Today news: Here’s Everything New on Netflix in February 2021—And What’s Leaving

This February, Zendaya reunites with Euphoria creator Sam Levinson for the Netflix original film Malcom & Marie. The drama, which releases Feb. 5 and is written and directed by Levinson, stars Zendaya and John David Washington as a Hollywood couple reckoning with their relationship over the course of one turbulent night.

The third and final installment of the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before film series, based on Jenny Han’s YA novels of the same name, will arrive on Feb. 12. In To All the Boys: Always and Forever, eternal romantic Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) and her teen-dream boyfriend Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) consider the future as they graduate from high school and prepare for college.

There’s no shortage of laughs when comedian Tiffany Haddish returns for a second season of her Netflix original comedy series, Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready on Feb. 2. The series, which features six of Haddish’s favorite up-and-coming comedians, boasts a wealth of talent this season, including Saturday Night Live’s Dean Edwards and Late Night with Seth Myers’ Erin Jackson.

Here’s everything new on Netflix this month—and everything set to leave the streaming platform.

Here are the Netflix originals coming to Netflix in February 2021

Available Feb. 2

Kid Cosmic

Mighty Express, season 2

Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready, season 2

Available Feb. 3

All My Friends Are Dead

Black Beach .

Firefly Lane

Available Feb. 5

Hache, season 2

Invisible City

The Last Paradiso

Little Big Women

Malcolm & Marie

Space Sweepers

Strip Down, Rise Up

Available Feb. 10

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel

The Misadventures of Hedi and Cokeman

Available Feb. 11

Capitani

Layla Majnun

Red Dot

Squared Love

Available Feb. 12

Buried by the Bernards

Nadiya Bakes

Hate by Dani Rovira

To All The Boys: Always And Forever

Xico’s Journey

Available Feb. 15

The Crew

Available Feb. 16

Animals on the Loose: A You vs. Wild Movie

Available Feb. 17

Behind Her Eyes

Hello, Me!

MeatEater, season 9 – part 2

Available Feb. 18

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan

Available Feb. 19

I Care A Lot

Tribes of Europa

Available Feb. 20

Classmates Minus

Available Feb. 23

Brian Regan: On The Rocks

Pelé

Available Feb. 24

Canine Intervention

Ginny & Georgia

Available Feb. 25

Geez & Ann

High-Rise Invasion

Available Feb. 26

Bigfoot Family

Caught by a Wave

Crazy About Her

Here are the TV shows and movies coming to Netflix in February 2021

Available Feb. 1

The Bank Job

Beverly Hills Ninja

Eat Pray Love

Inception

Love Daily, season 1

My Best Friend’s Wedding

My Dead Ex, season 1

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

The Patriot

Rocks

Shutter Island

The Unsetting, season 1

Zac and Mia, seasons 1-2

Zathura

Available Feb. 6

The Sinner: Jamie

Available Feb. 8

iCarly, seasons 1-2

War Dogs

Available Feb. 10

The World We Make

Available Feb. 11

Middle of Nowhere

Available Feb. 13

Monsoon

Available Feb. 16

Good Girls, season 3

Available Feb. 21

The Conjuring

The Conjuring 2

Available Feb. 24

Two Sentence Horror Stories, season 2

Available Feb. 26

Captain Fantastic

No Escape

Our Idiot Brother

Here’s what’s leaving Netflix in February 2021

Leaving Feb. 4

Erased

Leaving Feb. 5

Lila & Eve

Woody Woodpecker

Leaving Feb. 7

Don’t Knock Twice

Swiped

Leaving Feb. 10

A Bad Moms Christmas

Leaving Feb. 11

The Other Guys

Leaving Feb. 14

Alone in Berlin

Hostiles

Leaving Feb. 16

Brave Miss World: Collection 1

Leaving Feb. 19

Bates Motel, seasons 1-5

Leaving Feb. 20

A Haunted House

Leaving Feb. 21

Trespass Against Us

Leaving Feb. 24

Dolphin Tale 2

Leaving Feb. 26

The Frozen Ground

Today news: Here’s What’s New on Amazon Prime in February 2021

This February, there’s a wealth of original content to stream on Amazon Prime Video, including Bliss, a reality-bending romance starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek that drops on Feb. 5, and The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, a rom-com and highly anticipated adaptation of Lev Grossman’s time loop short story of the same name, which releases on Feb. 12.

Ahead of the upcoming Amazon Prime original sequel Coming 2 America sequel in March, the hilarious original film joins the streaming platform on Feb. 1. Starring Eddie Murphy as Prince Akeem and Arsenio Hall as his hapless best friend, the movie follows as the royal searches for his queen in Queens, New York.

Music fans are in luck this month, with new documentaries about industry icons added to the streaming service. Whitney: Can I Be Me, an intimate 2017 documentary that features previously unreleased footage of the legendary singer, is available to stream starting Feb. 1. A four-part docuseries, Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, also joins the platform on Feb. 1 and tells the story of how the NYC-based hip-hop group formed to become one of the most influential musical movements in the world.

Here are all the series and movies available on Amazon Prime Video this month.

Here are the new Amazon Prime Video originals in February 2021

Available Feb. 1

Tell Me Your Secrets, season 1

Available Feb. 5

Bliss

Available Feb. 12

Map Of Tiny Perfect Things

Here are the movies streaming on Amazon Prime Video in February 2021

Available Feb. 1

Antz

Australia

Be My Valentine

Burn Motherf**ker, Burn!

