Best entertainment of the week: Rio 2, High Life, The Fault in Our Stars

July 7, 2014

Every week Apple adds tons of new media content on iTunes — music, books, movies and more. It's impossible to keep up with all of it, but it's not impossible to pick out the very best. Here they are! This week we've got a new album from two giants in electronic music, animated fun for the kids, a tear jerker and more!

High Life - Eno-Hyde

The second collaboration between two legendary electronic musicians — ambient music pioneer Brian Eno and Underworld frontman and cofounder Karl Hyde. This is the second outing for the two in just a few months (a followup to Someday World, which just out in May). This album combines electronic sounds, voice, rhythms and guitar work to create a unique tapestry that you won't soon forget, if you're a fan of either of these giants in their field. The two principle influences the collaborators discuss for this new album is Steve Reich, the American composer who along with Philip Glass and others pioneered minimal music in the 1960s, as well as Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. Two seemingly disparate influences that come together for a memorable seven-track album.

$8.99 - Download now

Rio 2

The sequel to the hit 2011 computer animated movie, Rio 2 tells the story of Blu and Jewel, two macaws from Rio de Janeiro who travel to the Amazonian rainforest with their kids to help their human friends find other birds like them. Soon they run afoul of loggers, find warring factions of macaws and reunite with Jewel's long lost family. A huge international hit, Rio 2's now available to own on iTunes.

$14.99 - Download now

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger

Organized crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger terrorized South Boston for decades. But he had a secret: Bulger was an FBI informant for almost 20 years, ratting on the infamous Patriarca crime family in return for a blind eye to his own nefarious deeds. Learning from his former FBI handler than he was to be indicted on RICO charges, Whitey went on the lam for a decade and a half, becoming #2 on the list of America's Most Wanted behind Osama Bin Laden before he was finally apprehended - living a quiet life in Santa Monica, Calif. with his girlfriend. Learn Whitey's true story in this documentary, which is now playing in theaters. Available to rent.

$6.99 - Download now

Vicious

Ian McKellen (Gandalf, Lord of the Rings) and Derek Jacobi (Archbishop Cosmo Lang, The King's Speech) are Freddie and Stuart, a gay couple who have been together for 49 years in a Covent Garden flat in London. They have a peculiar love/hate relationship as they entertain guests, tend to their dog and weave themselves in and out of the lives of friends and neighbors.

$16.99 - Download now

The Fault In Our Stars - John Green

Sixteen year old Hazel is a cancer patient who relies on an oxygen tank to breathe. At her mother's behest she attends a support group, where she meets a boy named Augustus. They refuse to let their illnesses define them, although cancer can't help but figure hugely into their lives. They share a peculiar view of the world and a love that guides them. Tragic, funny, enlightening: Read the YA novel that served as the basis for the new hit film.