POP FORECAST
Movies
Big releases on April 13: Rampage; Truth or Dare.
Big picture: Rampage is King Kong meets Planet of the Apes meets Dwayne Johnson’s smile. The Rock plays a primatologist with tongue in cheek, muscles pecked and eyebrow firmly raised, and makes throwaway lines like “animals get me” somehow ooze with charm. This action-adventure finds his best friend — a silverback gorilla named George — getting a heck of a lot more than just curious. After a science experiment gone wrong infects his primate buddy, George rapidly reaches King Kong size — and King Kong levels of rage.
Soon enough, George — along with a 30-foot wolf and Godzilla-sized crocodile — decide to attack Chicago. The Windy
City just can’t catch a break. Johnson’s hero is forced to fight the alpha animals all while trying to find an antidote to save his friend.
Meanwhile, Truth or Dare takes the teenage hormonal party game to SAW-like levels. It all starts when a group of randy, stupid, pretty young things on a trip to Mexico decide to play a game of truth or dare in a derelict, abandoned building. Faster than you can say curse, they find out “The game is real. Wherever you go or whatever you do, it will find you.”This horror movie is like Jumanji meet The Ring. The doomed group must “do the dare or die” — with stupid, possessed grins on their faces to boot. Expect lines like, “We’re not playing the game; it’s playing us.”
Forecast: Truth or Dare will launch a new era of childhood and playground games mined for horrors. Get ready for Red Rover; Duck, Duck, Goose; Nicky Nicky Nine Doors; Kissing Tag; and Kissing Tag 2: Revenge of the Cooties.
TV
Big events: Lost in Space (April 13, Netflix); Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas (April 13, HBO).
Big picture: Lost in Space is a remake of the 1960s sci-fi series that takes place three decades from now in an age of space travel. The Robinson family, a group of highly trained colonists, are inadvertently marooned on the wrong world — a hostile place full of surprises. Toby Stephens, Molly Parker, and Parker Posey co-star. Meanwhile, Problem Areas finds another Daily Show veteran taking a comedic look at current events. The show will focus on filmed, on-location pieces versus putting Cenac behind a desk. John Oliver produces. Speaking of, does everyone who worked on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show get a shot at a news comedy show? Oliver, Samantha Bee, Larry Wilmore. The list keeps growing.
Forecast: Donald Trump will mistake Lost in Space for non-fiction and propose building a wall between America and space in order to keep out migrant space caravans.
Music
Big releases on April 13: John Prine (The Tree of Forgiveness); Juliana Hatfield (Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John).
Big picture: Prine, a truly underappreciated singer-songwriter, releases another superbly crafted album at 71. After a series of health scares, the mood is understandably reflective and sombre at times on his latest studio effort. Especially on tracks like Summer’s End and When I Get to Heaven, which outlines out his plans when he gets past St. Peter’s gate, including “smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long,” kiss a pretty gal on “the Tilt-a-Whirl,” reunite with the fam and sip vodka-and-ginger ale. (Note to angels: start rolling tobacco and working your distilleries now — just in case we ever lose this master bard).
Meanwhile, Juliana Hatfield releases an odd followup to Pussycat, her searing 2017 takedown of Donald Trump. The indie-rock legend delivers an Olivia Newton-John covers album to, as she told Billboard, “escape from all the horrible negativity.”
Forecast: Hatfield will prove a trendsetter. I predict a slew of cover tribute albums: Drake does MC Hammer; Nickelback does The Beatles; Justin Bieber does Elvis Presley; Miley Cyrus does Mozart; Solange does Beyoncé, and so on.