Entertainment Extra

18 ENTERTAINMENT EXTRA Wilkinson Heating & Plumbing 2 x 3" Royal Center Locker Plant 1 x 9" By Michelle Rose TV Media T here's no question that the COVID-19 pandemic hit the food industry hard, with $240 billion in sales and nearly 2.5 million jobs lost in 2020. While it may be a long climb to recovery, diners are eager to return, and that's good news for restaurateurs. In the meantime, how do you ride out a crisis in an industry with already low profit mar- gins? Enter Todd Graves, the founder and CEO of fast-food chain Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers. A former participant in Fox's "Secret Millionaire," Graves leads a new reality series that began streaming last week on discovery+. Two new episodes of it are land- ing this Thursday, April 22. "Restaurant Recovery" fol- lows Graves as he rolls up his sleeves and travels across the country to help bring eateries back from the brink. Throughout the series, he'll offer $2 million in COVID-19 relief to 20 restaurants (that's $100,000 each) and he'll also bring in a few famous friends to lend a hand along the way. Snoop Dogg was the spe- cial guest in the premiere episode, and this week rap- per/actor/entrepreneur Nelly will be on hand to show love to his hometown of St. Louis and to Crown Candy Kitchen. The 107-year-old shop and diner survived the Spanish flu in 1918, but it has struggled to keep the lights on during the most recent pandemic. Hopefully, a renovation (cour- tesy of Graves and his team) and an appearance by a Grammy-winning performer (Nelly) will boost sales and help the establishment regain a solid footing. In the second episode pre- miering Thursday, Graves heads to Denver to meet the owners of My Brother's Bar, a family-owned place that has been in continuous operation since 1873. It had successful- ly pivoted to outdoor dining to keep itself profitable dur- ing the pandemic, but Graves offers some assistance ahead of the colder winter months when customers might not want to have drinks outside in 45-degree weather. "Restaurant Recovery" began filming last August, when guidelines were first instituted to allow the safe resumption of filming and dining, and production con- tinued through the rest of the year. Exclusively available on discovery+, two new epi- sodes of the show will be added to the streamer every Thursday this month. Pandemic relief: Discovery+ series helps struggling restaurants Nelly guest stars in "Restaurant Recovery" Crisis In the midst of the opioid crisis, a drug trafficking ring organizes a multi-cartel smuggling operation, unaware that their organization has been infiltrated by an under- cover DEA agent (Hammer). Meanwhile, an architect (Lilly) re- covering from an oxycodone ad- diction engages in a desperate search for her son, whose disap- pearance has links to narcotic ac- tivity. Elsewhere, a university pro- fessor (Oldman) faces an uphill battle when he attempts to blow the whistle on his research em- ployer, a powerful pharmaceuti- cal company that plans to intro- duce a new "non-addictive" painkiller. Director: Nicholas Jarecki. Stars: Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Mi- chelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Lily- Rose Depp, Indira Varma, Kid Cudi, Martin Donovan, Veronica Ferres. 2021. 118 mins. Drama. Body Brokers Convinced to enter a rehab pro- gram in California by a mysterious man named Wood (Williams), junkies Utah (Kilmer) and Opal (Englert) leave the streets of rural Ohio and head to Los Angeles. Utah is optimistic about his sobri- ety progress, feeling especially good about his sessions with the treatment center's shrink (Leo), un- til he discovers the center is actual- ly a front for a fraud operation that recruits addicts through other ad- dicts. Mentored by Wood and his business partner, Vin (Grillo), Utah must decide what he wants more: to make big money or to overcome addiction. Director: John Swab. Stars: Jack Kilmer, Micheal Kenneth Williams, Jessica Rothe, Alice Englert, Peter Greene, Frank Grillo, Melissa Leo, Thomas Dekker. 2021. 111 mins. Crime. Evangeline Lilly in "Crisis" video releases Cass Plaza 2 x 2" U Know Pizza 2 x 2.5"

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