Chances are you've seen one of these Alexa devices in action – and that's because they're just so good – so now's the time to join the party. Promising crisp vocals and balanced bass, you can use it to listen to music and the radio while also controlling your entertainment by asking it to play tunes, podcasts and audiobooks from streaming services. The device earned a spot in our round-up of the best smart speakers, with our reviewer saying Alexa is "easy to set up, simple to navigate and the speakers themselves are of a high quality".
Yes, this may not be the best deal we've seen on the fourth-generation Echo dot, but at the moment you'll be hard pressed to find it for cheaper elsewhere. Those dreading holidays with the family may find some comfort in this "intelligent and touching farce" from the writer and director Peter Hedges — which details how much worse such events could be. Katie Holmes stars as a free spirit who invites her estranged family (including Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt, Alison Pill and John Gallagher Jr.) to her rundown New York City walk-up for Thanksgiving dinner. The result is one of the few films in cinematic history to offer valuable advice on both dealing with a family member's terminal illness and cooking a turkey without a proper oven.
If you ever did theatre as a child there's probably no doubt that you had to sing 'It's a Hard Knock Life' as an ensemble number and know it like the back of your hand. Telling us the story of a young orphan who is adopted by a wealthy man, the 1972 musical Annie is an incredibly well known and has inspired multiple film adaptations over the years. The good news is that at the three adaptations of the musical are available on streaming services. Columbia's 1982 version starring Carol Burnett and Bernadette Peters as well as their 2014 version with Jamie Foxx are available on Netflix.
The 1999 version of the film by Disney is available on Disney+ and stars Kathy Bates, Alan Cumming, and Audra McDonald. As licensing deals for the two Trek remaining shows on Netflix and the five shows on Hulu expire, those are also expected to exit those streaming services, making Paramount+ the sole home for streaming Star Trek television, both classic and new original Star Trek series. This kind of consolidation has become a trend in the industry, with media companies making their own shows and franchises exclusive to their own streaming service, like Comcast with The Office on Peacock, and WarnerMedia with Friends for HBOMax. However, it wasn't just his organizational skills that made Paul likable in Get Back.
He crucially maintained a jovial sense of fun when working on the songs with the other Beatles. The documentary showed him regularly goofing off, swinging around the scaffolding at Twickenham Studios, reminiscing about past gigs, and putting on funny voices. In one scene, he even read out a scathing newspaper article about the Beatles whilst the group practiced, making fun of it and demonstrating that he wasn't bothered about what the papers were saying.
Additionally, his mastery of any musical instrument he touched remained clear, and the series showed that he was responsible for the genesis of many of the album's best tracks, including "Get Back" and "Let it Be". Now we know that Disney+ contains the movie giants' entire back catalogue, which includes all the animated classics that we know and love. One of these iconic titles is Aladdin, a story of a young street urchin who discovers a magic lamp. There are two versions of this story to choose from, the 1992 animated version with Robin Williams as the genie or the 2019 live action version with Will Smith. Both films feature Alan Menken's beautiful score with lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. It's a little ironic that the best, and most unabashedly old school, TV procedural this year didn't actually air on traditional television.
Following a well-received first season on CBS, superb supernatural drama Evil moved to Paramount+. Due to Paramount+'s industry standard black boxing of its viewership numbers, how Evil performed in the streaming world is anyone's guess. If it took in a significantly smaller audience than its CBS days though, that's a damn shame. This was some of the most fun anyone could have watching TV in 2021.
This might even explain why he himself is now at the centre of one. I did my grand rewatch of the franchise this year and used Prime as my main viewing platform of all the classic shows for two reasons. One, there is a intro skip button (seriously look into it P+) and two, which no one has mentioned, they actually provide trivia on the episodes and each actor in it.
I learned so much just reading about specific info about each episode, especially with nearly 700 of them. Reading up on the actors were a lot of fun, especially a lot who played bit characters and what happened to them. So it wasn't just watching the shows there, it's a real resource learning about the shows in general as you watch it in real time. I'm imagining a young person who could casually find classic star trek and fall in love but all those casual people finding trek all that will be gone. I have a friend recently that caught the original series and loved it.
He would not have signed up for p+ to get access to just sample the show. This modest, gentle, charming musical romance from the writer and director John Carney serves as a sharp contrast to most bloated, cumbersome attempts to recapture the magic of the Hollywood musical. This microbudget Irish film, on the other hand, was shot quickly, on video, with no stars or recognizable songs — the genre stripped to its very basics, running on sheer emotion. Stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova fell in love while making the movie, and you can tell; they have the kind of unvarnished chemistry that can't be faked.
