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August 6, 2018

TV Shows You Should Watch Before The End Of Summer

This summer might not have had Game of Thrones, but it wasn’t lost by any means. Already we’ve seen Pose, Ryan Murphy’s groundbreaking TV series; Succession, HBO’s strong answer to Billions; and The Staircase, which enjoyed a much-anticipated update on Netflix. And that’s to say nothing of the other top-tier shows, movies, books, albums, and podcasts that have been out! Oof. We get it. There’s been a lot to see, and, yes, there’s lots more on the way. To make some of your decisions easier, we’ve flagged a few highlights to see before fall — what’s Game of Thrones again?

The Sinner (USA)

Premiere date: August 1
Reason to be excited: Sadly, Jessica Biel is returning only as an executive producer. Silver lining: The brilliant Carrie Coon (The Leftovers) will take over as leading lady. Her reviews are in, and so far, they make The Sinner sound like it won’t be a one-hit wonder. (“Coon’s enigmatic performance never fails to intrigue,” says Mashable. “This is the one case where the only need for a critic is to remind you to watch,” adds the Washington Post.) For Season 2, the crime drama unspools a mostly unconnected, new story — save for familiar face Det. Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) — about an 11-year-old boy who poisons his parents and watches them die. Awful, yes, but as the show’s tagline teases, “The sins of a child are never his alone.” Buckle up for another riveting whydunit. [Trailer]

Random Acts of Flyness (HBO)

Premiere date: August 3
Reason to be excited: Random Acts of Flyness has been billed as a “late-night show,” and while it will feature sketches and special guests (like Whoopi Goldberg and Gillian Jacobs), none of it will be anything like what you’re used to. (And thank God. Sorry, Jimmys.) Instead of your average desk bits, this six-episode series, from artist Terence Nance, will showcase “interconnected vignettes that make the series a unique mix of vérité documentary, musical performances, surrealist melodrama, and humorous animation” — all about “the beauty and ugliness of contemporary American life.” To which we say, yes please! [Trailer]

Better Call Saul (AMC)

Premiere date: August 6
Reason to be excited: Season 4 will be all about (slight spoiler for the uninitiated) the fallout from Chuck’s death, and how it compels those left behind to be better or… worse! Bring on the Saul. [Trailer]

Lodge 49 (AMC)

Premiere date: August 6
Reason to be excited: From Jim Gavin (Middle Men) and Peter Ocko (The Office), Lodge 49 follows a Cali surfer named Dud (Wyatt Russell, aka that guy from the weird Black Mirror video game episode) who’s trying to recover from the death of his dad and the downfall of their family business. He happens upon a local fraternity — the titular lodge — which may or may not help solve all his problems. Godspeed, Dud. [Trailer]

Insecure (HBO)

Premiere date: August 12
Reason to be excited: More mirror rap sessions! More Daniel! More relationship drama? We’ll see — stay in the know with our Season 3 dossier.

Disenchantment (Netflix)

Premiere date: August 17
Reason to be excited: It’s Matt Groening’s latest creation. The series, about “the misadventures of a hard-drinking princess (Abbi Jacobson), her feisty elf companion (Nat Faxon), and her personal demon (Eric André),” has been positioned, aptly, as the love child of The Simpsons and Game of Thrones. Or the fantasy version of Futurama. Either way, it might just scratch your Westeros itch — in a loving send-up kind of way.

Rob Riggle’s Ski Master Academy (Sony Crackle)

Premiere date: August 23
Reason to be excited: Bear traps. Explosions. NFL Hall of Famer Brian Urlacher. This beautifully dumb show, about Rob Riggle (aka Pow! Guy) and a bunch of campers learning how not to look like assholes while riding jet skis, apparently has it all. So if you’re hunting for your next offbeat (heavy on the offbeat) comedy, look no further. [Trailer]

Ghoul (Netflix)

Premiere date: August 24
Reason to be excited: It’s Netflix’s first horror series out of India! Co-produced by Blumhouse (Insidious, Get Out), Ghoul follows “a prisoner who arrives at a remote military interrogation center and turns the tables on his interrogators, exposing their most shameful secrets.” And, yes, it looks creepy as hell. [Trailer]

