Entertainment
Sam Shepard’s roots ran deepest in rural America
Sam Shepard, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, depicted the struggles of American families and their connection to land. He passed away on July 27, 2017.
John J. Winters, Bridgewater State University
Sam Shepard
When Sam Shepard died on July 27, 2017, the world lost one of the greatest playwrights of the past half-century. He was an artist renowned for bravely plumbing his own life for material, spinning much of his own pain into theatrical gold. His best work revealed the hollowness behind the idea of the happy family and its corollary, the American dream. Subversive and funny, Shepard had the soul of a poet and an experimental streak that never faded.
The American family was, no doubt, Shepard’s great subject. His quintet of family plays that premiered between 1978 and 1985 – “Curse of the Starving Class,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Buried Child,” “Fool for Love,” “True West” (both nominated for Pulitzers) and “A Lie of the Mind” – form the foundation of Shepard’s lofty reputation.
While researching my recent biography of Shepard, I found that most critics and scholars focused on the playwright’s relationship with his father. Rightly so: Samuel Shepard Rogers suffered from alcoholism and his only son grew up bearing the brunt of his abuse. Shepard’s family plays turn on the collateral damage of the fathers.
Less frequently examined is the playwright’s fixation on the land, and the ways in which this plays out in his work. Both as a writer and in his personal outlook, Shepard drew deeply from the old trope that nature and innocence are intertwined. And according to critic Harold Bloom, Shepard saw doom in the “materialistic and technological obsessions of modern society.”
Throughout his work, Shepard decried so-called progress, especially the rampant development of open space. Whether it was the forced sale of a family farm (“Curse of the Starving Class”) or Native Americans being driven off their reservation (“Operation Sidewinder”), it all came to no good.
To Shepard, a relationship with the land was nothing short of existential. As the playwright told an interviewer in 1988:
“What’s most frightening to me right now is this estrangement from life. People and things are becoming more and more removed from the actual. We are becoming more and more removed from the earth to the point that people just don’t know themselves or each other or anything.”
Shepard arrived at this impulse naturally. When he was in elementary school, his family settled in a small house on Lemon Street in Bradbury, California. An orchard of 80 avocado trees attached to the house meant that Shepard – then known by his birth name, Steve Rogers – was kept busy irrigating and harvesting the crop. He also raised dogs and sheep, and when he had free time he worked the fields belonging to his neighbors. During high school, he was an eager member of the 4-H Club and Future Farmers of America, and spent his summers tending to the thoroughbreds at nearby Santa Anita Park.
In college, Shepard’s major wasn’t theater but education. As he once wrote to a friend, back then he wanted to become a “veterinarian with a flashy station wagon, and a flashy blond wife, raising German shepherds in some fancy suburb.” He never finished college nor became a vet. Instead, Shepard left home and made his way across the country to New York City and the East Village, where he would quickly transform himself into the brightest light of the nascent off-off-Broadway scene.
But even as his reputation grew, he never left his agricultural roots behind. In fact, one of Shepard’s early one-act plays was titled “4-H Club” (1965).
Other plays from the 1960s combine his old life with his new one. Rural scenes are full of characters who talk in the hip argot of the Village streets, characters caught in an absurdist situation go “fishing” off the edge of the stage, and Native Americans, by their very presence onstage in plays like 1970’s “Operation Sidewinder,” stake a claim to the land that’s been stolen from them.
With time, the playwright would more directly address the scourge of overdevelopment that he saw happening around him. It would become a running theme of sorts, as Shepard saw the nation growing and changing – but not for the better.
“One of the biggest tragedies about this country was moving from an agricultural society to an urban, industrial society. We’ve been wiped out,” he told Playboy in 1984.
