Apple TV+ - page 25

The Apple TV+ Christmas special The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse earned an Oscar nomination Tuesday in the Animated Short Film category. And Brian Tyree Henry picked up a best supporting actor nom for his role in Causeway, the indie film starring Jennifer Lawrence as a wounded Afghanistan vet returning to her hometown.

However, Apple’s streaming service will not be earning back-to-back Best Picture Oscars. It’s big Oscar bait release — Emancipation, the Civil War-era movie starring Will Smith as a slave fighting for his freedom — was completely shut out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Into Japanese comics (manga) or fine wine (boozy grape juice)? Then you may know Drops of God in its bestselling comic-novel form. Soon you can watch it as a live-action, multilingual dramatic series on Apple TV+, the streaming service said Wednesday.

In a somewhat unusual move, Apple TV+ licensed the French-Japanese dramatic series adapted from manga form rather than producing it. It did not set an air date, however. It said only that the series will premiere in 2023.

Dorothy is back in the bizarre Turner household this week on Apple TV+ thriller Servant — and she’s not happy to be home. Leanne insists on normalcy, but considering the things that have happened, that’s asking a lot.

To make matters worse, Tobe and Julian are stuck in the house together. Plus, the Turners have a big bug problem, Sean can’t stand up for either Leanne or Dorothy, and Dorothy keeps throwing a monkey wrench in Leanne’s plans.

Truth Be Told, the Apple TV+ drama created by Nichelle D. Tramble about a true crime podcaster, returns for its third season this week. This season, Poppy Scoville-Parnell — the intrepid reporter played by Oscar winner Octavia Spencer — must blow the lid off a sex-trafficking ring that resulted in at least one kidnapping, maybe more.

Politics, tech money, school board in-fighting, and police reform are all tied up in this case — and our podcasting hero Poppy is at the center of the swirl, as usual.

Shape Island arrives on Apple TV+ today to teach kids about social interactions and to help them ward off the anxiety inherent in such things. Based on the critically acclaimed books by illustrator Jon Klassen and author Mac Barnett, this charming stop-motion show is as cute as it is thoughtful — a good way to make kids laugh while slyly making them learn.

This is one of the first Apple TV+ kids’ shows with enough joyous anarchy for parents as well as children.

UPDATE: Apple’s System Status page now lists the problems with Apple TV and Apple TV+ as a “resolved issue.” 

An Apple TV outage late Thursday afternoon left viewers wondering why they couldn’t watch their favorite shows.

Around 5 p.m. PST, a message in the Apple TV app read: “Content Unavailable. There’s a problem loading this content. If this continues, check your Internet connection.” The ongoing problem apparently affects the Apple TV app, as well as the Apple TV+ streaming service and the channels subscribed to through the Apple TV app. On Macs, the message appeared in the Watch Now, Apple TV+ and Store tabs of Apple’s TV app.

Apple TV+ promised on Wednesday that its comedy sensation Ted Lasso will finally return for its highly anticipated third season in spring 2023.

Plus, Apple’s streaming service released trailers for five upcoming comedies, dramas and a travel show. Plus, it named premier dates for other shows.

New Apple TV+ documentary series Super League: The War for Football examines a dark and very recent chapter in the beloved sport’s history when the bubble threatened to burst.

Capitalism’s slowly tightening stranglehold over the sport meant that some owners saw the potential for growth that meant cutting off not just more than half of the European teams, but the thousands of fans of those teams. This is the story of the people who saved football … for now.

Enervating Apple TV+ series Echo 3 comes to a close this week. The show finally springs kidnapped CIA plant Amber from her prison, but there’s a lot more to freedom than no longer seeing the same four walls.

This bizarro, jingoistic wife-guy fantasy comes to a screeching halt with a conclusion preordained from its first incredibly strange seconds. Come for the last gunfight, stay for the most risible attitude toward human life I’ve yet encountered on scripted television.

Servant, the most joyous and unhinged show on Apple TV+, returns for its fourth and final season this week. The saga of the Turner family and their live-in nanny can’t help but disappoint, just because it’s going away. Never mind whether it wraps up its plot threads or not.

A show unbound from ordinary televisual constraints, both dramatically and visually, Servant serves as a vivid representation of its creators’ raging id. As such, its first three seasons became one of the most wonderful pleasures on television. Let’s see how M. Night Shyamalan and Co. are set to send off this family of arch-weirdos.

Windows 11 users can now download preview versions of the Apple Music and Apple TV applications.
In late 2022, Microsoft committed to getting them into the Windows Store this year.

And a new Apple Devices app is a significant move toward phasing out iTunes for Windows.

“Sharper” is old slang for a con artist or swindler. And in the trailer Apple TV+ dropped Thursday for its first film of 2023, a “neo-noir thriller” that shares the slang term as a title, it’s not easy to tell the con artist from the conned.

But it looks like it’ll be fun guessing which rich Manhattan people will lose their shirts in the film, starring Julianne Moore and John Lithgow.

It comes out in theaters February 10 and streams February 17, Apple TV+ said.

BOSTON — Before he put pen to paper and gave us violent sagas of lowlife P.I.s and desperate criminals, Dennis Lehane used to deliver flowers to a hospital next door to the Liberty Hotel. Now the novelist, who acted as writer and showrunner for the brilliant Apple TV+ miniseries Black Bird, is sitting here in the Liberty, so named because of its former vocation: a prison.

It’s an appropriate setting. Black Bird tells the true story of Jimmy Keene, a prison informant who risked his life to nail a serial killer. (The series is based on Keene’s autobiographical novel, In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption.)

