What if, every Monday morning, whether you were spending the weekend living it up or partying down, you could have all of your pop culture news in one place? What if there was more to your weekend than bright nights and hazy mornings? What if you could be caught up on your television, film, and music news all at once, with a little Northwestern thrown in for good measure? This is the Monday Morning Hangover.
Ah, spring. I love it. I am typing up this new Hangover in front of my dorm room window, looking out over all the Wildcats lugging their bags up the front steps of Allison, hot and tanned from their various post-winter adventures (and when I say ‘hot’, I refer to temp—you know what? Screw it, everyone looks great out there today). The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” is playing on my stereo. This is the way it was supposed to be, friends. It is time to see what we missed while we were all busy prepping for the best three months of the year.
Movies
In terms of the box office, things were a little weak across the nation. Sure, you had Russell Crowe do his schtick in Noah (number one in earnings this past weekend), but you were probably better off catching The Grand Budapest Hotel or something else that came out a few weeks ago. However, if you were lucky enough to be in L.A. or New York over the break, you caught the sequel to Dazz’s favorite raw action movie of the last five years. That is right, The Raid 2 came out this weekend, and wow, am I pumped. Check out this trailer. Oh, you do not like foreign movies or indie movies or movies that kick ass? Well, this is my column and I can do what I want, so there is the door, hater. See what I did with that hyperlink? That is from the original Raid movie. It is called The Raid: Redemption, and you are welcome in advance.
Trailer of the week goes to Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mostly because I have nothing better to show you, but hey, at least you guys are staying current, right? Right?
Finally, in more depressing news, the Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is now going to be three movies. They are going to follow Newt Scamander, the fictional author of the magical textbook “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," and take place 70 years before the adventures of Harry Potter. There is too much revitalizing going around – just let stuff be. Oh, and there is going to be a Magic Mike sequel called Magic Mike XXL. Here at my window, a cloud just went over the sun. The world sucks.
Television
Louis C.K. hosted SNL this week. While it was a good move for the show, it does not really cater well to C.K.’s brand of comedy, and it sort of showed. By the way, thinking about Louis C.K. this weekend reminded me of his Carlin-esque approach to material – he puts out new stuff every year! Why is that not the standard of comedy? I would think that if you are paid to be funny, you can find a new way to make people laugh at least once a freaking year. This grumpy-embittered-aspiring-comedy-writer-comment brought to you by ...
The How I Met Your Mother finale – it is Monday night (experimenting with segues here)! I still say it should have happened a season ago, especially when you consider that last season felt too long and this season was only good for, well, the last half. The plight of Ted Mosby is about to end, but never fear, we will always have How I Met Your Dad to cling onto ... I hate ending all these sections on low notes.
Music
So we might as well start on a low note for the music section – Avicii went to the hospital this weekend. He has a blocked gallbladder, according to Entertainment Weekly. He had to cancel his headlining show at the Ultra Music Festival, but hey, at least he had the class to replace himself with Deadmau5. Also, just learned through my research for this column that Avicii is only 24 years old. Things are not looking good for me in four years, friends.
Presented without comment: the Flaming Lips will release a partner-piece to Pink Floyd’s masterful Dark Side of the Moon, titled Flaming Side of the Moon. The album is designed to mesh directly with Dark Side, so the listener can hear both albums simultaneously. It is also compatible with The Wizard of Oz. Again, presented without comment.
We close this week’s piece with something a little more poignant. Seattle police have released a new bunch of photos from Kurt Cobain’s death scene. You can view them here, but I should warn you – it is really darn sad. No body or weapon is shown, but the odds and ends that Cobain surrounded himself with just before it was all over are present. A heroin kit, some old sunglasses, the suicide note – it is all there.
Yeesh – winter really smacked us across the face on the way out. Kind of fitting, but hey, today is the beginning of another spring. This is the quarter that we all wait for as Wildcats – this is the one where things start picking up and looking better. Winter was long, cold, and dark, but today was the opposite. Today felt great. There is a first for the Monday Morning Hangover – we feel great coming off of that weekend. While we may still feel a few things from winter, and maybe some things from even further before, this is a time to start something new in each of our lives. I can just feel the Northwestern love already.
See you out there in the sunshine, ‘Cats. Here is to an exciting new quarter.