Shepard’s characters embody this loss. In “Geography of a Horse Dreamer” (1974), one character is a gambler who can predict tomorrow’s winners at the racetrack, but loses that power once he’s physically forced from his usual haunts to a new, strange locale. In “Buried Child” (1979), the land holds the answer to the play’s central mystery: At play’s end, the fallow backyard gives up a baby from a shallow grave, shining a light on the incestuous relationship that has led to the ruination of this family – as if the purity of nature had been offended by a terrible transgression. And in Shepard’s late masterpiece, “Ages of the Moon,” two old friends finally find solace by communing with nature at a small, remote campsite.
Nowhere in Shepard’s oeuvre does land play a bigger role than in 1978’s “Curse of the Starving Class.” The Tate family’s farm stands between husband and wife: He wants to unload it to pay off his gambling and drinking debts; she wants to sell it and use the money to escape her marriage and take the children to Europe. The culminating scene features the husband, Weston, coming to his senses after sobering up and walking around his property. Reconnecting with his land, Weston turns his life around, “like peeling off a whole person.”
Shepard’s love of the country and its open spaces would mark all aspects of his career. Also a celebrated actor, he favored “rural” dramas, those set on farms, racetracks or some windswept piece of desert. In his screen debut, Shepard starred as the doomed farmer in Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” (1978). In his screenplay for the cult classic film, “Paris, Texas,” (1984) Shepard mirrored the desolation of the South Texas desert in the soul of his protagonist, Travis, a man suffering from a malady that Shepard often said he himself felt: “lostness.”
Shepard felt most at home traversing what one western historian called this “strange land full of mystery.” He took pride in being a western writer.
“I was never interested in the mythological cowboy. I was interested in the real thing,” he once said.
“He would call me late in the night,” Patti Smith wrote in a loving tribute, “from somewhere on the road, a ghost town in Texas, a rest stop near Pittsburgh, or from Santa Fe, where he was parked in the desert, listening to the coyotes howling. But most often he would call from his place in Kentucky, on a cold, still night, when one could hear the stars breathing…”
She knew, better than anyone, that such places constituted Shepard’s emotional and physical territory. He adored the vastness of the plains, the green of loping pasturelands; he cherished his time running the highways and byways in his pickup, or sitting next to the campfire on a real-life cattle drive, and reveled in the grit of this country’s less-traveled corners.
Shepard loved America for its beauty, its danger and its promise, forever transforming her in our imaginations.
John J. Winters, Adjunct Professor of English, Bridgewater State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Looking for an entertainment experience that transcends the ordinary? Look no further than STM Daily News Blog’s vibrant Entertainment section. Immerse yourself in the captivating world of indie films, streaming and podcasts, movie reviews, music, expos, venues, and theme and amusement parks. Discover hidden cinematic gems, binge-worthy series and addictive podcasts, gain insights into the latest releases with our movie reviews, explore the latest trends in music, dive into the vibrant atmosphere of expos, and embark on thrilling adventures in breathtaking venues and theme parks. Join us at STM Entertainment and let your entertainment journey begin! https://stmdailynews.com/category/entertainment/
and let your entertainment journey begin!
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Entertainment
Vision Films Sets Jan. 13 TVOD Release for Joan Collins Whodunnit A Murder Between Friends
Vision Films will release Joan Collins-led whodunnit A Murder Between Friends on transactional VOD Jan. 13, 2026, across major U.S./Canada platforms.
The company announced a North American transactional VOD release for A Murder Between Friends on Jan. 13, 2026, via a deal with Scott J. Jones and Artist View Entertainment. The “murder-com” feature stars — and is produced by — Dame Joan Collins (Dynasty), with Mark Rozzano writing and producing and Jacob Young and Trent Garrett co-directing.
The film was shot on location at Úsobí Castle in the Czech Republic and leans into classic country-estate mystery energy: six friends on vacation, one of them murdered, and everyone suddenly a suspect.
Synopsis (official): When six friends vacation at the country estate of a legendary true-crime TV star (Collins), the last thing they expect is to find one of their own murdered. Everyone is a suspect as they try to determine who among them would have the means, motive, and opportunity. As tensions grow, they enlist the aid of their celebrity sleuth hostess to uncover the truth before the killer can strike again.
