Month: October 2020

Ultra-hyped drops with around the block lines, timed releases, double and triple brand collaborations out of left field… Sneaker culture wouldn’t be what it is today — for better or worse — if it wasn’t for brands like Alife. Small upstarts who took the sneaker from a streetwear staple to a coveted luxury product offering nearly-limitless cultural cachet.

Founded in 1999 by four New York kids with a hunger to create, Alife has grown immensely while staying true to its “creativity before commerce” roots. Two decades in, Rob Cristofaro, Arnaud Delecolle, Tony Arcabascio, and Tammy Brainard have built their concept from a simple art collective and creative workshop into a taste-making brand and world-renowned sneaker boutique — the Alife Rivington Club.

While the brand would have its ups and downs throughout the 2010s, in recent years Alife has released a steady stream of drops that recapture the magic of its early years (an era when Alife stood neck and neck with streetwear giants like Supreme). In 2020, Alife is once again driving the conversation of what the streetwear of tomorrow will look like. A cultivar of cool in an increasingly crowded industry.

In celebration of the brand’s massive influence on streetwear, particularly sneaker culture, we’ve dug through their 20-year history and picked out the best sneaker collaborations in Alife’s storied run.

Alife Reebok Court Victory Pump Ball Out, 2006/2014

Alife’s Reebok Court Victory Pump “Ball Out” is one of the drops that helped Alife to build the modern sneaker scene we enjoy today. The original release dropped on Black Friday to unprecedented hype — becoming an instant sell-out. The shoes were created with tennis star — and youngest athlete to ever win a Grand Slam on the pro tennis circuit at just 17 — Michael Chang in mind. To reference Chang’s tennis career, Alife covered the upper in a fuzzy material meant to resemble a tennis ball.

After the success of the original Ball Out release, Alife would drop pink and orange iterations before finally reissuing the original pair in 2014 with some minor design differences, like the choice to go with black-embroidered branding instead of red.

Alife Rivington Club Adidas ZX 7000, 2008

Still highly sought out to this day on aftermarket sites like StockX, this take on the ZX 7000 sees the silhouette dressed in a moody mix of University Red, Cardinal, and Toro which tones down the usually busy upper of the ZX 7000, giving the sneaker the coolest makeover it’s ever had.

Alife Rivington Club New Balance 1300 Collection, 2009

One of the most beloved collections to come out of Alife’s Rivington Club sneaker store, this triple pack of New Balance 1300s featured reflective mesh construction with suede accents dressed in an all grey, white, or teal colorway. The original release dropped at midnight, setting a new precedent for the lengths people would go just to cop a pair of sneakers in the color of their choice.

If we had been in line in 2009, we’d cop the teal iteration, no question.

Alife Rivington Club Nike Air Force 1, 2009

Alife showed the Air Force 1 the respect it deserved. This iteration of the Air Force 1 is dressed in a premium all-white white leather upper with an embossed all-over-print of stars across both the upper and midsole that sits atop a clean gum-sole.

Eleven years later, this still looks like the very definition of “Fresh.”

Alife x Barney’s New York Everybody High, 2009

In addition to their many dope brand collaborations, Alife also has a few eye-catching silhouettes of their own, one of which being the Everybody High skate shoe — which never looked cooler than when it was designed with Barney’s New York. Dropping in three colorways of burgundy, mustard, and grey, each pair in this collection is equipped with matching laces and sits atop a blue midsole with dual Alife and Barney’s branding.

Alife were pioneers in treating sneakers like luxury items, and it was collaborations like this that really helped elevate the sneaker in high fashion circles.

Alife Stevie Williams Everybody High America, 2010

In 2010 Alife linked up with Philadelphia-based pro-skater Stevie Williams and cooked up this Everybody High which features a Phillies-inspired colorway over tough performance-focused mesh and suede construction.

Alife PUMA Evospeed, 2014

Part of a larger collection that saw PUMA collaborating with BAPE, Colette, and KITH, the Alife PUMA Evospeeds are still, six years later, the best looking piece from the entire PUMA WorldCup 2014 collection (though that KITH pair is a close second) and one of the dopest soccer cleats to ever hit the streetwear scene. Featuring a chaotic all-over print of lighters brandishing the Alife logo, the Alife Evospeeds takes one of PUMA’s most performance-focused pieces of footwear and makes it worthy of wearing in the streets.

