‘I’m A Virgo’ Review: Boots Riley’s Absurdist Coming-Of-Age Series Is A Giant Delight

Coco Lee, a Hong Kong-born singer and songwriter who had a highly successful career in Asia, has died by suicide, her siblings said Wednesday. She was 48.

Though not as huge as something like “Stranger Things” or “Squid Games,” the comedy series, “Sex Education,” has been a steady hit for Netflix over the course of its run. But all good things must come to an end, and it appears “Sex Education” is ready to say goodbye.

Lupita Nyong’o and Kendrick Lamar pose for photos together while attending the Chanel Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2023/2024 show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday (July 4) in Paris, France.

Given the stories that Russell Crowe was still celebrating his open-air concert at Karlovy Vary’s Thermal Hotel until the small hours of the morning, there was little surprise that the actor was late for his meeting with a group of international journalists. However, the 59-year-old showed no signs of wear and tear, and even graciously insisted the press conference go on past its strict 30-minute cut-off time.

Selome Hailu Though production on Season 2 of “The Bear” was well underway before Ramy Youssef traveled to Copenhagen to direct the fourth episode, series creator Chris Storer was slow to bring him fully behind the curtain. “He didn’t let me watch anything they had shot [in the first three episodes]. He was like, ‘No, no. You can see it when you come back, but just make this what you think it should be,'” Youssef remembers. Youssef is the first and only person to serve as a director on “The Bear” besides Storer and his co-showrunner Joanna Calo. When a tight production timeline made it impossible for Storer or Calo to direct in Copenhagen on top of nine Chicago-set episodes, Youssef was Storer’s first choice. Storer has been a director and executive producer on Youssef’s Hulu series “Ramy” since its 2019 debut, and had bounced ideas for “The Bear” off of him since “way back when it was a movie idea.”

Emily Longeretta SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from Season 2 of “The Bear,” now streaming on Hulu. Season 2 of “The Bear” included a plethora of incredible guest stars. That began in episode 4, “Honeydew,” with Will Poulter starring as Luca, a top Copenhagen chef who trains Marcus (Lionel Boyce) in the kitchen as the pair create a trusting friendship. Poulter felt a connection to the FX series early on, as he’d been dreaming about making a show about chefs. “I called them. I literally begged to be in the show. I asked if I could meet with Chris Storer and basically communicated that I was such a fan of so much of his work, but especially ‘The Bear,'” Poulter tells Variety. “He was kind enough to gift me with the offer to play Luca and it really changed my life, to be honest. It kind of helped me realize a dream of playing a chef on TV. I have such an immense amount of respect for chefs and the women and men of that industry. I feel like the whole society stands on the shoulders of people in the food and beverage industry, and we don’t even necessarily really know it or think about it. They sustain us and maintain us daily and they don’t get enough thanks for what they do.”

Love Island 's Tasha Ghouri and Andrew Le Page have just expanded their family with a furry addition, rescuing a dog from Spain. The smitten pair took to Instagram to introduce their furry bundle of joy to their fans in a heartwarming Instagram post.Tasha and Andrew couldn't contain their excitement as they posed alongside Luna in the home they share in East London, captioning the post: “We the cool dog parents now, Luna we love you so much! Thank you @aloradogrescue and Homeward bound for getting her to us safely.

Selome Hailu At the end of Boots Riley’s 2018 debut feature, “Sorry to Bother You,” Cassius (LaKeith Stanfield) gets stretched and mutilated beyond recognition until he becomes a horse — all in service of the film’s cutting narrative about how capitalism is crushing us all. In “I’m a Virgo,” Riley’s new Amazon Prime Video series, that stretching comes before the story begins: 19-year-old Cootie (Jharrel Jerome) is 13 feet tall, and he ends up under attack when the city of Oakland learns about the giant living in its backyard — again, all in service of a cutting narrative about how capitalism is crushing us all. “I believe that people should democratically control the wealth that we create with our labor,” says Riley, 52. The writer-director has identified as a communist since before he gained recognition for founding the political hip-hop group the Coup in 1991. “How do you get the working class to organize together? Through them understanding where their power is, and under capitalism, our power is in the withholding of labor. There needs to be a mass, militant, radical labor movement that turns more radical as it goes on, until the people actually take over the places that they work and change the nature of society.”

Weeds are a pain for any gardener and they don't just pop up in flowerbeds, as they can sprout in between cracks on patios.

