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It’s our debut! Can you handle this horror kill? 😈

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7 months ago

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It’s our debut! Can you handle this horror kill? 😈

Welcome to the Watch Party! Get your popcorn, find your remote control and buckle up.

Between movie theaters, umpteen streaming services and hours of videos waiting to be scrolled on your phone, we have more entertainment options than any other era probably in the history of mankind. It is, as the kids say, a lot. Starting with this inaugural issue, Watch Party is your Yoda, Morpheus, Gandalf and Dumbledore rolled into one, a guide to the best movies and TV shows out there and new favorites for every taste.

A little about me: I’m Brian Truitt, USA TODAY’s movie critic, and my loves include pro wrestling, the Detroit Lions, Boston Terriers and action figures (plastic as well as on screen). Growing up in the 1980s on a cultural diet of cartoons, comic books and toys, I discovered a love of film, experiencing the game-changing awesomeness of a movie theater when I was 4 (my first: “Flash Gordon”) and then being front and center for the advent of VHS and many, many home-video rentals. My small-screen interests came later, watching sitcoms and dramas with my parents and being primed well before “Peak TV.”

I’m well-versed in “Star Wars” and Marvel but always look forward to the annual Oscar onslaught, my favorite movie is “Field of Dreams,” John Williams kinda sorta changed my life, and I also once binged the entire first season of “One Tree Hill” in one night back before streaming was a thing. (Yes, I still have those DVDs somewhere.)

In other words, I love this stuff. I hope you do, too. Thanks for subscribing, tell a friend or two, and let’s have some fun.

Watch ‘Backspot,’ ‘Babes’ and a bloody good horror kill in theaters

June is a busy month for big movies but this weekend is rather low-key. If you haven’t seen “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” or “The Garfield Movie” yet, well, get on those – especially “Furiosa.” Among the new stuff, Daisy Ridley turns in one of her best performances ever in the very Disney biopic “Young Woman and the Sea”: She plays Trudy Ederle, who conquered jellyfish and misogyny to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel in 1926. (Imagine a much more entertaining “Nyad.”)

Those yearning for a modern female narrative have the coming-of-age film “Backspot,” one of the best cheerleader movies ever right out of the gate, and “Babes,” co-written by and starring Ilana Glazer as a woman who learns she’s pregnant after a one-night stand. The “Broad City” actress told my colleague Patrick Ryan that she pulled from her own new motherhood experiences, including prenatal tests involving giant needles: “All you’ve got to do to write an amazing classic comedy is simply find out what an amniocentesis is.”

Speaking of sharp things … If you’re like us at Watch Party Central and love horror, check out “In a Violent Nature.” The indie thriller reinvents the slasher movie by telling its story from the killer’s point of view, plus unleashes a gory kill that you won’t believe. “I always want to see things that I haven’t seen before onscreen,” says director Chris Nash. (Spoiler alert: He succeeded.)

Stream ‘Eric’ and prepare for a busy TV summer, from ‘Star Wars’ to ‘The Boys’

The latest Netflix binge is “Eric,” a gripping 1980s-set crime/family drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch as an alcoholic creator of a “Sesame Street”-style kids show. When his son goes missing, the dad wrestles with personal demons and partners with a 7-foot-tall monster puppet amid his desperate efforts to find the boy. Creator Abi Morgan told Patrick (who had a busy writing week!) that the series was “loosely based” on several missing-kid cases she heard about growing up in the U.K.: “There were several children who disappeared. I wanted to create a kind of Everychild; the simple act of going out one day and not coming home felt very resonant.”

But “Eric” is just the start of a packed summer of TV shows. Critic Kelly Lawler walks us through the 10 to definitely put on your radar, including new “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte,” a second season of “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” and another round of superheroic shenanigans with “The Boys.”

Even more goodness to check out!

Here are more stories to peep from my colleagues:

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