Coming To America

Courageous

Dazed And Confused

Down To Earth

Hitsville: The Making of Motown

How She Move

Imagine That

Just Wright

Kiki

Love by Accident

Love by the 10th Date

Moulin Rouge

Notes On A Scandal

Shanghai Noon

SMOOCH

Spy Next Door

The Haunting In Connecticut

The Ides Of March

The Last Appeal

The Prestige

There’s Something About Mary

The Village

Whitney: Can I Be Me

Available Feb. 16

Catfish

The Warrior Queen Of Jhansi

Available Feb. 18

Sonic The Hedgehog

Available Feb. 26

The Informer

Here are the TV shows streaming on Amazon Prime Video in February 2021

Available Feb. 1

19-2, season 1

African American Lives, season 1

Billions, seasons 1-3

Black in Latin America, season 1

Butter and Brown, season 1

City on a Hill, season 1

Civil War Journal, season 1

Faster With Finnegan, season 1

Finding Your Roots, season 1

For the Love of Jason, season 1

Genealogy Roadshow, season 1

I Killed My BFF, season 1

I Married Joan, season 1

Mercy Street, season 1

One On One, season 1-5

Raiders of Ghost City, season 1

Safe House, season 1

The Game, seasons 1-3

The White Princess, season 1

What’s New Scooby-Doo?, season 1

WuTang Clan: Of Mics and Men, season 1

Available Feb. 5

Little Coincidences (Pequeñas Coincidencias), season 3

Available Feb. 12

Clifford

Available Feb. 19

The Boarding School: Las Cumbres, season 1

Available Feb. 26

Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers, limited series

Today news: Cicely Tyson Didn’t Just Open Doors—She Opened Whole Worlds

One of the great actresses of the 1970s—and that’s if you’re drawing up a list of, say, three—didn’t have many big starring roles in film; she would end up landing some of her most prestigious parts in television and theater. But the career of Cicely Tyson can’t be assessed by the number of big film roles she had, especially given that in the ‘70s, Hollywood had no idea what to do with a Black woman possessed of gifts as magnificent as hers were. Tyson, who died on January 28, at age 96, leaves a legacy to be studied by generations going forward: working in an industry that could barely be bothered to make a place for her, she carved her own path out of rock, so that others might follow. Her performances will resonate forever, a ghost echo whose magnitude can’t be measured in Oscar nominations or other official accolades. And in her refusal to take roles that debased Black people, her greatness lies as much in the roles she refused to take as those that she did.

Tyson was born in East Harlem in 1924, the daughter of West Indian immigrants. After high school, she landed modeling jobs; she studied at the Actors Studio in the 1940s. (Her mother, a strict Christian who had raised Tyson and her siblings largely on her own, disapproved.) Early in her career, Tyson landed roles in television and onstage, often earning good notices. But it wasn’t until 1972, with her astonishing portrayal of Rebecca, a sharecropper, wife and mother in Martin Ritt’s Sounder, that the greater world got the chance to see her brilliance. Although the performance earned her an Academy Award nomination, great film roles didn’t automatically tumble her way. But Tyson worked hard, and she worked often: by the end of her life, she had appeared in 29 movies and more than twice as many television series or single episodes. Though most of the world knows her from her film and TV performances (she won three Emmys for the latter), she was also a formidable onstage presence: In 2013, at age 88, she became the oldest person to win a Tony, for her role in the revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful.

And Tyson, onscreen, onstage or off, was simply a magnificent presence. Her beauty was the generous kind, holding a mirror to other Black women of her generation, and all that would follow. Even without words, she urged them to see the same beauty in themselves. She helped bring the Dance Theater of Harlem into being. A school in East Orange, N.J., the Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts, has been named after her. Just before her death, she published a memoir, Just As I Am. Tyson leaves behind not just a body of performances but a way of being, of living in the world, that it would do us all good to emulate.

Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty ImagesTyson in a scene from the movie Sounder, 1972.

To gaze upon her onscreen is one way to celebrate her: In the 1974 television movie The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, adapted from Earnest J. Gaines’s novel, she plays a woman who has reached the age of 110, a survivor of slavery who agrees to share her story with a young white journalist. For much of the performance, Tyson’s face is altered by age makeup, at the time less sophisticated than it is today. But those applied wrinkles can’t dim her resplendence. As Miss Pittman, Tyson shows us a robust spirit seeking to push the boundaries of a frail, aged body. Her gaze is soft, with flashes of flintiness; with her eyes alone, Tyson tells a story of hardship and fortitude that reaches a place beyond words. For all the ways in which our society remains twisted in its backwards vision, Tyson worked hard to push it forward.

Acting isn’t always just storytelling; at its best, it pushes so deep into our hearts that we become a vessel for the story. That’s what Tyson does in Sounder, set in 1933 Louisiana and adapted from William H. Armstrong’s novel. (It’s also an example of the socially progressive filmmaking that some directors could push into being in the ’70s, even within the Hollywood mainstream.) Tyson’s Rebecca is left alone to care for her three children when her husband, Nathan (Paul Winfield), is arrested and imprisoned after stealing a chicken to feed his family. Rebecca’s life of worry shows on her face—with cheekbones that accept and reflect light as if it were a gift, she’s never anything less than beautiful, but her radiance glows through a veil of anxiety. When Rebecca has to face a white storekeeper—also her family’s landlord—after her husband’s arrest, he reminds her, his voice metallic with condescension, how much he’s done to help her family. She accepts his scolding politely, because she has to. But there’s a sea of feeling rolling beneath the very surface of her face, some waves glinting with resentment and anger, but most of them shimmering with a pride, a sense of self, that can’t be touched. And in a late scene, when she first glimpses Nathan from across a field, finally returning after serving his sentence, the cautious joy on her face—a rush of concurrent relief and disbelief—tells thousands of stories in one.

Tyson knew how to teach—without instructing or lecturing—by inviting us deep into another person’s world, another person’s history. If you saw Sounder as a kid, upon its release, what she showed you has likely stayed with you for a lifetime. If greatness is a quality that continues to unfold over generations, then Tyson’s is nowhere close to reaching its half-life.

Today news: Black Art Is in High Demand. But Telling Our Stories Comes at a Cost

When I wrote my first movie script 10 years ago with a close friend, he and I argued about whether or not the main characters should be Black. I believed then that we wouldn’t be able to sell a movie with Black protagonists.

Things are different now. In the past few years, while publishers, film studios, streamers and networks have shown a surge of interest in Black stories, I’ve sold a book, Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned From Tragedy and Triumph; a movie, One and Done, a story about a Black high school basketball phenom who commits a crime and resuscitates his dream at a historically Black university; and a television series, How to Survive Inglewood, about a suburban Black teenager who comes of age and comes to terms with his people after his parents’ ugly divorce.