If only we could get a basic sole on it!

Alife ASICS GEL-Kayano NYC Marathon Collection, 2015

Released to coincide with 2015’s New York City Marathon, ALIFE linked up with ASICS for a small capsule collection which consisted of workout apparel and ASICS Gel-Kayano Trainers and the GEL-Kayano 22 Runner, both dressed in a grey and silver-heavy colorway with contrasting red, white, and blue accents.

Both pairs dropped right at the height of the GEL-Kayano’s popularity, and Alife’s contribution to the GEL-Kayano line are still some of the two sneakers’ best colorways to date.

Alife Reebok Classics Phase 1 Pro, 2016

A defining aspect of Alife as a brand is that it has always been unapologetically New York. To pay tribute to the city the brand has called home they hooked up with Reebok Classics for a trio of Phase 1 Pros in white, black, and (our favorite) steel grey, which features a giant “NY” on the heel and Alife branding on the sneaker’s lateral side.

While we don’t hate the “NY” branding, we feel the steel gray iteration of the sneaker gets that gritty New York vibe across nicely on its own.

Alife Saucony Jazz ’91, 2016

A late classic, Alife’s Saucony collaboration takes the upper from Saucony’s Jazz ’91 and sits it atop the midsole of the Shadow 6000, bringing together the best of both silhouettes into one dope sneaker. Dropping in both a red, green, and white and a blue, white, and orange colorway, this collaboration sports mesh construction with suede overlays and Alife’s box branding and released alongside a matching apparel collection made in collaboration with Champion.

Alife x Starcow x Adidas Consortium Stan Smith and Gazelle, 2017

For this three-way collaboration, Alife linked up with Paris’ Starcow for a double sneaker collection consisting of Adidas’ Gazelle and Stan Smith silhouettes. Both pairs go for a clean minimalistic presentation, with the Stan Smith featuring a white leather upper with off-white detailing while the Gazelle is dressed in beige and grey tones.

Both pairs feature red, white, and blue flags at the heel for an eye-popping splash of color in an otherwise low-key design.

Alife New York Crocs, 2018/2020

Released as a “fuck you” to the sneaker culture they helped create, 2018’s New York Crocs saw the brand reaching for the world’s least stylish shoe, the Croc, and attempting to make it cool. While many a sneakerhead scoffed at the move back in 2018, Alife proved that they were early to the game. These days everyone from Post Malone to Bad Bunny is putting their name on Crocs, and Kanye West has his own Croc-inspired design in the Yeezy Foam Runner.

While we can’t exactly say we’re fans of the Alife Croc, we can say we dig on Alife’s ability to not get hung up on the cultural coolness of a brand. With the New York Croc, they proved they’re willing and able to push sneaker culture forward, even if it looks this ugly.

In 2020 Alife rereleased the New York Crocs with the “Art Crocs” which came equipped with 3D printed JIbbitz of the New York City skyline. We’ve chosen to share an image of that release as it captures the truly bizarre nature of the collaboration.

Alife Adidas Consortium Nizza Hi, 2019

Alife are absolute experts when it comes to designing all-white sneakers and this 2019 Adidas collaboration illustrates why. Featuring a minimalist canvas upper with simple Alife branding on the lateral side, this take on the Nizza Hi highlights the silhouette’s strengths without distracting the eye with overworked design flourishes. With it’s exposed stitching and branded laces, the Alife Nizza Hi feels slightly deconstructed without slipping into Abloh-influenced gimmickry.

Alife Adidas Originals Nizza Hi, 2020

Alife took a victory lap this year dropping yet another Nizza Hi with Adidas, this time dressing the entire sneaker in a dope-as-hell monochromatic yellow colorway. All of the same design touchstones are used in the 2020 iteration as 2019’s, with the exception of the tongue branding which features the Adidas Trefoil logo — a marked improvement from last year’s release.

