Month: November 2020

This year’s Halloween-themed episode of The Simpsons, “Treehouse of Horror XXXI,” was supposed to air in October, but it was pushed back to November 1 due to the World Series. That meant fans of the animated series had to wait two extra weeks for the conclusion of the cold open, which shows 50 of the worst things that Donald Trump has done as president. There’s “put children in cages,” “said Jewish people who vote Democrat are disloyal,” “asked the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens,” “served McDonald’s to Clemson football team,” and “said to swallow bleach.” But what happens next? Is that enough evidence for Homer to vote for Joe Biden? Yes and no.

No, because Homer votes for Biden (“Who are you gonna make fun of now, late-night comics?”). Yes, because it turns out Homer never actually voted. He slept through election day. We — everyone who’s already voted — should all be so lucky to snooze through a tense tomorrow; no one’s been this jealous of Homer since he invited Frank Grimes to his house for lobster. When Marge scolds Homer for not voting, he replies, “How bad can it be?” Cut to January 20, 2021, when the murder robots roam the streets.

Don’t blame Moleman, however. He voted for Kanye.

The dramatic ride for The Rum Diary co-stars Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, who divorced four years ago (after one year of marriage), has taken another turn, and the results aren’t in Depp’s favor. The duo became embroiled in a lawsuit (filed by Depp) against British tabloid The Sun, against whom Depp sought “to clear his reputation” from potentially irreparable harm, which he alleged would be the case after a April 2018 article labeled him as a “wife-beater.” The proceedings contained three weeks of mud-slinging from both sides in a trial full of wild revelations — including “porky pies,” poo in the bed, an ice cream debacle, and alleged animal abuse — and it now appears that Depp’s desired results still evade him. And it actually turned into a really bad look from Depp’s perspective, given the U.K. approach to libel trials (more on that soon).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Depp has not been defamed by the “wife beater” article from The Sun because a judge found that Heard’s account of physical assault by her then-husband was “substantially true.” As a result, Depp’s request for “vindication” (he did not seek an monetary award) will not be satisfied. The U.K. judge dismissed his claim in Depp v. News Group Newspapers, and in doing so, the judge referenced the word “monster” on multiple occasions with this conclusion:

“That expression was not a figment of Ms Heard’s imagination. I accept her evidence that Mr Depp used the term to refer to that part of his personality when, affected by drink and/or drugs he would do things which he would not otherwise do and of which he might have no recollection afterwards.”

Here’s a legal-jargon-heavy chunk of the opinion:

“This claim is dismissed. The claimant has not succeeded in his action for libel. Although he has proved the necessary elements of his cause of action in libel, the defendants have shown that what they published in the meaning which I have held the words to bear was substantially true. I have reached these conclusions having examined in detail the 14 incidents on which the defendants rely as well as the overarching considerations which the claimant submitted I should take into account.”

What’s particularly notable with the judge’s decision is that libel cases in the United Kingdom are much easier for plaintiffs who sue tabloids than they are in the United States. In other words, the burden of proof in a U.K. courts for libel is notably lower, and Depp only needed to prove that the allegation in question (that Depp was guilty of domestic abuse) is false in order to prevail against the defendant (in this case, The Sun‘s publisher, News Group Newspapers, and executive editor Dan Wootton). That’s a reversal of the tougher U.S. standard in libel trials.

In the end, Depp — who has denied abusing Amber before or during their marriage, and, in fact, has claimed that she’s the abusive party — didn’t prove his civil case. This, of course, doesn’t mean that he has been found guilty of abuse in a criminal sense in the United Kingdom. Nor does this technically affect his pending $50 million trial against Heard in the U.S. However, that trial has already been delayed for scheduling reasons, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Depp drop it altogether. After all, he’ll have an even harder time succeeding by U.S. defamation standards, and losing another trial would not bode well in terms of more verdict fallout and potential reputation damage.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

This summer, Britney Spears referred to herself as “Queen B,” which prompted responses from fans of Lil Kim and Beyonce, who also lay claim to the title. Now, though, it appears Beyonce may have more right to that nickname throne than anybody, as she has revealed that she is a literal beekeeper.

