Pop culture doesn’t pause with the dawn of a new year! Here are new shows, books and movies that have already earned a spot on our calendar:
Alyssa Rosenberg writes…
1. Black Panther
Yeah, yeah, I had a kind of grumpy 2017 when it came to superheroes. But I can’t resist the prospect of seeing the fictional nation of Wakanda on the biggest screen possible. And I would follow director Ryan Coogler into literally any movie.
2. American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
I’ve written before that showrunner Ryan Murphy is basically the Ken Burns of camp: a hard-working auteur with a unifying theory of America intent on tackling different aspects and eras of our culture and politics. His latest adventure explores crime, homophobia, fashion, HIV and Miami.
Whether you like it may depend on how much time you’re comfortable spending in the mind of serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), but Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin are wonderful as, respectively, Gianni Versace, his sister Donatella and Antonio D’Amico, too.
3. “The Female Persuasion,” by Meg Wolitzer
Wolitzer is another one of those artists where I don’t even have to think for a moment about the subject of her work or whether I’m interested in a particular scenario: I’m just automatically in.
Knowing that “The Female Persuasion” is, in part, about the influence one generation of feminists on another is just further inducement to dive in.
4. Annihilation
Director Alex Garland, plus a cast that includes Gina Rodriguez, Oscar Isaac, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, in a movie based on a novel that was clearly crying out to be an overwhelming visual experience. Do you even have to ask?
2017 didn’t give us enough genuinely weird-feeling science fiction. I’m looking forward to getting truly lost in “Annihilation.”
5. A Wrinkle In Time
I always feel a certain amount of trepidation about adaptations of books that struck me hard as a child; reading is such a private experience, especially when you’re young, that it can be hard to imagine that anyone else saw the words on the page in precisely the same way when they read them.
But I am so delighted that Ava DuVernay is getting to execute this passion project on such a large scale, and with such an utterly delightful cast, including Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris Pine (the best Chris), Mindy Kaling, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Peña and Bellamy Young. If there’s a crew I’d be happy to have compete with one of my oldest and most intense cultural memories, it’s this one.
6. Ocean’s 8
Sometimes, you just need to get a group of ridiculously well-dressed ladies together to steal some extremely extravagant jewellery from the Met Ball, OK?
“Ocean’s 8” is scheduled to come out halfway through 2018, as if the powers that be in Hollywood know that they’re going to owe us a couple of hours of fabulous catharsis. I’m already counting the days.
We’d love to know what’s got you full of anticipation!
