The Academy Award nominations were announced on Tuesday and despite my very lackluster year of attending movies, I’m in pretty good shape going into this year’s Oscar Death Race. Once I cross three movies off my list – Dunkirk, The Phantom Thread, and The Post – I’ll have take care of most of the major categories and perhaps can spend more time focusing on my usual Waterloo (foreign films and documentaries). Most of the docs this year appear to be on streaming services, so I’ll focus my energies on tracking down the foreign films to the best of my ability. Of course, now that I’m working full-time and teaching a class two nights a week, my energies, such as they are, will probably be pretty limited.
So while I plot my best plan of attack, get yourself caught up on all the pop culture news that you might have missed with this week’s roundup.
Television
- Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are working on a horror/comedy TV series.
- Some details have emerged for the third season of Stranger Things.
- Ellen Pompeo has signed a new two-year deal for Grey’s Anatomy.
- The final season of Veep delayed until 2019.
- Amazon has renewed The Tick for a second season.
- However, Amazon has cancelled One Mississippi, I Love Dick, and Jean-Claude Van Johnson.
- Scoot McNairy joins the season three cast of True Detective.
- Natalie Portman will host SNL next month.
- Joel McHale has a new show on Netflix.
- The second season of Jessica Jones will hit Netflix in March.
- Paul Bettany is in talks to take over the role of Prince Philip on The Crown.
- Kristen Wiig to star in a comedy series for Apple.
- Grown-ish has been renewed for a second season.
- A Mighty Ducks TV series is in the works.
- Lil Rel Howery will star in a pilot for Fox.
- TNT’s Snowpiercer series hasn’t debut yet and it already lost its showrunner.
- Greg Berlanti has sold a show about God friending a guy on Facebook.
- Tituss Burgess and Nancy Pelosi are among the guest judges on the third season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.
- Lena Waithe will guest star on This Is Us.
- Timeless will return for its second season on March 11th.
- A bunch of people have joined the cast of the Amazon series The Boys.
- Kevin Spacey’s exit from House of Cards cost Netflix $39 million.
- ABC is rebooting the 70’s cop show Get Christie Love.
- FX is working on a What We Do In The Shadows TV series.
- The Shannara Chronicles have been cancelled.
- Castlevania will return for a second season on Netflix this summer.
- Fire and Fury, the book about the Trump White House, may become a TV show.
- NBC ordered four multi-cam comedy pilots.
- Here are the comings and goings on HBO in February. And Netflix.
Movies
- Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer are making a holiday comedy together.
- Ryan Reynolds is developing a Clue movie with the Deadpool writers.
- Here’s who Leonardo DiCaprio will play in Quentin Tarantino’s next film.
- Avengers: Infinity War will feature a whopping 76 characters.
- Machine Gun Kelly will play Tommy Lee in the upcoming Motley Crue biopic.
- Mary Elizabeth Winstead to star opposite Will Smith in Gemini Man.
- Here’s your cast for Incredibles 2.
- John Cena may play Duke Nukem in a movie adaptation of the video game.
- Netflix might get the rights to the third Cloverfield movie.
- John Wick 3 will bring back director Chad Stahelski and has cast its villain.
- HBO announced half of its documentary line-up for 2018.
- Danny Strong will pen the script for Disney’s remake of Oliver!.
- Nicolas Cage’s next movie The Humanity Bureau is coming to virtual reality.
- Netflix obtained the rights to Sierra Burgess Is A Loser, a high school movie that is a twist on Cyrano de Bergerac.
- Tom Cruise may have injured himself (again) on the set of Mission Impossible 6.
- The Barbie movie release date moved to May 8, 2020.
- A vandal has caused thousands of dollars of damage to the Field of Dreams.
Trailers
- Super Troopers 2:
- No one is quite sure what this Dundee: The Son of A Legend Returns Home trailer is all about:
- Thank goodness Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is finally coming back:
- Heathers:
- Rampage:
- Paterno:
- Tomb Raider:
- Succession:
- Queer Eye:
- The Mechanism:
- Season three of Ash vs. Evil Dead:
- Pacific Rim: Uprising:
- Seven Seconds:
- A trailer for a Harry Potter mobile game:
- This Is Not Happening:
- The Terror:
- The Death of Stalin:
- Dear Dictator:
- Psychokinesis:
Music
- Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Schoolboy Q, and others are hitting the road together.
- Neil Diamond is retiring from touring after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
- The Decemberists announced a new album.
- Slayer is calling it a day with a farewell tour.
- Ingrid Michaelson is making an album based on Stranger Things.
- Sigur Ros will provide the soundtrack for a Norwegian black metal movie.
- U2 dropped a new music video. So did Justin Timberlake.
- Japandroids are going out on tour.
- Sting and Shaggy made a reggae album together.
- Belle & Sebastian announced new tour dates.
- Mat Kearney has a new album and a new tour.
Theater
- A musical based on The Rose is in the works.
Stand-up
- Bill Cosby made a surprise appearance at a Philadelphia club.
- Netflix will start releasing 15-minute stand-up specials in 2018.
Books
- Lupita Nyong’o has written a children’s book.
Award Season
- The Oscars are debuting new rules to avoid last year’s best picture kerfuffle.
- Jude Law, Hugh Jackman, and Daniel Kaluuya are auctioning off their Golden Globe tuxes to benefit Time’s Up.
- GLAAD announced the nominees for the organization’s media awards.
- The Producers Guild handed out some awards.
- The Casting Society of America announced the winners of the Artios Awards.
- The Razzies have announced their nominees as well.
Odds and Ends
- There is a Game of Thrones-themed ice hotel in Finland.
- Jeff Goldblum’s lounging in Jurassic Park has been immortalized as a Funko Pop.
- Laverne Cox is the first trans woman to appear on the cover of Cosmo.
- Who knew – Alexander Skarsgard and Jack McBrayer are the best of friends.
- Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson were once an item.
- Don Imus is retiring.
- Jordan Peele says that he is done with acting.
- Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has plead guilty to tax evasion.
- Ed Sheeran is engaged to Cherry Seaborn.
- When Sophie Turner marries Joe Jonas, her Game of Thrones sibling Maisie Williams will be a bridesmaid.
- Welcome to the world, Chicago West.
- Tom Petty died from an accidental drug overdose involving opioids, per his family.
- Simon Shelton, who played Tinky Winky (the purple one) on Teletubbies, has died. He was 52
- Joel Taylor of Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers has died. He was 38.
- Rapper Fredo Santana died. He was 27.
- Hugh Wilson, creator of WKRP in Cincinnati and director, has died. He was 74.
- Fantasy book author Ursula Le Guin has passed away. She was 88.
Mashups and Supercuts
- This Friends reunion movie parody trailer is racking up views:
- A poem by H.P. Lovecraft has the same meter as Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”:
- Watch Breaking Bad in one minute: