Month: February 2022

In the latest episode of the Facebook Watch show (Meta Watch show?) Cardi Tries…, the rapper’s latest dilettante endeavor gives her husband Offset a tattoo commemorating their wedding day. In a twist, though, Offset suggests giving her the same tattoo, so under the watchful eye of celebrity tattoo artist Nikko Hurtado, the couple draws each other matching tattoos of their wedding date that line up when they hold hands. The episode, fittingly, has dropped just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Funnily enough, this is the second wedding-themed episode of the show, which finds Cardi B, well, trying out a new job each week and reacting with her typical unfiltered charm, highlighting the skill and talent it takes to do things that a lot of us take for granted. In her prior wedding episode, Cardi tried out wedding planning, ultimately getting ordained and surprising the couple by humorously officiating their marriage. In an even sweeter turn of events, Cardi was given the opportunity to put her ordination to use once again when a chance, missed meeting with actor Kal Penn led to Penn asking Cardi to officiate his own wedding, something he seemed pretty serious about and Cardi was certainly down to do.

You can watch the episode on Cardi’s Facebook page.

Jack Reacher is the titular character in Lee Child’s aptly titled Reacher series, consisting of 26 (!) books about the said former U.S. Army major. One of those 26 novels was adapted into 2012’s hit film, Jack Reacher, starring none other than the overly-daring stuntman himself, Tom Cruise. But, as Cruise is famously, uh, vertically challenged, many were wondering just how tall Reacher is supposed to be?

In the novels, Reacher stands (literally) at a pretty honorable 6 feet, 5 inches, and described as “extremely tall, extremely broad, long-armed, and long-legged.” Cruise isn’t exactly the first person to come to mind, as he is 5 feet 7 inches, but Child was very pleased with his performance in the 2012 feature film. Some fans were disappointed with the lack of height on their main hero. So, when it came time to cast the Amazon Prime Reacher TV show, the height of the main role was crucial.

That’s why the role ultimately went to Alan Ritchson, known for his portrayal of Aquaman on the much-loved CW superhero series Smallville, alongside Superman. Ritchson is the exact height that author Child imagined Reacher to be. So there you go! Sorry, Tom Cruise.

Ritchson also starred as a teenage mutant ninja turtle in the 2014 live-action reboot, though his height probably wasn’t crucial for his role of a teenage turtle.

Like a far-right-leaning Terminator, Gina Carano is back! It was one year ago that the mixed martial artist-turned-actor lost her chance to be immortalized as a Star Wars action figure when she was fired from her role as Galactic mercenary Cara Dune in Disney+’s hit series The Mandalorian. In August, Carano announced that first post-Mandalorian gig would see her teaming up with right-wing sh*t disturber Ben Shapiro and his The Daily Wire. And now, the fruits of their collective labors are on display for all the world to see.

The Hollywood Reporter shared the first trailer for Terror on the Prairie, a new Western that the outlet describes as centering “on a pioneering family that fights back against a gang of vicious outlaws hellbent on revenge.” Carano co-stars alongside former Justified star Nick Searcy, yet another outspoken star who has stirred up controversy with some of his ultra-conservative opinions.

Jeremy Boreing, Shapiro’s The Daily Wire co-founder, issued a statement noting that just because their media outlet is conservative doesn’t mean their films will be. “When people hear that a conservative media company has entered the film business, they’ll often assume we’re making either hyper-politicized movies or milquetoast dramas,” Boreing said. “But we have no interest in producing Hillary’s Hard Drive Part III or Christmas Romance in the Rockies. We’re making top-quality entertainment that all Americans can love.”

You can make that determination for yourself by watching the trailer for Terror on the Prairie above.

With James Gunn expanding the DC Extended Universe thanks to his work on The Suicide Squad its hit spinoff, Peacemaker, it’s a fair question to ask if the next big DC property, The Batman, has any connection to that world. Several times in his HBO Max series, Peacemaker (John Cena) makes quips about Batman, and The Suicide Squad movie stars Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a longtime companion of Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker. However, those characters are connected to Ben Affleck‘s Batman and not Robert Pattinson‘s new take on the Dark Knight.

Despite The Suicide Squad being a soft quasi-reboot of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, the film and its spinoff from Gunn remained connected to the DCEU that was slowly being built by films like Justice League. In fact, while promoting Peacemaker in August 2021, Gunn revealed that Warner Bros. is no longer shying away from connecting the DC films. At least entirely.

