Copie's Choice for the weekend of December 9

Published: Fri, 12/09/22

Hi ,

Happy Friday!

I hope it’s been a good week. No, you haven’t missed the newsletter the last three weeks. I’ve been so busy I didn’t get a chance to write one. Some weeks, I’m so busy with other things, during the week, I don’t get to see many movies or new television shows or catch up on any books. That being the case, as we move into 2023, I’m going to make Copie’s Choice a bi-weekly newsletter, arriving in your inbox every other week. I figure over two weeks, I’ll certainly have time to check out some things to recommend to you!

To start, this weekend I’ll perform my final 2022 performances of my new solo play, Grandma & Me: An Ode to Single Parents at the Marsh in San Francisco. Performances will be tonight at 7:30 and Saturday at 5. The show has been so well reviewed and so fun, exciting and cathartic to perform, that the Marsh is extending it again! I’m going to take some time off for the holidays and the first few weeks of next year and it will return on Saturday nights at 5 PM beginning January 21, 2023. Tickets for this weekend’s performances and next year’s shows can be purchased online at themarsh.org.

Since it’s the holiday season, I’m bringing back my Christmas classic The Jewelry Box, for four special performances next week. It’ll be the first time I’ve performed the show live since 2019! The family-friendly play is the true story of my quest to earn $11.97 to buy my mother a jewelry box for Christmas from the old White Front store on Hegenberger Rd. in Oakland when I was 6 back in 1970. The San Francisco Chronicle called the play, “A gift in itself.” The San Francisco Examiner dubbed it, “The Bay Area’s Christmas story.” Performances are Thursday, December 15 at the Altarena Playhouse in Alameda, Friday December 16 at 7:30 and Saturday December 17 at 5 PM at the Marsh in San Francisco and Sunday at 2 PM in the lecture hall theater in the San Leandro Library (tickets at the door).

AGES 12 AND UP.

PLEASE NOTE THAT SUBSCRIBERS TO THE BEST OF SAN FRANCISCO SOLO SERIES IN SAN LEANDRO WILL HAVE SEATING PRIORITY FOR THE SUNDAY MATINEE. ONCE SUBSCRIBERS HAVE BEEN SEATED, UNUSED SEATS WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

See you at the theater!

I’ve gotten to a few things the last couple of weeks…

WATCHING

The Santa Clauses

Disney Plus

This is a fun show! It’s a mini-series sequel to Tim Allen’s 1994 hit, The Santa Clause. This time around, Allen’s Scott Calvin and his wife have been Santa and Mrs. Claus for almost 30 years and Scott decides to find a suitable replacement, retire and move with his family (now including two teenagers raised at the North Pole) to Chicago to live normal lives. Things don’t quite work out like Scott plans with his reentry into society…and with the man he’s chosen to take up his mantle upon retirement. If you liked the movie, you’ll love the show. Watch it with the kids!

Copie’s Choice: WATCH

Alaska Daily

ABC Thursdays at 10 PM

Currently streaming on Hulu.

Hillary Swank plays a disgraced New York reporter for a large news organization who takes a job at the small paper in Anchorage where she began her career in order to investigate the disappearances of Native Alaskan women. Swank is excellent as the hard-nose, take-no-prisoners journalist trying to make do at a newspaper that doesn’t have a scintilla of the resources she’s used to in New York. The show also brings attention to the lack of media attention that missing women of color get.

The series aired its first six episodes on ABC Thursdays at 10 PM and will return on February 23. You catch the entire series that’s been aired thus far on Hulu.

Copie’s Choice: WATCH

MOVIES

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

I’ve only been able to get out and catch one picture the last few weeks, The Black Panther sequel, Wakanda Forever. The first Black Panther movie was a cultural touchstone when it was released in 2018 and I wondered how Bay Area native Ryan Coogler was going to make a follow-up after the sudden death of its star, Chadwick Boseman. To say that the movie exceeded expectations is an understatement.

The underlying current running through Wakanda Forever is grief. Boseman’s King T’Challa has died and Wakanda grieves his loss and that of what was apparently the last in a centuries long line of Black Panthers who have protected the country. Letita Wright’s Shuri, T’Challa’s brilliant little sister, and his mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett in what is already being touted as an Oscar worthy performance) grieve while also trying to protect the African nation from a threat from the undersea world of Namor, better known in the comics as The Submariner.

Aside from the great performances of Wright, Bassett and Lupita Nyong’o, there’s also something unique here. For the first time, little African American girls in this country will see a superheroine who looks like them. That’s groundbreaking. It’s a very special movie that pays homage to the collective grief we all feel over the sudden death of Chadwick Boseman. While he isn’t in the movie…his presence looms large throughout. I’ve seen it twice!

Copie’s Choice: Go see it!!

That’s all for now. Have a good weekend and a wonderful holiday season.

Copie

BrianCopeland.com

1271 Washington Avenue #146
San Leandro California 94577
USA

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options