Super Bowl: the ads, the music and everything but the football – live | Culture | The Guardian — theguardian.com

6.22pm EST 18:22 Benjamin Lee The Lost City A quick look at Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s The Lost City, a knowing spin on Romancing the Stone, doesn’t really offer us much we haven’t already seen in the initial trailers. The story of a romance novelist who finds herself in a real adventure has plenty going for it – Bullock returning to physical comedy, Daniel Radcliffe as a bad guy, a role for the extremely funny Patti Harrison, a piss-taking cameo from Brad Pitt – but three trailers have now shown essentially the same moments on a loop (someone over at Paramount is very proud of the line “What is this, Taken? Am I took-en?”) so let us hope there’s more to be found when it hits cinemas next month. 6.21pm EST 18:21 Benjamin Lee Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness And early out of the gate comes one of the night’s biggest trailer reveals. The phenomenal success of the most recent Spider-Man instalment (about to take over Avatar’s mammoth box office) and the film’s many, many cameos has upped the ante for the next Marvel adventure, something the new tease of Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange 2 is certainly aware of. While we knew from the last trailer that Wanda would be a major part, the new teaser has confirmed a rumour that Patrick Stewart would be starring as well. Is he playing Doctor Xavier though? Is it about to be an X-Men mash-up? We’ll find out for sure in May. 6.13pm EST 18:13 Benjamin Lee Try it yourself if you can! Sam Montgomery (@sammontgomery) Making everybody at the sports bar furious by asking if they can play Hands by Jewel February 13, 2022 6.06pm EST 18:06 Adrian Horton Jason Bateman gives the history of evolution Jason Bateman surveys the history of human evolution, from the invention of our first words (aka caveman grunts) to the first maps, phones and TV screens, all leading up to Hyundai’s first electric car, the Ioniq 5. 6.04pm EST 18:04 Benjamin Lee While Super Bowl viewership has fallen in recent years, along with pretty much every other live event, we’re still talking a considerable, not-to-be-sniffed at audience. Last year 92m viewers still tuned in and so advertisers remain more than happy to spend the most for an ad. This year’s rate has gone up from $6.5m for 30 seconds to $7m. Experts have called this year’s theme amusing and warm, a string of gentle ads that will not be going too deep. Phew. 5.58pm EST 17:58 Benjamin Lee Celebrities tend to descend upon the Super Bowl wherever it’s being played but this year the LA setting should mean that even more will appear. We’ll add pics when they crop up but here’s a quick look at who has been spotted so far: The Recount (@therecount) LeBron James, Magic Johnson, Charlize Theron, Mark Wahlberg, Sean Penn and Matt Damon at #SuperBowl LVI in Los Angeles. pic.twitter.com/1GHWppulRQ February 13, 2022 5.53pm EST 17:53 Adrian Horton This blog is firmly not about sports, but the Super Bowl half-time show, as the most watched concert of the year, is inextricable from the NFL’s abundant issues with race and gender and its tendency to favor performative gestures (hashtags for racial justice on the field) over substantive change (hiring any black coaches – there is only one, in a league of 32 teams). This year’s line-up features some of the biggest Black artists in the US – Dr Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg and Mary J Blige. It’s a far cry from five years ago, when high-profile artists such as Rihanna, Adele and Cardi B reportedly declined offers to perform out of frustration with the league’s handling of Colin Kaepernick’s protests for racial justice. And it’s in large part thanks to Jay Z, who entered into a public partnership with the league in 2019 that gave his company, Roc Nation, influence over the league’s social justice initiatives and music events. The league’s racial issues are arguably as bad as ever – for more on that, read my colleague Andrew Lawrence’s piece on the optics of this year’s halftime show. The line-up is “too big to fail”, he writes, but “like the league’s efforts to address its race and gender problems, this too appears to be a no-win proposition”. 5.53pm EST 17:53 Averting our eyes from the ball Benjamin Lee Mary J. Blige Photograph: John Mabanglo/EPA It’s here! That one team playing that other team to win that whatever for something, I don’t know. What matters here is what is happening off the pitch or whatever it’s called, a place to avoid all the sport and focus on the other festivities. Tonight, as ever, there will be a host of celebrity-packed trailers and first looks at major movies and, most importantly, a much-anticipated half-time performance from a hip-hop and R&B supergroup: Kendrick Lamar, Mary J Blige, Eminem, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. So for the next few hours, this will be a football-free zone. It is football they are playing tonight, right?

Read More