While the DCEU continues to expand with films like Black Adam and The Flash, director Matt Reeves was given the go-ahead to create a completely separate universe for The Batman. Like Joker, it’s a separate thing with no connection to any of the DC films that preceded it, including The Suicide Squad.

“Warner Bros. has a multiverse where they’re exploring different ways to use the character … We don’t get involved in that,” The Batman producer Dylan Clark told Empire. “Matt is interested in pushing this character to his emotional depths and shaking him to his core.”

The Batman hits theaters on March 4.

At least one Astroworld Festival victim’s family didn’t appreciate their loved one being used as a prop by Kanye West when the volatile star demanded an apology from Billie Eilish on behalf of Travis Scott, calling Ye’s comments “hurtful” and “ridiculous,” according to Rolling Stone.

Bernon Blount, whose nine-year-old grandson Ezra Blount was the youngest victim of the crowd crush at Astroworld that left nine others dead and hundreds injured, said, “To hear Kanye’s words, that’s hurtful to us. What an idiotic thing to say.” Ezra’s grandmother Tericia Blount also had words for Kanye, saying, “I think it’s just crazy, and I hate to use that word, but I think it’s ridiculous. She’s making sure that she is caring for the patrons at her concert, and I just think that’s crazy of Kanye to even let that demand come out of his mouth.”

Eilish issued the statement for which Kanye demanded an apology at one of her recent shows, stopping performing until a distressed fan received medical attention. Explaining to impatient concert attendees why she wasn’t performing, she said, “We’re taking care of our people. I’m waiting for people to be OK until I keep going.” Reporting on the incident, some outlets interpreted her comment as a dig at Travis Scott, who reportedly continued performing during the crowd crush, at least 30 minutes after authorities declared a mass casualty event.

Kanye, taking his cue from one of those outlets — a gossip Instagram page that simply framed Billie’s statement as a straight-up diss — posted his all-caps apology demand on Instagram, threatening to cancel his upcoming Coachella headlining set otherwise. In response, Eilish commented, “Literally never said a thing about Travis. Was just helping a fan.”

The Blounts appear to be taking Eilish’s side in the disagreement, with Bernon telling Rolling Stone, “That’s crazy that he wants someone to apologize for putting the welfare of someone else before their profits. That’s someone who needed their asthma pump. They could have lost their life, right then. This world is twisted, and we have to stop doing this.” Terecia echoed this sentiment, saying, “I totally commend Billie Eilish for having that decency about her. I think what she did was wonderful, and I would love to tell her myself how brilliant and awesome she is for doing so.”

The 2022 BRIT Awards took place earlier this week, and Adele was the highlight of the evening, as she performed and won multiple awards. There was more to the show than her, though, as plenty of other artists made their voices heard. In the Best Rock/Alternative Act category, for example, Coldplay was nominated alongside Sam Fender (who won the award), Glass Animals, Wolf Alice, and Tom Grennan. If you ask Liam Gallagher, he doesn’t think Coldplay should have been up for the award at all.

Ahead of the ceremony, Gallagher spoke with Absolute Radio (as NME notes) and was asked for his thoughts on the category. When Coldplay was mentioned, Gallagher said, “Leave it out. Leave it out. They’re not rock, man. If they’re rock, man… Jesus. I mean, I like Chris Martin and he wrote some great albums and all that, when I think about it. But that new stuff is like… that ain’t rock, man. I don’t know what [alternative] means, but it’s not rock.”

He also correctly predicted that Fender would take home the prize before giving some praise to Wolf Alice, saying, “They do alright, man.”

Coldplay is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

For the second consecutive NFL season, the Super Bowl features a team playing in its own building. The Los Angeles Rams “host” the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium in Super Bowl LVI and, even if the Rams may not have their traditional home-field advantage in the corporate environment of the big game, Los Angeles does enter as the betting favorite.

The Rams pulled off a minor upset in the divisional round, knocking off Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in what turned out to be the final game ever played by the legendary quarterback. From there, Los Angeles needed a comeback to prevail over the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, and the Rams have won eight of the last nine games overall.

Los Angeles is flying high between a high-powered offense and a star-laden defense. No team was more “all in” than the Rams this season, using a bevy of assets to acquire players like Matthew Stafford, Jalen Ramsey, Von Miller and others. Stafford partnered with Cooper Kupp, the NFL’s most productive this season, to key a passing group featuring Odell Beckham Jr. and Van Jefferson. On defense, Los Angeles centers on Aaron Donald, arguably the most impactful defender in the NFL, and the Rams create havoc while aiming for upside.