The cast includes Nadia Bjorlin, Jacob Young, Trent Garrett, Toby-Alexander Smith, Simon Cotton, India Thain, Hana Vagnerová, Jim Borstelmann, and internet personality Espen Hatleskog (IG’s @pilotviking).
Vision Films CEO Lise Romanoff called it a twist-heavy mystery that keeps flipping expectations, with Collins bringing “authenticity and humor for a suspense-filled ride.”
Trailer: https://youtu.be/eUdW9Jt_rxw
Where to watch: A Murder Between Friends will be available on most major streaming and cable platforms across the U.S. and Canada on Jan. 13, 2026. Pre-orders are live on iTunes/Apple TV (US, CA) and Vudu/Fandango at Home (US).
Looking for an entertainment experience that transcends the ordinary? Look no further than STM Daily News Blog’s vibrant Entertainment section. Immerse yourself in the captivating world of indie films, streaming and podcasts, movie reviews, music, expos, venues, and theme and amusement parks. Discover hidden cinematic gems, binge-worthy series and addictive podcasts, gain insights into the latest releases with our movie reviews, explore the latest trends in music, dive into the vibrant atmosphere of expos, and embark on thrilling adventures in breathtaking venues and theme parks. Join us at STM Entertainment and let your entertainment journey begin! https://stmdailynews.com/category/entertainment/
and let your entertainment journey begin!
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
streaming series and movies
Hulu picks up ‘The Toxic Avenger’ for January streaming debut
Hulu has acquired streaming rights to the cult classic The Toxic Avenger, set to premiere on January 8, 2026. Directed by Macon Blair, it stars Peter Dinklage and features a notable cast. The film addresses themes of justice while contributing to philanthropic efforts in medical debt.
Hulu is adding a new cult-leaning superhero to its lineup. Cineverse (Nasdaq: CNVS) announced that Hulu has acquired streaming rights to The Toxic Avenger, with the film set to make its SVOD premiere on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026.
The action-comedy/horror title has already built strong buzz with critics and genre fans, including an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to Cineverse.
A reboot with a stacked cast
Written and directed by Macon Blair (I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore), The Toxic Avenger features an ensemble cast led by Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a downtrodden janitor whose life changes after a catastrophic toxic accident.
Cineverse highlighted additional cast members including Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Jacob Tremblay, and Taylour Paige.
What the story is about
The film follows Winston Gooze after he’s transformed into a new kind of radioactive hero: the Toxic Avenger. Now “Toxie” must go from outcast to savior, taking on corporate overlords and corrupt forces while trying to protect his son, his friends, and his community.
In Cineverse’s words: in a world where greed runs rampant, “justice is best served radioactive.”
A campaign with real-world impact
Beyond the film’s critical reception, Cineverse credited the movie’s campaign with helping eliminate more than $15 million in medical debt for over 10,000 people, in partnership with Undue Medical Debt.
Where it goes after Hulu
Cineverse said Hulu’s debut will be part of an exclusive window. After that, the film is expected to become available on other SVOD and FAST platforms, including Cineverse’s horror-focused streaming brand Screambox.
For viewers who don’t want to wait, Cineverse noted the film is currently available to rent (TVOD) or purchase digitally and on physical media.
About Cineverse
Cineverse describes itself as a “next-generation entertainment studio” that distributes more than 71,000 films, series, and podcasts, and includes properties such as Bloody Disgusting and a network of streaming fandom channels.
What to watch for
For Hulu subscribers, The Toxic Avenger could be a notable early-2026 add—especially for fans of horror-comedy, offbeat superhero stories, and cult franchises getting modern reboots.