Alife also dropped the sneaker an all-black iteration, but the yellow stands out in a way that’s just too good for us to ignore.

It’s probably safe to say at this point that Donald Trump and YG will never get along. The Compton rapper not only criticizes the then-presidential candidate back in 2016 with his Nipsey Hussle-featuring single “FDT” (which stands for “F*ck Donald Trump”), he’s been pretty adamant ever since about getting his fans to sing along. He even once needled Trump by bringing out former porn star Stormy Daniels at a show after Trump was accused of paying her off to hide an affair.

So there won’t be much love lost due to YG’s video for “Jealous” from his new album My Life 4Hunnid. Dropping just days after Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19, the video satirizes the former game show host as a drug-addled, sex-crazed, gangster wannabe (ahem) via an impersonator who parties with strippers in sets evoking the Oval Office, an American flag backdrop, and the hangar for the Presidential jet, Air Force One. The video even ends with a “Vote” message from YG, as if to ask, “Is this really the guy who should be running anything?”

YG’s never been the most political rapper, but he has used his view from the streets to scrutinize more authority figures than just Trump. He kicked off the promotional cycle for his latest album with “FTP” (same naming convention, just swap “The Police” for “Donald Trump”) and described an encounter with law enforcement that left his kids shaken up from having guns pointed at them.

Watch YG’s “Jealous” video above.

My Life 4Hunnid is out now via Def Jam. Get it here.

While she is signed to label, Clairo still stays true to her bedroom pop roots by keeping her SoundCloud page updated with fresh demos. On Thursday, the singer appeased both her listeners and The Strokes fans alike with a tender, bossa nova-style cover of “I’ll Try Anything Once.”

Recording the lo-fi cover with Jake Passmore of the London band Scors, Clairo delicately delivers each lyric over a swaying acoustic guitar. “There is a time when we all fail / Some people take it pretty well / Some take it all out on themselves / Some they just take it out on friends,” Clairo and Passmore harmonize.

Clairo’s “I’ll Try Anything Once” cover doesn’t arrive as an official release, but instead as a casual upload to her SoundCloud page. While Clairo hasn’t shared any new music to streaming services since the release of Immunity, the singer has been steadily working on various projects. Along with hoping on Mura Masa’s 2019 song “I Don’t Think I Can Do This Again,” Clairo has been uploading a handful of covers to SoundCloud. Most recently, the singer offered a rendition of Johnny Flynn’s “Brown Trout Blues,” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got A Friend.” Before that, she shared the two lofi demos “February 15, 2020 London, UK” and “Everything I Know.”

“I’ll Try Anything Once” is perhaps one of The Strokes’ lesser-known songs, as it was released as one of the B-sides on their 2006 “Heart In A Cage” single. The song was also included as part of the soundtrack on Sofia Coppola’s 2010 film Somewhere and appeared in the film’s trailer.

Listen to Clairo’s cover of “I’ll Try Anything Once” below.

I had a grandmother and a great-uncle die of Alzheimer’s, and it’s hard to imagine anything worse. To gradually lose your memories, faculties, ability to recognize loved ones, and personality even as your peripheral hardware remains fully functional seems far more terrifying than any horror movie (the only thing that comes close is ALS, Alzheimer’s perfectly inverse horror, in which your conscious mind gets a front-row seat as your motor functions slowly sputter and fail).

Meanwhile, every awards season inevitably brings with it an acclaimed film about Alzheimer’s or dementia, usually starring some beloved leading actor artfully forgetting. I always avoid them as a general rule. Still Alice? Still haven’t seen it. Let’s keep it that way.

I say all this to preface my rave for Dick Johnson Is Dead, which hit Netflix this week, which is ostensibly about dementia and mortality, yet doesn’t feel like having your nose rubbed in all the things we spend all day trying desperately not to think about. Good art doesn’t just reaffirm that a thing exists, it gives you a new framework for thinking about it. Through its personal approach and creative structure, Dick Johnson Is Dead manages to make reckoning with a loved one’s mortality not just entertaining, but oddly uplifting. The empathy and humanity it applies to death make it, above all else, life-affirming.

