The It List: Jamie Foxx joins 'Masked Singer' in post-Super Bowl season premiere, Oscar contender 'Parasite' on DVD/Blu-ray, Kesha drops 'High Road' and the best in pop culture the week of Jan. 27, 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. Here are our picks for Jan. 27-Feb. 2, including the best deals we could find for each. (Yahoo Entertainment may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page.)
WATCH IT: Llamas and turtles and tigers, oh my! The Masked Singer is back
TV’s most bananas guessing game took over the planet in 2019, and Season 3 looks to be truly bananas this year. (Yes, there’s even an Art Basel Banana in the costumed cast.) It’s not out of the question that one of this season’s 18 celebrity contestants might even be disguised as Super Bowl superstar Left Shark, since The Masked Singer’s wardrobe designer, Marina Toybina, actually won an Emmy for designing the viral dancing sharks that accompanied (and upstaged) Katy Perry at 2015’s Super Bowl halftime show. That would be fitting since the reality show’s third season is premiering in the coveted post-Super Bowl slot (with guest panelist Jamie Foxx). Game on! — Lyndsey Parker
The Masked Singer Season 3 will premiere immediately after Super Bowl LIV on Sunday, Feb 2 on Fox.
WATCH IT: Parasite sneaks its way into your home
At first it was a sensation and Cannes Film Festival top prize winner. Then a sleeper hit at the box office, racking up an impressive $23 million in the U.S. and $143 million worldwide. Somewhere along the way it also became the most buzzed-about movie of the year, and certainly one of the best reviewed. Now, it's a serious Oscar contender, with six nominations and a very legitimate chance of pulling an upset in Best Picture, given how passionate its supporters are.
So what is Parasite, if you’re just catching up? It's a razor-sharp, largely undefinable South Korean satire on class from filmmaking maestro Bong Joon Ho that follows a family of con artists as they swindle their way into an upper-crest home… before all hell breaks loose in the most surprising of fashions. Moviegoers who didn't have a chance to see it in theaters can now see what all the fuss is about as the film will be available on home entertainment. — Kevin Polowy
Buy Parasite on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on Amazon.
WATCH IT: Network television’s best comedy goes to the afterlife as The Good Place signs off for good
First, the bad news: After four seasons of heavenly comedy, The Good Place is no more. But have you heard the good news? The series finale will be a full-fledged 90-minute NBC event: an hour-long episode followed by a Seth Meyers-hosted reunion of the show’s sterling cast. We trust that D’Arcy Carden will teach us how to say goodbye. — Ethan Alter
The Good Place series finale airs Thursday, Jan. 30 at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.
WATCH IT: The new horror movie Gretel & Hansel fractures the fairy tale you remember
Think you know the story of Hansel and Gretel? Think again. The third feature from horror master-in-the-making, Osgood Perkins, flips the title — and the perspective — of the classic Grimm fairy tale. As told by Perkins (whose sophomore feature, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, is one of the best scary movies of the new century), Gretel & Hansel has been reconfigured as a young girl’s coming of age story, involving a flight through a dark and gloomy forest, encounters with strange creatures and one very wicked witch. Breakout It: Chapter One scene-stealer, Sophia Lillis, stars as Gretel, while geek icon, Alice Krige aka Star Trek’s Borg Queen plays the oven-stoking villain. Based on the trailer, the film retains Perkins’s spooky sense of style, with lots of atmospheric production design and carefully crafted frames. We’re all in for his version of the Grimm Cinematic Universe. — E.A.
Gretel & Hansel opens in theaters on Friday, Jan. 31; visit Fandango for showtime and ticket information.
WATCH IT: Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens is already a hit
Actress Awkwafina’s new Comedy Central show, inspired by her real life growing up with her dad and grandma, was the network’s highest-rated new series premiere in three years. No wonder it’s already been renewed for a second season. The reason to watch, though, is that it’s (sometimes subversively) funny, beginning with the first scenes, which depict Nora having a dream that God is asking her why she was living with family when she was almost 30 and then, after she wakes, encountering a younger neighbor boy who’s prepping for the SATs and confounded by Nora’s living arrangements. — Raechal Shewfelt
New episodes of Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens air Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.
HEAR IT: Kesha continues her comeback trail with High Road
Following her critically acclaimed 2017 comeback album Rainbow, the Warrior is back in fighting form on this collection of dream-pop bangers, collaborating with Big Freedia, Grimes, Sturgill Simpson, Dan Reynolds, Justin Tranter, Nate Ruess, Wrabel and even Brian Wilson. — L.P.
Download on iTunes; buy on CD at Amazon.
