Happy Valentine’s Day, to those who celebrate! Ya know, I’ve always hated that little addendum: “To those who celebrate”. It’s like “DUH!” To anyone else, it’s just Friday. Still, they make you say shit like that these days, just to cover your bases. But also, I don’t think anyone is just dying to chime in with “Well, actually, I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, because it’s a ‘made up’ holiday, created by the greeting card industry.” Wait, who am I kidding? I live on the internet. OF COURSE there’s someone dying to say that! And that’s why people suck.
I went to see Captain America: Brave New World last night, but don’t worry about spoilers. I won’t talk about it until next week’s installment. I didn’t understand why they were releasing it on Valentine’s Day weekend, totally missing that it’s also President’s Day. I don’t have to work Monday! Huzzah! We’ve got to celebrate these “traditional” holidays while we still can. Pretty soon, Google Calendar is gonna send you a reminder that it’s Barron’s birthday, with a CashApp link attached…
Trailer Park
G20 (Prime Video, April 10)
I’ve noticed an influx of Black Lady President projects recently, letting me know Hollywood thought the country was going in a different direction than it did. So, now we end up with DEI Captain America and Die Hard in a Bonnet, in projects that I’m not sure are going to receive the push they might have with Kamala in The Big Chair. I love when cast reunions occur in other projects, so it’s fun to see Anthony Anderson back as Marsai Martin’s dad, from their days as a family in black-ish. Honestly, I’m surprised to see Anderson as The First Gentleman, as he hails from the early 00s, where a lot of his characters suffered from toxic masculinity. Dre Johnson would have felt he was “looking like First Bitch” to the American Public, so I’m curious to see how Anderson goes about this character. I mean, the film itself looks like it has every trope of this kind of film, so it really comes down to the character work. Rod, over on The Black Guy Who Tips, used to call this kind of project an “Impossible White Man Movie”, as the star was always a white man, doing shit that should otherwise be impossible for most people. The interesting thing with that genre, however, is they have tried to diversify it in recent years, like Rebel Ridge on Netflix. So, I’m interested to see what happens when you get some chocolate in your white man movie.
Friendship (Theaters, May)
Of course it’s A24! This looks like the kind of thing that might have been developed by Williams Street for Adult Swim, especially since those guys love Rudd for their live action stuff. And can Tim Robinson do anything bad? I’ll see it. I won’t see it in the theater. I’ll probably even forget about it, and stumble across it on IFC one night in 2027. But I’ll see it.
I’ll Be Home For National Margarita Day (Lifetime, Feb 19)
I know my generation hates ads these days, which I find crazy, since we grew up with them. They’re not some newfound annoyance. That said, I am annoyed by this new form of marketing that seems to only happen over on Lifetime. It was kicked off by a similar KFC project, starring Mario Lopez, a couple years back. Basically, some brand decides to exploit the “Lifetime Movie Formula” in a way to sell their wares. This time around, it’s Chili’s, in what appears to be a push for their margaritas? I mean, I’d expect this kind of thing from Lopez and even Maria Menounos here. But Taye Diggs?! Did Idina make ALL the money in that family?! You gotta do this, bro? Plus, Maria at least got an executive producer credit. Did Taye just do it for a plate of jalapeno poppers? Yeah, I’m probably gonna watch it. It’s only 15 minutes long. We’ve basically seen 1/7th of it in the trailer alone!
Thunderbolts* (Theaters, May 2)
See, THIS is how I want to feel when I watch an MCU trailer. I haven’t gotten this feeling in a while. Certainly didn’t get it for Brave New World, which was, admittedly, stealing a page from the political thriller vibe of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I also didn’t get it from the retro lovefest that The Fantastic 4: First Steps appears to be. No, I love a ragtag group of losers, set to a song I have loved my whole life. Starship never gets enough credit, and I’m tired of people shitting “We Built This City”, while we’re at it! Anyway, I feel like Marvel sort of does best when it can work with the lesser knowns. Look what they did for Guardians of the Galaxy! Sure, it doesn’t always work (pretty much everything from Phase 4 can attest to this), but there’s a lot of promise there. It’s reminiscent of what launched the MCU in the first place. Commoners hate to hear this, but Iron Man, Captain America, Thor… NOT great sellers when that first Iron Man movie came out. As far as comics, Marvel was living off X-Men and Spider-Man. Anything else was just marginal income. And they’d already sold off the movie rights to those popular characters, so they had to make do with what they still had. And The MCU was born. There’s no Avengers, the world needs saving, and someone has to step up to the plate. Outside of the Multiverse shenanigans, a lot of this phase seems to be about self discovery in the face of a new world. Sam might not be Steve, but he can still offer something to the world with that shield. These guys have made some mistakes, but they, too, have something to offer. I like that narrative. I’m excited!