The Innocents (Netflix)

Premiere date: August 24
Reason to be excited: This British saga has been teased as a sci-fi Romeo & Juliet — although Romeo & Mystique might be more like it, because this Juliet is a freaking shape-shifter. [Trailer]

Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime)

Premiere date: August 31
Reason to be excited: If your favorite John Krasinski is Action John Krasinski (see: 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi), this should be right up your alley. From Carlton Cuse (Lost, Colony), this Tom Clancy-inspired TV show puts Krasinski in the title role as a modern-day, up-and-coming CIA analyst thrust into his first field assignment. We’re confident this character is better at Call of Duty-ing than Jim Halpert because Jack Ryan has already been renewed for Season 2. [Trailer]

Ozark (Netflix)

Premiere date: August 31
Reason to be excited: More Serious Jason Bateman! After barely surviving a stressful move to the Ozarks, his character and his family, the Byrdes, will have to dig in their heels and learn how to run a freaking riverboat casino. “In Season 2, [the Byrdes have] kind of gone from the shadows into the light a little bit. There’s this idea that Marty’s enemies, the Snells and the cartel, are now his partners,” Ozark‘s Chris Mundy teased us last year. “[Season 2 is] more about capitalism and what you do to win, the difference between things that are legal and illegal, ethical and unethical. Are the Byrdes going to own this new life?” If you need a Season 1 refresher, we’ve got you covered. [Trailer]

Story courtesy of Thrillist.

July 13, 2018

Amazon Prime Day 2018: Everything You Need To Know

Being an Amazon Prime member has its perks all year long, but there’s one day in particular when it pays big time to be a subscriber. We’re of course referring to Amazon Prime Day, when the e-commerce behemoth unleashes hundreds of thousands of crazy-good discounts on everything from gadgets to gift cards — well beyond the scope of deals it offers on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Prime Day 2018 will be a bit different than in years past in that it will actually last for a day and half. Things will kick off on Monday, July 16 at 3pm ET and continue all day Tuesday, July 17, though they’ve decided to get a slightly early start and are already rolling out some great deals in the days leading up to the big event. So, to ensure you scoop up all the best possible loot, we’ve assembled this handy Prime Day, errr, primer.

If you aren’t a Prime subscriber, sign up for a free 30-day trial

As the name of the event suggests, Prime Day deals are only open to Prime subscribers. However, if you aren’t already ponying up the $119/year fee (it recently went up from $99/year), you can still get in on the action by signing up for the 30-day free trial. Just remember to cancel before you actually have to start paying (or don’t — trust us, there are plenty of perks that make it worth the money).

Download the Amazon app and track your favorite deals

APD brings with it a ton of great deals, but many of them don’t last long. Fortunately, you can easily set up Amazon’s app to tell you when the price drops for a particular item(s) you’ve had your eyes on by adding them to your Shopping List.

When an item in the List changes in price, you’ll get an alert on your phone. Just be sure you have your notification settings adjusted accordingly (open the app, head to Settings > Notifications, and toggle on “Your Watched & Waitlisted Deals.”) And even if you don’t want to track any deals, it’s still worth downloading because Prime subscribers get $10 for downloading and signing into the Amazon app for the first time. You’d be wise to also download the Amazon Assistant browser extension on your computer to keep track of deals (if you do, you’ll get $5 off your next Amazon order over $25)

Keep tabs on pre-scheduled deals

In addition to tracking a custom list of products you’re interested in, the app also makes it easy to browse and “watch” the thousands upon thousands of specific deals that are scheduled to go live throughout the day, without having to constantly monitor the app or site. To do this, head to the Deals page, look through the products under the “Upcoming” tab, and tap “Watch this deal” for any that you think you might be interested in. The moment a deal you’re watching goes live, you’ll get an alert on your phone.

Ask Alexa about special and exclusive deals

If you have an Echo, Echo Dot, or any other device that relies on Amazon’s AI voice-activated assistant, Alexa, you’d be wise to hit her up for special deals throughout the day. That’s because, like last year, Amazon will be offering a handful of deals that you can only snatch via Alexa. All you have to do is ask “Alexa, what are your deals?” and she’ll give you the scoop. If you haven’t picked up an Echo yet, Prime Day may be the perfect time to splurge, since prices on a whole slew of Amazon devices will likely slashed.