Director Kirsten Johnson is an award-winning documentary camera operator and cinematographer, who has worked on everything from Citizenfour to Fahrenheit 9/11. She directed a memoir of sorts, Cameraperson, in 2016, and in Dick Johnson is Dead she brings all her skills and connections to bear in profiling her father, C. Richard Johnson, an 86-year-old psychiatrist who has recently given up his home, psychiatry practice, and car.

Johnson mixes interviews and unscripted footage of her father going through his daily life interspersed with fictional vignettes in which Dick Johnson himself stars in his daughter’s imagined scenarios for how he might die, from heart attack to car crash to falling A/C units. Carrying it all is Dick Johnson himself, who gamely executes his daughter’s every whim, whether it involves lying in a coffin or clamping his hand over a plastic tube pumping fake blood. There’s a natural whimsy to the way they bond over the collaborative artifice — picking out costumes, discussing the blocking with stuntmen, having gruesome make-up applied — to the point that you could easily imagine all of this as a Wes Anderson movie. Pagoda, where’s my javelina? It’s a high-brow version of that Jackass bit where Johnny Knoxville took his own grandma to the taxidermist. (It was a wonderful bit).

It helps, of course, that Kirsten Johnson has captured her father at the perfect point in time. He seems, to the casual observer, like a kindly old man, who can still walk, drive, maintain a conversation, and retains his singular personality. He’s engaged and engaging, thoughtful and introspective but almost permanently upbeat — the perfect documentary subject. Yet if you look closely enough, the signs of his decline are clear and ominous. Double-booking patients and getting prescriptions messed up, waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where he is. She’s caught him at the moment when he’s still capable of recognizing his own decline, at which he’s almost two different people. The self-aware, lucid guy he is in the morning, and the confused sleepwalker whose actions Morning Dick doesn’t remember and are, in effect, those of a stranger. Dick Johnson is both the Jekyll and Hyde of his own dementia.

If you’re considering not watching the movie at this point in the review (and trust me, I would be!) know that Dick and Kirsten’s love for each other and the constant humor and playfulness of her approach keep Dick Johnson is Dead from ever getting too depressing. It’s too funny, too sweet, too hopeful to ever be too sad.

That Kirsten Johnson found the perfect moment to film her dad is more than mere serendipity. Johnson’s mother, who died of Alzheimer’s seven years prior, appears briefly as a cautionary tale, a confused woman with a faraway look on her face who doesn’t recognize her own daughter. “Believe it or not, this is the only footage I have of my mother,” Johnson tells us, via voiceover.

She never overdoes the tragedy of watching her mother fade away, it’s there merely to contextualize the movie that we’re watching. Dick Johnson Is Dead is a corrective, in which Kirsten Johnson is not just trying to rub our noses in her father’s mortality, but to do right by him while she still can. The narrative arc is her own redemption.

Watching this, it’s impossible not to think of all the loved ones we could’ve done so much better by but couldn’t, either because we didn’t have the time, the time didn’t exist, or it just made us too sad. Whatever, there’s always a reason, most of them eminently reasonable. And so watching it, we get our own vicarious redemption. The kind words friends say about Dick Johnson while he’s still around to hear them (standing in the wings while a dummy lies in a coffin) become the words we wish we’d said to our mother, grandma, grandpa, great uncle, whoever. It’s the kind of movie that will probably make you cry, but it will be a good cry, the kind that makes you hug your loved ones a little more tightly afterwards.

‘Dick Johnson Is Dead’ is available now on Netflix. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

In a new oral history of Charles Barkley’s golf game by Jayson Jenks at The Athletic, several athlete buddies of Barkley’s take the opportunity to show fans just how much Barkley spends on the course. Barkley is always good for a bet, even if his swing is out of whack or he’s lost hundreds already that day.

Watching The Last Dance this summer, viewers got great insight into how competitive Barkley was and how that fueled his friendship with Michael Jordan. And we all know Chuck loves golf, as he even went so far as to call The Match this summer for TNT. But what this story really shows is how much fun it is for everyone else who golfs with Barkley, mostly because he bets enough to make it worth it for his buddies.

