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DECEMBER 29, 2021�JANUARY 5, 2022
STAFF
THE OPENING ACT
What we’re into New releases
NATE & JEREMIAH
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EDITOR
Lisa Britton
Go! Editor
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Sarah Smith
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Go! Magazine is published
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County Chieftain and Blue
Mountain Eagle. It publishes
Thursdays in The Observer, Baker
City Herald and East Oregonian.
RAISING THE CURTAIN
ON THIS WEEK’S ISSUE
REVIEW: THE POP
PARADE CONTINUES
IN ‘SING 2’
T
hanks to the streaming
service Discovery+, I’ve
spent what little free time I
have lately with the adorable
married team of interior deco-
rators Jeremiah Brent and Nate
Berkus. They are just the right
combination of real and celeb-
rity. Relatable but still shiny.
And, truthfully, the real hook
for me is the emotion involved
in their shows. They really do
seem to care about the people
they are helping — interior de-
sign to the rescue! — and every
time Jeremiah tears up (and
this happens often), so do I. It’s
cathartic.
Nate and Jeremiah are not
my first HGTV crush. I’ve had
other reality-show infatuations,
starting with the “Property
Brothers.” When I first signed
up for Discovery+ I binged so
much “House Hunters Interna-
tional” that I nearly needed an
intervention.
In the past, I limited myself
to whatever “house shows” ap-
peared on Netflix (if I had cable,
www.discoveryplus.com
I fear I’d never leave my own
house) — then came Discov-
ery+ with its never-ending sup-
ply of renovations and deco-
rations. It’s important to feel
good in the place you live (I’ve
lived both sides of that coin, so
I know what I’m talking about),
and it makes me feel good to
watch Nate and Jeremiah make
their clients feel good.
“Sing 2,” the sequel to the
2016 animated hit, packs the
jukebox again with more than
40 songs, from BTS to Billie Eil-
ish. The two fi lms from Illumi-
nation, the animation studio of
“Despicable Me” and “Minions,”
derive a lot of their appeal
from a karaoke game of pairing
a chart-topping hit with the
appropriate anthropomorphic
animal. The options are as vast
as the animal kingdom. Should
Cardi B be sung by a bumble-
bee? Is it too on the nose to
give “Savage” to a stallion?
But writer-director Garth
Jennings’ fi lms are a little — a
little, not a lot — more than
a string of pop tunes strung
together in a frenetic, sug-
ary cartoon confection. The
movies are about the col-
laborative, shambolic thrill of
live performance. In the fi rst,
the bow-tied koala impresario
Buster Moon (Matthew McCo-
naughey) assembled a singing
contest to save his struggling
theater. In “Sing 2,” Moon and
his stable of performers go for
the big time.
It’s all amiable, shallow and
occasionally sweet. Though
most of the wall-to-wall music
is pulled right off the studio’s
own bestselling shelves,
there’s a poignant, wordless
moment of the gang rehears-
ing on the back of the bus
set to the far less predict-
able “Holes,” by ’90s indie
act Mercury Rev. If any narra-
tive thread holds the movie
together, it’s each character
dealing with their own version
of anxiety, fear and stage fright
as performers.
— THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
— LISA LESTER KELLY,
NEWS CLERK, THE OBSERVER
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