Towards the end of a new interview with British Vogue, Beyonce was asked, “What is something I would find surprising about you?” She responded, “I know it’s random, but I have two beehives. Real ones. I’ve had them at my house for a while now. I have around 80,000 bees and we make hundreds of jars of honey a year. I started the beehives because my daughters, Blue and Rumi, both have terrible allergies, and honey has countless healing properties.”

The interviewer replied, “So, you really are the Queen B,” which got a laugh out of Beyonce.

Naturally, member of the Beyhive were excited by this revelation:

Elsewhere during the chat, Beyonce was asked what her favorite Texan food is, and she responded, “Wow. That’s tough to pick one favorite. It’s good eating in Texas! I love Cajun seafood at Pappadeaux. The barbecue in Texas is mmmm. So is the Mexican food and the soul food. We ate soul food every Sunday after church. There was nothing better than when a little bit of candied yams got on your oxtail and macaroni.”

Read the full interview here.

With so much attention paid to the Rudy Giuliani hotel incident and Tutar’s babysitter, it’s surprisingly easy to forget that Borat Subsequent Moviefilm also features a scene where Borat, dressed as Donald Trump, offers his daughter to Mike Pence while the vice president is giving his Conservative Political Action Conference speech. It’s a wild movie.

Sacha Baron Cohen had to wake up at 1 a.m. to get into his Trump get-up, he said on Monday’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show, including a realistic fat suit. “The [Transportation Security Administration] were kind of wanting me,” the actor recalled about getting through security. “It went past my chest and it beeped, and I was terrified obviously. The moment they touch my body, it’s a fat suit, so I wouldn’t have been allowed in.”

“He said, ‘Well, what’s that?’ And I didn’t know what to say, and he said, ‘Well, hold on, it’s the wire to the pacemaker, yeah?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, yeah, of course.’ And he let me in,” Cohen said. He then spent “five hours hiding in the men’s bathroom” at the event, “listening to conservative men go to the toilet… Stephen Miller, if you’re watching this, you need more fiber in your diet.”

Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar for eating raw bison liver. For listening to Republicans go to the bathroom for hours while wearing a Donald Trump mask and fat suit, Sacha Baron Cohen deserves a lifetime achievement award.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

A week after John Oliver reacted to Rudy Giuliani’s Borat 2 fiasco by making it weirder, the Last Week Tonight host is giving his take on Jared Kushner’s latest foot-in-the-mouth incident. The Trump son-in-law and presidential advisor recently appeared on Fox and Friends, where he not only described George Floyd protests as fraught with “virtue signaling” but also declared that Black Americans must “want to be successful” in order to benefit from what he believes are Trump’s policies to “help people break out of the problems that they’re complaining about.”

Kushner clearly cannot grasp that his success was built upon nepotism not only while building his real-estate slumlord career but also through his marriage, and Oliver opened his newest episode by telling it to him straight. After labeling Kushner as “Harvard’s shiniest mistake,” he fired off a “well, f*ck you, Jared.” Then came some rapid-fire reality:

“I guess we should all be applauding you for wanting to be born to a billionaire real estate developer, then wanting your father to pledge $2.5 million to Harvard not long before you were admitted and then for wanting to marry the daughter of the world’s most successful liar. If only more black fetuses had your ambition and drive, maybe they’d be as successful as you.”

Later on in the episode, Oliver further slammed Kushner for his part in the White House’s disastrous pandemic response. That includes botching the task-force duties geared toward moving PPE to hospitals across the country (in addition to the recent revelation of Kushner bragging that Trump was “getting the country back from the doctors” in April). It’s worth noting that, way back in spring (800 years ago), Oliver did rip into Kushner for declaring (a nonexistent) victory against the pandemic.

