POP FORECAST
Secrets of animated pets revealed
Here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.
MOVIES
Big releases on July 8: The Secret Life of Pets; Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Big picture: Pets go the way of ANTZ, A Bug’s Life, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Rio, Bee Movie and Ice Age. There’s nothing human beings enjoy more than watching stories about animals and insects that act exactly like human beings. (We also love narcissism). The Secret Life of Pets reveals the hidden life of domesticated animals in a Manhattan, N.Y., apartment building. From Duke the Dog to Snowball the bunny, their personas range from adorable to neurotic to adorably neurotic.
Meanwhile, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is almost self-explanatory. Two hard-partying doofus brothers (Zac Efron and Modern Family’s Adam Devine) place an online ad for perfect wedding dates to try to prevent them from destroying another family event. Two trashy, incorrigible deadbeats (played with relish by Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza) pose as proper ladies to garner the free trip to Vegas, and then proceed to out-shock and out-party the brothers and their beleaguered clan. Any time two dudes’ names are in the title, you can expect ramped-up stupidity or action. Bill and Ted, Smokey and the Bandit … Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Forecast: Animated animals have a better box-ofce record than any Hollywood star. Just be thankful they didn’t bankroll a hybrid film called Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates: Pets. That would have taken the gross-out comedy to a whole new level.
TV
Big events: Wrecked (Comedy, July 5); The Night Of (July 10, HBO Canada). Big picture: For all those Lost devotees who felt betrayed by the series’ much-scorned finale, Wrecked ofers a potent satire of the castaway drama. (I wouldn’t be surprised if a disgruntled fan wrote it.) The new comedy is Lost meets Lord of the Flies meets Survivor meets The Ofce. It follows the survivors of a plane crash on a remote island. Only instead of smoke monsters and hatches, they discover selfishness, stupidity and one-liners.
Meanwhile, The Night Of just might be the show that keeps you from cancelling your HBO subscription now that Game of Thrones is over until next season. It’s a whodunit, but not even the accused knows whether he did it, and nothing is quite what it seems. This eight-part miniseries follows a bewildering murder case involving a nerdy, clean-as-a-whistle college kid named Naz (Riz Ahmed) who wakes up in bed with a murdered young girl (Sofia Black-D’Elia). This slow-rolling piece of dramatic thunder was intended as a vehicle for James Gandolfini before his untimely death. After Robert De Niro signed on and then pulled out, John Turturro took over to play the show’s savvy defence lawyer. I’m sure he feels wanted. Forecast: The Night Of is worth many nights of viewing. But if HBO were smart, it would create a series of crossover episodes across all their shows. Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow travels through time, space and reality — periodically dying and being resurrected again! Now that’s how to keep the buzz going! Honourable Mention: Jupiter: Close Encounter (July 5, Discovery). This one is firmly grounded in reality. It follows an unmanned NASA mission to Jupiter, and is anchored by Daily Planet co-host Dan Riskin. It follows in the wake of Pluto: First Encounter. Next, I hope they explore Krypton, Tatooine, the Klingon home world … or a planet full of talking, animated animals that act like human beings. (I can only take so much education.)
MUSIC
Big releases on July 8: Kenny Chesney (Some Town Somewhere); The Avalanches (Wildflower). Big picture: It’s a slow week. Blame it on the summer heat. Kenny Chesney’s new album should have been called Some Guy Playing Some Generic Watered Down New Country Music. Debut single Noise is appropriately named — because that’s exactly how I would describe Chesney’s music. But put that in perspective. Please keep in mind that the country star fills stadiums, while I fill in mocking words on a weekly pop forecast.
Meanwhile, Wildflower is a late bloomer for fans of The Avalanches. The sophomore album from this Australian electro-pop group is their ofcial studio followup to their 2000 debut, Since I Left You. For years they experimented with music, from world beats to hip hop, and a King Kong musical score to music for an illfated, animated hip-hop version of Yellow Submarine. If you’re wondering what an album would sound like if it combined elements of all those projects, you’re in luck. This is it. Forecast: Wildflower’s diverse range will inspire Iceland’s Björk to top it with an album weaving together polka, yodelling, cat purring, banshee screams, car horns, children weeping and her soundtrack for a musical about the Brexit.