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Goodbye forever brat summer | Pop Recap #12

Author

Katrina
September 08, 2024

Happy Sunday to my fellow pop culture enthusiasts! Welcome to another edition of the Pop Recap newsletter, filled with all the trending things you need to know in the entertainment world. From the big reveal of next year’s Super Bowl halftime performance headliner to my experience attending the Reunion Tour - let’s get into it!

🗞️ MAKING HEADLINES 🗞️

🍏 Charli XCX has declared the official end of Brat summer so finish working it out on the remix, put the club classics on mute and wrap up the Apple TikTok dance videos. It’s over. But what a fun time it was! Brat issued in an era of being carefree and wild on the internet, but its now time to welcome Christian Girl Autumn 😜

I’ll miss the Brat era, but I also think it grew a little out of hand. The meme-ification of Brat stretched so far a presidential campaign even used it, and in hindsight its commercialization felt at odds with the original niche and authentic spirit of Brat, which thrived on its rebellious, offbeat energy. I think we will always remember the fun of Brat summer, but in terms of being so brat. You didn’t even have to listen to the album to participate in the trend. Brat was a color, a phrase, a movement. Will we remember the music too? For what it’s worth, Brat still has more time to shine considering Charli XCX will soon be embarking on the Sweat Tour across North America alongside Troye Sivan that’s sure to be a party. Will you be there?!?

🏈 Kendrick Lamar will headline the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show in New Orleans!!! I am so excited for this, especially considering the huge year he has had. This performance will be LEGENDARY. Btw, I totally predicted that Kendrick would headline a Super Bowl halftime back in February in the Fan Fave podcast episode about 21st Century Super Bowl halftime performances. Listen here and get excited for next year.

💰Selena Gomez is now a billionaire. The actress and singer is now worth $1.3 billion, thanks to her Rare Beauty makeup line.

🏆 The 2024 Creative Arts Emmys are currently underway, with the first ceremony taking place last night in Los Angeles and another happening tonight. Stay up to date on the winners here.

Rest in peace to Brazilian music icon Sérgio Mendes and influential rapper Rich Homie Quan, both of whom passed away this week.

In this edition...

🗞️ FILM NEWS 🗞️

New Trailers

Casting Announcements

  • Tom Hardy and Aaron Taylor-Johnson have been cast in the crime thriller “Blood On Snow.”

  • Phoebe Dynevor is joining Zac Efron in A24 and Black Bear’s “Famous,” a thriller exploring the dangers of being a celebrity.

🎭 THEATER NEWS 🎭

  • It’s NYC Broadway Week! Get 2-for-1 tickets to select shows through September 15 here. 

  • John Cardoza, Solea Pfeiffer and Pepe Muñoz will join Moulin Rouge! on Broadway starting October 15. Cardoza will be returning to the role of Christian, which he played on the show’s national tour. Pfeiffer will take over the role of Satine and Muñoz will play Santiago. I have to say, I saw John Cardoza in the role of Christian twice when the tour came to Washington D.C. and I saw Solea Pfeiffer in both Almost Famous and Hadestown on Broadway. They are both phenomenal talents. This is a do-not-miss casting.

  • Neil Patrick Harris and Jane Krakowski have been cast in Shit. Meet. Fan. at MCC Theatre in New York. They join Constance Wu, Debra Messing, Billy Magnussen, Garret Dillahunt, Genevieve Hannelius and Tramell Tillman. Performances begin October 10.

  • Emmy Rossum and Zoë Winters have been cast in Walden at Second Stage in New York. Performances begin October 16.

  • Sebastián Yatra will join the cast of Chicago on Broadway as Billy Flynn starting November 25.

  • The upcoming Broadway production of Othello, starring Denzel Washington, Molly Osborne and Jake Gyllenhaal has found a home at the Barrymore Theatre. Performances begin February 24, 2025. 

  • Hannah Shankman has been cast as Fanny Brice in the Funny Girl national tour.

🎵 MUSIC NEWS 🎵

📺 TELEVISION NEWS 📺

  • Major shifts are happening in the late night television world, yet again. “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” will be switching to a schedule of four new episodes per week instead of its current five night schedule. The Tonight Show joins the rest of the late night shows in making this schedule change. Repeats will air Fridays.

  • ”Only Murders in the Building” has been renewed for a fifth season at Hulu. 

  • A Twilight animated series is headed to Netflix. “Midnight Sun” will be based on Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s 2020 book of the same name and is a retelling of the vampire story from the perspective of Edward Cullen. 

  • Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost and Michael Che are set to host “New York After Dark,” Peacock’s very first live comedy special on September 12.

  • Tareasa ‘Reesa Teesa’ Johnson’s viral “Who TF Did I Marry?” TikTok series is being turned into a television series, led and produced by Natasha Rothwell.