Check competitors’ prices for better deals

Since Prime Day has eclipsed Black Friday as one of Amazon’s biggest deals days of the year, competitors like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and others have taken notice, dropping their own prices below Amazon’s during the day in hopes of poaching potential customers. To compare prices without tediously toggling between four different tabs, download the browser extension Priceblink, which will automatically let you know if a particular item you’re looking at on Amazon (or any one of 4,000 other online merchants) is available cheaper elsewhere on the Web at the moment.

Swing by Whole Foods for special in-store deals

Prime Day 2018 will not only run longer than any previous one, but this year it will also include big deals on Whole Foods items now that Amazon owns the premium grocery chain. The company has already announced some special WF discounts ahead of the big day, but it’s likely there will be some surprise sales going on in-store at locations around the country that day as well.

Story courtesy of Thrillist.

January 19, 2018

Los Angeles among Amazon’s list of finalists for new headquarters

Los Angeles is one of 20 cities left bidding for Amazon’s second North American headquarters.

The tech giant is expanding beyond the limits of its current 8 million-square-foot base of operations in Seattle and sent cities around the continent into a frenzy when it announced a pageant-like search for a new location in September.

On Thursday, the company trimmed a list of 238 cities down to just 20, with the company seemingly favoring an eastward expansion. Los Angeles is the sole finalist on the West Coast, despite bids from major urban areas like San Diego, Portland, and San Francisco.

The company received plenty of interest from Southern California cities, including Irvine, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, and Long Beach (the latter cities submitted a joint proposal). But Los Angeles is the only city left standing.

Details on LA’s proposal, put forth by all of Los Angeles County, are still a bit murky. In October, local officials revealed that the bid would largely center around the Pomona Fairplex—the home of the LA County Fair.

City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield also argued that Warner Center’s former Rocketdyne plant would be an ideal location, but it’s unclear whether that site appeared in the city’s formal proposal submitted to the company in October.

The impact of the company’s arrival in Los Angeles would be significant. Amazon estimates that its new headquarters would create more than 50,000 jobs and bring $38 billion of investment into the local economy (though Seattle residents can attest that such economic transformation can be a mixed blessing).

With its finalists in place, Amazon now plans to probe each city’s proposal further, delving into specifics about the feasibility of each bid. The company says it will announce a winner later this year.

Story courtesy of Curbed.

September 8, 2017

Los Angeles To Bid For Amazon's Second Headquarters

Amazon has been based in Seattle since its founding in 1994, but the e-commerce giant is planning a second headquarters elsewhere in the U.S., and Los Angeles is officially in the running.

Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office confirmed that Los Angeles was planning to bid on the new Amazon headquarters, with Garcetti calling L.A. “the perfect place for a company like Amazon to find talented workers, and an environment that nurtures growth and innovation,” in a statement emailed to LAist on Thursday.

Amazon announced plans to put $5 billion toward the construction of its second headquarters in a request for proposals from potential bidders. “We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement on Thursday. Amazon will give priority to cities to cities with more than one million residents that are within 45 minutes of an international airport, according to the L.A. Times. Other cities planning to bid on the new headquarters include New York, Chicago and Atlanta, CNBC reports.

If selected to host Amazon’s new offices, Los Angeles could gain up to 50,000 new full-time jobs. The city is already home to Amazon’s thriving film and TV division, Amazon Studios, whose offices are located in Santa Monica (and could soon be moving to Culver Studios’ famed Gone With The Wind mansion.)

Not everyone is likely to be enthused about the possibility of Amazon expanding to Los Angeles, though. The tech-industry gentrification driving up prices in Venice’s “Silicon Beach” would likely increase with Amazon’s arrival, and Curbed raises the question of where L.A. would even fit an 8-million-square-foot Amazon complex. Nonetheless, it appears L.A. will fight to win the Amazon bid by the October 19th deadline.

Story courtesy of LAist.