Category: News

Ivan Reitman’s Stripes recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a limited run in select theaters, which was my initial excuse for a rewatch, though it turned out to be relevant in other ways.

Admittedly, Stripes isn’t a movie that I’ve thought about much in the four decades since its release. It’s been eclipsed in the cultural memory even by its SNL-vehicle peers of the same era — Animal House (1978), Caddyshack (1980), Blues Brothers (1980) National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), and Ghostbusters (1984). Stripes existed more for me as a “boob movie” than a comedy, joining Revenge Of The Nerds on the list of “VHS tapes to put on when the parents were distracted” and emblematic of an era when comedy and full frontal nudity were strangely inextricable (almost certainly the legacy of the National Lampoon, the dominant comedic force of the era).

Under the circumstances, rewatching Stripes in 2021 is at least partly an anthropological endeavor. Certainly, it’s a classic boob movie for boys of a certain era. But is it more than a boob movie?

Bill Murray and Harold Ramis headlined in an era before Bill Murray had fully emerged as a movie star. Ghostbusters was probably the turning point, with Murray fully coming into his own in the late 80s/early 90s, with the string of Scrooged (1988), What About Bob? (1991), and Groundhog Day (1993). Before that, his cinematic output was decidedly mixed, with movies like Meatballs in 1978 (barely watchable today) and Where The Buffalo Roam in 1980, Murray’s weird, bad take on the Hunter S. Thompson mythos that probably came out a decade too early.

In Stripes, Murray was famous, but still more of a “star in the making.” Initially, it wasn’t even written as a Murray vehicle. According to Reitman, the script for Stripes began as an idea for “Cheech and Chong Join The Army.” Reitman sold it as such, but Cheech and Chong themselves ended up wanting too much creative control. The project was rejiggered for Murray and Ramis, who don’t especially seem like weed guys, though the finished product retains in many ways the feel of a loosey-goosey stoner comedy. It’s of a piece with boomer comedy touchstones like Animal House and Caddyshack — whether you find them subversively anarchic or just sort of half-assed is sort of in the eye of the beholder. For me it’s a bit of both; sometimes it feels like they were onto something, other times it just feels like they were just on something.

Stripes stars Murray and Ramis as John and Russell, two buddies living in New York City, working as a cab driver and an English-as-a-second-language teacher, respectively. Murray’s model girlfriend, played by Roberta Leighton, shows up just long enough to walk around their apartment topless before breaking up with John on account of he’s too much of an incorrigible slacker. It is, yes, part of a pattern of women being treated as largely ornamental in Stripes. It’s mostly just a product of its time, though arguably much lower on the problematic scale than, say Revenge Of The Nerds (the pseudo rape scene) or even American Pie (filming the exchange student changing for laffs).

“It’s just not that cute anymore,” John’s girlfriend tells him, about his slacker ways.

“…It’s a little cute,” John teases.

Carefully maintained insouciance has been Bill Murray’s calling card basically since the beginning of his career, but he was still limited as an actor at this stage. It wasn’t until his slightly melancholy interior began to seep through his blasé exterior and humanized the whole that he developed the range we know and love him for now. Early on, and especially here, Murray’s aloofness is more like an impenetrable shell. Comedically-speaking, it mostly works, vaguely arrogant as it is, but it’s hard not to identify with the people in the story who get fed up with John’s shit. 40 years have sapped the “lovable asshole” character of much of its novelty value.

John decides to join the army on a whim, figuring it’s the only way to give his life some direction (and maybe get chicks in the process). He convinces his pal Russell to go along with it. Russell’s motivation here is a little thin, but I suppose the idea is that he can’t resist his old aloof pal, John. Anyway, no need belaboring an obvious contrivance. There’s a brief, funny scene at the army recruitment office, where the recruiter asks whether John and Russell are homosexuals.

JOHN: “You mean, like, flaming?”

RUSSELL: “No, we’re not homosexual — but we’re willing to learn.”

JOHN: “Yeah, would they send us someplace special?”

Credit to Stripes for writing a gay joke that’s still funny and relatively unproblematic 40 years later.

After that, John and Russell are off to basic training, joining a rag-tag group of enlistees that includes John Candy as “Ox” (the fat guy) and Conrad Dunn as Francis, who demands to be called Psycho. “Anyone calls me Francis, I’ll kill ya,” he tells the group. Which sets up arguably Stripes‘ most enduring line: “Lighten up, Francis.”