WATCH IT: Complete your pre-Oscar homework by screening the 2020 class of Oscar nominated short films
No need to take a bathroom break when this year’s Oscar telecast gets around to the short film categories: Thanks to ShortsTV, you’ll be able to have a rooting interest in the 15 titles nominated for animated, live action and documentary shorts. On Jan. 29, the three programs will open in theaters, with a digital release to follow on Feb. 4 — five days before the statues are handed out. While 2018 was an off-year, this year’s crop are strong across the board, especially the animated shorts, which are a better group of nominees than the animated features. The likely winner is Matthew A. Cherry’s Hair Love, a lovingly crafted father/daughter story that packs plenty of heart and humor into its six-minute runtime. But the Chinese cartoon, Sister, and Memorable, from France, are also strong contenders thanks to their moving subject matter and artful use of stop-motion animation.
Thanks to a ticking-clock structure and claustrophobic setting, Belgium’s sixteen-minute thriller, A Sister, is an obvious frontrunner in the live action category. Don’t count out a pair of Tunisian-set shorts, Brotherhood and Nefta Football Club, though, both of which wrestle with timely social issues in striking ways. Speaking of timely, the documentary short Learning to Skateboard in a War Zone (If You’re a Girl) addresses both the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, as well as the ways that women speak their truth to those in power. It’s closest competitor is In the Absence, a heart-wrenching minute-by-minute account of the 2014 South Korean ferry disaster that features actual cell phone footage recorded on the doomed ship. — E.A.
The 2020 Oscar Nominated Short Films open in theaters on Wednesday, Jan. 29, and will be available on digital streaming services like Amazon, Apple TV and Google Play starting Feb. 4.
HEAR IT: Louis Tomlinson goes in a solo direction with Walls
Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Liam Payne have all enjoyed post-One Direction success, and now it’s their bandmate’s time to shine. Tomlinson’s debut solo album, Walls, has finally arrived, and it has a distinct Britpop/indie feel inspired by the Verve, the La’s, Arctic Monkeys and, his all-time favorite band, Oasis. — L.P.
Download on iTunes; buy on CD/vinyl at Amazon.
BUY IT: Zoinks! Those meddling kids join the Playmobil family with a new Scooby-Doo toy line
Scooby-Doo celebrated its 50th anniversary last fall, and has a new animated feature due in theaters in May. So Playmobil picked the right time to unveil its new line of Scooby snacks… uh, toys. The centerpiece of the collection is a replica of the Scooby Gang’s signature ride, the Mystery Machine, which comes with figures of Fred, Daphne and Velma as well as sleuthing tools like spyglasses and secret maps. Scooby and Shaggy are sold separately, but come with a guh-guh-guh-ghost! More spooky enemies — who naturally turn out to be guys in masks — can be assembled via Mystery Figures packs that also come with a collectible sticker and ghost card. — E.A.
Playmobil’s Scooby-Doo toys are available exclusively at Walmart through May.
WATCH IT: Very Bad Things celebrates its 21st birthday with a wild Blu-ray release
Over the past decade or so, Peter Berg has become one of Hollywood's most prolific heady action-thriller filmmakers, often collaborating with Mark Wahlberg on films like Lone Survivor, Patriots Day and Deepwater Horizon. It was the chaotic dark comedy Very Bad Things, though, that launched the actor-turned-director's career behind the camera. The definitive film — that will make you need a shower after soaking up its debauchery — follows a bachelor party gone horribly wrong when its revelers (including Christian Slater, Jon Favreau and Daniel Stern) accidentally kill a prostitute during the festivities, then cover up the crime. It does not go as planned. The film turned 21 this past November, and a new Blu-ray now arrives to celebrate with all-new features. — K.P.
Buy Very Bad Things: Collector's Edition on Amazon.
WATCH IT: BoJack Horseman rides into Hollywood history books
The decidedly smart cartoon for adults drops its final eight episodes this week, much to the dismay of critics. We’ll miss it because of the funny scenes that turn animals into entertainment stars, the poignant depiction of BoJack struggling with depression and, well, just check out a few of his tweets.
cast cats as cats pic.twitter.com/fTuIAwbH4M
— BoJack Horseman (@BoJackHorseman) December 21, 2019
thanx for not using the sneezing picture https://t.co/qMnp3pg01B
— BoJack Horseman (@BoJackHorseman) January 13, 2020
im doing a tbt remember when we made the waitress take a table pic and also when we did some other stuff over th course of 5 years pic.twitter.com/MAvlwSaZ9e
— BoJack Horseman (@BoJackHorseman) January 23, 2020
During the Television Critics Association’s tour earlier this month, Will Arnett, who voices the lead character, said he hoped viewers will be as satisfied as he is with what he considers a “very appropriate BoJack end.” He explained, “I don’t think the fans want to see a neat bow tied on it. Life doesn’t end that way anyway, generally. Things are messy and complicated, you know.” — Raechal Shewfelt
New episodes of BoJack Horseman arrive Friday, Jan. 31 on Netflix.