Lehane and his chilling Black Bird star Paul Walter Hauser sat down with Cult of Mac and other journalists recently to discuss their critically acclaimed Apple TV+ show, which is racking up nominations as awards season gets underway. If Black Bird’s outstanding cast and crew receive the recognition they deserve, the show stands a good chance of picking up a handful of awards — and adding to the growing glow of prestige programming on Apple TV+. (Update: Hauser won the Golden Globe on Tuesday night for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.)

In the group interview, Lehane and Hauser talked motivation, working conditions and seeing into the mind of a psychopath, among other things.

Apple TV+ comedy Mythic Quest hits the end of season three this week with a bittersweet and very funny episode. Ian must fix the rift between himself and Poppy. David must regroup from a loss, and Jo’s got just the ticket (though maybe so do Ian and Poppy). Plus, Dana, Brad and Jo need a new challenge.

I cannot stress how much I need this show’s creative team to crank out new seasons more quickly. I do not want to go another two years without checking back in with the Mystic Quest crew. A fine season comes to a very lovely ending.

It’s finally go time on Echo 3, the Apple TV+ show about rescuing a CIA operative with a brother and a husband in the military. Prince and Bambi have cleared the runway for their secret invasion of the prison where sister/wife Amber is being held captive.

But big questions remain: Can they get in without getting killed? Is Amber actually there? Can they avoid a large-scale incursion with massive casualties? Can they flee the country to safety once they’re done? Is this at all a proportionate response?

Find out on this week’s installment of the most ideologically confused show on Apple TV+.

Apple TV+ thriller The Mosquito Coast kisses its second season — and a number of its characters — goodbye in this week’s show. The season two finale skids into a violent confrontation that leaves many dead, but answers a lot of important questions in the process.

The Fox family — Dina, Charlie, Margot and Allie — is still on the run. And they all know they want different things out of life. Can they work it out in time to escape the repercussions of the sundry terrorist events that have been escalating all season? This frankly shocking episode of The Mosquito Coast looks at all that and more.

Apple TV+ is set to premiere Shape Island, a stop-motion animation series for children and families that illustrates friendship can take many shapes.

The show debuts on Apple’s streaming service in mid-January.

Apple TV+’s Mythic Quest finds the crew on the cusp of something great this week, but that’s usually when you fall on your face.

David, forced to work with a prima donna actor to develop the Mythic Quest movie, receives a confidence boost from Jo. Poppy and Dana set out to boost Poppy’s confidence before a big, expensive presentation. Ian feels lost now that he’s admitted he and Poppy aren’t working anymore. And Phil finally finds a way to feel important.

It’s another stellar outing with the amazing cast of this fantastic Apple TV+ comedy.

Dina’s gone on this week’s episode of The Mosquito Coast, the Apple TV+ show about environmental terrorists on the run from Big Brother abroad. She decides to take a walk on the wild side in the company of rich and fatuous tourists and doesn’t exactly love what she sees.

Allie and Margot have to think on their feet if their schemes to buy the other freedom are going to work out. Charlie finally gets the kick out the door he needs — but at what cost? It’s a thought-provoking chapter of the saga of the Fox family.

Echo 3, writer Mark Boal’s fundamentalist patriotism slash fic about two men who will stop at nothing to rescue the woman they share, gears up for a very illegal raid on the prison holding her this week.

The two mercenaries tie up loose ends before their mission to save their wife/sister/CIA agent Amber Chesborough Haas. Plus, Amber and Prince’s parents kibbutz about the next best step to take for their kids. And an old foe is finally taken out of commission.

Slow Horses‘ magnificent second season comes to its excellent, exciting conclusion this week on Apple TV+.

Louisa’s revenge is at hand. Jackson discovers why the Russians have it in for him. River, Roddy, Shirley and Kelly are headed for a showdown with Chernitsky. And Standish is close to the truth. A season of intrigue explodes into armed combat and tough talk as the spy thriller wraps up season two and prepares for its next outing — which can’t come soon enough.

Apple has a gift for those without an Apple TV+ subscription: the first seasons of five popular shows are now available for anyone to watch at no charge.

Spend your Christmas vacation time enjoying some Ted Lasso or Prehistoric Planet, or any of the many other free episodes. These can all be enjoyed without an Apple device.

This week’s episode of Apple TV+ thriller The Mosquito Coast finds every member of the Fox family on some sort of clandestine outing. On the run in South America after blowing up a lab and stealing security software, they’re all looking for a way out of their little corner of paradise.

Allie and Charlie scope out a new place to flee after they betray their hosts. Margot makes a shocking discovery in Richard’s cabinet. And Dina enjoys a day in the life of an ordinary girl.

Apple TV+ thriller Echo 3, about the kidnapping of a CIA plant and the truly bizarre array of personalities that accumulate in its aftermath, takes a trip to torture town this week.

Brothers-in-law Bambi and Prince get a visit from a familiar face, a journalist realizes she’s in over her head, and DJ Momo gets the business end of a car battery. As usual, this is the weirdest show on Apple TV+ — filled with casual sadism and murder — and things just keep getting more bizarre.

The second season of Apple TV+ spy drama Slow Horses is through warming up and starting to boil over. This week’s excellent installment has Lamb revisiting the past, Catherine playing a very important game of chess, River up a creek, Louisa and Marcus in the dark, and Roddy and Shirley on the run. Plus, the Tropper family is in trouble.

The whole episode, entitled “Boardroom Politics,” is about mounting tension and slow (but not too slow) reveals, as everyone races to either create or prevent a catastrophe.