Hi All,
It’s Friday - we made it through the week! I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been riding the covidcoaster and am really looking forward to having a weekend on my couch to do nothing but watch TV.
I also think I might try to bake some sort of cinnamon bun or something similarly warm and sticky (maybe monkey bread?) and curl up with a cup of tea and cozy blankets. If you have a good recipe for something like this send it over :)
I’m a bit worried about watching the news out of the states next week, so I’m hoping there are a few shows here you can switch to if you need to tap out.
Let’s get to it…
This week on the blog:
I didn’t realize that last week’s blog posts marked my 100th and 101st blog posts! When TV shows hit their 100th episode they have a big party with a huge cake so I bought myself a mini cake from Rahier to celebrate! I highly recommend checking them out if you are ever in Leaside.
For blog post 102, I wrote about Locked Down. It was terrible. Do not watch this movie. Just read my review here.
I’m talking about the new movie, Promising Young Woman staring Carey Mulligan. I attended a special screening of it last night with WIFT and I loved this movie. There are zero spoliers in this post. It’s more about why you need to watch this movie. I have a lot of thoughts to unpack - read them here. You can watch this on VOD starting today.
Last week at the end of this newsletter, I talked about Olivia Rodrigo and my suspicion she’d be a major star. Well - I called it. She blew up this week with her song divers license and the drama between her, her costar/ex Joshua Bassett, and Sabrina Carpenter. Let’s put it this way: this drama is like the Nick-Miley-Selena drama that created 7 Things, and the Taylor-Joe-Camilla drama of Better Than Revenge (here is a video of Olivia jamming to that song…it’s all very entwined). So if you are 14, this is *major*. If you have no idea what I’m talking about. Email me. I’d love to tell you about it…
Anyways, I bring this up because High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (the show that Olivia and Josh met on) was excellent and I wrote some thoughts on it back in March… you should watch it and you can read why here.
Things to watch this week:
Besides Promisng Young Woman, this week has a lot of good TV and movies!
Today you’ve got a lot of solid options:
I’m starting with Prime because One Night in Miami is a must-watch. It’s Regina King’s directorial debut and it is buzzy. We’re talking Oscars… The movie is about a time when Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke found themselves in the same room. Check out the trailer here.
My former Frantic coworker and friend Quinn McCutcheon produced a killer documentary series for CBC called Anyone’s Game about an elite high school basketball academy in Orangeville. To give you an idea of the caliber of the players, Jamal Murray is an alumnus of this program. I’d *highly* recommend checking this out. This is a six-part series that starts streaming on CBC Gem and airs tonight at 8:30 on CBC. Watch the trailer here.
Bling Empire is a new Netflix reality show that I think is fair to categorize as “The Real Crazy Rich Asians of LA”. I am *very* excited to watch this. Here’s the trailer.
If you want an action film check out Outside the Wire. It’s also on Netflix. It’s not my thing, but it could be yours. Watch the trailer here.
On Disney+, WandaVision is the big buzzy show this week. I don’t normally tap into Marvel content but I will be watching this. It stars Elizabeth Olsen (MK+A’s sis). Check out the trailer here.
Moving on…
Tell your mom - there is a new PBS Masterpiece show on Sunday! This one is called Miss Scarlet & The Duke and it looks amazing. I will be PVRing this and watching it each week. It stars Kate Phillips as London’s first female private detective - set in the Victorian era. Here’s the trailer.
Plus all the network shows up are up and running right now. (Bachelor, This is Us Fans - hit me up, I have lots ot thoughts I want to talk about :) )
On Tuesday Kim’s Convenience is back for its 5th season. It’s a great show with a fantastic Canadian production story. If you need to catch up, all episodes are on CBC Gem and Netflix.
Other things to check out:
A friend shared this on FB video and it is *incredible*. I wish it saw it sooner to share with you. Broadway star Jeremy Jordan infamously was *not* in The Greatest Showman. We’ve all seen him in this behind-the-scenes video (which inspired my Ooch video in the spring) but we had never heard his side of the story - until now and let me tell you, it’s incredible. Watch the whole video. I’m filing it away for days when I don’t get something I want and I need to feel less alone in that feeling.
Ken Jennings has officially taken on his guest-hosting duties on Jeopardy! His first episode - the first without Alex Trebeck. He acknowledged the end of the era with a lovely intro. It’s worth watching.
We’ve got the first trailer to the third and final To All The Boys I Loved Before movie, Always and Forever. I loved the first book and movie, had lukewarm feelings about the 2nd book but was disappointed by the 2nd movie… but I hated the third book. So while I’m still going to watch this, I’m bracing myself for a trainwreck because of the lackluster source material. HOWEVER. The first album I ever bought with my own money was Donna Lewis' Now in a Minute - featuring the INCREDIBLE single I Love You Always Forever. So when Betty Who’s cover of that song started playing in this trailer… I couldn’t help but love it. The movie comes out on Feb 12th and you know you’re going to get a *long* blog post from me after. Anyways - watch the trailer here.
On the podcast front. I’m really enjoying Erica Ehm’s Reinvention of the VJ' podcast. It’s well worth your time. I also I loved this episode from the Bad Bitch Book Club about teen books that ruined our adult love lives. Plus I’m looking forward to going on a walk later and listening to this Ben Affleck episode of Award’s Chatter.
Lastly I promised puppy videos. This one of my favourite of the week.
🐾
Have a great weekend,
-Paula