It’s hard to tell whether the Army was drastically different in 1981 or if Reitman and Murray were just applying what they’d learned on Meatballs, but Stripes‘ depiction of the Army is a lot like a glorified Summer camp, complete with gettin-to-know-you games played in a circle. It’s hard to imagine R. Lee Ermey standing for this.

John and Russell join what is, essentially, the Bad News Bears of Army units. Sergeant Hulka, played by veteran western character actor Warren Oates, is the acting standout, giving weird depth to what could easily have been the stereotypical “hardass drill sergeant” character (see: Ermey, R. Lee). Yet like John’s girlfriend, you end up weirdly identifying with Hulka, or at least bits of him, trapped as he is between his impenetrably insouciant new recruits and a sexually deviant commanding officer, played by John Larroquette. Larroquette’s Captain Stillman wears an ascot like a dandy while spying on women showering through a telescope (this scene, along with the later mud wrestling interlude, being most of the reason Stripes was “a boob movie”). Not enough “effeminate, megalomaniacal general” characters in comedy these days, I always say.

Eventually, Larroquette’s character inadvertently takes out Oates’ with an errant artillery shell, leaving the Bad News Bombardiers without a leader a week before the big drilling parade. Returning to the barracks after making love to some sexy MPs, played by Sean Young and PJ Soles, John and Russell find their compadres dejected and ready to quit. He gives them a Blutarsky-esque pump up speech — “We’re the US Army! We’ve been kicking ass for 200 years! We’re 10 and 1!” — and they stay up all night practicing. They show up late to the next day’s parade, not in dress uniforms, but stepping and marching and chanting with the panache and unity of a fraternity at a traditionally black university. Stripes clearly came from the Blues Brothers era, when white guys simply singing or dancing was its own joke, no funny lyrics or context required. For me, it doesn’t quite land as a joke or a believable situation, but it’s pleasant enough.

The team’s surprisingly good performance at the gun dancing competition wins them a trip to Italy, to debut the new “EM-50 urban assault vehicle” (basically an armored RV) at a military trade show. They go AWOL touring Europe with their girlfriends and end up having to rescue their unit from Czechoslovakia. Just as with Full Metal Jacket, Stripes loses a lot of steam after basic training. Perhaps it’s just an eternal truth, that the idea of joining the military is much more intriguing than actually being in the military. Just ask anyone in a patriotic t-shirt about the time they almost served.

Most of the value of Stripes in 2021 is what an anachronism it is. Not just for the bare breasts and white guys singing, but for the depiction of American Empire at arguably its greatest period of calm in 100 years. We had pulled out of Vietnam years earlier and Ronald Reagan, the famous Cold War revivalist, had only been president for about six months. The idea of Czechoslovakia as “enemy territory” is funny now, but even the movie itself acknowledges the silliness of it (“Russell, come on, it’s Czechoslovakia,” John says after Russell suggests rescuing the unit). The movie is necessarily patriotic in certain ways, its protagonists being Army recruits who have to “save the day” after all. In fact, it was even made with the full cooperation of the US Army, and shot on an actual Army base, which is amazing to think about in and of itself.

Yet even Stripes‘ patriotism is heavily tongue-in-cheek. John’s remark about “we’re 10 and one!” in the middle of his pump-up speech, for example. The whole movie is suffused with the idea that the military is this weird relic of olden times. “What does the military do now, anyway? March around twirling their guns and going to glorified car shows? Join the Army? Gosh, what a silly idea!”

As Reitman told an Army reporter earlier this year: “I felt like it was time for another service comedy. We were in peaceful times, it was post-Vietnam, and I thought it would great to have some comedic look at the Army that would not be another protest movie. Those had been a staple of Hollywood.”

Though it’s certainly not “a protest movie,” as Reitman puts it, Stripes still feels subversive to modern eyes, which probably says more about the social climate in which it was created than the creators’ intentions.