“That’s why I haven’t worked in over 30-some years,” ex-Cardinals receiver Roy Green says. “Because I’ve got Charles.”

Former Phoenix Suns teammate Dan Majerle referred to Barkley as “our ATM sometimes,” while another ex-teammate, Joe Kleine, went as far as to say getting money from Barkley was easier than taking it out of an ATM.

The best part of the story, though, is when notorious competitor and troller Ahmad Rashad gets involved. Rashad was another of Jordan’s closest friends in the NBA world back in the 1990s, so Rashad got the chance to golf with Barkley often as well. In fact, Rashad once teed off with both Barkley and a young Tiger Woods, which led Barkley, whose head is clearly the size of a planet, to believe he could legitimately compete with Woods.

Via The Athletic:

Green: We’re in Vegas, having fun, and we’re supposed to play golf the next morning. We’re with Tiger, and you know Tiger is never going to miss working out. We’re supposed to tee off at 8 in the morning. Charles is like, “God damn, man.” … We get there and Charles goes, “I think I’m gonna whoop some ass this time.” I said, “Look, man, I just want to know the bet, Chucky, ’cause I’m betting for Tiger.” Charles says, “OK, I’m gonna take Tiger five a side, but Tiger’s gotta give me one a hole and two on par-5s.” I’m like, “S**t yeah, I’ll take it, too.”

Rashad: That’s not even fair.

Green: Like I said, he’ll bet anything.

Rashad: There ain’t enough strokes he could get to beat Tiger.

Green: We go to the first hole and, believe it or not, Tiger damn near misses the whole ball, and he’s in the s**t. Charles goes, “Ahhh, f**k. Tiger Woods. No. 1 in the world. What a f**king overrated guy.” I said, “Chucky, I’m going to double my bet.” You know Chucky: “I got it.” Of course, after that hole, Tiger birdied five straight. I said, “Chucky, you can buy out right now or we can play the back too. He said, “I’ll buy out the bet.”

The idea of Barkley calling Woods overrated and believing he could beat him at golf is incredibly believable and also why fans love Barkley. He’s also always a good sport, so you know he gave it right back to Rashad, Green, Majerle, and everyone else on the golf course with him.

LA crooner Ty Dolla Sign has been slowly rolling out his next album over the past month or so, sharing singles such as the Kanye West-featuring “Ego Death” and the Nicki Minaj collaboration “Expensive.” Today, he finally revealed the day fans can expect to listen to the project in full, but only for the most sharp-eyed among them. A strangely-composed tweet laid the groundwork, but only those fans willing to use a little mind-muscle realized what it was.

“3̷2̷ T̷C̷O̷ S̷P̷O̷R̷D̷ M̷U̷B̷L̷A̷ E̷H̷T̷,” reads the tweet. It appears to be gibberish but read backward without all the extra Unicode formatting, it actually says, “The Album Drops Oct 23.” That means the project will compete for listeners with the likes of Gorillaz, Junglepussy, Luh Kel, Major Lazer, and THEY., giving Ty a pretty reasonable chance of having a big first week.

Besides promoting the album, he’s continued to be a hit-hook-writer-for-hire for other artists as well, including SZA (“Hit Different“), Big Sean (“Body Language” with Jhené Aiko), Murda Beatz (“Doors Unlocked” featuring Polo G), and Thundercat (“Fair Chance” with Lil B).

Ty Dolla Sign is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

With major blockbusters like Dune, No Time to Die, and Black Widow recently abandoning their late 2020 release dates and placing the theater industry in danger of collapse, all eyes are on Wonder Woman 1984. As of this writing, the highly anticipated sequel is still set to release on Christmas Day, but there is heavy speculation that the film could follow suit and move to 2021. There’s also increased talk of a streaming release for WW84, which seems to plague every film these days, particularly after Disney rolled the dice on a premium Disney+ release of Mulan.

However, in a new interview with Reuters, director Patty Jenkins makes it clear that WW84 is committed to a theatrical release. “I don’t think any of us want to live in a world where the only option is to take your kids to watch a movie in your own living room, and not have a place to go for a date,” she said.