At one point, Liam laments that he wonders whether anyone will ever love him for him. Harry comes to closest to saying anything remotely negative when he acknowledges that he doesn't always love this life. And while they're all clearly talented, confident singers, we get no sense that any of them has a deep passion or drive to make music. Whether intentional or not, Jackson presented Paul as the heart of the Beatles and, along with Ringo, its most reliable member. Lennon was repeatedly shown to be late to practice, and for much of the series, he appeared uninterested and lacking new material to bring to the table. George was perhaps the most dramatic member of the group, as he often seemed the most confrontational and the most "over" the experience of being in the band.
Through it all, Paul was consistently crucial to keeping the Beatles together and organizing the direction of Let it Be and its subsequent live concert. He turned up on time and worked hard to keep everyone happy, even when it was becoming increasingly clear that the magic had gone. Though they still got on as friends, they simply didn't work as a band anymore. Bradley Cooper's directorial debut was a smash hit - to put it lightly.
Starring Cooper, Lady Gaga and Sam Elliott, it follows a hard-drinking musician who discovers and falls in love with a young singer . It is the third remake of the original 1937 film, after the 1954 and 1976 musicals. But enough time has passed now to rewatch this instant classic. Mamma Mia tells the story of a girl who uses her mother's diary to invite her three possible fathers to her wedding, which causes quite a stir. Mamma Mia stands as a favourite across the board from the musical theatre die-hards, to those who'd usually prefer their characters didn't burst into song.
With a score featuring the hit songs of ABBA, the film is one bop after another! The film has a whole set of phenomenal actors including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Julie Walters, Amanda Seyfried, and Christine Baranski. Electronics retailer Box has discounted dozens of TVs for its January sales, with savings of up to £700 to be found on top-rated 4K sets from 2021. We don't know how big your living room is, so we've picked out the 65in Hisense QLED screen here.
You can poke around the Box site to find smaller or larger versions of the same set with a similar January sales discount. The A7G offers pin-sharp picture quality and comes equipped with the major streaming apps, while the adjustable feet mean you can make room for a sound bar, or position the set on a narrow TV unit. It's not often we see deals on Apple's newer products, so this offer is definitely one to shout about. Prior to the launch of the latest series 7, our reviewer called the series 6 the most advanced Apple watch yet. "The screen has beautifully curved corners, a big speaker, a microphone and so on," they said. Noting the advanced health and sleep tracking features, they added that if fitness and wellness are important to you, then the series 6 is for you.
It also has contactless payments, a built-in GPS, water resistance and a blood oxygen sensor. With £100 knocked off the price right now, there's no better time to invest. And if you have an old Apple watch, trade it in and claim up to a further £120 off its value. Although the January sales are traditionally held in-store, complete with crack-of-dawn opening times for only the most hardcore of bleary-eyed shoppers, there are plenty of online deals to be had too. And when it comes to tech, the likes of ArgosandJohn Lewis & Partners are all cutting their prices.
But its really sad as others cited because Prime like Netflix is something a huge part of the population viewers already have and was a good way to sample Star Trek for the first time. I think just as syndication did for TOS and got new fans into the show for the first time, streaming is the modern way for new fans. Obviously I'm not saying anything new, but what gets missed is TOS because more popular BECAUSE it was everywhere in syndication. You didn't have a hard time trying to find it…most of the time it found you lol. And that is the great thing about Trek being on so many different streaming sites, you couldn't avoid it if you had Netflix, Hulu or Prime.
An entire new group of fandom has come to these shows thanks to being on these bigger platforms. On reddit, every day you read someone watched TNG, VOY, ENT etc for the first time because they found it on Netflix or Prime. Tons of young viewers are now new Trekkies today because of it.
The Wheel of Time's story technically takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. The novels hint at the setting and timeline, but it's also an easy detail to miss for readers. Set in Paris' iconic performance space, Moulin Rouge is a jukebox movie musical and romantic drama about an Englishman who moves to Paris and falls in love with a singer at the Moulin Rouge.
The film's cast includes Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, and Jim Broadbent as well as Kylie Minogue as the Green Fairy. The music is what makes Moulin Rouge so incredible with impeccable vocals mixed with creative mashups and medleys such as the Sparkling Diamond and Elephant Love Medley. Considered one of Walt Disney's greatest live-action pictures, Mary Poppins tells us the tale of a magical nanny who comes to take care of the Banks children.