As someone who spent a decent portion of my formative years in the post 9/11 years, when even your high school marching band t-shirt probably had an American flag on the back, it’s refreshing, almost shocking, to see the military not treated with that kind of post-W Bush-era reflexive deference. Even before 9/11, I remember a guy loudly saying “that’s treason!” at the screen while his girlfriend tried to shush him during the scene in Saving Private Ryan in which the weenie translator frees his German prisoner. That was in 1998. Even in 1994’s In The Army Now, which shares the same basic slackers-join-the-Army blueprint as Stripes, and was released in the relative lull between Gulf Wars, the comedic emphasis was more on Pauly Shore’s fish-out-of-water persona. Where Stripes is about two average-ish Joes joining the military, In The Army Now is about a wacky weirdo joining the military. John and Russell don’t really change that much, mostly they change the military.

Stripes is weirdly refreshing in this way, not because I desperately needed to see the military disrespected, it’s just that only a vanishingly small portion of my life was ever spent with the US not actively engaged in a war, proxy war, or pseudo war somewhere. And with the advent of the all-volunteer Army, that fake deference is mostly all we ask of our citizenry in times of conflict. (One joke in Stripes is that the unit’s dumb guy joined up because “I was going to get drafted anyway,” not realizing that there wasn’t a draft anymore).

The volume was turned way down on world affairs in Stripes. Rewatching it 40 years later, it’s animated not so much by nostalgia for movies that they don’t make like this anymore, but by a yearning for a world that didn’t seem so relentlessly serious and apocalyptic.

Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

It’s been almost exactly three years since Nicki Minaj told her fans she would be retiring from music to focus on starting a family. While Nicki’s retirement wasn’t exactly permanent, the rapper still took time off of music to focus on having her first child with her husband Kenneth Petty. Ever since, rapper has clearly been loving watching her baby reach all of his developmental milestones, like his first-ever words.

Nicki has yet to tell her fans what her baby’s real name is, but she affectionately refers to him as “Papa Bear.” The rapper took to Instagram to give some updates about the 11-month-old, revealing that he just said some of his first words. Thankfully, the whole thing was caught on camera — and it’s about as adorable as it gets.

The video shows Papa Bear sitting on Nicki’s lap next to his father. Nicki keeps coaxing Papa Bear to speak, waving his arms at the camera. The baby then clearly says the word, “Hi,” which sends Nicki over the moon as she gasps in excitement.

In other Nicki news, the rapper briefly appears on a track from Drake’s anticipated Certified Lover Boy album. Nicki’s voice sample is featured on the track “Papi’s Home,” a collaboration fans had been looking forward to since Nicki hinted that Drake was in her studio a few months ago.

For some who are terminally online, the phrase “Hubby started running fever. I have the paste” may go down as one of the most haunting moments of a deadly pandemic stretching ever closer toward its second full year. It hasn’t been great, but at this point, if you’re a fully vaccinated person following best social distancing practices and using masks, there’s really not much more you can do to help those who cannot help themselves.

Which is why the rise of anti-vaxxers using an animal dewormer called Ivermectin is so baffling to watch from afar. Through a series of far right grifts, the animal medication has become an object of obsession from people who believe the entirely unproven claim that the “horse paste” can prevent or cure coronavirus. In some places, people are overdosing on the paste that’s not properly dosed for humans, and even Joe Rogan is downing the paste to stave off his own COVID-19 infection.

The Daily Show is certainly not afraid to seize upon weird right-wing phenomena and make fun of it. Recently, the show has advertised a fake law firm for Capitol rioters. And on Friday, that fake commercial trend continued with an ad for an even “more effective horse medicine” to use instead of just, you know, getting a vaccine.

“The only COVID vaccine designed specifically for horses,” the ad reads, which is a willful misunderstanding of why anti-vaxxers are looking for any solution to coronavirus but the vaccination designed for humans.

Videos like these do nothing to actually end the pandemic, but they do cast a stark light on the lengths people will go to avoid following best practices because of their conspiracy-addled brains. But maybe, just maybe, it’s a kernel of a good idea for vaccine marketers if things stay as bleak as they currently are.

It’s no secret that Drake and Kanye West haven’t been on the best of terms in the last few years. Both men released albums just a week apart whose primary rollout strategies seemed to consist mostly of the two trying to out-troll each other (which kinda worked, considering the streaming numbers and Twitter chatter both have generated so far). Meanwhile, it’s also pretty widely accepted that Jay-Z is one of if not the greatest of all time in rap, so scoring an appearance from him is tantamount to having Michael Jordan bless your hoop career.

