Month: March 2020

Last week marked one month since the death of Pop Smoke, a death that served as another defeating blow to the hip-hop community. At just 20 years old, Pop Smoke’s future was very promising, but a reportedly targeted hit at his Hollywood Hills home cut short the budding success story that was his career.

Just a week prior to his death, Pop Smoke had shared the deluxe version of his debut album, Meet The Woo 2, a sixteen-track project that featured the likes of Gunna, Quavo, and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. And now Pop Smoke’s first posthumous release has arrived in the form of a new music video.

Heading to Paris alongside the Migos rapper by his side, Pop Smoke and Quavo share the video to “Shake The Room.” Setting things off in a restaurant, the two bring life to the otherwise quiet dining area. Soon those around Pop Smoke and Quavo realize who they are and a small party ensues within the restaurant. Wreaking a bit of havoc in the streets of Paris as well, Pop Smoke and Quavo take their whip out for a literal spin, doing donuts in the car as they shoot the video.

Directed by Virgil Abloh’s Off-White International Rap Video Studio, the video concludes with one minute of silence as the screen reads: In Love Memory Forever, Pop Smoke.” The video also arrives after 50 Cent vowed to complete Pop Smoke’s sophomore album.

During the current worldwide pandemic, movie studios are no longer providing box-office figures, mostly because theaters have been shut down around the nation and the world. Because we are less interested in the actual figures themselves and more interested in what people are watching over the weekends, each week I will dive into the Bestseller, Most Popular, and Most Streamed Lists on Google Play, iTunes, Netflix, and Hulu to pinpoint the weekend’s most watched films.

Last weekend, in the traditional rental market, the release of Jumanji: Next Level and Knives Out dominated, but there’s been some movement. Jumanji has held its own in the top three, while Knives Out has fallen a spot to make room for 1917, the phenomenal Sam Mendes’ Best Picture nominee, although I can’t imagine it’s nearly as good on an iPhone or laptop. Those huge flat screen TVs you bought on Black Friday will come in handy now. Bombshell, Frozen II and Spies in Disguise, meanwhile, appear to be the other three most popular titles among traditional rentals.

Beyond the traditional rentals, things get a little weird, because several movies forced out of theaters by the pandemic have taken a different tact. Some of the titles are being offered for digital purchase at around $20, while several others are being offered as $20 rentals, which I suppose means that viewers will have to shell out another $20 in a few weeks if they want to buy it. Pixar’s Onward, which will be on Disney + next week, leads digital sales, followed by Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Birds of Prey, and Matthew McConaughey’s The Gentlemen. Ben Affleck’s The Way Back, which only had two weeks in theaters before most shut down, is also being offered for digital purchase at $20-$25, but it’s not ranking particularly well. That’s a shame; it’s a solid movie.

Meanwhile, among the “home premieres,” which is what Google Play is calling movies being kicked from theaters and being offered for $20 rentals, Invisible Man continues to lead all others by what appears to be a wide margin, and it is absolutely worth the price of a home rental. The next three are different depending on the service: On Google Play, it’s The Hunt that lags behind Invisible Man, followed by Emma and I Still Believe, which are way down on the list. On iTunes, however, it’s The Hunt that’s lower on the list, while Emma and I Still Believe are faring better. I don’t know what that says about their respective audiences. I would love to know the actual figures on those. All I know at this point is that Invisible Man, which was made for only $8 million and earned $124 million worldwide in its limited theatrical run, is adding a lot gravy in its digital release.

Hulu still says that it’s most popular movie is Big Time Adolescent, the coming-of-age film starring Pete Davidson. That may be true; it’s the one I watched this weekend, and honestly, it’s not only pretty good, but Davidson is terrific in a role where he basically plays Pete Davidson if Pete Davidson never landed on SNL. I should note, however, that the art-house hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire was just added, and it’s well worth the watch.

