The It List: Brooke Shields recalls her controversial years as a child star in 'Pretty Baby' documentary, 'Redefined: J.R. Smith' follows the retired NBA star's transition to college and golf, Lewis Capaldi lets fans into his world with new Netflix doc and all the best in pop culture the week of April 3, 2023
The It List is Yahoo's weekly look at the best in pop culture, including movies, music, TV, streaming, games, books, podcasts and more. Here are our picks for April 3-9, 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: Brooke Shields bares all in the new documentary Pretty Baby
Following its Sundance Film Festival premiere in January, Lana Wilson's two-part portrait of actress, model and all-around pop culture icon Brooke Shields arrives on Hulu. Interviewed at length in the documentary, Shields revisits the full arc of her career in the public eye, from her earliest appearances in movies like Louis Malle's controversial Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon to her turbulent marriage to Andre Agassi and odd friendship with Michael Jackson. But the most buzzed-about portion of the film finds Shields recounting the harrowing details of a sexual assault she's never discussed prior to sitting down with Wilson. "I had no idea I was going to say it," she told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Sundance. "As a mother of two young girls that I hope that just by even hearing my incident that I can add myself to becoming an advocate. Because this is something that does happen every day, and it should not be happening. I felt that I had arrived at a place where I could talk about it. It’s taken me a long time." — Ethan Alter
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields premieres Monday, April 3 on Hulu.
STREAM IT: The retired NBA star goes back to school — and picks up a golf club in Redefined: J.R. Smith
J.R. Smith was just 19 when he was drafted into the NBA, and he went on to play for teams including the Los Angeles Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers, both of which he won NBA championships with, over a 16-year career. After he found himself without a team, he chose an unlikely next move: college. He enrolled at North Carolina A&T State University, the country's largest historically Black college, to study liberal arts and, because he's still an athlete, to play golf, hopefully on the school team. Over a four-part docuseries executive-produced by his former teammate LeBron James, we see Smith tackling another sport and attempting to bond with his younger team members, which doesn't always go perfectly. "I'm not doing this to prove nobody else wrong," he says. "It's like I'm really proving to myself that I can do it." — Raechal Shewfelt
Redefined: J.R. Smith premieres Tuesday, April 4 on Prime Video.
WATCH IT: Living With Chucky takes a personal approach to the Child's Play franchise
An entire generation of horror fans has grown up watching that pint-sized plastic serial killer Chucky slay the competition as the star of the ongoing Child's Play franchise. But filmmaker Kyra Elise Gardner has an even more personal connection to that red-headed doll — she's the now-grown daughter of F/X artist Tony Gardner, who has helped bring Chucky's bloody mischief to life. With the help of franchise stalwarts like Chucky creator Don Mancini and stars Brad Dourif and Jennifer Tilly, Living With Chucky tracks the series back to its earliest days and depicts its evolution from an unexpected '80s horror hit into an ongoing saga with its own elaborate continuity. This exclusive clip highlights the impact that Chucky has had on Gardner's life and the lives of so many others... but fortunately not in a deadly way. — E.A.
Living With Chucky premieres Tuesday, April 4 on Screambox and most VOD services.
STREAM IT: Jason Isbell is Running for his life
Singer-songwriter Jason Isbell is one of the most authentic artists working in country music today — so his anticipated documentary, Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed, is expectedly a warts-and-all affair, a stark and uncompromising account of the recovering addict’s personal and professional struggles. The film, directed by Sam Jones (I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco, Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued, Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off), captures the harrowing process behind Isbell’s critically acclaimed 2020 album, Reunions, which was made with his wife, fellow Americana artist Amanda Shires, during the COVID-19 lockdown and a rough patch in the country power-couple’s marriage. —Lyndsey Parker
Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed premieres Friday, April 7 on HBO and HBO Max.