See a pattern? I don’t go out pitching only Black projects. But it’s clear that today, the word Black is trendy in media marketing and boardrooms. It’s a buzzword. Blackness has become its own niche vertical for highbrow liberals. And within that vertical, there’s a window of opportunity for Black people to tell and sell our stories. But seizing it comes at a cost.

In my work as a writer, the cost is wedging my projects featuring Black protagonists through development processes run by white executives. To make it to greenlight, I’m asked to incorporate notes that dilute the tone and shorthand I use to reflect and resonate with Black people. The execs, of course, never tell me straight up to make my project more appealing to white folks. Instead they ask, for example, if I can “incorporate more levity to let in a broader audience.” The most common note I receive to whitewash my art is to “make the main character more likable.” In other words: reduce her confidence, edge and defiance, and inflate her gushy kindness and vulnerability. It’s a way of softening Black characters to fit preapproved roles, in a world where white characters can be real, cunning and cutthroat. Tony Soprano, Cersei Lannister and Walter White were kind and vulnerable at times. But their resilience and arrogance made them dynamic and even relatable. Why shouldn’t the same apply for my characters?

How did we get here, to this moment of conflicted opportunity for Black creators? There’s no one answer—it’s a blend of factors. One reality is that, in sports and music, Black athletes and artists have made boatloads of money for white executives for decades. Why wouldn’t anyone in the entertainment industry put their chips on Black? Another is the leverage Black creators have been able to build thanks to technologies like the iPhone and platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. Those tools have made content creation and distribution more accessible for Black writers and filmmakers so they can prove their work comes with a built-in audience before going to corporations for buy-in. A third reason, though cynical, could be the high volume of clicks and views generated by traumatizing videos of our brutalization by police and neighbors. Hollywood has been profiting on stories of Black suffering since its beginning. But these viral videos might, subconsciously or overtly, be leading media executives to lean toward producing more of that content. And yet another factor, one that feels particularly current, is those same executives feeling the pressure of the moment to perform inclusion. Or maybe they just genuinely want to support our work. Maybe.

Regardless of why, there is a feeding frenzy now for Black creatives, and we need to move fast. Because moments pass. A few weeks ago, a family friend in her 60s called me. She’s seen this cycle before. She called to tell me she was doing her best to get her employer to buy my book in bulk while the company was working to show efforts to educate its employees on Black experiences. As our phone call concluded, she warned, “Hurry up and send me the preorder link, young Chad. You know this window won’t be open for long.” I believe her.

It feels like every 10 to 15 years the floodgates of Black opportunity open. We’re trendy once per decade like baggy pants, tie-dye and the actual color, black. Michael Jordan, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Eddie Murphy defined international pop culture in the early ’90s while the L.A. riots simmered. In 2008, President Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American President of the United States two years before Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy announced hip-hop’s transition from an important Black musical genre to the defining sound of the early 21st century.

Each of these moments seemed primed to solidify opportunities for Black creators and permanently elevate conversations about equality in our country. Instead we got Donald Trump as our President. The current moment of opportunity for Black artists could be seen as a product of Trump’s presidency, which boldly highlighted the centuries of crimes against Black people in the U.S. that continue today. But now Joe Biden is President and Kamala Harris, a Black woman, is Vice President. And the Wicked Witch is gone. Does that mean we’ve achieved racial equality?

Hell the f-ck no. The societal failures that led to Trump’s election in the first place remain. But the symbolic healing of Biden’s victory may reduce the appetite for Black voices and ideas. Every time I received a “Happy Inauguration Day” text on Jan. 20, I wondered, Will those book deals and greenlights all soon fade away?

Maybe. So what does that mean for me, now, as a creator? It means I have an urgent choice. I can license my experiences and culture while the opportunity exists. Or I can pass. If I choose the former, I have to know that corporate interest in my stories will fade when attention diverts, and that the experience of selling off pieces of my stories will hurt. It’s uncomfortable and humiliating to sit in rooms full of white people and explain our pain over and over again. It’s demeaning to take notes on my screenplays and stories from white executives at studios and networks who encourage me to change my voice for “mainstream” audiences. If I take the money, those are the taxes I pay.

But the choice is mine. I can take the money, or leave it. I can think of these opportunities as some form of reparations, because I know no actual reparations will come, or I can reserve myself and leave that money on the table. That is a choice for each Black creator—and each Black person—to make right now.

It’s the choice we face when companies invite us to speak to rooms full of white employees about our experiences as Black people in corporate America. It’s the choice of affirmative action. It’s the choice of accepting or declining a promotion or new job that feels like a representation grab, and risking being demeaned and devalued as such. Every Black employee is faced with that choice when given the mic in a meeting to speak as the voice of “diversity.” Each person must make that choice with the strength of their own stomach and their own bills in mind.

But I’m going to seize the moment. After all, I’m a subject-matter expert. I’ve been Black for 300,000 hours. (Which means I’ve reached my 10,000 hours of master training 30 times over, thank you very much, Malcolm Gladwell.) I’m a creator and an entrepreneur, and money is leverage. I choose to seize that leverage to do what I can to keep this window open for myself and others when the day comes that Blackness is no longer trending. For me that means creating more, partnering with Black producers, hiring Black production crews and investing in fellow Black artists. It means telling my story—the story of a Black creative and entrepreneur—right now, while it’s happening, so others like me can stand beside me to hold this window open.

But make your own choices. That’s freedom.

Today news: The Dig Is Just the Movie to Relieve Midwinter Cabin Fever

The English countryside captures the imagination of outsiders for lots of reasons: it’s a place of great, brambly beauty, where grass and mud reign in equal splendor. You can wear tweeds and Wellies unapologetically, and not just if you’re an Instagram influencer. And because of its rich, mysterious history, there’s always the tantalizing possibility that its very soil might yield centuries-old relics of life. For city mice everywhere, especially those held captive in their tiny apartments during pandemic times, The Dig—set in Suffolk, England, in 1939 and based on a true story of buried treasure—is a restorative escape, a smart, gentle picture whose transportive qualities should not be underestimated. It’s the cabin-fever-relief movie of this bleak midwinter.