Oliver’s definitely not the only high-profile personality who called Kushner out over the weekend. Director Spike Lee appeared on SiriusXM’s The Joe Madison Show, where he (via Deadline) called Kushner a “punk ass” and added, “Hey, let him come to Brooklyn talking that. Let him come to Harlem talking that mess.” Your move, Kushner.

With Election Day just hours away, Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s campaigns are doing their best to get in some last pre-election thoughts. Over the weekend, the Trump campaign made mention of Lady Gaga in a press release, and she came back with a response.

In a Trump campaign press release written by Trump communications director Tim Murtaugh, the Gaga mention reads, “Nothing exposes Biden’s disdain for the forgotten working men and women of Pennsylvania like campaigning with anti-fracking activist Lady Gaga. This desperate effort to drum up enthusiasm is actually a sharp stick in the eye for 600,000 Pennsylvanians who work in the fracking industry.”

After Gaga caught wind of the post, she took to social media to share her thoughts. She posted a screenshot of Murtaugh’s post on her Instagram Story and wrote, “Heeeey Donald… #WINNING (also, what is a fracking?) keep your jobs PA… we [heart emoji] you.” Sharing the post on Twitter, she added, “HEY TIM HEY @realDonaldTrump SO HAPPY IM GLAD TO BE LIVING RENT FREE in your HEAD. #BidenHarris”

In the lead-up to the election, Gaga has been one of music’s most vocal stars in getting people to vote. A couple weeks ago, for example, she shared a “cheesy” song she wrote about voter registration.

On Halloween night, Trump busted out his ALL-CAPS tweeting finger while expressing his apparent excitement and obvious support for his supporters in Texas who formed a so-called “Trump Train” amid highway-speed traffic while surrounding a Biden-Harris campaign bus. The Texas Tribune first reported that the FBI is currently investigating the confrontation (which led to “at least one minor collision”) on 1-35 in Hays County, and the investigation was later confirmed by the FBI bureau in San Antonio. However, Trump doesn’t seem to share federal authorities’ concern and, in fact, he believes that the MAGA-flag-brandishing truck drivers did no wrong and are actually “patriots.”

This update follows after Trump tweeted video footage of the incident while typing, “I LOVE TEXAS!” Now, he’s doubling down with praise. “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong,” Trump tweeted. “Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!”

The New York Times reports that Joe Biden described the incident as an attempt to push his campaign bus “off the road.” According to USA Today, the Biden campaign called 911 and reported to law enforcement that the trucks “surrounded the bus, trying to slow it down in the middle of the highway or run it off the road.” Local law enforcement then helped the bus reach Austin, but the incident led Texas Democrats to cancel multiple campaign events over “safety concerns.”

The Texas confrontation wasn’t an isolated effort, apparently. Following similar New York and New Jersey incidents, Trump spokesman Jason Miller backed up his boss’ sentiments while deflecting to “downtown Washington businesses having to board up their windows in anticipation of lawless, violent Biden supporters rioting and looting on Tuesday night.”

Previously, Biden’s Texas communications director, Tariq Thowfeek, released a statement to condemn the Texas “Trump Train” tactics:

“Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas [Friday] instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm’s way.”

On Sunday, Biden also spoke on the matter during a Philadelphia event. “We are so much better than this,” Biden declared. “It’s not who we are. And we got to change it.”

(Via New York Times, Texas Tribune & USA Today)

By now, you’re likely well-acquainted with corn-based whiskey. September was National Bourbon Heritage Month, and we committed to it pretty. damn. hard. So you might already know that one of the parameters for a whiskey being referred to as bourbon is that its mash bill must be comprised of at least 51% corn. The rules for “wheat whiskey” (or “high wheat whiskey”) are similar — except that the juice must be made primarily from wheat (51%). The closely related “wheated bourbon” is still bourbon, meaning it’s still majority corn, it just leans heavily on wheat in the remainder of the mash bill.

