Hi, Trash Pandas, and welcome back to The Trash Report! I didn't make a column last week because Monday was Memorial Day and Uncle Sam said I had to honor the fallen by shopping internet sales and cooking outside? For whatever reason? But I missed you! And now that we are on the other side of Memorial Day, it's the unofficial start to Summer, and June 1 is the official start to Pride Month. You know it, friends: the days are getting longer, and the jean shorts are getting shorter. So much is happening, I mustn't delay one second longer! 

Felony Flats

Last week Donald Trump became the first US President to be convicted of a felony. That's cool! We deserve a treat, even though things are still pretty bleak. I imagine it's gotta be like how my dog feels when we're at the vet and she gets fed E-Z cheese while undergoing very invasive procedures. Like, cool, thanks, but would it be possible to have the treat without the everything else? Alas: no. 

These monkeys are all of us and the bananas are the news of Trump's conviction: at first, very exciting! Bananas! But then—oh, God. Bananas? Still with the banana? 

Trump held a post-conviction press conference that was attended by none other than Fyre Festival mastermind Billy McFarland. It makes sense that they'd be friends! One is a convicted conman who's bilked millions from investors, got caught, and is a giant laughingstock, and the other is also that. 

Meanwhile, President Biden's campaign also held a press conference, but featuring a speech by actor Robert De Niro. This is a choice where I actually have to give a little bit of props to the Biden campaign; I am sure that they know that having Robert De Niro at an event would not do anything to meaningfully boost Biden's chances of winning in the fall, BUT Trump is famously thin-skinned, especially when it comes to not being adored in Hollywood, and he would find this personally aggravating. Like if you can't carry the day, at least be petty about it.  

Every friend group has this person, and I encourage you to check in with them whenever you start feeling a little cocky about how things are going:

The TrashCast

Announcements are trickling out for the cast of the third Knives Out movie, which has a certain kind of movie fan (likes nice things/kinda bitchy [👋]) salivating, discussing, and forecasting. Thus far, the cast will include: Daniel Craig, Mila Kunis, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Josh O'Conner, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Daryl McCormack, and Cailee Spaeny. This in comparison to the heavy hitters added to the third season of White Lotus, which will include Parker Posey, Walton Goggins, and Michelle Monaghan, among others. You know, I'm not actually sure if I love these properties or love dream-casting them? Because I mean, anyone listed who will be joining the new Knives Out would also work beautifully on White Lotus, and vice versa. BUT: no actor could do both! Could you imagine if Aubrey Plaza... or shit, even our queen Jennifer Coolidge... tried to go KO? Beloved or not, we'd call them greedy, and we'd be right to do so! And I'll be glad to see Parker Posey on WL, even though she would have eaten it all up in KO, and Kerry Washington could 100 percent fuck up WL! Hang on—do I suddenly understand fantasy football drafts? Is this what that is? If so, can we figure out a way to draft scene-stealing character actors before the fourth iteration of either project gets going?? I will surely have more opinions! Don't even get me started on where we'd put Bowen Yang! 

Speaking of broad cinematic universes, a new Jurassic Park story is coming out, and Scarlett Johansson has signed on. She will be the second actor who can go in the middle part of a Venn Diagram where one circle is Marvel and the other circle is Jurassic Park, the other actor being, of course, Chris Pratt. We're all pretty sick of his shit now, so I don't know what ScarJo is thinking! She cannot possibly need the money. Last I heard she was suing Open AI for stealing her voice for its new ChatGPT service. (Hey, Open AI, Ursula the Sea Witch called, she said try blackmailing her with some legs?) Which brings me back to my last paragraph: Oh wow, wouldn't ScarJo be perfect for a Knives Out cameo? Make it a role that is tiny but vicious and memorable. Shit, have her die in the first five minutes, a la Drew Barrymore in Scream. It would do so much more to endear her to us than acting in another loud CGI franchise ever could!

And speaking of movies (stay with me), Memorial Day weekend marked the start of the summer blockbuster season, and it was a disappointing one, with Furiosa barely coming out ahead of the new Garfield movie. But as it says in the Bible, "?Por que no los dos?"

According to CNN, it was the worst Memorial Day weekend since 1995, when Casper came out. And you know what? That movie fucking rules, and I bet more people caught onto it in the subsequent 30 years than in its one initial release weekend, so maybe let's relax about what the first 10 seconds of a movie's release means for longterm viability of the film industry?? Jesus Chris, you people.

At Least the Music Industry is Okay!

Bad news, Trash Pandas: the music industry is having some issues. Jennifer Lopez just announced that she had to cancel her upcoming tour. She claimed family reasons, not lagging ticket sales, which did nothing to prevent her from being dragged for failing both personally and professionally, because what fun is lifting up a woman if you can't also drag her down? Meanwhile, the Black Keys also quietly canceled their arena tour, citing various complexities of such a large-scale operation, to which everyone nodded and moved on. I wonder what's different about the responses to these two massive cancellations? (It's misogyny.)

Speaking of live music, Gossip Girl's Taylor Momsen is doing her best to keep the public interested in live music by being bitten by a bat while performing onstage in Spain. Taylor got a lot of shit in the mid-aughts for her awkward pivot from CW teen soap star to rock goddess, but being bitten by a bat while performing definitely locks in the goth cred forever. I mean, anyone can bite off a bat's head, but to be chosen by a bat to be the one that is bitten? Metal as hell! 

And that is all that I have to say today, my loves. You may have noticed that this week's column was mostly just me rambling on about nonsense rather than reporting on any news, and I'll have you know that my allergies are making me want to die so you should all be impressed that both of my eyes were open for as long as it took to write this. I hope that wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, your enemies are weeping, and you've got plenty of Flonase. Thank you for being a friend.

Golden girsly,