The Dig, directed by Simon Stone and streaming on Netflix, is adapted from a work of fiction—John Preston’s novel of the same name—that is nonetheless based on fact—specifically, the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon ship, and its attendant golden accouterments, on the property of a well-heeled archaeology enthusiast and widow named Edith Pretty. Here, Pretty is played by Carey Mulligan: shortly after our first glimpse of her, we see her clomping across her fields wearing wooly plus fours that, given how they nip in just above her ankles, probably once belonged to a man a few inches taller than she is. In this inestimably practical gear, she’s showing a visitor around her property, a stern but polite fellow, inching past middle age and vaguely stooped, who has just arrived by bicycle.

LARRY HORRICKS/NETFLIX © 2021 —© 2021 Netflix, Inc.Fiennes and Mulligan search for treasure in ‘The Dig’

That visitor is Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes), an experienced but modest excavator. This man really knows how to dig. Pretty, whose father instilled in her a love of old buried stuff, wonders if there might be some noteworthy artifacts buried in her land. She makes a lowball offer for Brown’s services; he declines at first, but he senses something special about the project, and they work out a deal. And so begins their platonic kinship, a bond that grows stronger even as several museums cotton to the discoveries they eventually make and begin dueling for the privilege of housing the goods.

Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek

In the early scenes of The Dig, it’s mostly Pretty, Brown and Pretty’s young son, space-travel enthusiast Robert (Archie Barnes), who fill the screen. (A costuming note: In one scene, Robert wears a rad pullover with a rocket-ship knit into it. We have costume designer Alice Babidge to thank for that, as well as a variety of other thoughtful period- and character-specific garments.) These are the coziest scenes. Before long, a huffy-puffy representative of the British Museum descends (he’s played by Ken Stott), as well as a young husband-and-wife archaeology team, Stuart and Peggy Piggott (Ben Chaplin and Lily James). At some point, Mrs. Pretty’s dashing future-RAF-pilot cousin Rory (Johnny Flynn) arrives on the scene. Eventually, a love affair brews between two parties who shall remain unnamed, and there is a brief, discreetly shot outdoor assignation. Didn’t I tell you the English countryside was great?

As you would expect, there’s a lot of digging in The Dig. That could be boring, but every character sees the war looming, which adds some urgency to the proceedings. The first item unearthed is not that thrilling: a ship’s rivet that looks like a clumpy iron peg. But that makes one character’s subsequent discovery of the first small gold object that much more triumphant. That character really needs a break, and the gods of the past provide it.

The performances here are lovely: Mulligan, playing a woman with a robust spirit but fragile health, has a touching lunar quality. And Fiennes is wonderful, as a man whose polite reticence balances a fierce, confident dedication to his craft. Time marches on for all of us, and even if we refuse to acknowledge what we see in our own mirrors, we rarely hesitate to mark its passage in the faces of our actors. Many years have passed since Fiennes played a disturbingly sexy Nazi (in Schindler’s List), or even a noseless mystical villain (in the Harry Potter movies). He is not officially old enough to play a geezer, though he makes a good one. The Dig is a movie steeped in the inevitable passage of time, but it’s also a reminder that the past lives on through the things we leave behind. And that’s as true of performances as it of ancient sword fittings forged from gold.

Today news: TWICE Delivers Uplifting Performance of ‘DEPEND ON YOU’ at TIME100 Talks

TWICE delivered a special performance at the TIME100 Talks Friday. For the first time, the South Korean group performed the track “DEPEND ON YOU” from its latest album, Eyes Wide Open.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, members Jihyo, Nayeon, Momo, Sana, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung and Tzuyu offered fans a message of solidarity and gratitude (vocalist Jeongyeon is on hiatus due to health reasons).

“Currently, we are sad to say that we are also aware that all of us are suffering in this situation,” Sana said. “We appreciate all people who are doing their best to return us to our normal lives and to bring back brighter days,” Nayeon continued.

“TWICE will diligently keep on carrying out our duty to bring positive energy into the world,” Mina said.

In line with these words, the group sang “DEPEND ON YOU”—a breezy, mellow track about steady hands that offer strength and support in the midst of darkness. “DEPEND ON YOU” first appeared on Eyes Wide Open, one of TIME’s Albums That Defined K-Pop’s Monumental Year in 2020; its lyrics are penned by TWICE’s oldest member, Nayeon.

The TIME100 Talks episode also featured Simu Liu, the star of the upcoming Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings; Trip.com Group CEO Jane Sun; and David Yeung, the founder and CEO of Green Monday and OmniFoods, maker of plant-based meat substitute OmniPork.

Since TWICE debuted in 2015, the nine-member ensemble has established itself as the icon of elevated bubblegum pop in the K-pop scene. With the past few releases, the group’s music has pushed into a darker, more mature direction. But even as the act’s sound evolves, the aim of lifting spirits remains at TWICE’s core.

This article is part of #TIME100Talks, a special series featuring leaders across different fields encouraging action toward a better world. Want more? Sign up for access to more virtual events, including live conversations with influential newsmakers.

Today news: Cicely Tyson, Pioneering Actress Known for Her ‘Convictions and Grace,’ Dies at 96

(NEW YORK) — Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” died Thursday at age 96.

Tyson’s death was announced by her family, via her manager Larry Thompson, who did not immediately provide additional details.

“With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful transition this afternoon. At this time, please allow the family their privacy,” according to a statement issued through Thompson.

A onetime model, Tyson began her screen career with bit parts but gained fame in the early 1970s when Black women were finally starting to get starring roles. Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”

Tyson’s memoir, “Just As I Am,” was published this week.

“I’m very selective as I’ve been my whole career about what I do. Unfortunately, I’m not the kind of person who works only for money. It has to have some real substance for me to do it,” she told The Associated Press in 2013.

Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” A new generation of moviegoers saw her in the 2011 hit “The Help.” In 2018, she was given an honorary Oscar statuette at the annual Governors Awards. “This is a culmination of all those years of haves and have nots,” Tyson said.

She was one of the recipients for the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. At that ceremony, President Barack Obama said: “Cicely’s convictions and grace have helped for us to see the dignity of every single beautiful memory of the American family.”

“Sounder,” based on the William H. Hunter novel, was the film that confirmed her stardom in 1972. Tyson was cast as the Depression-era loving wife of a sharecropper (Paul Winfield) who is confined in jail for stealing a piece of meat for his family. She is forced to care for their children and attend to the crops.

The New York Times reviewer wrote: “She passes all of her easy beauty by to give us, at long last, some sense of the profound beauty of millions of black women.” Tyson went on to earn an Academy Award nomination as best actress of 1972.

In an interview on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, she recalled that she had been asked to test for a smaller role in the film and said she wanted to play the mother, Rebecca. She was told, “You’re too young, you’re too pretty, you’re too sexy, you’re too this, you’re too that, and I said, `I am an actress.’”

In 2013, at the age of 88, Tyson won the Tony for best leading actress in a play for the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.” It was the actress’ first time back on Broadway in three decades and she refused to turn meekly away when the teleprompter told to finish her acceptance speech.

“‘Please wrap it up,’ it says. Well, that’s exactly what you did with me: You wrapped me up in your arms after 30 years,” she told the crowd.

She told The AP afterward she had prepared no speech — “I think it’s presumptuous” — and that “I burned up half my time wondering what I was going to say.” She reprised her role in a Lifetime Television movie, which was screened at the White House.

In the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” based on a novel by Ernest J. Gaines, Tyson is seen aging from a young woman in slavery to a 110-year-old who campaigned for the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

In the touching climax, she laboriously walks up to a “whites only” water fountain and takes a drink as white officers look on.

“It’s important that they see and hear history from Miss Jane’s point of view,” Tyson told The New York Times. “And I think they will be more ready to accept it from her than from someone younger”

New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael offered her praise: “She’s an actress, all right, and as tough-minded and honorable in her methods as any we’ve got.”

At the Emmy Awards, “Pittman” won multiple awards, including two honors for Tyson, best lead actress in a drama and best actress in a special.

“People ask me what I prefer doing — film, stage, television? I say, ‘I would have done “Jane Pittman” is the basement or in a storefront.’ It’s the role that determines where I go,” she told the AP.

Today news: ‘I Can Be Someone I Didn’t Have.’ Actor Simu Liu on Asian Representation and His Marvel Future

A Chinese-Canadian actor as the face of a Marvel superhero franchise? That’s not the world Simu Liu grew up in.

But that’s the world Liu is making this year. “I can be someone I didn’t have as a kid,” the actor tells TIME100 Talks He’s talking about the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie starring a hero of Asian descent, due out in July. The Kim’s Convenience actor will play the titular character, Shang-Chi. And—as his comment suggests—it’s been a long time coming.

“I loved comics as a kid, I loved superheroes, but I really didn’t see myself represented in that space,” he says. “I really hope with this movie, kids who are like me, who grew up similarly, can have that. That’s really the power of representation: seeing yourself on screen and feeling like you’re a part of this world, which for Asian children who have grown up in the West hasn’t always been the case.”

Liu’s leading-man status was not always guaranteed. He got his first film role by answering a Craigslist ad to play an extra in the “deep, deep background” of Pacific Rim when it was shooting in Toronto. Since then, he’s worked hard to develop a place for himself onscreen, never waiting around for a big break.

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that good things come to those who do,” he says. “I’ve always, from day one, wondered if there was any more that I could do. If a door wasn’t open for me, I was going to build a door, or build a battering ram to barge my way in.”

That tactic seems to have worked: Kim’s Convenience, the critically-acclaimed sitcom about a Korean immigrant family in Canada, just premiered its fifth season on CBC. And Shang-Chi promises to be one of the summer’s marquee blockbuster events, no matter if theaters are open are not.

Friday’s TIME100 Talks also featured conversations with Trip.com Group CEO Jane Soon and Green Monday and OmniFoods founder and CEO David Yeung— along with a performance from K-pop sensation TWICE.

Liu also credits a changing tide in Hollywood for helping open up new opportunities. In particular, 2018’s Black Panther marked a “watershed moment,” he says, especially in conjunction with the success of Crazy Rich Asians the same year. “It was such a great statement to the powers that be in Hollywood to say: ‘We’re here, and we’ve been here, and we love watching movies that represent us, that represent our faces and our stories and our lives,'” he says. “Without the success of Black Panther, I wouldn’t have a job today.”

And although he was once shy about his role as a leader in the push for more representation in Hollywood, that’s changed. “As time went on I felt the need to really take up space, to show people it was OK to be proud of where you came from and to be open about it,” he says. “I don’t do it perfectly, certainly, but I’ve really come to embrace it as a part of my platform.”

Recently, he also started working with UNICEF supporting Canadian youth programs. Because even if Hollywood is making progress now towards improving in diversity, inclusion and representation, especially with movies like The Farewell and Minari showing new sides of the immigrant experience, he is confident that the next generation will have even more to say. “There are no better people that are qualified to reimagine the world than those about to inherit it,” he says. “Can you believe TikTokkers and Gen Z thwarted President Trump? That’s the absolute indicator of what that generation is capable of.”

This article is part of #TIME100Talks, a special series featuring leaders across different fields encouraging action toward a better world. Want more? Sign up for access to more virtual events, including live conversations with influential newsmakers.

Today news: ‘Death is a Turning Point’: Search Party‘s Creators Discuss Season 4 and the Shocking Finale Twist

Since its debut on TBS in 2016, the dark comedy series Search Party has thrived on the fringes of the comedy world, airing to middling ratings but drawing raves from critics and superfans who have obsessed over protagonist Dory Sief’s ploys to wriggle out of crises. Recently, however, the show has been put in front of a new, considerably large audience: its new streamer, HBO Max, has surged following Warner Bros. decision to release its upcoming films on the service and in theaters simultaneously.