  • Dancing with the Stars has announced the stars for its 33rd season. Among those joining the cast are Olympians Ilona Maher and Stephen Nedoroscik, Bachelor star Joey Graziadei and Bachelorette star Jenn Tran, Disney’s Chandler Kinney, NBA champion Dwight Howard, Oscar nominee Eric Roberts, and con artist and fraudster Anna Delvey, who will dance with her ankle monitor on.

  • The Barney revival series will premiere on Max on October 14.

  • “9-1-1 Lone Star” has been canceled after five seasons.

  • Keke Palmer will star in an upcoming revival series of the 1989 movie The Burbs at Peacock.

  • The Washington D.C. season of Netflix reality dating series “Love is Blind” will premiere on October 2. 

  • New Releases: Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist (Peacock), Slow Horses S4 (Apple TV+)

🧠 WHAT’S ON MY MIND 🧠

🎤 I attended the Reunion Tour at CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore, MD on Saturday night! This is technically the Reunion Tour 2.0 because it originally kicked off last year, with a slightly different lineup. I attended that version of the tour back in September. This time around, the Reunion Tour featured Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, Fred Hammond, The Clark Sisters, Marvin Sapp and Kierra Sheard. The show was a high energy party full of nonstop gospel music hits. I even got to meet up with Fred Hammond after the show, whose performance was a highlight of mine. Make sure you’re following on social media as I’ll be sharing videos from the show this week.

🛥️ I’m a fan of Saturday Night Live. I’m not sure if people that aren’t fans of Saturday Night Live are aware of the lore behind Colin Jost and Pete Davidson purchasing a defunct Staten Island Ferry for $280,000. If you are not, this article sums it up the story behind “Titanic 2” pretty clearly. It has become a common joke among SNL fans and even on the show about what Jost and Davidson will do with this ferry. Well finally, we have an update! The ferry will be used to host Tommy Hilfiger’s New York Fashion Week show today. I have to admit I am way too invested in this, but I can’t wait to see how things turn out.

🏈 👠 It’s NFL season. WOOO YAY FOOTBALL! GO SPORTS!!! Ahead of Thursday’s kickoff, the NFL posted a sizzle reel recapping the highs of last year’s football season to generate excitement. That video has faced a lot of backlash as a result, because of Taylor Swift, who was featured in the clip five separate times.

Respectfully, yes there should be football in a football video. But it’s a fair representation of last year’s NFL season in my mind! All I can recall is Taylor Swift and my home team, the Baltimore Ravens, almost making it to the Super Bowl. But what can I say? I’m just a girl and this isn’t a sports newsletter. I only watch football if I’m physically at a game or if my dad has it on our living room tv. But let me know on social media — should the NFL dial down on how much they show Taylor Swift this season?  They definitely didn’t at the Chiefs kickoff on Thursday. Like it or not, Taylor Swift is promo and Taylor Swift sells. They aren’t gonna stop showing her when it’s working, and can we really complain when she’s serving looks like this?!?!?

Alright, lastly, I think I’m gonna try a new thing for the newsletter. If you haven’t already, noticed this edition is me trying a lot of new things for the newsletter ..but! Each week, I’m gonna pick a favorite pop culture thing that’s new or that I’ve discovered for the first time and share it as my pop culture pick of the week! This is something I did in the latest season of the Fan Fave podcast, so while that’s on hiatus, I thought it would be fun to do it here too.

This week’s Pop Culture Pick of the Week goes to the brand new FX series “English Teacher.” I heard absolutely nothing about this show, all of the marketing must have missed me. But I was looking for something short to watch and I opened the Disney+ app and it was right there asking me to click and watch, so I did. To be fair, what got me to watch was the fact that it looked like an “Abbott Elementary” type of show. But when I logged on to Twitter to see what people had to say about it, I was pretty disappointed to see that people were bashing it as if its a ripoff of the ABC sitcom. The new FX series “English Teacher” is similar to “Abbott Elementary” by being a comedy set in a school. What they have in common ends there. “English Teacher” takes place in a high school, its not a mockumentary and is edgier as it tackles real social issues. It definitely is very funny too, so I’ll recommend it as my pop culture pick for this week!

The first two episodes are streaming now, with new episodes premiering on FX every Monday.

The next edition of Pop Recap will be out next Thursday.

Heads up! The schedule for the newsletter will look a bit differently next week. With fun award shows coming up, we will have two special editions instead of a typical Sunday edition. A VMAs special edition is set for Thursday and an Emmys special edition will be sent out on Monday. Stay tuned and make sure to stay connected with the Pop Recap and Fan Fave communities on social media.

xx Katrina