The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – ENOUGH
I do not think I would enjoy being a celebrity. There are positive things about it, I guess, like getting to skip to the front of lines sometimes and getting free stuff every now and then, but overall, on the whole, it does not seem like it would be a good time to me. For a lot of reasons, too. The big one I always think of is, like, what if you’re feeling gross and just slap on gross pajama pants to run to the pharmacy quick to grab Pepto Bismol and you run into a group of people who recognize you from their favorite show or movie? “Oh snap, what’s up, dude?” they say with a look of wild excitement in their eyes. “You got tummy problems today, too?” Then they go out and tell that story to every person they ever meet for the rest of their lives. And what if you get startled when they approach you and you skip back into the display and wipe the whole thing out on your way to the ground and end up on the tiled white floor of a CVS covered in pink diarrhea medicine as a crowd of people snaps pictures to upload to their various social media accounts?
No thanks.
Another pretty good reason was covered in a roundtable over at The Hollywood Reporter this week. We pick things up mid-conversation, with Pedro Pascal, Kieran Culkin, and Jeff Bridges discussing the perils of fame and overeager fans.
PEDRO PASCAL: I remember, earlier on, because of Game of Thrones and the way my character died — speaking of touching — people were super into taking selfies with their thumbs in my eyes.
CULKIN: Wow, that’s a lot of trust.
PASCAL: And at first, I was so earnest and happy about the success of the character in the show, I’d let them! And then I remember getting a bit of an eye infection. (Laughter.)
JEFF BRIDGES: I get The Dude. People just dig The Big Lebowski, it’s such a good movie.
CULKIN: Do people shout quotes at you? “This is what happens when you f*ck a stranger in the a**.”
BRIDGES: Oh yeah, the quotes.
So, first of all, and I really cannot stress this strongly enough, please do not jam your fingers into my eyes. Ever. For any reason. Do not even come up to me and ask if you can do it. The answer is no. Let’s just get that out of the way first.
But the other and more important thing here is… this has to be so weird, right? Like, just being Jeff Bridges today, in 2023, decades after The Big Lebowski came out and still getting quotes from the movie shouted at you on the street. My favorite thing about this particular interaction is that the quote Kieran Culkin threw at him wasn’t even one his character said in the movie. John Goodman’s character said that. Poor Jeff Bridges. You can almost hear the exhaustion in his voice when you see the sentence “Oh yeah, the quotes” up there in black and white.
Let’s all agree to chill out with this a little. Or at least to try chilling out a little. I know it’s weird when you see a famous person right in front of you, in the flesh, not inside a screen in your living room. I know it can make your brain short-circuit a little, where you don’t know exactly how to behave. One time I saw Regis Philbin eating crabs at a restaurant in Maryland and I almost had a meltdown. (Take a second here and picture Regis Philbin eating crabs. You get it now, right?) But we need to at least try to stop shouting Big Lebowski quotes at Jeff Bridges. Or, if that’s not doable for you, if you really don’t think you can shut off the valve that runs from your eyes to your mouth, maybe shout quotes his character said and not the loudly profane things John Goodman said while bashing a car with a tire iron. That would be a good start.
Oh, and if you ever see me in a CVS covered in Pepto Bismol after someone startled me and I crashed through an entire display of it, please don’t take my picture and post it on social media. Just get me a towel. Maybe some baby wipes. They’re probably a few aisles over.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – Dudes, let’s go see Barbie
This is the trailer for the new Barbie movie, which is directed by Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken and looks absolutely demented in the best way possible. I think… yes, I’ll say it. I’m legitimately very excited about seeing the new Barbie movie in the theater. Which is not something I expected to be saying at any point in my adult life. But here we are. It feels great.
The plot itself sounds interesting enough (“After being expelled from Barbieland for being a less than perfect-looking doll, Barbie sets off for the human world to find true happiness”), but the trailer takes it to another level. In these 2.5 minutes alone we have: Barbie asking her dance party friends if they ever think about dying; a full-on record scratch immediately after that first thing; Kate McKinnon carrying Birkenstocks; and more. We also have, well, this…
… which is interesting for a few reasons. The first is that it’s kind of hilarious that Will Ferrell is playing an evil businessman in a movie about a beloved children’s toy. The second is that this is not the first time Will Ferrell has played an evil businessman in a movie about a beloved children’s toy. He also appeared in The LEGO Movie as a villain whose name was literally President/Lord Business. This is… it’s cool. I don’t know. I just think it’s cool. I like that we’re letting cool/smart people make weirdo takes on beloved intellectual property and I like that everyone who makes them is like “Hmm I need a business villain for this moviGET ME WILL FERRELL.”
