Discover the best of pop culture this weekend with our curated guide featuring must-watch movies and documentaries.
Welcome to the Gold Ticket, your VIP guide to the best of pop culture for the weekend ahead, curated by the Gold Derby team of experts.
The Main Stream
Together: The couple that makes horror movies together stays together. At least, that’s the case with Dave Franco and Alison Brie, who followed up their freaky 2020 collaboration, The Rental, with another exercise in high tension. One of the breakout hits at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — where Neon acquired it for a cool $17 million — the Michael Shanks-directed feature features the married stars as a couple who find themselves quite literally bonded together. The mixture of both psychological and body horror makes for a much better witch’s brew than this week’s other big VOD horror release, the lackluster revival of the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise.
The Thursday Murder Club: If you’re looking for murders that are more cozy than scary, pull up a chair for Netflix’s adaptation of Richard Osman’s series of mystery novels featuring a pair of older, but none-too-wiser amateur detectives. Chris Columbus directs a cast that includes Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley.
Katrina: Come Hell and High Water: Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans and 18 years after his seminal documentary about the tragedy, When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee returns to Louisiana for a longer look at the legacy of that weather cataclysm. Lee directs the third and final installment of the Netflix docuseries, with Greeta Gandbhir helming the first chapter and Samantha Knowles overseeing part two.
The Terminal List: Dark Wolf: Taylor Kitsch headlines the prequel spin-off of Chris Pratt’s meat-and-potatoes Prime Video series, which successfully targeted the same “dad” demo that regularly tunes in for Reacher and Bosch. The former Friday Night Lights star plays Ben Edwards, a Navy SEAL who ends up leading covert operations for the CIA by the time the events of The Terminal List take place.
Reads and Feeds
Lego Wall-E and Eve: Two months after the brickmasters delivered the jaw-dropping Luxo Jr. set, they’re back with another wonderful, whimsical Pixar product. This 811-piece set painstakingly recreates the lovable robots from 2008’s Oscar-winning film, along with the indefatigable M-O (Microbe Obliterator) cleaning bot and some delightful Easter eggs, like WALL-E’s pet cockroach and garbage cube, which fits in WALL-E’s storage compartment, and EVE’s boot plant, which snuggles into her chest cavity. Available Sept. 1 at Lego stores and Lego.com.
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The Legend of the Headless Salesman: A Dunder Mifflin Ghost Story: Be afraid, be very afraid… because Kevin from The Office has written a book. Okay, so technically Brian Baumgartner— who played the balding poker ace for nine seasons — has written said book alongside the show’s executive producer, Ben Silverman. Their riff on Washington Irving’s vintage Sleepy Hollow legend follows paper salesman Ichabod Dunder as he runs afoul of a head-chopping Scranton ghost. If you’d rather hear Kevin narrate this spooky yarn himself, check out the Audible audiobook version.
KPop Demon Hunters Funko Pops: Much like the original Star Wars back in the day, the sudden success of Netflix’s animated hit caught toy companies completely off-guard. As a result, the merch machine is only now kicking into overdrive, but products are taking a little while to reach shelves. Case in point: Funko just made their series of KPop Pops available for pre-order with an estimated ship date of Jan. 30. That may seem like forever from now, but these designs are worth the wait — particularly the glow in the dark duo of Derpy the cat and Sussie the three-eyed bird.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World: Everyone’s favorite pink blobby thing is back for an expanded version of his addictive 2022 adventure, now boasting the new Star-Crossed story campaign that’s specifically optimized for the Switch 2. If you don’t feel like plunking down $80 for the new version, you can upgrade the Switch release for $20 and access the 12 new levels.