Finally, on Netflix, last week’s most popular streamed film was Mark Wahlberg’s Spenser Confidential, but it has fallen to number three this weekend. The top film now? A Spanish film called The Platform. It’s a well-reviewed dystopian film, recently added to the streaming service. I just watched it last night, and it is fantastic, if you like grim, violent and disturbing indictments of capitalism.

The second most popular film on Netflix this weekend is Mel Gibson’s 2016 film Blood Father, also recently released to the service. In spite of starring the controversial Mel Gibson, it received very good notices (88 percent on RT) upon its release, although a far less favorable audience score of 63 percent. The film did not gain much attention in theaters back in 2016, earning less than $200,000 in 77 theaters, so apparently Netflix is where the American remake of a French film is meant to shine.

As the novel coronavirus continues to surge across the globe, Marvel star Sebastian Stan has been doing his part by staying indoors after production was shut down on his upcoming Disney+ series The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Like most folks trapped inside waiting for this whole thing to end, Stan can’t help but peruse social media to pass the time, and he recently stumbled upon the viral pics and videos of people continuing to fill up beaches in Florida.

It seems that didn’t sit very well with him, and he spoke out about the “idiots” still going to beaches and not staying home in a recent interview. While calling into the Muscle & Fitness podcast from his quarantined apartment, the Winter Soldier actor launched into a profanity-laced rant about what he was seeing, and clearly, he had some feelings.

“There was a meme going around which really kind of put me in my place which was like ‘Your grandparents went to war, and you’re being asked to sit on a couch.’ Like, get the f*ck with it,” Stan said. “I talked to a couple friends who are in the workforce like cops out there sleeping in their garages, working 20 hours a day; nurses coming home and not being able to hold their children because they’re afraid they’re going to contaminate their families, then going back to work. You hear that stuff and it blows my mind because it makes me feel like I have such privilege to be able to sit around here while these people are beating themselves.”

“But what makes me insane is seeing that the beaches in f*cking Miami are still flooded with these f*cking idiots. Dude, they’re dumb f*cks and it pisses me off and it really makes me insane because that’s actually the problem right there. We gotta remember our grandparents and parents have survived way worse and we can do out part here.”

Stan’s justifiable rant is targeting what some are calling “covidiots,” which are basically people who are ignoring any or all safety measures by doing things like hoarding food and toilet paper or continuing to pack beaches despite repeated warnings to avoid crowds, which is still going strong in some Florida counties.

However, one of the more prominent “covidiot,” spring breaker Brady Sluder, has since apologized for his now viral remarks where he drunkenly told CBS News. “If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I’m not going to let it stop me.” Granted, this occurred after several students from the University of Tampa tested positive for COVID-19 after returning from spring break, so your mileage on that apology may vary.

You can watch Sebastian Stan unload on beachgoers at the 5:20 mark:

(via Comic Book.com, Muscle & Fitness)

Hours after James Dolan announced that the team would compensate its employees for hours lost due to the coronavirus shutdown, the owner of the New York Knicks was revealed to have tested positive for the virus.

The Knicks put out a statement indicating that Dolan is currently in isolation, and in a bit of relatively good news, he is not showing symptoms. Dolan also apparently continues to oversee Madison Square Garden operations.

New York has become the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in the United States in recent days, and this positive test shows just how all aspects of life in New York have been impacted by the epidemic. Though he’s the first owner to have officially contracted COVID-19, he’s merely the latest person in the NBA to have contracted the virus. Rudy Gobert’s positive test sent shockwaves through the sports world and effectively started the shutdown of everyday life in the United States as millions try to practice social distancing measures to keep the spread of the disease to a minimum.

It’s unclear how Dolan contracted coronavirus and if anyone else in the organization will be impacted, but it’s a sobering reminder of just how this has impacted every aspect of New York life.

With every day that passes in our quarantined lives, an increasing amount of artists has resorted to their creative abilities to stay active and keep their fans entertained. Tory Lanez has set the internet ablaze this week with his Quarantine Radio series on his Instagram Live, inviting fans and celebrities alike to join as his Instagram Live has been a hotspot for entertainment this week. Timbaland and Swizz Beatz put up their best-produced tracks in an epic producer battle, one that was followed by a beat battle between Hit-Boy and Boi-1da.