I can’t wait to see him as an evil CEO in a movie about PowerWheels next. I swear I am barely joking about this. Good for Will Ferrell. Good for Greta Gerwig. Good for me, mostly. I am kind of excited to see the face of the kid at the movie theater when I roll up to the ticket counter and say “One ticket for Barbie, my dude.”
A little treat for Brian.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – Your periodic reminder that the titles of the Fast & Furious movies are much better in Japan
Here are some true statements:
- Fast X came out in theaters this month
- The titles of the movies in the Fast & Furious franchise are a chaotic mess with no uniform structure, featuring numbers (2 Fast 2 Furious) and different parts of the title used in different ways (Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7) and a ridiculously confusing thing where the fourth movie (Fast & Furious) has almost the exact same name as the first movie (The Fast and the Furious)
- The titles of these movies in Japan are objectively better
We’ve been over this before. Kind of a lot, actually. It’s one of my favorite things to talk about. And I’m going to talk about it again now, because the title of Fast X in Japan is so, so freaking good. Zero sarcasm here, too. It is so much better than Fast X. I can’t wait for you all to see it. But first, a quick recap.
Wild Speed (The Fast and the Furious)
Wild Speed X2 (2 Fast 2 Furious)
Wild Speed X3: Tokyo Drift (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift)
See? Already better. And not just because of the uniform structure. I am not lying to you even a little when I tell you that I think “Wild Speed” is a better title for these movies than “Fast & Furious.” And that’s before we get to…
Wild Speed MAX (Fast & Furious)
Wild Speed MEGA MAX (Fast Five)
See you think there’s nowhere to go from Wild Speed MAX, especially after you see they went all-caps for the MAX. “What could possibly be bigger than MAX?” you say, like a freaking idiot who did not even consider the leap to MEGA MAX. The best part is that I think I would see a movie called Wild Speed MEGA MAX without even knowing what it’s about.
That’s not true. The best part is the thing where we went from MAX to MEGA MAX. It’s so beautiful I could cry.
Wild Speed: Euro Mission (Fast & Furious 6)
Wild Speed: Sky Mission (Furious 7)
The sixth movie took place in Europe. The seventh movie featured the whole crew parachuting out of an airplane in cars and Vin Diesel soaring across the Abu Dhabi sky in a million-dollar sports car. I have no notes. The accuracy is to be respected.
Wild Speed: Ice Break (The Fate of the Furious)
Wild Speed: Jet Break (F9)
The thing I like here is that Wild Speed: Ice Break features a scene at the end where a stolen nuclear submarine literally breaks a sheet of ice as it emerges from the water. This is so much better than The Fate of the Furious that everyone in Hollywood should be ashamed of themselves. They should wake up crying twice a week about it. Even the people who don’t work at the studio that made the decision. Everyone is complicit here.
This brings us to the tenth movie. I’m so excited to show you this. I mean… look at it.
Wild Speed: Fire Boost (Fast X)
Perfect. Maybe the best movie title I’ve ever seen. If I ever have twins, I might name them Wild Speed and Fire Boost. They’ll have a lot to live up to, but pressure turns coal into diamonds. I believe in my sweet hypothetical boys. Or girls. I guess Wild Speed and Fire Boost are unisex names.
We all have a lot to consider here.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Hell yes
EVERYBODY
NOT A DRILL
“Better Call Saul” breakout Rhea Seehorn will be joining Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the untitled fourth “Bad Boys” film. Details of her character – and anything else pertaining to the plot of the movie – are being heavily guarded but no doubt will occur somewhere in Miami.
See, usually, in situations like this, not knowing more about the character Rhea Seehorn is playing in Bad Boys 4 would drive me insane. You can’t just introduce things like “Kim Wexler in a Michael Bay-related movie franchise that has already blown up most of Miami” and then leave me hanging with it. I’m not built like that. Things like this can eat me up.