And this month, in conjunction with the rollout of its fourth season, the show has become the subject of plenty of activity on social media and entertainment websites, leading to the most search interest it has had since its 2016 premiere. “When the show moved to HBO Max, it’s revealed who of my close friends or old friends hadn’t actually watched it until now,” co-creator Charles Rogers joked in an interview with TIME.

It hasn’t hurt that the show’s fourth season has only heightened the wit and suspense of previous seasons, with Dory (Alia Shawkat) attempting to fight her way out of captivity at the hands of an obsessive fan (Cole Escola), while comedic powerhouses like Susan Sarandon and Busy Philipps have joined the cast. On Thursday, the last four episodes of Season 4 were released, providing a shocking and cathartic ending to a relentlessly tense and hilarious season. (Spoiler alert: it’s revealed that Dory actually aided Chip in her own capture; she then almost dies in a fire and attends her own funeral before coming back to life on a gurney.) TIME caught up with Rogers and his co-creator Sarah-Violet Bliss to talk about brainwashing, millennials and where the show goes from here.

TIME: This season was written and shot before the pandemic, but depicts Dory in forced confinement. Have you thought about how it might resonate differently given the circumstances?

Charles Rogers: Yeah, we really got lucky that everyone had to go into isolation [laughs]. We like to say that there’s some weird psychic thing that goes on with Search Party: there’s been so many moments where we’ll write something, and then the second before the season comes out, that thing is happening in some thematic way in the world.

I think there’s two big emotional parallels that this season has. One is the idea of all the chaos of living in your 20s, and trying to make sense of your identity up until around when you turn 30. The second is that the world has felt like it’s going crazy. So I feel like it’s hitting people on a couple levels right now.

You’ve said that this season was partially inspired by hostage films like Silence of the Lambs, Misery and Room. What did you hope to extract from that genre?

Rogers: I would say that horror and comedy share a lot of the same DNA. A lot of comedy comes from pain. Both genres can get away with surrealism in a way that others genres can’t. In terms of writing it, they both require setting up rules about the logic of the world, and then bending those rules for effect. Whether that’s to make people laugh or be scared, it’s about subverting expectation for surprise.

And for whatever reason, a lot of my and Sarah-Violet’s collaborations have been centered around abuses of power. Maybe that’s because of our own life experiences, or because that’s such a huge part of why the country is the way it is right now. But there’s something that resonates in both of us: perverse abuses of power, and trying to find the funny and the weird in that.

Did you consult with any psychologists or Stockholm syndrome experts while writing the season?

Rogers: We set out with the intention of writing a Misery structure that was mostly going to be about Dory trying to escape captivity. [The 1990 film Misery, based on a Stephen King novel, follows an obsessive fan who holds an author captive.] But then we felt that audiences might get fatigued of that pretty soon. So when we were thinking of interesting things that Chip could do to Dory, we started to look at people like Elizabeth Smart or Patty Hearst—and how brainwashing is a very real thing that’s been employed for thousands of years. So that’s when we talked to Rick Ross, who is a leader in exposing cults and deprogramming people from cults. And he basically told us that almost anything is possible as long as you essentially break someone down and build back up according to how you want them to be.

One of the most powerful moments for me in the series was when it’s revealed that Dory actually allowed herself to be held hostage: that when given the opportunity to run away, she got back into Chip’s trunk instead. How did you come to that narrative decision?

Rogers: Since the first season, there’s been a recurring conversation in the writers room about whether Dory has more agency over her own fate than she’s willing to admit. She makes so many questionable choices throughout the series, and it felt fitting that she would have at some point done something that would only hurt her. So the idea of the trunk felt like the clearest way of representing that.

There also was something that really compelled us about her withholding a memory from herself that was too chaotic for her admit to herself—and that finally flooding back to her in her final moments. It also felt like a way to show that she’s always been an unreliable narrator, to some extent.

The characters, Dory included, are constantly interrogating who they really are. Do you believe that people have true core selves?

Bliss: There’s the famous quote from RuPaul: “You’re born naked, and the rest is drag.” This show is always about putting on a front: trying to be perceived in a way and posturing, but at the same time, trying to figure out who you really are and unfolding that. When you strip away the identities that people perceive you to be as a persona—whether at your job or how you present yourself—what are you left with? I think probably there is an essence that some would call the soul that never really changes. But then there are aspects that you put on to try to be accepted in your culture. The more you mature, hopefully you can strip those away, if possible.

Rogers: I love that Search Party addresses this existential quandary. So much of my therapy is about depathologizing everything I’ve ever pathologized about myself. But also, it’s just so complicated, because all of your beliefs you have about yourself both empower and disempower you. I don’t think there’s a human way to ever get to the bottom of it all.

Elliott, in one episode, calls himself and his friends a “lost generation.” Do you think the identity crisis we’ve been discussing is somehow particular to millennials?

Bliss: I think every generation goes through these coming-of-age feelings. I think millennials get assigned that, and we were poking fun at that concept.

Rogers: I think that both millennials and Gen-Z have been given more vocabulary and tools to employ regarding self-awareness. So maybe the plight of self-realization is more tangible than in previous generations, but that doesn’t mean that other generations aren’t experiencing existential anxiety.

The final episode of the season feels like a finale in many ways: it’s set at a funeral, and features so many returning characters from past seasons. Did you intend for it to serve as a potential series ender?

Rogers: We had really thought about every possible ending that you could ever imagine, including a version where this season would be the last season. And then that’s when we thought of the idea of Dory dying. But as we got closer to it, we realized that we actually didn’t want to see that happen—and that if there ever was more story to tell, we would want to see what would happen on the other side of a near-death experience. It became more and more clear to us that this season was really a turning point more than anything.

We went into the season with thoughts of “white light” moments and epiphany. Then, when we were brave enough, quote unquote, to kill Dory, it kind of gave us permission to lean into that white light idea and embrace the potential of death being a turning point.

So do you have the next four seasons written out in your mind?