Premiere date: Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026
Platform: Hulu
Source: PRNewswire (Cineverse), Jan. 6, 2026 — Read the release
Looking for an entertainment experience that transcends the ordinary? Look no further than STM Daily News Blog’s vibrant Entertainment section. Immerse yourself in the captivating world of indie films, streaming and podcasts, movie reviews, music, expos, venues, and theme and amusement parks. Discover hidden cinematic gems, binge-worthy series and addictive podcasts, gain insights into the latest releases with our movie reviews, explore the latest trends in music, dive into the vibrant atmosphere of expos, and embark on thrilling adventures in breathtaking venues and theme parks. Join us at STM Entertainment and let your entertainment journey begin! https://stmdailynews.com/category/entertainment/
and let your entertainment journey begin!
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
toys and kids electronics
Harry Potter x Care Bears Plush Collection Casts a Spell on Fans for 25th Anniversary Year
Basic Fun! unveils a Harry Potter x Care Bears plush collection for the 25th anniversary, featuring all four Hogwarts houses in 8-inch and 12-inch sizes.
Two pop-culture comfort zones are colliding in the best way this spring: Basic Fun! has teamed up with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products to launch a Harry Potter x Care Bears plush collection celebrating Harry Potter’s 25th Anniversary in 2026.
The crossover brings Hogwarts house pride to Care-A-Lot, with limited-edition Care Bears styled for Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin—built for collectors, longtime fans, and anyone who wants a little extra loyalty, compassion, and friendship on their shelf (or in their arms).
What’s in the Harry Potter x Care Bears collection?
The collection arrives in two sizes, each packed with house-specific details and anniversary touches.
12-inch Plush Hoodie Assortment
These larger bears come dressed for maximum cozy: super-soft mascot hoodies, Hogwarts house robes, and iconic house scarves in matching colors.
- Gryffindor House Tenderheart Bear
- Hufflepuff House Love-a-Lot Bear
- Ravenclaw House Wish Bear
- Slytherin House Grumpy Bear
Each 12-inch bear also features the Harry Potter 25th anniversary logo on their paw.
MSRP: $17.99 each (or $34.99 for a 2-pack)
8-inch House Bears Plush Assortment
Smaller, collectible, and ready for adventures, the 8-inch “besties” include house robes, scarves, and a house crest, plus a paw design that blends classic Care Bears charm with the Harry Potter anniversary mark.
- Gryffindor House Tenderheart Bear
- Hufflepuff House Funshine Bear
- Ravenclaw House Grumpy Bear
- Slytherin House Good Luck Bear
MSRP: $9.99 each
Why this crossover works
Basic Fun! says the goal was to connect two worlds that already share a common thread: comfort, imagination, and characters that fans stick with for decades.
“As the iconic Harry Potter franchise celebrates 25 Years of Magic, in honor of the first film in the series, we are beyond excited to connect the worlds of Care-A-Lot and Hogwarts for an enchanting crossover that’s rich in character details and filled with heart,” said Lisa Doiron, Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Basic Fun!
Cloudco Entertainment echoed that multi-generational appeal.
“Care Bears and Harry Potter have a unique ability to connect with fans of all ages,” said Robert Prinzo, Head of Global Licensing at Cloudco Entertainment. “Bringing them together was a fun and meaningful way to celebrate imagination, magic, and the comfort these brands have offered for decades.”
When and where to buy
According to the announcement, the Harry Potter x Care Bears plush are launching worldwide this spring, rolling out at retailers across North America, the UK, and the EU. Fans can also find them at major toy retailers starting this month.
For updates, follow @CareBears.
The bigger picture: 25 years of Harry Potter magic
The plush drop lands during a milestone year for the franchise, which continues to expand across films, stage productions, games, location-based experiences, and consumer products—with an HBO Original TV series based on the Harry Potter books also on the way.
If you’re the type who still knows your house without thinking about it—or you grew up with belly badges and Care-A-Lot life lessons—this collection feels like a collectible love letter to both.
Discover more from Daily News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
