeks." Maybe it's movie studios trying to cash in on quarantining (the cynical view), or maybe it's just them giving the people what they want (the optimistic take). The latest film getting a streaming date push forward is only one of the biggest movies of 2019, the saga capper Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which will land on Disney+ a full two months early, arriving appropriately on May 4, a.k.a. May the Fourth Be With You, a.k.a. Star Wars Day. A divisive climax, undoubtedly — but maybe one that was also up against unreasonably astronomical expectations? That's our positive take on it. Also hitting Disney+ on May the Fourth: the eight-episode documentary series Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian and the series finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. — Kevin Polowy
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be available to stream starting Monday, May 4 on Disney+.
BUY IT: Expecto Lego! Pre-order six new Harry Potter-themed Lego sets
You don’t have to be a wizard to assemble Lego’s new collection of Harry Potter playsets… just a fan of J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. The Muggle world’s leading toy brick manufacturers have conjured up six new ready-to-assemble sets, ranging from the 193-piece Room of Requirement to a 1,047-piece recreation of the attack on the Weasley burrow. Other models include Dolores Umbridge’s encounter in the Forbidden Forest; the Hogwart’s Astronomy Tower; the Dursley’s home at 4 Privet Drive; and a collectible Hedwig with moveable wings and an easy-to-assemble base that makes it the perfect addition to any desk or bookshelf. — Ethan Alter
Pre-order the new Lego Harry Potter sets on Lego.com.
WATCH IT: I Know This Much Is True is a tale of two Mark Ruffalos
Mark Ruffalo joins the list of actors playing twins in this limited series for HBO. Based on author Wally Lamb’s critically-acclaimed bestseller from 1998, I Know This Much Is True is the story of Dominick Birdsey, a 40-year-old Connecticut man, whose humdrum life is thrown off course when his paranoid schizophrenic twin brother shockingly harms himself in public. While caring for his brother, Dominick is forced to confront deep family secrets, to forgive those who hurt him and, eventually, rebuild himself. He's joined by an all-star cast that includes Juliette Lewis, Kathryn Hahn and Melissa Leo. — Raechal Shewfelt
I Know This Much Is True premieres Sunday, May 10 at 9 p.m. on HBO.
STREAM IT: André Holland and Amandla Stenberg headline Damien Chazelle’s jazzy new Netflix series The Eddy
If you’ve seen Whiplash and La La Land, you already know that Damien Chazelle is a big jazz fan. (Simmer down, Ryan Gosling!) So it’s no surprise that the Oscar-winning director is behind the camera for the first two episodes of The Eddy, the Jack Thorne-created Netflix limited series set at a Parisian jazz club. Breakout Moonlight star, André Holland, plays the owner of the struggling establishment, Elliot Udo, a former jazzman who has retired from public performances and wants to keep it that way… even if a one-night engagement would help his club’s bottom line. Things get professionally complicated when his business partner (Tahar Rahim) is killed by Paris gangsters, and personally complicated when his recovering addict daughter (Amandla Stenberg) comes to live with him. Holland and Stenberg hit all the right notes in their complicated father/daughter relationship, but The Eddy’s secret star is Cold War chanteuse Joanna Kulig, who plays another self-destructive singer. — E.A.
The Eddy premieres on Friday, May 8 on Netflix.
STREAM IT: Reno 911! Returns! On Quibi!
It's hard to believe it's been 11 years since Comedy Central's hilarious Cops spoof Reno 911! went off the air – maybe because we've been haunted by the sight of Lieutenant Dangle (Thomas Lennon) in short shorts ever since. But those "mobility" half-thighs are a sight for sore eyes with the return of Dangle and his fellow Nevada ne'er-do-wells for a seventh season on the new short-form streaming service Quibi. Despite the made-for-mobile platform, the trailer promises "bigger busts" and "bolder action," plus celebrity cameos from the likes of Patton Oswalt and Tim Allen, as the crew deals with crimefighting in 2020 (i.e. people taping them on cell phones everywhere they go). We'll be watching this on our cell phones — maybe not everywhere we go, since we can't go anywhere right now, but you get the point. — K.P.
Reno 911! debuts Monday, May 4 on Quibi.
WATCH IT: Rome if you want to: Gladiator turns 20
Ready to party like it’s A.D. 180? A chiseled Russell Crowe won an Oscar for his gruffly heroic portrayal of the general-turned-imprisoned-gladiator Maximus in this 2000 Ridley Scott historical drama, itself a winner for Best Picture. Two decades after its May 5, 2000 debut, it still tops many favorite film lists, thanks to thrilling Colosseum battles, oft-quoted lines like “What we do in life, echoes in eternity” and a scene-stealing Joaquin Phoenix as the pouty, thumb-wagging Roman ruler Commodus. Are you not entertained? — Erin Donnelly
Pre-order the Gladiator Limited Edition 4K Blu-ray Steelbook, available June 16, on Amazon.
