Hot Takes: Gritty Gomorrah has shades of Game of Thrones

Gomorrah involves a tale as twisted as Game of Thrones.

What's hot in the world of entertainment? Chris Schulz takes a look.

WATCHING: Television feels like it's in limbo at the moment, with previous few new shows around. Let's face it, it's likely to be a little lean until the Game of Thrones juggernaut comes to an end. I may have found the next best thing, with stakes just as high as the Lannisters and the Tyrells. Gomorrah follows the battle between different drug cartels in Naples, and it's brutal. Like Thrones, characters can be offed without warning, often doing stupidly mundane things, like grabbing a coffee, riding a moped, or meeting a girlfriend. Season one is on Netflix, with subtitles, but two others have been made, and a fourth debuts this year. Can't wait.

STREAMING: Over the break, I took in a bunch of wonderful music festivals, from Wondergarden's New Year's antics to Cardi B's tongue-twisting antics at Bay Dreams. I love a good music festival almost as much as I love a bad one. Fyre Festival, Billy McFarland and Ja Rule's 2017 debacle in the Bahamas, in which punters paid thousands to attend an island-paradise festival headlined by Migos and Blink-182 only to find terrible food, a lack of amenities and barely any music, was undoubtedly a bad one. The failed festival is the subject of a new Netflix documentary debuting on the streaming service tomorrow, and I'm clearing my schedule for it.

WAITING: Aside from all the amazing music festivals we've just had, it's been a bit quiet over the past few weeks for big album releases. That changes tomorrow when rap star Future releases his seventh album, The WIZRD, and James Blake makes a big return with his fourth album, Assume Form. On the face of it, Atlanta's most well-known trap-rapper and the unassuming London-based electronica artist don't have much in common, but they both make headphone masterpieces requiring the listener to deep dive into them. Plus, Blake's new album is turning towards hip-hop, with appearances from Travis Scott and Andre 3000.

LISTENING: Warning: this new podcast from the creators of HowStuffWorks features a lot of banjo playing. If that's too Mumford & Sons for you, move on, there's nothing to see here. For everyone else, Happy Face unravels the story of Melissa Moore, an Oregon woman who grew up with Keith Hunter Jesperson as her father. He's also known as the Happy Face Killer, and the podcast details Moore's struggle coming to terms with having a serial killer as a father, someone who killed at least eight women until his capture in 1995. Grim, for sure, but also utterly compelling, and a different take on the true crime genre.