What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T22 WHATS UP! January 1 - 7, 2023 The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Last night [Nov. 29] the senate voted to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, which would en- shrine marriage equality in federal law. This is an incredi- ble moment. I feel so proud to live in a country where anyone, regardless of their sexuality, can disagree for decades about the right way to load a dish- washer. LG's stretchable, smooshable screen promises a future of shatter-proof gadgets. In re- sponse to the shatter-proof claim, the nation's toddlers said, "Hold my juice box." The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Last year, several Oscar catego- ries were cut from the live tele- cast and everyone was out- raged. So, the Academy just an- nounced that, this year, all 23 Oscar categories will be pre- sented live. That should be fun — all the length of a Marvel movie with none of the excite- ment. Tonight [Nov. 30] was the 90th annual Christmas tree lighting here at Rockefeller Center. The crowd spent hours waiting in the freezing cold, the pouring rain and 40-mile-per-hour winds. But at the end of the day, at least they had a beauti- ful view of the umbrella in front of them. Following a massive spike in sales, "The Phantom of the Op- era" has extended its final Broadway run by eight weeks. Yeah, they announced they were closing, then got record sales. Now Sears is like, "We are also closing." Jimmy Kimmel Live! As a result of that little dinner party with Donald Trump last week, they say they're beefing up security at Mar-a-Lago. They said they will now do in- creased vetting on guests, and by increased vetting they mean they'll start vetting guests. This was the highlight of my football-watching weekend, maybe even year: there's a player on the Alabama Crim- son Tide named Kool-Aid McKinstry. ... From now on, whenever I get depressed, I'm going to remind myself that there's a real person named Kool-Aid living amongst us. I have no doubt that when I do, it will bring a smile to my face every time. President Biden spent his Thanksgiving with his family in Nantucket. The Bidens released their dinner menu ... they had four kinds of dessert. They had apple, pumpkin and coconut cream pie with chocolate ice cream. Should we be concerned that our 80-year-old president is eating enough sugar to kill Willy Wonka? Late Night With Seth Meyers Dr. Anthony Fauci said yester- day [Nov. 22] that his final mes- sage from the White House po- dium is for Americans to get an updated coronavirus booster to protect themselves and their family. He added, "And do it now because, after Thanksgiv- ing, you may not want to pro- tect them anymore." According to a new survey, 35% of Americans believe that the person with the window seat on an airplane should have exclu- sive power over the window shade. OK, but whenever they open it, the person on the aisle should still get to yell, "Still just clouds?!" A museum in Texas recently broke a Guinness World Record by printing the world's largest book, which is seven feet tall and 11 feet wide. It also set a re- cord by being the first book of 2022 that isn't about Trump. The Late Late Show With James Corden Apparently, Twitter CEO Elon Musk is now at war with Apple, and it's playing out in a series of tweets. Yesterday, Elon Musk posted, "Apple has threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won't tell us why." Musk says Apple is threatening to remove the Twit- ter app from the App Store, which is terrible news for the six people who still work at Twitter. LATE LAUGHS BY MICHELLE ROSE TV Media More than just because: Scarlett Johansson ("Black Widow," 2021) is headed for the small screen. The former Marvel Cinemat- ic Universe actress has signed on to star in and executive pro- duce (via her These Pictures production company) "Just Cause," a new thriller destined for Amazon's Prime Video. The series, which hails from writer Christy Hall ("I Am Not Okay With This") and Warner Bros. TV, is based on the 1992 novel by author John Katzen- bach — the same novel that was adapted for a 1995 film that starred Sean Connery ("The Rock," 1996) and a young Jo- hansson in only her second film role. Johansson, who played Con- nery's on-screen daughter, was just 10 years old when the film hit theaters. Safe to say she won't be reprising that role this time around, but it does allow her to revisit a story to which she already has a personal con- nection, and this will mark her first lead role in a TV series. In the film, Connery's char- acter was a law professor who defended a death row inmate. Amazon's new limited series is going to follow the novel a lit- tle more closely, though it will center on a female protagonist instead of a male one. Played by Johansson, Madi- son "Madi" Cowart is a strug- gling reporter for a Florida newspaper. Madi has been as- signed to cover the final days of an inmate on death row, and she begins to believe the pris- oner's claims of innocence. In the meantime, Johansson has been busy filming another project bound for a different streaming service: Apple TV+'s "Project Artemis," di- rected by Greg Berlanti ("Love, Simon," 2018) and starring Chris Evans ("Knives Out," 2019). And that's not all: Jo- hansson is also attached to "Asteroid City," from filmmak- er Wes Anderson ("The French Dispatch," 2020) and "My Mother's Wedding" from actress/director Kristin Scott Thomas ("The English Pa- tient," 1996), though both films are still in production. Sibling drama: After six seasons of playing Kate Pear- son on NBC's "This Is Us," ac- tress Chrissy Metz has lined up her next project, and it seems to be another TV drama involv- ing family and siblings. Metz will next star in and ex- ecutive produce "Help Me Rhonda," which has been given a script (plus penalty) commit- ment from NBCUniversal. For all you readers, the drama is based on the bestselling novel "2 Sisters Detective Agency," by James Patterson and Can- dice Fox. It is being adapted for TV by "Life Sentence" and "Significant Mother" creators/ writers Erin Cardillo and Rich- ard Keith. "Help Me Rhonda" centers on Metz's character, brash pub- lic defender Rhonda Bird, as well as Barbra Ann "Baby" Bird, described as "the privileged teenage sister she [Rhonda] never knew she had" (per Deadline). Following their fa- ther's death, the two siblings reluctantly take over his private detective agency, and as they begin to help his clients, the duo slowly uncovers the truth about who their father really was. Metz, whose performance in "This Is Us" earned her an Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations, and whose mem- oir "This Is Me" is a New York Times bestseller, will executive produce alongside Cardillo, Keith, Patterson and a number of other names tied to produc- tion companies James Patter- son Entertainment, PatMa Pro- ductions, Tree Line Film and Luber Roklin. "Help Me Rhonda" is still in the early stages of development, and if it's handed a series order, there's still the question of whether it will air on NBC or NBC's streamer, Peacock. As for Metz's "This Is Us" co- stars, most of them seem to be sticking with TV. Co-star Milo Ventimiglia will star in ABC's upcoming "The Company You Keep"; Mandy Moore is working on Hulu's "Twin Flames"; Justin Hartley is attached to the CBS pilot "The Never Game"; and Metz's onscreen husband, Chris Sullivan, appeared in the ABC pilot "The Son In Law." Recurring regular: Actress Jordan Gonzalez's character, Ash Romero, featured promi- nently in Season 1 of HBO Max's "Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin," so it may be a bit surprising to some that Gonzalez wasn't considered a series regular — at least, he wasn't until now. Gonzalez has now officially made the leap from recurring to series regular ahead of Season 2, which has been retitled "Pretty Little Liars: Summer School." This means viewers will see a lot more of Ash, a fan favorite who is the first transmasculine char- acter introduced in the series. Season 1 was set five years af- ter the original "Pretty Little Li- ars" series (2010-2017) ended and introduced new characters — or rather a new generation of Little Liars — who are being "tormented by an unknown as- sailant and made to pay for the secret sin committed by their parents two decades ago… as well as their own" (according to the official logline). Scarlett Johansson to star in "Just Cause" STARS ON SCREEN