Commentary by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — Happy weekend people! Great news everybody, we’re almost done with January.  The month is voted the least popular month for the 2oth decade in a row. The first month of the year lasts approximately 50 days and is cold and windy for every one of them.

February is a close contender, what with having Valentine’s Day and all. But, at least, is has the courtesy of being just 28 days.  So with February to look forward to, lets wave goodbye to this ill-begotten month in five days.

In what was shaping up to be a pretty uneventful week in pop culture, the Oscars dropped their list of nominations for the awards show slotted for February 24 on ABC.   The list, for the most part, is unsurprising, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few cool aspects to it.  Here are the picks for Best Picture:

• Black Panther
• BlacKkKlansman
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• The Favourite
• Green Book
• Roma
• A Star is Born
• Vice

The first thing that sticks out is that Black Panther has been chosen as the first superhero movie to ever be considered for the award.  While it won’t win, it’s still a testament to the importance the film had to the culture as a whole and the breadth of what superhero movies can achieve.

As I’ve said all year, 2018 was such a weak year for movies.  We had a number of very entertaining movies, but as far as Oscar-bait goes, this might have been the worst year since 2011 when that navel-gazing garbage movie the Artist won.  This perfect storm of mediocrity made it possible for a Star is Born to make it on the list and if the Academy is dumb enough to do it, it may actually even win.

It’s not all bad, however, Spike Lee (finally) got a nomination for Best Director and If Beale Street Could Talk got the nod for Best Screenplay even if it did get snubbed for Best Picture.  While the awards show will end up to be boring once again even without being hampered by a host, some really talented people are up for their first awards (like Glenn Close!) so let’s all just patiently wait for the Academy to mess it up and cross our fingers in hopes that they choose Roma.

If you’re not too busy frantically trying to catch up on all those Best Picture nominees you never got around to (don’t worry, no one will judge you for missing out on Green Book), there’s a new season of HBO’s True Detective waiting for you on the silver screen.

True Detective is an anthology series that is famous for turning the king of rom-coms, Mathew McConaughey, into a legitimate actor.  Apparently they needed him too because season 2 was a major drop off from the first.

In any case, the third season is off and running and follows Detective Wayne Hays, played by Mahershala Ali, who you might recognize as that guy from House of Cards that seems to be in everything now.

This season harkens back to the first by having the story narrated by a future version of the main character as he describes the case to other officers due to new developments in the case.  Except this time around they take it a step further by telling the story from three versions of Hays, each 10-20 years older than the previous.

This marked departure from previous iterations of the show makes for a far more interesting way of telling the story because the oldest version of Hays has dementia and acts as an unreliable narrator at times as he remembers the story in bits and pieces.

Rather than watching a single case unfold, in this sense the disappearance of the two Purcell children, we get to watch the same detective work a case for over two decades.  We’ll have to wait to see if HBO gets back on track this season (which is infuriating that you just can’t binge the whole season), but if the first few episodes are any hint, we’re in for a very interesting ride.

Finally this week, there are three songs worth sticking in your ear.  The first couple being a 2-pack from one of the only remaining tolerable country bands, Old Dominion.  Old Dominion release a pair of singles this week titled Make it Sweet and One Man Band.

The group returns to their seemingly bottomless well of punchy love songs that you can’t help but bob along to as they serenade you into happy bliss.  The other song worth mentioning is the third, and final, single by Arianna Grande titled 7 Rings.  Grande announced her track list for her second album in six months — for which we are eternally grateful — this week. But to hold us over she dropped this fun jam that features her flexing her wealth and actually rapping.

If these past three singles are what we are to expect from her going forward, she’s about to blow up bigger than Brittney Spears in the early 2000s.

Meme of the Week

I unfortunately can’t look at every meme that dominates the internet every week, so if you see a meme and think it should be the meme of the week please send it to: SumnerCultureCow@gmail.com

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