Tag: HBO

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HBO Teams Up With Apple For New Streaming Service

I grew up in a “television household.” I can’t imagine not having TV.

Over the years, friends have more and more told me “Oh, I don’t watch that. I don’t watch TV. I don’t have a television.”

I couldn’t imagine that. Period.

But, with the internet becoming more and more a part of our lives in every facet, I can see it now.

The price of a full spectrum of cable or satellite TV stations costs close to $100 a month. And then we flip through channel after channel saying, “there’s nothing on” because so much is crap.

Well, now, I can actually see life without cable subscriptions at this point. Most of what I make a point to watch is on HBO. And starting in April you can subscribe to HBO via internet for only $14.99 a month.

Via press release:

Apple will give viewers the ability to enjoy HBO programming via HBO NOW. Upon launch, customers can subscribe using the HBO NOW app on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, or directly on Apple TV for instant access. Users can purchase HBO NOW directly in-app for $14.99 a month. Upon registering, subscribers will also be able to watch at HBONOW.com. HBO will offer a 30 day introductory free trial period to new HBO NOW customers who sign up through Apple in April.

That’s a deal. And if you sign up in April – you get a free month. I love free!

Plus, since you already have internet at that point, most networks offer the bulk of their shows online for free now. So even ABC or CBS TV series are available.

And if you want to watch all this on your TV, get an Apple TV unit (one-time purchase at $99 with cable), connect that baby up, and go! Widescreen wonderfulness.

Seriously, why do we need cable or satellite TV at this point?

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Trailer: “Banksy Does New York”

Back in 2013, infamous UK street artist Banksy set up a one month residency in NYC creating whimsical art installations throughout the city’s five boroughs. I wrote about one of the artists episodes at the time here.

A sneak peek at the documentary Banksy Does New York before its on-air premiere, beginning Oct. 31 on HBO On Demand and HBO GO.

The film will debut on HBO on November 17th.

Via press release:

Over the course of a month-long residency in New York, Banksy and his team took to the streets – secretly creating a variety of public work ranging from elaborate conceptual stunts to traditional graffiti art.

Constructed under the dark of night, each new piece was then announced daily on his #BANKSYNY Instagram account and chronicled on his pop-up website creating a community wide scavenger hunt.

Constantly evading a citywide search by the NYPD, Banksy’s work created a public response that was an equal mix of reverence and derision, with some of the more controversial statements sending waves of reaction throughout the city.

From a Central Park stand where priceless original works were anonymously sold for $60 to a mural on the entrance to the Hustler strip club, to a junkyard in Willets Point, Queens; New York City served as the canvas for this street art vigilante.

The film, directed by NY-er Chris Moukarbel, constructed the doc from all publicly content. “I crowd-sourced footage that New Yorkers posted online each day of the month. It was about a city holding a mirror back up to the artist.”

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Trailer: The Comeback of THE COMEBACK

Lisa Kudrow is just brilliant as “Valerie Cherish” in The Comeback which returns to HBO on November 9th for a new season after a nine year hiatus.

Can. Not. Wait.

OUT’s Aaron Hicklin got the chance to ask Lisa Kudrow about The Comeback‘s first season in 2005 and how Kudrow’s “Valerie Cherish” is different today:

Kudrow on the 2014 “Valerie”
“This season, things are just a little bigger. Valerie’s not in a four-year marriage—it’s a 14-year marriage. Also, her mind-set about reality and dignity is a little different, because we’ve all since accepted, Oh, there’s probably a camera somewhere. You know, someone flips a table: ‘Well, I guess that’s good TV.’ Back then, she really thought everything about her was fantastic, and the only time she started to crack was when she began to suspect she’d been taken advantage of. We have a little more of that earlier on this time around.”

The uncomfortability of indignity
“My husband has a hard time watching The Comeback. When we were first making the show, he came to visit the set and saw a scene and said, ‘Who wrote that? Who’s making my wife do that?’ And they replied, ‘Uh, your wife wrote it.’ A couple of years ago, I watched all of them again. And with the first two, I thought, Wow, this is brutal. There was no violence and no sex, and yet it was really uncomfortable. But that’s how it is everywhere. Everyone has to suffer some kind of indignity to get along in his or her professional pursuit.”

Read more at OUT.

And mark your calendars – The Comeback Season 2 begins November 9 on HBO.

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News Round-up: October 16, 2014

Billy Porter authors new off-Broadway play to strong reviews

Some stories you may have missed:

• Tony Award winner Billy Porter (Kinky Boots) debuts first play off-Broadway to strong reviews

• Shia LaBeouf says he was arrested at Broadway’s Cabaret because he couldn’t stop himself from grabbing star Alan Cumming’s ass saying “He’s the sexiest man I’ve ever seen”

• The Vatican calls for the Catholic Church to welcome and accept gays

• Stephen Sondheim says he’s working on a new musical based on two surrealist films by late Spanish director Luis Buñuel

• Out pro soccer player Robbie Rogers get sitcom based on his life green-lit by ABC

• HBO announced plans to allow streaming video subscriptions to the network in 2015 via internet without cable or satellite service

• New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner released the findings of it’s report concluding Joan Rivers died due to brain damage from to lack of oxygen.

• After going public with his Alzheimer’s diagnosis a few years ago, Glen Campbell has released his last single, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”

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HBO’s “The Comeback” Is Back – November 9th

First look at the new season of "The Comeback" starring Lisa Kudrow
First look at HBO’s “The Comeback” starring Lisa Kudrow

Lisa Kudrow’s under-appreciated 2005 HBO series “The Comeback,” about a faded sitcom star who banks on reality show cameras following her return to TV, won critics but floundered in it’s fight to find an audience.  I thought it was brilliant. Sadly, in spite of an Emmy nomination for Kudrow, it was cancelled after one season.

The world wasn’t ready, in my opinion.

But now, it is.  HBO has brought Kudrow and her creative partner Michael Patrick King together again for 8 new episodes that finds Kudrow’s “Valerie Cherish” in the year 2014. And she’s still coming back.  Or at least trying to.

Beginning November 9 at 10PM on HBO.

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“Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr.” from HBO

Robert De Niro shares the story of his father, an artist who lived an openly gay life as he struggled for recognition.

Via Out.com:

It’s been more than 20 years since Robert De Niro Sr.’s death from cancer, but his memory is fresh for his son, who has preserved his father’s final home and studio in New York City’s SoHo. Filled with books, paintbrushes, and hundreds of canvases, some of which he never finished, it looks like pop stepped away for a coffee and should be back to finish another still life before dinner. The loft remains a quiet shrine to an artist that few recognize, perhaps mistaking his figurative paintings for a late Matisse or another French master. “It was the only way to keep his being, his existence alive,” De Niro explains. “To me, he was always a great artist.”