Still, there is uncertainty around this matchup, and the Rams will need to be buttoned up in three key areas.

Keep The Heat On Joe Burrow

This isn’t breaking any ground. The Bengals have flagrant pass protection issues, and the Rams are terrific in getting after the quarterback. Cincinnati famously allowed nine sacks to a Tennessee defensive front that is solid, but not as explosive as what the Rams deploy, and the Bengals allowed 55 sacks in the regular season, No. 29 in the NFL. It is possible, or even likely, that Joe Burrow is more willing to use his legs considering the stage and the urgency, but Aaron Donald and Von Miller have massive advantages in their individual matchups.

In fact, Los Angeles generated 50 sacks in the regular season, No. 3 in the NFL, which makes for the most lopsided single positional matchup in this game between the Rams defensive front and the Bengals offensive line. It is safe to assume that the Bengals will have a few counters in place, simply because they have to understand this deficiency, but that could also allow the Rams to sit on short routes. Los Angeles generated 19 interceptions in the regular season, tied for third-most in the NFL, and the Rams have play-making on the backend. The pass rush has to be responsible and not allow Burrow’s playmaking and creativity to beat them, but a steady flow of pressure can work wonders for every other element of a defense.

Avoid Big Plays On The Backend

It’s certainly possible that Joe Mixon and the Bengals running game could have an effective day at the office. Mixon is one of the better pure runners in the NFL, and the Rams will be justifiably focused on slowing Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. With that said, the Rams actually need to be focused on Cincinnati’s passing game, and it isn’t all about the aforementioned pass rush. It would certainly be nice if the Rams “got home” repeatedly throughout the evening at SoFi Stadium, but Los Angeles is facing a Cincinnati offense with big-play potential.

For one, Chase is one of the more dynamic players in the league with the ball in his hands, and he is a threat to take it the distance on any touch. Beyond that, the Bengals lead the entire NFL in averaging 8.7 yards per pass attempt, and you can’t reach that number on just checkdowns and screens. The Bengals average just 4.0 yards per carry, and the Rams boast a top-five rushing defense on a per-play basis. That proficiency, coupled with an elite pass rush, is a strong baseline, but the Bengals can offset that if they hit a few big plays. Avoiding them is key.

Don’t Get Conservative

We’ve all seen this, both with the Rams and elsewhere in the NFL. Los Angeles was in a commanding position against Tampa Bay in the Divisional Round, only to turtle and almost join the Atlanta Falcons in the land of postseason infamy. Later in the playoffs, the Kansas City Chiefs, led by the NFL’s most dynamic offense, simply stopped doing, well, anything against the Bengals defense, blowing a 21-3 lead in the process.

It isn’t as if the Rams are favored by an enormous amount in this contest, with Los Angeles entering as something around a four-point favorite, but Los Angeles is “expected” to lead the proceedings. From there, Cincinnati has made its bones with comeback bids, including twice against Kansas City, and Rams head coach Sean McVay has a tendency to get very conservative. That includes play-calling issues, leaning far too much on a mediocre ground game at times, and punting when he shouldn’t punt and kicking field goals when he shouldn’t kick field goals.

Coaches don’t change their stripes overnight and, despite his age, McVay isn’t one of the more aggressive coaches in the NFL when it comes to the analytical revolution in game management. He doesn’t have to be in this game, but there is a pretty solid chance the Rams take an early lead when accounting for their own history and that of the Bengals. If that happens, Los Angeles needs to keep their foot on the gas, not relying on a running game that averages 4.0 yards per carry and instead leaning on a prolific passing offense that features a top-10 quarterback and the NFL’s best receiver. Overall, the Rams are the more talented team, and being too passive can bridge the gap in Cincinnati’s favor.

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — This is important

Sometimes a headline will stop you dead in your tracks. You’ll just be clicking around on the internet, minding your business, scrolling through this or that, when suddenly, pow, a collection of words will filter through your eyes and shut your brain down for a second. It happens to me more than I’d like to admit. It happened just this week, in fact, when I saw this headline in the Los Angeles Times: Joe Pesci Sells Extremely 1980s New Jersey Mansion For $5 Million.

