Grab Bag- ICYMI- Vol. 2! A wild Wild Card Weekend! Movies and TV shows to check out (or not!). Good news for SF's nightlife and theater industry!

Welcome back! We are still playing catch up (hold the mayo, extra pickles) with Volume 2 of In Case You Missed It, and this one will be lighter on the sportsball and heavier on the entertainment. But before we get into all that, some great local news! In what was basically an Xmas miracle, the famous nightclub, Oasis, which was scheduled to close its doors forever on New Years Eve, got a huge last minute donation to continue operating! The club will be closed for a few months for renovations, but will open for good in mid 2026, early reports say. This is fantastic news for the San Francisco nightlife/club scene, where the Oasis has played host to many a drag queen shows both RuPaul famous to local talent, along with variety shows of different sorts! Just great news for the city of San Francisco! Read more about it here: https://sfist.com/2025/12/26/christmas-miracle-oasis-nightclub-saved-from-closure-with-multi-million-dollar-philanthropic-gift/ And in another surprise, The San Francisco Giants baseball team has agreed to purchase the famous Curran Theater ( I think almost all of us long-term San Francisco residents have seen Phantom of the Opera at the Curran during its historic TWO YEAR run), from the Shorenstein-Hayes group! Folks have been asking why would the Giants make that kind of investment, and the answer from the Giants is that they believe San Francisco is better when sports and arts and culture support each other! I say hip-hip hooray for that kind of attitude!

More details here: https://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/sf-giants-make-offseason-signing-theater-21250815.php

Onto Sportsball! Football playoff season continues!

San Francisco 49ers went to Philly to play the Eagles in that wild card game, and were 5.5 underdogs before the game started. Niners scored first ona. quick drive, while the Eagles took the long route, 12 plays, to score their touchdown, but missed the extra point, so 7-6 after first quarter. Bad news on the injury front as tight end George Kittle, the heart and soul of the team, tore his Achilles on a play and is out for the season and a lot of the 2026 season. In 2nd quarter, Niners got a field goal and Eagles got a touchdown to go into halftime with a score of Eagles 13 Niners 10. Third Quarter, Niners defense tightened up, and the Niners offense sputtered leading to only a Philly field goal, so the score was Philly 16- Niners 10 going into the 4th quarter. The 49ers started the 4th quarter with a wild trick play that they actually pulled off before in their last Super Bowl appearance, as RB Sky Moore took the handoff from QB Brock Purdy, then Moore shoveled the pass to wide receiver Juaun Jennings, who thenTHREW the ball to running back Christian McCaffery (CMC), who somehow hauled in the ball for the touchdown, and gave the Niners a 17-16 lead!

Seeing is believing, so here is a short video and breakdown of said play!

The Eagles came back and kicked a field goal to take a 19-17 lead wit height minutes to go, but Purdy led the 49ers down the field on a 10 play 66 yard drive that ended with Purdy turning his head at the last second and spotting CMC in the end zone and zipped a pass to him for the touchdown! Niners 23 Eagles 19 with just under three minutes to go! Could the Niners defense, which was playing their 5th, 6th, and 7th linebackers on the depth chart due to injuries, keep the Eagles out of the end zone and score the upset. Why yes they did, though it got scary there, as the Eagles and QB Jalen Hurts were just 20 yards away; but on a 4th and 11, Hurts threw the ball and that 7th linebacker, Erick Kendricks batted the ball away from the intended Philly receiver to seal one of the most awesome comebacks in San Francisco 49re history!

Next up is a trip to Seattle, to play the Seahawks (the #1 NFC seed with a week off) for the third time this season.

Btw, in the other Wild Card games, all of which were decided in the last 2 minutes, the Rams, Bills, Patriots and Texans won their games in exciting fashion! The next day, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin resigned after the Texans shut down the Steelers, 30-6. Tomlin had been the longest tenured NFL coach, having coached the Steelers for 19 years!

College Football Championship Matchup is ready to go! From the chart below, it the upset kings the Miami Hurricanes against the undefeated Indiana Hoosiers, who roasted the Oregon Ducks, 56-22, to advance to play the championship game in....Miami! Also Miami is where Heisman winner and Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza is from! Story line galore in South Beach!