So it’s pretty funny that both Donda, which dropped last week, and Certified Lover Boy, which came out earlier this morning, both prominently feature verses from the Brooklyn business mogul, despite Kanye and Drake fighting like two cats in a sack for the past several months (or rather, sniping at each other like Love & Hip-Hop cast members at a reunion special, take your pick). At least, the denizens of Rap Twitter seem to think so, breaking out the jokes and the memes to point out Hov’s split loyalties.

Interestingly enough, the situation is somewhat similar to one involving two of these personalities nearly 20 years ago. Kanye once found himself bridging the gap between Jay-Z and his erstwhile rival Nas at the height of their feud over the “King Of New York” title, producing beats for both men’s albums including the infamous “Takeover” diss from Jay to Nas. Perhaps Jay sees himself playing the vital role Kanye played back then, having the age and experience to make amends with Nas in the meantime (although you could argue things haven’t always been exactly peaceful between them). Who knows? Until then, have a laugh at some of the many, many Twitter jokes about the situation below.

The Killers are fresh off the release of Pressure Machine, their second album in under a year. Last night, they brought a slice of the concept album to The Late Late Show with their pre-taped performance of “In Another Life.”

Ahead of the performance, Brandon Flowers took some time to chat with James Corden. Of Pressure Machine, he said, “These are a different type of song. People are accustomed to hearing big anthemic songs from The Killers, and we feel that pressure when we go in the studio, to deliver and to keep people in the seats at the arenas and the stadiums. And so when everything got shut down, these other songs, in this silence, were able to bloom that otherwise would have been to quiet to compete with your typical Killers song.”

He also noted of “In Another Life,” “I think a lot of people can identify with thinking about those moments in your life and these decisions you made, and they may have seemed micro, but you wonder how big they ended up being and what road they led you down. I think that that’s really where this came from, and me wondering, had I not left… there’s been so much made about The Killers being from Las Vegas, but I spent so much of my formative years in this little town in rural Utah. You wonder about what your life would have been like had I stayed.”

Watch clips from The Killers on Corden above.

Pressure Machine is out now via Island Records. Get it here.

In a solid move that proves he takes the health and safety of his fans seriously, Patton Oswalt has pulled four dates from his upcoming comedy tour after venues refused to put COVID restrictions in place despite the continue rise in cases from the Delta variant. Oswalt wanted proof of vaccination and a recent negative test before allowing audiences to enter, and while most venues complied with the reasonable request, others did not.

“I’ll give you one guess as to which state it was,” Oswalt said in an Instagram video announcing the canceled tour dates. While that state was, of course, Florida, it wasn’t the only one. Oswalt also had to pull a show in Salt Lake City, Utah. Via Variety:

“This difficult decision was made due to the rising numbers of COVID cases. I have an ego but my ego is not big enough to think that people should die to hear my stupid comedy,” the performer said. “Hopefully in the future we can rebook those, when sanity holds sway again.”

You can Oswalt’s Instagram video below:

For anyone planning to catch “Patton Oswalt Live: Who’s Ready To Laugh?” comedy tour and live in the affected states, here are the dates that have been pulled:

12/27 – Fort Lauderdale
12/29 – Orlando
12/30 – Clearwater
1/7 – Salt Lake City

If you’d like Patton to return to your city, get the jab and mask up until the cases go down. It’s that easy.

(Via Patton Oswalt on Instagram)

Training camps will open across the NBA in less than one month. That may seem wild given that Summer League concluded only two weeks ago in Las Vegas, but the league is in the midst of another shortened offseason and the bright lights will come on in the very near future. One of the staples of the offseason is the discussion (or argument) about where teams might fall in the standings, and die-hards often use season win total over/under projections as a baseline for this exercise.

To that end, it is time to go over or under on each team in the Southwest Division. For record-keeping purposes, each line below comes from the folks at DraftKings and they will come to you in alphabetical order.