Yes. Yes, I will click on that. And I did. With such speed and force that I almost spilled coffee on my laptop. And it brings me great pleasure to inform all of you that the payoff does not disappoint in the slightest. Stop right now and get a good mental image of what you think “Joe Pesci’s extremely 1980s New Jersey mansion” looks like. Really try to wrap your head around that phrase. Close your eyes if it helps.

What did you see? I’ll be perfectly honest here: it doesn’t matter what you saw, because there is no way you could have topped the reality.

Look at Joe Pesci’s house.

It’s… perfect. It’s perfect. It is, as billed, extremely 1980s. Look at all that glass. Look at how the houses surrounding it are like regular beach houses and then it’s sitting there in the middle of it all like Pablo Escobar had his entire home airlifted in from Miami Beach on a whim some Saturday afternoon. The walls might be made of solid cocaine. It’s a lovely home. That’s my point. And it gets better.

From the LA Times article:

The cream-colored home flaunts a curvaceous exterior topped by a glass atrium. Inside, a sculptural staircase winds its way upstairs.

Other highlights include a rounded dining room under a gold lighting fixture, as well as a memorabilia-filled media room complete with a “Lethal Weapon” pinball machine. There’s also a gold-colored barbershop chair, a carousel horse, an elevator, an office, eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms — including a primary suite with a private balcony.

A few things stand out here. And we are going to get to them shortly because, in a terrific twist on this story, there is a whole gallery of pictures at that link. Like, over a dozen. Did you see the thing about the Lethal Weapon pinball machine? That was not a lie. But it was not the full story. It is a Lethal Weapon 3 pinball machine. Look at this room.

A few things here:

• I love it
• I wish I had been in the room when someone decided to commission a Lethal Weapon 3 pinball machine
• I’m so proud of the realtor for leaving this room intact during the sale
• Please picture Joe Pesci sitting in a chair in this room just taking it all in while smoking a cigar

In fact, go ahead and click through the entire gallery and picture Joe Pesci in every room of this house. Look at this one, for example.

I can’t stop looking at it. I can’t stop imagining Joe Pesci giving a tour to his houseguests and describing all the fixtures in each room. It has been making me so happy all week long and I’m thrilled to be sharing it with you here. This is a great day.

But I know. I know you can’t focus right now. I know your brain has been stuck on the phrase “a carousel horse” since you saw it in the blockquote up there. Fine. Fine. I’ll show you the carousel horse. But please prepare yourself. It’s… a lot to take in.

Joe Pesci is the best. He has been the best for a long time. Think of all he’s done in his career, from Goodfellas to My Cousin Vinny to Home Alone. The man is an American treasure. He doesn’t deserve to have some bozo with a computer sitting around goofing on his New Jersey beach house. I know that. I know I’m probably in the wrong here. But I simply cannot stop thinking about some poor interior decorator setting up this room without telling him and Joe Pesci seeing it and saying, in the Joe Pesci voice, “What’s that friggin horse doin’ in there?”

Again, perfect. Lovely. My only tiny complaint is that this house sold before I had a chance to rent it out on AirBnB for a long weekend. Party at Brian and Joe Pesci’s house.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Saul time

It brings me great pleasure to report — exclusively, I believe — that Better Call Saul is coming back. Soon. Not, like, next week, but soon. This is wonderful news because Better Call Saul is so, so good. It’s one of those rare spinoffs that lives up to the original, and one of the very rare spinoffs that does that while also charting its own path. The degree of difficulty on this was staggering. It should not have worked, in theory, or practice. And yet, here we are, preparing for the final season with a real question lingering about whether it has or will surpass — in quality if not cultural penetration — its predecessor, Breaking Bad, one of the all-time great shows. It’s wild.

That’s the teaser for the new season up there. It is as vague as it is menacing, which is to say, “it is so vague and menacing.” It is also kind of funny, considering it says “mark your calendars” and then just straight-up does not include a date. What were we supposed to do here? Just block out every day through the end of the year? That’s not practical. I have a beach trip booked for July. You probably have plans, too. Specifics would be helpful.

Luckily, AMC went ahead and remedied the issue pretty quickly. A press release went out a few days later that told everyone exactly which dates to mark.

The 13-episode final season will roll out in two parts, with the first seven episodes launching April 18 and culminating with the series’ final six episodes starting July 11.