Michael Nordine author If you’d like to see the world’s saddest math equation, just watch “World’s Best.” After being given a lighthearted “equation of me” homework assignment on the first day of school, 12-year-old Prem Patel (Manny Magnus) formulates the following: Prem = (mom + dad) x math + Jerome – dad.” A math whiz still reeling from the loss of his father, Prem (it rhymes with “name,” not that anyone ever pronounces it correctly) proves easy to root for as he navigates adolescence in “7 Days” director Roshan Sethi’s coming-of-age dramedy. But while the Disney+ original ultimately receives a passing grade, it doesn’t exactly ace the assignment the way its protagonist so often does.

“Atlanta” to Terence Nance’s thought-provoking “Random Acts of Flyness” and Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed films “Get Out” and “Nope,” this formerly niche genre seems to be thriving in mainstream entertainment.Writer, producer and musician Boots Riley, whose 2018 film “Sorry to Bother You” catapulted him to prominence as a filmmaker, returns with his latest project: “I’m A Virgo” on Prime Video. This highly anticipated series solidifies his position among the pioneers of the Afro-surrealist genre.Afrofuturism and Afro-surrealism, often seen as interchangeable, are different.

I’m A Virgo is a triumph of imagination and ideology.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic “Sorry to Bother You,” Boots Riley’s 2018 directorial debut, was a cultural event: It announced Riley, who’d already made a career as a politically minded rapper, as a sharp critic of contemporary capitalism who could pair his ideas with grabby, memorable imagery. The cascade of reveals and visual transformations toward the end of that film, too good to spoil for the uninitiated, worked brilliantly as spectacle and made Riley’s case too: Under our current system, we all end up becoming beasts of burden.  Riley returns with a larger canvas and new expressions of familiar concerns with “I’m a Virgo.” Like “Sorry to Bother You,” which addressed the problems of its telemarketer characters, this series merges the prosaic with the surreal. On “I’m a Virgo,” we follow a 13-foot-tall man trying to figure out where he fits into his community and into the ongoing struggle for a fairer future. As played by Jharrel Jerome (of “Moonlight” and an Emmy winner for “When They See Us”), the massive fellow known as Cootie is taciturn, shy — understandably out of place. To work out, he bench-presses an entire car; his aunt and uncle (Mike Epps and Carmen Ejogo), raising him in their Oakland home despite being people of more typical stature, fret over how much food it takes to keep their nephew alive.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers for Warner Bros. and DC Studios’ “The Flash,” now playing in theaters. “I finally got to see Nic Cage be Superman. It has been an absolute delight for me,” Kevin Smith recently told Rolling Stone about watching “The Flash.” The film and that Cage-as-Superman cameo near the end is a full circle moment for Smith, who was the screenwriter of the studio’s infamous “Superman Lives.” After launching the Batman movie franchise for Warner Bros. to great success, Tim Burton turned his attention towards Superman in 1998 with the development of “Superman Lives.” Smith penned the script, which focused on Superman’s fight against Doomsday. Despite spending over $30 million on the film’s casting and pre-production, Warner Bros. pulled the plug on “Superman Lives” due to creative differences.

The WGA Strong March and Rally for a Fair Contract has kicked off in LA with thousands of members of the guild including Damon Lindelof and Boots Riley taking to the parks and streets.

Joe Goldberg himself (aka Penn Badgley) is giving us a glimpse of what’s to come in the upcoming fifth and final season of Netflix thriller series You, from Warner Bros. Television and studio-based Berlanti Prods.

Following the release of Elliot Page’s memoir PageBoy, the actor reveals why now was the right time to share his story with the world and elaborates on the chapters where he talks about his childhood and his mother, who grew to support his identity.

Not so fast. HBO has responded to a report in New York Post’s Page Six, citing sources, that the music drama series would likely not return for a second season.

The prospect of retirement is something anyone may find themselves facing down at some point, regardless of your chosen career or pastime. Within the world of professional sports, it’s an inevitable end that reaches every athlete oftentimes sooner than one might desire, with factors chief among them being age and the subsequent deterioration of skills that may result.  As a player reaches a time anywhere from their late-20s to early-40s, the moment of realization where that door starts to close can be met with either gradual acceptance or stubborn defiance, but make no mistake, it comes for everyone, and it’s up to the person at the center to decide what happens next.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Prime Video debuted the first-look image and revealed the premiere date for the adaptation of thriller series “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” from New York Times best-selling author Harlan Coben on Thursday. The show marks Coben’s first collaboration with Prime Video. The first three episodes of the eight-episode series will premiere globally on Aug. 18 exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, with new episodes available each Friday, leading up to the season finale on Sept. 22. “Harlan Coben’s Shelter” follows the story of Mickey Bolitar after the sudden death of his father leads him to start a new life in Kasselton, New Jersey. Mickey quickly finds himself tangled in the mysterious disappearance of a new student at his school, Ashley Kent, which leads to uncovering unimaginable secrets within their quiet suburban community.