The Brainerd Dispatch - Today's Entertainment Magazine
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Brainerd Dispatch • October 4 - 10, 2020 •19 By Jessica Gosse TV Media WHAT'S NEW ON NETFLIX "The Haunting of Bly Manor" From horror aficionado Mike Flanagan — the director behind many epic horror films, such as "Gerald's Game" (2017) and "Doctor Sleep" (2019) — comes this thrilling new series premier - ing Friday, Oct. 9, on Netflix. Vic- toria Pedretti ("The Haunting of Hill House") stars as Dani Clay- ton, an American nanny who is hired by Henry Wingrave (Henry Thomas, "Ouija: Origin of Evil," 2016) to look after his orphaned niece and nephew, Flora (Amelie Bea Smith, "EastEnders") and Miles (newcomer Benjamin Evan Ainsworth), at their country home in England following the tragic and mysterious death of their last au pair. While the man - or is beautiful and picturesque, Dani quickly realizes that its beauty is merely masking dark and terrible secrets. Throughout her stay at the manor, Dani meets various household staff members, including Chef Owen (Rahul Kohli, "iZombie"), Jamie (Amelia Eve, "Enterprice") the groundskeeper and Mrs. Grose (T'Nia Miller, "The Feed"), all of whom fill her in on the building's dreadful history. As more and more unusual events occur, Dani soon realizes that it's more than just a terrible past that haunts Bly Manor. "Hubie Halloween" (2020) Every year on Halloween, despite his being an average citizen, Hubie Dubois (Adam Sandler, "Murder Mystery," 2019) takes pride in mon- itoring his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, so that everyone can safely enjoy the holiday in this comedy premiering Wednesday, Oct. 7, on Netflix. Always on high alert for danger, Hubie has become the town joke and is constantly the subject of ridicule and pranks from Salem's children and adults alike. Even the town's police force, led by Sgt. Steve Downing (Kevin James, "The King of Queens") and his deputy (Kenan Thompson, "Saturday Night Live"), don't take Hubie seriously — especially after he came to them about issues like the supermarket selling expired bacon, the library janitor being out of character and the fact that he thinks he heard a voice coming from the sewer. But when he sees one of the townsfolk mysteriously go missing from a corn field, Hubie finds himself in the middle of a real case even though nobody believes him. Now, the one person who can protect the town is the man they least expected could ever be a hero. "The Forty-Year-Old Version" (2020) Radha (Radha Blank, "She's Gotta Have It") was always told that she had a promising future as a writer; she was even listed on a popular magazine's "30 Under 30" list of playwrights to watch. Unfortu- nately, things didn't quite work out as expected for Radha, who now works as a teacher and has yet to write a breakthrough play, in this comedy, premiering Friday, Oct. 9, on Netflix. Now 40 years old, Radha is disheartened when she receives harsh criticism on her career from her students, the media and a col- league who claims that her work feels inauthentic. Suddenly, inspira- tion strikes, and Radha comes up with an unusual idea: hip hop from the perspective of a 40-year-old woman. While her friends and col- leagues are skeptical of the idea (especially after witnessing her at- tempted rap demonstration about a "white man with a black wom- an's butt"), Radha quickly develops a unique style and sound as she goes from playwright to rapper, and she finds the words she struggled to come up with as a playwright. WHAT'S NEW ON HULU "Books of Blood" (2020) Just in time for the Halloween season comes the premiere of this thrilling film, Wednesday, Oct. 7, on Hulu. Based on Clive Barker's influential horror anthology of the same name, this unique film is set to depict three different horror stories. While Hulu is remaining tight-lipped on which of Barker's many tales will be featured in the film, it's safe to assume it will be appropriately terrifying, as many adaptations of Barker's work have become staples of the horror genre — examples include "Can- dyman" (1992), which is based on Barker's tale "The Forbidden," and the entire Hellraiser franchise, which is based on his novella "The Hellbound Heart." This dark and twisted new film will star Britt Robertson ("For The People"), Anna Friel ("Pushing Daisies") and Rafi Gavron ("A Star Is Born," 2018). WHAT'S NEW ON DISNEY "The Right Stuff" In the late '50s and early '60s, there was one big topic on ev- eryone's mind: the space race. As 1959 came to a close, the Soviet Union was the clear front-runner and, as such, the U.S. government created NASA's Project Mercury, ultimately bringing together the country's top engineers to win the space race in just two short years. Based on Tom Wolfe's criti- cally acclaimed novel of the same name, this National Geographic miniseries premieres Friday, Oct. 9, on Disney+ and is a remake of the 1983 film version. The eight-part series follows a group of military-grade test pilots who were recruited as the first Ameri- can astronauts and famously became known as the Mercury Seven. Maj. John Glenn (Patrick J. Adams, "Suits") and Lt. Cmdr. Alan Shepard (Jake McDorman, "Limitless") were the de facto leaders of the group, which also included prankster Wally Schirra (Aaron Staton, "Mad Men"), the highly reserved Deke Slayton (Mi- cah Stock, "Bonding"), Scott "The Poet" Carpenter (James Lafferty, "One Tree Hill"), Lt. Gordon Coo- per (Colin O'Donoghue, "Once Upon A Time"), the youngest and most surprising group member, and the stoic Gus Grissom (Mi- chael Trotter, "Underground"). The group soon finds themselves in the public eye as they take on their mission, testing new and ad- vanced technologies. But as time passes and various temptations and egos begin to get in the way, a battle to become the first man in space wages war between Glenn and Shepard. Victoria Pedretti in "The Haunting of Bly Manor" Radha Blank stars in "The Forty-Year-Old Version" The cast of "The Right Stuff"