Dallas Mavericks – Over 48.5

This isn’t a number that I love, in part because the Mavericks hired Jason Kidd. Dallas won at a 48-win pace a season ago, even with a rough start, a thoroughly underwhelming season from Kristaps Porzingis, and the knowledge that the swap involving Seth Curry and Josh Richardson ended in disaster for the Mavericks. That should forecast optimism, particularly with Luka Doncic as a leading MVP candidate and some reasonable moves on the margins with Reggie Bullock and the re-signing of Tim Hardaway Jr. As such, the Mavericks feel like an Over team to me, but that optimism is at least slightly mitigated by what I view as a marked coaching downgrade.

Houston Rockets – Under 27.5

Before we get to the ugly stuff, I’m excited about Houston’s future. Jalen Green looks the part of a future standout, Alperen Sengun is incredibly fun, Usman Garuba and Josh Christopher are quite intriguing, and the Rockets still have Christian Wood, Kevin Porter Jr. and others. The Rockets should even be fun to watch but, after a 17-win disaster a year ago, Houston isn’t going to be good and they have incentive to lose late in the season. Young teams are often bad teams. That’s good to remember amid the future-facing excitement.

Memphis Grizzlies – Under 41.5

The Grizzlies are another tricky evaluation. Memphis openly prioritized the future over the present, both with the trades involving Jonas Valanciunas and Grayson Allen, as well as the draft-night selection of Ziaire Williams. With that in mind, one could expect regression from a 38-34 record last year, especially when taking into account how good Valanciunas was for Memphis. On the other hand, the Grizzlies got only 11 games from Jaren Jackson Jr., and he was clearly limited even when playing. Jackson Jr. should help Memphis, but the organizational priority seems to aim beyond 2022 and the West should be competitive. I still don’t love it, but lean Under.

New Orleans Pelicans – Under 39.5

Which New Orleans team is real? Their 31-41 record would put them on a 35-win pace over an 82-game sample. Their point differential, however, is closer to a 39-or-40 win team. That is the starting point of this breakdown, but the Pelicans… might actually be worse on paper? New Orleans does upgrade from Steven Adams to Jonas Valanciunas, albeit at considerable asset cost, but the Pelicans downgrade from Lonzo Ball to Devonte Graham. Then, there is a clear unknown at head coach, and it isn’t as if their competition got worse. Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram are good, but it’s tough to figure out the overall direction in New Orleans. That means an Under lean.

San Antonio Spurs – Over 28.5

If you haven’t seen the over/under for the Spurs, you’re forgiven for falling out of your chair. After making the playoffs in 22 straight seasons, the Spurs have now missed in back-to-back years, but San Antonio was still the equivalent of a 37-or-38 win team a season ago. Now, they are projected for a win total under 30? The Spurs do lose DeMar DeRozan, who was a key piece of their offense, but San Antonio does bring in very helpful vets in Thad Young and Doug McDermott (although Young could be on the move sooner than later). Those pieces, coupled with talent on the perimeter and the (very) important presence of Gregg Popoovich, leads me to the Over. They won’t be good, but they’ll be competitive.

At this point, people reacting to Lil Nas X’s provocations are doing more work to promote him and his music than he is. Every time he comes up with a colorful troll, they react loudly on the internet, drawing more attention to his stunts and the work behind them. He responds with another promotional prank and they lose it all over again. At this point, it’d probably be best for them if they stopped reacting, which is exactly what Nas wants.

But then we wouldn’t get gems like watching Twitter relentlessly roasting Boosie for his borderline obsession with the 22-year-old rapper turned pop star. Certainly, it’s a lot of fun to just imagine Boosie sitting around thinking about Nas’ latest antics and getting very … ahem … piqued about it. In this case, the antic in question is Nas’ recently released “pregnancy” photoshoot (with his album Montero, his baby — get it?), which was published by no less an outlet than People magazine — a subversive, historical act in itself.

Lil Nas seems to have long since decided that since he’ll be made a public spectacle anyway, he’s going to control the narrative and wring every advantage for himself out of the media’s invasive coverage, lightly satirizing the public fascination with the lives of celebrities along the way. And Boosie can’t stand it. “NAS X WTF U JUST DONT STOP,” he tweet at three o’clock in the morning. “I THINK HES GOING TO TURN AROUND N SUCK ONE OF HIS BACK GROUND DANCERS DICK ON NATIONAL TV.”