WATCH IT: The acclaimed eco-thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline blows into theaters
One of the breakout indie productions at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, How to Blow Up a Pipeline conjures a fictional thriller out of Andreas Malm's 2021 book advocating for stronger measures among climate activists. The movie version stars Sasha Lane and Lukas Gage as two members of an eco-group who set out to sabotage an in-the-works pipeline in Texas. Moving back and forth in time, the film is like a nerve-jangling, environmentally-minded version of Ocean's Eleven. This exclusive clip finds the crew putting their plan into motion. — E.A.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline premieres Friday, April 7 in theaters.
STREAM IT: Lewis Capaldi’s honest new documentary is something to love
Jason Isbell isn’t the only singer-songwriter releasing a brave, confessional documentary this week. In How I’m Feeling Now, Scottish “Someone You Loved” balladeer Lewis Capaldi opens up about his struggles with Tourette’s, anxiety, imposter syndrome, sudden fame, writer’s block, the internal and external pressure to follow up his massive 2019 debut album and the family suicide that inspired his hit “Before You Go.” — L.P.
Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now premieres Thursday, April 5 on Netflix.
STREAM IT: Hell’s Paradise puts an anime suicide squad through monstrous mayhem
Based on the popular manga series and produced by the team behind last year’s anime sensation Chainsaw Man, Hell’s Paradise follows the twisted tale of seemingly indestructible ninja assassin Gabimaru, who is offered a sweet deal: team up Dirty Dozen-style with a band of murderous convicts to retrieve the Elixir of Life and his death sentence will be commuted. The one problem? The prize is on a demon-filled island from which no one has ever returned. The beautiful, bloody first episode fills us in on Gabimaru’s backstory, introduces his sympathetic executioner, Sagiri, who will accompany him as a safeguard, and sets the stage for the gloriously graphic carnage to come. — Marcus Errico
Hell’s Paradise is exclusively streaming on Crunchyroll, with new episodes every Saturday.
STREAM IT: Think Pink! Grease is still the word
Sure, polarizing 1982 sequel Grease 2 filled everyone in on what happened after Rizzo and Frenchie graduated from Rydell High. But who were the '50s femme fatales who paved those Pink Ladies’ pink path? Season 1 of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, set in 1954, tells that origin story through the music of former Semi-Precious Weapons singer-turned-superstar songwriter Justin Tranter (Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, DNCE, Imagine Dragons, Lady Gaga, Fall Out Boy, M?neskin), who wrote more than 30 original retro rock tunes for the new Paramount+ prequel series. This show is the one that you want! — L.P.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies premieres Friday, April 6 on Paramount+.
READ IT: This Marvel visual history will take True Believers on a delightful trip down memory lane
Stan Lee never met a promotional gimmick he didn’t like. In 1974, the Marvel mastermind found a new way to get kids collecting comic books — he had his artists design 100 original “stamps” featuring iconic heroes and villains and placed them inside different titles, then he encouraged fans to “collect ’em all” in a booklet redeemable for exclusive Marvel merch. The wildly popular stunt was repeated the following year with all new illustrations. Now, for the first time, both complete sets along with all the related source material have been collected in this lavishly illustrated volume, which features behind-the-scenes details from former Marvel editor in chief and comic encyclopedia Roy Thomas. As Stan the Man would put it, Excelsior! —M.E.
Marvel Value Stamps: A Visual History is now available at Amazon and other booksellers.
HEAR IT: Ellie Goulding wants to take you Higher
British songstress Ellie Goulding created her fifth studio album, Higher Than Heaven, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, enlisting industry heavy-hitters like Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia, Paul McCartney, Pink), Big Sean, Julia Michaels and Anthony Rossomando (co-writer of Oscar-winning A Star Is Born theme “Shallow”) to help her process. “There was definitely a darkness about [that time period] that was palpable in the studio, with everyone having gone through it differently,” she recently told Britain’s NME. “I think for that reason, nobody wanted to sit and agonize over some relationship or some drama. So, that's how this album came together.” — L.P.
