What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T22 WHATS UP! March 6 - 12, 2022 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert COVID is like that tramp stamp of Smash Mouth lyrics you got in the '90s: It's not going away, we just have to learn to live with the fact that "All that glitters is gold, only shooting stars break the mold." This morning [Feb. 2], all eyes were on Gobbler's Knob — which I can't believe I can say on CBS — the bad news is weather- predicting rodent Punxsutaw- ney Phil saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter. ... Not all groundhogs agree with Phil's forecast. Here in New York, Staten Island Chuck has predicted an early spring. Nice try. You're not getting me to go to Staten Island. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon At this year's [Olympic] Games, there are 91 countries, 109 events and 1,000 chances to hear the person next to you say, "I could do that." I heard this is going to be the first Winter Olympics that relies almost entirely on fake snow. Yeah, they're going to create over one million cubic meters of fake snow, or roughly one Hall- mark Christmas movie. A company in China just un- veiled plans for a plane that can fly 7,000 miles per hour, which means you could go from Beijing to New York in 60 minutes. The company said it's perfectly safe, and that your eyeballs return to their sockets within hours of landing. The Late Late Show With James Corden The federal government has just hit an alarming new milestone. For the first time ever, United States national debt has sur- passed $30 trillion, which is in- credibly depressing. ... Appar- ently most of that debt stems from a VHS copy of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" that the United States rented from China in 1991. The Washington football team finally announced their new name this morning [Feb. 2]. They're now called the Wash- ington Commanders. I mean, call them whatever you want. They haven't been able to com- mand a winning season since Obama was in office. Sweden has announced plans for an unusual solution to litter- ing. They're going to train crows to pick up cigarette butts. There's no way this doesn't lead to armies of crows flying around just ripping cigarettes out of people's mouths. I love that in- stead of teaching people to be responsible citizens, we're like, "No, let's train the crows to pick up after us." This could lead to much cleaner cities, and, let's be honest, much cooler-looking crows. Jimmy Kimmel Live! [At the Beijing Winter Olym- pics], one biathlete from Russia shared a photo of a meal she was served at the hotel. It was pota- toes, plain pasta, some kind of charred meat and then some- thing else. They're feeding them like divorced dads feed their kids. But despite the criticism from the athletes, the current president of the IOC and former Fyre Festival organizer, Ja Rule, says these complaints are totally overblown. Here in Hollywood it was Oscar nomination day today. The Os- cars, of course, are our chance to honor all the great movies we watched on television. The big winner nominations-wise was "The Power of the Dog." "The Power of the Dog" got 12 nomi- nations — one for every person who saw it. Late Night With Seth Meyers Today [Feb. 2] was Groundhog Day, and Punxsatawney Phil says we've got about six or seven winters left. Tesla has issued a recall for more than 50,000 vehicles to disable a feature that prevents them from rolling through stop signs without coming to a full halt, or as Tesla calls it, "Mer- cedes mode." Today [Feb. 2] was singer Shaki- ra's 45th birthday. Her hips still don't lie, but that have started re- peating the same stories. LATE LAUGHS BY MICHELLE ROSE TV Media Coming to Disney: "Every- thing Everywhere All At Once" seems like a good way of de- scribing the red-hot career of ac- tress Michelle Yeoh ("Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," 2021), but it's actually the title of her latest film, premier- ing this week at the SXSW Film Festival. Yeoh, whose Hollywood ca- reer already spans more than three decades, is very much in demand right now. She recently appeared in Netflix's "Gunpow- der Milkshake" (2021) and played a big role in "Star Trek: Discovery" (she's also attached to its much-delayed and still-in- development spinoff, "Section 31"). Her many upcoming proj- ects include "The Witcher: Blood Origin," the four "Avatar" sequels, and the 2022 film adap- tation of the YA novel "The School for Good and Evil." Now, "American Born Chi- nese" can be added to that list. Yeoh has joined the interna- tional cast of the Disney+ series. Based on the graphic novel by Gene Luen Yeng, "American Born Chinese" centers on teen- ager Jin Wang (Ben Wang, "MacGyver"). Jin's struggles at school go from bad to worse af- ter he befriends new student Wei-Chen (former taekwondo champion Jim Liu) and is unwit- tingly entangled in a battle be- tween Chinese mythological gods. Yeoh stars as Guanyin, who guides her nephew Wei-Chen while maintaining her secret identity as the Buddhist bod- hisattva of compassion. Other cast members include Daniel Wu ("Into the Badlands") as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King; Yeo Yann Yann ("Wet Season," 2019) as Jin's mom, Christine; Chin Han ("Mortal Kombat," 2021) as Jin's father, Simon; and Sydney Taylor ("Just Add Magic: Mys- tery City") as classmate Amelia. Oh boy: Fans of the time- traveling series "Quantum Leap" have been buzzing and speculat- ing since last fall, when series star Scott Bakula ("NCIS: New Orleans") first revealed that "significant conversations" were "going on" at NBC about a possi- ble reboot. Those conversations have translated into action, because NBC greenlit a sequel pilot in January. So far we know, "It's been 30 years since Dr. Sam Beckett (Ba- kula) stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Now a new team has been as- sembled to restart the project in the hopes of understanding the mysteries behind the machine and the man who created it" (per the official logline). The real-life mystery is whether Bakula will reprise his role, but right now it doesn't seem likely. And despite it be- ing hard to imagine "Quantum Leap" without Al (Dean Stock- well, "Blue Velvet," 1986) and his ever-present cigar, Stock- well's death last fall means he won't be a part of the reboot, ei- ther. As a result, many believe this new project, which seems destined for streaming on Pea- cock, will build off the ideas presented in the original series instead of continuing Sam's sto- ry. Original series creator/execu- tive producer Don Bellisario is back as an executive producer, alongside executive producer/ co-narrator Deborah Pratt ("Air- wolf"). Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt (both of "La Brea") are attached as showrunners, and Helen Shaver ("Station Eleven"), who recently joined the creative team, will direct the pilot. Team up: "Avengers: End- game" (2019) co-stars Brie Lar- son and Jeremy Renner are both working with Disney+ on new unscripted series, but know that their projects have nothing to do with the Marvel Cinematic Uni- verse. Larson is behind the new "hy- brid" docuseries "Growing Up," which "explores the challenges, triumphs and complexities of adolescence through 10 compel- ling coming-of-age stories." What makes it a hybrid? Each 30-minute episode features dif- ferent filmmaking styles — doc- umentary, experimental and narrative – that help tell the sto- ry of one (casted) individual aged 18-22. Through these cine- matic re-enactments, and the deeply personal interviews that set the tone for each episode, "Growing Up" aims to offer a wide-ranging look at the life ex- periences and the obstacles faced by modern teens on their path to self-discovery and ac- ceptance. The docuseries will features episodes directed by Larson, as well as Elegance Bratton ("Buck," 2020), Ashley Eakin ("Single," 2020), Sydney Free- land ("Drunktown's Finest," 2014), Ekwa Msangi ("Farewell Amor," 2020) and Rudy Valdez ("The Sentence," 2018), among many others. No official release date has been announced. Renner, meanwhile, is behind (and fronting) a new unscripted series that seemingly reflects the actor's personal interest in con- struction projects. Disney de- scribes "Rennervations" as "an original four-part series that em- braces Jeremy's lifelong passion for giving back to communities around the world, by reimagin- ing unique purpose-built vehi- cles to meet a community's needs." Michelle Yeoh to star in "American-Born Chinese" STARS ON SCREEN