The Brunch round-up for July 19: The week and how it made us feel

All the haters who didn’t like the idea of Superman being an immigrant (yes, even Dean Cain, who played Superman on Lois & Clark in the late 1990s), looks like you were played. The movie is funny, blockbustery, thrilling, silly and remarkably non-political. Lois Lane’s hard-hitting questions from the trailer don’t even lead to an actual interview. It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a lure.

No, we weren’t drunk. That’s how we noticed that non-alcoholic drinks are starting to be priced like cocktails. Look, they’re just juice with a tincture here, a shrub there. Small-batch this, artisanal that. What’s the premium pricing for? Just give us tomato juice with Tabasco. No need for the celery stick, even.

Dad joke incoming: Netflix has figured out that nothing on Earth will satisfy some viewers. So, they’re looking beyond Earth (ba-dam-tss!) and bringing us NASA TV. They’ll live stream rocket launches, astronaut spacewalks, mission coverage and those 16 sunrises a day on the International Space Station. Hope space doesn’t bore us too.

May 1, 2026 is far away. But The Devil Wears Prada 2 promo machine has been drip-feeding us juicy morsels. Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, BJ Novak and Pauline Chalamet are on the cast, alongside Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt. What we want to know: Is the Kolhapuri chappal making a cameo?

Are the bots going to be useful or do they all want to be screenwriters? Where’s the AI that helps with clothing sizes? We want to know if one brand’s L might be another brand’s S. We want to say “Show me how this looks on someone with a bigger chest” and “Show me whether these pants will fit a wider waist” before we Add To Cart. This is the future we deserve.

Not since Jack and Rose has anyone captured this much of the world’s fancy from the front of a boat. Indonesian kid, Rayyan Arkan Dikha, 11, single-handedly taught Gen X what aura farming means with his confident little dance at a boat race. The country made him a tourism ambassador two days in – exactly the right speed.

Guess what happened when Twilight opened to an unexpected $69 million in November 2008? While male directors are rewarded with a three-picture deal, Catherine Hardwicke says the producers sent her… a single cupcake. She was then dropped from directing the sequel and assigned Red Riding Hood. Wow. Fangs for nothing!

Spain is reducing its working hours from 40 a week to 37.5, making every Friday an official half-day. This is in addition to generous vacation time and long maternity leave. India, meanwhile, is getting on a call on the way to office, texting the boss on the weekend, and CCing more people on the mail trail. You know the Beck song? Sing with us: “Soy un perdedor…”