Bringing a bit of entertainment to her fans, Tierra Whack took to Twitter to deliver a new quarantine-style remix of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic.” Changing the song’s title to “Stuck,” Tierra voices her frustration with being barred from the outside world, saying the song is “dedicated to everyone on lockdown.”

Changing Morissette’s lyrics as well, Tierra sings, “Sick of being stuck in the house/ I wanna go out now” and “Now is the time I’ve been losing my mind/ I wanna see what’s going on outside.” Through the duration of the two-minute video, Tierra also expresses her to need to get her hails and her nails done as another reason why she hates being trapped inside so much.

The remix of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” comes just a few weeks after addressed colorism in the music industry in a profile with Teen Vogue.

Press play on the video above to hear her remix of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic.”

Listen, none of us are doing particularly well with this whole “sports stopped a few weeks ago” thing, either. It’s a small sacrifice as we all work towards a much larger goal — controlling the spread of a pandemic as it impacts all of society while scientists look for a vaccine — but every sacrifice usually requires an adjustment period of some sort.

One thing that sports fans can lean on in times like this is nostalgia. It lets them scratch the no sports itch while simultaneously giving them total control of which moments they want to remember. There’s no need to sit through painful games, you can just skip right to the good ones. There is a Mets or a Bills joke in here that I will not make because we are going to start talking about Michael Jordan in the next paragraph.

March 28 is a big day for Jordan fans. This year, it marks the 25- and 30-year anniversaries of two of the most well-known games in the Jordan canon: His 55-point, “double nickel” outing against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden in 1995, and his career-high 69-point evening against the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1990. Fortunately for all of us, the internet exists, so we have ways to watch these. For the game against the Knicks, the Bulls tweeted out a video on Saturday of Jordan lighting the Garden ablaze.

And for his outing against the Cavs, YouTube’s got our back.

The games where Jordan was at his most locked in were unlike anything we’ve ever seen. GOAT debate aside, Jordan was capable of reaching a level of ruthlessness that has never been matched, as he was capable of slowly but surely imposing his will on opponents as he rapidly destroyed theirs. It is the exact kind of nostalgia we could all use right now, because there is never a bad time to watch clips of Michael Jordan doing Michael Jordan stuff. Unless, of course, you’re a fan of the Knicks or the Cavs, but let’s face it: It’s been long enough that we can all appreciate these. Anyway, I’m gonna go spend a few minutes watching both of these, and I highly recommend you do the same.

Christian Wood has a pair of distinctions in the NBA’s bout with COVID-19. The Detroit Pistons’ forward was the first player outside of Utah to have word of a positive test leak to the media, and he’s the first NBA player, as far as we all know, to completely recover from the virus that has caused the entire league to come to a halt.

As it turns out, though, news of Wood’s positive test wasn’t supposed to be made public. In a piece written by Jackie MacMullan of ESPN, Pistons coach Dwane Casey revealed that the staff was promptly made aware of HIPPA laws, which exist to protect the privacy of patients, after they learned of the diagnosis. Casey went onto say that the word of Wood’s test wasn’t supposed to be made public, and when it was, both the coach and the player were quite unhappy.

Via ESPN:

“That’s why we were so mystified when it leaked out,” Casey said of a report in The Athletic. “Christian was upset his name got out there. He didn’t release it. And the worst part was it got out before Christian even had a chance to tell his mom.

“I was very unhappy about that. I told our staff, ‘This is unprofessional. This can’t happen again.’ It was so unfair to our player.”

We’ve seen some players take a more public approach with this, as the hope has been to raise awareness of COVID-19 and how it can impact anyone. But of course that hasn’t been the case for everyone, and it is particularly unfortunate that word of Wood’s test leaked before he had gotten the chance to make his mom aware of what happened. Some teams have opted to reveal that there have been positive tests in their organizations with players announcing after that they’re dealing with the virus, and it would have been nice if that luxury was afforded to Wood, even if it is good news that he has since recovered.