BUT
I actually like it here. It gives me the opportunity to dream a little bit. And so far I have pictured two things that will almost definitely not happen but can’t be ruled out until they reveal more information.
ONE: Rhea Seehorn playing a ruthless Miami drug lord who feeds her enemies to piranhas and wears shiny designer suits that cost more than your car.
TWO: Rhea Seehorn playing the chief in charge of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and re-creating this exact scene word-for-word.
I know. I know I post this video a lot. Every time I mention Bad Boys. And sometimes even when I’m not talking about Bad Boys. I probably post it too much. In my defense…
I don’t actually have a defense. I just really like that scene. Someone get Rhea Seehorn a cigar and a bunch of basketballs.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Hey, do you guys wanna see Walton Goggins lip-synching the hell out of “Proud Mary” as a tribute album to Tina Turner?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CspS8gIA_6Q/
Of course you do.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at brian.grubb@uproxx.com (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Chris:
Listen, I was all set to write you an email about how Barry is a great show, and one of my favorites so far this year, but not “the best” show on television as you claimed in The Rundown a few weeks ago. But then NoHo Hank fired that wayward missile last week and I have laughed about it every time I’ve thought about it since. So, fine. I’ll relent. Barry is the best show on TV. But if Cousin Greg fires a missile at someone in the series finale of Succession, I’m going to change my mind again.
Okay, three things here…
— Thank you.
— This is a great excuse to post a GIF of the rocket scene again, so… let’s do that.
NoHo Hank was almost killed off way back in the first season. That much we knew because Bill Hader has talked about it before. What I don’t think we knew is how close it came to actually happening. But this week there was a big Barry roundtable (good fake name) with the cast over at the LA Times and… yeah. We barely averted disaster here.
Carrigan: I was almost killed in the first episode.
Goldberg: Can you even imagine the show without NoHo Hank in it?
Hader: We were lining up the shot where you were supposed to get shot, and I went over to our [director of photography] and [co-creator Berg] and I was like, [whispers] “Should we kill him? I don’t think we can kill him.” [Laughter.]
Thank you, Bill Hader. Thank you very much.
AND NOW, THE NEWS
Orcas may be teaching others to attack boats following a spate of strikes on sailboats off the coast of Europe, some observers say.
Everything is fine.
Sailors have reported a series of “coordinated” attacks by a group of orcas, including a May 22 strike on a 26-foot vessel sailing off the coast of Cape Spartel, near the Strait of Gibraltar.
“[Six] orcas arrived, 2 adults very big, 4 smaller ones,” sailor JP Derunes wrote in Orca Attack Reports, a Facebook group dedicated to flagging orca activity. “Both rudders destroyed and blocked … Boat to be hauled off later this week.”
A few notes here:
- The ocean is terrifying
- This is kind of the plot of my beloved and short-lived CBS drama Zoo, the one where James Wolk backhanded a general while demanding to know the location of a demonic sloth
- I want to join the Orca Attack Reports Facebook group
Moving on.
That attack followed a nighttime strike on May 4, when a Swiss yacht named Champagne, which was also sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, was attacked by three orcas. They struck its rudder, eventually sinking it, reported Yacht, a German boating news outlet.
Is it weird that I saw “a Swiss yacht named Champagne” and immediately started rooting for the orcas?
Hmm.
Hmmmmmmmm.
I feel okay about it.
Scientists said spikes in aggression may have been started by female orca whom scientists have named “White Gladis.”
[to the tune of “Black Betty”]
WHOA-OA WHITE GLADIS, BAM-A-LAM
WHOA-OA WHITE GLADIS, BAM-A-LAM
White Gladis is believed to have suffered a “critical moment of agony” such as a boat collision, which inflicted trauma on the orca, triggering a behavioural switch that other killer whales have learned to imitate.
To be very clear about it, just to settle any lingering doubt you might have…
Yes, I would absolutely watch a movie or limited television series titled White Gladis about an orca who goes on a revenge spree across Northern Europe and eventually rounds up a posse of other killer whales to help eliminate as many yachts as possible. I would watch that this weekend. Make it a Hard-R CGI action movie from the orcas’ perspective with cussing and violence and have Regina King do the voice of White Gladis.
It could work.