To explore these expressions further, we asked a handful of well-known bartenders to tell us their favorite wheat whiskey or wheated bourbon. The bottles they shouted out below are sure to make great company as November begins and the weather really starts turning.

Bainbridge Battle Point

Jess Thorson, bartender at TORO Kitchen & Lounge at Viceroy Snowmass in Snowmass, Colorado

Bainbridge Battle Point Organic Wheat. It uses only wheat (no corn) yet is incredibly flavorful. This award-winning whiskey is full of the flavors of sweet sherry, salted caramel, and creamy vanilla.

1792 Sweet Wheat

Carlos Lopez, bar manager at Stitsville Fish Bar in Miami

1792 Sweet Wheat Bourbon. It’s easy to drink and the price point is just right for what you get. While the mash bill isn’t disclosed, this high wheat whiskey is filled with sweet cereal, rich oak, and creamy caramel flavors.

Spirits of French Lick The Wheater

Zach Wilks, bartender at Anthony’s Chophouse in Carmel, Indiana

I’m a huge fan of what The Spirits of French Lick are doing down in Southern Indiana. They have a whiskey actually called The Wheater that’s a great bottle — it’s super creamy and has lots of vanilla, caramel, and baking spice notes.

W.L. Weller 12

Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami

Weller 12 is always a top choice for me when it comes to wheated bourbon. The composition, flavor profile, and finish come together for a great glass of whiskey.

Larceny Small Batch

Mitchell Meredith, general manager of SOFF’s at JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa in Miami

Heaven Hill Larceny Small Batch is a great wheated bourbon with a 6-year age statement, giving you not only a softer flavor profile, but settled butterscotch notes to be enjoyed on a rock. At 92 Proof, it is always nice to start with a sip neat, and add ice to open up the flavors.

Smooth Ambler Yearling

Jeremy Allen, bartender at MiniBar in Los Angeles

Smooth Ambler Yearling is one of the best values in booze. It’s easily available, bold, and filled with hints of sweet caramel, pecans, and brown sugar. Perfect for a cocktail or on its own.

David Nicholson Reserve

Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis

The David Nicholson Reserve from Lux Row is high on my list. The nose is sharp and woody, but the palate stays true to a wheated bourbon. Loads of caramel and brown butter up front, finishing with balanced oak and citrus notes.

Maker’s Mark 46

Anna Mains, brand ambassador for Monkey Shoulder

I’m a huge fan of Maker’s Mark 46. It’s full of flavor, but with no bitterness. I think it makes one of the best Manhattans, and there is nothing better than a perfect Manhattan in the fall.

Writer’s Picks:

Old Fitzgerald Bottled in Bond

This nine-year-old 100 proof wheated whiskey is a great mix of mellow and spicy. It starts off with a subtle hint of peppery spice that quickly moves into honey and caramel sweetness — ideal for slow sipping.

Bernheim Straight Wheat Whiskey

This 90-proof whiskey is aged for seven years. This award-winning whiskey is subtly spicy and full of vanilla sweetness and rich, toasted caramel notes.

This week’s fifth episode of The Walking Dead: World Beyond, “Madman Across the. Water,” was marginally better than the first four episodes of the series, although it did not have the benefit if a terrific CRM-specific post-credits scene, as last week’s episode did.

The issues that have plagued the series all along, unfortunately, continue to persist, namely bad writing, a series of laughably implausible turn of events, and characters that neither appeal well to the existing The Walking Dead fanbase or to a newer, younger set of fans. The World Beyond is not bringing in a new audience, and it’s mostly only annoying the existing one, which tunes in each week to find answers pertaining to Rick Grimes and the parent series but is more often left with mundane episodes that echo some of the adventures in the opening seasons of The Walking Dead, only with a less developed teenage cast.