STREAM IT: Michelle Obama’s acclaimed Becoming is ready for primetime
The former first lady’s book was a popular read even before it landed in bookstores. Once it did, Obama’s intimate portrait of her life before and during her time in the White House became the fastest-selling book of 2018. So it was inevitable that Becoming would end up on TV in some form. Netflix snapped up the documentary movie that recounts stories from the book and includes details of her life since it was released, including those packed book tour stops across the country. — R.S.
Becoming premieres Wednesday, May 6 on Netflix.
HEAR IT: Hayley Williams pushes the ‘Petals’
On Petals for Armor, her debut solo album combining two EPs, the 31-year-old Paramore frontwoman is at her most raw and vulnerable yet, while also exploring experimental, Radiohead-like sounds. After a marital separation and spending more than half her life in a punk-pop band, Williams gets moody and introspective on tracks like “Dead Horse,” “Leave It Alone” and "Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris" (the latter featuring boygenius, Julien Baker, and Phoebe Bridgers). — Lyndsey Parker
Download/stream on Apple Music.
STREAM IT: Relive the Biosphere 2 story as Spaceship Earth touches down on digital services
If you think you’ve been stuck indoors for awhile, just imagine how the Biosphere 2 team felt. In the early 1990s, a group of men and women volunteered to spend two years inside a biodome in the Arizona desert to explore how humanity might survive on other planets. (To be fair, they had a lot more room to spread out beneath that 3-acre dome.) What happened next — the good and the bad — is outlined in Matt Wolf’s entertaining new documentary, Spaceship Earth. Featuring new interviews with some of the former Biosphere residents, as well as vintage under the dome footage, the film shows how even the best-laid scientific plans often go awry. By the way, Biosphere 2 is still standing as a research facility, so you can plan your own post-quarantine trip if you’re not tired of the great indoors. — E.A.
Spaceship Earth premieres Friday, May 8 on Hulu.
HEAR IT: Butch Walker tells an ‘American Love Story’
Walker is a critically acclaimed, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter in his own right, but many of his biggest success stories have been behind the scenes, producing and composing for Avril Lavigne, Pink, Katy Perry, Weezer and Green Day. Now his years-in-the-making upcoming rock opera — a “love story about hate,” partially inspired by his upbringing in small-town Georgia, that examines social and racial divides in America — is about to become his most talked-about solo release yet, and it arrives at a very fitting time. Read his interview about the ambitious project here. — L.P.
Download/stream on Apple Music.
BUY IT: May the 4th of these Hasbro and Lego Star Wars toys be with you
Star Wars Day brings a galaxy’s worth of new toys to virtual (and actual) shelves. With the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back looming on May 21, Hasbro has a handsome assortment of Black Series action figures based on that classic sequel, from Luke and Leia to Artoo and Yoda. The toy giant is also adds another figure to its Carbonized Collection: a 6-inch Darth Vader inspired by his hand-chopping presence in Empire Strikes Back. Madalorian trainees will want to get their hands on Hasbro’s new Boba Fett electronic helmet, which includes a heads-up display and a flip-down rangefinder. Meanwhile, Lego is offering special May the 4th deals on various Star Wars sets, including an A-wing Starfighter and Kylo Ren’s signature shuttle. — E.A.
Hasbro’s Star Wars toys and Lego’s Star Wars sets are available at most major retailers.
WATCH IT: New Natalie Wood doc examines the woman, not just the mystery
When late actress Natalie Wood appears in the headlines today, it’s usually somehow linked to her death. The Splendor in the Grass star infamously drowned off the coast of California’s Catalina Island when she was just 43, following a night on her yacht with husband Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken. Over the years, the much-speculated-on case has even been reopened, but the focus of the story here is Wood’s life, not her death. As the movie’s producer Natasha Gregson Wagner, Wood's daughter with Richard Gregson, points out in the trailer, the theories of what happened that night have “overshadowed who she was as a person.” Here, Gregson Wagner talks to Wood’s friends, such as Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, as well as Wagner himself, and shows photographs and video footage of Wood as she was. — R.S.
Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind premieres Tuesday, May 5 at 9 p.m. on HBO.
HEAR IT: Marc Lanegan sings the ‘Sorrow’
MarkLanegan · Stockholm City Blues
Last week, the Screaming Trees frontman and frequent Queens of the Stone Age collaborator released what is already being heralded as one of the greatest, darkest and most harrowing music memoirs ever, Sing Backwards and Weep. Now comes its companion piece, the album Straight Songs of Sorrow — featuring guests like Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, the Afghan Whigs’s Greg Dulli, the Bad Seeds’s Warren Ellis, and Ed Harcourt — which is sure to land on many critics’ best-of lists as well. — L.P.
Download/stream on Apple Music.
— Video produced by Gisselle Bances