Two things are interesting here:

• Splitting them up like actually make the show eligible for Emmys in two different years (the cutoff is May 31), which is a nice little hustle if everyone planned it that way
• The premiere date, April 18, marks almost two years to the date since the last episode aired

There are good reasons for that second thing, to be fair. An ongoing global pandemic, for example. And the thing where the show’s star, Bob Odenkirk, had a heart attack on set last year. That was scary. Odenkirk opened up about it this week in a profile in the New York Times. And made it sound even scarier.

“I’d known since 2018 that I had this plaque buildup in my heart,” Odenkirk said. “I went to two heart doctors at Cedars-Sinai, and I had dye and an M.R.I. and all that stuff, and the doctors disagreed” on treatment, with one suggesting he start immediately on medication and the other telling him it could wait. He listened to doctor No. 2 and was fine — until this year, when “one of those pieces of plaque broke up,” Odenkirk said. “We were shooting a scene, we’d been shooting all day, and luckily I didn’t go back to my trailer.” Instead, he decamped to a space where he, Seehorn and Fabian liked to retreat during downtime: “I went to play the Cubs game and ride my workout bike, and I just went down.” He added, “Rhea said I started turning bluish-gray right away.”

I am glad Bob Odenkirk is alive. Bob Odenkirk is the best. Go read that whole profile if you don’t believe me. It will give you a new appreciation for the dude, or at least continue your ongoing appreciation of him. And it also contains this paragraph, which is kind of fascinating to me.

Odenkirk shares a home in Albuquerque with Rhea Seehorn and another actor from the show, Patrick Fabian (who plays the manicured law partner Howard Hamlin). I arrived the next morning and found Odenkirk in the kitchen, wearing jeans and running sneakers, showing no signs of the all-nighter he pulled. The house was built in the 1940s, Odenkirk said, by a contractor who specialized in office buildings, which accounted for its slight resemblance, from the outside, to a dental clinic, down to a ribbon of ornamental glass bricks installed beside the front door.

The reasons for this are laid out in the piece (loneliness, missing his family and the human connection, not wanting to live out of a hotel for two ninths or more), but the main thing I take away from it is that I wish they had set up cameras throughout the house and made it a reality show. I suspect it would have been pretty boring, just because it’s three busy adults and not half a dozen raucous 20-somethings, but still. I want it. Give it to me.

Thankfully, the entertainment industry tried to make this up to me…

ITEM NUMBER THREE — It is always nice when Hollywood does things that appear to be for me, specifically

It brings me great pleasure to report — exclusively again, I think — that Documentary Now is coming back soon, too. That show is almost frighteningly tailored to my interests. It’s a bunch of fake documentaries that play off of real documentaries and it stars a bunch of comedy nerds (Hader, Armisen, Mulaney, etc.) Some of them are legitimately incredible. I say this every time I discuss the show but I’m going to say it again because it’s still true and important: the episode titled “Juan Likes Rice and Chicken” — the show’s take on Jiro Dreams of Sushi — is one of my favorite half-hours of television ever made. Again, good show.

A press release announcing the show went out this week. It contained three of the episode summaries. Read this.

-Paying homage to fashion documentaries 3 Salons at the Seaside and The September Issue, Two Hairdressers in Bagglyport is a fly-on-the-wall portrait of a hair salon owner and her staff in the small coastal village of Bagglyport as they prepare their yearly stylebook.

-In the vein of When We Were Kings and other great explorations of sport, How They Threw Rocks chronicles the Welsh sport of Craig Maes, also known as “Field Rock,” and the iconic 1974 bout dubbed “The Melon vs. The Felon.”

-Drawing inspiration from My Octopus Teacher, My Monkey Grifter follows a filmmaker who forms a deep, emotional, and financially taxing relationship with a monkey who may have ulterior motives.

I must see “The Monkey Grifter” at once. I also hope they do one on McMillions. I need to see, I don’t know, let’s say special guest star Channing Tatum as Agent Doug. That would be great. For me.

That wasn’t the only Extremely Brian News that dropped this week. There was also this, which is important to me for completely different reasons.

Tara Reid is set to play an MI6 agent in upcoming espionage thriller “Cold Sun,” Variety can exclusively reveal.

Reid will play an inexperienced British spy called Marsha Ravencourt in the film, which has been billed as “Cagney and Lacey with a difference.”