Bliss: Don’t you dare.

Rogers: We can’t tell you.

The speech that Elliott gives at Dory’s funeral would seem to set him up well for a run for political office. Would you want to see that in any potential upcoming seasons?

[Both laugh] Rogers: It would be fun.

Bliss: Yeah. It would be fun.

Today news: Cloris Leachman, Indomitable Oscar and Emmy-Winning Actress, Dies at 94

(LOS ANGELES) — Cloris Leachman, an Oscar-winner for her portrayal of a lonely housewife in “The Last Picture Show” and a comedic delight as the fearsome Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein” and self-absorbed neighbor Phyllis on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” has died. She was 94.

Leachman died in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, publicist Monique Moss said Wednesday. Her daughter Dinah Englund was at her side, Moss said.

A character actor of extraordinary range, Leachman defied typecasting. In her early television career, she appeared as Timmy’s mother on the “Lassie” series. She played a frontier prostitute in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a crime spree family member in “Crazy Mama,” and Blücher in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein,” in which the very mention of her name drew equine commentary.

“Every time I hear a horse whinny I will forever think of Cloris’ unforgettable Frau Blücher,” Brooks tweeted, calling Leachman “insanely talented” and irreplaceable.

Salutes from other admiring colleagues poured in on social media. Steve Martin said Leachman “brought comedy’s mysteries to the big and small screen”; “Nothing I could say would top the enormity of my love for you,” posted Ed Asner of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”; “Applause on every entrance and exit,” said Rosie O’Donnell.

“There was no one like Cloris. With a single look she had the ability to break your heart or make you laugh ’till the tears ran down your face,” Juliet Green, her longtime manager, said in a statement.

In 1989 she toured in “Grandma Moses,” a play in which she aged from 45 to 101. For three years in the 1990s she appeared in major cities as the captain’s wife in the revival of “Show Boat.” In the 1993 movie version of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” she assumed the Irene Ryan role as Granny Clampett.

She also had an occasional role as Ida on “Malcolm in the Middle,” winning Emmys in 2002 and 2006 for that show. Her Emmy haul over the years totaled eight in all, including a trophy for Moore’s sitcom.

In 2008, she joined the ranks of contestants in “Dancing With the Stars,” not lasting long in the competition but pleasing the crowds with her sparkly dance costumes, sitting in judges’ laps and cussing during the live broadcast.

Although she started out as Miss Chicago in the Miss America Pageant, Leachman willingly accepted unglamorous screen roles.

“Basically I don’t care how I look, ugly or beautiful,” she told an interviewer in 1973. “I don’t think that’s what beauty is. On a single day, any of us is ugly or beautiful. I’m heartbroken I can’t be the witch in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ But I’d also like to be the good witch. Phyllis combines them both.

“I’m kind of like that in life. I’m magic, and I believe in magic. There’s supposed to be a point in life when you aren’t supposed to stay believing that. I haven’t reached it yet.”

During the 1950s, Leachman became busy in live TV drama, demonstrating her versatility, including in roles that represented casting standards of that era.

“One week I’d be on as a Chinese girl, the next as a blond cockney and weeks later as a dark-haired someone else,” she recalled. In 1955, she made her film debut in a hard-boiled Mickey Spillane saga, “Kiss Me Deadly” — “I was the naked blonde that Mike Hammer picked up on that dark highway.”

She followed with Rod Serling’s court-martial drama, “The Rack” and a season on “Lassie.” She continued in supporting roles on Broadway and in movies, then achieved her triumph with Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show,” based on the Larry McMurtry novel.

When Leachman received the Oscar as best supporting actress of 1971, she delivered a rambling speech in which she thanked her piano and dancing teachers and concluded: “This is for Buck Leachman, who paid the bills.” Her father ran a lumber mill.

Despite her photogenic looks, she continued to be cast in character parts. Her most indelible role was Phyllis Lindstrom on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Phyllis often visited Mary’s apartment, bringing laments about her husband Lars and caustic remarks about Mary and especially about her adversary, another tenant, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper). Phyllis was so unexpectedly engaging that Leachman starred in a spinoff series of her own, “Phyllis,” which ran on CBS from 1975 to 1977.

With “Young Frankenstein,” Leachman became a member of “the Mel Brooks stock company,” also appearing in “High Anxiety” and “History of the World, Part I.” Her other films included Bogdanovich’s “Daisy Miller,” and “Texasville,” repeating her role in “The Last Picture Show.” In 2009, she released her autobiography, “Cloris,” which made tabloid headlines for her recounting of a “wild” one-night stand with Gene Hackman.

Cloris Leachman grew up on the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa, where she was born in 1926. The large family lived in an isolated wooden house with no running water, but the mother had ambitious ideas for her children. Cloris took piano lessons at the age of 5; since the family could not afford a piano, she practiced on a cardboard drawing of the keys.

“I’m going to be a concert pianist,” the girl announced, and her mother encouraged her with bookings at churches and civic clubs. Her mother arranged for Cloris to ride on a coal truck to Des Moines for an audition for a Drake University student play. She was given the role and appeared in other plays at a local theater. After high school, she won a scholarship to study drama at Northwestern University.

Admittedly a poor student, Leachman lasted only a year. As a lark while in the Chicago area, she tried out for a Miss Chicago beauty contest and was chosen. She competed in the 1946 Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, qualifying as a finalist. Her consolation prize: a $1,000 talent scholarship.

With new ambition, she went directly to New York, where she worked as an extra in a movie and understudied Nina Foch in the hit play “John Loves Mary.”

More understudy jobs followed, and she enrolled at the Actors Studio to hone her craft. “I finally quit because of the smoking,” she said later. “I couldn’t stand that blue haze.”

In 1953, Leachman married George Englund, later a film director and producer, and they had five children: Adam, Bryan, George, Morgan and Dinah. The couple divorced in 1979. Son Bryan Englund was founded dead in 1986 at age 30.

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AP writers Beth Harris in Los Angeles and Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.

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The late AP Entertainment Writer Bob Thomas contributed biographical material to this story.