While that’s … well, not something that you even can do because the FCC is a thing, it’s very interesting that that’s where Boosie’s mind goes. The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks — or at least, fans Twitter do. It didn’t take long for folks to question why Boosie seems to spend so much time thinking about Lil Nas X when he could be doing, y’know, literally anything else. When Montero does come out, it’s easy to wonder whether the Louisiana rap legend will be one of the first to hit “play” while pondering what Nas’ next move will be.

Before there was Rick and Morty, there was Doc and Mharti.

Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty is one of the biggest shows on television with millions of fans (and millions earned on meta commercials). But creator Justin Roiland’s original vision had nothing to do with incest babies or talking pickles — he just wanted to “troll” Universal Pictures with a Back to the Future parody.

“I actually made this as a way to poke fun at the idea of getting cease and desist letters,” he said. “At the time (October 2006) I had nothing to lose and my original intention was to call this “back to the future: the new official universal studios cartoon featuring the new Doc Brown and Marty McFly” and then I’d just sit back and wait for a letter from their lawyers to arrive. That’s actually why it’s so filthy. I was just looking to ‘troll’ a big studio.”

The Rick and Morty empire began here:

Doc Brown and Marty McFly are the obvious inspirations for Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith, so in a full-circle move, Adult Swim has released a live-action promo ahead of the season five finale where Rick is played by Doc Brown himself, Christopher Lloyd. Jaeden Martell (It) portrays Morty, which isn’t a reference, but it is excellent casting.

The tweet is a reference to a multi-verse, but fans are focused on Doc Brown’s Rick.

The Rick and Morty finale airs this Sunday, September 5.

(Spoilers for Shang-Chi and the MCU will obviously be found below.)

Pushing a superhero tentpole movie out the door in less than two years after initial announcement is a substantial feat during normal times, so Destin Daniel Cretton definitely did the thing with Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings during, well, our current times. The film’s a stunning action piece that worldbuilds like a mofo and gives us plenty of dragon action, and the end-credit scenes manage to top them all. Well, maybe all of them. Nick Fury’s announcement of the Avengers initiative probably can’t be beat, but let’s just say that we don’t simply have people sitting around and fretting over the Tesseract. Instead, the first end-credits scene does a lot to tie this otherwise free-standing movie to the MCU with much appreciated humor on the side.

First, it’s worth noting that we don’t precisely know when this movie falls into the MCU timeline. Much of the action takes place in San Francisco (with no Ant-Man run-ins), and it’s set in a time where smart phones are all the rage, yet full-on in-flight meals are offered in coach (which hasn’t happened since pre 9/11). That’s a wholly confusing combination, and we’re also clearly observing a post-snap world, as indicated during a casual conversation early-on in the movie. And it’s also a time when Doctor Strange sidekick Wong is participating in a fight club (where he bests Tim Roth’s Abomination) that’s run by Shang-Chi’s estranged sister, Xialing. That’s fun.

In the first end-credits scene, Wong reappears to pluck Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) out of their post-climactic return to reality. He takes them to analyze the Ten Rings (the literal pieces or jewelry, not the personal army of Shang-Chi’s dad, Wenwu) and their origins. The end result is that the origins are mysterious and date back millennia, and the Ten Rings act as a sort-of beacon when activated. More importantly for our immediate purposes, though, Bruce Banner (not in Professor Hulk form, yet he still appears to be suffering from Infinity Gauntlet burns) and Carol Danvers (with long hair intact) are on hand to offer commentary. Then Carol pops off on a Captain Marvel adventure, Banner awkwardly wishes everyone well without knowing what to make of the rings, and Wong tells Shang-Chi and Katy that their lives have changed forever.

From there, we see Wong join his new friends for karaoke, which is simply delightful. Here’s what’s also great about this scene: it simply presents tons and tons of questions for the future and doesn’t make us feel slighted by not answering them. Also, hey, this is the first theater-only Marvel release in since the start of the pandemic, so it was nice to feel some levity. People freaking loved this scene.

And here’s a fan theory about the second end-credits scene, in which is a brief one that shows Xialing taking over her father’s organization and using it to train an army of fighters that just happen to be all female. We then see a message about the Ten Rings being scheduled for a return. Well, a Twitter user wants to know this: what if Xialing is actually training the rescued Black Widows? Well, timeline considerations aside, it’s not impossible!

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will arrive in February 2021.