Taylor Swift’s Eras tour enters its streaming era: Here’s what to know
Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who somehow held out this long before checking out the Eras tour. (Or is gearing up for yet another go-round.)
As pop music critic Mikael Wood writes in this week’s Catch Up, that’s because the concert movie about Taylor Swift’s career-spanning live show now is streaming on Disney+, nearly a year to the day after the tour kicked off in March 2023. Read more about its journey to the small screen below, plus find other viewing recommendations and a visit from one of the subjects of new docuseries “Photographer.”
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Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
“The Many Lives of Martha Stewart” (CNN, Max)
Produced by CNN and streaming on Max, the four-part docuseries “The Many Lives of Martha Stewart” accompanies the one-woman brand on her journey from model to stockbroker to caterer to lifestyle guru to Queen of All Media to jailbird to Snoop Dogg double act to octogenarian Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. Made without the participation of Stewart — whose voice is nevertheless heard throughout from a deep well of archival clips and interviews — or her ex-husband Andy Stewart — though with comment from plenty of business executives — it’s not a puff piece. Martha’s detour through the justice system takes up an entire episode and change, with her prison stint especially fascinating for being relatively unreported; Martha being Martha, she introduced herself to one sister inmate with a baked apple and somehow produced a flan for her goodbye party. (As Jon Stewart points out in a “Daily Show” clip, she went to jail not for insider trading but for lying about a crime she was never charged with.) Though it recognizes her as a polarizing figure — feminist? anti-feminist? plastic? for real? — this is all in all an admiring account of a widely beloved pioneer, the first female self-made billionaire. — Robert Lloyd
“Mean Girls” (Paramount+)
Though the original “Mean Girls” was a formative title of my millennial childhood, I am aware that a lot of it has aged like milk. Thankfully, the new version, now streaming, not only features the best musical numbers from the stage adaptation but also replaces the first film’s racist stereotypes and sizeism slander with updated punchlines and the overdue overhaul of Janis Ian. Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles from the 2004 movie, alongside Jon Hamm, Busy Philipps, Jenna Fischer, Ashley Park and a crop of young Hollywood names. And by the end, I guarantee you’ll find yourself a fan of Reneé Rapp, who plays the enticingly evil Regina George. —Ashley Lee
Catch up
Everything you need to know about the film or TV series everyone’s talking about
Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is starting to feel like it contains eras of its own. First it was the lavish, career-spanning road show she launched in early 2023; then it became the blockbuster concert film that bulldozed through movie theaters last fall. Just before Christmas, Swift made the movie available to rent on demand, and now “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” has finally arrived on streaming — specifically Disney+, where it landed late Thursday (for a reported $75-million payday), almost a year to the day after she played her first Eras gig in Arizona.
I was at there on the tour’s opening night and can clearly remember the anticipation rippling through a crowd that had no idea what Swift had put together; I was also at the movie’s premiere at the Grove, where Swift herself took in all 169 minutes as excitedly as one of her fans. The streaming version of the film, which of course Swift is calling “The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version),” boasts a handful of songs not in the theatrical cut and comes as the real-life Eras tour is on a brief hiatus between a series of just-completed Asian dates and a European leg that will extend through August. See what I mean? — Mikael Wood
Guest spot
A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching
With photographs — well, one particular photograph — dominating the news cycle this week, and fears about artificial intelligence and deepfakes on the rise, National Geographic’s “Photographer” could hardly be better timed. Premiering Monday, and streaming the next day on Disney+, the six-part docuseries from “Nyad” filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin profiles some of the defining image-makers of our time — including Dan Winters, whose work includes everything from presidential portraits to a six-year stint documenting NASA’s Artemis missions to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon. Winters stopped by Screen Gab recently to discuss the film frame he can’t shake, what he’s watching and more. — Matt Brennan
1. What have you watched recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?
I’m a bit late to the party, however I really enjoy “How to With John Wilson” [Max]. I love the fluidity of each episode as they drift from topic to topic, person to person, and reveal strange truths.
2. What is your go-to “comfort watch,” movie or TV show you go back to again and again?
The original “Star Trek” [Paramount+]. I’ve seen each episode many times. I love being transported into that world. I used to watch the original series with my dad on Sundays as a kid. It’s my happy place.
3. Of the other photographers featured in the docuseries, whose work have you become a new fan of (or come to see in a different light) because of it?
The level of wonder in the work of Anand Varma is a profound example of what’s possible through photography. His scientist’s mind and obsessive focus has brought us into worlds heretofore unseen.
4. There’s now a subculture of appreciating single frames from movies and TV shows, from One Perfect Shot to “Succession.” So let me pick your photographer’s brain: What’s a single image from film or TV that you love, or is seared in your mind?
There are multitudes. This may be low-hanging fruit, but one that quickly comes to mind is the first shot of the twins at the end of the hall in “The Shining.” It is a Diane Arbus reference and absolutely haunts me to this day.
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