Here’s something I didn’t know I wanted that I am now obsessed with: the trailer for The Lovebirds, a comedy starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani. I have watched this four times already, and will undoubtedly watch it four more times before the day is over. The Lovebirds is about a couple in love who get framed for murder and then try to solve said murder to clear their names. I am super down for a comedy about attractive people solving a murder on date night. The Lovebirds is due in April, which is also the month that Insecure returns. A teaser came out this week:
 


 
April is a big month for Issa Rae. Actually, it’s not just April, 2020 is a whole big year for Rae, who also has a romantic drama, The Photograph, out on Valentine’s Day co-starring LaKeith Stanfield. Is Issa Rae our new romantic movie queen? Could 2020, with all its chaos energy, throw out something so nice for us? I would very much like to live in the world where Issa Rae is a romantic movie queen. Let us pray to Eris, the goddess of chaos and patron saint of 2020, to give us this one nice thing amidst the inevitable sh-tshow of this year.

2020 is also a big year for Kumail Nanjiani, who goes from The Lovebirds this spring to The Eternals this fall. We all saw how buff he got for Marvel, right? Frankly, it weirds me out when comedians get ripped. It goes against nature somehow. Comedians aren’t supposed to be ripped. Comedians are comedians because they honed their humor, not their bodies, to defend themselves. When a comedian gets buff it’s like, Oh great, now you can destroy me emotionally AND beat me up.But credit to Nanjiani for being honest on the Gram about how it took a team of fitness and nutrition experts to get him there. 
 
Anyway, back to The Lovebirds. You know what this reminds me of? Game Night. The Lovebirds has a Game Night vibe, and Game Night is low key one of the funniest movies of the last few years. That movie is STRONGLY re-watchable. If The Lovebirds turns out as funny as Game Night, we’re in for a good time. The flipside of this coin, though, is that all the funny stuff is in the trailer and The Lovebirds will be disappointing. I choose to believe in the combined power of Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani—and director Michael Showalter, who previously made The Big Sick with Nanjiani—and hope for the best.
 


Attached - Issa Rae at the Winter TCA yesterday.