Movies: It’s a real dilemma: “Penguins” or “Drunk Parents.” Why isn’t there something Easter-related? TV/Streaming: I’m going to catch up with Beyonce’s Netflix documentary, “Homecoming.” Then maybe I’ll give another try with PBS’s “Mrs. Wilson,” which thus far has been nothing more than mediocre. Music: The best-seller charts are still littered with soundtracks (“A Star is Born,” “The Crow”) and some person called Billie Eilish. Time to cue up some Julie London and Little Jimmy Scott. Books: Does any new release sound more yawny that David Brooks’s “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”? When I was young I disliked tea-cuppy Trollope novels, and now I devour them. Sports: What a joy to see Juventus lose to Ajax, and what a sorrow to see the Mets sputter. Finally: I prefer Easter to Christmas: it doesn’t go on forever and there are bonnets and chocolates!
The 72nd Cannes Film Festival announced its lineup, boosting the number of female filmmakers in official selection to 13, four of whom will compete for the Palme d’Or. The number of Americans is also up, including Terrence Malick (“A Hidden Life”), Ira Sachs (Isabelle Huppert starrer “Frankie”), and director Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die,”which was previously announced as the opening night film. Other high-profile films in the lineup include Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory,” now playing in Spanish cinemas, and new films from past Palme d’Or winners Ken Loach (“Sorry We Missed You”), who has competed 13 times before, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (“The Young Ahmed”). The Belgian brothers have won Cannes’ top honor twice before, returning now with a film about the immigrant experience. “The Traitor”marks Italian director Marco Bellocchio’s seventh time in competition.
Oh, goodness, a Mayor Pete gaffe! This morning, on Morning Joe, they were teasing him about having met Tim McGraw and then not recognizing Brad Paisley when Brad introduced himself to to him and Mayor Pete’s husband Chasten had to tell him whom he had just met since he failed to recognize him. Pete said he had this condition called “celebrity blindness” which causes him usually to have the inability to recognize famous people.
The Bauhaus was born in Weimar, but was forced to flee the conservative city. Now it’s back with a centenary museum – as Germany’s far right rises again. Details.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has done it again. With the release of her Netflix concert film, Queen Bey surprised the world again by dropping an unexpected Homecoming album, a live album version of the same Coachella concert performance featured on Netflix. Knowles made the secret album drop her thing in 2013 and kept that tradition going with her Lemonade album and “Everything Is Love,” the latter she created with husband Jay-Z. Of course we here at LemonWade prefer “Lemonade” to all things Bey has ever done or ever will do.
Georgia Engel, whose distinctive voice and pinpoint comic timing made her a memorable part of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” on which she played Georgette Franklin, girlfriend and eventually wife of the buffoonish TV newsman Ted Baxter, died on Friday in Princeton, N.J. She was 70.