In "water is wet" news, on the first day the NBA trade window opens the 15th, Golden State Warriors guard Jonathan Kuminga demanded a trade from the team. He has not played for weeks, not due to injury, coaches decision. Trade deadline is February 5th. Meanwhile the team is on it's longest stretch of home games, (eight) this season, and are still hanging around in midfield mediocrity, put playing a bit better.

Entertainment: Movies: How to Train Your Dragon- live action- Peacock. I absolutely LOVE the animated version of this film, and with almost all the behind the scenes talent in charge of making the live action, I was hopeful! Then I saw the promos, and was even more hopeful, then saw the movie itself, and was absolutely delighted at how close they stuck to the original source material. Same humor, same gnarly grumpiness of the older Vikings, and Mason Thames was perfectly cast as Hiccup, the boy who finds and befriends our Night Fury dragon. Not much more to say other than HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !

Frankenstein on Netflix. I can keep this one short, I know its getting all these nominations and the two lead actors are very good, and the sets are pretty stunning, but frankly, I was bored out of my gourd with this Guillermo Del Toro production. The only part that really held my interest was learning more about the relationship Victor Frankenstein had with his father, that was something new for me. It's a MEH of a recommendation from me.

Fantastic Four: First Steps on Disney Plus. Love the retro color scheme of the film. Loved Julia Garner as the Sliver Surfer! Appreciated that this version didn't bother with FF backstory, people of this Earth already knew who they were and their powers. Acting was fine, and so were the big action set pieces, and also the worst time to give birth ever I appreciated. Do not miss the teaser at the very end of the film, cuz that sets up the next Avengers movie in Dec 2026! Overall, I LIKED this film, and can RECOMMEND.

Bad Guys 2 on Peacock: I loved the first one, and the second was just as fun. Not as popular as Zootopia, but I find this motley crew of "bad guys": a wolf, a shark, a piranha a snake and a tarantula a much more wild, fun bunch, a laughed a lot, especially with some of the lines the characters said that were clearly meant for the adults! HIGHLY RECOMMEND for a fun animated fans!

I'm saving some of the big ones for Vol. 3!

Entertainment: Television

Task on Paramount Plus. An excellent crime drama with a very authentic cast, right down to the accents of the characters in this part of Pennsylvania. Mark Ruffalo is excellent as a grief-stricken former agent called back into the field to put together a task force to try to break up a series of robberies of drug dealers getting their product jacked. A botched burglary leads to the unintended kidnapping of the cutest liittle boy ever ( He's effin adorable!). The last 2 episodes are very well done- I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see where the chips were going to fall by series end! Highly Recommend!

Adolescence on Netflix. This four-part British drama series IS deserving of all the nominations and awards it has received! Each episode is done in a one camera, one take sequence- no stop and start. That alone is amazing! The plot: A family's world turns upside down when 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for murdering a schoolmate: the charges against their son force them to confront every parent's worst nightmare. Which leads to some outstanding writing and acting, especially from the father-son team of Steven Graham and young Owen Cooper, who took home Emmy Awards in 2025. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for a multitude of reasons. Very intense though, so I have to throw that warning out! Update: This series CLEANED UP at the Golden Globes, winning in just about every category they were nominated in!

Mayor of Kingstown on Paramount Plus: Confession- Saw S1 and Loved it, then totally forgot it (life!), rediscovered it recently and wow! The overhead drone shots of this fictional Michigan town (shot in and around Pittsburgh), and the score (and opening credits) really set the tone of this gritty crime drama starring Jeremy Renner as Mike McKlosky. the "fixer" , trying to maintain balance between warring forces on the street and keeping things "fair" in the town's main economic engine, the prison. Season 2 was awesome, as it was the aftermath of the prison riot that ended S1. Season 3 we had the turf war between The Cripps and the Russians, which had a pretty high body count in the finale (an elaborate shootout amongst many factions on a bridge, personal scores being settled on a boat). Tis most recent season saw the show add the fab Edie Falco to the cast, and her scenes with Renner were a kick to watch. The supporting cast in all seasons are great as well. If you like gritty dramas in the vein of The Shield or The Wire, this show is for you! Very much Recommend!

Im posting the S4 trailer with Falco, so there are some spoilers from the first 33 seasons that are alluded to!

Hope you enjoyed the read, and the reviews/videos! Have a great week, more football coming up, and those who know me know I'm holding back stuff for ICYMI Vol 3! <grin>

Oh, and the new Star Trek series, Star Trek: Academy starts today on Paramount Plus!