Pop forecast
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the c
Movies Big Releases on Friday: Cars 3; Rough Night
Big picture: In our era of climate upheaval and empty — or broken — environmental promises, perhaps it’s only fitting that a Disney film franchise about talking race cars has become a blockbuster trilogy. Cars 3 is like Rocky Balboa with talking cars. The legendary Lightning McQueen, voiced by Owen Wilson, finds his track supremacy tested by a group of younger, shinier, faster models. Lightning quickly does his best Rocky impersonation — “I decide when I am done” — and trains harder than ever to prove he’s not one fender-bender away from a junkyard scrap heap.
Meanwhile, Rough Night is essentially The Hangover meets Weekend at Bernie’s meets Bridesmaids. When five female college friends (Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Ilana Glazer and Zoe Kravitz) reunite for a Miami bachelorette party weekend, the night starts with scoring coke from the bus boy and takes a walk on the wild side. McKinnon plays crazy-eyed scene-stealer (as she did in Ghostbusters, and does every weekend on Saturday Night Live). When the girls gone bad accidentally kill a stripper (that’s no spoiler — it’s in all the trailers), the night goes downhill fast but the dark comedy somehow keeps the laughs coming.
Forecast: People shouldn’t judge a book by its cover — and won’t judge a movie by its mediocre name. Rough Night, huh? Seems like a screenwriter had a rough night coming up with that title.
TV
Big events: Superhuman (Monday, Fox); Blood Drive (Wednesday, Space)
Big picture: Reality TV is one step closer to exposing real mutants and superhumans in this one-hour competition series for ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. In every episode, five contestants purported to possess nearly superhuman memory, hearing, taste, touch, smell or sight contend for a $50,000 grand prize. Let’s just hope nobody invited Wolverine, or things could become a bloody mess.
Speaking of the red stuff, post-apocalyptic thriller Blood Drive takes grindhouse camp to an almost unhealthy level, featuring cannibals, monsters, cults and whatever else
Forecast: Set in the not-too-distant future, Blood Drive is probably already dangerously close to becoming Donald Trump’s official domestic policy. (But am I the only one who would have preferred Cars 3: Blood Drive?)
Music
Big releases on Friday: Fleet Foxes (Crack-Up); Lorde (Melodrama)
Big picture: Fleet Foxes don’t seem to move quickly, but the beloved folk-rock band returns just in time to harmonize your summer. The band went on self-imposed hiatus after their first two critically acclaimed albums of medieval- and gospel-fuelled indie folk, but whimsical frontman Robin Pecknold and company returned to the studio. Meanwhile, Lorde was crowned a music-industry queen at 16 when her debut album Pure Heroine went triple platinum. For her sophomore effort, she writes about her personal penchant for Melodrama.
Forecast: I feel like Fleet Foxes almost started a band-name craze with their 2008 debut, and dynamic Helplessness Blues (2011). This time they will push it over the top. Expect to be introduced to an endless parade of adjective-animal band names: Homely Hummingbirds, Arduous Anteaters, Slovenly Sloths, Harrowing Hippos, etc. Neither folk rock nor the animal kingdom will be the same.