Today news: The True Story Behind the New Netflix Film Penguin Bloom

In 2013, Samantha Bloom was vacationing with her husband and their three young sons in Thailand when she suffered a devastating accident. While on an observation deck at their hotel, Bloom leaned against a faulty balcony railing and fell through it, landing 20 feet below on the concrete ground. She fractured her skull, ruptured her lungs and shattered her spine.

This horrific real-life event plays out in Glendyn Ivin’s new film, Penguin Bloom, which releases on Netflix on Jan. 27. The film follows Bloom and her family in the months after the accident as they struggle to adjust to their new normal. Sam (Naomi Watts), who is paralyzed from the chest down and now uses a wheelchair, longs to be the active and independent mother she once was. Now, she’s forced to rely on others for everything. She’s depressed and isolating herself from her loved ones, but things start to change for the better once an injured baby magpie named Penguin is fatefully brought into her life.

Penguin Bloom, which also stars Andrew Lincoln and Jacki Weaver, closely follows the events that the Bloom family faced in the aftermath of the tragedy. Their real life story was first captured on Instagram, where Bloom’s husband, Cameron, a professional photographer, documented Penguin’s presence in their lives. This caught the attention of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which shared a piece on the family, eventually leading Cameron Bloom to publish a book in 2016, Penguin Bloom: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved a Family. The film charts the powerful bond between Sam Bloom and the bird, as well as how the family coped with her trauma and unique journey to recovery. Here, TIME takes a closer look at the true story behind the movie, along with what happened in the years after Bloom sustained her life-altering injuries.

Struggling to adjust

After the accident, Bloom endured seven months of rehabilitation and then returned to her house in Australia. In a 2017 piece for TIME, Bloom described the harrowing experience of being in such a familiar place that suddenly felt wrenchingly unfamiliar. “When viewed from a wheelchair, the once-familiar sanctuary of love and comfort became an alien landscape strewn with obstacles,” Bloom wrote. “Nothing felt right; I didn’t feel like I belonged anymore.”

It was during this time that Bloom became depressed. In a recent interview with People, Bloom spoke about her home’s proximity to the beach, and how it was a painful reminder of her life before traveling to Thailand. “The beach was everything to me. I was surfing and swimming all the time. I could no longer run down there like before the accident,” she said. “At that point, I didn’t want to live.”

Joel Pratley / NetflixAndrew Lincoln as Cameron Bloom and Naomi Watts as Sam Bloom in ‘Penguin Bloom’

In his book, which was co-written with Australian author Bradley Trevor Greive, Cameron Bloom reflected on this emotionally troubling time for the family. Though he and their three sons attempted to help Bloom, they were aware that she was slipping away. “I don’t pretend that we are the most religious family, but in addition to seeking the best medical advice we could, we prayed to anyone who would hear us, begging for help,” he wrote in a photo essay published in The Guardian in 2016. “And then our prayers were answered in the most unexpected way when a tiny, scruffy, injured magpie chick entered our lives.”

Healing with a feathery friend

Three months after Bloom returned home her 11-year-old son, Noah, found the injured baby magpie, which the family named Penguin. The tiny bird had fallen out of its nest and dropped over 60 feet onto an asphalt parking lot, where she would have died had the Bloom family not taken her home. Sam Bloom wrote that caring for Penguin was an undertaking—the bird had an intense feeding schedule (every two hours) and always needed to be kept warm. They spent all their time together. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but, in a way, we were keeping each other alive,” she wrote. Through committing herself to the frail bird’s recovery, Bloom realized she was feeling better, and watching Penguin become more independent made her want that for herself, too.

“When Penguin was weak and sickly, Sam would lovingly nurse her back to health,” Cameron Bloom wrote in his book. “When Sam found it hard to get moving, Penguin would sing her energy levels up.” The family grew deeply attached to the bird, and images shot by Cameron Bloom featured the bird all over their home, including perched on family members’ shoulders as well as burrowed between them in bed. After regaining her strength, Penguin eventually upgraded from a nest made out of a laundry basket and cotton fabric to a spot outside, in the frangipani tree in the family’s backyard.

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As depicted in Penguin Bloom, Sam Bloom returned to the water as Penguin began to get better, and started kayaking. This was a challenge for someone with a spinal cord injury because Bloom was not able to rely on her torso for strength, instead powering the kayak with her upper body and arms. But she worked diligently at the sport, and became close with her kayaking coach Gaye Hatfield (who is played by Rachel House in the movie). Bloom’s renewed interest in water sports landed her a spot on the Australian ParaCanoe team in 2015. She went on to compete for the team in the world championships that year in Milan. The day Bloom left for the competition, Penguin flew away for a final time. As Cameron Bloom wrote, the family would miss the bird, but “the endless blue sky was not ours to give, it was always hers by right.”

Along with kayaking and canoeing, Sam Bloom began surfing again, which was one of her favorite activities before the accident. In 2018, Bloom became a member of the Australian Adaptive Surf Team, where she competes in the “prone-assist” category. Since reacquainting herself with the sport, Bloom has won two World Para Surfing Championships.

Making the movie

When Naomi Watts read Penguin Bloom, she was so moved by the family’s story that she wanted to adapt it for the screen. She told People: “The images were so compelling, and the story was filled with courage and hope.” The Bloom family was intimately involved in the adaptation—Sam Bloom allowed Watts to read her journals, and the movie was shot in their actual family home in Australia. The accurate representation of Bloom’s disability was important to the filmmakers, and director Glendyn Ivin cites those journals as aiding in that mission. “In some ways, that was the real key to knowing what it was like to be in that situation, to be in a depression and have a physical disability that she had found herself with,” Ivin told SBS News in Australia.

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The production also included eight magpies who starred as Penguin. Watts spoke to NPR about working with the birds, sharing that she initially questioned how she would be able to portray Bloom and Penguin’s relationship on-screen. But she ultimately found the magpies to be both trainable and smart, explaining that shooting with them would occasionally be something of a waiting game: “You might not get what was required, but you might get something just as brilliant.”