This was the feature film debut for Julie Andrews who starred alongside Dick Van Dyke as Bert. The film is a timeless classic that was able to blend the worlds of live action with animation. With the accompaniment of the Sherman Brothers' music there's no word to describe Mary Poppins apart from supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Additionally, if you want even more from Mary, the 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns starring Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda is also available on Disney+. Based on Stephen Sondheim's 1986 musical Into the Woods takes us into the mystical world of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. The story combines the tales of Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood. With a staggering 11 Tony Award wins, Hamilton is one of the most successful musicals of recent years and now the filmed version of the Broadway production is available on Disney+.
With show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda in the titular role, Hamilton tells us the story of one of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton as he helps shape the United States of America. The use of contemporary hip hop and R&B music styles and casting non-white actors to play the founding fathers has helped it reshape what a musical can do. Lin-Manuel has described the show as "America then, as told by America Now". Starring Angela Lansbury, Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a musical film based on the works of children's author Mary Norton.
Is One Direction This Is Us Free On Amazon Prime In this story Angela Lansbury plays a witch who with the help of three children fights against the Nazis in World War II and if that doesn't sound bizarre enough, they also travel on a flying bed! It has been announced that there's going to be a stage adaptation of this show planned as a UK tour, so now's a great time to check it out if you haven't already. Fitbit's versa model is among its most successful and it's easy to see why, with the third iteration of the range offering everything you'd want out of an everyday smartwatch and fitness tracker. "This is the smartwatch for fitness-focused users that still want a good-looking, contemporary-styled product with enough smart features to help in everyday life," praised our reviewer.
And while the versa 3 definitely has its main focus on the fitness market, there's also heavy investment in general wellness, through ECG, sleep and blood oxygen saturation sensors. This range of beliefs enables Utopia to appeal to everyone from ardent conspiracy theory lovers to conspiracy theory cynics alike. In the 1990s and early Noughties, conspiracy theories were at the foundation of the drama in mainstream shows like The X Files or Lost, but they notably avoided very real and present dangers or atrocities still in the public memory, like 9/11. In 2020, though, of course, none of these shows feels quite as easy to get swept up in as Utopia.
Watching the show's lead gang deduce the very manmade genesis of a world-imperilling virus, some viewers may find their imagination getting the better of them – particularly given the continuing spread of unevidenced theories that coronavirus originated in a lab. Henry is TechRadar's News & Features Editor, covering the stories of the day with verve, moxie, and aplomb. As a graduate of English Literature and persistent theatre enthusiast, he'll usually be found forcing Shakespeare puns into his technology articles, which he thinks is what the Bard would have wanted. I saw a good number of the episodes as a kid, but grew up with TNG and am most familiar with that series. I don't think I'll be able to binge all of them in the next 8 days… Good thing I own TNG at least.
And it is a good point Star Trek fans will use +, but people who have other streaming services and are new to Star Trek, they won't be able to one of the shows or movies on the list and try. Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and Liam Payne make up One Direction. However, we see them in their early days, how they were groomed for 'X Factor.' Once they burst on to the scene, we track their superstardom through concert footage and behind the scenes interviews and antics. Over time, we also see other famous personalities interacting with the band members.
Among them are Martin Scorsese, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Chris Rock. The documentary is an incredibly intimate look at the boy band that took the world by storm. If there's any real notable change to the characters, it's their backstories.
The show gives many of them better-developed relationships or familial drama. However, the real divesting from the source material moment comes with Perrin, our gentle giant of a character. He wasn't married in the first book, but in the adaptation, he has a wife he accidentally murders with his ax as they fight off Trollocs in the first episode. Ask any fan about The Wheel of Time, and they'll tell you that the books are dense reads.
The books continuously introduce new characters, and they offer details of magic, worldbuilding, and garments with no sense of brevity. Yet, every element in the world created by author Robert Jordan matters, resulting in an immersive storytelling experience. Considering all the customs, cultures, divisions, magic wielders, and more, the novels' glossaries at the end of each installment grow relatively dog-eared over time. All the latest gaming news, game reviews and trailers The go-to source for comic book and superhero movie fans. A holiday film that sparks debate over which holiday you should watch it at, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas is a piece of true magic. A stop-motion film which tells the story of the king of Halloween Town, Jack Skellington, who stumbles upon Christmas Town.