Following in the footsteps of Lovers And Friends and Primavera Sound Barcelona 2020, III Points has announced their spring festival has been rescheduled to the mid-fall amid concerns with the coronavirus pandemic. The festival, which is labeled as an intersection between “music, art, and technology,” was originally scheduled to take over Miami’s Mana Wynwood during the weekend of May 1-2.

In a press release, III Points announced that the festival’s rescheduled date is October 16-17. Previously announced as headliners for the 2020 festival, pop star Robyn, rock band The Strokes, and legendary rap group Wu-Tang Clan will remain atop the festival’s lineup. Joining the lineup for the fall festival, Peaches will deliver a special Teaches of Peaches 20th-anniversary performance, Rüfüs Du Sol, Artbat, and Chromatics should all be expected to appear on stage.

Attendees will get a true musical experience as a wide array of artists from a number of different genres are set to perform at III Points Moses Sumney, Kaytranada, 100 Gecs, and more will take the stage in October. As for the festival setup itself, the acts will be split across six stages that bear names like, “Mind Melt,” “Main Frame,” “Isotropic,” and “Boiler Room.”

Additional tickets have been added for the festival with general admission prices starting at $89 for one-day tickets and $149 for weekend tickets and VIP tickets start at $159 for one-day and $249 for the weekend. If buyers decide to purchase the weekend tickets, they are given the option to make a $19.99 deposit.

For more information on the III Points Festival, click here.

One thing that has become evident in many of the places that are currently wrestling with COVID-19, both in the United States and abroad, is that hospitals alone are struggling to fight the virus. In addition to those impacted by this novel coronavirus, there are still the folks who just need to go to the hospital for other various illnesses and ailments, and the capacity to make sure everyone gets treated just isn’t there due to a flood of new patients.

As such, we’ve seen a number of temporary solutions. A pair of hospital ships have been deployed to two of the largest epicenters for the spread in the virus in the United States, Los Angeles and New York, while in the Big Apple, the monstrous Javits Center has been turned into a temporary hospital with a thousand beds. In China, meanwhile, gymnasiums were turned into isolation centers.

Elsewhere in the U.S., Michigan has been hit hard, with metrics indicating nearly 3,700 cases and 113 confirmed casualties as of this writing. In response, the Detroit Pistons have decided to lend a hand and offer up the use of one of their buildings for whatever health officials might need, according to James Edwards of The Athletic.

After a tense few days between Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and president Donald Trump, the state’s disaster declaration was approved on Saturday. As for how the franchise will specifically help, Edwards reported that conversations are still ongoing between the Pistons and officials on how to best use the space. The team is among the handful in the NBA that has seen a player test positive for COVID-19. Forward Christian Wood caught the virus, but fortunately, he received the all clear from doctors.

It only makes sense for pop stars to befriend each other. Not just because they’re likely sharing a lot of the same fans, but because, in a lot of ways, a pop star is the only person who can understand the pressure and public scrutiny that another famous musician faces. So even though Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga haven’t been super publicly open about their friendship so far, it’s not super surprising that they’ve connected before — at least according to the birthday post that Ari made for Gaga today.

Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, turns 34 today, and Grande is one of the first of her fellow stars to commemorate the occasion with a cute selfie on Instagram:

“Happy birthday to a literal angel that has changed my life in many ways !” Grande wrote in the caption of thp ost. “I’ll tell u more about it later but … u make my heart feel so full and happy and understood @ladygaga. Wishing u all the joy in the world today and every day ! Have some pasta.”

So far, Gaga hasn’t posted much about her birthday plans, but given the current quarantine situation due to the Coronavirus pandemic, it likely includes a lot of staying indoors. As a fellow Aries with a March birthday, I want Gaga to know we’re all getting straight reschedules in the future.