Run The Numbers
Here’s where my reading totals stand at the end of this week:
I read some really Image good trade paperback collections this week, including Chip Zdarsky’s Newburn, as well as started the Geoff Johns Ghost Machine universe, with Geiger Vol 1 and Junkyard Joe. Let me know if y’all want me to go into detail on any of those. Oh, and I checked out SilverHawks #1 from Dynamite. It was…fine, but they really should have sprung for a better artist. I don’t know if the original choice dropped out, or if Nick Barrucci was just being cheap again. Either way, the art does the concept a disservice.
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- In a welcome bit of good news, FX has renewed English Teacher for a second season
- In an insane bit of mindfuckery, the Department of Defense renamed North Carolina’s Fort Liberty *back* to its prior name of “Fort Bragg”. The name had been changed during the Biden administration, since the base was originally named after Braxton Bragg, who was a former Confederate General. So, they decided to change it to the GI Joe playset name of “Fort Liberty”. Well, Republicans, hating change, said “Hold up! Wait a minute!” And they found ANOTHER Bragg! So, now the base is named after Private First Class Roland Bragg, who actually had a relatively unimpressive service record, but since when did “facts” matter? “What? No, this is JIMMY Dahmer.” Seriously, I have never read a more desperate attempt to make a Nobody sound important, that wasn’t written by that person himself.
- Netflix is developing a Dungeons & Dragons series, which is just what every DnD player wants: a scripted, closed world narrative generated by Hollywood! There’s a reason nobody went to see that movie, despite the fact I’ve heard it’s “not bad”.
It was Kendrick. Do I have to go into detail? I’m not sure I even know how. The thing about having pop culture blind spots is that I have to acknowledge something is a big deal, even if I don’t know why. I can’t tell you how the Drake/Kendrick feud began. Thankfully, there’s a Wikipedia timeline. At the end of the day, though, I don’t really have a horse in that race, as I don’t know anything about modern hip hop. Everybody seems to have “Lil” or some spelling of “Cardi” or “Carti” in their name. From the sidelines, I know that Drake is the pop darling, the household name. He was the wheelchair kid from Degrassi! Meanwhile, Kendrick is favored by true hip hop heads – the same dudes who’ll swear Nas is the greatest of all time, yet he never had a track on Now Vol 8. Still, Kendrick won a Pulitzer, which is one of the last awards that actually still means something. Anyway, I’m clearly out of my element.
I’ll admit, though, I took notice when Kendrick released “Not Like Us”, mainly because it was impossible to escape last year. Still, I didn’t understand the significance of all the barbs, but I knew that you don’t just run around, calling a man a pedophile all willy nilly. Yeah, Drake did it to himself, talking about how he was texting with Millie Bobby Brown, but there are slander and libel laws on the books! In the 90s, that was enough to get a man shot, but today it’s enough to have a process server at your door. That’s where we fight our battles now. Even on The Streets. Needless to say, Kendrick had a Hell of a year in 2024. He’d go on to sweep the Grammys, mere weeks before his planned performance as last weekend’s Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show.
All eyes were on Kendrick, as folks wondered if he’d perform his biggest – and award-winning hit – on the largest stage on television. Honestly, I was hoping he didn’t. I was scared they needed to have Drake on suicide watch. I mean, we’d already reached this part of the feud months ago:
At that point, Kendrick was just shooting up a corpse, as I guess Drake just decided to move on? Not address it? All I know is that dude dropped 14 tracks of love songs TODAY, while folks are still talking about how Kendrick destroyed him on the field. The greatest trouncing on the field didn’t even happen between the Chiefs and the Eagles, but rather between Kendrick and his opponent watching on the other side of the TV screen. And Kendrick performed the song. He, wisely, didn’t actually say “pedophile”, but he performed it, smiling the whole time. And he brought out Drake’s ex, Serena Williams, to crip walk during the performance. There’s “petty”, and then there’s the masterclass in petty that Kendrick has been teaching.
I haven’t even gotten into the political symbolism of the performance, with the image of the American flag, carried by nothing but black and brown bodies. A certain demographic had a FIT with that! Basically, if you have an uncle, whose Facebook profile has “School of Hard Knocks” listed under Education, just know that he almost wrecked his truck driving home that night. During what might be our last official Black History Month, on a field where “End Racism” had been removed so as not to upset the visiting president, Kendrick said “Not so fast…”
I don’t think there’s even a question about it here, but no one had a week quite like Kendrick Lamar, which is why he had the West Week Ever.