To recap:

• Tara Reid
• As a British spy
• Named Marsha Ravencourt

This might be my favorite show now.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — An incomplete list of things I will do if I purchase the film rights to Lord of the Rings

Facts first: The film and gaming rights to The Lord of the Rings are going up for auction. There are a bunch of technical and boring legal reasons for this but the important things to know are that the rights are expected to fetch multiple billions of dollars and that it is kind of tied to the new Amazon show that’s coming out soon.

From Variety:

The timing of the sale process is not accidental. Amazon is set to premiere its long-awaited, mega-budgeted TV series rendition of the enduring “Lord of the Rings” saga, “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” on Sept. 2. Amazon is at the top of the list of prime candidates to pursue the additional rights now held by Zaentz.

Cool. Great. Neat.

And if you’re wondering if it’s all already getting messy in a way that is making a bunch of lawyers a whole bunch of money, buddy, I’ll tell you what: It sure is.

But it’s understood that in the Zaentz Co.’s view, substantial live-action film rights reverted back to them last year in part because Warner Bros. had not been actively developing new “LOTR” and related content. That development, plus the anticipation for the new Amazon series, was enough to convince Zaentz Co. that the time was ripe for a sale. Warner Bros. declined to comment but it is believed that the studio and Zaentz Co. are already at odds over who controls what when it comes to “LOTR” and “Hobbit” rights, which have been the subject of extensive litigation over the years.

Anyway, my point here is that I need one of you to loan me a few billion dollars — I’m good for it, I swear — so I can outbid Bezos and make the following changes in the next LOTR film: Frodo is named Detective Sonny Montecarlo now.

That’s it.

Everything else stays exactly the same. We might even just do the whole trilogy as a shot-for-shot remake. But now Frodo goes by “Detective Sonny Montecarlo.” And he wears a trenchcoat. And smokes a cigar. And plays by his own rules. But he gets results.

On second thought, do not give me those billions of dollars. Put them to better use. I can’t be trusted on this one.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — I must once again remind you that Abbott Elementary is a good show

Abbott Elementary is the rare network sitcom — On Television! Once A Week! — that has punctured through the discourse here in 2022 to become, like, a thing. Can you even remember the last show that really, truly pulled that off? Was it The Good Place? It might be The Good Place. It’s crazy to think about, if you take a few minutes to think about it. Do that sometime.

This is all earned, though. Abbott Elementary is a blast. Smart and sweet and funny and kind and, no, I’m not saying all of this just because it’s set in Philadelphia and it has given me the opportunity to explain Philly slang like “jawn” to multiple people since it premiered earlier this year. Watch it. Watch it with anyone. It’s good.

Creator and star Quinta Brunson sat down for an interview this week to discuss the show’s success. You should read it. She’s great. And she makes some really great points. Like, for example, these points.

“Network television, if I’m being honest, was just getting super formulaic, and I think that’s what made it not feel cool anymore,” she says. “Then streaming came out… and then all the comedies started getting super dark — because that became cool, for the comedies to get dark and pretty. Which is fine! But they’re dark. You can’t watch ’em with the whole family…. It’s not going to give you the same laughs as a network comedy.”

Abbott is a firmly family-friendly show, designed to tap into every audience quadrant. (“It’s not prestige television,” Brunson adds. “It’s TV for everybody.“)

This is good. I like it. There are 400,000 shows on 5,000 networks and streaming services. There’s room for all of it. We can have our heavier and more prestige-y comedies like a BoJack Horseman or a Righteous Gemstones. We can have straight-up silly stuff like The Afterparty or MacGruber. And we can have nice shows we can watch with our friends and family and end up feeling good after the credits roll. Any one of those can be good in their own way, and for you, or not for you. Like I said, there are enough options out there that it costs you very little to skip out on a show completely.

It’s cool when one works, though, however it happens, but especially when it unlocks something that conventional wisdom thought was lost to time. The lesson here is that execution is more important than style or genre. And that more shows should be set in Philadelphia. So two lessons, really.

READER MAIL

If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.

From Amanda:

You strike me as someone who has practiced acceptance speeches for awards you’re not even nominated for. I don’t mean that as an insult. I do it, too. I was doing it again this week after the Oscar nominations were announced. I pictured sitting in the crowd in my fancy outfit and the presenter saying “and the Oscar goes to” and then saying my name. I would strut up there pointing and waving at my fellow nominees to show I’m playful and humble.

I would start off with a “wow” or two and then I would get into it. Thanking my family and coworkers, maybe shouting out a childhood friend or two to give them a little thrill, etc. I have a pathetically large section of it all worked out. Tell me you do too. Don’t lie to me, Brian. Don’t lie!

