12/10/21
This week: A brand-new sitcom, a much-anticipated reboot, and TWO of our movies in Sundance!
TRENDS THIS WEEK
☞Youtube BTS: Butter
☞Letterboxd THE POWER OF THE DOG
☞TikTok #HolidayAesthetic
☞Spotify Adele - Easy On Me
☞Netflix MONEY HEIST
☞Twitter SEX AND THE CITY
Life & Culture
Doja Cat just came out with maybe the coolest music video concept I’ve ever seen—“the world’s first codable music video”. The singer partnered with nonprofit Girls Who Code to make an interactive music video for her song Woman. Users get to act as the creative director and control various aspects of the music video in order to make it their own. Although there are only four codable checkpoints in the video, this is definitely a cool beginner’s experience in coding. If you want to give it a shot, check it out here.
Our whole team is very excited to finally share that two (yes TWO) of the movies we produced this past year are headed to Sundance! CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH is a charming story about a recent college grad who takes a job as a bat mitzvah party starter while striking up a friendship with a young mother and her autistic daughter. The film was written and directed by the uber-talented Cooper Raiff, who is also starring alongside Dakota Johnson, Vanessa Burghardt, Brad Garrett, and Leslie Mann. Our second feature film on its way to Sundance, AM I OK?, follows Lucy and Jane, best friends who think they know everything about each other. But after Jane announces that she’s moving from LA to London for a job, Lucy reveals a deeply buried, long-held secret, and their lifelong friendship is thrown into chaos. The dream team consists of Lauren Pomerantz, who wrote the script, directors Stephanie Allynne and Tig Notaro, and stars Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno and Jermaine Fowler. We truly couldn’t be more proud of the teams that made these two films, and can’t wait to share them with you! If you’re interested in checking them out early, Sundance in-person and online tickets go on sale 12/17, and can be found here.
If anyone’s been holding on to their disappointment in Instagram’s algorithm change back in 2016, I have some good news for you. The company shared that it’s planning to bring back the chronologically sorted feed, as opposed to the current one that uses an algorithm to predict what content each user wants to see most.
The two TikToks I’d like to share with you this week are this one where Seth Rogan shares his experience at a recent Adele concert, and this one that depicts an ideal Friday meeting.
—Darlene Kenney, Digital Strategist
Film
THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (trailer here) is one of my favorite holiday movies. Ernst Lubitsch’s classic is the perfect blend of comedy, romance, and even some profound melancholy. It’s also basically the original YOU’VE GOT MAIL, with Jimmy Stewart as a proto-Tom Hanks. Plenty of laughs and quotable dialogue make this kind of the perfect film to put on for the whole family this December.
—Alicia Devereaux, Development Assistant
TV
If you're feeling like you've rewatched workplace mockumentary classics like THE OFFICE and PARKS AND RECREATION a few too many times, you should check out the new ABC comedy ABBOTT ELEMENTARY (trailer here). In ABBOTT, series creator Quinta Brunson stars as Janine Teagues, a naively optimistic teacher in an underfunded Philadelphia public school. The mockumentary follows Janine and her colleagues—who are either jaded or in over their heads—as they navigate the absurdities of enriching their students' lives with no resources other than their own ingenuity. The cast delivers dynamic performances with laugh-out-loud jokes and lots of heart. The premiere showed a lot of promise, and I'm looking forward to tuning in when the season resumes in January 2022.
—Dustin Sloane, Development Assistant
Despite considerable fanfare in the form of Deuxmoi spottings and paparazzi set photos, it’s easy to understand why some might be skeptical of another chapter in the SEX AND THE CITY series following Carrie Bradshaw and company. The original HBO show revolutionized cable programming at the time of its release and has since provided generations of single young adults with six full seasons of comfort viewing and ill-considered dating advice. But many regard the show as an ineffable product of its time, so the question remains: why beat a dead horse? Having watched the first two episodes of AND JUST LIKE THAT (trailer here), I’m pleased to report that the latest chapter’s not an entirely fruitless endeavor.
For one, never underestimate the staying power of characters you’ve watched grow across decades: seeing Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte with grown families and fully formed lives is simply heartwarming. And while Samantha’s absence is deeply felt, the explanation for her omission isn’t all that distracting (no—she’s not dead!) and feels emotionally honest to this iteration. AND JUST LIKE THAT also introduces a number of new characters in Samantha's wake, whose main purpose seems to be a foil to the main trio’s lack of “wokeness.” It would be hard to not acknowledge the ladies’ slip-ups after countless problematic moments from the original series, but the show's attempts at self-recognition or relevance—like the sex-positive podcast that Carrie now co-hosts—border on cringe more often than not. Occasionally, however, they hit the mark; leveraging Miranda’s self-righteousness, for example, to show her making a fool out of herself as she Karens her way through interacting with her younger, Black professor when she returns to school is pretty satisfying. I do hope that the new characters (mostly queer and/or people of color) are given a little more real estate to develop their own stories as the season continues, instead of merely highlighting the original cast’s blind spots. But all in all—and without spoiling anything—AND JUST LIKE THAT is a promising, startlingly emotional return to the world of SEX AND THE CITY.
—Neal Mulani, Development Assistant
Music
A few months ago I wrote about the surprising relationship between CircoLoco (one of Ibiza's most celebrated parties) and Grand Theft Auto’s Rockstar Games who had teamed up to launch a record label. But this week the brands announced some really exciting news...none other than hip hop legend Dr. Dre is releasing brand new music in the game. Considering he hasn’t released any new music since 2015 and usually keeps a low profile, this is huge news. The rapper and his new music will be key elements in the brand-new GTA playable story “The Contract”. The mission will be to search for Dre’s missing phone, which also happens to contain the most important content in the city, his new unreleased music. I’m honestly very impressed with what GTA has been coming up with and can’t wait to give this a try.
—Eden Bekele, Digital Associate
Travel
Head into 2022 with a vacation already planned. (Because you know what most of us need after a little time “resting” with family? A vacation.) We’ve got you covered with a week-long adventure in Portugal—booked on us. We’re handling your flights, hotels, and breakfasts, along with kicking in $2,500 in spending money. You can enter here—good luck!