In this week’s episode, sisters Hope and Iris continue on their journey to New York, having arrived at the Mississippi River (by my estimate, they have now walked around 400 miles from their starting point in Nebraska). Felix and Huck continue to try and convince the four teenagers to turn around and return to the Campus Colony (unaware that it has been destroyed by the CRM), and they find, in Elton, someone who will at least listen. Felix and Huck both figure that, if they don’t talk them into returning before they cross the Mississippi River that they’ll be unable to do so.

Meanwhile, to cross the river, the sixsome have to get an old boat running. That task somehow entails getting a fire in the engine hot enough to get it going, and they cleverly (?) surmise that throwing buckets of nail-polish into the burner will do the trick. That requires returning to a nearby factory and retrieving the nail polish, as well as fending off a number of zombies that are unleashed by a very bad CGI-lightning strike. The fending off involves the use of some fishing line, which is apparently strong enough to keep a horde of zombies at bay long enough to get the engine going and everyone into the boat before they are swarmed by the walkers. Once they finally arrive to the other side of the Mississippi, no more thought is given to returning to the Campus Colony. In fact, Huck travels ahead to act as a lookout for the rest of the group, which should at least break up the storylines a little.

The juicy part of the episode, however, comes in a conversation between Elton and Hope when Elton opens up his book and Hope spies a picture inside.

For those who have been watching all along, the significance of the photo should be fairly obvious. However, I have seen some understandable confusion on message boards because the woman in the photo — Elton’s Mom — looks slightly different than how we have seen her in another context earlier in the series. Recall that on Monument Day (the day the world went to hell), Hope and her mother found a truck and we’re about to take it to escape. However, another woman — who we know to be Elton’s mom — entered the scene holding a gun, insisting that she would take the truck. In a moment of panic, Elton’s mom accidentally shot and killed Hope’s mom. In turn, Hope picked up the gun and she accidentally shot and killed Elton’s mom.

In other words, when Hope saw that photo in Elton’s book, she realized for the first time that the woman she killed was Elton’s mom. A couple of episodes ago, Hope confessed to her sister Iris that she was inadvertently responsible for their mother’s death, but now she has another secret: That she was also responsible for the death of Elton’s mom, the only family Elton had remaining after his father died in a zombie attack.

As character drama goes, it’s not exactly thrilling, but it will probably pay off when Hope confesses to Elton, and Elton will have to decide whether to forgive Hope for killing his mother or go to war with her.

Unfortunately, that storyline is far less interesting than the CRM subplot, which never figured into this episode. Meanwhile, the episode ends with the introduction (in silhouette) of a new character, who could be either friend or foe.

‘The World Beyond’ returns with its sixth episode next week.

Fear the Walking Dead continued this week with its terrific run of episodes (as it maintains one of the most unlikely creative comebacks on television in recent memory). The talent in front of the camera in the form of Lennie James, Colman Domingo, Garrett Dillahunt, Alycia-Debnam Carey, and Ruben Blades (and previously Kim Dickens) has always been there, but more recently, the writing has finally caught up. Showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss have also leaned into their strengths — telling smaller stories focused on only a few characters in each episode — and even the dialogue itself is better, in part because Goldberg and Chambliss are no longer afraid to use silence to their advantage. I have no evidence to support this theory, but I also feel like Scott Gimple has stepped back from Fear and turned more of his attention to The World Beyond, which has been great for Fear but hasn’t been working out as well for the other spin-off.

A lot of things are working well this season, too. There’s intriguing mythology surrounding “the key”; Morgan’s rebirth has been a godsend; Dwight and Sherry’s reunion has provided a lot of heart; and Strand returning to his weaselly roots has been the best thing to happen to that character in years. But the thing that is really working well for this season — the ingredient that has been missing on Fear since the beginning — is that the series finally has a formidable villain.

It’s been a problem since the beginning of this series (and it’s part of what is plaguing The World Beyond right now). While The Walking Dead is often defined by its villains — The Governor, the Terminus Cannibals, Negan, the Whisperers — Fear has never really had a great one. They didn’t even try until Season 3, which was characterized less by villains and more by “bad guys,” like Troy and Jeremiah Otto. Even when Season 4 was working, it was in spite of its terrible villains, beginning with the nonsensical Vultures before crashing and burning the hobo lady, whose only motivation to kill was the fact passersby didn’t stop and help her husband after a car accident. Season 5, meanwhile, largely revolves around a nonsensical villain in Logan, who we later learned was being controlled by Virginia and the Pioneers, who — in Season 5, anyway — were woefully undeveloped.

In Season 6, meanwhile, it feels like “The Pioneers” have mostly been scuttled, and replaced by “rangers,” who are mostly red-shirts/stormtroopers for Virginia, played by Colby Minifie, who has low-key been the MVP of this season (she was also promoted this week to series regular on The Boys).

Virginia is a terrific villain for a number of reasons, not least of which is because she’s formidable enough to have actually won. Like Negan did with Alexandria, she’s now in control of the Fear protagonists, but unlike the Alexandrians in TWD, she hasn’t broken their spirit. Virginia prefers, instead, to build her enemies up and make them work for her. For instance, she gave Strand an impossible mission, and when he succeeded, Ginny promoted him to ranger and put him in charge of his own people.

It’s that kind of relationship that is also at play in this week’s Fear between Virginia and John Dorie. Virginia, again, has fully enabled John Dorie by putting him in charge of the community of Lawton, where he has been allowed to thrive. It’s not necessarily his ideal situation, but it’s allowed Dorie the illusion of independence and freedom, and also allowed him to believe that he’s done good work for the community. There were no deaths in Lawton for months, and in his heart, Dorie takes credit.

Then a ranger named Cameron is found dead, wrapped up in the barbed wire fence, and eaten by zombies. Virginia wants to blame Cameron’s death on his drunkenness — he fell into the fence and was eaten. Dorie, however, insists on investigating, and with the evidence that he unearths, Virginia manages to frame Janis for the murder. Janis didn’t kill Cameron; they were sleeping together and had planned to run off together, but Janis did not kill him. Strand knew it. Virginia knew it. And Dorie knew it. But they all also knew that if Dorie continued to investigate the case, he’d get himself killed, so Janis basically confessed to Cameron’s murder in order to save Dorie.

Dorie didn’t want anything to do with Janis’ confession, and he sought to help Janis escape from prison before she was executed for the murder of Cameron. However, both Strand and the Rabbi double-crossed Dorie with the help of Janis herself and moved up her execution date to ensure that Dorie didn’t get himself anymore involved. By the time Dorie arrived to help Janis escape, she was already dead, and Dorie was left devastated.

And this is how clever Virginia is: instead of punishing Dorie for trying to help Janis, she rewarded him with a promotion for helping out in the investigation. The guilt, however, was killing Dorie (and that guilt manifested itself in a rotten tooth), and so Virginia granted Dorie the one thing he couldn’t turn away: a reunion with June.

Dorie, meanwhile, is left saddled with all that guilt over the death of Janis, but knowing that if he tried anything, not only might he die, but so might June. It’s a hell of a bind, and a stroke of brilliance from Virginia, who continues to illustrate the importance of a great villain, a character that viewers respect, but who we also want to see die a miserable, painful death.

In the meantime, in the episode’s tag, we see Morgan in search of Grace, using a hound dog (and a behind-the-scenes assist from his friend Daniel). However, the two men we saw spray paint “The end is the beginning” in the season’s opening episode crash into Morgan’s car. Violence ensues, and Morgan easily dispatches the two men, who we learn are after the key that Morgan took away from Ginny’s assassin. So, that key is valuable, and related to the “end is the beginning” people, who — according to Dwight — probably are not associated with Ginny. It’s an interesting mystery on top of a great ongoing storyline.

I can’t wait to see if Fear can go five-for-five with next week’s episode.