Jenkins concerns stems from what would happen if WW84 is pushed into next year, which would leave the rest of the 2020 release calendar virtually empty. She says a shutdown like that “could lose movie theater-going forever.” In a sentiment echoing the controversial theatrical release of Tenet, Jenkins believes WW84 could save the cinema experience. “I really hope that we are able to be one of the very first ones to come back and bring that into everyone’s life,” she said.

Jenkins has also started debunking rumors on Twitter by asserting WW84‘s commitment to theaters. In a confusingly worded tweet on Wednesday evening, Jenkins seemingly shot down a report that the film would be doing a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release similar to Bill and Ted Face the Music. But while noting that direct to streaming is “not even being discussed” for Wonder Woman, Jenkins oddly used the word correct when addressing the dual release claim. Your guess is as good as ours here.

(Via Reuters)

Kississippi first arrived on the scene with her 2016 EP We Have No Future, We’re All Doomed. After honing her sound and signing to Triple Crown Records, Kississippi is gearing up to flex her poptimist songwriting on an upcoming release. Sharing a taste of her new music, Kississippi debuts the playful and lovelorn track “Around Your Room” alongside a blushing video.

Directed by Josh Coll, Kississippi’s “Around Your Room” video depicts the singer’s all-encompassing infatuation with a crush. The visual opens with Kississippi daydreaming about waking up beside her crush. Further following her lovelorn vision, Kississippi lays out her perfect day with her lover: making breakfast in the morning, watching TV, and finally, dancing around his room. “Anything to be near you / Dancing around your room,” she sings at the chorus.

Co-written by Illuminati Hotties’ Sarah Tudzin and with a melody that would sit easily on a Taylor Swift album, Kississippi says the song is a reflection on the “hopeless” feeling of young love. “This song tells a story of yearning and infatuation,” Kississippi explained in a statement. “It’s about being hopelessly enamored in a way that took me back to my youthful perception of love. It represents those moments where you’re fully infatuated with someone and they’re all you can think about.”

Watch Kississippi’s “Around Your Room” video above.

A COVID-stricken President Trump began the week with “ROID RAGE” following what sure looks like a superspreader event (the Rose Garden announcement of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett). Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) was photographed hugging and kissing fellow attendees at this same event, and he has since announced his COVID-19-positive status. During his isolation time, Lee watched the VP debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, and he did not enjoy himself. Maybe it was the fact that a grody eye and an iconic fly upstaged his dude, but whatever the case, he decided to tell Twitter that Democracy is bad while eschewing spellcheck.

“Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are,” Lee tweeted. “We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.”

To which NBC and MSNBC legal analyst Barb McQuade immediately declared, “Scariest tweet ever.”

Lee tweeted a lot throughout the evening, including his claim that “[w]e’re not a democracy.” He also urged Kamala Harris to come to the dark side of the Force.

The COVID-afflicted Senator appears to not realize that, although the United States was mapped out as a constitutional republic, it is most certainly a representative democracy. He simply didn’t grasp the point, which led to CUNY professor Angus Johnston pointing out, “This is how people talk when they’ve given up on winning elections.”

From there, the dictator (and other) jokes began and would not stop.

Election day’s less than a month away in the United States.

Between 2007 and 2014, David Fincher directed five films, including three masterpieces in Zodiac, The Social Network (which came out 10 years ago this month), and Gone Girl. But in the six years since, his output has consisted mostly of producing two Netflix shows, Mindhunter and, uh, House of Cards. A year without a new Fincher movie is too long, let along a half-decade, so to say that I’m excited for Mank is an understatement.

Mank is short for Herman J. Mankiewicz, the screenwriter who penned the screenplay for Citizen Kane with Orson Welles. He also did (sometimes uncredited) work on The Wizard of Oz, Pride of the Yankees, and The Pride of St. Louis, among other classics. Fincher’s film is “reevaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane,” according to Netflix. You can watch the teaser trailer above.

Mank, which also stars Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Arliss Howard, Tom Pelphrey, Sam Troughton, Ferdinand Kingsley, Tuppence Middleton, Tom Burke, and Charles Dance, opens in select theaters in November and on Netflix on December 4.