In theatres or on TV, reboots are big right now
Hollywood’s nostalgia kick Brings Back yet another oldie, Chris Lackner writes.
MOVIES
Big releases (Oct. 5): A Star is Born; Venom
Big picture: A Star is Born is the fourth take on a story about star-crossed talents headed in opposite directions — even as they are drawn to each other. (The first was 1937, then again in 1954, before the well-received Barbra Streisand vehicle in 1976.) It seems the story is eternal: a love is born as a star fades and another rises. In the 2018 edition, Ally (Lady Gaga) goes from rags-to-riches when famous singer Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) falls for her — and puts her on the stage beside him. It’s like Crazy Heart meets Romeo and Juliet meets Walk the Line. Venom, meanwhile, makes Deadpool look like an anti-hero schoolboy. Eddy Brock (Tom Hardy) is a reporter who gains extraordinary powers after being joined with an alien symbiote. Venom is out for himself and out for blood, but can Eddy reel in his alter ego enough to become an unlikely, violent protector? When the space monster emerges, Venom looks like the unlikely offspring of a threesome between Lost’s smoke monster, Ridley Scott’s Alien and an oilpatch. Forecast: In Venom, an unlikely star is born. On a personal note, I am emboldened by yet another journalist with super powers! I predict I will spend much of the weekend looking for black alien goo or radioactive spiders (sadly, this was an easy call because it’s how I spend most weekends).
TV
Big events: Will & Grace (Oct. 4, Nbc/global); Happy Together (Oct. 1, Cbs/global); The Neighborhood (Oct. 1, Cbs/global); Doctor Who (Oct. 7, SPACE); Flight of the Conchords: Live in London (Oct. 6, HBO)
Big picture: Will & Grace was one step ahead of the recent line of resurrected sitcoms that include Roseanne ( briefly), Murphy Brown (last week) and The Conners (starting next week — minus Roseanne, of course). Meanwhile, almost everyone on New Girl has a new show:
Case in point, Damon Wayans
Jr. in Happy Together. He plays a mild-mannered family man and accountant whose life is thrown into chaos when his star musician client moves into his suburban home to seek refuge from paparazzi. (The show is loosely based on the life of a producer who once shared a home with a young Harry Styles from New Direction.) Meanwhile, The Neighborhood pairs Cedric the Entertainer with New Girl’s Max Greenfield — the latter as an earnest, white, Midwestern yuppie who moves his family into a diverse, Los Angeles hood. Cedric plays his loudmouth neighbour who doesn’t take to the obvious outsiders. On the many happy returns front, New Zealand’s brilliant, cult musical-comedy duo from TV’S Flight of the Conchords is captured on a reunion tour concert airing on HBO.
Speaking of brilliant, Doctor Who is reborn for a lucky 13th time. The Time Lord is female (Jodie Whittaker) for the first time — breaking through the barrier of the formerly all-men’s TARDIS country club. The tag line for the new season: “It’s about time.”
Forecast: You haven’t seen the last bout of TV reunion nostalgia.
How long before Friends returns to find a whiny, divorced Ross living in Monica and Chandler’s basement? I predict a Cheers reboot in which Ted Danson reopens the shuttered doors of the venerable pub, dusts off a mummified Norm and starts serving craft brew to hipsters.
MUSIC
Big releases on Oct. 5: Cat Power (Wanderer); Tokyo Police Club (TPC)
Big picture: Cat Power (real name Chan Marshall) has nothing to prove on her 10th album. The genre-bending talent’s new effort includes a cover of Rihanna’s Stay and a collaboration with Lana Del Rey (Woman). She chose the title Wanderer because she feels, looks and acts the part of a wandering, vagabond blueswoman or bard. (Lead us where you will.) Mean- while, Tokyo Police Club can pack the seats in stadiums but the Canuck rockers opted for smaller, intimate venues in support of this album — and they even rehearsed large parts of the album in a rural Ontario church. Still, don’t let that fool you. They recently told Billboard that recording the album “felt like a party the whole time.”
Forecast: Gaga is a musician turned movie star who has already made her mark on TV’S American Horror Story. Everyone is becoming a triple threat these days. Why not Cat Power? I predict a superhero Netflix series in which the American songstress — and sometime actress — can control cats with a magical guitar. (It’s about branding people.) After that, I sense a sci-fi action adventure called Cat Power vs. Snoop Dogg.