01/15/21
This week: Lighter fare to follow dark days.
TRENDS THIS WEEK
☞ YouTube: House Votes
☞ Letterboxd: PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN
☞ TikTok: #groupchat
☞ Spotify: drivers license - Olivia Rodrigo
☞ Netflix: BRIDGERTON
☞ Twitter: Armie Hammer
Life & Culture
Olivia Rodrigo’s first single, drivers license, is absolutely dominating the internet right now. It seemed like overnight, hundreds of young people made TikToks about the song—from creating stories based on the lyrics, to uncovering the supposed love triangle that inspired the song, to recording their own renditions. According to Spotify’s global hits lead, Becky Bass, “we’ve never seen anything like this.” On Monday, the song set the platform's record for most streams in a day for a non-holiday song, and then on Tuesday, it beat that record with over 17.01 million listens.
Trust me when I say these numbers are bonkers. For context, the second most-streamed song on Tuesday (Bad Bunny’s Dákiti) hit 4.2 million streams. What’s so surprising to me is that Olivia Rodrigo is a fairly new artist. The rest of her Spotify songs consist of her HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE SERIES tracks, along with a few tracks from her Disney Channel show BIZAARDVARK. It’s rare that we see such a swift rise to the top, so it will be fascinating to see where she goes from here.
In other music-related news, Billie EIlish announced on Tuesday that she’s releasing a photobook of her life, which will come out in May with a recorded audiobook that will go with some of the photos. It’s already #1 on Amazon’s portrait photography bestseller list.
On Sunday, ViacomCBS decided to air the NFL wild-card game on Nickelodeon in addition to CBS, and it paid off big-time. The broadcast was the network’s most-watched football game in four years, with over 2.06 million people tuning in. Nickelodeon’s version of the game, which was between the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints, included slime cannons in the endzone, lightning bolts that appeared after a pass, and dust clouds during tackles. Characters from Nickelodeon classics like RUGRATS and SPONGEBOB celebrated in the stands. The game honestly looked super entertaining—you can check out footage here.
And finally, here are two of my favorite TikToks from this week: this one that highlights how much fun the Phineas and Ferb writers had working on the show, and this video that somehow makes sky-diving look tame.
—Darlene Kenney, Marketing Assistant
Film
Alex McAulay’s tension-filled debut thriller DON’T TELL A SOUL premieres on PVOD platforms this week. The film follows two brothers (played by Jack Dylan Grazer and Fionn Whitehead) who are caught robbing a house by an older man (Rainn Wilson). While Wilson is chasing them, he falls into a deep hole and gets stuck there. The brothers are then left with a moral dilemma: Do they leave him there, or do they save him and risk him reporting their crime? It’s an imperfect but impressively crafted debut film, and as always, who doesn’t love an under-90-minute watch?
—Julia Hammer, Creative Executive
TV
In anticipation of its upcoming season I finally came around to watching Season 2 of YOU. If you also missed out, do indulge in this ridiculously entertaining LA-centered escapist fare that blends a soapy thriller with delicious millennial satire. Also, someone please tell Netflix I’m more than willing to volunteer myself as Penn Badgley’s obsession muse for Season 4!
—Kauveh Khozein Carrera, Creative Executive
Netflix’s French-language series LUPIN is all we can talk about in our office group chat this week. It focuses on Assane Diop, a thief seeking revenge on the wealthy family responsible for the death of his father. It's fun and unexpected and super easy to binge. If you like MONEY HEIST or NOW YOU SEE ME, check this one out!
—Darlene Kenney, Marketing Assistant
Manga
SAKAMOTO DAYS by Yuto Suzuki is the story about the world’s best hitman—who gives up a life of murder to settle down with the woman of his dreams in a small town. His life is interrupted by a young upstart hitman who is sent to kill him, but after Sakamoto subdues the young attacker, he takes a liking to him and turns the tables on him.. The two start working at Sakamoto’s convenience store, protecting and saving the citizens of their small town without any of them being any the wiser.
This is a fun series that feels like KILLING EVE meets WE’RE THE MILLERS. While the stakes remain high, it manages to maintain a light-hearted tone. It’s very fun and reminds me a bit of CHUCK. It’s a nice escape from the craziness of the current world, if nothing else.
—Royce Reeves-Darby, Director of Production
Theater
The Public Theater’s annual Under the Radar festival has headed online this year! The festival showcases emerging talent from around the world, and while every year’s offerings are format- and boundary-breaking, this year’s are certainly even more so. I’m particularly looking forward to multi-hyphenate Inua Ellams’ one-man piece BORDERS & CROSSINGS about his upbringing across Nigeria, England, and Ireland; I’m also excited for the experiential piece A THOUSAND WAYS (PART ONE): A PHONE CALL, in which the audience follows a series of automated prompts as they engage with the person on the other end of the phone.
—Julia Hammer, Creative Executive
Comic Book
ONCE & FUTURE by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, and Tamra Bonvillain tells the story of a retired monster hunter and her grandson, who must go on a journey to stop a group of terrorists from bringing back a demonic King Arthur who wants to enslave humanity.
This is SHERLOCK meets NATIONAL TREASURE set in the UK. The dynamic between Gran and her grandson is fun and caring. Plus, there’s a larger world to explore with this series, so if you’re yearning for some swashbuckling adventure this is for you.
—Royce Reeves-Darby, Director of Production
Books
The winner for most exciting release of the week AND best cover I’ve seen in a long time is George Saunders’ A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN. The book is an adaptation of a class Saunders teaches on the 19th-century Russian short, analyzing seven classic stories from that period. He takes the reader through his in-depth close readings, sharing his notes, analyzing punctuation choice, and comparing different translations of the same text. While I admit I haven’t gotten to dive into my copy yet, I’m taking the reviews at their word that it doesn’t read nearly as technical as it sounds. Stay tuned.
—Julia Hammer, Creative Executive
I will admit, I was skeptical when someone told me to read HERE, a graphic novel by Richard McGuire. The prospect of reading a story exclusively set in the corner of a room, after spending the better part of a year in the corner of a room was...daunting. But I am pleased to say, I could not have been more wrong and now feel a compulsion to recommend it to everyone. HERE feels as much like experiential art as it does a book. It manages to coherently, beautifully, and brilliantly explore the concepts of space and memory, time and progress, as well as love and the imagination. All of this is to say, if you have not read HERE I suggest you do so immediately. It is a necessary and innovative portrayal of humanity that will change the way you sit in the corner of your room (and the world once you leave).
—Lucy Putnam, Development Assistant
Short Film
The New York Times’ Op-Doc A CONCERTO IS A CONVERSATION is having its swan song at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and we highly recommend checking it out either through Sundance or on the NYT website. The short follows Horace Bowers Sr. as he tells the story of his upbringing in Jim Crow Florida—and juxtaposes it with the experiences of watching his grandson Kris Bowers win an Oscar for the score to GREEN BOOK and watching him perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Beautifully shot through close ups of the two men's faces, this is a quintessential American story that shouldn’t be missed!
—Bennett Levine and Shuyu Cao, Executive Assistants