Higher Than Heaven by Ellie Goulding is available Friday, April 7 to download/stream on Apple Music.
STREAM IT: Schmigadoon goes Schmicago in Season 2 of the Apple TV+ musical comedy
Goodbye Schmigadoon... hello Schmicago. The second season of Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key's musical comedy series trades the '40s and '50s show tunes that defined the first year for a taste of Broadway in the '60s and '70s. When their plans to start a family hit a snag, Melissa and Josh head back to their old stomping grounds only to find that it's been transformed into a landscape that's Cabaret meets Hair meets Sweeney Todd. Once again, the original music carries the series through some of its duller narrative patches, with the returning cast leaving it all on the stage floor. Bring on Season 3, which we can only hope will be set in Schmiparis and feature spirited send-ups of '80s shows like Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera. — E.A.
Schmigadoon Season 2 premieres Friday, April 7 on Apple TV+.
DRIVE IT: Hot Wheels: Rift Rally transforms your home into a high-tech racetrack
The creators of the groundbreaking Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit have leveled up their mixed-reality game with Hot Wheels: Rift Rally. After setting up special gates throughout your house, you pilot a camera-equipped RC car, called the Chameleon, around your course — the game then learns the track and creates a digital version. Once the live action and virtual courses are synced, you unlock the gameplay, competing in campaign or (our favorite) stunt modes while customizing your virtual vehicle (ava-car?) with accessories and weapons and even classic Hot Wheels skins. — M.E.
Hot Wheels: Rift Rally is now available on iOS and PlayStation from the Rift Rally site, Amazon, GameStop and other retailers.
STREAM IT: The Beach Boys’ all-star tribute will bring a smiley smile to your face
There isn’t a music fan on the planet who doesn’t get all warm and fuzzy listening to the Beach Boys’ pet sounds. So, when the Recording Academy’s casting committee put out the feelers for A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys, all-stars of all genres — from indie heroes Beck, St. Vincent, Mumford & Sons and My Morning Jacket; to pop-rockers Fall Out Boy, Weezer and Foster the People; to country A-listers LeAnn Rimes, Lady A and Little Big Town; to Grammy darlings Norah Jones, John Legend and Brandi Carlile; to even Michael McDonald, Take 6 and Pentatonix — readily signed up for the fun. Among the many highlights from the two-hour special, filmed at Hollywood’s famous Dolby Theatre three days after this year’s Grammy Awards ceremony, are Beck and MMJ frontman Jim James’s “Good Vibrations”; Carlile and Legend’s angelic “God Only Knows”; Mumford & Sons’ lovely “I Know There's an Answer”; Rimes’s soaring “Caroline No”; St. Vincent’s hauntingly avant garde "You Still Believe in Me”; and especially a spirited duet by rockers Luke Spiller and Taylor Momsen and a harmonic tour de force by another band of golden brothers, Hanson. But the best appearance of all is by the Beach Boys themselves, forming a rare unified front as they sit together in a private Dolby balcony. Good vibrations, indeed. — L.P.
A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys premieres Sunday, April 9 on CBS and Paramount+.
PLAY IT: Celebrate Pac-Man Day with a deluxe cabinet from Arcade1Up
Talk about taking a chomp out of the competition. Arcade1Up observes Pac-Man Day with a deluxe edition of their arcade-quality cabinets featuring everyone's favorite pellet-eater. In addition to the classic 1980 maze game, this spiffy yellow cabinet includes a total of 14 vintage video games, from Galaga and Pac-Land to Dig Dug and Mappy. If you want to play as Pac-Man's better half, the new Class of '81 machine features Ms. Pac-Man among its 12 games. And '90s kids will want to get over here and button mash Arcade1Up's new Mortal Kombat deluxe cabinet, which includes four different versions of the classic fighting game. Dibs on Sub-Zero! — E.A.
Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat and Class of '81 deluxe cabinets will be available Tuesday, April 4 at Arcade1Up.
