Chris Lackner
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan sang. But these days, a guide through the seemingly endless flurry of pop culture offerings is just what we need. With that in mind, here is what’s on the radar screen in TV, music and film for the coming week.
MOVIES
Big releases on July 29: Bad Moms; Jason Bourne.
Big picture: Another Friday, another girl-power comedy. It’s Bridesmaids meets Bad Teacher meets Mean Girls. Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell star as “bad moms” overcommitted and overwhelmed — all thanks to society’s unrealistic expectations. Hilarity ensues when they decide to rebel, and take down the Stepford Wives’ clones that rule their school PTA. Their “revolutionary” exploits include bringing store-bought cookies to a bake sale … and a moms-gone-wild house party complete with whip cream, candy, vodka, drunk-and-disorderliness, and mom-on-mom makeouts. Hmmm … Can you tell the script was written by two men (let alone the guys that brought us The Hangover)?
Meanwhile, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) becomes a pacifist and hangs up his guns forever (just kidding, that’s opening in the U.S. in an alternate universe). Bourne is back with a licence to shoot, punch, kill, hack and blow stuff up real good. “He’s seen things; he knows things,” one character intones. Bourne is like Santa Claus, only slightly better with a grenade launcher. Craggy-faced Tommy Lee Jones returns to play a human-Grumpy Cat hybrid that also happens to be CIA director.
Forecast: One of two things will come out of Hollywood re-discovering a rare sure thing. Bourne will be made the new Agent 007, or we’ll soon be watching a cash-cow crossover movie called Bond vs. Bourne.
Ellen Page in Tallulah. [Netflix]
TV
Big events: Tallulah (July 29, Netflix); Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (July 31, Space).
Big picture: Juno sure has fallen on hard times. Back in 2007, she was all about teenage pregnancy, whimsical singalongs and witty insights into punk music. Now she’s into baby napping and spinning webs of lies. Ellen Page plays Lu, a drifter living in a van. After accidentally being hired to babysit for a truly bad mother, she recklessly decides to kidnap her young charge. Things get even more complicated when she befriends her MIA boyfriend’s mother (Allison Janney), and claims the baby is the latter’s grandchild. (This can’t end well.)
Meanwhile, the Sharknado TV film franchise proves it still has B-movie bite with its fourth instalment. This time Sharknadoes are joined by the likes of a firenado, oilnado and cownado (if you survive you can host a truly epic barbecue). Five years after the East Coast was ravaged, Ian Ziering and Tara Reid are back to save us from an attack on Vegas. And you thought the only predators in Sin City were card sharks? David Hasselhoff also returns, joined by Gary Busey, Steve Gutenberg and a parade of waterlogged celebs in need of an easy payday.
Forecast: Tallulah is a Netflix original that opens in select theatres simultaneously. (Your move, HBO.) Meanwhile, I believe one day scientists will look back on the Sharknado series as all too prescient forecast of the long-term effects of climate change, and a sexagenarian Ian Ziering and Tara Reid will become the David Suzuki’s of their time. (Until then, don’t take it too seriously.) Am I the only one who’d like to see Jason Bourne take on a Sharknado?
Singer Benjamin Kowalewicz of the band Billy Talent [OUTHERBERT P. OCZERET/AFP/Getty Images]
MUSIC
Big release on July 29: Billy Talent (Afraid Of Heights).
Big picture: The Canadian rockers return for their fifth album, but only their second album not named Billy Talent. Expect Juno- and Much-award love for the group’s first outing since 2012’s Dead Silence. The talented Jordan Hastings of Alexisonfire joined the band in the studio for this one, and guitarist Ian D’Sa continues to prove himself as the band’s primary songwriter. My favourite track listing is Ghost Ship of Cannibal Rats — mainly because I think it would make a great Donald Trump campaign theme song.
Forecast: Billy Talent will prove they aren’t afraid of success. I’m hoping the band’s next effort will be called Afraid of Sharknado or Afraid of Being Part of a World in Which Someone Bankrolled a First, Second, Third and Fourth Sharknado.
Honourable mention: Jake Owen (American Country Love Song). The album’s title track is a summer country hit, which must have the likes of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams spinning in their graves. With lyrics like, “It’s butterflies and Bud Lights,” “So let’s raise a glass, cheerleaders and quarterbacks / Cowboys and country girls, all around this small town world” and “In the back of an old Ford truck,” this is also a candidate for the Trump team.