Look, you don’t know me. You don’t know everything about me. I’m very complex and unique and mysterious. It is mighty presumptuous of you to assume I sit around practicing my acceptance speeches — while driving around, maybe from the doctor’s office to Wawa to get a smoothie on a weird 55-degree day in Pennsylvania, with a whole section in the middle about how surprisingly heavy the trophy is (“this sucker is dense”), just to pick an example completely at random and definitely not because I just did it on Wednesday — like a crazy person.

Leave me out of it.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To Pennsylvania!

The Giant Company has put out an alert to other beekeepers in the region after the recent theft of three beehives and their colonies from their corporate headquarters.

HONEY, COME LOOK AT THIS

HIVE GOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO TELL YOU

THE STREETS ARE BUZZING ABOUT THIS BEE HEIST

I WONDER IF THE COPS WILL DO A STING OPERATION

BEE HEIST

The hives contained colonies of approximately 60,000 bees, and were taken from the company’s headquarters on the Harrisburg Pike in Carlisle some time between Jan. 28 and Jan. 30.

The first question I have here is why and also how? That’s two questions, I guess. But still. Stealing bees does not seem like something I would like to do or be around while it is happening. Especially 60,000 of them. That seems like a lot of bees. Too many bees, to be honest. But I would describe, like, five bees as too many bees. So take that with a grain of salt, I guess.

I have this image in my head of one dude in an old Honda Civic with 60,000 bees in his backseat, just praying he does not hit a speed bump and agitate them. It seems like a really stressful situation. I do not plan on stealing any bees.

The theft comes at a time when bee populations are dropping nationwide, causing serious concern among the nation’s agricultural industry and environmentalists. Roughly one-third of the country’s food supply depends on insects such as honeybees to pollinate plants.

Well… crap.

Now I feel bad about making all those terrible puns earlier.

Kind of.

I feel kind of bad.

Not bad enough to delete them.

But a little bad.

It’s odd to think that Eminem and Kendrick Lamar, two of rap’s top entertainers, have rarely ever shared a stage but despite both being in the upper echelons of talent and proteges of master producer Dr. Dre, they’ve barely even collaborated musically, let alone performed together. However, that’s set to change this weekend as they take the stage along with Dre, Mary J. Blige, and Snoop Dogg for Super Bowl LVI’s heavily-anticipated halftime show at LA’s SoFi Stadium.

In an interview with SiriusXM’s Sway Calloway on his own Shade 45 station, Eminem admitted that the prospect of performing not just for the 70,000 or so football fans in attendance at the big game but also upwards of 20 million people watching at home is “f*cking nerve-racking.” As he explained to Sway, “There’s nothing more final than live TV… if you f*ck up, your f*ck up is there forever.” However, getting to share the stage with Kendrick might somewhat mitigate that apprehension, as Eminem agreed with Sway’s assessment of the Compton rapper as “the most electrifying vocalist of this generation.”

“Kendrick is at the very top-top tier of lyricists — not just of this generation, but of all time,” Em said. You can catch them live during Super Bowl LVI this Sunday.

As Robert Pattinson gets ready to make his debut as the Dark Knight in The Batman, the average moviegoer might understandably be confused about what happened to Ben Affleck and if Pattinson is simply taking over his Bat-role in the shared Justice League universe. In short, nope.

While The Batman was initially greenlit to be a solo vehicle for Affleck’s Batman, who would also serve as writer and director, the situation shifted when Matt Reeves stepped in as director followed by Affleck abandoning the role altogether after a grueling experience filming Justice League. With Affleck gone, Reeves had an opportunity to start completely fresh, free from the baggage of the previous films. He took his pitch to Warner Bros. who approved the director creating a separate standalone universe with Pattinson in the cape and cowl for a brand new story.

“Warner Bros. has a multiverse where they’re exploring different ways to use the character … We don’t get involved in that,” The Batman producer Dylan Clark told Empire. “Matt is interested in pushing this character to his emotional depths and shaking him to his core.”

As Warner Bros. has demonstrated with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, the studio is willing to buck the Marvel movie trend of forcing every comic book film to be connected. Pattinson’s The Batman will exist in its own Bat-universe, which is already starting to expand. At least two spinoff series focusing on Penguin and the Gotham PD have been announced for HBO Max.

The Batman his theaters on March 4.